Creationism and Homosexuality

It’s the Ideology, Stupidby Eric Rauch

Creationists are often accused of allowing their ideology to get in the way of their science. They are ostracized from the academic scientific community, not because of their lack of scientific understanding or merit, but because of their basic operating premises. For its part, the scientific community has more or less denied this to be the case and insist that their refusal to allow professed creationists admittance to the academic table is based solely on the lack of the testability of the claims of the creationists (as if the materialists have somehow found a way to test evolution). Now however, this holy war of science is reaching beyond the creation/evolution boundaries and excluding members of its own persuasion who have the temerity to question the status quo. Dr. J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University, is one of the recent victims.

For Dr. Bailey, it all began with the release of his 2003 book, The Man Who Would be Queen, where “he argued that some people born male who want to cross genders are driven primarily by an erotic fascination with themselves as women. This idea runs counter to the belief, held by many men who decide to live as women, that they are the victims of a biological mistake — in essence, women trapped in men’s bodies.”1 In other words, Dr. Bailey has made the fatal mistake of associating cross-gender issues with choice, as opposed to the prevailing politically-correct belief of innate biology. In this sense, Dr. Bailey is not unlike Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson, who is also gravely “misinformed” on the homosexual issue. Luckily for him though, lesbian musician Melissa Etheridge was on hand to help him think more clearly.

Etheridge asked Richardson, "do you think homosexuality is a choice, or is it biological?

“It's a choice,” Richardson said.

“I don't know if you understand the question,” Etheridge said to laughter. “Do you think a homosexual is born that way, or do you think that around seventh grade we go, ‘Ooh, I want to be gay?’?”

“Well, I -- I'm not a scientist,” Richardson said. His campaign later issued a statement declaring that he didn't think homosexuality was a choice—the correct answer for that crowd. 2

While Richardson may not be a scientist, Dr. Bailey sure is, or at least, was. As Richardson and Bailey are both finding out, “science” has nothing to do with it, the answers to these questions are to be found in ideology, not empiricism. In fact, for other scientists, mere association with Dr. Bailey implies support, and therefore, guilt. “Two researchers were advised by a government grant officer that they should distance themselves from Dr. Bailey to improve their chances of receiving financing. ‘He told me it would be better if I played down any association with Bailey,’ said Khytam Dawood, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University.” One of Dr. Bailey’s vocal supporters, Dr. Alice Dreger, initially “presumed that Dr. Bailey was guilty.” But after a thorough investigation, concluded that “he is essentially blameless.” She added, “If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems not only for science but for free expression itself.”3 Dr. Dreger’s words are perceptive and should not be missed for the major significance that they are for future scientific exploration in general. Science, as an academic pursuit, cannot rule out any possibility a priori without good empirical reasons for doing so. Ironically, Dr. Dreger and Dr. Bailey now find themselves on the same side of the glass as the creationists—outside looking in. If they hope to retain their academic credibility, Dreger and Bailey might want to take notice of The Kinsey Institute:

In August of [1981], The Kinsey Institute released the results of a study that gave gay activists the ammunition they were looking for. After interviewing 979 homosexuals and 477 heterosexuals on a grant from the National Institute of Health, institute researchers claimed that homosexuality was not a learned condition [as Masters and Johnson had concluded in 1979] but was present from birth and likely biological in origin. That this new claim reversed the findings of the institute’s founder seemed not to trouble the researchers. They knew which way the wind was blowing. 4

The intellectual dishonesty of these professional researchers is nothing short of breathtaking. According to Carey, “Some scientists say that it has become increasingly treacherous to discuss politically sensitive issues. They point to several recent cases, like that of Helmuth Nyborg, a Danish researcher who was fired in 2006 after he caused a furor in the press by reporting a slight difference in average I.Q. test scores between the sexes.”5 I’m sure you can surmise which sex Nyborg claimed had the upper hand based on the reaction.

In 1998, Alan Charles Kors and Henry A. Silverglate—two insiders of the university subculture—released a firestorm of a book that exposed much of the politically-correct muzzle already in place in the academic world. The Shadow University should have served as a warning, but was mostly dismissed as paranoia. Their words almost ten years ago are no less relevant today:

Far more significantly for the future of liberty, however, and providing the focus of this book, the university in loco parentis—the university standing in the place of parents—has been given over to the self-appointed progressives to do with what they will. The result has been an emerging tyranny over all aspects of student life—a tyranny that is far more dangerous than the relatively innocuous parietal rules of ages past. It is a tyranny that seeks to assert absolute control over the souls, the consciences, and the individuality of our students—in short, a tyranny over the essence of liberty itself. 6

While Kors and Silverglate were mainly concerned for the minds and freedoms of the students, the professors themselves are also beginning to feel the chains of academic conformity and tyranny. When ideology is allowed to censor scientific findings, science is no longer being done—it has become religion.

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