IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 76

Earth (Genesis 9:11-2). The last
point tells us not to worry about sea
level rise. We can begin to see the
culture and constituency that gives
us Senator Inhofe.
One of the amusing aspects of
the warriors against "the green
dragon" is a misappropriation of
Thomas Kuhn's great work, The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(1962). Picking up on his concept of
changing paradigms in science, the
dragon slayers would have us
believe that the reigning paradigm
on climate - global warming - will
soon be overturned to be replaced
by something entirely different. The
argument misunderstands Kuhn.
Although, for example, the para-
digm of Newtonian mechanics was
in a sense replaced by the special
relativity of Einstein, the older
mechanics still works fine at nonrelativistic velocities such as we
experience in everyday life. An engi-
neer studying a car collision is well
served by Newton.
Alumkal's chapter on homosexu-
ality and the "ex-gay movement," is
perhaps his most unusual because
the core belief of the movement,
that homosexuality is a curable
aberration, can be traced to a medi-
cal doctor: Freud, and his psycho-
analysis. As recently as 1971 the
medical profession at least nomi-
nally subscribed to this. It wasn't
until 1973 that the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Psychiatric
Disorders (DSM-2) ceased listing
homosexuality as a psychiatric ill-
ness. Although some blame for the
presence of homosexuality in earli-
er manuals might be placed on
Freud, he is less than a satisfying
villain. As Alumkal explains, over a
period of nearly 2 decades, when
Freud wrote about homosexuality,
he referred to it as an "arrested
libidinal development," i.e., one
that had failed to reach the final
stage - heterosexuality. The condi-

76

tion occupied a limbo where it was
seen by Freud and some of his fol-
lowers as being neither healthy nor
unhealthy. Freud tried to "cure"
some clients' homosexuality but
never succeeded. But, as recently
as 1968, a book, The Overt Homosexual by Cha rle s S ocr ide s,
steeped in Freudian language,
blamed male homosexuality on "an
over intense affective relationship
to the mother... and a father who is
inaccessible." The 1952 DSM listed
homosexuality as a mental disor-
der. That they eliminated this classi-
fication 2 decades later was largely
due to the efforts of the gay and les-
bian community both within and
outside the medical profession.
At around the time DSM dropped
homosexuality we see the rise in
conservative evangelism of "ex-gay
ministries;" their core belief is that
with prayer and study of scripture
and recognition that the Bible
preaches that homosexuality is
contrary to God's will, the homo-
sexual "lifestyle" can, with some
therapy, be left behind to be
replaced by a "normal" one. But
using the Bible as a source of
behavior pleasing to God is not
without peril: Solomon and Moses,
to name just two, were polyga-
mous - an inconvenient truth.
Central to these ministries are
spiritual leaders who come out as
ex-gay, living monuments to the
success of the movement. A small
minority of medical doctors have
endorsed the cause, giving it a
veneer of scientific respectability.
An umbrella organization, Exodus
International, founded in 1976,
seeks to coordinate these minis-
tries, which come from both the
Christian Right and center.
Unfortunately for the movement,
some of its once prominent leaders
have turned against it. The book
cites several examples, including an
Exodus leader Michael Bussee who,
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

while on his way to speak at a
church, realized he was in love with
another Exodus worker travelling
with him, and renounced the cause.
The defections from the ex-gay
movement and the resulting publici-
ty has contributed to a number of
states banning gay conversion ther-
apy for minors. In June of 2019 Col-
orado became the 19th state to
pass such a ban. The openly gay
governor signed the bill.
The ex-gay movement fits under
Alumkal's rubric of paranoia. He
quotes Hofstadter as follows:
The sexual freedom often
attributed to [the enemy], his
lack of moral inhibition ...
give exponents of the para-
noid style an opportunity to
project... unacceptable as--
pects of their own minds ... .
Catholics and Mormons -
later Negros and Jews - lent
themselves to a preoccupa-
tion with illicit sex."
There is some irony in the Chris-
tian Right's embrace of fringes of
Freudian theory. Freud's teachings
were more hostile to any religious
belief than that of the right's bête
noir, Charles Dar win. A lumkal
devotes an entire chapter to the
longest lived of the Christian Right's
quarrels with science - Darwin's
theory of evolution.
This subject has a long history,
dating to probably as early as 1859
and the publication of Darwin's The
Origin of Species. Alumkal focuses
on the right's pushback during our
era which involves a questionable
science based on what they call
intelligent design. One of the book's
major figures in this effort is Philip
Johnson, a professor of law at the
University of California at Berkeley.
Following a divorce and a personal
crisis he converted to evangelical
Christianity and became alarmed
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JUNE 2020
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

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