Soy Homo

Thanks to my frieng Neil for pointing me to this article on the People for the American Way website, which links in turn to this bit of alarmist homophobia on WorldNetDaily, in which self-confessed "health-food guy" and "fanatic" Jim Rutz warns of the danger that soy will turn Good American Boys into girly men. To wit:

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

Apparently, before Jim Rutz discovered the dangers of soy, he thought homos were all just Big Gay Liars and falsely reporting on our own memories. Also, Rutz leaves us wondering: if soy only takes the "medical blame" then who or what gets the "socio-spiritual blame" for "today's rise in homosexuality"? It's a toss up between atheism, television, and the Liberal Media Elite, of course!

By the way, the title of Rutz's piece is "Soy is making kids 'gay'". Why the scare quotes, you ask? Well, because to Rutz, homosexuality is not an identity, it's a sin! So says the "church," and Rutz has to stay a good "Christian."

Notice that for Rutz, the most awful effects of estrogen on men are "a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality." Further on in the article, almost as an aside, he notes that it may also cause infertility and leukemia, but clearly neither of those things is as terrible as being gay.

I don't mean to downplay the negative effects of eating food that messes with the hormonal balance of one's body, but Rutz's misogynist and homophobic take on the effects of estrogen deserves some snark.

Homophobia aside, does estrogen correlate with or cause male same-sex desire?

There was a study that showed a correlation between sexuality of a child and hormone levels in the womb, except that gayness was not linked to higher levels of the dreaded Femme-erol (I mean, estrogen), but to higher levels of Manly Manly Testosterone. Which might explain why gay men have bigger dicks.