If only British press would say, 'My baa-d'

OHSU: Sheep study is not about making gay ones straight

By jacob quinn sanders

The Portland Tribune, Jan 9, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (8 Reader comments)

OHSU’s study isn’t about “curing” gay sheep, the school says.

GETTY IMAGES

Oregon Health & Science University researchers want to be clear: They are not trying to turn gay sheep straight.

Really.

They swear.

So please stop calling. And while you’re at it stop the e-mails, too.

A five-year-old study into the biology of homosexuality being conducted jointly by OHSU and Oregon State University has not led to any recent breakthroughs. But nobody seems to have told that convincingly to a British newspaper, The Times UK, which last Sunday published a story claiming otherwise.

“It was wrong, wrong, wrong,” said Jim Newman, an OHSU spokesman. “Not only that, it was wrong and old.”

Still, he had to field calls from CNN and “Good Morning America” asking about the efforts to change what The Times called the “hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams” in order to make them choose to mate with ewes.

The Times story also implied that the research suggested one day homosexuality could be “cured” with something similar to a nicotine patch.

Newman said neither national television show was interested in doing a piece once he told producers at each that there was nothing new and that The Times story contained gross inaccuracies.

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