Does the scientific support cited by anti-gay campaigners add up?

[MindMover]

Core Trust and Anglican Mainstream refer to a study published in Sex and Marital Therapy in support of their campaign

The organisers of a Christian advertising campaign that had been expected to start next week claim they have scientific support for their belief in the power of "therapy" to change the sexual orientation of gay people.

In support of their advertising campaign, Core Issues Trust and Anglican Mainstream cite a study carried out by Stanton L. Jones of Wheaton College in Illinois and Mark Yarhouse of the School of Psychology and Counseling at Regent University in Virginia. The study, published last year in the journal Sex and Marital Therapy, is titled "A Longitudinal Study of Attempted Religiously Mediated Sexual Orientation Change" and anti-gay campaigners claim it shows how spiritual "therapy" can be used to change sexual orientation.


The authors followed 98 people (72 men and 36 women) who were undergoing religion-based "therapy" for homosexuality and tracked their progress for up to seven years. The participants were rated on a seven-point scale on attraction, infatuation and fantasy with people of the same or different sex. A measure of zero meant they were exclusively heterosexual, while a rating of 6 mean they were exclusively homosexual.


Over the course of the study, the participants went from an average of 4.08 to 3.3 on the attraction scale, a difference that King says could easily be within random error. On infatuation, the average went from 3.4 to 2.8 and, on fantasy, the average went from 4.6 to 3.8.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/12/scientific-support-anti-gay-campaigners?CMP=twt_fd

[gkhouston]

1. If one of the PIs was from Regent University, you know it's bullshit. n/t

[longship]

2. A single study does not nullify a lot of other science

Plus, this is an old claim, which the latest science has utterly demolished. To trot out yet another positing this tired hypothesis is flawed, in principle.

Gee! I have a study which shows that Lamarck was right! Darwinism is utterly defeated!