Use this scientifically validated chart to understand some terminology in this article:
100-0 Maximal heterosexual response, minimal gay response
90-10 Maximal heterosexual response, incidental gay response
80-20 Maximal heterosexual response, more than incidental gay response
70-30 Maximal heterosexual response, significant gay response
60-40 Maximal heterosexual response, very strong but lesser gay response
50-50 Maximal heterosexual response, maximal homosexual response
40-60 Maximal gay response, very strong but lesser response response
30-70 Maximal gay response, significant heterosexual response
20-80 Maximal gay response, more than incidental heterosexual response
10-90 Maximal gay response, incidental heterosexual response
0-100 Maximal gay response, minimal heterosexual response
What is absolutely pitiful is that it is only fundamentalist religious people, often Christians but sometimes also Jews, who are willing to tell the truth about homosexuality. I do not have a very high opinion of these folks, but I agree that they can be very nice people. They have been kind to the “ex-gays” in their churches and some of them are even decent to practicing gays.
Let us analyze some of these anti-gay arguments to see how valid they are. We will analyze what the webpage says are “gay lies” and see if there is anything to them or not.
Lie #1 People are born homosexual.
Well, the truth is that nobody knows. Maybe people are born gay, maybe they are not. I am convinced that many lesbians were not born gay, but some of them may have been. I am much more uncertain about gay men. If they were not born that way, certainly many of them have been gay from an early age, and of course they have all been gay since age 15, as it’s not possible for a male to become gay after age 14.
The gays really are playing fast and loose with the facts on this one though. There are definitely folks who are 100-0′s, 90-10′s and 80-20′s who engage in quite a bit of homosexuality, sometimes for many years or even a decade or two. It is very common. According the Gay Lobby, all of these folks were “born gay.” Crazy or what?
All gay people were “born that way,” and no therapy can change them straight. Nevertheless, any woman can abandon heterosexuality for lesbianism at any age, and she is “just finding her true self.” Presumably, a woman who turns lesbian at age 40, was “born that way” (born lesbian). It’s all so nutty. Clearly many females choose their sexual orientation. Many women have gone back and forth between heterosexuality and lesbianism in their lifetimes. And unlike males, lesbians committed to change can be turned straight in the lab with the same scientific behavior therapy that fails in all males (male sexual orientation cannot be altered in the lab after age 14).
Nevertheless, the anti-gays say that no one is born gay. We don’t know that either. Perhaps some folks are, perhaps they are not. The question is unsettled.
Lie #2 There is no homosexual agenda. They definitely have an agenda. Much of it is laid out in a rather sleazy book called After the Ball. It involves desensitizing people to homosexuality, getting people to actually accept homosexuality as normal, and part it seems to be to get at least gay people to move away from Christianity. From a gay document:
The teaching that only male-female sexual activity within the bounds and constraints of marriage is the only acceptable form should be reason enough for any homosexual to denounce the Christian religion.
The agenda also involves focusing on abstract rights rather than homosexual acts per se, since many Americans think homosexual acts are disgusting.
Lie #3: Homosexual behavior is just as healthy as heterosexual behavior. Apparently this is just not so. Almost no heterosexuals engage in the type of extremely risky barebacking and bugchasing phenomena. In fact, I have yet to hear of a heterosexual bugchaser. Meth use among gays appears to be higher than among straights. Breast and cervical, endometrial and ovarian cancers are all more common among lesbians than among straight women. Why this is true is not known. Lesbians have higher rates of alcohol abuse and obesity than straight women.
Lie 4: Matthew Shepard and Harvey milk were ‘gay’ martyrs and hate crime against homosexuals are high. That is some ugly stuff. Shepard and Milk were not exactly angels, but neither of these men deserved death.
One gay bashing is too many for me. Furthermore, 10% of the men who are gay-bashed are actually heterosexual (I have been gay-bashed myself before – a couple of times). It is true that the statistics are beefed up and name-calling is listed as an anti-gay hate crime. Oh boo hoo. Someone yelled at you the street and called you a faggot. So what? This means you need to call the cops and make a list of all of these incidents? Come on.
Furthermore, many gay-bashing incidents are gay men beating each other up. 50% of “gay-bashing” calls to one gay hotline involved domestic violence – one gay man beating up another one. It is also true that lesbians and gay men have far higher rates of domestic violence than straight people do. A heterosexual woman is far less likely to be a victim of domestic violence than a lesbian is. Homosexual partnerships are far more violent than straight ones, as measured by a variety of parameters. Why lesbians and gay men beat each other up so much is not known.
From the webpage:
Judge John Martaugh, chief magistrate of the New York City Criminal Court has said, “Homosexuals account for half the murders in large cities.”
Boy, that figure really sounds wrong. It would be nice to back that up.
The webpage opposes hate crimes legislation, as most anti-gay groups do. That just seems wrong. Hate crime legislation is probably a good idea.
Lie #5: Homosexuals ‘marriage’ is just like interracial marriage. Homosexual is the new black. That is nasty stuff. The webpage also says that gays do not need “special rights,” and that no gay has ever been denied employment because they are gay. This is not true. Many gays have been fired or not hired due to their sexual orientation.
Lie# 5 The American Psychiatric Association is an unbiased organization that says homosexuality is good, healthy and normal and should encouraged, and they removed homosexuality from the mental disorder list for good reason. There is something to this one. I do agree with the APA removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders, as there is not a lot of good evidence that it is a mental disorder. For one thing, gay males appear to be incurable as their orientation – 0-100, 10-90, 20-80 or whatever, cannot be modified in the slightest. Who has ever heard of an untreatable mental disorder? It is hardly even possible.
However, gays do have higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse and depression and anxiety disorders than straights. They commit and attempt suicide at much higher rates than straights do. Some of this may be explained by discrimination but not all of it can be. For instance, in Scandinavia, the most gay-friendly place on Earth, homosexuals still have high rates of drug and alcohol abuse and depressive and anxiety disorders compared to straights.
Why homosexuality seems to be tied in with drinking, drugging, depression, anxiety and suicidality is not known. Possibly it is something intrinsic in homosexuality itself that causes this. A more likely reason is that the gay lifestyle is not a very happy or healthy one and leaves gays prone to drinking and drug problems, loneliness, depression and anxiety and suicidality. The gay lifestyle certainly does not seem very healthy, either mentally or physically.
These were among the reasons homosexuality was thought to be a mental illness:
- male homosexuality looks like an addiction similar to alcoholism, drug addiction or gambling.
- High rates of perversions among male gays.
- Short and unstable relationships with many tumultuous breakups.
- Rampant promiscuity among gay men.
- A strong narcissistic tendency among gay men.
- Elevated rates of sociopathy and criminality among gay men.
- A strange, intense proselytizing tendency among gay men.
- Frequent poor relationships with fathers and strong relationships with mothers among gay men.
- Effeminate behavior among gay men and masculine behavior among lesbians implied some sort of abnormal behavior as this is not gender-typical behavior.
- Higher rates of forms of dishonesty and general amorality among gay men.
- Intense hatred of the opposite sex was often seen. Lesbians often hate men and it’s not uncommon for gay men to hate women.
As you can see, above and beyond the sexual orientation and sexual behaviors of gay men and lesbians (the behaviors at least are mainly shared by straights other than PIV sex), there does seem to be something that is not right about homosexuals. It does not appear to be a mental illness as there is no cure or treatment for it, but on the other hand, it tends to look like a mental illness. In other words, homosexuality is not a mental disorder, but it looks and acts like one. None of this really makes much sense logically speaking, and the situation remains unresolved.
The APA made its changes on the base of intense lobbying by the Gay Lobby. In 1978, my Abnormal Psychology professor was not happy with the decision and felt that homosexuality was still a mental disorder. Unfortunately, the studies that were used to conclude that gays are just as mentally healthy and normal as straights appear to have been either badly designed, flat out wrong or possibly dishonest or even fraudulent. They started from a conclusion and adjusted the facts to suit their preconceived conclusion.