Janet Mefferd spoke to Focus on the Family official Glenn Stanton yesterday about a new study in The Quarterly Review of Biology which suggests that epigenetics may explain what causes homosexuality. Right off the bat, the two were wary of the study because its principal researchers work in the field of evolutionary genetics and anyone who believes in the theory of evolution should not be trusted. Stanton maintained that upholding the science of evolution “takes as much faith” as believing in creationism!
Mefferd: It’s strange, you have scientists here headed up by an evolutionary biologist at the University of California Santa Barbara and right away I saw ‘evolutionary biologist.’ Is there more of a propensity do you find for people who subscribe to evolution and have an evolutionary bias to buy into this?
Stanton: They do come with that bias but basically the evolutionary sociobiology as they call it is a very interesting field of study, basically as I read it and I read it all the time because that’s the norm or the orthodoxy, it’s basically trying to utilize evolutionary theory for explaining what God did: there’s a male nature, there’s a female nature, we’re affected by these things. So they talk about our evolutionary development for why men tend to be more sexually adventurous and why women tend to be more sexually conservative, well you know it takes as much faith to believe that these things evolved as it does to say, that’s the way God wired us.
He later argued that any instance where scientific findings contradict his religious views, the science is wrong and leads to rebellion against God.
Stanton: To understand it, at the end of the day there is no real separation between good science and our Christian faith. It was Christians and a Christian worldview that created scientific investigation; it has its roots in that. At the end of the day, God is right, he is true, he is lord, and he set things in orbit, not just inter-planetary, but within our human makeup. When we follow those things, good things happen; when we rebel against them, bad things tend to happen.
Stanton dismissed those who have researched the biological or hormonal link to homosexuality as biased and “politically motivated” ideologues, unlike say a Religious Right activist who has his masters in religion. He concludes by arguing that “quite literally there is more evidence for Bigfoot than there is that homosexuality is just who we are.”
Stanton: Up to now most of the scholars have been politically motivated, they have a very deep, personal interest. But here’s the thing and all your listeners need to know this, there is no evidence whatsoever that has come up in the last twenty years—and not for a lack of trying—but no evidence that has come up in the last twenty years that shows any evidence that homosexuality is solely and purely genetically driven, like we are not born that way. Quite literally, this is a provocative statement, but quite literally there is more evidence for Bigfoot than there is that homosexuality is just who we are, we’re just born that away because of our genetic makeup and you’re not going to hear that from the mainstream media.
