Background
The West has produced the richest and most vital civilization ever to grace the planet, but our civilization is dying by slow degrees. Western nations are producing too few children to maintain their population. Most of our demographic decline is due to a mix of a self-centered reluctance to have children, birth control, wholesale abortion, and women in the workplace. The rise of militant homosexuality has also been a significant factor. It is both a symptom and a cause of our decline.
On one hand, the growing acceptance of homosexuality is symptomatic of a larger trend in Western society — the growing view of sexuality as “mere recreation,” a casual activity divorced from procreation and family. Gay rights is also a cause of civilization’s decline. Homosexuality is a unique manifestation of hedonism. Instead of producing children, it preys on them. Instead of keeping to itself, it proselytizes. Instead of promoting health and stability (as does marriage), it thrives on aggression, spreads disease, and destroys its practitioners, emotionally and physically.
Along with the promotion of birth control and abortion, the present bland acceptance of homosexuality signals the end of the religious and moral vision that made Western civilization coherent and functional. We had a forewarning of this social collapse in Germany following that nation’s defeat in World War I. During the Weimar Republic, homosexuality was acceptable and consequently rampant. The popular culture celebrated perversity. Kurt Weill’s songs portrayed pleasure-seeking men moving from one homosexual encounter to another. The first gay rights film, “Different From The Others,” appeared in Germany in 1919. This period of moral chaos spawned National Socialism and the rise to power of its sexually twisted leader, Adolph Hitler.
The United States is not the Germany of the Weimar Republic, but we are now telling our children in junior high school and even elementary school that homosexuality is an acceptable alternative to traditional marriage. More and more of them are encouraged to consider such behavior. High school counselors in Virginia express concern that perversion has become so chic that young heterosexuals are pretending to be bisexual and even homosexual. The so-called gay rights movement is making certain that the next generation of Americans will be more and more tolerant of this self-indulgent and dangerous behavior, and even more likely to become addicted.
One thing seems clear: If the acceptance and practice of homosexuality continues at its current rate, Western civilization will not survive.
So we ask again: Can anything be done to stop gay rights?
Good News, Bad News
At first glance, the answer would appear to be ‘yes.’ Eleven states in the November 2004 election passed referenda banning gay ‘marriage’ in one form or another. Another nine states since then have made similar changes to their laws or constitutions. Pro-family conservatives have been credited with helping to get out the vote on this and other moral issues, aiding President Bush’s re-election and keeping gay-sympathetic Democrats both 1) out of office and 2) incapable of tilting the make-up of the Supreme Court further leftward. Liberals were unable to stop the confirmations of new, conservative Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Altogether, 45 states have passed either Defense of Marriage legislation or marriage amendments to their constitutions. And President Bush supports a Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with the purpose of enshrining the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.
On the other hand, a penetrating look provides reason for pessimism. Within the past ten years, the current Supreme Court has 1) overturned Amendment 2 in Colorado, a majority-passed referendum designed to limit the spread of gay rights by administrative or judicial fiat; and 2) overturned all laws against sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas, establishing a presumptive ‘right’ to sodomy across America. The State of Vermont enacted the first gay civil unions, followed by Connecticut and New Jersey, the State of Massachusetts legalized gay marriage, California established homosexual domestic partnerships only a year after its citizens, by referendum, reserved the name of ‘marriage’ for unions of one man-one-woman, and citizens in Maine and Washington failed to overturn new state-wide gay rights laws.
In an ominous parallel to its official decision to de-list homosexuality as a mental disorder back in 1973, the American Psychiatric Association, in 2005, officially endorsed gay marriage as a healthier alternative to gay ‘bachelorhood.’
On the political front, President Bush and many Republican leaders have clearly stated their support for homosexual civil unions, if states so desire them. The Bush administration also ignored the opportunity to defend anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas. And international pressure is growing. In addition to the European countries that have now legalized either gay marriage or a close equivalent, and the fact that the proposed constitution of the European Union codifies sexual orientation as a protected status, the Canadian Supreme Court has overturned laws against gay marriage (with the Canadian government acquiescing to the decision and legalizing gay marriage in Parliament) and ruled that almost any criticism of homosexuality is a form of ‘hate speech.’ Strongly Catholic Ireland banned sodomy until 1993, but now has apparently decided that some form of gay civil unions must be adopted in the near future. And so it goes.
In the U.S., traditional Christian thought has been so pushed out of the public square that Christian condemnation of homosexuality is either ignored or explicitly pilloried. Meanwhile, support for gays continues to grow among the elite. The editorial page commentary of the Wall Street Journal about former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey’s revelation of his homosexual preference illustrates the depth of this support:
“the real scandal consuming New Jersey isn’t governor James McGreevey’s sexual preference. It’s how Mr. McGreevy and fellow state Democrats are timing his resignation to cheat voters out of picking a replacement as soon as possible.
“Obviously, being gay today isn’t something that a politician need apologize for or be ashamed of. What’s shameful is the way Mr. McGreevey is manipulating the political calendar.” (August 16, 2004, A12)
As the editors of the most influential newspaper in the world see it, that the governor of New Jersey engaged in sodomy, cheated on his wife and child, hired an unqualified lover, engaged in misappropriation of funds, lied to the electorate, etc. — in short, acted in ways consonant with a Christian analysis of what sodomites do — is irrelevant. McGreevey’s sin is political, period. Today, even conservative commentators (such as Bill O’Riley or Michael Medved) usually opine that condemnation of homosexuality is ‘backward’ or ‘bigoted.’
How We Got Here
Though this transformation to a gay-friendly world may seem to have happened almost overnight, history shows otherwise. As former Harvard sociologist and chairman Pitirim Sorokin documented in the 1950s, the sexual revolution was brewing for at least the prior 100 years. Over that time, birth rates and average family sizes steadily dropped, divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births steadily rose, and taboos and strictures against cohabitation, promiscuity, and homosexuality began to fall by the wayside. These trends have continued and generally accelerated since Sorokin’s analysis.
An excellent — but by no means isolated — example of the long-term decline is provided by the District of Columbia. When the District was established in 1790, sodomy was a capital crime. Today, homosexuals have more legal rights in D.C. than non-homosexuals. Socially, gays wield significant power, so much so that serious negotiations were needed to site a new baseball stadium at a location occupied by a popular gay bar.
Despite some recent political setbacks on the issue of marriage, homosexual activists have had much to celebrate of late. Homosexual activity is on the verge of surpassing its place in the Greco-Roman world. Sodomy has been accorded the status of a civil right, the courts and most lawyers are highly sympathetic to the gay movement, and our educational institutions are doing much to change the mindset of our young to a more accepting posture. In addition, these activists know that political fancies can easily change. Large majorities are today opposed to gay marriage. But it wasn’t very many years ago that similar majorities were opposed to gay teachers, homosexual politicians, and anti-discrimination clauses based on sexual orientation. All those majorities have shrunk if not disappeared over the past 20 to 30 years. Who is to say that marriage will not follow suit?
A Strategic Plan That Worked
In the late 1950s, though comprising only 2% of the adult population, homosexual activists strategized to cancel the influence of Christianity. At that time, the Christian Church in the U.S. claimed the allegiance of about two-thirds of the population, and was strongly supported by at least 20% of adults. The financial resources of gay activists were modest — they probably had no more than $100,000 to expend. The Church had billions of dollars and dozens of institutions of higher education. What strategy could they employ?
Those early homosexuals targeted ‘science.’ They correctly figured it would be tough sledding if they tried to change Christianity from within. But by capturing the professions and thereby science, the gay movement could trump Christianity. They knew that religious professionals — intimidated by the complexity of science and awed by its influence and accomplishments -— would eventually go along with them.
The same strategy had garnered considerable success in Germany, until Hitler turned against the homosexuals. By doing ‘scientific work’ at the world’s first ‘sexuality institute,’ homosexual activists had gotten a number of scientists to sign on to their cause — even Albert Einstein. Gay leaders started publishing their own scientific journal, the Journal of Homosexuality. They also won influence by publishing in academic journals and getting seats on the boards of major social service and social science professional associations.
Capturing ‘science’ was the key to this plan. Christianity, along with the Bible and tradition, would be trumped — so they believed — if science favored the homosexuals. However, there was also a risk. If the Church, with its considerably larger resources, fought back to control and influence science, the gay movement would be in trouble. Unfortunately, the Church did not wage battle on the scientific turf; in fact, it generally dismissed science as inferior to
theology — ‘the queen of sciences.’
That lost opportunity now ‘sticks in the Christian craw.’ The Church today finds itself on the down side of having relinquished science about homosexuality to the homosexuals. Many denominations have substituted the authority of that science for their traditions and the Bible — witness the Episcopalians, the Congregationalists, and the Church of Christ. Others are barely staving off capitulation, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Methodists, and the Presbyterians.
Rightly concerned about these changes, many in the Evangelical wing of Christianity have chosen to either 1) snipe at pro-homosexual scientific findings, 2) support political action against the gay movement, and/or 3) adopt the neo-Freudian notion that homosexuals can be ‘cured’ with certain kinds of therapy, as evident in the ‘ex-gay’ movement.
Unfortunately, quibbling about various studies without advancing solid, systematic counter-evidence does little to discredit them (very little in the gay rights debate has changed despite the Evangelical uproar over Alfred Kinsey, for instance). In the long run, trust and investment in the scientific enterprise run so deep that few politicians are going to disregard ‘science’ to please Christians. And even if the ex-gay movement can claim some success, its converts are but a drop in the homosexual bucket.
In a word, if we keep doing what we have been doing, the Church will likely lose its tax-exempt status, its freedom of speech regarding homosexuality will be curbed, and Christians will be criticized from every quarter. Most homosexuals are fixated, addicted to their sexual desires, and compulsive. Gay activists are not content to let the Christians continue to preach against homosexuality. They want to smash the Church and its influence to smithereens, or else transform it into something that no longer resembles historic Christianity.
So the question remains: can anything be done to reverse the tide of gay rights? We believe there is, but it won’t be easy. And it won’t get done using the strategies championed currently by most pro-family conservatives. In fact, it will require a significant change in thinking and attack — what we would call a paradigm shift.
Paradigm Shifts
When Christianity came on the scene, homosexual activity was present and quasi-accepted in the Greco-Roman world. Though the daily activities of those who engaged in homosexuality are poorly known, it appears that there were homosexual prostitutes at various temples, some teachers engaged in homosexual relations with their pupils, and a certain amount of homosexual activity occurred throughout society, often in the larger cities.
Christianity advanced a new paradigm against homosexual behavior: the word of God. Homosexuality was not part of appropriate religious celebrations nor in any way a good, because God despised it. Indeed, God had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of it, and might well destroy the Roman Empire if it did not eliminate it. In light of this sacred truth, and as a chosen sin, homosexuality deserved punishment.
It took 300 years for the Christian paradigm to triumph and express itself in social policy. A law punishing homosexual activity with death appeared in A.D. 342. About 50 years later, the emperors Valentinian II, Theodosious, and Arcadius decreed that “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.” Under Emperor Justinian (c. 527-565), the Christian paradigm was explicitly stated: “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.”
Following in the steps of Roman Law several centuries later, England punished homosexual activity severely, as did the American colonies, as did the states. But over time, the Christian truths about God’s hatred of homosexual activity, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc., diminished in the law. As well, punishments for same-sex activity declined in severity — from death to imprisonment to fines. Yet the Christian belief that ‘homosexual activity is a sinful choice’ remained firmly entrenched through the 1800s.
Toward the end of the 19th and beginnings of the 20th century, the nascent field of psychiatry championed a new paradigm. According to its worldview, those who engaged in homosexuality had a ‘condition’ that made them ‘ill,’ and should be ‘treated’ rather than punished. The condition of ‘being a homosexual’ was not their choice, but stemmed from childhood circumstances, biology, or some combination of the two.
Psychiatry advertised itself as ‘enlightened’ and ‘scientific,’ and over time it garnered a great deal of attention and respect. Some of this was due to self-promotion, but it also resulted from science becoming accepted as more ‘real’ or ‘substantial’ than claims of faith. Psychiatrists dealt with odd people and produced testimonies from those whom they ‘treated.’ Psychiatrists also began to search for biologic or specific environmental causes of homosexuality, further anchoring such behavior in the realm of science rather than faith or morality.
In addition, some found psychiatry’s theory about the ‘condition’ of homosexuality exceptionally satisfying. This theory, after all, had a very important ramification: it’s not your fault… your parents or your hormones or your genes, etc., drove you to do this… this is part of your ‘condition.’ Psychiatric ‘science’ had proven that ‘homosexuals’ had to ‘sin’ — and no just God (or society) could condemn activity that was ‘natural’ or so ingrained from childhood.
By the 1930s, the psychiatric paradigm began competing with and replacing the Christian paradigm — particularly in Europe. Many within the Church aspired to be ‘enlightened’ when it came to homosexuality, and either melded the Christian and the psychiatric viewpoints or simply adopted the psychiatric, instead of the Christian, worldview. Later psychologists and researchers such as Alfred Kinsey continued to cement discussion of homosexuality within a scientific context, purportedly showing that many people engaged in homosexual behavior with little if any ill effect, or that comparisons between homosexuals and non-homosexuals showed few if any differences in personality or social functioning. While those pushing the psychiatric perspective espoused conflicting theories about the root causes of this behavior, the general thrust was to describe homosexuals as ‘distinct’ or ‘different’ because of their condition, but not in any sense inferior to ‘normal’ people.
In 1962, following psychiatric thinking, Illinois legalized homosexual activity, and other states followed. In the 1970s, psychiatry officially decided that homosexuality was just another variant of ‘normal,’ and those portions of the Church that had adopted the psychiatric viewpoint shifted in agreement. Almost no one now questioned the psychiatric prognosis that homosexuals were a ‘different kind of animal;’ even among Evangelical Christians, homosexuals were just so ‘strange’ and ‘different’ that they must be ‘ill’ or in need of ‘treatment.’ Surely, they would not simply ‘choose’ to do these odd things. Even Kinsey’s explicit attempts to show that homosexuality was not linked to one’s biology and that everyone was capable of homosexual behavior had fallen by the wayside.
The Last Stand
The last major legal decision affirming the historic Christian paradigm that homosexual behavior is a ‘choice’ occurred in 1984, when the 5th Circuit overturned en banc Federal Judge Buchmeyer’s earlier decision that the Texas sodomy law violated the U.S. Constitution (Baker v. Wade, 1984). Judge Thomas Reavley, writing for the majority in the overturn of Buchmeyer, held that the right to privacy did not include a right to engage in sodomy and that homosexuals could not claim the need for ‘equal protection’ because homosexuality had never been held to be a suspect classification. Reavley said the court rejected the equal protection argument because the law was “directed at certain conduct, not at a class of people. Though the conduct be the desire of the bisexually or homosexually inclined, there is no necessity that they engage in it. The statute affects only those who choose to act in the manner prescribed.”
Because there was “no necessity that they [homosexuals] engage in it,” the 5th Circuit explicitly affirmed what Christians had traditionally claimed by faith: homosexual activity, like other sexual activities, was voluntary. But nineteen years later, in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Texas sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, namely because “homosexuals” had to engage in sodomy, it was part of their “nature.” The psychiatric worldview had now thus triumphed over the historic Christian worldview in every area, including American jurisprudence — it apparently was necessary that homosexuals have sex with each other.
Today, academia, the media, and much of the mainline Church have adopted the psychiatric worldview. Much of the rest — including significant elements of the Evangelical wing — is either verging on it, or is melding psychiatric and Christian concepts together. Many evangelical leaders will assert, for instance, that homosexuality is not a choice per se, but something ingrained or developed at an early age. It may be ‘treatable,’ but is not entirely voluntary. Similarly, Roman Catholicism explicitly recognizes the ‘condition’ of ‘being’ a homosexual.
So while many Christians today may claim that the Bible is their guide when it comes to homosexuality, the reality is somewhat different. A religious paradigm based on sacred faith and the revealed word of God dominated for 1500 years. While vestiges of it clearly remain, after an 100 year campaign, the psychiatric paradigm is currently ‘in charge,’ especially after the ‘blitzkrieg’ and capture by gay activists of the science of homosexuality over the last 50-plus years. This is the dilemma conservatives and Christians alike now face.
What is Needed Now
What is needed is a new paradigm. The religious paradigm focused on man’s obedience to God and the danger to society if His will was disregarded. It was based on a faith in an omnipotent and all-knowing God who actively moved in human society. The psychiatric paradigm focused instead on the psychological ‘needs’ or ‘conditions’ of the individual. It was grounded, supposedly, on science and what scientists could observe about the nature of human behavior. Certainly a general faith in science (of all types, not just behavioral science) is clearly predominant today, especially with the obvious advances that science and technology have wrought over the last century.
To displace it, the new paradigm must also be grounded in science. But instead of the needs of the individual or their suffering as ‘victims of society’ (as gays dying of AIDS have been characterized), it would emphasize the needs of society and the recreational (choice-driven) nature of personal sexual desires. Center stage under the new paradigm would be the wealth of scientific facts that are currently neglected or suppressed: facts such as the high cost of AIDS to society or the more frequent molestation of children by homosexual practitioners, to mention only two.
The bottom line is that the Christian assault on homosexuality is waning. In the face of purportedly ‘unassailable’ science, and with parishioners adopting more and more elements of the psychiatric, individual-focused mindset, the Church is being pressured to abandon its historic stance against homosexual activity and to accept ‘homosexuals’ into its ranks. In America, the Church is on track to lose its tax-exempt status if it fails to do so. Current efforts are not working and cannot hope for anything but temporary future success.
Fortunately, as the history of homosexuality shows, no state of affairs is immune to change. However, much like Christianity’s success against Greco-Roman acceptance of homosexuality, and the success of psychiatry against Christianity, a new paradigm is indeed crucial — a paradigm backed by empirical facts. The evidence supporting the new paradigm will have to be used to batter down the now-dominant psychiatric paradigm. It will have to incorporate the key elements of the old Christian worldview, but support those elements with scientific buttressing. And, because the threat to the Church and society is so great, time is of the essence.
This new paradigm demands a change in mindset, one of the most difficult of human endeavors. Similar to the launch of conservative advocacy foundations such as the John M. Olin Foundation, it will take significant organization and the application of new monies. The example of the way many conservative organizations were created is instructive. Irving Kristol and William Simon argued in the 1970s that liberals were advancing economically because they dominated the nation’s intellectual discourse.
As James Piereson, executive director of the John M. Olin Foundation, recalled in the Wall Street Journal (July 21, 2004):
“Conservative philanthropists should underwrite their own ‘counter intelligentsia’ that would support scholars who were oriented in favor of liberty rather than against it.… [they] understood that a defense of capitalism required also a defense of the deeper cultural assumptions that gave meaning and order to a commercial civilization. Free markets could not be defended without reference to the rule of law, religion, the family and the evolution of our political institutions. This task required a full-blown engagement with the world of ideas — a world traditionally dominated by the left. They understood also that they were swimming against the intellectual tide in the 1970s, when the future seemed to point in the direction of an ever-expanding welfare state.
“Liberal foundations (e.g., Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie) had dominated funding of advocacy groups — all of which were liberal. Responding to the Kristol-Simon call, new conservative foundations were created. Over time, they got enough of a toehold to influence political events and began to sway the intellectual discourse on capitalism.”
This same kind of effort is needed today with gay rights. One or more new foundations must be established to fund discourse and scientific research in that area where most Christians and pro-family advocates have had little to offer other than the convictions of their faith. The new paradigm must be advanced and supported in an organized, systematic way. Science must be used to buttress the Christian worldview and to counter the faulty, misguided ‘science’ of psychiatry and gay-sympathetic academicians.
We can no longer rely — as almost all pro-family organizations do today — on gleaning scientific ‘bits’ from those in liberal academia who already operate under the psychiatric worldview umbrella, and who often secretly question Christianity, if they are not overtly hostile. We must fund primary, basic research by those scientists committed to the historic Christian mindset, then publicize and showcase that research, and finally use it to influence and change legislative and public policy. In short, we must subvert the academy by doing original, honest research ourselves and use this to advance the historic Christian faith in a brand new way.
Key Propositions of the New Paradigm
Any new paradigm requires a new way of thinking. Our culture has become so steeped in an individualistic, psychiatric view of sex that a change of viewpoint will not be easy. Historic Christianity viewed sex as a gift from God to man, but it was proscribed in ways that attempted to ensure that sex was used for the good of society, first and foremost. Such a practice has well-served Christendom through history. Even more important today, the traditional Christian handling of sex is supported by an array of scientific and empirical facts. We should therefore boldly proclaim and highlight the following propositions, knowing that God’s truth is evident whenever honest science is conducted.
1) Reproductive Sex Is Necessary, But Personal Sexual Experience Is Not
Only a modest amount of sex between men and women is necessary for social functioning. Some is needed to produce children and, beyond that, to 1) keep married parents together for the rearing of their brood, and 2) build loyalties assuring that society will not have to care for the parents while at least one spouse is able to do so.
From society’s perspective, non-marital sexual activities are either non-productive or harmful. Except for ‘producers’ and ‘nurturers’ of children, other sex is recreational. Indeed, since non-marital sex often results in problematic pregnancies or contributes to the spreading of disease, it is best repressed. Homosexual activity is an exceptionally costly and dangerous sexual entertainment, even as private masturbation is non-productive.
Unlike our needs for food, clothing, and shelter, no one has to have sex. While you may prefer it, no one dies without it. Not everybody enjoys sex, but for the vast majority who do, sex with other(s) is not a necessity but an important recreation.
Part of the reason the Christian paradigm fell before that of psychiatry is that Christianity’s contentions were based on faith — in God, the reality of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Church’s interpretations of Scripture. To counter this, psychiatrists could produce real people who told ‘tales of suffering’ alleviated by the new-fangled ‘counseling’ they received. Psychiatry, particularly Freudianism, also made sexuality central to personal and social development. And it gained important cachet by describing its theories in scientific-sounding language.
In part, the psychiatric trumped the religious paradigm because it could display scientific ‘facts’ about how sexuality ‘worked’ in humans, while religion made no such showing. Additionally, psychiatry elevated sexuality to that of a ‘need’ and sexual experiences as central to a host of personal attributes and goals. But it need not be so.
2) The Psychiatric Paradigm About Homosexuality Has Been Oversold and the Costs Have Largely Been Ignored
While some individuals undoubtedly ‘suffered’ because society actively repressed non-marital sex — and homosexual sex in particular — our collective life is not ‘better’ because those with homosexual desires have been permitted to ‘do their thing.’ Indeed, about 1% of the U.S. gross domestic product [GDP] is being spent to contain and treat HIV — a disease, as Cuba demonstrated, that could have been largely ‘halted in its tracks’ if the ‘gay community’ had not been coddled by U.S. public health officials.
The future for our children is increasingly uncertain. As first documented by Professor Sorokin, Europe is well on the way toward a demographic decline, and the U.S. is not far behind. Instead of making our collective life better, ‘freeing up sexuality’ has resulted in fewer children overall and an ever-smaller proportion of children born to married
parents.
3) The Psychiatric Claim That Homosexuality Is ‘Just As Normal’ As Heterosexuality Rests On Many Lies, Distortions, and Exaggerations
Although psychiatrists and mental health experts claim that science informs their positions, a great deal of that science can be proven faulty, overstated, misrepresented, or sometimes fraudulent. Clearly, one key to grounding the new paradigm in scientific fact is to demonstrate by honest science when the ‘facts’ and ‘empirical claims’ of the psychiatric paradigm are either not true or have been misrepresented.
In sharp contrast to what psychiatry has claimed — just to list a few examples — children do not do as well when reared by homosexuals, unions of homosexuals are not the same as the commitment of man-woman marriage, homosexuals are more apt to molest children, homosexual sex is more biologically dangerous than heterosexual sex, the proportion of those with homosexual desires is not constant, HIV does not endanger everyone, quarantine works, and people can and do change their sexual preferences.
While the psychiatric paradigm made strides by elevating science over religious faith, the new paradigm should gain from telling the empirical truth about the psychiatric paradigm’s lies, distortions, and exaggerations, but without engaging in lies, distortions, or exaggerations of its own. Importantly, good and careful scientific critique will require the services of true, highly-trained scientists. Science should also be used to promote, on the tip of every spear, an historic Christian view of ‘public health’ and ‘good social order.’ And it should document the empirical danger and absurdity of building a civilization around the sexual recreations of its members.
4) The Psychiatric Paradigm Is Too Narrow
Adapting society to the interests of individuals who want to have same-sex sex will ultimately choke our social engine. Forcing the majority to accommodate the desires of the few is fundamentally unjust and unworkable. Any number of people want all kinds of sexual things, whether it be sex with the underage, surgically changing their gender, wanting to marry their siblings, desiring multiple spouses, etc. Ceding the right to ‘homosexuals’ to ‘do their thing’ but not to other ‘sexual minorities’ is inherently ‘unfair,’ and bound to open Pandora’s box.
Furthermore, social functioning, rather than accommodating individual sexual tastes, needs to be the centerpiece. A lot of sexual activity is capricious — people, including ‘homosexuals,’ change their sexual (and other) tastes all the time. What begins as recreation or entertainment can often ‘get the best of us’ — consider addictions to drugs, gambling, and all sorts of sexual fixations. The whimsical nature of sex leads people to acquire odd sexual tastes and interests; the compulsive nature of sex often cements them to those tastes and interests. The important concern is how those desires affect society.
Longitudinal studies suggest that children who participate in homosexuality also wind up as more rebellious, more apt to abuse substances, and more apt to engage in criminality. In studies of adults, those who engage in homosexuality are more criminal, more rebellious, more likely to be drug-users, more apt to molest children, and so on. In short, homosexual activity is a risk both to participants and non-participants alike — it impacts greater society in deleterious ways.
5) The Psychiatric Paradigm Does Not ‘Fit’ With Christianity
The core concepts of psychiatry and Christianity clash. Psychiatry stresses ‘self esteem’ and ‘self actualization’ or that people ‘act out of compulsion,’ while Christianity counsels that we are to ‘deny self’ and that each is ‘led astray by his own desires.’ Psychiatric professionals (clinicians, psychotherapists, psychologists) compete with religious professionals (priests, preachers) as to who will give advice about how we ought to live. The new paradigm would not compete with Christianity since it aims to scientifically buttress the historic Christian worldview. It would stress instead ‘what is good for all,’ ‘you can live without sex,’ and that ‘sex should be reserved for marriage.’ Scientists promoting the new paradigm would not compete with priests and preachers, but would instead be a complement to them, providing the ‘new apologetics’ for what the Church taught historically.
Implementing the New Paradigm
A natural ‘life-cycle’ is part and parcel of successfully implementing any new, major paradigm shift. This life-cycle includes three basic components: 1) research and basic science, 2) publicity and dissemination, and 3) public policy and law.
All three of these components are crucial to effecting long-term cultural change. Think, for instance, about cell phones. If cell phones caused brain cancer when used regularly over a period of several years, what would be needed to alter cell phone usage? First, there would have to be credible research demonstrating the harmful effects of cell phone use, and further research to delineate whether those effects extended to all cell phones, just some, or only after a certain level of usage.
Second, those scientists discovering the cell phone side-effects would have to publicize their findings at scientific meetings and in scientific journals. Moreover, due to the seriousness of the potential threat to public health and the large number of users who both enjoy and have come to depend on their cell phones, other ‘watchdog’ organizations would have to make a serious effort to communicate the findings to the public and to issue warnings to cell phone users. They would also need to alert the general media and lobby for widespread and repeated broadcast of health warnings.
Third, given the vast financial investment in the cell phone market and the stakes involved, substantial political efforts might be needed to influence state and federal governments to restrict, re-structure, or legislate against cell phone usage. Various laws and/or administrative decisions might be necessary to maximize the public health, including perhaps limits on the types of cell phones that could be used, or for how long. Legislative bodies might need to fund/seed research initiatives to find better cell phone technology that would not cause cancer.
Research
As this quasi-hypothetical example illustrates, each ‘life-cycle’ component entails significant effort, organization, and money. Unfortunately, very little money or effort is being spent right now to promote the new paradigm. In terms of basic research, only one organization is currently engaged in primary research on homosexuality: Family Research Institute [FRI]. While its two primary scientists are both listed among the top 15 published researchers worldwide on this topic, and one of them is a reviewer for the British Medical Journal, their scientific output is far exceeded by the combined efforts of pro-homosexual academics across the globe.
No other pro-family organization or Christian college or university does primary research in this area. Further, sexuality in general — and homosexuality in particular — is an emotion-laden topic and generally the subject of social, not ‘hard,’ science. As the conservative uproar over Alfred Kinsey and the 2004 biographical film about Kinsey demonstrate, many potential donors are skittish about funding any ‘science’ related to sexuality; some go so far as to claim that the study of sex is not science at all.
Compared to technology, of course, it is much harder to measure the effects of particular sexual behaviors or the impacts of sexual social policy. And the psychiatric paradigm is so entrenched in academia that even when such scientific studies are done, it is often difficult to get permission to present counter-evidence or contrary findings at scientific meetings, or to publish facts counter to the current paradigm in scientific journals. This has had a chilling effect on those conservatives in academia who might otherwise be willing to support and defend the new paradigm.
In addition, there seems to be little understanding among pro-family conservatives as to why such primary research is even needed. As opposed to those conservative journalists and broadcasters who developed and exploited alternative media outlets when they couldn’t get a fair hearing on the major networks, there has been almost no funding or support of alternative scientific outlets by which the new paradigm might be buttressed and disseminated.
Yet the scientific enterprise is truly key to a winning strategy. Because science is both elitist and highly competitive, it has garnered the admiration — and even awe — of non-scientists, while at the same time often befuddling them in its complexity. What many conservatives do not realize is how very difficult it is to be a top-notch scientist. While there are hundreds of thousands of professionals across the world engaged in science of one form or another, the ‘cream of the scientific crop’ rises to the top through the process of publishing in the scientific literature. Consider these facts: only 1% of Ph.D.s and M.D.s ever publish in a scientific journal; only 2% of those who publish ever place articles in one of the top handful of premier science journals; and only 10% of this last group is ever chosen to serve as ‘peer reviewers’ for those top journals, with the task of judging the quality of other scientists’ work. Nevertheless, one of the scientists at the Family Research Institute has been selected to do just that: be a peer-reviewer for the British Medical Journal, one of most well-respected scientific journals in the world.
The point is that, while very difficult, it is possible to do and publish high-quality science from a conservative perpective. But it has to be a primary focus and goal of one’s work. Further, in academia, universities spend large chunks of resources supporting the research efforts of their scholars and providing a conducive environment for those activities. That kind of support for science is almost non-existent in conservative circles.
Indeed, consider Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation and one of the fathers of the modern conservative movement. On July 25, 2005, he issued a bittersweet, but incisive asssessment of our current state of affairs:
“At the heart of the challenge facing the conservative agenda lays one simple fact: While we focused our efforts on politics, our opponents on the left focused instead on culture.
“Each of us won. Compared to where the conservative movement was the year I came to Washington, 1967, we are today immensely stronger politically. Republicans, most of whom are at least nominally conservative, control both Houses of Congress and the White House. That is success on a grand scale.
“Regrettably, our opponents have won an equally large victory over our culture. What was called the ‘counter-culture’ in the 1960s now controls almost every cultural venue: the entertainment industry (which is now the most powerful force in our culture), the government schools, the media, and even many churches. The ideology usually known as ‘Political Correctness,’ which is really the cultural Marxism of the infamous Frankfurt School, is using every type of cultural institution in our country to achieve its purpose, which is the destruction of traditional Western culture and the Christian religion. All we have to do is look around us and compare what we see with the America of the 1950s to understand how vast their victory is. The old sins have become virtues and the old virtues have become sins.
“The nub of the problem is this: Culture is stronger than politics. Despite everything conservatives have achieved in politics, the left’s cultural victory trumps ours. That is why even when we win election after election, our country continues to deteriorate.”
Three-Pronged Effort
We would submit that an important part of the left’s cultural victory has been their domination of science, particularly that surrounding sex. That is why we propose the following three-pronged effort to bolster basic research on issues of sexuality, including homosexuality:
1. Establishment of a private foundation or endowment designed to fund primary scientific research in these areas, conducted under the framework of the historic Christian worldview.
2. Establishment of a conservative sexuality ‘think-tank’ and scientific consortium, having as its primary aim the honest generation and gathering of new empirical facts about sexuality and homosexuality, careful scientific critique of existing research, publication and dissemination of new facts in the scientific literature, and enabling the networking and partnership of like-minded scientists from around the globe.
3. Expansion and systematic funding of the Family Research Institute. As previously mentioned, we are currently the only conservative organization conducting primary research on these topics. Additional funding of FRI makes sense for the following reasons: a) we have already established a presence in the scientific literature over the last 30 years, but would like to expand our efforts and reach, b) we are currently supported by a small number of donors with a minimal budget (<$200,000/yr), c) more than one scientific organization is needed to effectively wage the gay rights battle.
To understand where things stand, FRI has the equivalent of two full-time researchers on staff. We believe this would need to be increased to at least 6 or 7 professionals. Assuming $80,000 to $100,000/year for professional salaries and $30,000 to $40,000/year per professional for ancillary staff, a commitment of between $650,000/yr and $900,000/yr would be needed to generate the volume of professional papers that would be required at scientific meetings and in scientific journals to get the scientific community to take serious notice.
Publicity
As to publicity, several organizations exist within the religious conservative movement that could potentially ‘sell’ the scholarly and scientific facts supporting the new paradigm. Some of these, including Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the American Family Association, and others, already have large followings.
However, to be effective in the secular as well religious arenas, it is likely that these groups would have to significantly lighten their current moralistic thrust, a change that may not sit well with their current leadership or support base. Furthermore, they would have to end their support of the psychiatric paradigm, a difficult change given its current ubiquity and the ways in which psychiatric and Christian concepts have been melded. In particular, they would need to sharply reduce (or preferably end) their support for the ‘ex-gay movement,’ an approach which is psychiatrically anchored and highly Freudian in viewpoint.
To those who would point to recent actions on marriage by these groups, keep in mind the narrow scope of these efforts. Many pro-family conservatives have lent public support to the same Federal Marriage Amendment favored by President Bush, one which would explicitly allow states to institute and legalize near-marriage or marriage equivalents for homosexuals. None of the major pro-family groups has any solution or alternative to Lawrence v. Texas — which legalized sodomy across the nation — other than to criticize the Supreme Court and bemoan its lurch to the left.
In addition, some of these same groups have lobbied for enactment of ‘reciprocal beneficiary’ laws, in states such as Hawaii and Colorado, whereby homosexuals are granted a state endorsement to sign up for many of the benefits of marriage without being labeled as ‘married’ or having to form an explicit civil union or domestic partnership. These reciprocal beneficiary agreements are billed by pro-family conservatives as only providing more affordable access to rights that homosexuals currently enjoy anyway, and have been proposed as a compromise to avoid the need for gay marriage. In reality, however, they are another form of ‘marriage lite,’ creating an explicit government sanctioning of homosexual couplings where none existed, and often creating new rights for homosexuals while further lessening the legal distinction of marriage.
Lobbying for reciprocal beneficiary agreements is another defensive move, designed to find something, anything, that might keep the narrow definition of marriage intact. But none of the pro-family organizations has made any concerted, systematic effort to keep homosexual teachers out of schools, bar homosexuals from adopting or fostering children, or to counter the wave of corporate and government entities that have adopted pro-gay preferences or anti-discrimination clauses in their by-laws or charters. None has proposed concrete steps for reversing Lawrence’s legalization of sodomy. Nor have there been calls to overturn Lawrence, even though a Federal Marriage amendment would do nothing to change the current legal status of sodomy, and even though many of those same conservatives regularly call for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Instead, the current strategy has been almost exclusively about protecting man-woman marriage, period.
Our goal is to change public policy and law for the better by making homosexuality socially unacceptable and forcing gay rights back ‘into the closet.’ To do this in our current cultural climate will require a serious commitment to empiricism and honest science — this is our ace in the hole, and it must lead and reinforce. Moralism and appeals to Biblical morality are not likely to be effective in the long run except when ‘preaching to the choir.’ Over the past 25 to 30 years during which gay rights has been thrust into the American public consciousness, polls show that public acceptance of gays in the military has risen from 51% to 80%, approval of homosexuals as elementary school teachers has increased from 27% to 61%, and willingness to vote for a well-qualified homosexual presidential candidate has jumped from 26% to 59%. Current tactics — which have primarily appealed to history, tradition, and morality — have not worked and are not working.
Unfortunately, the recent political successes on marriage have likely wedded existing pro-family organizations to their current strategies. Even if this were not the case, it would still be very difficult to get already established organizations to ‘change their tune.’ Consequently, we believe that a new organization should be established that would focus exclusively on matters of sexuality and sexual morality, as seen through the lens of science and empiricism. This organization would be created to:
1. Serve as a publicity and public relations clearinghouse for the new science on sexuality and homosexuality,
2. Promote new scientific information in laymen’s terms and attempt to build a presence within the major media,
3. Host conventions, and provide training, seminars, and popularly-written materials to Christian activists and concerned individuals of all walks of life,
4. Lobby state and federal governments for specific legislation and administrative directives that will — using evidence from public health and science as the basis — promote the traditional Christian viewpoint on homosexuality.
The organization closest to what we have in mind is the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society. It reviews the professional literature regarding family life, sponsors conventions, and publishes books with a budget of $650,000/year. While it touches upon homosexuality from time to time, its main emphasis is upon demonstrating the superiority of the married two-parent family and the importance of religion to successful family life. It does not publish original scientific papers, nor does it critique articles that appear in scientific outlets. Primarily it acts as a clearinghouse and organizer of conventions to bring like-minded individuals and organizations together.
Another possible model would be the more recently formed Council on Family Law, jointly sponsored by the Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and the Institute for the Study of Marriage, Law, and Culture. Each of these organizations is independent, non-partisan, and seeks to foster interdisciplinary research on marriage and family law and social policy by bringing together scholars from around the world, united by a common mission. As the Institute for American Values puts it:
“In all of its work, the Institute seeks to bring fresh analyses and new research to the attention of policy makers in government, opinion makers in the media, and decision makers in the private sector.”
Public Policy
The final piece of this puzzle — public policy and law — must also emphasize and rest upon empiricism. The arguments upholding Georgia’s sodomy law in the 1986 Supreme Court decision in Bowers v. Hardwick were based on history, tradition and precedent. The high court affirmed those arguments then, but rejected similar appeals to precedent in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case. Public morality and majority sentiment — as they have evolved over time in the Christian West — are not enough to stop gay rights. This was clear from the Supreme Court’s Romer v. Evans decision in 1994 rejecting Colorado’s majority vote on Amendment 2.
What is needed are legislative and public policy strategies that can be argued on the basis of public health, risk assessment, and scientific fact. Laws and directives should be proposed and solicited which have as their motivating basis the greater personal and social dangers/risks associated with homosexual practice. Only by incorporating such bases into legislative or administrative proposals will our courts be forced to determine the merits of such laws on the basis of the public good, rationality, and scientific support.
To this end, we would propose the following as first examples of initiatives that ought to be launched.
Sodomy
- Legislation making penile-anal sex illegal. Engaging in penile-anal sex would be considered a felony, punishable by 1-5 years in prison, or a fine of $2,000 per occurrence.
Penile-anal sex and intravenous [IV] drug use have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of HIV infections and AIDS, an exceptionally costly disease. Currently, possessing the equipment and/or substances to engage in shooting IV drugs is illegal because such behavior spreads blood-borne disease through needle and works sharing. Sodomy constitutes a public health threat, a drain on the public treasury, and fosters a subculture that attempts to expand the number of users. This bill would specifically correct the oversight that penile-anal sex, though probably responsible for the majority of HIV infections in the U.S., is currently legal.
Those who get infected from shooting drugs endanger their lives, the lives of children they may carry, the health care workers who treat them, those who receive bodily tissue from them (e.g., blood products, organ transplants), and those with whom they come in contact to get and share IV drug-shooting equipment. The state has a compelling interest in suppressing this activity, since 1) the health care costs for diseases contracted by these means (e.g., HIV, hepatitis) are so substantial, and must be borne by society, and 2) those who shoot IV drugs encourage others to participate with them.
The practice of penile-anal sex is similar, in that those who engage in it endanger their lives, the lives of children they may carry, the health care workers who treat them, those who receive bodily tissue from them, and those with whom they engage in penile-anal sex. Diseases caught from penile-anal sex entail substantial health care costs, which must be borne by the state. For this reason, and the fact that those who engage in penile-anal sex encourage others to participate with them, the state has a compelling interest in suppressing this behavior.
Marriage Protection
- Extend the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] by adding to it the provision that “any political entity giving the same set or approximately the same set of benefits to any institution other than marriage (e.g., domestic partnerships, civil unions, or the equivalent) is denied Federal funding, starting with a 1% reduction in Federal funding to that entity for the first week that the entity is in violation, a 2% reduction for a violation during the second week, and so on until either full compliance with the intent of Congress to protect the institution of marriage is met, or all Federal funding is withdrawn from that political entity.”
- Introduce federal and state bills declaring that “because of the risks to individual and public health, and the high social costs associated with HIV infection, which currently accounts for approximately 1% of Gross Domestic Product and is still growing, as well as the many other infections (e.g., syphilis, hepatitis C) that are spreading sexually through the populace by sexual contact and commerce, any political entity that receives Federal [or state] funding and passes some form of domestic partnership or any public or private entity that does business with the Federal [or state] government and provides benefits for unmarried couples, must require blood tests of the same sort required to donate to the blood bank. These tests must be required as of the date that a partnership begins in the case of political entities granting domestic partnerships, or as of the date such benefits are conferred in the case of private entities providing benefits. Further, if a prospective member of the couple fails to pass any of the tests associated with blood donation, that partnership cannot commence until both partners are medically certified as uninfected with any of the pathogens that would disqualify blood for donation; neither can benefits be granted by the entity that confers benefits.”
Entities that did not comply with this second initiative would be denied Federal or state funding, including a progressive reduction in total Federal or state contract awards, until either compliance was met or all funding was removed. Enactment of the first bill would mean conservatives would not have to wait years for a (difficult and unlikely) Constitutional amendment on marriage. The second bill would protect individual and public health and the taxpayer purse should some form of domestic partnership be granted to those having sex outside the bonds of matrimony.
Further, Congress is given sole discretion over the public purse under Sections 8 and 9 of Article I of the Constitution. There is ample precedent for Congress to demand actions by the states or cities in order to retain Federal funding (and similarly for state legislatures to act within their domains). Federal highway funds are withheld, for instance, if a 0.08% standard for ‘drunk driving’ is not enacted by each state. Minnesota was the very last hold-out on this provision, but finally complied as of July 2005.
Protection of Children
- Enact a Federal requirement of full disclosure of all sexual molestations of foster and adoptive children, classified by sex and marital status of each perpetrator and further cross-sorted by sex of child, for every entity receiving Federal funding.
Every state would be required to list substantiated (or reported) instances of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect in such a way that the empirical risks of same-sex and opposite-sex sexual abuse in foster and adoptive parent homes could be determined and investigated. Currently, this kind of information is not mandated nor regularly reported by any state or agency. And yet there is selective evidence that the risk of same-sex sexual abuse is substantially higher than the risk of opposite-sex abuse, evidence that must be confirmed before implementing new, health-based, public policy on foster and adoptive parenting.
- If, after full disclosure, a year’s data from the states shows the same pattern of disproportionate sexual abuse by those who engage in homosexuality, then legislation would be proposed to ban Federal [or state] funding of any entity’s programs for children if that entity permits fostering or adoption by homosexuals — that is, those who identify themselves as bisexual, homosexual, transgendered, lesbian, gay, etc. or who, as adults (aged 18 or older) have engaged in same-sex sexual relationships.
Education
- Enact a Federal requirement that school districts treat homosexual sex as a public health hazard. Any district that treats homosexual sex as equivalent to heterosexual sex would have its Federal funding reduced by 1% per week of non-compliance.
- Enact a Federal requirement that at least by 7th grade, each pupil in every school must be informed of: 1) the health hazards of homosexual sex, including STDs and the shortening of the lifespan, and 2) the health benefits of marriage, including lesser risks of STDs and the lengthening of the lifespan. Any school district that fails to inform its pupils in this regard is to have its Federal funding reduced by 1% per week of non-compliance.
- Enact a Federal requirement that school districts must not have a non-discrimination policy in regard to homosexual teachers. Any district that has a non-discrimination policy regarding homosexuals would have its Federal funding reduced by 1% per week of non-compliance.
- Enact a federal requirement that schools and day care facilities must fully disclose attempted or actual sexual molestations of pupils to the U.S. Department of Education in a timely manner. All those convicted (or who plead no contest) to a sexual charge involving a child must be reported, by name, Social Security number, fingerprints, etc. to a register maintained by the U.S. Department of Education. Further, mandate that no teacher or worker at a school or day care facility — whether public or private — can be employed if they have been convicted of, or are currently being prosecuted for, sexual abuse of a child.
- Enact a Federal requirement that any administrator or school board who knowingly hires a homosexual or a convicted child molester as a teacher or worker at a school or day care facility is to be fined $50,000.
Conclusion
It took Christianity 300 years to accomplish its transformation of society regarding homosexuality. It has taken psychiatry about 100 years to partially transform the West’s treatment. Today, it is likely that an investment of at least 20 years will be required to dent the hold that the psychiatric paradigm has on elite and popular thinking. At the current pace — unless a new paradigm is adopted and accepted — near total acquiescence to the gay rights movement is almost assured over the next 20 to 40 years. That is why this effort and fight — using a new line of attack and the very weapon psychiatry launched against Christianity — is so critical.
What You Can Do
We can no longer sit on the sidelines and hope that our culture will somehow rebound on its own. Apathy is nothing but a recipe for disaster. We can no longer afford to be ignorant of the aims, nature, and stratagems of the homosexual movement, no matter how distasteful or repugnant the subject may seem. And a defeatist attitude that it is ‘already too late’ will only guarantee certain failure.
FRI believes we can make a difference. The tide can be turned, difficult though that may sound. But we need your involvement and the help of other committed individuals. Specifically, what we are asking for is the following:
1. Financial resources. We need financial backing both to expand the mission of Family Research Institute and to seed and fund the new foundation, research consortium, and clearinghouse organizations described earlier. This will require significant investment on the part of several individuals and/or entities.
2. Administrative and legal resources. We need individuals with excellent business, management, and legal expertise to oversee the creation and development of the new sexuality organizations.
3. Name recognition. We need well-known and well-respected individuals from all walks of professional life to publicly lend their names and support to this effort and to serve as board members and advisors.
4. Scientific expertise and collaboration. We need additional researchers and academicians willing to collaborate with FRI, even at the risk of public ridicule and/or professional censure, for the sake of pursuing and researching the empirical truth about homosexuality.
5. Public relations and lobbying expertise. We need media-savvy individuals and political veterans who will help bring this fight to both Congress, state legislatures, and to our national media at all levels.
Please join with us in this undertaking. We can only make progress by uniting together under a strategic plan that makes sense. Consider carefully whether any other initiative is better worth your time, money, and involvement. Many problems in our culture exist, to be sure. But what will have the most far-reaching impacts on your children, their families, and the generations to come? Put in another way, what is it about our way of life that is most worth preserving?
May we all have the courage of our convictions to engage this battle.
