Posted on 20th June 2019

Critical analysis of the Ozanne Foundation’s “Faith and Sexuality Survey 2018”

Professor John NollandProfessor Walter R. Schumm

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Summary of key points

(Emphases added)

“Once gay, ex-gay or post gay lives matter. Their right to access, and the right of change-allowing therapists and counsellors to provide professional and pastoral help that reflects a clients’ own worldview, is a reasonable goal. Respectful listening to the views of the training and professional association of such practitioners is likewise a worthy endeavour, if we are to break free from the mono-cultural view-point discrimination that hinders the proper pursuance of genuine scientific debate.“ (Preamble, p3)

 

“The [Faith and Sexuality Survey] needs to be interpreted in a larger, historical context of the “weaponization” of science conducted in order to promote certain political or legal objectives. Science, per se, should ideally be neutral, an attempt to determine facts, including how concepts are related to each other. But to serve policy interests, science needs to be of the highest quality. What makes for high quality? … Sadly, there has been far too little pushback by scientists with respect to LGBT-related research. A lack of pushback unfortunately means that few people are aware that there exists a great deal of scientific evidence that has contradicted many oft-cited articles that have been used to promote certain political or judicial objectives regarding LGBT issues. … Many people objected to the criminalization of homosexuality. Now we have “progressed” to where we want to criminalize non-homosexuality – or at least any discussion of changing sexual orientation. It is as if the pendulum has swung all the way to the other side.” (Foreword, p4)

 

“The National Faith and Sexuality Survey 2018 (FSS) is intended to influence church and public policy. It was a volunteer web-based survey open to all individuals living in the UK who were over 16. The sample is around 4% of the size of the National LGBT Survey and is not representative of the UK or the LGBT population, limiting its usefulness for statistical analysis. Ostensibly to examine the role religious belief has on people’s understanding and acceptance of their sexual orientation in the UK, it seems its real aim was to end religious support for change in sexual orientation, to which end it calls for safeguarding. It also aims to gain support for the criminalising of ‘sexual orientation change therapy’” (Executive Summary, p7)

 

 

Conclusions

“It would be unjust to change the law or the church on the basis of the National Faith and Sexuality Survey 2018 because its claims and demands are not supported by its data. FSS results are misleading because of the non-representative volunteer sample characteristics, partisan survey design, the errors in its documents, the lack of data integrity, problems with its conditional branching and the selective focus of its discussion. It is heavily biased towards non-heterosexuals and Anglicans. Ironically FSS bears witness to the very thing it aims to combat: people whose attempts to change their sexuality worked completely.” (Critique of the 2018 Faith & Sexuality Survey, p36)

 

Regarding the national press reporting on the survey:

“Biased and poor-quality journalism … we have to say that all five reports from the various press outlets on the Faith and Sexuality Survey fell short of the standards we would expect from professional journalists.” (Press Reporting on the Faith & Sexuality Survey results, p12)