By Kenneth Lau

July 2003

The Church of Our Saviour (COOS), which runs Choices, a ministry aimed at helping people "overcome" homosexuality, recently put up two misleading articles on their website, Born Gay? There is no Scientific Proof and The Truth About Being Gay.

[A third article, Homosexuality, Myth and Truth, also objectionable, was added after this article was written.]

These articles were written in response to Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's recent statement in the 7 July 2003 edition of Time magazine indicating the government's willingness to employ gay people in government positions.

The first article casts doubt regarding the genetic basis for homosexuality, citing a study of identical twins by Bailey et al (1991 and 2000). The 1991 study found that when one identical twin was gay, the other twin had a 52% chance of being gay. The 2000 study reported a lower 38% correlation.
COOS takes this to mean that "genes alone do not determine homosexual attractions", otherwise, they assert, there would be a "100% correlation" among identical twins.

Yet even a 52% or 38% correlation implies some genetic basis for same-sex attraction. This is supported by parts of the 1991 study that COOS did not report: when a non-identical twin is gay, 22% of the time, the other twin is gay, whilst among adopted brothers the figure is only 11%. The conclusion is unmistakable—the higher the genetic linkage, the greater the chance of being gay, although environment undoubtedly plays a part.

The second article cites Leigh et al (1993) to claim that among adults in a "close-coupled" relationship, "79% of homosexuals reported being 'sexually unfaithful' in the previous year with 10% among married heterosexuals and 23% among cohabiting heterosexuals". This must be a misquote-a thorough check of the original article failed to turn up this statistic.

COOS claims that gay people are more likely to suffer from depression, and are less likely to have long-term relationships. They assert that gay men have more sexual partners than non-gay men.
But let's stop for a moment and think this through. If a man and a woman had to keep their relationship secret from friends and family, were denied the right to marry, and could not have children, how long could their relationship possibly last? Might they not be more than a little depressed from all this?

COOS uses divisive rhetoric that sounds as if it were lifted straight from fundamentalist churches in the United States: "It is not difficult to see why gay activists want the public to believe they are born gay. If the theory that sexual orientation is genetically determined is accepted by the general public, then it would greatly aid their political campaign for gay rights, gay marriages, adoption of children by gay couples and state benefits."

A political campaign to push for gay rights? In Singapore? The gay Christians I have spoken to simply want to be accepted as fellow human beings in church. Will COOS listen to the concerns of the gay Christians in their midst? Compassion in needed, not borrowed rhetoric.