Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Culture wars: science vs religion, again.

The American political landscape of late has been saddening, littered with scandals and corruption investigations on both sides of the aisle. Several days ago, the former surgeon general gave a landmark statement to Congress about the current Administration's attempts to suppress scientific research into promising stem-cell discoveries for political reasons. Tomorrow, the Senate will begin hearings on a new surgeon general, Dr. James Holsinger.

Today, the NYT ran an editorial about the prospective surgeon general. It describes his position as part of the church judicial council for the United Methodist Church, and details his views on gay people and the church. As part of that council, Holsinger supported a minister who refused to allow a gay man to join his church, and argued that a lesbian minister should be removed because homosexuality was incompatible with church doctrine. Holsinger argues that he was merely interpreting church doctrine, and that these issues had nothing to do with his own personal views. Tellingly, however, other council members opposed his stances, and bishops in the church later even rejected one decision. Holsinger also authored a 'scientific' white paper for a church committee, entitled 'Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality'. Supposedly it was a medical review, but its conclusions that gay sex was anatomically abnormal and could lead to rectal injuries and STDs seem more like propaganda than reasoned science. What about the many, many heterosexual couples engaging in anal intercourse? What about the STDs transmitted through 'normal' vaginal intercourse? No mention of these sexual hazards were considered in the paper's findings. Our prospective surgeon general apparently (at least at the time) considered gay people as diseased and abnormal. Comforting.

This is the man who will represent the nation's 6000+ doctors in the coming years on any number of health issues, and whose decisions will have guiding influence in the direction of medicine to come. This is the position that the current administration has hobbled into an ideological puppet. The person put into this post will be one of the warriors on the forefront of the battle between science and religious culture, so it's important that Congress think carefully before installing a bigot.

Ironically, these hearings come as the American Psychological Association makes the final preparations for a series of meetings about the potential harms of ex-gay conversion 'therapies'. The Southern Baptist Convention has joined with Focus on the Family (Surprised? Anyone? Didn't think so.) to complain that the APA isn't listening to gays whose religious beliefs are against their gay lifestyles. The task force is expected to propose a ban on these so-called 'reparative therapies', and the Convention isn't happy. The problem is apparently that the task force is determined to look at the best science on these 'therapies' instead of listening to religious leaders who would present metaphysics in the face of numerical evidence.

The battle between science and organized religion is being waged on a number of fronts in the next few weeks. The soundbytes of 'speak the truth in love to homosexuals' will be tossed around liberally by religious leaders. The dryer, less catchy soundbytes of numerical evidence will be tossed around by scientists. The problem in these culture wars is that truth, as far as human-kind can determine it, has long been arbitrated by the findings of scientific investigation. Here's one thing I can guarantee Focus on the Family won't talk much about: if the numbers that the APA provides actually do represent the truth, then where, exactly, is the love?

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