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The Myth of the Benign Nature of HomosexualityTo
run down the statistics on promiscuity, disease, alcohol
and drug addiction, is to sound like gay bashing (and
sometimes it is), but to refuse to look at these statistics
is to engage in deadly denial. It is simple fact that
for a man to pursue a homosexual life enormously increases
his chance of contracting a serious disease or of experiencing
an early death. A recent study of over 5,000 obituaries
in gay papers showed the average age of death for gay
men from all causes to be 41.~ True much of this is
the result of AIDS, but not all of it. Homosexuals account
for 80% of the serious sexually transmitted disease
in the United States.6
Gay men are six times more likely to have attempted
suicide than straight men.7
One study showed that between 25 and 33% of homosexual
men and women are alcoholics.8
A
major source of the destructive nature of the homosexual
life is the tendency towards promiscuity, even compulsive
behavior, among gay men. Few studies, even in the age
of AIDS, show gay men having fewer than 50 lifetime
partners, and a Kinsey institute study showed 43% of
gay men estimating that they had had 500 or more partners,
28% over 1,000.~ Over half of the respondents to this
survey revealed that the majority of their sexual partners
were people they did not know the day before they had
sex with them. The rebuttal to these statistics is always
that it is society’s fault. If society sanctioned and
supported committed gay relationships, this wouldn’t
occur. History is not bearing this out. The great increase
in the acceptance of homosexual relationships over the
past 20 years indicates no such result, nor do demographics.
The places where homosexuality is the most accepted
are also the places where the rates of homosexually
transmitted diseases are highest.
If
what I have called myths are indeed true — gays are
a unique class of people who were born to be homosexual
and who cannot change-and if there is really nothing
wrong with homosexuality, then on a secular basis at
least, we could justify accepting homosexual behavior
and affirming homosexual relationships. But, if in
fact, none of these myths is a proven fact, then we
could be on a terribly dangerous course, locking the
person with homosexual attractions into a narrow life,
walled in by what could be totally false beliefs. For
men, this means we are confining them to a life that
is extremely dangerous. We are sending a confusing and
wrong message to our children, especially the significant
number who at some point in their life are confused
about their sexual identity. To support the concept
of the “homosexual person” and to affirm gay relationships,
we are forced to redefine “family” at a time when w~e~
the fragility of the family is proving to be the source
of most of our severe modern social problems.
What
is perhaps most astounding — and tragic — is not that
this is the course that the secular
world
is on, but that so many in the church have bought into
secular myths so totally, that they are willing to discard
the historic teachings of the faith with respect to
human sexuality.
I
grew up with strong homosexual feelings from a very
early age. However, I grew up in a culture and in an
Episcopal Church that said to act out of these feelings
was wrong. For years I tried not to act out on them
— often unsuccessfully. I did not take on a “gay”
identity, but sought to live life as best I could as
a Christian man. I am forever grateful that I did not
buy into any of the myths described here. To my great
blessing, because of the home and the church in which
I was raised, I had a hunger for God, a hunger that
would never let me go. Eventually — 20 years ago
— I reached the point at which I was willing to
surrender these feelings and desires to God, and I embarked
on a path of change. Through Regeneration and other
like ministries, thousands of men and women have gone
down this same path.
You
shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
(John 8:32)
End
Notes
1. For
an extremely thorough study of homosexuality across
cultures and through the ages, see The Construction
of Homosexuality by David F. Greenberg (1988, University
of Chicago Press). Dr. Greenberg examines the various
forms homosexuality has taken and the culture’s
response to it.
2.
Subsequent to the Bailey-Pillard study, the British
Journal of Psychiatry (March, 1992) reported that in
their study of identical twins, where one twin was homosexual,
only 25% of the identical twin brothers were also homosexual
or bisexual Bailey and Piflard had found a 52% concurrence.
In both studies it was impossible to separate genetic
factors from environmental factors.
3.
From the article, “Demography of Sexual Orientation
in Adolescents”, in Pediatrics, the journal of
the American
Academy of Pediatrics, Vol. 89, April, 1992.
4. These
statistics and many more are offered in Reparative Therapy
of Male Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi, PhD, 1991,
Aaronson.
5. “The
Homosexual Lifespan”, from Family Research Institute,
Washington, DC, 1992
6. From
various statistics compiled and documented by the Family
Research Council in “Sexual Disorientation:
Faulty Research in the Homosexual Debate,” Washington,
DC June, 1992
7. Alan
P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study
of Diversity Among Men and Women, Simon
& Schuster, New York, 1978,
8. Robert
J. Kus, “Alcoholics Anonymous and Gay American
Men,” Journal of Homosexuality, Volume 114, No.
2, 1987.
9. Bell
and Weinberg.
For
information about Regeneration and its ministry to men
and women seeking to overcome homosexuality, write to:
Regeneration
P.
0. Box 9830
Baltimore, MD 21284
or
call (410) 661-0284
For
a listing of ministries like Regeneration throughout
North America write to:
Exodus
P.O.
Box 2121
San
Rafael, CA 94912
or
call (415) 454-1017
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