What does science say about sexuality?
by Ian Paul, Psephizo:
‘Shame on you! You’re a disgrace! These people were born gay! How dare you suggest otherwise! I am going to make a formal complaint!’
This was the rather striking response to one of my seminars at New Wine this summer on the biblical picture of human sexuality. In response to the first question following my talk, I had set out why I thought the debate on same-sex sexuality was so contentious. Then the second question was about ‘nature versus nurture’—are people ‘born gay’? And why would God reject someone because of their sexuality? My first response was adamant: God does not reject anyone because of their sexuality. But I then went on to outline what the consensus of research appear to say. It was this which provoked the response above—and it illustrates one of the major problems about this area of discussion. Although it is often claimed that issues of research, science and causation of sexual orientation are not that important, since they do not solve the ethical or pastoral questions, in fact most people hold on very dearly to a particular view (for understandable reasons) and these views on the science often in fact shape ethical and pastoral responses.
This is likely to change with the publication of a major report in the latest edition of the US publication The New Atlantis. In its 143 pages (with several hundred footnotes), the authors Lawrence S Mayer and Paul R McHugh aim to summarise all the reliable, peer-reviewed research on causation of sexual orientation, issues of mental health in relation to those who are same-sex attracted and transgender, and questions of gender and sexual identity. In amongst all the technical references, there are some useful information which should be widely read. It is still surprising that people make quite ill-informed comments about the prevalence of same-sex attraction, which are corrected here:
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