Journal
of the
Family Research Institute
Founded 1982
Family Research Institute
Founded 1982
Child Molestation Among the Clergy
Vol. 18
No. 2
Mar-Apr 2003
Mar-Apr 2003
|
FAMILY RESEARCH REPORT |
Journal
of the
Family Research Institute Founded 1982 |
|
|
|
|||
Child Molestation Among the Clergy |
Vol. 18
No. 2
Mar-Apr 2003 |
||
|
INSIDE THIS ISSUE... |
|
A tantalizing mix of recent headlines Los
Angeles: Three men have told police investigators that they
were molested by openly gay Deputy Police Chief David Kalish during
the late 1970s. Last year, Kalish, now 49, was considered for police
chief. (LA Times, 3/27/03) |
How often are religious leaders involved
in child molestation? Roman Catholic priests have captured a great deal of attention
since the late 1980s. Press reports and opinion pieces in the 1990s made it
appear that child molestation was exceptionally frequent among priests. Speculation
about ‘the cause’ ranged from the celibacy rule imposed on most
priests, to the fact that, since most of those who were molested were boys,
the priesthood had become densely populated with homosexuals. What are ‘the facts’
regarding child molestation by religious leaders? Are priests more apt than Protestant
clergy to molest boys?
These are difficult questions to answer. Even were random samples of priests and
Protestant ministers asked about their sexual desires toward, and activities with,
the underage, their reports would be highly suspect. Often there are strong personal
and institutional motivations to conceal molestation. How could we be sure we
would be getting truthful responses? And in light of these difficulties, can any
reasonable empirical estimate of the rates of child molestation be generated?
Enter the news media. Cases of child sexual abuse by persons in authority are
exceptionally newsworthy. Neighbors may be interested in the stepfather who molests
his stepdaughter, but unless the stepfather is famous, it may not be worth a story.
On the other hand, ‘everyone’ is interested in the boy who got raped
in the men’s room at the mall or the girl molested by her music teacher.
So when it comes to those in charge of children Ñ as teachers, priests,
preachers, etc. Ñ it is likely that such molestations are more apt to be
covered in the press.
This is another of FRI’s series of reports derived from examining child
molestation stories in major newspapers. FRI used Academic Universe (a search
engine on the Internet) to review the whole text of the 50 national and regional
newspapers in the English-speaking world with the largest circulations. This database
was examined for “child molestation” for 1989 through 2002 inclusive,
a period of 14 years. We recorded the numbers of victims [unless it was “victims”
without a number, in which case it was counted as 2], as well as the numbers and
status [e.g., priest, teacher, policeman, father, etc.] of the perpetrators [unless
it was “perpetrators” without a number, in which case the number of
perpetrators was counted as 2].
If a minister molested his step-daughter, it was counted as a step-father molestation,
but if the child was a member of the congregation, it was counted as a molestation
by a clergyman. If a man molested both a girl and a boy, he was counted as a ‘homosexual’
perpetrator. If a man and woman molested a boy, it was counted as 0.5 heterosexual
(for the woman) and 0.5 homosexual (for the man). If a man molested a girl, it
was counted as ‘heterosexual.’ Only news stories, not opinion pieces
were tallied.
What FRI Found
There were 6,444 stories about child
molestation captured by Academic Universe, 1,914 of which concerned unique events
(that is, not additional stories about the same event, and not opinion pieces).
Of the 2,181 perpetrators in these unique stories whose sexual proclivities
could be inferred from the sex of their victim, 41% engaged in sex with their
own sex, and were counted as ‘homosexuals.’ Almost all the remaining
59% molested the opposite sex (labeled as ‘heterosexuals’), while
another 118 perpetrators violated at least 190 children of unreported sex. Of
the 5,630 underage victims, 61% were victimized by ‘homosexuals’
(i.e., 3,386 boys and 60 girls raped by those who engaged in homosexuality),
the remaining 39% by ‘heterosexuals.’
One very important thing to remember is that there are significant limitations
to newspaper stories as a database. Because some events are more newsworthy
than others, there is no way to know for sure how representative newspaper reports
of molestation are of general child sexual abuse. It is also unknown whether
the types of molestations most likely to ‘hit’ the papers Ñ
those by persons in authority over children Ñ accurately reflect molestation
rates by those same authority figures. Does an environment where one regularly
works with children encourage more temptation? Is a position of authority Ñ
with its tendency to be under greater scrutiny Ñ associated on average
with more responsible or less responsible behavior? Does a position of trust
over children allow individuals to slip ‘under the radar’ more easily
and lessen suspicion of them as potential molesters?
We know from a multitude of reports that a fairly significant fraction of homosexuals
admit to sexual molestation of the underage in one form or another. The Kinsey
Institute survey of male homosexuals in San Francisco reported that 23% of 979
admitted to sex with those no older than 16 while they themselves were at least
21 years old. Other studies also suggest that about a quarter of adult homosexuals
have had sex with the underage. Less well understood is what fraction of individuals
molest large numbers of victims. It is also unknown how rates of child molestation
vary by professional role or occupation.
These questions are important because if lots of teenage and younger boys have
been molested, for instance, by Catholic priests, does that mean that there
are a bunch of homosexual priests or merely that those who are homosexual tend
to molest more victims per capita?
Another limitation to the news story database is that molesters only ‘show
up’ in the paper after they’ve been caught. Estimates of newspaper-based
molestation rates are dependent not only on whether a case is newsworthy, but
also on how often individuals are actually apprehended. Some molesters are almost
certainly more clever than others in this regard. But what about for whole professions?
Are clergy less likely to be caught (and thus show up in the paper) than non-clergy?
Are there different rates of apprehension between clergy and teachers?
There is evidence that homosexuals who molest are less apt to be caught than
heterosexuals who molest. For instance, the very fact that homosexual molesters
generally claim more victims than heterosexual molesters, and thereby appear
to ‘get away’ with it longer before they are found out, would seem
to attest to this fact. In 1987, Abel et al found that while about 34% of their
approximately 561 child abuse male perpetrators engaged in homosexuality, 84%
of the 28,574 victims of abuse under 14 years old that their perpetrators admitted
to were boys. The Academic Universe database similarly shows that homosexual
perpetrators, while comprising 41% of the total, accounted for fully 61% of
the reported victims.
The reason for this disproportionate homosexual share is not fully understood.
Perhaps homosexual molesters are simply more clever than heterosexual molesters
on average. In other cases, even if discovered, homosexual perpetrators are
given a pass. A boy who is homosexually molested may be considered ‘contaminated,’
and both parents and neighbors often assume that the boy might have enjoyed
the molestation enough to be ‘primed’ to molest other boys. Because
of this, if the parents find out he was molested, and they wish to protect the
boy from shunning at school or in the neighborhood, parents often decide that
it is better to ‘shut up about it’ than run the risk of ruining
their son’s reputation and social life.
All in all, deriving estimates of molestation rates from newspaper stories is
a bit tricky. Still, the information is fairly ‘hard’ data, not
simply based on what an individual might claim on a survey or to a clinician.
And there are patterns that emerge from these data that are generally consistent
with other modes of inquiry, as well as types of information that are relatively
unique in the child sexual abuse literature.
Religious Leaders
Religious leaders were grouped into Roman Catholic priests, non-Catholic Christian
clergy, and non-Christian clergy. There were 116 Catholic perpetrators: 95 who
engaged in homosexuality and who violated 229 children; 17 who engaged in heterosexuality
and who raped 24 girls; and 4 who engaged in sex with at least 4 children of
unspecified sex.
There were 61 non-Catholic Christian clergy who molested the underage. Those
who engaged in homosexuality included four clergywomen (Church of Christ, Protestant,
2 Pentecostals) and 35 clergymen (one each from 7th Day Adventist, Salvation
Army, Evangelical Free, and Greek Orthodox; and 9 Protestants, 8 Pentecostals,
2 Lutherans, 4 Episcopalians, 2 Methodists, and 6 Baptists). These 39 ‘homosexuals’
raped 229 children. Twenty one ‘heterosexual’ clergymen raped 31
girls (2 Seventh Day Adventists, 2 Church of Christ, 8 Protestants, 6 Pentecostals,
and 3 Baptists). One additional Episcopal clergyman raped a child of unspecified
sex.
In addition, 4 Rabbis homosexually raped 10 children, 2 Rabbis heterosexually
raped 2 girls, a Mormon pastor who engaged in homosexuality violated 3 boys,
3 Mormons heterosexually raped 10 girls, and a (male) Buddhist monk raped a
boy.
Overall in this set, clergywomen accounted for 6.7% of non-Catholic Christian
clergy molesters, but 10.3% of homosexual molesters Ñ suggesting that
clergywomen may be disproportionately homosexual.
Are Christian Clergy Molesters More Frequently Homosexual?
With at least 78% of the 172 clergy perpetrators whose sexual proclivities could
be determined engaging in homosexuality, the Christian clergy were statistically
more apt to engage in homosexuality than were non-clergy perpetrators, only
37% of whom practiced homosexuality. Broken down by religious factions, of 57
Protestant clergy perpetrators (excluding Eastern Orthodox priests), at least
34 (60%) engaged in homosexuality. Of 116 Catholic clergymen perpetrators, at
least 95 (82%) engaged in homosexuality. Protestant clergy were thereby statistically
less apt to engage in homosexuality than Catholic clergy, but more apt to do
so than non-clergy. Even adding Rabbis to the mix Ñ of whom 4 of 6 engaged
in homosexuality Ñ would not change the fact that a higher fraction of
Judeo-Christian leaders engaged in homosexual molestation than did non-clergy.
In terms of numbers of children victimized, non-clergy perpetrators raped 5,080
children, while the 189 clergy (8.7% of all perpetrators) victimized 572, or
11% of the total. Clergy raped at least 2.3% of the 2,206 children victimized
by heterosexuals, and at least 14.5% of the 3,446 children raped by homosexuals.
These numbers are consistent with the notion that there seem to be higher rates
of homosexual molestation among the clergy than among the non-clergy.
Teachers
Because newspapers have a bias toward reporting on ‘newsworthy’
individuals, we can’t look only at clergy and make a reasonable conclusion
about how often they molest. Again, in terms of the overall molestation picture,
the rates for clergy extracted from the database of newspaper stories are likely
to be overstated relative to the general public, especially given their position
of authority. So we also need a comparison group that is similarly educated
and with ready access to children. Here, teachers naturally come to mind.
In the Academic Universe database, there were 251 teachers/principals/school
counselors (all labeled as ‘teachers’ for this analysis) who had
sex with their pupils or charges. Altogether, 11.6% of the 2,167 perpetrators
in the news stories were teachers. Of these 251 teachers, 38.6% were men who
engaged in homosexuality; these men had sex with 500 pupils (of whom 25 were
girls). 54.6% of the teacher perpetrators engaged in heterosexuality, having
sex with 334 pupils (19 female teachers had sex with 27 boys, 118 male teachers
had sex with 307 girls). In addition, 17 teachers had sex with 26 pupils of
unreported sex.
In this case, female teachers comprised 8.1% of the perpetrators whose sexual
proclivities could be determined, but none of the homosexual teacher perpetrators.
Overall teachers accounted for 15.2% of all child-rapes: ‘homosexual’
teachers accounted for 14.5% of all child-rapes by homosexuals and ‘heterosexual’
teachers accounted for 15.3% of all child rapes committed by heterosexuals.
Are Clergy More Frequently
Homosexual Than Teachers?
The question could be readily answered if the numbers of clergy, homosexual
and otherwise, could be compared to the numbers of homosexual and heterosexual
teachers. But such numbers are not available. There is no register of ‘homosexual
teachers’ or ‘homosexual clergy.’ Even the number of clergy
is uncertain given that the U.S. Census Bureau does not collect those kind of
statistics.
Nevertheless, one estimate can be gotten by looking at the ratio of homosexual
to heterosexual perpetrators. If we assume that Ñ within a given profession
Ñ homosexual and heterosexual child molesters (e.g., teachers) are equally
likely to be reported on, the ratios within the Academic Universe database will
tend to reflect perhaps not absolute numbers, but at least accurate relative
proportions of molester types by profession. Using this measure, the data we
gathered show a ratio of 1 homosexual teacher perpetrator for every 1.4 heterosexual
teacher perpetrators. On the other hand, Catholic priests split 5.6 homosexual
to 1 heterosexual, and Protestant clergy split 1.6 homosexual to 1 heterosexual
perpetrator. For the dataset as a whole, the ratio was 1 homosexual for every
1.4 heterosexual perpetrators.
Thus the relative proportion of homosexual teacher-perpetrators was approximately
the same as the entire dataset, suggesting that there might be an ‘average’
proportion of teachers who are homosexual child molesters. By contrast, the
ranks of the clergy would seem to have a much larger share of homosexual molesters.
Compared to teachers, the Protestant clergy in our database had 2.24 times the
proportion of homosexual perpetrators, and the Catholic clergy had 7.84 times
the proportion of perpetrators who practiced homosexuality.
If we further assume that there is a reasonably ‘stable’ fraction
of teachers or clergy who ever become child molesters, then FRI’s estimate
from our 1983-84 national sexuality survey of the proportion of teachers who
are homosexual can be used to crudely estimate the percentages of Protestant
clergy and Catholic clergy who might also be homosexual. In that study, we estimated
that 4.2% of teachers were homosexual. This would lead to estimates of 9.4%
of Protestant clergy and 32.9% of Catholic priests being homosexual Ñ
that is, approximately 10% of Protestant and a third of Catholic clergy.
Are Catholic Priests More Frequently Homosexual Than Protestant Clergy?
The media attention to homosexual rape of children by Roman Catholic Priests
probably biased its child molestation stories by elevating the number of stories
about molestation by priests. Many of the stories involving priests concerned
rapes that took place decades before the newspaper story appeared. While some
stories about preachers and teachers who raped children also concerned events
that occurred many years ago, the volume of homosexual rapes by priests seems
seriously inflated by the media attention to the issue.
Given this circumstance, it appears likely that the absolute numbers of children
victimized by priests is ‘too high.’ Nevertheless, the ratio of
homosexual vs. heterosexual priests as indexed by the sex of the children they
raped would appear to be relatively unbiased, especially since rapes of girls
as well as rapes of boys from ten, twenty or even thirty years ago were included
in the tally.
Catholics tend to be more concentrated in major cities where the newspapers
indexed by Academic Universe were published, so this bias may have inflated
the number of Catholic molestation stories that appeared in the sample. Further,
the priest molestations were often more removed from the present than molestations
by teachers or non-Catholic clergy. But even if these biases elevated the numbers
of Catholic priests who were caught homosexually molesting by a factor of as
much as two, it would still suggest that about a sixth of priests and around
a tenth of Protestant ministers are homosexual.
Implications
The major opposition to homosexual behavior comes from Christianity. Before
Christianity appeared on the scene, homosexuality appears to have been generally
accepted in both the Greek and Roman civilizations. By the time the Church got
done influencing society, homosexuality had been made a capital crime. The first
law against homosexuality appeared in the Empire’s Christian era 342 Ñ
it made homosexuality a capital crime. About 50 years later, the emperors Valentinian
II, Theodosious, and Arcadius published “All persons who have the shameful
custom of condemning a man’s body, acting the part of a woman’s...
shall expiate this sort of crime in avenging flames.” And under Justinian
(c. 527-565) it was declared that “We admonish men to abstain from the
aforesaid unlawful acts, that they may not lose their souls... so that the city
and the state may not come to harm by reason of such wicked deeds.”
Nowadays, although most Christians still oppose homosexuality, the presence
of significant numbers of homosexual clergy presents a challenge for Christendom.
The apparent 10% of Protestant and one-third of Catholic clergy are a 5th column
within the Church. They have personal reasons to see Christianity change and
to see homosexuality accepted as OK.
Outside the Church, the ‘group rights revolution’ is knocking hard
against its traditional stance. In New Zealand, a Parliamentary committee wants
“censorship laws changed so Christian films critical of gay men and lesbians
can be banned” (Washington Blade, 3/14/03). Similar ‘group rights
thinking’ has led to censorship of Christian radio content in Canada,
and even censorship of pulpit content in Scandinavia. This censorship forbids
even the general criticism of homosexual behavior, as though all ‘homosexuals’
are ‘insulted’ if they and others are told that what they regularly
do is unhealthy or in any way substandard. The ‘group rights’ revolutionaries
don’t care what the ‘truth’ is, they care that members of
a ‘historically victimized’ group not be put in a situation where
they might ‘feel bad’ about themselves.
If, as FRI estimates, about 15% or one of every 7 clergy is personally involved
in homosexuality, the fight within the Church is apt to be as time-consuming
as the fight of the Church against outside ‘group rights’ forces.
That so many ‘sexual traitors’ inhabit the modern pulpits bodes
ill for the Church retaining its stance against homosexual activity.
Reference:
Abel GG, Becker JV, Mittleman M, Cunningham-Rathner J, Rouleau JL, Murphy WD.
Self-reported sex crimes of nonincarcerated paraphiliacs. Journal of Interpersonal
Violence 1987,2,3-25.
The Violent Lives of Homosexual Couples |
Two recent studies give a glimpse into homosexual relationships and how violent
they are compared to married couples. Neither specifically answers the questions
“do you live with and have sex with your same-sex partner?” but
both go some distance toward our understanding of ‘homosexual coupling.’
The first study1 was based upon a very large U.S. Government-drawn database
consisting of 8000 men and 8000 women aged 18 years or older, who were interviewed
by phone. Overall, 0.8% of men and 1.0% of women said that they had lived with
a same-sex partner “as a couple” at some time in their life (this
tends to imply that they had sex with each other, but we also know that many
gays and lesbians live with a partner with whom they have no sexual relationship).
At the time of the survey, 0.4% of men and 0.4% of women said that they were
currently cohabiting with a same-sex partner. This finding would translate into
about 800,000 such couples. The 2000 U.S. Census put the ‘actual’
figure at about 600,000. Since the refusal rate for this survey was about 20%,
the discrepancy could be due to homosexuals being more apt than heterosexuals
to respond to questions about sex.
Of some interest, in the FRI nationwide urban sex survey, 4% of male and 2%
of female respondents said that they had been “homosexually married”
at some point in their lives. Whether being “married” meant that
they had lived together or not (it certainly implies that they had sex with
each other) is uncertain. A fair number of homosexuals say that they have a
‘regular partner’ with whom they do not live, so what proportion
of these ‘at-a-distance’ relationships were included in “homosexually
married” is unknown. But since male homosexuals are about 3-4 times more
apt and female homosexuals almost twice as apt to live in cities as opposed
to more rural areas, the estimates from the FRI and Tjaden et al studies seem
fairly close. Indeed, the refusal rate for the FRI survey of close to 50% probably
contributed to overestimating the proportion who claimed to be ever “homosexually
married.”
Another rather interesting finding refutes the oft-repeated contention by homosexual
sympathizers that ‘once homosexual, always homosexual.’ In the Tjaden,
et al study, about half of the men and half of the women who had ever lived
“as a couple” with a same-sex partner also had lived as a couple
with an opposite-sex partner. Thus we have more evidence of the flexible, rather
than ‘fixed,’ nature of homosexual expression.
The main findings of the study were only partially reported. Apparently, much
like the University of Chicago investigators in 1994 refused to report some
of their findings about homosexuals, so these investigators followed the same
tack.
In any case, twice as many lesbians as straights reported being forcibly raped
as a minor (17% vs. 9%) and as an adult (25% vs. 10%). Likewise, 15% of gays
as minors and 11% as adults reported having been forcibly raped [the findings
for straight men were not given].
Gays and lesbians also reported higher rates of having been physically assaulted
in youth and adulthood. Thus, 65% of the gays vs. 47% of the straights, and
53% of the lesbians vs. 30% of the straights reported a physical assault while
adults.
Fifteen percent of gays said that they had been raped or physically assaulted
by a male partner, 11% by a female partner (vs. 8% of straights who made the
same report). Altogether, 23% of gays vs. 8% of straights reported such an attack
by either a male or female partner. For lesbians, 30% said they had been raped
or physically assaulted by a male partner (vs. 20% of straights), and 11% by
a female partner. Overall, 39% of lesbians vs. 20% of straight females reported
such attacks by either a male or female partner.
Again notice how sexually flexible these ‘gays’ and ‘lesbians’
were and are. Though only half reported having cohabited with an opposite-sex
partner, it was apparently enough experience for more of them to report heterosexual
battering than among the heterosexuals in the survey! Furthermore, domestic
violence and rape are clearly reported by more of the homosexuals than heterosexuals.
These are disturbed people, involved in disturbing relationships, and paying
the price.
The second study2 is perhaps more impressive because it was based upon a random
sample of 2,881 gays living in ‘gay ghettos’ in 4 major cities (Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York). As with the Tjaden et al study,
this was done by phone. Unfortunately, there was no comparison group. All of
the subjects were men who “reported same-gender sexual behavior since
age 14 years or who self-labeled as homosexual, gay, or bisexual.”
Age-wise, it should be noted that only 6.3% of the selected subjects were aged
60 or older (the oldest was 86). Nationally, the fraction of men 60 and older
in the U.S. is close to 19%. So, in harmony with FRI’s findings that those
who engage in homosexuality seldom live to old age (that is, to at least 65),
it seems clear that being surrounded by gays and imbibing regularly of ‘gay
culture’ does not make ‘gay life’ more longevous. In fact,
it’s probably pretty dangerous.
For one thing, 19% Ñ or almost one out of five Ñ of the 2,369
gays who said they knew their HIV status reported that they had the virus. Respondents
were also asked whether they had experienced “unwanted physical... violence”
from a boyfriend or same-gender partner during the past 5 years. Violence was
defined as “being hit with fists or an open hand, hit with an object,
pushed or shoved, or kicked; or having something thrown at him. Sexual battering
was defined as having been forced to have sex.”
About 20% of gays said that, in the past 5 years, they had been physically battered
and about 5% said that they had been homosexually raped. Not surprisingly, the
older gays (aged 60 and older) reported less physical battering (5%) and rape
(1%) than the younger groups. Among 30-39 year olds, 27% reported physical battering
and 6% reported homosexual rape. Among those 18-29, 25% of gays reported physical
battering and 8% reported having been raped.
But all this violence occurred just within the past five years for residents
of these gay ghettos. As FRI has noted (FRR, December 2001), from year to year,
very few married men or women report physical violence from their spouse. In
fact, only 0.6% of married women report being the victim of domestic violence
by their hustand or ex-husband in the past year. For cohabiting women and men,
the corresponding figures are much higher than for the married. But neither
group reports such high levels of intimate-partner violence against men as the
gays in this study.
Reference:
1. Tjaden P, Thoennes N, Allison CJ. Comparing
violence over the life span in samples of same-sex and opposite-sex cohabitants.
Violence and Victims, 1999, 14, 413-425
2. Geenwood GL, Relf MV, BU Huang, Pollack LM, Canchola JA, Catania JA. Battering
victimization among a probability-based sample of men who have sex with men.
American Journal of Public Health, 2002, 92, 1964-1969.
The day before I was scheduled to speak at Graceland University in Iowa about the scientific evidence regarding 'gay rights,' the vice-provost canceled me. He was 'sorry,' he said, but there was the possibility of demonstrations, some of the faculty didn't want me to speak, and he was afraid of 'divisiveness.' Not too long ago, only the big dogs like Harvard and Stanford forbade speakers who did not agree with their philosophies. Now even the puppies are going along. Here is the letter replying to some of my critics, recently published in the student newspaper:
"George Orwell observed that 'Western civilization has given the intellectual security without responsibility, and it has educated him in skepticism while anchoring him almost immovably in the privileged class. He has been in the position of a young man living on an allowance from a father whom he hates.' Not only does his observation apply to college faculty, but I have found that the ideology claimed by most in the social sciences blinds them to empirical reality.
"After 4 years of professional activism I called for a ban on blood from any man who had sex with a male since 1977. In 1985 the CDC finally adopted the policy I recommended. The unhealthy sexual behavior of gays disqualifies them from being part of the blood bank. Today as yesterday, ideologues decry this bar as 'discriminatory' and seek to have it removed. To true believers in gay rights, ideology is more important than life. In fact, they are even willing to risk your life as well as their own. For my efforts to save life I have been branded all kinds of things, now barred from Graceland because some of its faculty are 'insulted and appalled.'
"When I became the first to document the health effects of second hand tobacco smoke, I was not so treated. The tobacco companies were not happy with my findings. My research and that of others who followed me, eventually cost them billions of dollars. My smoking colleagues were not happy. They knew the 'handwriting was on the wall.' But no one ever tried to censor me. The social science ideologues are different. Because I don't agree with their ideology they are 'insulted and appalled.' This is ideological speech, not intellectual honesty.
"Brian Smith said that to 'generalize survey results to a larger population, one must randomly sample people from that population.' Not so. People are not balls in a jar, and a true random sample of a large population has never happened. Even the Census Bureau cannot assure the accuracy of the number of males counted. You will not find a true random sample of any large population in any psychology journal. Often you will find articles claiming principles about 'people in general' based solely upon college student respondents. Occasionally you'll find articles purportedly based on 'random samples' of respondents. But if you look closely, you will find that at least 20%-30% of the intended sample was 'missed,' with unknown consequences to findings.
"My pioneering work on the harmful effects of second hand tobacco smoke was not done on a random sample. Nor my second study, nor my third, nor the hundreds of follow-on studies done by others. However, the persistence of the findings from the various investigations led society to a sense of 'this is the truth' and consequent massive social changes.
"In the same spirit, I have authored three publications dealing with the apparent shortened longevity of those who engage in homosexuality. In the first (Omega, 1994), two lines of empirical evidence were explored: obituaries from the gay press and age distributions reported in sexuality studies from 1858 through 1993. Both were consistent with a shortened lifespan. In the second (Psychological Reports, 1998), four lines of empirical evidence were consistent with a shortened lifespan: 1) additional obituaries from the gay press, 2) findings from two national random-sample surveys, 3) the age distributions of registered homosexual couples in Scandinavia, and 4) the age distributions of homosexuals and drug-abusers taking HIV tests in Colorado.
"In the third (Psychological Reports, 2002), two lines of empirical evidence additional obituaries from the gay press and findings from two large, nationwide random sexuality surveys Ñ were consistent with a shortened lifespan (in [one of these], the CDC study, the oldest woman who reported sex with a woman in the previous 12 months was 49 yr., the oldest man who reported sex with a man in the previous 12 months was 54 yr.). No one has produced any empirical evidence to refute my conclusion, only complaints, and I predict no one will.
"What does Smith offer against this array of consistent empirical evidence? Speculations gotten from an Internet site that homosexuals "not involved in the community" live longer than those who are involved. What empirical evidence does Smith have to substantiate his belief? And is he contending that being "out of the closet" is lethal?
"One would hope that students at Graceland understand that findings from empirical inquires, published in refereed scientific journals, trump Internet speculations. And how would Smith explain that only 6% of a recent 'random sample' of 2,881 gays aged 18 yr.+ Ñ the largest random sample of homosexuals ever reported Ñ were aged 60 yr. or older?
"What a pity professor Smith and his allies are so unsure of their evidence that they will not permit me to appear on your campus for an honest debate. In a true academic setting, all opinions are subject to the free market of ideas. The students of Graceland are the greatest losers in this censorship."
Family
Research Report critically examines empirical data on families, sexual social
policy, AIDS, drug addiction, and homosexuality, digging behind the 'headlines'
and breaking new scientific ground.
FRR is published 8 times/year by the Family Research Institute.
Dr. Paul Cameron,
Publisher
Dr. Kirk Cameron, Editor
Subscriptions: $25/yr ($40 foreign)
©2002
Family Research
Institute
P.O. Box 62640
Colorado Springs,
CO 80962-2640
(303) 681-3113
Return to the FAMILY RESEARCH INSTITUTE Web site
Corner