The anti-gay grifter torture group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) caused quite a stir this week when it erected “Nobody Is Born Gay’ sign in Richmond, VA this week.
Well as it turns out the male model featured on the billboard Kyle Roux is not a twin, happily gay and very pissed off that PFOX is using his image.
Richmond’s WWBT reports:
Speaking via Skype, Kyle Roux said he was shocked his image was used. Especially since he calls himself an “out and proud” gay man.
“I was obviously quite shocked, so that why I decided to send you guys an email saying hey, I’m that guy in that billboard,” Roux said.
Roux hasn’t thought about that photo shoot in nearly a decade. He says the pictures used on the billboard were part of a stock photo shoot he did. Roux signed away the rights and was told the pictures would be used in commercial and corporate ads and brochures. […]
“It’s actually quite a big thing that there is this kind of discrimination and borderline hate speech going on, you know,” he said.
Roux says he’s worried about teens struggling with their sexuality, and he hopes to empower others.
Former board member of PFOX and current “ex-gay” Christopher Doyle says Roux’s pictures are irrelevant to what the billboard is trying to accomplish.
“The issue isn’t the photo on a the billboard, but the actual science.”
And by “actual science” Doyle means “thoroughly discredited” torture of gay men that in some cases leads to depression, suicide, and death.
What do I think? Uh, I think the billboard is shooting its own logic in the foot. If you have two identical twins where one grows up to be gay and the other doesn’t, particularly if they grew up in the same household (which most do), that’s a huge argument that “nurture” can’t trump “nature.” Does it mean our relatively rudimentary understanding of genetics can’t yet explain the difference between twins? Yup. Does it “prove” that sexual orientation is not an inborn trait? They wish.
There are identical twins who are of opposite sexualities, but it’s not as black & white as “nature vs. nurture”. There’s a bit of both.
One possibility is that there is a threshold such that, similar to the way that frogs spontaneously change sex under the right conditions, humans can be of a different sexuality than those around them. Too many people in too small an area? More people end up gay to naturally curb population growth. True? No idea, but it was an interesting suggestion.
No theory or hypothesis offers a complete picture. We’ll only figure out better models over time.
OMG! They are basing their science on the “fact” that Monozygotic Twins are “genetically Identical” NO they are not!! Close, yes. Very close but not genetically identical. You guys busted them on the wrong thing. Correct their pseudo-science!!
Former board member of PFOX and current “ex-gay” Christopher Doyle says Roux’s pictures are “irrelevant”……..tell that to his attorney. And if he does not have one yet…call Gloria Allred…….she will love this one!