http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,236828,236828#msg-236828
http://psychmeasures.org/index.php?sid=64625&lang=en

When the link was first posted by aisuru, I went and clicked through the survey to look at the kinds of questions they asked. Of course I found it to be more than a little offensive and the LDS bias in those forming the questions was evident. It gave me the creeps. I've done some thinking since then, especially since John Dehlin has been posting about it on facebook.

One thing that bothered me about the survey was that the questions were geared toward exploring the same old issues in homosexuality that have been asked from the beginning of scientific interest in it. In my mind, I was thinking "Did you not review the literature before you put this together?" It just didn't make sense to do another survey about those topics when they had been already been thoroughly hashed and rehashed.

So apparently John Dehlin was involved in creating the survey:
http://news.hjnews.com/news/article_0ef698c6-ac21-11e0-bf94-001cc4c002e0.html

And in an interview with the Logan Herald Journal, he said "Everyone stands to win from this data." and then it hit me.

The reason we need a new study asking the same old questions to Mormons and ex-Mormons is that Mormons think they are the exception to all the other studies that have been done--that those studies don't represent the Mormon gay experience. In my experience I know that to be true-- Mormons do think that the gospel is the only answer to the 'problem' of homosexuality. I guess I can see the use in getting answers to all the old questions from within an LDS or ex-LDS context-- Mormons need to know that the same answers apply to them.

Anyway, so there's thought #1, now on to thought #2:

I hate the term SSA -- it's offensive to me because I only hear it used by religious people who are trying to reduce homosexuality to a behavior to be modified. John defended the use of the term on facebook by saying:

> ...go to Google Scholar sometime and type in "same-sex attraction."

> http://scholar.google.com/​scholar?hl=en&q=%22same-se​x+attraction%22&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C45&as_ylo&as_​vis=0

> Something like 3,600 articles?

> In my experience, this is a totally standard, commonly accepted academic term for....same-sex attraction. My supervisor is not LDS, and she's an expert in LGBTQ identity (and a HUGE LGBTQ ally, by the way)...and she tells me that this is a very, common, standard term in LGBTQ studies.

> All of us understand that in the LDS context this term is problematic...and if we knew of a better term, we would use it. But because we're looking to survey all people who have experienced SSA who have an LDS background....even if they don't self-identify as LGBTQ...then we want to be sure to include them in the study (thus we use the term SSA).

> If you have a better idea of how to describe the study....we're all ears for the next time we do a study like this. Do you have a better idea?

So John's defense of using the word is that it's accepted in the science community and that they can't think of a better one.

Well, someone should think of a better term. It's one thing to used a term among scientists who aren't afflicted by all the baggage the term comes with. It's another to use it in a survey aimed at people for whom it has meant nothing but misunderstanding, pain, confusion, and offense.

If you use plain-ole google, you'll get 2,300,000 hits and scrolling through the first few pages, you'll see that among the most popular hits, "Same Sex Attraction" is used among organizations who view homosexuality as a disorder, an unwanted behavior to be modified. Not surprisingly, a number of most popular hits are also LDS-related.

So, on one hand I applaud the effort to show Mormons that they aren't some special, exceptional population of believers with the right ideas about homosexuality. If Mormons need a special survey of Mormon gays in order to be convinced that they are wrong and doing/saying unconscionable things, so be it. However, I still think they should have avoided the use of SSA as a term-- and I realize that is a tough request, but I believe it can be done and I think it would have allowed people taking the survey to feel more open and trusting of the survey's intentions.