Years ago, a highly touted scientific study announced that olive oil was healthier for the heart than other more common fats, like butter or corn oil. Soon after its release, reports began surfacing about Americans downing olive oil by the spoonful because, they believed, it was supposed to be good for you.
I thought of this anecdote, well-known among health writers, when I flipped open my New York Times recently and saw the following: "Study Says Gays Can Shift Sexual Orientation," the headline screamed out to me from the page.
I already knew about the controversial and explosive study before I spotted The New York Times article announcing its dubious results. By now, every gay or lesbian person has heard of the study by Columbia University researcher Robert Spitzer, which claims that some gay men and lesbians who are "highly motivated" can in fact change their sexual orientation.
The first week the study was announced it was headline news. It made all the newscasts, all the newspapers, all the talk shows. I even heard it as the topic of conversation where I work out—a terribly heterosexual establishment in a working-class neighborhood where, I'd always imagined, the muscled members of the gym terrifyingly avoided the topic of homosexuality.
Since the study's release, plenty of behavioral scientists and psychological experts have poked it full of holes big enough for an SUV to drive through.
Still, when I saw the story in black and white in the pages of the country's newspaper of record, I couldn't help but cringe.
It wasn't the fallacy of the research that bothered me so much as the real harm I fear will be caused by the media frenzy over the story, and the general public's inevitable lack of critical examination of the research.
We are a society greatly influenced by both science and the media. Science is the new religion. We are taught to believe in it unflinchingly, that it will answer all our questions, solve all our problems. So if someone did a "scientific" study at a reputable university, it must be true. And if science is our religion, the media is the Messenger. If we hear it on the TV or read it in the paper, it must be true.
Yet, at the same time, we are a nation plagued with a collective kind of attention deficit disorder: We have neither the time nor the interest to investigate complicated issues.
The confluence of our cultural obsession with science, our love affair with the sound bite, and our apathy toward analysis, combine to make studies like Spitzer's more dangerous to gays and lesbians than ingesting a whole pound of butter.
You and I know that when the men and women who Spitzer surveyed for his study said that they had "changed" their sexual orientation, what they really had managed was to repress it. And that these individuals who Spitzer described as "highly motivated" were, in fact, highly troubled and oppressed. Indeed, the majority of participants in the study were referred by religiously-based, anti-homosexual "ex-gay" groups.
For too many Americans, though, these details won't stick, if in fact they ever get registered. Instead, what people will likely remember are headlines, like the one in The New York Times: " ... Gays Can Shirt Sexual Orientation." They'll read the numbers of the Spitzer's study—where 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women supposedly achieved "good heterosexual functioning"—and think that the majority of gay men, and nearly half of lesbians, could make the old switcharoo if only they were sufficiently "motivated." The fact that even Spitzer admits that the study results apply to a very, very small percentage of the gay and lesbian community will be lost on most.
And few will bother with the subsequent criticisms of the study, which cast overwhelming doubt on the validity of the techniques, and thus the results, of the study.
That's why, as gay men and lesbians, it is critical we continue to talk to our friends, families and neighbors about the study, and its pitfalls.
This week, you're not likely to hear much about the study anymore. It's old news, old hat. The media and the nation are bored with it, and ready to move onto the next juicy sound bite.
That's why it's up to us to keep talking about the study, and its fatal mistakes. Otherwise, the report's fallacies are likely to wind up as part of our country's collective conscience of "facts," regardless of how true it may or may not be.
With so much at stake for us politically and socially, we can't afford to let the country swallow this bit of science lore like a spoonful of olive oil.
Dahir receives email at MubarakDah@aol.com
CORRECTIONS
Last week's Windy City Times listed the cause of death for actor Ted Bales as AIDS. However, he died of a respiratory infection, which is not known to be related to AIDS.
In the May 24, 2000 issue, Outlines covered a press conference where various ex-gay groups and ministries were protesting the American Psychiatric Association at the McCormick Place Convention Center. Dr. Robert L. Spitzer was reported to have openly commented on being against gays in the military, gay adoption and gay marriage during this press conference. This was false. Dr. Spitzer's actual comment stated that he did not agree on these issues with the ex-gay groups and ministries present at the protest. Dr. Spitzer has made it clear that he is not, and has never been, against gays in the military, gay adoption or gay marriage. We apologize for this error.
