by Hilary White
STOCKHOLM, May 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A US researcher has called to task the Associated Press for misrepresenting a scientific report on homosexuality. On Tuesday, May 9, the AP ran a story saying that a group of Swedish researchers had evidence showing that the brains of lesbians “react differently to sex hormones than those of heterosexual women”.
These findings, AP concluded, “add weight to the idea that homosexuality has a physical basis and is not learned behaviour”. A key plank of the homosexual political movement’s agenda is that the condition is physical or genetic in origin and therefore cannot be changed, treated or controlled and must be accepted as normal.
AP wrote, “Men and lesbians also found the male hormone more irritating than the female one, while straight women were more likely to be irritated by the female hormone than the male one.”
This, AP continued, was in line with earlier research showing homosexual men’s brain responses were different from those of men without the homosexual inclination. The Swedish report was published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a researcher and Professor of Psychology at Grove City College, found AP’s assertions suspect. He wrote to Dr. Ivanka Savic, the leader of the Swedish team at the Stockholm Brain Institute, who confirmed his suspicions. She wrote that AP’s conclusion is “incorrect and not stated in the (research) paper.” In fact, Dr. Savic confirms that in her team’s paper, she specified learning as a possible answer to the cause of homosexual inclinations.
Dr. Savic, moreover, made it clear that her study was not conclusive. “Our study can’t answer questions of cause and effect,” she said in an independent article in the New Scientist. “We can’t say whether the differences are because of pre-existing differences in their brains, or if past sexual experiences have conditioned their brains to respond differently.”
Moreover, the new Scientist report said the researchers confirmed that the existence of “human pheromones” was not proved, contrary to the assumptions made by the AP article. Dr. Savic said that the evidence for them was only “circumstantial” and was not conclusive.
Pro-life and pro-family advocates have consistently shown a strong leftist bias in AP’s coverage on nearly every subject. Concerned Women for America, through their Culture & Family Institute (CFI), said it was another example of AP’s consistent bias in favour of the homosexual movement’s claims. CFI’s director, Robert Knight said, “This AP report is yet another vehicle to promote the homosexual agenda.”
Last year, conservative complaints of bias were confirmed by a study from the University of California that reported “nearly all” US media were strongly biased to the left on all social issues.
Read Related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
All Major U.S. Media Lean Left Except Fox News and Washington Times, UCLA Study Finds https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/dec/05121903.html
Read Dr. Warren Throckmorton’s weblog:
https://wthrockmorton.blogspot.com/2006/05/lesbians-and-pheromones-part-2-email.html
Read Associated Press coverage:
https://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Lesbian_Brains.html