The first thing that surprises me about this statement is that anyone could know enough to know in advance that a change can be accounted for by one of these five reasons. But Blair reports that the Kinsey Institute has a standing offer never taken up to find one validated change in orientation (Blair [1978] 36).

Yet secular sources report change ranging from Masters and Johnson's 71.6% of subjects to Mayerson and Lief's 47% (Nicolosi; Socarides [1995] 102). A composite of nine outcome studies from Anna Freud to Gerard J. M. van den Aardweg reports a 52% change rate for 341 subjects (Satinover 186).

Greenberg, pro-gay, points out, "Biologists who view most traits as inherited, and psychologists who think sexual preferences are largely determined in early childhood, may pay little attention to the finding that many gay people have had extensive heterosexual experience." (Greenberg 480) Some gays began with an omnisexual experience ("polymorphous" to use S. Freud's term).

We'll never be able to document that change is possible if any change that is verified is attributed to someone who was really heterosexual or bisexual in the first place. Whoever controls the definitions controls the debate. If "homosexual" means someone who "constitutionally" and "by orientation" wants same-sex sex, then by definition change is impossible. See my open letter to a young Christian on this point.

2 September 1996. Copyright information is available.