Speaking of science and kooks, too much soy will allegedly make you gay (Source):
The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.
I have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you’re also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.
Estrogens are female hormones. If you’re a woman, you’re flooding your system with a substance it can’t handle in surplus. If you’re a man, you’re suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your “female side,” physically and mentally.
With such claims, a few citations of medical data might help. They’re nowhere to be found. But that’s okay. Proof is unnecessary when a child’s sexuality is at stake:
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.
And so it goes. Instead of scientific proof, or even theories with a scientific basis, we get the basic statement that “homosexuality is always deviant.” Note that the author discusses medical blame rather than explanation. Even if soy is as dangerous as the author claims, his real concern is not physical health. Moral health trumps any reality we face here. Of course, a reasonable person might just as easily attribute the alleged rise in homosexuality to reduced stigma that allows gays to come out of the closet rather than pretending to be straight. Incidence and reporting are different.
Finally, I wonder how the author would explain lesbians? I understand that the real disgust is aimed at gay men, but I wouldn’t expect the bigotry to be this obvious.
Afterthought: As a vegan, I have no stance in this argument. Avoid soy or don’t. I eat soy products and I’m fairly certain it hasn’t made me gay. But I’m just one guy. Here is some information about soy that challenges a few claims. I make no claims about it’s accuracy, but there are citations. That’s instantly an improvement over the WorldNet Daily nonsense.
The real question is: can isoflavones cause reproductive abnormalities in boys who are fed soy-based formula as infants? The jury is still out but I believe it’s wisest to err on the side of caution by avoiding soy-based products intended for young children.
It’s a pity that the soy industry hasn’t been more upfront about this issue. They seem perfectly content to hide behind third-party soy advocates instead of honestly addressing the problem of phytoestrogen contamination.
Soaking soybeans in a simple alcohol and water solution before processing them into tofu would remove most of the offending isoflavones, and neutralize the concern people like myself have, but I guess they think there’s no need for such measures as long as there’s no outcry from consumers.
Hormonal pollution of the food supply is a matter that should be taken seriously by everybody, especially parents of young boys. This is because most of the hormonal pollutants out there are estrogenic and have a disruptive effect on the male endocrine system.
Bisphenol (a chemical used to make plastic) is another hormonal pollutant to watch out for. Fortunately, there are many companies now that make bisphenol-free baby bottles.