Members of the scientific community, gays, straights, barflies, politicians, and a few stray passers-by were astounded today by the findings of two independent studies showing conclusively that homosexuality is caused by soy products and beer.

Jim Rutz (pun unintended), writing in WorldNetDaily, states:

Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you're also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.

Soy is feminizing (sic), 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.

Fibrocystic.com came in with even sadder news:

Zava, PhD showed that these herbs stimulated estrogen receptor positive breast cancer cells to grow. Red Clover and Yucca were found to be equal in potency to estradiol at the same concentrations. Women who harvest hops for beer begin menstruating 2 days later anecdotally. Zava has confirmed that beer has a significant amount of phytoestrogens that have moderate estrogen activity from hops used in the flavoring of beer.

Reactions to the news varied among pundits and politicians.

"Well, at least they can stop looking for the gay gene," said Ann Coulter. "I always figured it was lattes, myself."

"Beer makes you queer?" asked Geraldo Rivera. "You mean Joe Six-Pack is light in the loafers? That explains Hannity. Colmes is a wine sipper. Go figure."

"What the hell is anecdotal menstruation?" inquired Huma Abedin, aide to Hillary Clinton. "I've never heard of anyone menstruating anecdotally. Sounds interesting, though."

Barack Obama took a more serious view. "We need tolerance for the lactose intolerant," he said. "We need further research to find a solution and a substitute."

"If people want to drink soy milk and chase it with a beer or two, that's their business," said Ron Paul. "I can't see funding any studies whatsoever. What's so funny about that?"

"That explains the Craig incident," said President Bush. "If his mother had breast fed him, everything would've been hunky dory. If he had a beer or two in the airport lounge, there's no way he could've helped himself."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.