How to avoid catching "the gay"

Talk about confusing.  I recently got my hands on a mini-booklet put out by the Focus on the Family organization.  As some of you may know, Focus on the Family is an American Christian conservative group which is very anti-gay and anti-abortion.  They also have a program called Love Won Out, which aims to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals through prayer and varying degrees of exorcism.

So within their information they have a handy little list to help youngsters avoid catching the germs that make people gay, written by an out-of-touch-with-reality man named Don Schmierer.  The list gives things that cause homosexuality, or so they believe.  It goes like this:

1.  The individual's self-will

2.  Looking at pornography

3.  Seeing gayness portrayed in the media and culture

4.  Having been molested

5.  Having parents who are adulterous

6.  Being seduced to do gay things by friends

7.  A failure in parenting or church leadership

Nice.  So if this were true, 100% of people should be gay.  Of course the list wasn't subjected to scientific scrutiny, and pretty much only includes things that Mr. Schmierer seems to frown on personally.

The Focus on the Family list goes on to include:

1.  Same-sex experimentation

2.  Negative spiritual influences

3.  Personality temperament

4.  Negative body image

5.  Public education

6.  Fear of or inability to relate to members of the opposite sex


Most of them are just nutty.  Personality temperament?  Which temperament?  Being too happy?  Too melancholy?  A temperament that likes watching too many episodes of Glee?  And public education...  Seriously, public education?  Again, the majority of people should be gay if this were true. 

That last one is the most interesting, however, because the organization contradicts what it has said in other publications.  In other statements they say that in their youth homosexuals feel more comfortable with, more secure with, and are better at relating to members of the opposite sex.  But in the list above they state the opposite:  that a fear of, or an inability to relate to the opposite sex can lead to homosexuality.

So, as a biologist I'm just wondering:  if being able to relate to the opposite sex can lead to homosexuality, and not being able to relate to the opposite sex can lead to homosexuality, then how does anyone become heterosexual??

At the end of the booklet they state:  "As this booklet has made clear, no one cause for homosexuality can be pinpointed."  Right.  It's really not too surprising that they come to that conclusion since they ignore biological factors.  Geniuses.

My all time favorite "cause" of homosexuality came from a wacky über conservative website called WorldNetDaily a couple of years ago.  They proposed that soy is the reason kids go gay.  Yes you read that right.  Soy, as in soy milk, tofu, anything with soy in it.  Some people are so obsessed with homosexuality that they're willing to blame anything for it.  If it's not the devil it must be the demon-possessed bean called soy.  They may blame everything under the sun, but of course they always avoid mentioning genetics because that would prove them wrong.  That's the convenience of paranoia.

If you'd like to take a look at some supposed cures for homosexuality espoused by Pro-Life Philippines and cleverly adapted by a Filipino blogger, click here.