M.D. Cautiously Weighs Study Suggesting Homosexuality's Biologically Caused
by Mary Rettig
July 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Dr. Robert Scheidt, a spokesman for the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), says he does not dismiss recent scientific research which claims to have found support for the theory that the younger brothers of male children are more likely to be homosexual due to biological factors in effect during the mother's pregnancy.
A recent study out of Canada has proposed the idea that a pregnant woman's body has an increasing immune response to male pregnancies which raises the chances that younger sons will be homosexual. Scheidt says Christians should not be quick to dismiss these findings suggesting a link between the prenatal environment created by older male siblings and male homosexuality, but he warns that the hypothesis is far from proven.
"I almost immediately thought of the homosexual men that I know," the CMDA physician notes, "and every one of them that I know -- and I have to admit my contact is not large -- is either an only child or is the oldest among several brothers." If homosexuality is due to an immune reaction of the mother to the male child, he asks, how can one account for the existence of homosexual men who do not fit the pattern?
According to a BBC News report, Professor Anthony Bogaert from Brock University in Ontario studied 944 heterosexual and homosexual men with either "biological" brothers or "non-biological" brothers (i.e., adopted, step or half siblings) and found that a link between the number of older brothers and homosexuality only existed when the siblings shared the same mother.
However, even Bogaert acknowledges that the immune response theory can only be confirmed in about one of every seven homosexual men and that his theory cannot explain the cause of homosexuality in the other six. The researcher says his study has only scratched the surface, and more research needs to be done in this area.
Scheidt agrees. "There's still a lot more to be explained," he says, and he feels Christians should be supportive of studies that seek to discover the origins of homosexuality. If such investigations become valid -- that is, if they are sustained by subsequent studies and "offer insight into this terrible problem," he says, "then we ought to welcome them."
Professor Bogaert's research has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A homosexual activist quoted by the BBC described the Canadian study and others like it as offering "further weight to the argument that [homosexuals] should be treated equally in society and not discriminated against for something that's just as inherent as skin colour."
However, Scheidt cautions that homosexual orientation or temperament, which is what the Canadian study was investigating, is not the same thing as homosexual behavior. "Homosexual behavior is always the result of a choice," the Christian doctor asserts, noting that having a prenatal disposition toward same-sex attraction is not the same thing as engaging in homosexual activity.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
