By Michael Gryboski

“You people are sick. God should strike you dead.”

These were not the words of a southern white minister or conservative Republican politician, but instead were of an openly gay Canadian Senator a few years ago. He was referring to the people he hated and despised, those who opposed the implementation of what would be known in some circles as the ‘Bible as hate literature’ bill: Bill C-250. This measure would expand the definition of hate speech in Canada to include speech deemed hateful towards individuals due to their sexual orientation. This bill had an exemption for religious reasons, but past judicial decisions in the nation of Canada have shown that this will mean little. Nevertheless, the bill became law and now anyone who openly opposes or criticizes homosexual orientation in Canada can face as many as five years behind bars.

Bill C-250 is not the first or only of its kind. In Sweden, the government actually monitors sermons for any content deemed hateful enough to necessitate legal action against the preacher. Far from being deemed a curb on civil liberties, it is approved, and the nation of England performs similar inquisitions on its churches, even Anglican ones. Both countries have actually press charges against clergy who have merely stated what the Bible says: homosexuality is a sin. But religious expression or even expression in general is well ignored in these three Western countries that do not have a Bill of Rights put into their laws.

And yet even in a land that does have a Bill of Rights, the United States of America, homophobia watchdog groups lump together those who are genuine hate-mongers with people who disagree with the Gay Rights Movement. A good example of this are those who claim that the Matthew Shepard killing was not based on homophobia. People who say this are looked upon the same way as people who deny the Holocaust and yet unlike the latter the former does have a case. ABC news is the one, rather than a conservative source, that reported the new developments on November 26th, 2004, six years after the ruthless murder.

They interviewed a former girlfriend of one of the murderers, who said, “I don't think it was a hate crime at all”¹ in an interview. When McKinney, one of the murderers, was asked if it was done because Shepard was gay he replied, “I would say it wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."² Apparently, the only reason why the defense for the two murderers even brought up the idea of sexual orientation was in order to plead the “gay panic defense, testifying that they attacked Shepard because he made flirtatious advances towards them.”³ Regardless, the murder is still labeled a hate crime even as doctors say that withdrawal symptoms of the drugs McKinney and Henderson took included aggression.

Since Shepard’s murder, an entity known as the Gay Rights Movement to some and the Homosexual Agenda to others has gained power and influence in United States culture, with increasing representation in television and theater, political clout especially in the Democratic Party and Washington, DC as a whole and in society at large. Although no laws like the ones in Canada and Europe exist in any of the 50 States, it is all but a crime to criticize the doctrines of the Gay Rights Movement. Indeed, at least one opinion article in the GMU newspaper Broadside classified not seeing Brokeback Mountain as an attribute of homophobia.

Traditionally considered by experts to have begun in 1969 with the Stonewall Club violence, the Gay Rights Movement has since grown extensively in scope and popularity in the United States. The Supreme Court ruling of Lawrence v. Texas fully decriminalized the act that gave birth to the lifestyles and Massachusetts’ highest court recently made gay marriage a reality for the first time in the USA. The Gay Rights Movement is based on intellectual assumptions, without which the whole of the movement would be baseless and errant:

1. All acts that are committed by consenting adults in private should be legalized and any effort to regulate such behaviors is a violation of the US Constitution.

2. Homosexuality is an inborn trait, innate rather than learned, which cannot be altered, for sexual orientation is fixed at birth.

3.The homosexual lifestyle is no more or less harmful than the typical heterosexual relationship and should be tolerated.

If the three theses above are disproved, then the whole of the movement carries no intellectual weight or accountability. This essay shall be the documentation however brief of what makes these three givens erroneous. To further convince the reader of the accuracy of this written work, I shall perform a bit of a magic trick. Pro-gay organizations and media always speak of opposition to the Gay Rights Movement as being only from conservative or ultraconservative sources. So, for this essay I shall cite only liberal or moderate sources. If any conservative citations are found, it is only because they themselves cited a moderate or liberal source. No Bible quotes will be used or writings from the Vatican. Any religious citations shall be from religious liberals, namely John Shelby Spong. This shall be a case against homosexuality through the usage of secular and liberal works.

I. “We still have a long way to go in achieving full equality, but the court’s recognition that all women and men, regardless of their sexuality, have a constitutional right to privacy is a huge step forward.”

--National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy

These were the words, some of many, spoken that praised the June 26th, 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down all anti-sodomy laws in the United States of America. There were many things said, but this is probably the best one to note since it covers the whole of the misconceptions that were mandated in order to legalize the act of homosexuality. And it begins with the statement “constitutional right to privacy”. However uncomfortable it makes the reader, the fact remains that there is no such thing. Nowhere in the Constitution is privacy even alluded to as a right. This is assumption rather than interpretation.

And that is where it gets very problematic. It goes back to why the United States was founded in the first place. The United States of America was founded on the belief that written law should be abided by all, and by the letter. The Continental Army was fighting against a government that had been gradually twisting and loosely interpreting various written laws that comprised the code of the British Empire. In other words, the very method of interpreting law that our Founding Fathers fought against was implemented in that court case. Deviation from written law is dangerous and this has been seen many times throughout modern history.

17 years before Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court had ruled against striking down State laws against sodomy. The case was known as Bowers v. Hardwick and it is built on effective axioms, at least one of which is still relevant to the present situation. Each point that comprised the case is supported by undeniable fact. Going through them one by one:

“Against a background in which many States have criminalized sodomy and still do, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ or ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty’ is, at best, facetious.”⁴

This is true, as high-ranking ACLU member Peter Irons wrote: “All the original thirteen states had made sodomy a criminal offense when the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution in 1791. As late as 1961, all fifty states had outlawed sodomy.”⁵ At this time in legal history the ‘right to privacy’ first made its appearance regarding moral affairs like abortion, birth control, and various products. Yet this was a far different affair, as Bowers shows regarding previous ‘right to privacy cases’:

“No connection between family, marriage, or procreation on the one hand and homosexual activity on the other has been demonstrated, either by the Court of Appeals or the respondent. Moreover, any claim that these cases nevertheless stand for the proposition of any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable.”⁶

To use an old cliché, the Court realized that there was a Pandora’s Box and they knew better than to open it. There are numerous sexual acts not even condoned by the more sexually libertine of North America that are done in private and with consent. Should we legalize them all? In Canada, the age of consent is 14. By their ‘modern’ standards, there is nothing wrong with a 50 year-old man having sex with a 15 year old girl. Is that what we are headed for? The Court knew then that overstepping the bounds of written law was contrary to the vision of the Founding Fathers and indeed of any stable society. They put so well in the majority opinion:

“The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.”⁷

It must be stressed that Bowers v. Hardwick is no Plessy v. Ferguson, which was the decision to sustain racial segregation. Bowers leaves open the opportunity for individual States to remove their anti-sodomy laws. (In other words, State’s Rights.) Further, the wording of the majority opinion considered homosexuals to be people, not inferiors to heterosexuals.

17 years later, the Court made a bad legal argument that happened to be popular. This new decision was Lawrence v. Texas. This decision forsook the belief that written law, the very entity that had preserved rights and freedoms for centuries, was sufficient. They decided to use their own false assumptions regarding history and science to make a decision that shall hurt the USA in the long run. Point by point, the majority opinion is laden with errors:

“It shall be noted, however, that there is no long-standing history in this country of laws directed at homosexual conduct as a distinct matter.”⁸

Obviously Irons, who did not side with the Court on Bowers, debunks this point. A doubtful worldview is noted as well as the majority opinion then makes a butchered argument claiming that the laws of the States were against sodomy and therefore not against homosexuals. The mindset of the Court in 2003 was far different than in 1986, as by now claims of a ‘gay gene’ (see Section II) and the Matthew Shepard murder no doubt impacted their decision. They also do what was frowned upon by the Founding Fathers as well as numerous Justices through the decades: they appealed to non-US laws and decisions. They cite the efforts of the European Court of Human Rights and other national courts.⁹ But European nations also have legal punishments for blasphemy and fully outlaw stem-cell research. Why isn’t the Court using these judgments and implementing them upon us, the people who have little if any contribution as to who gets on the bench?

There is one last troubling statement found in Lawrence:

“This case does not involve minors, persons who might be injured or coerced, those who might not easily refuse consent, or public conduct or prostitution.”¹⁰

It’s supposed to be a disclaimer, making sure that nothing else gets legalized because of this decision. The problem is that it won’t work. In the way that this Court disregarded written law and Constitutional tradition future ones could easily do the same. Worse yet, the terms like “minors”,“public conduct”, and “injured or coerced” are not legally defined, meaning that future appellants could twist the words to fit their worldview. We are living in Pandora’s Box, and hopefully it will not be too long before this case is overturned.

II. “There is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of 'reparative therapy' as a treatment to change one's sexual orientation”

--American Psychiatric Association

During the 1960s and 1980s Noam Chomsky developed a concept known as the language acquisition device, or LAD, a hypothesized neurobiological structure that enables human beings to learn language. If proven true, it would mean that environment has almost nothing to do with the linguistic talents of a human being and genetics is the sole factor in the matter. However, this structure has never been found and there are infamous examples of children who were deprived of learning language and at adulthood have almost no linguistic abilities in any language. LAD, as it were is unproven and in some cases challenged.

The doublespeak of the psychological world can be quite astounding. Although they emphasize often that traits are a mixture of nature and nurture, when it comes to some topics, including homosexuality, they say strictly nature and nothing else. As Savin-Williams and Diamond warn:

“Those who dichotomize sexual orientation into pure biological or social causation fall into a dangerous quagmire. To deny any role for biology affirms an untenable scientific view of human development. Equally harsh and deterministic would be to deny the significance of the environment.”¹¹

This would be a blow to the unabashed statements of liberal clergyman Bishop John Shelby Spong, who regularly attacks Fundamentalists. Writes Spong, “homosexual orientation is a minority but perfectly natural characteristic on the human spectrum of sexuality. It is not something one chooses, it is something one is.”¹² But this statement, as aforementioned, goes against the Epigenetic Theory of development, which states that there is a mixture of nature and nurture. According to Plasticity, “Every individual, and every trait within each individual, can be altered at any point in the life span. Change is ongoing, although neither random nor easy.”¹³ And the profession of psychology is not alone in the ignored status.

Sociology and the impact of self-fulfilling prophecy are ignored as well in stating that only genetic factors determine sexual preferences. And yet, there is a body of research devoted to proving this doubtful hypothesis. A famous attempt came from a study by Simon LeVay.

“The study indicated that the hypothalamus (a region in the brain linking the nervous system and the endocrine system along with controlling hunger and body temperature) sizes differed in the case between six women, 16 heterosexual men and 19 homosexual men. The hypothalamus of women and homosexual men appeared to be similar, while the hypothalamuses of heterosexual men were larger.”¹⁴

Although mass media heralded this find as proof, problems abounded. As observed by author and Professor Roger Lancaster, who heads the Cultural Studies Department at George Mason University:

“The reported variations between gay men’s and straight men’s average hypothalamus size might indicate that homosexuality is the behavioral effect of a biological cause, but just as logically, the findings might suggest that hypothalamus size is the biological effect of the behavioral cause”¹⁵

Other problems with the axioms of the study (for example, all cadavers used that had not died of AIDS were assumed to be heterosexual) made LeVay challenge his own study. As he would later write:

“When a gay man, for example, says he was born gay, he generally means that he felt different from other boys at the earliest age he can remember. Sometimes the difference involved sexual feelings, but more commonly it involved some kind of gender-nonconformist or 'sex-atypical' traits--disliking rough-and-tumble play, for example--that were not explicitly sexual. These differences, which have been verified in a number of ways, suggest that sexual orientation is influenced by factors operating very early in life, but these factors could still consist of environmental forces such as parental treatment in the early postnatal period.”¹⁶ (My italics.)

Another study cited often was one done by Bailey and Pillard on twins. This too was supposed to have eliminated nurture as a contributor to the homosexual orientation. But it was flawed in its methodology as well. Khan explains:

“J. Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard studied cases of homosexuality in twin brothers, in which at least one was gay. The brothers researched lived together, and so environmental factors of twins growing up in different areas were not considered. Also, Bailey and Pillard took ads out for volunteers in gay publications.”¹⁷

There is one last major study used by the Gay Rights Movement to justify the claim of sexual orientation being fixed at birth. “The third popular study was conducted by Dean Hamer who examined 40 homosexual brothers, out of which 33 shared a series of five similar genetic attributes.”¹⁸ There was an especially loud response to this one from the mass media, who attribute this study to opening up the whole debate over fixed orientation. Lesser known to most in the political left was the eventual debunking of this infamous study. Hamer did not have a heterosexual control group and many noted that he probably inflated the numbers in his conclusion.

Eventually, after conducting a replicate study that had far less pro-fixed orientation results, Hamer conceded. “We have not found the gene—which we don’t think exists—for sexual orientation.”¹⁹ Hamer would later write that “The pedigree study failed to produce what we originally hoped to find: simple Mendelian inheritance. In fact, we never found a single family in which homosexuality was distributed in the obvious sort of pattern that Mendel observed in his pea plants."²⁰ The search for the fixed attribute has fallen flat on many occasions. And there have been other attempts, as reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation:

“The new study used DNA from 52 pairs of gay brothers. These were recruited via advertisements in two Canadian gay news magazines. Mr. Williams expressed surprise that so many homosexuals were willing to help in such experiments. The researchers looked to see if the gay brothers shared more of the candidate genetic markers than would be expected. Any pair of brothers will share about half their DNA on any particular chromosome. They found that 46% of the 52 pairs of brothers shared three key markers. In the previous study, which considered five markers, those scientists reported that 83% of 40 pairs shared the markers.”²¹

The researchers summed up the conclusion: “Because our study was larger than the original one, we certainly had adequate power to detect a genetic effect as large as was reported in that study…Nonetheless, our data does not support the presence of a gene of large effect influencing sexual orientation.”²² Another more recent example was reported with considerable bias in the Washington Post. Anthony F. Bogaert et al. of Brock University in Canada conducted this study.²³ Despite the title of the brief article, the conclusion paragraph conceded much:

“No similar links have been noted for lesbianism. And even among boys, the birth order effect—which becomes a prominent influence in boys with two or three brothers or more—accounts for only about one in every seven gay men, Bogaert and colleagues have calculated.”²⁴

And yet, there was all but a promise made that the search shall continue. Despite the many failures and misinformation, the effort is still alive. Why? More than likely because as many have observed this is a major reason why people have adhered and aided the Gay Rights Movement. If someone cannot change an attribute, then why should people oppose it? That reasoning is fused into the movement. This even though entities with no genetic factors at all (political party affiliation, e.g.) are not outlawed and possible findings on a ‘rape gene’ would obviously not encourage people to decriminalize the act in question.

What about the other side? There was at least one famous study by pro-gay activist Dr. Rob Spitzer, who had been instrumental in various ways in getting homosexuality removed from the DSM list of disorders. More shall be spoken of on the issue of the 1973 decision later. Spitzer’s study was a series of telephone interviews of 200 ex-gays, with the questions focusing on sexual desires and preferences. It seemed to prove that homosexuality was changeable.

As Spitzer himself said after the study “Some people can and do change. Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could only be resisted, and that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe this to be false."²⁵ As with the studies usually cited by politicians and activists that ‘undeniably’ prove homosexuality to be unchangeable, this ‘undeniable evidence’ to the contrary has problems. The people surveyed were never kept track of and there is a potentiality that most of them reverted back to the homosexual lifestyle. As religioustolerance.org reports:

“Of the 200 subjects, 86 had been referred to Dr. Spitzer by conservative Christian groups specializing in converting homosexuals. NARTH referred 46 subjects. Some other sources provided 68. It is apparent that the individuals that Dr. Spitzer interviewed were hand-selected from a very large group of persons who had either a homosexual or a bisexual orientation. Those who had been unable to change their sexual behavior would not have become subjects in the study.”²⁶

But the assessment of religioustolerance.org leaves out one key helper to the ex-gay side: the evidence was contrary to the original hypothesis of the experimenter. Not to mention that compared to the sample space of the widely accepted LeVay and Hamer studies, this had a larger number of participants. Further, there are other studies, undisputed and proven, that do vindicate changeability in sexual orientation. Given political correctness and establishment, they rarely get headlines, but they nevertheless exist. Secular Humanist Nathaniel S. Lehrman, who is a former Clinical Director of the Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, NY, explains the problem of classifying sexual orientation:

“Should the term include anyone who has ever engaged in sex-same relationships? Or only those currently involved? After Anne Heche’s well-publicized three-year lesbian relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres ended, she married and now has a baby. Is she gay, ex-gay, bisexual, or simply sexually confused? Has her supposedly fixed orientation changed between then and now?”²⁷

In the Greek Polis of Sparta, soldiers in the barracks were encouraged to practice sodomy amongst one another. Yet, as the records tell, all of them were married, had children, and were sexually attracted to women. Similar practices can be found in the Hellenistic world and as far as Rome, and yet no record ever exists in which people were identified as ‘Homosexual.’ That is a modern term applied to people whose physical or mental attributes contradicted common gender roles.²⁸ Even the usual suspects have no real confirmation of their preferences. For example, only some historians who wrote in Ancient times identified a male lover for Alexander the Great, making the notion that he was ‘Homosexual’ questionable. What also doesn’t help was that he did indeed get married near the end of his reign.

Lisa M. Diamond, assistant professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, studied 80 women between ages 16 and 23 that were professed lesbians. The study began in 1994 and by 1999, 48% of them had changed their sexual preferences.²⁹ Gillian Rodgerson, a British clinic worker, reported in 1996 that 25% of her London clinic clients who were lesbian had had sex with a man in the last six months.³⁰ Even the APA will at times admit that orientation is not fixed, as seen in a recent finding by Ellen Schecter, Ph. D.,

“Schecter, of the Fielding Graduate Institute, presented results from a qualitative study in which she conducted in-depth interviews with 11 women who had identified as lesbians for more than 10 years, but who after age 30 were now in intimate relationships with men lasting at least a year.”³¹

And there are other studies and evidence of both objective and subjective nature found to substantiate that there is no genetic link or fixed orientation to be found in the human body. The very notion that homosexuality is fixed at birth or is otherwise inalterable is built on bad science. Of course not everyone who tries to change their orientation is going to succeed, but as one psychiatrist remarked, “Approximately thirty percent of those coming to treatment for any reason can be converted to the heterosexual adaptation.”³² The ‘born-that-way’ idea is just one of many inaccuracies found in the movement that is well accepted in the West.

III. “We now know that homosexuality is part of the essential nature of approximately 10% of the population.”

--Bishop John Shelby Spong

This is one of the many inaccurate statements floating around pro-gay circles and yet remains due to any dissent in the movement being labeled ‘homophobia.’ The number derives from a supposed study performed by the famous and infamous sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. It must be noted that Spong is heterosexual, but Dean Hamer, who first proposed the notion of a gay gene, is homosexual. Ergo, he is not likely to be homophobic. Hamer writes,

“Kinsey himself never said 10 percent of the population was gay; but that 10 percent of adult white males he surveyed--many of them prisoners--had been predominantly homosexual for a period of three or more years, sometime between age 16 through their 50's. Fewer than 4 percent of them had been predominantly or exclusively homosexual for all of their adult lives.”³³

In 1973, there were many things that took place in the world. There was the landmark judicial decision to legalize abortion, known as Roe v. Wade. The United Nations, thanks to heavy pressure by Arab nations and the USSR, was able to pass a mandate declaring Zionism a form of racism. South Vietnam was largely abandoned by the United States and left to be subjugated by a violent Communist rule from the North that exists to this very day. In North America, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of psychosexual disorders, of which still includes incest, fetishes, and voyeurism; acts that are often performed in private and can be consensual.

However, despite the widespread usage of the event by pro-gay activists, the situation was far from as clear cut as they claim. For one, only 37% of the APA actually voted for the measure, and of that less than two-thirds of them favored removal. Crunching the numbers, one comes to the startling realization that the definition of acceptable behavior was determined by only 20% to 25% of a single organization. Furthermore, there is considerable evidence that it was a politically driven decision, for other times in the past the political pull of the Gay Rights Movement is found in matters regarding both the APA and AIDS activism. Writes pro-gay activist Ronald Bayer about just one of the many events that led to the decision,

“Using forged credentials, gay activists gained access to the exhibit area and, coming across a display marketing aversive conditioning [i.e., punishing an organism whenever it makes a particular response] techniques for the treatment of homosexuals, demanded its removal. Threats were made against the exhibitor, who was told that unless his booth was dismantled, it would be torn down. After frantic behind-the-scenes consultations, and in an effort to avoid violence, the convention leadership agreed to have the booth removed."³⁴ (My italics.)

But there is more to this than striking down laws and editing psychological mandates. This is a lifestyle that is being written about. Behaviors and lifestyles, if destructive or self-destructive enough, should and are monitored and/or restricted by the government. Consider smoking. There are numerous harmful side effects to that practice, and the act of lighting a cigarette and smoking is heavily regulated and restricted. In many places it’s in fact outlawed. This even though smoking tends to be a willing voluntary action and often done in private. Many people feel heavily connected to smoking, and it is very hard to quit the practice. Opposition to smoking is widely accepted and no one uses labels like ‘fume-o-phobic.’

Of the lifestyles now protected by law in North America, few are as self-destructive and destructive as the homosexual act. This was not first appreciated until the AIDS epidemic. Although it is almost certain that the act of homosexuality did not bring this virus into existence, the spread of the pestilence is another story altogether as long-time AIDS activist Dr. Stephen C. Joseph writes,

“The 1970s and early 1980s had seen an explosion of gay sexuality accompanying the gay rights movement and the ‘uncloseting’ of large numbers of homosexual men, especially in cities with a history of relative tolerance. In these sexual magnet cities, overt expressions of gay sexuality flourished. By their own reports, many men had large numbers of sexual partners annually, often numbering in the hundreds and even in the thousands.”³⁵

And it doesn’t stop there. As Dr. Joseph, who is Dean of the School of Public Health and Professor of Public Health and of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, further explains:

“Frenetic casual and anonymous sex was widespread among homosexual and bisexual men. Bathhouses, back rooms of bars and clubs, and other public settings such as erotic bookstores and movie theaters were, in effect, wide open. Sexual practices such as anonymous group sex, sado-masochistic fantasies enacted with physical trauma, penetration of rectal orifices with penises, fists, and blunt objects—all these practices and more were accompanied by extremely high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and set the scene for the rapid transmission of HIV once it appeared in the late 1970s.”³⁶

According to Diggs,

“It is well established that there are high rates of psychiatric illnesses, including depression, drug abuse, and suicide attempts, among gays and lesbians. This is true even in the Netherlands, where gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) relationships are far more socially acceptable than in the U.S. Depression and drug abuse are strongly associated with risky sexual practices that lead to serious medical problems.”³⁷

Research by Rompalo and others shows that diseases disproportionately frequent amongst the homosexual community include Anal Cancer, Chlamydia trachomatis, Cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, Herpes simplex virus, Human immunodeficiency virus, Human papilloma virus, Isospora belli, Microsporidia, Gonorrhea, Viral hepatitis types B & C, and Syphilis.³⁸

Writes Lehrman,

“Homosexuality is also associated with a higher mortality. A major Canadian medical center found the life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men was 8 to 20 years less than that for all men. It further estimated that nearly half of today’s gay and bisexual 20-year-olds would not reach their 65th birthday.”³⁹

Other studies are not so optimistic. One of the lesser-known findings reveals that of all 20-year-old homosexuals 30% will be HIV positive or dead of AIDS before they reach their 30th birthday.⁴⁰ This is the lifestyle that we as Americans and indeed as a human race have to accept or else be deemed homophobic. That is the most disturbing thing about these and plenty of other numbers found for both lesbians and male homosexuals: no one is doing anything to stem off the destruction. Indeed, knee-jerk tendencies seem to be the theme of the day.

When Stephen C. Joseph was Commissioner of Health of New York City during the late 1980s to 1990s, he encountered resistance from the NYC gay community. Although it never hit on a legal basis, as the ACLU chapter of New York protested his efforts to contain the AIDS virus, he was nevertheless attacked. This was because Joseph had come to the rational conclusion that closing down most of the gay bars and clubs, as well as movie theaters, would decrease the number of HIV infections. Deciding that rights never guaranteed in the first place (see Section I) should be militantly protected, one editor wrote:

“May I suggest that if he wants to contain the health crisis, Stephen Joseph should get off our backs, let our turf alone, fire his pecker checkers and instead hire educational teams to dispense information and condoms in places where sex occurs?”⁴¹ In other words the editor of that newspaper would rather have seen the fictional ‘right to privacy’ be acknowledged and the lifestyle perpetuated than have even some restriction. People rose in protest over the lacking gun control found in much of the country, and now we have restrictions on that 2nd Amendment guarantee. All rights, even if they actually exist as written in the US Constitution, are finite in nature. That is how a proper democratic-republic works. Even as the lifestyle destroys lives in the legions, somehow we’re supposed to do nothing and ‘respect’ it. This is insane, and if put into any other context would be acknowledged as ridiculous. Even Spong, that liberal Bishop, acknowledges things:

“Conservative political and religious circles are rejoicing that faithful, monogamous marriage and a disciplined, self-chosen celibacy might be reestablished as the norms of this society—if not for moral reasons, at least for health reasons. They suggest that such a return to traditional morality alone will diminish the impact of these diseases. It is a powerful argument.”⁴²

“60% of the syphilis in America today is in gay men. Excuse me, men who have sex with men. Palm Springs has the highest number of syphilis cases in California. Palm Springs? I do not want to hear each week how many more of you are becoming hooked on meth. HIV infections are up as much as 40%. You cannot continue to allow yourselves and each other to act and live like this!”

These were not the words of a southern white minister or conservative Republican politician, but of Larry Kramer, life-long AIDS activist, liberal, and open homosexual. For all of his faults, he seems to know more about the real world than that Canadian senator who said hateful words with impunity. Or the 6 Supreme Court Judges who voted against the other 3 in Lawrence v. Texas, reading far more into the US Constitution than is actually present. As the West further depreciates morality on many fronts, they do so ignorant of the nature of homosexuality; a changeable and harmful act consensually performed without criminal prosecution thanks to interpolations on a document whose authors expressly forbade such.

It is a pity that more than likely it will only be a matter of time before my work, for all of its’ success in citing only neutral or liberal sources for evidence, shall be deemed hate literature by future ‘tolerant’ legislatures. Indeed, in days as these anything that opposes the entity dubbed the Gay Rights Movement by some and the Homosexual Agenda by others shall be dubbed homophobia, which in fact devalues a real problem in some places. I do believe there is such a thing as homophobia, even if the Matthew Shepard murder was free from it. There are people who hate homosexuals just because of their sexual preferences. And what some of them do is abominable, disgusting, and indeed unrighteous.

But persecution does not imply justification. In the 1950s, the Western Allies removed their military zones from West Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany was formed. The political party that came to power in this new democracy was the Christian Democratic Union. One of their first actions was to outlaw the National Socialist German Democratic Workers Party, a.k.a. the NAZI Party. This outlawing could be argued by some to be a form of persecution, but would anyone with a decent morality say that the persecuted group in question was justified? I would hope not. But that is exactly the reasoning found in many efforts to proselytize individuals by the movement I described in this work.

My magic trick is over, but the illusion, or rather delusion continues. It is propagated by mass media, by organizations like PFLAG and the ACLU, by politicians of both Republican and Democratic tendencies, by scientists whose quests are comparable to the alchemists of old, by community leaders and their pressure groups, by ordinary people who know nothing different and unfortunately it’s all too powerful.

Appendix 1:

“They 'forget' to relate the address by ‘Dr. Anonymous’ at the 1972 APA convention. Dr. ‘A’ spoke for 200 gay members of the association and for gay people at large when he spoke of the APA's repressive homophobia”

The above quote was taken from a website I looked into for antithesis for this opus. It was written by a member of the Rainbow Alliance, found at http://rainbowallianceopenfaith.homestead.com/TVC_APA.html. They were attempting to refute the Traditional Values Coalition’s usage of the book Homosexuality and American Society. Now of course, since they used only sources that ideologically agreed with them (namely the book in question) I could only trust so much of what they said, but this part really struck me as interesting.

Many then and now say homosexuality is not a disorder because since the individual who identifies himself or herself as a homosexual does not feel distress, then it must be normal. If it is considered part of one’s persona then whatever the feelings are must be acceptable, right? This is actually not true, as there are many disorders that fall under the category of ego-syntonic, which means they are considered by the sufferer to be essential to a person’s sense of self. Examples of ego-syntonic mental disorders include personality disorders such as schizotypal, antisocial, and histrionic. People with these mental disorders do not believe they have a problem and suffer no distress from their disposition.

Here is testimony from someone who as far as every credible and respected psychologist through the decades believed was mentally ill is claiming that in fact he’s okay, and so are a couple hundred or so of his associates. His primary justification is that he doesn’t think that he has a problem. Since when have decent decisions in the field of any science, least of all psychology, determined whether someone was ill because of what the patient said? Empirically speaking, it is a disaster for objectivity. What if 200 plus psychologists suffered from hallucinations, but at the same time said they were okay and had no problems. Would that be justification for removing hallucinations from the pervasive developmental disorders category?

Yet that is exactly what happened with the 1973 decision. A minority of the APA decided that because some of the proposed treatments for homosexually were disturbing and that some people who were homosexual believed they had no mental disorder they should remove homosexually from the DSM-II list of disorders. Many mental and physical aliments have had in the past poor means of treatment, and yet people still consider them malevolent even if the victims in question do not feel any pain or problems with the illness. Lacking empirical data, lacking scientific observation, laden with subjectivity: these are not terms we associate with proper scientific inquiry and yet they make the foundation for that 1973 idea.

Appendix 2: (Writer’s Note: This Appendix is time sensitive; the Amendment mentioned has already been voted on and approved via referendum in the Commonwealth of Virginia.)

“Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

These were not the words of a white Protestant minister or a Conservative Republican, but rather those of the chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean. It is not truly appreciated just how much of a minority the sect that wants there to be a gay marriage in existence. For its ballot initiative, 61% of California opposed gay marriage. Legalizing gay marriage is based off of a false assumption: that couples rather than individuals have the right to determine a marriage. Marriage is a fundamental right for individuals and contrary to what some pundits may tell you, homosexuals have the right to marry already in all 50 States, but they have to marry someone of the opposite sex, just like everyone else. David Shapiro, editor of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, put it best:

“There’s no civil right to marry whomever you wish. Gay and lesbian couples aren’t the only ones who can’t get marriage licenses. You can’t get a license to marry your brother or sister. You can’t get a license to marry more than one person at a time. You can’t get a license to marry a 9-year-old child or your horse.”⁴³

On November 7th, 2006 Virginia will vote to further its preexisting ban on alternative marriages, which includes not just homosexuality but also cohabitation, polygamy, bigamy, and child marriages. In theory everything that deviates from the scientifically proven benevolent norm of one-man one-woman marriage shall not be given the legal protection of the standard in question. Of course, given this is politics numerous myths have arisen from political activists. Notably are the claims that non-marriage entities like hospital visitation, inheritance rights, and property rights will also be targeted. This is just not true.

The marriage amendment does not touch base on any of these issues, and it must be noted neither does sexual orientation. There have no recorded instances in which any major hospital in any state has refuse to let someone visit a friend or family member because of their sexual preferences. Now of course, there is a chance that they were denied because of the patient being in critical condition and the visitor interpreted this to be discrimination. Furthermore, any inheritance issues are resolved by making a will, just like how it is for the rest of us. These and other claims of addition restrictions are scare tactics, pure and simple.

Justice Martha B. Sosman, cast one of the dissenting votes in the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage. Her points against gay marriage and the dangers of the Courts deciding the laws ring true even South of the Mason-Dixon border; her words shall be juxtaposed those that oppose the Virginia Amendment. Important to note are some claims by Jim Moran, Democratic Representative and a political legend in Northern Virginia. Remember, Justice Sosman is a legal professional and Moran is a professional politician.

Moran: “Nobody’s marriage is endangered. This is crazy.”⁴⁴

Sosman: “In considering whether the Legislature has a rational reason for postponing a dramatic change to the definition of marriage, it is surely pertinent to the inquiry to recognize that this proffered change affects not just a load-bearing wall of our social structure but the very cornerstone of that structure.”⁴⁵

Moran: “And this goes directly counter to what our Constitution is all about, prohibiting, limiting individual rights.”⁴⁶

Sosman: “Applying that deferential test in the manner it is customarily applied, the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from the institution of civil marriage passes constitutional muster.”⁴⁷

Moran: “We shouldn’t be spending our time trying to seek political gain at the expense of people who want to live committed lives with each other.”⁴⁸

Sosman: “…it is rational for the Legislature to postpone any redefinition of marriage that would include same-sex couples until such time as it is certain that that redefinition will not have unintended and undesirable social consequences.”⁴⁹

This has to be done. There is a direct threat to heterosexual marriage from gay marriage and/or civil unions, just as there is a threat to it from frivolous divorce, starter marriages, and polygamy. Of the 5,700 couples that got civil unions in Vermont after that state legalized them “nearly 40 percent have had a previous heterosexual marriage.”⁵⁰ Therefore it is not as though there are zero side effects hitting the majority population. Had Courts not overstep their boundaries and, as the cliché goes, legislate from the bench, this Amendment would not be necessary. If people would just realize that there are harmful effects to permissiveness, that a right is not just something one wants to do but is an act that is not harmful to the individual or the community, and that there is more than bigotry opposing their agenda then maybe just maybe this work in its entirety would have been necessary to write.

But the fact is our laws are being threatened by Courts that do not acknowledge Separation of Powers outside of voting on nominees and therefore need something more to inhibit them from doing all the tasks allotted to the other branches of government and of course the people. Ergo, the Amendment is necessary and Constitutional.

Sources:

1. “New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder” http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=3 retrieved March 29th, AD 2006

2.Ibid.

3.“Matthew Shepard” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard retrieved March 29th, AD 2006.

4.US Supreme Court, Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986), pp.191-194.

5.Irons, Peter, Courage of Their Convictions (USA: The Free Press, division of MacMillan, Inc.) 1988, p.384.

6.Bowers v. Hardwick.

7.Ibid.

8.US Supreme Court, Lawrence et al v. Texas, Centiorari to the Court of Appeals of Texas, Fourteenth District, No. 02-102, (2003) pp.3-6.

9.Lawrence et al v. Texas.

10.Ibid.

11.Berger, Kathleen Stassen, The Developing Brain (6th ed.) Bronx Community College and City University of New York, Worth Publishers 2005, page 55.

12.Spong, John Shelby, Living in Sin? (HarperSanFrancisco, A Division of Harper Collins Publishers) 1988, page 198.

13.Berger, The Developing Brain, p.4.

14.“Cultural Studies: Are There Gay Genes, or is Sexuality a Social Construct?” by Zahira Khan, Broadside 01—30—06, Volume 78, Issue 2, p.2.

15.Ibid.

16.LeVay, Simon, Queer Science (Cambridge Massachusetts, MIT Press) 1996, p.6.

17.Khan, Broadside, p.2.

18.Ibid.

19.“Sexuality: Styles and Stories” http://www.indiana.edu/~health/panel.htm#guess under the “In Our Genes? GLBT People and Biology” category, retrieved April 5th, AD 2006. Also found in Gagnon, Robert A.J., The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Nashville: Abingdon Press) 2001, p.400.

20.Hamer and Copeland, The Science of Desire (New York: Simon and Schuster) 1994, page 104.

21.BBC news, April 23rd, 1999, “Doubt cast on 'gay gene’”, retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/325979.stm on April 4th, AD 2006.

22.Ibid.

23.Rick Weiss, “Changes in the Womb Tied to Homosexuality In Boys with Brothers”, Washington Post, Tuesday June 27th 2006, 129th Year, No. 204, A2.

24.Ibid.

25.“Analysis of Dr. Spitzer’s Study of Reparative Therapy” retrieved from http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_spit.htm on April 2nd, AD 2006.

26.Ibid.

27.Lehrman, Nathaniel S., “Homosexuality: Some Neglected Considerations”, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10, Number 3, Fall 2005, page 81.

28.Hunt et al., The Making of the West (Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s) 2003, pp. 823-824. It must further be noted that the man who coined the term Homosexual, Dr. Havelock Ellis, considered it a “personality type” as opposed to a genetic trait.

29.Diamond, Lisa M., “Was it a Phase? Young women's relinquishment of lesbian/bisexual identities over a 5-year period", Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 2003, 84; pages 352-364.

30.Rodgerson, Gillian, “All in the Family? What do you call a Lesbian who Sleeps with a Man?”, Diva, June 1996, page 43.

31.“Labels may oversimplify women's sexual identity, experiences”, Monitor on Psychology, Volume 35, No. 9 October 2004, p.28.

32.Barnhouse, Ruth Homosexuality: A Symbolic Confusion (New York: Seabury Press) 1977, p.60.

33.Hamer and Copeland,The Science of Desire page 98.

34.Bayer, Donald, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (New York: Basic Books) 1981, pages 105-106.

35.Joseph, Stephen C. Dragon Within the Gates (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.) 1992, p. 98.

36.Ibid.

37.Diggs, Jr., John R., “The Health Risks of Gay Sex”, Corporate Research Council, retrieved from http://www.corporateresourcecouncil.org/white_papers/Health_Risks.pdf on April 5th, AD 2006.

38.Anne Rompalo, "Sexually Transmitted Causes of Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Homosexual Men," Medical Clinics of North America, 74(6): 1633-1645 (November 1990); "Anal Health for Men and Women," LGBTHealthChannel, www.gayhealthchannel.com/analhealth/; "Safer Sex (MSM) for Men who Have Sex with Men," LGBTHealthChannel, www.gayhealthchannel.com/stdmsm/. (Retrieved from Diggs, Jr., “The Health Risks of Gay Sex” on April 5th, AD 2006.)

39.Lehrman, Nathaniel S., “Homosexuality: Some Neglected Considerations”, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10, Number 3, Fall 2005, page 82.

40.Goldman, E.L., “Psychological Factors Generate HIV Resurgence in Young Gay Men,” Clinical Psychiatry News, October 1994, p. 5.

41.Quote from Joseph, Stephen C., Dragon Within the Gates, p. 106.

42.Spong, Living in Sin?, p. 168.

43.David Shapiro, Editorial, Honolulu Star Bulletin, December 16, 1995.

44.Jim Moran, “The Marriage Amendment is Discriminatory”, Alexandria Times, Vol.2, No.29, July 20-27th, 2006, A5.

45.J. Sosman, dissenting, Hillary GOODRIDGE & others [FN1] vs. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH & another. [FN2]

46.Moran, Alexandria Times, A5.

47.J. Sosman, Goodridge v. Department of Health.

48.Moran, Alexandria Times, A5.

49.J. Sosman, Goodridge v. Department of Health.

50.Patricia Wen, “A Civil Tradition”, Boston Globe (June 29th, 2003), taken from the Globe’s website, http://ni.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives (accessed September 27th, AD 2006)