August 15, 1991



Dear Dr. Thrash:


I am a contributing editor for the Connection, journal of SDA Kinship International, Inc. In this role I monitor Adventist publications on the topic of homosexuality. Your article was sent to me by an Adventist pastor.


Before reviewing your article for the Connection, I would appreciate your willingness to provide sources for some of your information and statistics, particularly the following:


    (a) “The average active homosexual has 1,000 different persons as sexual partners

            during a lifetime,

    (b) 20 percent of which are with children under 15.”

    (c) “The homosexual population is the largest reservoir of venereal disease.”

    (d) “Certainly” homosexuals “have more mental and physical diseases” than

            heterosexuals.”


Also, where can I read more about that situation you describe in Luther’s day, where priests were open about practicing their homosexuality “with children in the streets of Rome”?


For your convenience, feel free, if you choose, to list citations or make notes directly on this letter and return it. I am anxious to share your response with Connection readers and look forward to your reply,.


Many thanks.


Sincerely,


Larry Hallock

Dear Agatha:

September 20, 1991


Dear Dr. Thrash:


I’d like to follow up on my letter of August 15, copy attached, with a request for several additional citations, after reading your follow-up article in the September Self-Supporting Worker.


        1. Who were the researchers in the study that concluded “25 percent of the United States population has bisexual tendencies, and would as soon mate with the same as with the opposite sex,” and where is the study documented?


        2. While serious researchers in human sexuality widely accept that biological factors play an important role, you say flatly that “there are no genetic origins of homosexuality, and it is not passed down.” (Actually, studies show that a gay man is more likely to have a gay brother than is a heterosexual man.) On what basis do you reject the overwhelming bulk of scholarship in this area?


        3. You say Dr. Richard Lovelace reported that 27 homosexuals (75% of only 36 subjects) changed to heterosexual “practice.” If, as stated, these people merely changed their behaviors, the finding is unremarkable. However, if you mean to imply that sexual orientation was changed, I would appreciate your citing a reference so I can study the findings for myself. I have been a serious student of sexual orientation issues for more than 20 years, and have read volumes on the change issue. It has been my experience to observe, so far, that while some claim success in orientational change, no significant change has been credibly substantiated. Please cite your source for the Lovelace finding, if you think it is an exception.


I hope you take my questions seriously and respond to the above and my previous letter as soon as possible, so that I can proceed with a review of your articles for the Kinship Connection. Many Thanks.


Sincerely,


Larry Hallock

She never answered...