Is homosexuality innate? (Brain study result)

Question:

Why are the priests and leaders of Christian organizations so ignorant and unwilling to admit that sexuality is something innate and it does not depend on man, it is not one’s choice? Why do they continually stigmatize these people and call them sinners, immoral, perverted, etc.? Haven’t they heard of many scientific researches that have shown that homosexuality is innate? Ask at least about the study that was done on the brain and it will convince you.

Many researches have demonstrated … What are they? You’re not right when you say that we are ignorant. True Christians believe what the Holy Scripture says and the true science has always shown once again the truth of the Holy Scripture, but pseudo-science tries to contradict the truth and the reality. If you referred to the case study on the brain, let us look at it more closely.

In 1991, after the death of the partner with whom he maintained homosexual relations and who died of AIDS, the alleged researcher Simon LeVay decided to study the brains of corpses to identify physical factors leading to homosexuality. Doesn’t it suggest at the outset what are the research results when a gay wants to make a “scientific study” to identify anatomic factors that determine homosexuality? Why would he need such a study unless to prove to himself and to others that homosexuality is not a sin but something innate?

 Simon LeVay examined the size of the brain structure called INAH3, which is related to sexual behavior of animals. For research he took the corpses of 6 women (presumed to be heterosexual) and 35 men out of which 18 were known as gays, one was bisexual and 16 presumed heterosexual. Finally, LeVay reported that INAH3 size were larger in heterosexual men than in heterosexual women and also larger than in homosexual men. In conclusion, LeVay says the results “suggest that sexual orientation has a biological substrate.” (Simon LeVay, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men”, Science, p.253, August 1991) 

When other researchers looked closer at LeVay’s research results, they have seen things differently. For example, 6 of the 16 men alleged “heterosexual” men died of AIDS, a disease very common among homosexuals. It is an extremely high percentage. Thus, one analyst wrote: “It is very possible that LeVay has placed some homosexuals in heterosexual category.” (Edward Stein, The Mismeasure of Desire, New York, Oxford University Press, 1999, p.138)

Another problem is the considerable overlap of the INAH3 size spectrum to groups of homosexual and heterosexual, which may indicate rather that sexual behavior may influence brain structure and that the observed effects are a result of AIDS infection, and not that the structure brain would be a factor determining sexual orientation.

William Byne and Bruce Parsons in Archives of General Psychiatry in March 1993 wrote that LeVay’s study and other two studies done on the human brain for the same purpose ”remain uncorroborated (not supported, stiffened, unconfirmed) and must be viewed with caution as long as reply studies are missing”, that are similar studies by other scientists. Then he added that even when similar studies will be performed by others “we will not know whether anatomical correlations are a cause or a consequence of sexual orientation.”

The opinions of other scholars make me think about the following statement from the Holy Scriptures on homosexuality and people who practice it:

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:26-32)(NASB)

Is not AIDS, and these changes in brain size a penalty received in their own persons for their error? What does the reader think?

Translated by Felicia Rotaru