Sep 21, 2007  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

A new study of “ex-gays” conducted by two evangelical Christians is raising charges of bias and flawed methodology by critics.

“Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation,” published by a Christian firm and researched by evangelical Christian psychologists Mark Yarhouse and Stanton Jones, addressed two issues: whether it’s possible to change sexual orientation and whether trying to do so is harmful.

“I’m hopeful that our study will actually help to provide a scientific and factual context for the discussion,” Jones told the Blade.

The study, which ran for four years, started with 98 subjects and ended with 73. Losing subjects over the course of a long study is de rigueur, Jones said. Results of the study showed 15 percent of the 73 remaining subjects had achieved what the researchers dubbed “Success: Conversion,” meaning that the subject self-reported their same-sex attractions were significantly reduced and considered themselves satisfactorily converted to heterosexual attraction.

Jones and Yarhouse also considered another 23 percent of the cases as successful. This chunk of the sample they dubbed “Success: Chastity” and it included those in the study who still experienced some same-sex attraction but were not currently engaging in “overt sexual activity.”

Twenty-nine percent of the subjects were “continuing,” this is, they hadn’t felt much by way of change, but were still committed to the idea of conversion. An additional 15 percent reported as “non-response,” indicating that they were confused or conflicted about where to go next, but hadn’t altogether thrown away the idea of conversion. Marked as failures were the 4 percent of the sample who had given up on conversion but did not identify as gay and another 8 percent that had given up on conversion and embraced a gay identity.

“All of our measurements were based on what the person said,” said Jones, who is straight. Yarhouse is also straight.

Sociologist Christine Robinson, a professor at James Madison University who focuses on social control of deviance and sociology of sexualities, said she has two major concerns about the study, which she has not yet read. The first is that some will abuse its findings and the second is the methodology.

“The authors are right to say that one limitation … is the lack of independent/objective measures of sexual attraction beyond self-reports,” Robinson wrote in an e-mail. “This is a major weakness of the study. In addition, and even more problematic to me, is that the study is being touted as evidence to counteract the claim that reorientation therapies are not inherently harmful, but the study doesn’t examine reorientation therapies of Exodus ministries.”

The study would have been stronger, Robinson said, if it included an independent, in-depth assessment of the therapeutic methods themselves.

Jones says anything beyond self-reporting would have been difficult for the researchers to obtain, given the nature of the study and its subjects.

“I know that some of the more florid commentators on the web are going ballistic on [ideas like] we should have used the No-Lie MRI and so forth. As far as I can tell, that’s a silly argument,” Jones said. “Those methods basically involve wiring up the genitals to measure genital arousal while showing pornography.”

Viewing pornography would have been in violation of the morals of the evangelical Christian sample group, he said.

 “Also our sample is scattered all across the United States and we couldn’t pull off a lab — running a lab around on an RV or something,” Jones said.

Critics note that anything that relies on an individual’s perception is not scientifically sound. Some “ex-gay survivors,” say they convinced themselves, at times, they were straight but later acknowledged those feelings as wishful thinking.

Wayne Besen, leader of Truth Wins Out, said it’s not logistics but fear that kept Jones and Yarhouse from using measurement tools beyond self-reporting.

“The technology exists to show whether these individuals are telling the truth or not and they purposely elected not to use them because they don’t want the truth,” Besen said.

Besen also expressed concern that the two researchers were biased and that the study was funded and studied Exodus International.