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LONDON, May 10, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists has been accused of bias and submitting “seriously flawed” and even “fraudulent” evidence to the government’s consultation on the gay “marriage” bill.

The Core Issues Trust has written to the College, saying that the evidence submitted to both the government and the Church of England’s consultations on the issue showed that the College was acting as a tool of the homosexualist political lobby.

The College’s submissions were “seriously flawed, distorting medical science and replacing it with gay ideology,” and “impinge deeply on [its] integrity,” the Trust said. 

The Core Issues Trust is a Christian-based organisation that advocates psychotherapy for homosexuality, which it regards as a psycho-sexual disorder.  The College’s submission, the Trust said, “appears to be ideologically driven, by an author with undeclared interests, distorting science to achieve political ends.” 

The letter, by Dr. Peter May and Dermot O’Callaghan was addressed to Professor Sue Bailey, the President of the College. In the two reports submitted to the government and the Church of England, the College had testified to a “biological” cause of homosexuality, ignoring evidence pointing to an environmental origin for the disorder, said the Trust. 

The letter also accuses the College’s submissions, given by Professor Michael King, of “speaking with two voices” depending upon the expectations of the audience.

“When addressing the scientific community [King] concurs with the general view that science has not yet determined whether societal prejudice or some other factor(s) makes LGB people vulnerable to psychological disorder,” the Trust said. “By contrast, when speaking to the Church he says that that the cause [of psychological disorders among homosexuals] is ‘discrimination in society.’”

In its submission to the government, the College said, “Defining marriage as a legal union only between a man and a woman is a form of institutional discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” The Trust’s letter described this as “overt prejudice,” writing, “Since the dawn of time, children have only been conceived through heterosexual union, and marriage in all cultures has sought to support that relationship for the well-being of children. That is not a matter of discrimination but of reality, which doctors should understand.” 

Among the examples of social discrimination the College said homosexuals suffer is having to witness campaigns against “gay marriage.” 

The Trust said that by actively endorsing the “gay marriage” bill, the College is encouraging “adolescent experimentation in same sex acts, which may well increase their confusion and establish sexual responses and memories, which are subsequently difficult to eradicate.” 

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The Trust pointed to a litany of serious factors facing most men involved in the homosexual lifestyle, including “anxieties and ill health generated by the exceptionally high levels of sexually transmitted infections, reduced life-expectation from HIV, bereavement from HIV deaths in the LBG community,” and the known high levels of breakup of relationships within the homosexual community.

The Trust pointed also to the difficulties homosexuals experience in “achieving intimacy; their propensity for anonymous sex; the jealousy generated by non-exclusive relationships; the loneliness of old age among men in particular; the prevalence of sex addiction; the fears of various cancers from STIs, (including anal, oral and prostate cancers among men); the lack of supportive family ties in the absence of children and the increased risks of drug and alcohol abuse to abate these anxieties”. 

“Instead of discussing any of these things, the [College’s] submission focuses on discrimination. Since the other factors are not even mentioned, one can only conclude that the College sees discrimination as far and away the over-riding cause of the mental ill-health in the LBG community.” 

The College had said the causes of the “significantly increased” risks of suicide, depression and anxiety, substance abuse and poor physical health among active homosexuals were “social hostility, stigma and discrimination,” the difficulties of “coming out” and the fact that in the past homosexuals usually met only in bars and nightclubs. 

The Trust also singled out one case where it says the College’s submission significantly misrepresented evidence that people with homosexual tendencies can change their “orientation” with therapy. The College’s paper mentioned a 2003 study that found that the “majority of participants gave reports of change,” but this was presented by the Professor King as “change was possible for a small minority (13%) of LGB people.” 

“Misreporting a majority as a small minority is a most serious offence, as it appears to be fraudulent,” the Trust said.   

“There is plenty of evidence that homosexuality is not fixed but fluid, particularly among women,” said co-author of the Trust’s letter, Dermot O’Callaghan, “but that is being denied by the College.”  

The Trust asks Professor Bailey, “whether, in the light of our investigations, the College stands by its submissions without further qualification.”