When does the scientists' nose end?

I ask this of myself as a kind of reference to the adage of "my right ends where you nose begins" when considering the matter of how far a scientist is reasonable permitted to profess his or her craft. When does a person speak out of order? When does respect for personal choice and culture override the need to use reason and fact to describe something?

I was brought to consider this question after pondering masturbation. No, not WHILE doing it, but while considering the causes and reasons for the activity in terms of personal comfort and psychological state. I was actually doing a Google search, one of my favorite pastimes on history of non-pharmaceutical anxiety treatment to find a curious article about generalized anxiety and "habitual masturbation" which later led me to discover some very "exciting" links on the subject from informed points of view:

http://couragerc.net/Masturbation.html

http://www.cathmed.org/assets/files/H&H%202010%20Pages%20for%20Website.pdf

The first is a guide for pastoral care for treating confessing habitual masturbators, so I do not consider it a scientific source, although it is written from the relevant point of view of a Catholic Priest. The second links to a *.pdf for medical professionals on how to deal with masturbation and individuals expressing Same Sex Attractions, something they label (SSA), tendencies.

Obviously this bothered me otherwise I would not be writing this. I consider this completely unacceptable. The priest writing about masturbation in adolescents is one thing, the opinion of a religious official whose role is in advising people who choose to practice a particular faith. However, a medical professional being encouraged to express an opinion that a person who feels attraction to the same sex is obligated to pursue a life of chastity and service to God while distancing himself/herself from homosexual feelings is UNACCEPTABLE to me. These things are unacceptable not only because I find them personally very silly, but because it is not supported scientifically (that homosexuality results from abuse or gender confusion), it is not supported socially (that you may feel SSA if you are very lonely and desperate), and it is not supported applicably (that individuals feeling homosexual attractions usually choose abstinence and pray for help from God). It is simply absurd, and the fact that actual licensed, practicing physicians in the United States of America are permitted to advise individuals in this way really bothers me in the same way that a hot poker in the face bothers me.

In my opinion, and this is absolutely not held universally by many scientists and academics, it is our duty as well educated well-read individuals to object to this travesty and terminate it. This is not a matter of faith - it is about abuse of the truth to force pseudoscience into the medical community. It is about the manufacture of evidence to reinforce a cultural and moral (and political) position. The word "truthiness" rings in my head when I read about this supposed condition, 'SSA'. I stated once to a fairly stunned group of people that if I was a member of a person's PhD committee, presumably in my area of the biological sciences, and they publicly denied evolution, I would refuse to sign off on their candidacy. I stand by this position. It is equivalent of stating as a student of mathematics that arithmetic order of operations is unimportant. Or as a chemist that electrons form attractions to protons because they really like being around each other. If I stated as a sociologist that American black culture was entirely unaffected by slavery, I would be laughed out the door.

Why are we as scientists not allowed to demand individuals whose decisions are made based on scientific research and evidence hold themselves to the same standards we do? While it is true that medical science cannot afford to hold itself to confidence intervals that we do, they should be expected to maintain a standard of discipline that includes advice confined to scientifically supported opinion. Their diagnoses should be expected to conform to accepted, culturally neutral frameworks intended to preserve and protect human health. Those who do not wish to withhold their personal opinions can and do cause harm to innocent patients who look up to doctors, holding their advice in high regard. This damage permeates a society and festers over long periods of time, retarding human advancement. In my opinion (note that I'm declaring that this is a personal statement) doctors who choose to bring their religious affiliation or mores into the clinic do not belong in medicine.