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ENCINO, CA, January 12, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “Governor Howard Dean’s recent comments on homosexuality evidence a lack of understanding about the origins of same-sex attractions and the psychological and physical problems associated with homosexual behaviour,” said Dr. A. Dean Byrd today. Dr. Byrd is a Scientific Advisory Committee member of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. 

Dr. Byrd’s statement comes in the wake of Dr. Dean’s widely quoted remarks in the Washington Post that, “From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people….The overwhelming evidence is that there is very significant, substantial genetic component to it.” 

Dr. Byrd’s previously published a report titled “The Innate-Immutable Argument Finds No Basis in Science: In Their Own Words: Gay Activists Speak About Science, Morality, Philosophy.”  It provides compelling evidence that homosexual attractions result from an interaction of social, biological, and psychological factors—including temperament, personality traits, sexual abuse, familial factors, as well as treatment by one’s peers—and are not due to a person’s DNA. 

“Dr. Kenneth Zucker, editor of the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior, noted in a recent edition of the journal that both sides of this debate agree on one point: that homosexual orientation is more fluid than fixed,” Dr. Byrd added. 

“But what if people were ‘born gay’? Looking at Dean’s religious claims, would God have designed them to be that way?” asks Dr. Byrd. “Down Syndrome has a genetic basis to it,” he added, “but we do not view this as a positive condition that defines who such people are. Their designer did not intend for them to be that way—and that holds true whether one believes the designer was God, or the impersonal forces of evolution.”

“Even if homosexuality did have a determining genetic component, it would remain problematic for the mental health and physical well-being of the person engaged in such behaviour,” he concluded. 

See the NARTH website