Dr. Marvin Olasky has responded here to our critique of his column in World Magazine regarding Uganda’s legislative efforts to curb homosexuality. While we respect Dr. Olasky’s analysis and commentary in many areas, we disagree with his thinking in this instance. In fact, on its face, Olasky’s position (similar to that of many Evangelical leaders/commentators) leads to a troubling disregard of the importance of law in curbing and containing sexual sin, as well as a glossing over of the destructive consequences of homosexual behavior. Read more »

Marvin Olasky, Editor in Chief of World Magazine, posted an analysis here of Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill on January 24. Although Dr. Olasky claims a conservative Christian background and worldview, his reactions to Uganda’s efforts to suppress homosexuality seem ignorant of both historic Christian treatment in this area as well as the power of law to influence behavior. Below we extensively excerpt Olasky’s analysis and rebut with our commentary.

Problem or Solution? by Marvin Olasky

Going ballistic: When the Ugandan parliament shortly before Christmas passed a bill legislating long prison sentences for homosexuals, The Huffington Post quoted one activist calling Dec. 20 ‘the worst day’ in history, and the U.S. State Department (which looks the other way as Muslims murder Christians) was quick to ‘condemn’ the bill. On Jan. 17 Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni chose not to sign the bill, citing a technicality, and columnists blamed American Christians for manipulating the purportedly ignorant and easily led Africans.

A deeper analysis came from Chris Howles, a missionary in Uganda who in his blog, Namugongo Life, called the national opposition to homosexuality historical rather than religious. Howles wrote online (“Homophobia in Uganda: Is Christianity the problem or the solution?”), ‘The vast majority of Christians in this country have never met or spoken with a Western missionary. Nor have their leaders. Many of these attitudes about homosexuality come direct from traditional Ugandan culture.’

FRI’s Comment — Homophobia? This propaganda word does not belong in Christian discourse. Dislike of homosexuality, general avoidance of those who practice it, and trying to keep our kids safe from gay predators are hardly ‘problems’ for Christians — it is ‘who we are supposed to be.’ To be sure, we will find ourselves out of tune with Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s “If I go up to heaven and find a homophobic God, I will tell him I prefer the other place.” Similarly, we will find ourselves on the wrong side of President Obama, Hollywood, David Cameron, Bill and Hillary Clinton, the EU, the media, etc. If God calls something wrong but our elite say it’s precious, our marching orders are clear — as the brave Ugandan Christian boys and young men of 1886 (and mentioned by Olasky below) demonstrated.

Some things do not change. In surveys conducted by homosexual researchers of U.S. male homosexuals, over a fifth admitted to having sex with boys, and media reports suggest they commit up to half of all child molestation in the U.S.

Who ya gonna believe? I side with Howles, in part because in November I visited his central Ugandan township of Namugongo and saw a memorial to 26 pages, young royal servants who professed Christ and were martyred in 1886. … King Mwanga II had the 26 pages burned to death, and a national holiday now honors them.

Why the king killed them is important in understanding the recent Ugandan legislation. Students learn that Mwanga II expected the royal pages to submit to his homosexual advances. After all, the traditional saying Namunswa alya kunswaze (the queen ant feeds on her subjects) indicated that the monarch is licensed to kill those who reject him.

The pages, though, fed on Christ and chose to die rather than to sin so blatantly. Given that fact, many Ugandans see tolerance of homosexuality in Uganda, let alone praise for it, as historical treason.  Does that mean I applauded the parliamentary legislation …? … No: It was harsh and unlikely to be effective.

FRI’s Comment — Laws against murder are harsh and unlikely to be effective (in completely stopping murder). But such laws educate as to what is ‘correct’ and serve as a disincentive to commit murder. Just because we cannot specify how many lives were saved by a particular law hardly means the law was ineffective. Surely the fact that people still commit murder, rape, or theft would not cause Dr. Olasky to label them as “ineffective” and not worth having.

I write that because ancient Israel’s experience shows how sinners like all of us tend to act when faced with a long list of laws: We break them. The ancient Israelites had the best laws, since God gave them. They had every reason to be confident in their lawgiver, since God had delivered their ancestors from slavery. They had every reason to fear breaking them, since the penalty often was death. But, under these best of possible conditions for obedience, they disobeyed.

FRI’s Comment — The Jews only had 613 hard and fast laws, in addition to a number of bureaucratic interpretations made by their priestly class. Whatever that number, it pales beside the hundreds of thousands of laws under which we live. Does the multiplicity of laws make us want to break them? Doubtful. Laws both educate and regulate. If sinners are to live with sinners, laws are absolutely necessary and Christians are to obey them except when, as with the brave 26 boys and young men, they contradict a basic tenant of faith.

Howles has a better idea: Promote Christianity, not tradition. He argues that if Ugandans temper their desire to put homosexuals in prison, ‘it will most likely be because of Christianity, as churches preach a message of godly love and kindness towards active homosexuals.’

FRI’s Comment — Really? How do we show “godly love and kindness toward active child molesters?” Or active thieves, active adulterers, active slanderers, etc.? Until the last few decades, every time the Christian Church had the opportunity, it made homosexual activity illegal — often carrying the ultimate penalty. So it was in Rome, England, and early in these United States. Everyone else – especially children — should not be endangered so those expressing homosexual interests can be comfortable.

Christianity is an historic religion. Only if you believe it is ‘whatever we say it is today’ can you contend that ‘the Gospel’ requires acceptance and/or embrace of those who practice homosexuality! If pusillanimous preachers want to ‘ignore’ Christian history in favor of a new Gospel, they earn their heretic label.

Homosexuality is wrong and laws can be useful educators, but our hope is in ‘the gospel that shows us that all people are created in God’s image … the gospel that welcomes all people to confess that Jesus is Lord and unite together in a broken but re-built community of Christ,’ as Ephesians 2:17–22 explains.

FRI’s Comment — Some acquire a preference for child-sex, others would like to have affairs with their neighbors’ spouses. If such individuals protest, whine, and threaten about how they are being oppressed and denied their desires, will Christians also be expected to include them as we “welcome all people” in a “broken but re-built community of Christ?” Peter said in Acts to “repent and be baptized,” not ‘unite together in a broken but re-built community and be baptized.’

Christians with a traditionally-minded, Bible-believing tilt should reject any attempt to bring “active homosexuals” into our “re-built community;” they, not we, must first repent. If Christianity is to abandon standards and repentance for failing these standards, and instead become re-warmed psychobabble, forget the Church, see your local shrink or a bookstore’s self-help section.

Fear-based laws may work for a while, and laws to protect life are certainly important, but rules imposing morality usually sweep problems under the rug instead of solving them.

FRI’s Comment — When abortion was illegal in the U.S., the abortion rate was no more than half, if not a third, of what it is today. Did such laws ‘solve’ abortion? No, no more than laws against murder ‘solve’ murder. Abortions occurred, murders occurred — laws did not ‘solve’ either. Humans are, by nature, sinful. Law, sometimes harsh law, is necessary when strong motives are involved. Law does not and cannot ‘solve’ sin, it only contains it. When homosexual activity was illegal, it still occurred, but it did not grace every newscast, get taught in our schools, get extolled in our drama, or cause Christian editors to go wobbly in fear of them, etc.

Thousands of years of Church decisions ought not to be abandoned all because liberals criticize us or homosexuals feel uncomfortable. Neither the Sadducees (the liberals of his time) nor the Pharisees (the conservatives) hailed Christ. Those who follow Christ are ‘stuck with’ His decrees. If you want to claim Christ and ignore His commands, since Tutu is an Archbishop, perhaps you can. But the Apostle Paul seems to warn otherwise: “The wicked will have no share in God’s kingdom. Don’t be mistaken about this: no one who lives in sexual sin… adulterers, or males who have sex with other males, … or slanderers… will have a share in God’s Kingdom" (1 Cor. 6).

If law doesn’t work for long, what does? Only the gospel. Christ loved us enough to die for us. Once we stop thinking of ourselves as the center of the world and recognize that God owns it and us, we realize that our greatest pleasure comes not from indulgence but from feeling God’s pleasure.

FRI’s Comment — To which many who sin sexually might retort “agreed, my greatest pleasure is ‘feeling God’s pleasure.’ Yet I get lesser, but substantial pleasure, from feelings gotten from a good roll in the hay, visit to a bathhouse, or tryst in a public restroom, etc." Jesus never said ‘if you love me, live so as to feel God’s pleasure;’ but rather “ if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Feelings are not only ‘cheap,’ but totally unreliable (‘everything a man does is right in his own eyes’). This is akin to Buddhism (or Universalism) and rather removed from historic Christianity.

Regular church-goers usually do somewhat better on almost every index of social usefulness and personal health. They score this way by trying to follow God’s commandments, thereby separating themselves from the practices of ‘the world;’ certainly from the sexual preachments of our current elite.

Homosexual practitioners may get pleasure from indulging their sexual desires, but that is far outweighed by diseases leading to a shortened lifespan combined with interpersonal violence, instability, and a life of destructive meaninglessness. Additionally, they are a burden to us all in that they 1) consume more than they contribute, 2) disproportionately disturb social order, and 3) produce few children themselves while molesting the kids of others.

Homosexuality violates God’s first commandment to ‘be fruitful,’ and is at the very heart of Biblical denunciation of rebellion against God (see Deut 32 and Romans 1). Homosexual lust led to the painful incineration of 26 brave Ugandan Christian boys and young men. It cannot be ignored without substantial intellectual and moral peril. Arguably Christianity’s greatest preacher, John Chrysostom, called it the worst sin, worse even than murder. While every sin in Scripture is not to be carried into public law, if this sin is not, what would Olasky nominate and how would he justify it?
 

We are sending the proposal below to influential contacts and donors around the world, but we also need your help. Please consider making a gift to Family Research Institute (FRI) to help us meet our December 31 deadline. Click on the Make a Donation button to contribute.

The West is suicidal. Though the dearth of children is its most important problem, Europe bows the knee to homosexuality and along with U.S. support, applies force to gain its acceptance elsewhere. Gay rights is exceptionally harmful as it reinforces the Hollywood/Psychiatric, pill-enabling value — “adults should have the right to have sex with any adult” — that has led to our demographic decline. Fifteen U.S. states grant marriage for homosexual feelings and ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act = special rights for gays/transsexuals) has passed the Senate.

Conservatives’ political power may be sufficient to keep ENDA from passing the House. But scientific evidence countering the common claims that ‘gays are no more apt to molest’ and ‘homosexuality is normal’ would get media attention, while having worldwide impact. Such evidence might even be compelling for most in both parties.

Currently it appears that if Christendom is to be saved from homosexualization and decline, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be her Charles Martel and Russia her Vienna. I have just returned from sharing scientific evidence with the Russian DUMA (the near equivalent of the American Congress) that (1) the baby deficit will grind the West to dust; and (2) homosexual activity is associated with:

• higher rates of child molestation;
• a negative influence on our long-term demographic future; the molested are often ‘converted’ and/or disturbed enough to make them less apt to marry and beget children, even if they do not pursue homosexuality themselves;
• an early death, so dramatic that in the aggregate, its participants don’t even cover their costs, much less produce more than they consume, as is expected of healthy citizens.

Family Research Institute (FRI) needs $95,000 for two research projects to help the House reject ENDA and to powerfully influence gay rights debates worldwide.

Our main argument against ENDA should not be the oft-heard ‘it reduces religious freedom,’ which only about a third of Republicans and perhaps 10% of Democrats find compelling. Instead we should confront the socially substantive issues involved head-on, proving that GLBT are much more apt to:

• molest children; disqualifying them for jobs with, or access to, children, and placing every institution that hires them at tremendous financial and moral risk (e.g., Penn State, the American Catholic Church); and
• get ill and die during their working years, increasing employers’ costs for training, replacement, health care, etc.

The results of these projects will also have considerable utility in Eastern Europe, especially Russia — the country key at this time to rolling back the gay tide.

Project #1 Documenting the disproportionate child molestation by homosexuals

The major desire of the homosexual movement is to get sexual access to children, especially boys. While direct sexual access is currently illegal everywhere, albeit seldom enforced in a number of Muslim countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, once access is achieved at least some children can be propagandized to accept homosexuality and others can be molested. Many of the molested, especially boys, will be converted into homosexuals themselves.

Currently, the gay rights movement is gaining access to adopt or foster children by acquiring the right to marry and thereby adopt or foster children. Being protected under civil rights law so that homosexuals can openly serve as childcare workers, child advocates and/or tenders, and teachers is another major goal that can lead to even more such access.

As an example of the goals of gay activists and liberal sympathizers, the American Psychiatric Association has just said it was a ‘mistake’ to list those with desires to have sex with children as a “sexual orientation” in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM V). Perhaps it was, but this section of the DSM is closely watched by outsiders and many reviewers ‘missed’ this, even as the DSM went to print. Some ‘mistake;’ the push to permit sex with boys will continue.

The disproportionate molestation by homosexuals is THE most important fact to establish and exploit. As such, our findings could go a significant way toward demolishing the lies about child molestation being disseminated by American and European professional societies. In particular, the American Psychiatric/Psychological/Social Work associations assert that homosexuals are no more apt to molest than are heterosexuals. Their claim is regarded as ‘scientific proof’ by many, since they assert that the scientific evidence is consistently on their side.

The best way to combat this ‘professional consensus’ is empirical evidence to the contrary. FRI has been systematically gathering evidence on child molestation reports across the Western World. We would like to obtain similar Russian and Eastern European data to allow for cross-cultural comparisons and to determine if the same trends are evident worldwide. Not only would such data enable us to publish both sets of data in international professional journals (lending prestige to the effort), but would also directly address what is going on in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. Data from Russia specifically would also illuminate to what degree Russian conservatism has dampened rates of homosexual molestation, if it has, or expose the need for further legislation if it has not.

FRI’s preliminary findings based on systematic searches of Google News in English include the first 451 child molestation news stories that could be scored during the first 3 months of 2013. We intend to increase the English sample to include the first 1,000 news stories. A matching effort in Russian and possibly other languages, differing only in the use of language, would be exceptionally useful.

The method of gathering news stories has to be precisely the same in Russian, etc. as we have done in English. So researchers are needed who are committed to ‘do it right’ and ‘without bias of any kind.’ While almost any meticulous adult who has access to the internet and reads well can do the searching, coding, and insertion of the story into our database, professionals, who will also lend their names and degrees to the project, would be preferable. At least one of the researchers has to write and read English well as we will be communicating via email. We are working with contacts in Russia, etc. toward garnering these professionals.

It will take some time to build a database comparable to FRI’s current one. In English, often the first account of a child molestation gives too little information to ascertain the sex of the perpetrator and the sex(es) of the victim(s), so further searching has to be employed to ‘track down the truth’ — a process which is often fairly time consuming. We assume it will be the same in Russia and elsewhere.

Gathering and coding a news story, and inserting it into the database, takes about half an hour per story. The analysis and write-up of the findings in the database has taken about an additional half hour per story. Thus, we estimate that completion of the project would require approximately $60,000 (U.S.), covering:

• 500 U.S. professional hours for gathering and inserting the findings into the English database;
• Another 500 or so Russian professional hours for gathering and inserting the findings from 500-1,000 news stories into the Russian database;
• 500 U.S. professional hours to coordinate the research efforts, statistically analyze and write-up the findings from the additional cases, and navigate the submission to professional journals; and
• A good Russian translator so that we can simultaneously publish our findings in Russian and English. The project will probably result in about a 30-page report in English and be about the same size in Russian, etc.
• Additional moneys and manpower would be needed to expand the project to other countries in Eastern Europe.

The project can be completed by Spring 2014 if the money is raised by December 31, 2013.

Project #2 Documenting the brevity of the homosexual lifespan

Calling a sexual habit or taste ‘normal’ when it is associated with (or causes) a shortened lifespan is absurd. Yet the American and European Psychiatric/Psychological/Social Work Associations contend homosexuality is a ‘normal variant of human sexuality.’ Proving that those who engage in homosexuality experience significantly higher mortality (and morbidity) is a very, very strong argument against those who contend such practices are “normal.”

FRI scholars have been gathering obituary data from San Francisco and other cities to systematically assess trends in the homosexual lifespan. Completion of this project will require approximately $35,000 to:

• Complete the data gathering and coding; check and finalize the database representing obituaries across a 30-year timeframe (100 professional hours);
• Finish an innovative statistical analysis designed to justify the use of obituaries as a credible source of evidence about the lifespan (50-100 professional hours);
• Compare the homosexual obituaries against mainstream obituaries, and against independent data sources such as official death statistics from Denmark, where registered homosexual partnerships/marriages have been in place since 1989 (100 professional hours);
• Prepare a professional write-up and publish the findings (100 professional hours).

This project can also be completed by Spring 2014 if the money is raised by December 31, 2013.

Family Research Institute is a 501(c)3 organization, as such all donations are tax-deductible in the USA. The deadline for donations in the USA for this calendar year is December 31, 2013. Time is of the essence for getting these projects done and their evidence rapidly inserted into the public discourse.

The media is launching a full-court press trying to influence the Boy Scouts and the U.S. Supreme Court to bless homosexuality. The Washington Post, in a clear attempt to influence the Supreme Court on gay marriage, just published a book review by Nathaniel Frank, visiting scholar at Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. In his review Frank exposes the general weakness of the typical pro-family defense of traditional man-woman marriage, while asserting that no rational argument can be made against ‘gay equality:’

“Arguing that same-sex love deserves equal recognition, as President Obama said eloquently in his second inaugural address, is a moral project. It amounts to saying “gay is good,” not something to be tolerated despite being morally reprehensible.”

“Indeed, one of the most notable but little noted recent culture-war developments has been the stark role reversal by advocates and opponents of gay equality on the relevance of morality to their arguments. For decades, anti-gay activists freely expressed moral opprobrium — even disgust — at the thought of homosexuality, successfully opposing gays’ right to teach, serve in uniform, have sex, become Boy Scouts, be ordained or marry, all based on condemning some variation of their ‘unmentionable vice.’ Without the tools to assert their moral worth in response, gay advocates replied with the language of tolerance, privacy and liberty, almost as if they were demanding the right to be morally bad.”

“Yet in competing briefs for the Supreme Court, it was the pro-gay arguments that were redolent with the language of morality, while opponents bent over backward to insist that they had no moral argument against gays. ‘The absence of any rational justification for depriving gay men and lesbians of their right to marry,’ proponents of marriage equality wrote, regarding the California initiative that is before the Supreme Court, ‘leads inexorably to the conclusion that Proposition 8’s principal purpose was to advance the majority’s moral disapproval of gay relationships.'”

“Bristling at the allegation of moral judgment, opponents countered by arguing that marriage can properly be restricted to heterosexual unions ‘not because individuals in such relationships are virtuous or morally praiseworthy, but because of the unique potential such relationships have’ to affect ‘vital interest[s]’ of society.”

As Frank rightly points out, the National Organization for Marriage and its allies are before the Supreme Court this week with a strategy of ‘we have nothing against homosexuality per se; man-woman marriage is just better.’ This equivocating argument lost in Federal court and in last year’s popular votes in Maine and Minnesota.

Frank also takes aim at the supposed “base” motivations of traditionalists:

“whatever clever rationales… opponents [of gay marriage] offer, the real source of their opposition is a feeling that homosexuality is ‘exceedingly yucky’….”

“Armed with the cover of religion and tradition, opponents of equality may sincerely believe that they are not acting out of animus and yet be wrong in that belief — that is, unaware of their more base or hostile motivations.”

“Unpacking these motivations is key to understanding the entire debate over homosexuality, both in the courts and in the effort to change hearts and minds. While speculating on the motives behind laws can be risky business for the courts, it can also be critical: If a law implicating a fundamental right is found to have no rational relationship to furthering an important government interest, it will be hard to pass constitutional muster, since the law will be reduced to what the court has called a ‘bare desire to harm.'”

“Motives are important beyond the courts, too. The rational case for gay equality has now been made so convincingly for those open to reasoned debate that the question ‘What’s wrong with homosexuality?’ seems no longer to be the relevant one. The real question is why, despite the strong trend toward approval, millions continue to believe that homosexuality is wrong, even though so much evidence has emerged that it harms no one.“

With this accusation that the only reason people still oppose homosexuality is that they think it’s “yucky,” as well as the demonstrably false claim that homosexuality “harms no one,” the Boy Scouts are among those being pressured — at times even by supposed conservatives — to also prove they have ‘nothing against homosexuality’ by opening up their ranks to male homosexuals.

But the Supreme Court and the Boys Scouts have to be reached with the truth:

• Homosexuality is dangerous — it spawns despair, spreads disease, and shortens life.
• Homosexuals recruit our kids, robbing our future.

FRI needs money right away to publicize two new studies — and we’ve got to do it over the next few weeks:

• For the Supreme Court: Hard new evidence that homosexuality reduces the average lifespan by 10 to 20 years! Some of this evidence has just come in from Denmark, which has had the equivalent of gay marriage for over two decades. By examining 1) all the deaths (1,709,850) in Denmark since formal homosexual partnerships were legalized and 2) thousands of new U.S. obituaries from urban centers, it is clear that gay marriage, if anything, shortens the lives of homosexuals even further!
• For the Boy Scouts: Rush Limbaugh was right, Bill O’Reilly was wrong about male homosexuals molesting boys. New, systematic Google-based evidence shows homosexuals are far more apt to sexually molest kids, entirely consistent with past research and traditional wisdom.

We are working to publish these studies in scientific journals. But the publishing and approval process takes substantial time (usually many months at the least). So until then, our goal is to reach decision makers in time through a series of press releases and connections through email, the internet, and social media.

If you agree with FRI that homosexuality is harmful to health and that homosexuals disproportionately molest our young, please support our efforts now.

As 2012 comes to a close, take a moment to think about whom you support financially. Many organizations share your values. So why support Family Research Institute (FRI)?

1. FRI’s staff are ‘scientific experts.’ The world has changed. Even though a lot of social science and public health is ‘common sense,’ unless ‘experts’ say it, judges, legislators, and the professional public are reluctant to accept it. FRI’s core consists of honest-to-goodness scientists: a social psychologist and a statistician, both Ph.D.s and both extensively published in the profession.
2. FRI makes a difference. FRI has been instrumental in a several public health initiatives, including discriminating against smokers because of the harms to non-smokers (Chairman Paul Cameron was the first scientist to document the health effects of secondhand smoke on kids — and coined the term ‘secondhand smoke’); getting gay blood banned from the blood banks; segregating HIV+ prisoners; and having donated blood tested for HIV-2. Some of you reading this may have had your life saved by one or more of these initiatives!
3. The champions of gay rights largely reserve their professional attacks for FRI. Martha Nussbaum, often considered the current reigning ‘scholar of the left’ has attacked FRI and FRI’s chairman, Paul Cameron, in a number of books, articles and speeches. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — a radical leftist organization — has attacked many organizations lately for being against gay rights. But the first one it attacked was FRI.
4. FRI has a significant presence in Eastern Europe where gay rights is not only being opposed, but actively reversed. Russia has adopted FRI’s suggestion that gay pride parades be banned. We also have contacts with many parliamentarians across the political spectrum.
5. FRI is working on a number of major new investigations that will increase the influence and power of those opposing the homosexual movement. Science is the ‘bible’ of our times. We are working on new empirical studies that will not only bedevil the homosexual movement, but embarrass its supporters!

The Real Deal

Well-known gay activist/scholar Alvin McEwen’s 2007 attack on FRI’s chairman was quite revealing:

“In looking at the inner workings of how [the] so-called ‘pro-family’ groups create studies about the gay and lesbian community, you have to look at the roots of how they get their ‘research.’ If there is one person who has a sustained legacy in this area, Paul Cameron, head of the Family Research Institute…, would get the prize. Sheldon, Dobson, etc., may be the leaders and the spokespeople of the anti-gay industry, but it is Cameron who has provided the framework for almost every study, statistic, and claim that the anti-gay industry uses against the gay and lesbian community. All forms of anti-gay propaganda they use are rooted in some form or another in his work.” (emphasis added, 2007, pp. 40-41)

Please consider donating generously to Family Research Institute. Your money will be well spent!