Creep of the Week: James Rutz

There are plenty of theories out there about what makes kids gay: over bearing mothers or fathers, early exposure to show tunes, letting girls wear pants. Nobody really knows for sure. Nobody, that is, except James Rutz, chairman of Megashift Ministries and founder-chairman of Open Church Ministries.
The cause, says Rutz, is a certain three-letter word that starts with "S."
That's right: soy.
This explains why Japan is gayer than Fire Island.
In a Dec. 12, 2005, World Net Daily article Rutz calls soy a "slow poison" turning little boys into queens.
Of course, he doesn't want readers to get the wrong idea. "Now, I'm a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it's organic," he writes. "I state my bias here just so you'll know I'm not anti-health food."
He is, however, anti-gay.
According to Rutz, soy is bombarding kids with estrogen. "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."
Soy, says Rutz, "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."
If soy is, indeed, today's great gay maker, what about all the older gays? Something tells me that Detroit's esteemed gay ambassador Charles Alexander wasn't slurping soy formula as an infant nor splitting a soy burger with a guy on his first date.
What's most interesting is Rutz's claim that there's a "rise in homosexuality" today. It's certainly true there are more gay people on TV and more out gays today, but that doesn't mean there's been a sudden gay explosion in the population. And certainly not because of tofu. Though I suppose that's a perfectly reasonable conclusion for a homophobe with a soy obsession to come to.
"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," writes Rutz. "But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them."
Excess estrogen influencing gay men? Well I suppose you have to give him this one if you consider Barbara Streisand, Bette Midler, Cher, Madonna, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Toni Braxton, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davies, Julie Andrews, Katharine Hepburn, Eartha Kitt and Joan Crawford "excess estrogen."
But don't worry, Rutz says, not all soy products are bad. Soy sauce, for example, is okay, because it's fermented. Looks like lactose intolerant and vegan homophobes will have to settle for pouring a little Kikkoman on their morning bowl of Heter-O's.