Baptist assailed for gay-baby article

NEW YORK — The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has incurred criticism from the left and the right by suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proved and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.

The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country's pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged he irked many fellow conservatives with an article earlier this month saying research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality.

Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality — which they view as sinful — is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling.

However, Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters. They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based and by his support for possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby's sexual orientation to heterosexual.

"He's willing to play God," said Harry Knox, a spokesman on religious issues for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group. "He's more than willing to let homophobia take over and be the determinant of how he responds to this issue, in spite of everything else he believes about not tinkering with the unborn."

Mohler said he was aware of the invective being directed at him on gay-rights blogs.

"I wonder if people actually read what I wrote," Mohler said in a telephone interview. "But I wrote the article intending to start a conversation, and I think I've been successful at that."

The article, published March 2 on Mohler's Web site, was titled: "Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?"

He began by summarizing some recent research into sexual orientation and advising readers that they should brace for the possibility that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proved.

He wrote such proof would not alter the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality but said the discovery would be "of great pastoral significance, allowing for a greater understanding of why certain persons struggle with these particular sexual temptations."

Mohler said he would strongly oppose any move to encourage abortion or genetic manipulation of fetuses on grounds of sexual orientation, but he would endorse prenatal hormonal treatment — if such a technology were developed — to reverse homosexuality. He said this would be no different to using technology that would restore vision to a blind fetus.

Paul Myers, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, wrote a detailed critique of Mohler's column, contending there could be many genes contributing to sexual orientation and medical attempts to alter it could be risky.

"If there are such genes, they will also contribute to other aspects of social and sexual interactions," Myers wrote.

Not all reaction to Mohler's article has been negative.

Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatrist critical of those who consider homosexuality a disorder, commended Mohler's openness to the prospect that it is biologically based.

"This represents a major shift," Drescher said. "This is a man who actually has an open mind, who is struggling to reconcile his religious beliefs with facts that contradict it."