Jeffrey Satinover - Writing and Research

Writing and Research

Satinover's book, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (1996), published by the evangelical Christian publisher Baker Books, debates the nature of homosexuality from psychological, religious and scientific perspectives, discussing homosexuality primarily in the context of being a condition that can or should be treated, contrary to the views of the mainstream psychiatric and psychological community. Satinover draws comparisons between homosexuality and various pathologies (e.g., alcoholism, pedophilia) and argues that homosexuality involves compulsive impulses. He states that homosexuality "is not a true illness, though it may be thought an illness in the spiritual sense of 'soul sickness,' innate to fallen human nature." He also argues that "gay activism distorts the truth and harms not only society, but homosexuals themselves". Most of the book discusses whether homosexuality is biological and genetic and if it can be changed. About one fifth of the book discusses human sexuality from Jewish and Christian perspectives. In the book's introduction, Satinover states that "n the end the debate over homosexual behavior and its implications for public policy can only be decided conclusively on moral grounds, and moral grounds will ultimately mean religious grounds."

In 1997, Satinover was called by the State of Florida as an expert witness in the case Amer v. Johnson, which challenged Florida's statewide law prohibiting adoption by gays and lesbians. "Surprisingly, Satinover said in his testimony that 'if two homosexuals wanted to adopt a child, I would have no objection to it if one of them was a man and one of them was a woman...What counts, he explained, is the willingness to put one's own desires in second place. It has nothing to do with homosexuality, per se...they'd probably end up making better than average parents because of their willingness to sacrifice their own personal desires.'" Extensive scientific research demonstrates that "the 'needs' of a child includes having a mother and a father...For the last 35 years there have been hundreds and hundreds of studies examining the long-term impact on children of being raised without fathers. That's because fatherlessness has become a phenomenon not primarily due to the gay movement, but due to the impact of heterosexual divorce and other forms of heterosexual misbehavior." He said that "The state of Florida wanted me to argue that the reason the ban should be upheld was because homosexuals made bad parents and I refused to do that.". Citing Satinover, the presiding judge agreed that it was in the best interests of children not to be placed into a parental context of "obligatory fatherlessness" or "obligatory motherlessness", in distinction from situations where the permanent exclusion of a mother or father was not a fundamental premise (for example, single-parent adoption). After several years of additional court cases relating to the Florida's anti-gay adoption ban, In re: Gill resulted in the ban being declared unconstitutional in 2010.

Satinover has appeared in the media and before various American state and federal institutions to testify regarding his views on same sex marriage. In a hearing before the Massachusetts Judicial Committee in April 2003, Satinover testified that homosexuality is not immutable and that the environment plays an important role in sexual orientation. Organizations that oppose the expansion of LGBT rights and protections have frequently cited his research in their position papers.

Satinover's other writings include Cracking the Bible Code, a contribution to the contemporary debate about information purportedly encrypted into the first five books in the Hebrew Bible. The book also discusses Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, who reportedly rescued tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis through two years of face-to-face negotiations with Himmler's and Eichmann's chief overseers in Eastern Europe. The book includes previously undiscovered aspects of Renaissance history. For example, Satinover argues that the early cryptographic encoding wheels that Leon Battista Alberti appears to have devised, according to conventional accounts, "out of nowhere", are copies of first century Kabbalistic devices that Alberti, along with other Neoplatonists and so-called "Christian Kabbalists" of the Florence Academy, including Leonardo da Vinci and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, learned directly from Kabbalistic Rabbis of the era.

He is the author of articles, chapters, and books on topics ranging from brain neurophysiology to the psychology of narcissism to the breakdown of modern society. His book The Quantum Brain explores current developments at the interface of physics, computation, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. It is written for a well-educated, general readership, but it has been cited in a number of scientific publications.

Satinover's current scientific research, with Didier Sornette of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, centers on studies of game theory and in particular the minority game, attending to the "illusion of control" in these games.