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Relativism and
the Homosexual Agenda
by James
R. Birrell, Ed.D.
Associate Professor of Teacher Education, BYU
Americans
may change their laws, but they cannot change God’s truth.
Introduction
In
this series of articles on relativism, which is the belief that
man is the maker of meaning and truth, I have been discussing the
consequences of this belief system on society. One consequence
is the normalization of Humanism. Humanism is, among other things,
the religion of human compassion and the gospel of unfettered freedom
from external oppression, religion, ignorance, poverty, judgment
and such. It is the noble honoring of individuality, of diversity,
and of authenticity- the doctrine of “do your own thing,” and “be
who you are; be real.” Since the relativist revolution of the 60’s
and 70’s, no group has as effectively or fiercely used humanist
logic to promote themselves as authentic, i.e., born that way, more
than homosexuals. “Born that way” is the ultimate argument of authenticity.
By making this claim, those who participate in gay sex and relationships
work to convince us - and themselves that
they are normal - with respect to their sexual urges and expressions;
and, as such, are just like the rest of us. It is the ultimate
self-definition and self-affirmation in a Humanist sense - each
man alone and individually deciding the truth of homosexuality.
In
this article, I will discuss key agendas and arguments of homosexual
activists, particularly the cunning notion of sameness between those
who participate in gay sex and relationships and those who engage
in relationships that are normal with respect to an individual’s
biological nature and reproductive organs.
The
Politics of Homosexuality
Have
you ever noticed how people who demand tolerance are often models
of intolerance themselves? Consider the ways that activists for
the normalizing and legalizing of gay sex and relationships have
treated Dr. Laura, a well-informed and outspoken critic of gay sex.
“[We want] to help them recognize that they didn’t buy controversy
when they bought this show, they bought trouble.” These were the
words of GLAAD’s executive director, Joan Garry, who was instrumental
in leading the hostile and hateful protests that eventually led
producers to cancel Dr. Schlessinger’s television program.
These
attacks on Dr. Laura began in May 1997, when a newspaper article
quoted her as saying that homosexuality is a “biological faux pas”
and that lesbian and gay parenting is “inferior” to the traditional,
two parent, heterosexual model (see Tammy Bruce, 2001). GLAAD also
took issue with Dr. Laura’s use of such terms as “biological error,”
“dysfunction,” and “disorder” to describe gay sex and relations
on her radio programs and in her newspaper columns. The press pounded
Dr. Laura by publishing accusations from gay sex and relationship
activists that described her as the epitome of “intolerance” and
“double standards” (see “Welcome…”available at:www.stopdrlaura.com/home.htm).
Some even went so far as to suggest that her personal opposition
and public position on gay sex and relationships was partly responsible
for the deaths of Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena (Tammy Bruce,
2001).
Dr.
Laura’s professional opinion about gay sex and relationships was
taken out of context and discredited, despite her being a certified
family and marriage therapist. She did not hate gays and lesbians;
she was opposed to gay sex. Here’s the statement that was so often
taken out of context by homosexual activists:
I’m
sorry; hear it one more time perfectly clear: if you’re gay or a
lesbian, it’s a biological error that inhibits you from relating
normally to the opposite sex. The fact that you are intelligent,
creative, and valuable is all true. The error is in your inability
to relate sexually, intimately, in a loving way to a member of the
opposite sex. It is a biological error. People who are gay or
lesbian are not to be hated or attacked. I spent most of my career
supporting groups like Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
because I didn’t want families to throw out their children simply
because they were gay or lesbian. They are still decent and functional
human beings - or maybe they’re not, because that indecency goes
everywhere. A bunch of guys having sex with each other after leaving
bars is indecent. Likewise, a bunch of heterosexuals leaving bars
with each other and having sex with each other is indecent. I don’t
care which way it flies (Available at: www.glaad.org/org/publications/documents/index.html?record=2286).
In
her off misquoted statement, Dr. Laura separates the person from
the act. Gay is not what you are, it is what you do, and it is
based upon a set of desires that run counter to our divine and biological
natures. She is also right in saying that no one struggling with
same sex attractions should be mistreated. President Hinckley has
weighed in on this issue. He suggests that compassion is the best
response to this situation, given that the pursuit of gay sex and
relationships comes at such a cost to individuals.
Homosexuality
and Health
While
gay sex and relationship activists were successful at shutting down
Dr. Laura’s television program, using among other things threats
of violence (see Tammy Bruce, 2001), they cannot stop the truth
from moving forward. Even if gay sex and relationships are pronounced
legal, their lethal consequences remain unchanged. Those consequences
are among the most deadly known to mankind. They include, as reported
by Dr. Jeffery Satinover, M.D. (1996):
·
A significantly decreased likelihood of establishing
or preserving a successful marriage
·
A twenty-five to thirty-year decrease in life expectancy
·
Chronic, potentially fatal, liver disease- infectious
hepatitis, which increases the risk of liver cancer
·
Frequently fatal rectal cancer
·
Inevitably fatal immune disease including associated
cancers
·
Multiple bowel and other infectious diseases
·
A much higher that usual incidence of suicide
·
Higher than usual alcoholism rates
Dr.
Satinover mentions others, but these are sufficient to express his
(and my) concerns about promoting gay sex and relationships. And
while I am on the topic of health issues and homosexuality, why
adopt children into high risk situations where one (or more) of
their gay or homosexual parents face a higher risk of serious illness
or premature death? Furthermore, the Family Research Council (FRC.Org)
reports that children raised in gay or homosexual homes are four-times
more likely to adopt this lifestyle as they mature, placing them
at risk of these same health and death issues. Gay sex is not merely
a lifestyle issue. For too many participants, it is a death sentence!
Gay
sex risks are often the result of frequent and careless sexual expression
within an arguably encapsulated community. Some studies have suggested
that men who participate in gay sex may have between 500 and 1,000
different partners in a lifetime (Bell & Weinberg, 1978). This
makes sexual fidelity unlikely, if not a near impossibility. In
a carefully researched study called The Male Couple, McWhirter
and Mattison (1984) found that of the 156 couples studied, only
seven had been able to maintain sexual fidelity; of the hundred
couples that had been together for more than five years, none had
been able to maintain sexual fidelity. The results of this sexually-defined
lifestyle is a host of health issues that invite serious and deadly
emotional and health risks, leaving an estimated 30 percent of all
twenty-year-old homosexual males HIV- positive are dead of AIDS
by the time they are age thirty (Odets, 1994).
Diversity
Propaganda and the Gay Agenda
Over
the years, I have watched the diversity movement, under the guise
of multiculturalism, expand and embrace the homosexual activist
agenda. Advocates of gay sex and relationships have moved into
mainstream thought by using the logic of race arguments of discrimination
and abuse to portray gays as a victim class in need of special protection
and privilege: there are times that gays are victims of brutality,
and this ought not to be. Yet these arguably rare events do not
justify the unprecedented cultural changes some gays advocate.
The more radical among them have sought after laws and norms that
more fully punish individuals and organizations that physically
harm or verbally disrespect gays- hate crime enhancements, or resist
their political agenda to normalize gay sex within the culture.
These powerful groups are not without confidence, or consequence.
Consider
that in 1963 the New York Academy of Medicine, concerned about an
increase in homosexual behavior, charged its Committee on Public
Health to report on the subject of homosexuality. The Committee
noted that:
Homosexuality
is indeed an illness. The homosexual is an emotionally disturbed
individual who has not acquired the normal capacity to develop satisfying
heterosexual relations.
It
also noted that:
Some
homosexuals have gone beyond the plane of defensiveness and now
argue that deviancy is a “desirable, noble, preferable way of life
(Socarides, 1992).
Ten
years later, despite any new scientific evidence, the American Psychiatric
Association (APA) voted to strike homosexuality from the officially
approved list of psychiatric illnesses. This was not the result
of years of scientific investigations that altered their conclusions,
but of intimidating activist threats to disrupt APA conferences-
and careers that placed politics ahead of science (Satinover, 1996).
Today, as an organization, the APA balks at the
idea of reparative therapy that might successfully reverse the condition,
calling into question therapists who use this successful strategy
to help gays become “normal” with regards to their reproductive
choices.
In
truth, nothing has helped to advance the gay activist cause in mainstream
society- public schooling, more than Multiculturalism - the relativist
movement to normalize all that is different and minimize all that
is traditionally dominant (White, Western and Judeo-Christian) in
American culture. The diversity curriculum now fully honors homosexuality
- especially in school and the media. By embedding itself into
arguments against discrimination, gay activists have aligned with
the militant forces that are behind the social changes espoused
in multicultural arguments. Multiculturalism, an offspring of humanism,
promotes the lie that homosexuals and heterosexuals are alike.
This is cunning sophistry because it has a degree of truth. Those
attracted to gay sex and relationships can, on average, be just
as talented, artistic, caring, athletic, and so forth as heterosexuals.
However, being gay is not about being artistic or loving and such;
it is about whom you choose to have sex with. Being gay is defined
by engaging in gay sex. That’s it! Eliminate gay sex or desires
and you have a heterosexual. Thus, when our children learn to be
sensitive to gays merely because they are equally talented, loving
and such, the truth about homosexual sex and health is obscured.
Being gay is about seeking gay sex, and seeking gay sex has enormous
social, moral, emotional and medical consequences.
I
tell my BYU students - who are becoming elementary school teachers,
to be thoughtful about how they promote homosexuality as a component
of celebrating diversity. I ask them how they could promote, as
equal, a set - any set of sexual norms and behaviors that are dangerous
and deadly - gay or straight? I have them imagine which of their
young school children, particularly the young males, would they
encourage down a path that leads to so much heartache and illness
- and premature death? I ask them how they could promote a lifestyle
that carries more arguable health risks than smoking; yet, we would
never consider promoting cigarettes in school? When they consider
the consequences of gay sex, my students quickly see that true compassion
requires them to be more thoughtful about the ways they teach impressionable
young children tolerance for gay sex and relationships.
Moreover,
when you consider that, according to Dr. James Dobson of Focus
on the Family, half the men who have AIDS in America had their
first sexual encounter with another male by age 16, and twenty-percent
by age 10, you encounter another reason not to encourage any behavior
that promotes gay sex - pedophilia. North American Man Boy Love
Association and the likes of Judith Levine, the author of Harmful
to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children
from Sex, and a sexually permissive popular culture media are
among those dedicated to eliminating social, legal and moral obstacles
that prohibit child-adult sexual relations- gay or straight. The
result is an entire generation of children being raised now to believe
that homosexuality is acceptable; to resist this idea is presented
as abnormal, mean, and bigoted.
And
children are being taught in subtle and salient ways that any sexual
relationship is acceptable. The federally approved sexuality education
information curriculum for the United States
(SEICUS.Org) endorses such views by including provisions for teaching
elementary school-aged children about masturbation and oral sex,
abortion and homosexuality. The normalizing of all sex, but especially
gay sex, takes us one step closer to the sexually liberated society
some envision where children and adult alike can explore- even and
especially together, their eroticism without fear of social, parental,
legal or ecclesiastical judgment or constraint. History attests
to the truth that a society unwilling to confine its sexual urges
to a lawful marriage will ultimately seek an awful expression of
those urges in the innocence of its children. All sin is predatory!
Conclusion
No
one really knows why roughly 2.8 percent of men are homosexual and
1.4 percent of females are lesbian (see FRC.Org). Theories abound.
But psychological theories cannot replace sound doctrine in our
minds. As I have argued, gay sex is wrong. The golden rule is
right. Let the doctrines of Christ guide you through the fog of
social change. For normalizing gay sex in the society is not merely
a confirmation of yet another form of diversity, though it is different.
Just because something is different, however, does not make it desirable
or equally as valuable as something else. When we embrace gay sex
arguments, we weaken the cultural ground surrounding the taproot
of our Church.
I
conclude with a sobering thought. If in the name of democracy, gays
are given the legal rights to marry, be clergy, and such as they
desire in order to enjoy a full expression of life on their terms,
and if it becomes a violation of hate speech laws to call homosexuality
a sin, what will become of the Church when the full force of the
federal law and popular opinion comes down upon us for allegedly
discriminating against gays in matters of obtaining temple sealings
and holding certain church positions? This problem is coming at
us like a runaway train, and our testimonies had better be strong
if we are to avoid being derailed in our faith or seduced by secular
arguments.
Bell, A., & Weinberg, M. (1978). Homosexualities: A Study
of Diversity Among Men and Women. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Bruce,
T. (2001). The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault
on Free Speech and Free Minds. New York: Forum- Random House.
Odets,
W. (1994). A Report to the American Association
of Physicians for Human Rights. In E.L. Goldman “Psychological
Factors Generate HIV Resurgence in Young Gay Men,” Clinical Psychiatry
News, October, p. 5.
Satinover,
J. (1996). Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Books.
Socarides,
C. (1993). Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality.
The Journal of Psychohistory, 10(3), p. 308.
McWhirter,
D., & Mattison, A. (1984). The Male Couple: How Relationships
Develop. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Publishers.
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