Jul 20, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

The two leading Democratic presidential candidates — both U.S. senators — said they will vote against President Bush’s surgeon general nominee because of his past views on homosexuality, despite Dr. James Holsinger’s statement last week that he no longer believes gay male sex is unhealthy.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said a 1991 paper Holsinger wrote, in which he linked male homosexuality to sexually transmitted diseases, raises serious questions about whether he would inject his personal views into matters relating to science and medicine.

“Because of the questions that have been raised about Dr. Holsinger’s qualifications and ability to fulfill the duties of the job, I do not believe that he will be able to provide adequate leadership in the public health field as Surgeon General, and I must go on record as opposing his nomination,” Clinton said in a statement.

In a statement released on June 7, Obama said, “America’s top doctor should be a doctor for all Americans, and so I have serious reservations about nominating someone who would inject his own anti-gay ideology into critical decisions about the health and well-being of our nation.”

Obama said in the statement that he would carefully listen to Holsinger’s testimony at his July 12 confirmation hearing. This week, Obama’s Senate press secretary, Ben LaBolt, told the Blade that Obama plans to vote against the Holsinger nomination.

In testimony before his Senate confirmation hearing on July 12, Holsinger said his current views no longer reflect the position he took in the 1991 paper, in which he wrote, “From the perspective of pathology and pathophysiology, the varied sexual practices of homosexual men have resulted in a diverse and expanded concept of sexually transmitted disease and associated trauma.” 

Responding to questions at the hearing, Holsinger said he was troubled over claims by critics that the paper, entitled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” indicates he would be biased toward public health issues involving gay people.

“I am deeply troubled personally by these claims, which do not reflect who I am, what I believe or how I have practiced medicine for the past 40 years,” he told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.

“I think that I can serve all Americans, including gay and lesbian Americans,” he said. “I can only say I have a deep, deep appreciation of everybody, regardless of their personal circumstance, including their sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic.”

Holsinger’s comments about gays came in response to sharp questioning by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who chairs the committee. Kennedy said the 1991 paper and Holsinger’s personal religious beliefs as a Methodist Church leader, in which he opposed allowing gays to enter the ministry, raised the issue of whether his “ideological beliefs cloud his scientific judgment.”

According to Holsinger, he wrote the paper after a committee of the United Methodist Church asked him to review whether gay male sex practices are more prone to disease and health problems than heterosexual sex. At the time, the church’s Committee to Study Homosexuality was preparing recommendations for possible changes in its position on homosexuality and gay-related issues.

The paper provides detailed, anatomical descriptions of anal intercourse and concludes that anal sex is contrary to the human body’s “natural” biological functions. It cites studies showing gay men are more prone to sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

Holsinger’s critics have questioned the credibility of the studies he cites in his paper, saying most experts in public health agree that gays and straights are equally susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. Critics have said the determining factors for transmission of sexually transmitted diseases are unprotected sex and the frequency of unprotected sexual encounters, regardless of whether such encounters are between same-sex or opposite-sex couples. 

Kennedy said he received a letter from nine doctors with knowledge of human sexuality who denounced Holsinger’s paper as “wholly unscientific, biased and incredibly poor scholarship.”

“Dr. Holsinger’s paper cherry picks and misuses data to support his thesis that homosexuality is unhealthy and unnatural,” Kennedy said at the hearing.

“We’ve heard reports of Dr. Holsinger’s kindness toward people who are gays or lesbians,” Kennedy said. “I have no reason to doubt any of these individual accounts of benevolence,” he said.

“But as surgeon general, Dr. Holsinger will be responsible for providing the best medical and scientific information to all Americans and we must be assured that he can do so free of interference from his personal views,” Kennedy said.

Holsinger said his paper was an unpublished review of the medical literature on health-related issues pertaining to male homosexuality nearly 20 years ago.

“I did ...