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mentioned any of the unanswered questions, doubts, or problems related to Hamer’s report. This
was to become a pattern of future articles that appeared in newspapers, magazines, and in
television news broadcasts.

As the reports of LeVay and Hamer spread, and they were called upon for interviews, they
became more confident in their statements. Hamer stated in a Time magazine article, “This is by
far the strongest evidence to date that there is a genetic component to sexual orientation. We’ve
identified a portion of the genome associated with it.” In time, however, the wheels began to fall
off of the studies performed by LeVay and Hamer.

In 1995, two years after Dean Hamer’s report was published in the journal Science, the magazine
Scientific American printed an article expressing doubts in the scientific community about the
genetic evidence presented thus far in support of the view that homosexuality is an inherited
behavior. The article reported that no other researchers had been able to replicate LeVay’s
findings. The article also revealed that Dean Hamer had “been charged with research
improprieties and is now under investigation by the Federal Office of Research Integrity.” It was
discovered that Hamer had excluded “pairs of brothers whose genetic makeup contradicted his
findings.” In other words, Hamer had cherry-picked his study group in order to obtain results that
fit his hypothesis. This was a blatant form of deception and scientific fraud.

In 1999, six years after the journal Science had published Hamer’s initial report suggesting that a
genetic link to sexual orientation had been found on the Xq28 markers of the male chromosomes,
the same journal published a report refuting that earlier study. Researchers George Ebers and
George Rice stated that their studies “do not support an X-linked gene underlying male
homosexuality.” They went on to say that the homosexual pairs of brothers studied by Hamer’s
group were no more likely to share characteristics in the Xq28 markers than a normal population
of men. They concluded that there was in fact no scientific underpinning behind Hamer’s much
ballyhooed claims.

Despite the refutation of LaVey’s and Hamer’s research, the damage had been done. The interval
between the time the reports suggesting a genetic link to homosexuality were published, and the
time they were refuted, was a period of years. During these years there was an explosion of media
coverage on this subject. LaVey’s and Hamer’s research and claims had been widely trumpeted,
convincing many that science had indeed proven a genetic source for homosexual behavior.
These reports were not only ubiquitous, but they received front page coverage in a wide variety
of popular venues. When the news came out debunking these earlier reports, they received little
press, nor did the news receive front page exposure. This is how the adversaries of truth operate.
They boldly proclaim lies, but they will only whisper the truth when it must be told.

Interestingly, in the same 1993 edition of Science in which Hamer’s report was published, there
was a precursory article written by Robert Pool. Pool reported on the bleak history of attempts to
establish a link between genetics and human behavior. He stated, “The field of behavioral
genetics is littered with apparent discoveries that were later called into question or retracted.”
Perhaps there was already some suspicion among the journal’s editors that there were problems
with the “discovery” Dean Hamer was reporting in their pages. Pool’s article could later serve as