Society has a vested interest in prohibiting behavior that endangers the health or safety of the community. Because of this, homosexual liaisons have historically been forbidden by law. Homosexuals also do a poor job of raising healthy, well socialized children.

Homosexuals contend that their relationships are the equivalent of marriage between a man and woman. They demand that society dignify and approve of their partnerships by giving them legal status as ‘marriages.’ They further argue that homosexuals should be allowed to become foster-parents or adopt children.

The best scientific evidence suggests that putting society’s stamp of approval on homosexual partnerships would harm society in general and children in particular. A large body of scientific evidence suggests that homosexual marriage is a defective counterfeit of traditional marriage and that it poses a clear and present danger to the health of the community and children’s well-being.

Traditional marriage improves the health of its participants, has the lowest rate of domestic violence, prolongs life, and is the best context in which to raise children. Homosexual coupling undermines its participants’ health, has the highest rate of domestic violence, shortens life, and is a poor environment in which to raise children.

THE FACTS ABOUT HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE

Fact #1: Homosexual Marriages Are Short Lived

When one examines homosexual behavior patterns, it becomes clear that the plea for legal homosexual marriage is less about marriage than the push for legitimacy. Most gays and lesbians are not in monogamous relationships, and in fact often live alone by preference.

• In a study¹ of 2,000 U.S. and European gays in the 1960s, researchers found that “living by oneself is probably the chief residential pattern for male homosexuals. It provides the freedom to pursue whatever style of homosexual life one chooses, whether it be furtive encounters in parks or immersion in the homosexual subculture. In addition, homosexual relationships are fragile enough to make this residential pattern common whether deliberate or not.”
• A 1970 study in San Francisco² found that approximately 61% of gays and 37% of lesbians were living alone.
• In 1977, the Spada Report³ noted that only 8% of the gays in its sample claimed to have a monogamous relationship with a live-in lover.
• The same year⁴ over 5,000 gays and lesbians were asked: “Do you consider or have you considered yourself ‘married’ to another [homosexual]?” Only 40% of lesbians and 25% of gays said “yes.” The authors noted that with “gay male couples, it is hard to even suggest that there are norms of behavior. [One] might expect to find a clear pattern of ‘categories’ emerging from the answers to the questions about lovers, boy friends, and relationships. In fact, no such pattern emerged.”
• In the early 1980s, a large non-random sample⁵ of almost 8,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples responded to advertisements in alternative newspapers. The average number of years together was 9.8 for the married, 1.7 for cohabiting heterosexuals, 3.5 for the gay couples, and 2.2 for the lesbian couples.

Variety Over Monogamy

Although gay activists often argue that legalizing homosexual marriage would help make such relationships more permanent, the reality is that most gays desire variety in their sex partners, not the monogamy of traditional marriage.

• In 1987, only 23% of gays in London⁶ reported sexual exclusivity “in the month before interview.”
• In 1990, only 12% of gays in Toronto, Canada⁷ said that they were in monogamous relationships.
• In 1991, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, Australian gays⁸ were monitored to see whether they had changed their sexual habits. There was essentially no change in 5 years: 23% reported a monogamous relationship, 35% a non-monogamous relationship, and 29% only “casual sex.” The authors reported that “there were almost as many men moving into monogamy as out of it, and out of casual-only partnerships as into them.” [emphasis added]
• In 1993, a study⁹ of 428 gays in San Francisco found that only 14% reported just a single sexual partner in the previous year. The vast majority had multiple sex partners.
• In 1994, the largest national gay magazine¹⁰ reported that only 17% of its sample of 2,500 gays claimed to live together in a monogamous relationship.
• Even gays who do have long-term partners do not play by the typical ‘rules.’ Only 69% of Dutch gays¹¹ with a marriage-type ‘partner’ actually lived together. The average number of “outside partners” per year of ‘marriage’ was 7.1 and increased from 2.5 in the first year of the relationship to 11 in the 6th year.

Why are homosexual marriages shorter and less committed than traditional marriages?

At any given time, less than a third of gays and approximately half of lesbians are living with a lover. Because the relationships are so short, the average homosexual can anticipate many, many ‘divorces.’

At any instant, about 10% of gays live together in monogamous relationships. Their monogamy seldom lasts beyond a year. Perhaps half of lesbians live together in monogamous relationships. These typically dissolve in one to three years.
These same patterns appear in the scientific literature over the last 50 years — both long before and during the AIDS epidemic. This consistency suggests a reality associated with the practice of homosexuality, one unlikely to be affected by changes in marriage laws.

The Scandinavian experience

In Denmark, a form of homosexual marriage has been legal since 1989. Through 1995, less than 3% of Danish homosexuals had gotten married, and 28% of these marriages had already ended in divorce or death.¹² The Danish experience provides no evidence that gay ‘marriage’ is beneficial. Men who married men were three times more apt to be widowers before the age of 55 than men who married women! Similarly, a woman who married a woman was three times more apt to be a widow than a woman who married a man.

Though only about 3% of gays get married in Norway and Sweden, gay marriages more frequently result in divorce. In these countries, divorce is about 50% more likely in male homosexuals, and 200% more likely in lesbians. Furthermore, reversing the usual excuse of ‘staying together for the sake of the kids,’ divorce was more common if children lived with the same-sex couple.¹³

Fact #2: Studies Show Homosexual ‘Marriage’ Is Hazardous To One’s Health

Across the world, numerous researchers have reported that ‘committed’ or ‘coupled’ homosexuals are more apt than ‘single’ gays to engage in highly risky and biologically unsanitary sexual practices. As a consequence of this activity, they increase their chances of getting AIDS and other sexually transmitted or blood-borne diseases.

• In 1983, near the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, gays in San Francisco¹⁴ who claimed to be in “monogamous relationships” were compared to those who were not. Without exception, those in monogamous relationships more frequently reported that they had engaged in biologically unhealthful activity during the past year. As examples, 4.5% of the monogamous vs. 2.2% of the unpartnered had engaged in drinking urine, and 33.3% vs. 19.6% claimed to practice oral-anal sex.
• In 1989, Italian researchers¹⁵ investigated 127 gays attending an AIDS clinic. Twelve percent of those without steady partners vs. 28% of those with steady partners were HIV+. The investigators remarked that “to our surprise, male prostitutes did not seem to be at increased risk, whereas homosexuals who reported a steady partner (i.e., the same man for the previous six months) carried the highest relative risk.”
• During 1991-92, 677 gays in England¹⁶ were asked about “unprotected anal sex.” Those who had ‘regular’ partners reported sex lives which were “about three times as likely to involve unprotected anal sex than partnerships described as ‘casual/one-night stands.’” Sex with a regular partner “was far more important than awareness of HIV status in facilitating high-risk behaviour.”
• A 1993 British sexual diary study¹⁷ of 385 gays reported that men in “monogamous” relationships practiced more anal intercourse and more anal-oral sex than those without a steady partner. It concluded that “gay men in a Closed relationship… exhibit… the highest risk of HIV transmission.”
• In 1992, a sample¹⁸ of 2,593 gays from Tucson, AZ and Portland, OR reinforced the consistent finding that “gay men in primary relationships are significantly more likely than single men to have engaged in unprotected anal intercourse.”
• Similarly, a 1993 sample¹⁹ of gays from Barcelona, Spain practiced riskier sex with their regular partners than with casual pick-ups.
• Even a 1994 study²⁰ of over 600 lesbians demonstrated that “the connection between monogamy and unprotected sex,… was very consistent across interviews. Protected sex was generally equated with casual encounters; unprotected sex was generally equated with trusting relationships. Not using latex barriers was seen as a step in the process of relational commitment. Choosing to have unprotected sex indicated deepening trust and intimacy as the relationship grew.”

Why is homosexual ‘marriage’ a health hazard?

While married people pledge and generally live up to their vows of sexual faithfulness, participants in both gay and lesbian ‘marriages’ offer each other something quite different. They see shared biological intimacy and sexual risk-taking as a hallmark of trust and commitment. Being exposed in this way to the bodily discharges of their partner increases the risk of disease, especially so if that partner was ‘married’ to someone else before or engaged in sex with others outside the relationship.

The evidence is strong that both gays and lesbians are more apt to take biological risks when having sex with a partner than when having casual sex. The evidence is also strong that gays disproportionately contract more disease, especially AIDS and the various forms of hepatitis, from sex with ‘partners’ than they do from sex with strangers.

Like male homosexuals, ‘married’ lesbians are more apt to engage in biological intimacy and risk-taking. However, death and disease rates for unpartnered lesbians appear to be as high as among the partnered.

Fact #3: Homosexual ‘Marriage’ Has the Highest Rate of Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a public health concern. Among heterosexuals, not only is it an obvious marker of a troubled marriage, but media attention and tax dollars to aid ‘battered women’ have both grown tremendously in recent years. What is not reported is the empirical evidence suggesting that homosexual couples have higher rates of domestic violence than do heterosexual couples.²¹

In 1996,²² Susan Holt, coordinator of the domestic violence unit of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, said that

“domestic violence is the third largest health problem facing the gay and lesbian community today and trails only behind AIDS and substance abuse… in terms of sheer numbers and lethality.”

The average rate of domestic violence in traditional marriage, established by a nationwide federal government survey²³ of 6,779 married couples in 1988, is apparently less than 5% per year. During their most recent year of marriage, 2.0% of husbands and 3.2% of wives said that they were hit, shoved or had things thrown at them. Unmarried, cohabiting heterosexuals report²⁴ higher rates of violence — a rate of about 20% to 25% per year.

When the same standard is applied to gay and lesbian relationships, the following evidence emerges:

• In 1987 in Georgia,²⁵ 48% of 43 lesbian couples, and 39% of 39 gay couples reported domestic violence.
• In 1988, 70 lesbian and gay students participated in a study²⁶ of conflict resolution in gay and lesbian relationships. Adjusted upward because only one partner in the couple was reporting (i.e., the researchers got “only one side of the story”), an estimated 29% of gay and 56% of lesbian couples experienced violence in the past year.
• In 1989, 284 lesbians were interviewed²⁷ who were involved “in a committed, cohabitating lesbian relationship” during the last 6 months. Adjusted for reports by just one partner, an estimated 43% of the relationships were violent in the past year.
• In 1990, nearly half of 90 lesbian couples in Los Angeles reported²⁸ domestic violence yearly. 21% of these women said that they were mothers. Interestingly, of those mothers who had children living with them, 11 lived in “violent” and 11 in “nonviolent” relationships. Thus, unlike traditional marriage where parents will often forego fighting to shield the children from hostility, there was no evidence from this investigation that the presence of youngsters reduced the rate of domestic violence.

Overall, the evidence is fairly compelling that homosexual domestic violence exceeds heterosexual domestic violence. The limited scientific literature suggests that physical domestic violence occurs every year among less than 5% of traditionally married couples, 20% to 25% of cohabiting heterosexuals, and approximately half of lesbian couples. The evidence is less certain for gays, but their rate appears to fall somewhere between that for unmarried, cohabiting heterosexuals and lesbians.

Homosexual domestic violence is a bigger problem than ‘gay bashing’

Gay activists and the media are quick to assert that discriminatory attitudes by ‘straight’ society lead directly to violence against homosexuals (i.e., ‘gay bashing’). In fact, evidence suggests that homosexual domestic violence substantially exceeds — in frequency and lethality — any and all forms of ‘gay bashing.’ That is, the violence that homosexuals do to one another is much more significant than the violence that others do to homosexuals.

In 1995, a homosexual domestic violence consortium conducted a study²⁹ in six cities — Chicago, Columbus, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego, and San Francisco — where reports of anti-homosexual harassment or same-sex domestic violence were tabulated.

The harassment incidents ranged from name calling (e.g., ‘faggot,’ ‘queer’) to actual physical harm or property damage. Homosexual domestic violence, on the other hand, referred only to incidents in which actual physical harm occurred or was seriously threatened (i.e., met the legal standard for domestic violence).

The results? Nationwide,³⁰ as well as in these cities, around half of anti-homosexual harassment reports in 1995 involved only slurs or insults, thus not rising to the level of actual or threatened physical violence. In San Francisco, there were 347 calls about same-sex domestic violence and 324 calls about anti-homo-sexual harassment. In three of the five other cities there were also more calls reporting same-sex domestic violence than anti-homosexual harassment. The same ratio was reported for the study as a whole.

Given that half of the harassment reports did not rise to the level of violence, while domestic violence meant exactly that, if the data gathered by this consortium of homosexuals corresponds to the underlying reality, the physical threat to homosexuals from same-sex domestic violence is at least twice as great as the physical threat they experience from ‘the outside.’

Rather than being a ‘shelter against the storms of life,’ as traditional marriage is sometimes characterized, being homosexually partnered actually increases the physical dangers associated with homosexuality.

Fact #4: Empirical Evidence Demonstrates That Homosexuals Make Poor Parents

Fewer than 40 comparative studies on the effects of homosexual parents have been published. Only one³¹ was based on a random sample, and another³² followed the children for 14 years. The rest were based on small samples of volunteers, and those usually with children under the age of 10. These studies seldom addressed traditional concerns — for instance, molestation, or recruitment by parents or their lovers. Nor did they tend to consider the effects on teenagers. Instead they were ‘snapshots’ of a particular moment in the lives of these children. Yet the empirical evidence supports what common sense would expect.

Molestation and incest

In the one random survey,³¹ 28 (0.6%) of 4,600 children with non-homosexual parents reported sex with their parents or stepparents. By contrast, for children with homosexual parents, 3 of 6 sons reported sex with their father (2 of the 3 said they were homosexual as adults) and 2 of 11 daughters reported sex with a stepmother. In the only other relevant study,³⁴ 1 of 11 adult sons with homosexual fathers reported having been seduced by him.

A review of 78 appeals-court cases (through 1998) involving one homosexual and one heterosexual parent — contesting custody of 142 children — revealed 4 cases of molestation involving homosexual parents, but none involving the heterosexual parents. In another 154 custody cases involving heterosexuals used as a study control, one stepfather molested his stepdaughter.³⁵ In one of the five clinical studies of children of homosexuals,³⁶ a client complained that his lesbian mother had forced him to have his first sexual experience with a homosexual.

It is difficult to obtain facts regarding the nation’s foster children. Nevertheless, in 2003, responding to a Freedom of Information request, the state of Illinois reported that from 1997-2002, of 270 foster- or adoptive-parents who engaged in “substantiated” sexual abuse, 34% were homosexuals.³⁷ An exhaustive review of the 50 largest-circulation newspapers and wire services from 1980 through 2003 found that 169 foster parents had sexually abused 351 foster children.³⁸ Of these, 88% were men and 53% of these men practiced homosexuality.

The same study found that in 21 “group home” stories, the molestation was homosexual in 71%. Also, at least 334 of the 349+ victims in group homes were boys. Findings from both individual placements and group homes indicate a disproportionate homosexual footprint in the sexual molestation of foster children.

School and family life

Children with homosexual parents lead troubled lives. The only randomly drawn sample³¹ found 17 who reported a homosexual parent. These 17 were more likely to report sex with a parent, to engage in homosexuality for their first sexual encounter, to be sexually molested, to become homosexual, and to report dissatisfaction with their childhood.

The largest comprehensive comparative study was based upon teacher-reports as well as interviews with the students and their parents.⁴⁰ 58 elementary school children being raised by homosexual couples were closely matched (by age, sex, grade in school, and social class) with 58 children of cohabiting heterosexual parents, and 58 children of married parents. Children with married parents did best at math and language skills, second-best in social studies, were most active in sports, experienced the highest levels of parental involvement at school and at home (their parents also most closely monitored them at home), and had parents with the highest expectations for them.

Children of cohabiting heterosexuals were in-between, while children of homosexuals scored somewhat higher in social studies, lowest in math and language skills, were least popular (often socially isolated), most restrained and formal, experienced the lowest levels of parental involvement both at school and at home, did more household tasks, and were more frequently tutored. Their parents less frequently expressed high educational and career aspirations for them. In fact, teachers said children of homosexuals were ‘more confused’ about their gender.

Corroborating court cases

Through 1998,⁴¹ 142 children with homosexual parents were involved in 78 custody disputes. According to the court records, parents who lied, engaged in criminal activity, or practiced homosexuality were more apt to be recorded as harming their children. Again according to the record, homosexual parents more frequently lied and/or engaged in criminal activity.

Parents or their associates were recorded as having exposed their children to “harm” in 70% of homosexuals, as opposed to only 5% of heterosexuals. “Harm” in this study included neglect, violence, seduction, and hypersexualization. Overall, homosexuals were held responsible for 97% of the 115 recorded harms to children.

Homosexual parents more likely to have homosexual children

In a 14-year study³² comparing 25 children of 18 lesbian mothers against 21 children of 16 single mothers, when asked what they thought their mother wanted them to become, 40% of the lesbians’ children but none of the children of divorced heterosexuals said that they believed their mother wanted them to be homosexual. Not surprisingly, 67% of the daughters and 57% of the sons of the lesbian mothers vs. 13% of the heterosexual mothers’ daughters and 20% of their sons said that they would consider homosexual relations. Also, 29% of the daughters of lesbians and 13% of their sons (but none of the children of single mothers) reported a homosexual relationship. In fact, two of the lesbians’ daughters said that when it came to sex, they primarily enjoyed homosexuality.

Adding together the various studies of children of homosexuals published through 1999, at least 19% of 115 daughters and 16% of 120 sons said that they themselves engaged in homosexuality; that is, 17% of 235 offspring. In the comparison groups that were employed in these studies, only 2% of 66 children of heterosexuals said they practiced homosexuality.⁴³

Children of homosexual parents suffer embarrassment and isolation

When one researcher⁴⁴ interviewed 39 adult children of gays, 56% “expressed some concern over the burden of keeping a part of their lives secret,” and 44% “stated that they had felt that their parent’s sexuality had placed special demands or constraints upon their friendships.” Children’s “positive responses” to a parent’s homosexuality declined as the child became an adolescent. The study noted that “[o]ver half of the sample reported having gone through a period when they feared the ostracism or ridicule of their peers.”

Gay parenting advocates like to respond that even if children raised by homosexuals experience greater social difficulty, it is only because homosexual marriage is not yet legal. If it were, the basis for the ridicule and ostracism would cease. While there is no doubt that legalizing gay marriage would place a ‘stamp of approval’ on homosexual relationships and their ‘families,’ the problems such children will face are unlikely to evaporate.

For one, the worst excesses of homosexual behavior — promiscuity, bizarre and dangerous sex acts, sexual disease transmission, alcohol and drug abuse — occur most frequently in those places where homosexuality is most tolerated and accepted, such as San Francisco or Key West, FL.⁴⁵ Rather than practicing more responsible behavior in ‘non-discriminatory,’ tolerant environments, the reverse typically occurs. For another, many of the harms children experience at the hands of homosexual parents have very little to do with social isolation or rejection, especially when it comes to parental neglect, seduction, or violence.

Assessing the Facts: What Can We Conclude?

Homosexual marriage is a bad idea. While traditional marriage delivers benefits to its participants as well as to society, ‘gay marriage’ harms everyone it touches — especially children. Not only does it place homosexuals at increased risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, but it also subjects them to an increased threat of domestic violence.

Homosexual marriage is nothing like traditional marriage. Homosexual unions are not built around lifetime commitments, nor are they good environments in which to raise children. Those who support legalizing homosexual marriage include the same ‘compassionate’ people who championed the right of singles to become parents. We know the results of that campaign: a third of the nation’s children do not have a father. We also know that children without fathers much more often do poorly in school, get in trouble with the law, and become dysfunctional parents themselves.

It would be foolish to tamper with something as vital to personal and social health as traditional marriage in order the placate the same troubled souls that pushed for our current cultural mess.

Though many would like to think otherwise, the very existence of our society depends upon each individual contributing to the survival and well-being of all. No one — except the old, the sick, the handicapped — has ever been exempt from leading a productive life. In primitive societies, the good man hunted for the sustenance of the entire tribe and the good woman bore and reared children to ensure the survival of their kind. In modern culture, the roles have changed in superficial ways, but until recently have remained essentially the same. Good citizens led productive lives and brought children into the world to replenish the community with virtue.

Those who did not accept these responsibilities — who avoided work or failed to accept the “sweet yoke” of marriage and parenthood — were considered suspect and even vicious, depending on their capabilities and the degree to which they flouted the rules of society. Bums and ne’er-do-wells were but two examples of those who shirked their duty to make a positive contribution to the economy of the community. Thieves and embezzlers were worse because they actively preyed on those who were honest and diligent. Rakes and homosexuals were sexually selfish and irresponsible, not only because they were self-indulgent, but also because they saw sexuality as divorced from the responsibilities of parenthood.

Quite apart from Biblical injunctions, homosexuals have been considered non-productive and hence inimical to the well-being and even the survival of the community. In addition, they have been regarded as dangerous, because they preyed on the young and perverted them from normal, healthy, productive lives. In their selfish preoccupation with genital pleasure, they sought to rebel against the natural order of human life itself — the mutual responsibility of one for all that forms the basis of the social contract.

Anyone who opts out of that contract for reasons other than illness or disability is “wrong headed,” “worthless,” “immoral.” One need only examine the world’s great heroic tales — from the Iliad to the Aeneid to the Gospels to see the virtue of men and women portrayed in terms of their willingness to be productive and unselfish, as opposed to self-centered and destructive.

Now that many in our society have cast aside these ancient norms, we see the old warnings coming true. Homosexuals are now more than non-productive “sexual bums.” They are recruiting others, forming communities, beginning to mock and undermine the old pieties of loyalty to family, country, and God. They have redefined “good” and “evil” and view with contempt the idea that honest work and sex within marriage are communal acts necessary for human survival.

Social-Psychiatric Theory

Traditional social-psychiatric theory argues that productive people will enjoy life, feel good about themselves, earn the respect of friends and co-workers, and feel connected with their families and society. The non-productive will also have personalities shaped by their character and experience, namely, their worthless or counter-productive activities and life choices. They are expected to feel dissatisfied with life and themselves, be stung from social scorn, and seek excessive distraction (through amusements, risk-taking, drugs, sex, etc.).

The rebellious are expected to have “adjustment problems” because they don’t follow society’s prescription. They will feel angry at and at odds with their family and society, even while blaming them for their problems. Rebels, such as thieves and homosexuals, will tend to “feel comfortable” only in the company of their kind. Though they may get satisfactions within their subcultures, their lifestyles preclude full participation in things that “really count” psychologically (e.g., parenthood, social honor). In reaction, traditional theory holds that rebels will mock those who are productive, even as they envy and resent them.

Besides the preoccupation by homosexuals with sex, traditionalist psychiatrists have catalogued a higher incidence of personality characteristics suggesting psychological disturbance and an inability to interact successfully with others. Dr. Edmond Bergler¹, who treated over a thousand homosexuals, concluded that gays tended to:

• provoke attacks against themselves and then count these “attacks” as injustices they had suffered,
• display defensive malice toward others,
• exhibit a flippant attitude in order to cover underlying depression and guilt,
• display extreme narcissism and superciliousness,
• refuse to acknowledge accepted standards in non-sexual matters, on the assumption that the right to cut moral corners is due homosexuals as compensation for their “suffering,” and
• be generally unreliable, also of a more or less psychopathic nature.

Dr. Irving Bieber², who performed one of the largest and most intensive psychiatric studies of homosexuals, characterized gays as “angry, bitter people with low feelings of responsibility.” And Dr. Charles Socarides has emphasized the similarity of the obsessive-compulsive nature of homosexual sex acts to a drug “fix.”³

As opposed to the traditional view, modern egalitarianism emphasizes the equivalent worth of everyone irrespective of their willingness to be productive (after all, we share a ‘common humanity’). This ideology sees no ‘linkage’ between economic and sexual productivity and psychological well-being: those who choose to live on welfare are “just as good” and have the same mix of personality characteristics as those who choose to work. The married are sexually and psychiatrically indistinguishable from those “living together.” And homosexuals are psychiatrically and socially indistinguishable from heterosexuals.

Egalitarian social-psychiatric theory holds that if society would compel its members to accept everyone “for what they choose to do or be,” everybody (including homosexuals) would come to feel good about themselves. In this ‘brotherhood of humankind,’ the job of creating adequate material wealth and rearing a sufficiency of well-socialized children would flow ‘naturally’ out of the general spirit of cooperation, decency, and acceptance that would prevail.

The Psychological Question

Are homosexuals troubled today because society unreasonably discriminates against them or are they more frequently pathological and distressed due to a psychology shaped by their choices and experience?

Several lines of evidence suggest that the personality problems of gays are not a consequence of societal rejection, but ‘part and parcel’ of living the homosexual life. Furthermore, discrimination against those with homosexual inclinations, like discrimination against the able-bodied who refuse to work, is both necessary for the greater good of society and the individual himself. In fact, such discrimination is an attempt to prevent persons tempted by homosexuality from suffering the pathologies it induces.

The Reverse Socialization of Homosexuality

Becoming a homosexual involves a tremendous amount of reverse socialization. Almost every child is taught to avoid feces. Potty training explicitly teaches one to regard feces as ‘dirty,’ disgusting, and unhealthy. Yet most homosexuals eventually learn to immerse themselves in feces. Past surveys suggest the following typical sequential development of gay activity. The median age for gays when their genitals are first manipulated by another male is 13. In about two more years the anus is first used for sex rather than biological relief; and in another year or two the anus is licked for ‘sexual fun.’

By age 21 most gays “have come a long way.” They have learned to seek and enjoy activities that would have sickened them as children. Some go on to “bigger thrills” like sadomasochism, fisting (where the fist is placed up the rectum), or eating feces or drinking urine.⁴ Medically speaking, it doesn’t matter whether you pursue such activity for “fun” or ingest waste because your salad wasn’t washed — exposure to feces is unhealthy. Psychologically, to undo the hygienic training of childhood in pursuit of adult sexual pleasure literally “turns all the rules upside down.”

Given the biologically and psychologically unhealthful nature of such activity, it is not surprising that the younger a person “locks into” a gay identity, the more disturbed he is apt to be. Remafedi performed two studies of “gay youth.” A 1987 study⁵ of 29 such youngsters led him to conclude that the

“very experience of acquiring a homosexual or bisexual identity at an early age places the individual at risk for dysfunction. This conclusion is strongly supported by the data.”

His 1991 study⁶ of 137 gay and bisexual youth aged 14 to 21 reinforced his previous finding:

“For each year’s delay in bisexual or homosexual self-labeling, the odds of a suicide attempt diminished by 80%. These findings support a previously observed, inverse relationship between psychosocial problems and the age of acquiring a homosexual identity.”

Social Disruption

Over the past 50 years, 5 studies have compared substantial numbers of homosexuals and heterosexuals. All generated results suggesting greater social disruption by gays. In the Kinsey survey, general prison inmates (excluding those incarcerated for sexual offenses) were over 4 times more apt to have extensive homosexual experience than his control group.⁷ Saghir and Robins⁸ compared 146 gays with 78 heterosexuals and reported less stability (more lovers, more job-changing) and more criminality among homosexuals.

Bell and Weinberg⁹ contrasted 979 gays with 477 heterosexuals and found more instability (psychiatric, marital) and more criminality among gays. Cameron and Ross¹⁰ questionnaired 2,251 randomly-obtained respondents and reported that heterosexuals evidenced more social cohesion (numbers and kinds of intimate relationships), less self-destructive behavior (smoking, drug use, suicide attempts), and less endangerment of others (via driving habits, deliberate killing).

The largest comparison of gays and straights on a wide range of topics and based on a random sample involved 4,340 adults in 5 U.S. metropolitan areas.¹¹ Comparing those of both sexes who claimed to be bisexual or homosexual versus those of both sexes who claimed to be exclusively heterosexual:

homosexuality was linked to lowered health

• homosexuals were about twice as apt to report having had a sexually transmitted disease (STD); and over twice as apt to have had at least 2 STDs;
• homosexuals were about 5 times more apt to have tried to deliberately infect another with an STD;
• homosexuals were about a third more apt to report a traffic ticket or traffic accident in the past 5 years
• homosexuals were 3 times as likely to have attempted suicide, 4 times more apt to have attempted to kill someone, and about twice as likely to have been involved in a physical fight in the past year;
• homosexuals were about 5 times more apt to have engaged in torture-related sex (sadomasochism, bondage); and
• homosexuals were about 4 times more likely to report having been raped.

homosexuality was associated with criminality

• homosexuals were about twice as likely to have been arrested for a non-sexual crime and about 8 times more apt to have been arrested for a sexual crime;
• homosexuals were about twice as apt to have been convicted of a sexual crime and about twice as likely to have been jailed for a crime;
• homosexuals were about three times more likely to admit to having made an obscene phone call; and
• homosexuals were about 50% more apt to claim that they had recently shoplifted, cheated on their income tax, or not been caught for a crime.

homosexuality resulted in weaker human bonds

• only about half as many homosexuals had gotten married and, if married, were much less apt to have children;
• homosexuals averaged less than a year of sexual fidelity within either their longest homosexual or heterosexual relationship (heterosexuals averaged between 5 to 10 years of fidelity); and
• if married, homosexuals were about 3 times more likely to cheat on their spouse.

These results echo the largest comparative study of straight and gay couples, which reported that the average length of time together averaged about 3 years for gay and lesbian couples vs. 10 years for married heterosexuals.¹² Additionally, “cheating” was inevitable:

“all [gay] couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity.”¹³

Importance of Social Cohesion

While reverse socialization explains a significant portion of the pathologies exhibited by homosexuals, their comparative lack of social cohesion is important also. A national survey of 5,182 adults¹⁴ analyzed the gender, age, and kinds of people nominated as being intimately related to the respondent. Compared to heterosexuals, homosexuals exhibited less “relational connectedness” to those of the opposite sex or in different generations. 70% of the intimates reported by homosexuals were their sex as compared to 47% for heterosexuals (see Figure 1). And while 35% of heterosexuals’ intimates were more than 20 years older or younger than the respondent, only half as many of the homosexuals’ intimates were.

Homosexuals more narrowly focused their affections and interests on those of their own age and sex; they tended to be, like adolescents, peer oriented. Fully 38% of the intimates of heterosexuals were intergenerational blood relatives (e.g., parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, etc.). Only 17% of homosexuals’ intimates fell in the same categories. By contrast, 47% of homosexuals’ intimates were unrelated friends or neighbors, compared to only 27% of heterosexuals’ intimates.

People have to learn to care for and care about those who are different than themselves. Homosexuals fail to display the kind of connectedness between sexes, generations, and social classes that leads to social harmony. If we are too focused on “people like us,” we help to divide society into competing groups instead of a fabric of interwoven and connected interests.

Does Societal Acceptance Make a Difference?

Fecal exposure: In the 1940s, Kinsey¹⁵ reported that about two-thirds of gays had engaged in anal/penile contact, and 59% of gays and 18% of lesbians had participated in oral/anal activity (where the tongue is put in the anus). San Francisco decriminalized and then accepted homosexuality. When the Kinsey Institute did a survey¹⁶ there in 1970, 96% of gays admitted to anal/penile contact, and 89% of the gays and 25% of the lesbians to oral/anal activity. Lifting the restraints upon homosexual activity appears to have increased the exposure to biological danger among those with homosexual desires.

Promiscuity: In the 1940s, 7% of gays and 63% of lesbians said that they had never had a ‘one night stand,’ while 42% of the gays and 7% of the lesbians said that “over half of their partners had been ‘one night stands’ (see Figure 2). By 1970 only 1% of gays and 38% of lesbians said that they had never had a ‘one night stand,’ and 70% of gays and 29% of lesbians reported that they had had sex only once with over half of their partners!

Acceptance did not necessarily make homosexuals’ lives better: 35% of gays (vs. 11% of heterosexual men) and 37% of lesbians (vs. 24% of heterosexual women) had either seriously considered or attempted suicide. Of homosexuals who had attempted suicide, the most frequent reason — which acounted for 47% of all attempts — was disagreements with a lover.¹⁷ Further, although these “liberated” gays reported many more lifetime sexual partners than the homosexuals interviewed in the 1940s (a median of 250+ compared to a median of 20), twice as many homosexuals as heterosexuals (15.6% vs. 8.4%) reported having “often” felt “very lonely” in the past month.

This pattern of “liberation and acceptance” leading to greater excesses was echoed in the results of a 1991 survey by the San Francisco Department of Public Health on the sexual risk-taking of young gay men. As the Los Angeles Times¹⁸ reported, each succeeding generation “is behaving more dangerously than the one before.”

Our culture has yet to totally accept homosexuality. The limited evidence available suggests that where social and legal acceptance has been implemented, the problems associated with homosexuality have increased rather than dissipated. Cutting the bonds of sexual restraint do not “free” the homosexual to live life to its fullest, but rather increase his chances of personal misery and isolation.

Impermanency

The gay lifestyle is strikingly impermanent. Homosexuals are acutely aware that while their sexual desires will continue, few will be sexually interested in them after their 30th birthday. Good health is frequently interrupted by bouts with alcoholism and STDs — and because their lifespan is so short (the median age of death for gays and lesbians is probably 15 to 20 years younger than that for married heterosexuals), associates frequently die. Unlike the relatively permanent satisfactions and attachments of traditional marriage and parenthood, those associated with homosexuality are fleeting.

It is far from surprising that half of gays expressed regret about their homosexuality¹⁹ or that four times as many would advise adolescents who were just beginning homosexual activity to stop rather than continue.²⁰

The “gay life” is short, lonely, and filled with cheating, insecurity, disease, and danger. Although held captive by sexual addiction rather than brick and bars, homosexuals exhibit many of the same psychological traits as those imprisoned in death camps. The pathologies of homosexuals fit the traditional social-psychiatric view: Happiness and well-being are earned through social and sexual productivity, not “sexual freedom.”

By Dr. Paul Cameron

Dr. Cameron is Chariman of the Family Research Institute of Colorado Springs, Colorado USA. Click here for more information about this organization. You may contact him at: Family Research Institute, PO Box 62640, Colorado Springs, CO 80962 USA. Phone number: (303) 681-3113.

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Gay activists regularly claim that they were “born that way” and thus cannot change their desires or stop their activities. Yet there are numerous documented cases in which homosexuals have changed. The Masters-Johnson Institute reported that: “A 25-year-old man had had his first sexual experience when he was 13 years old. It was arranged by his lesbian mother with an older gay man. After that episode, his imagery and interpersonal sexual experience were exclusively homosexual…. The man was motivated to establish a heterosexual life style because he was sincerely distressed by public disapproval of homosexuality and his personal loneliness. [After treatment, he] has been followed for 3 1/2 years. His sexual interaction has been exclusively heterosexual. He has moved out of the gay community and has changed… his life style.”⁽¹⁾

• Was this man’s sexual orientation biologically deturmined?
• If so, how was it initially set – toward heterosexuality or homosexuality?
• And if it was set initially, how was he able to change?

The answers to these seemingly “esoteric” questions matter a great deal. For one thing, the political stakes are high. The March 3, 1993 New York Times/CBS News Poll reported that a majority of those who believe that gays “cannot change” favored permitting homosexuals to serve in the military. Only a third of those who believed it is a choice felt the same way.

Many opinions about gay rights hinge on the question of whether gays are “born that way” and/or “can’t change.” For instance, 57% of those who believe it is immutable consider homosexuality an acceptable life style vs 18% of those who consider it a choice. But if homosexual activity is no more inevitable or unchangeable than drunkenness or drug use, most people seem willing to insist that homosexuals abandon their destructive behavior.

Two prominent ‘homosexual’ psychiatrists, examining the evidence of their own lives as well as those of others, came to different conclusions in this long-running debate. The first of these, Sigmund Freud, saw his homosexual urges as pathological. Through self-analysis, he overcame them and eventually rejoiced in the “greater independence that results from having overcome my homosexuality.”⁽²⁾ The second of these, Richard Isay, confronted his desires, pronounced them “natural,” divorced his wife and joined the gay subculture.⁽³⁾

In 1992 Isay admitted that the “conviction among most, though not all, dynamically oriented psychiatrists in general and psychoanalysts in particular [is] that homosexuality can and should be changed to heterosexuality.”⁽⁴⁾ Yet, while acknowledging this consensus among his colleagues, Isay called attempts to change homosexual desire “the greatest abuse of psychiatry in America today.” Why? Because the “attempt to change is extremely harmful.”⁽³⁾ Instead, society should change to accommodate homosexuality.

Dr. Isay, who chairs the American Psychiatric Association’s committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues, argues that homosexuality “is constitutional [that is, biological in origin].”⁽⁴⁾ To support his position, he cited as proof two 1991 studies – the “gay brains” research of Simon LeVay⁽⁵⁾ and the “gay twins” study of Bailey & Pillard.⁽⁶⁾

In 1993, Drs. William Byne and Bruce Parsons, researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, critically reviewed “the evidence favoring a biologic theory” presented by LeVay and Bailey & Pillard.⁽⁷⁾ They concluded in the Archives of General Psychiatry that “[t]here is no evidence at present to substantiate a biologic theory” of sexual orientation!

How could these researchers dismiss as inadequate the very studies that were fundamental to Dr. Isay’s argument – and that even conservative columnist William- F. Buckley referred to in 1993 as proving that homosexuals are ‘born that way?’

Byne & Parsons remembered that from the 1940s through the 1970s it was widely argued and believed in the scientific community that male homosexuals had a deficiency of male hormones. However, only 3 “studies had indicated lower testosterone levels in male homosexuals, while 20 studies found no differences based on sexual orientation, and two reported elevated testosterone levels in male homosexuals.” In spite of these other studies, textbooks alluded to the supposed “fact” of hormonal differences for three decades. But this “scientific” belief was false.

Gay Brains: Byne & Parsons observed that the LeVay study was based upon a supposed functional correlation between the SDN-POA brain center in male rats and a brain center called INAH3 in humans. LeVay reasoned that since the SDN-POA had an effect on male rat crouching/mounting behavior, then a corresponding difference in the same part of the brain would make men homosexual. He assumed that the INAH3 in men was essentially the same as the SDN-POA in rats. But, as it turns out, the “effective lesion site within the anterior hypothalamus for disrupting mounting behavior [in male rats] lies above, not within, the SDN-POA. Thus, the SDN-POA does not play a critical role in male-typical behavior in male rats, and the correlation between its size and mounting frequencies clearly does not reflect a causal relationship.” LeVay compared human brains with rat brains but failed to locate the analogous region. Instead of the “bullseye” that Isay and the mass media celebrated, it was an embarrassing miss!

LeVay’s study also had numerous technical problems. For instance, his samples included 19 brains of gays who died of AIDS and 16 brains from men whose sexual orientation was unknown. He assumed the 16 were heterosexual, even though 5 had died of AIDS. More importantly, although LeVay argued that a small INAH3 “caused” homosexuality, some of the gays had an INAH3 that was larger than the average size of the INAH3 of the “heterosexuals,” and some of the “heterosexuals” had an INAH3 that was smaller than those of gays. So some of his gays “should” have been heterosexual and vice-versa.

Gay Twins: Bailey & Pillard reported that 52% of identical twins of homosexuals were also homosexual. But after the media finished hyping Bailey & Pillard’s results, King & McDonald⁽⁸⁾ published a new ‘sexual orientation of twins’ study, which found concordance rates for homosexuality of 25% in identical twins. That’s half the 52% reported by Bailey & Pillard. Drs. Byne & Parsons noted the large proportions of identical twins in both studies “who were discordant for homosexuality despite sharing not only their genes but also their prenatal and familial environments… [which] underscores our ignorance of the factors that are involved, and the manner in which they interact, in the emergence of sexual orientation.”

The evidence supporting the “born that way” claim of Isay and other gay activists is tenuous. It has been uncritically accepted and hyped by the media and some less-than-careful researchers. But it hasn’t been replicated by others and is riddled with technical problems.

On the other side is a body of scientific evidence that suggests that homosexuality is adopted by people who are confused, sexually adventurous and/or rebellious. This evidence suggests that sexual orientation is flexible, not immutable. And the evidence comes from the largest studies on the subject, conducted by researchers on both sides of the gay rights debate.

Sexual Preference Shifts
That sexual desire and behavior are flexible was demonstrated by the Kinsey Institute in 1970. It reported⁽⁹⁾ that 81% of 684 gays and 93% of 293 lesbians had changed or shifted either their sexual feelings or behaviors after age 12.58% of the gays and 77% of the lesbians reported a second shift in sexual orientation; 31% of the gays and 49% of the lesbians reported a third shift; and 13% of the gays and 30% of the lesbians reported even a fourth shift in sexual orientation before “settling” into adult homosexuality. The shifts reported by these subjects varied in degree, but some were quite dramatic – about a quarter of gays and a third of lesbians once had heterosexual desires and 5% of heterosexual men and 3% of heterosexual women once had substantial homosexual desires. Heterosexuals in the study were much less likely to report shifts in their orientation. Even so, 29% of 337 heterosexual men and 14% of 140 heterosexual women reported at least one shift; while 4% of the men and 1% of the women reported at least three shifts. Immutable things like eye color or skin color don’t change once, much less three or four times!

Unlike biological changes, the shifts in sexual orientation began at age 18 or later for half of both gays and lesbians. Sexual changes, five or more years after puberty, are exceptionally late and without biological precedent in development. But changes in tastes (e.g., food or entertainment) often take place around age 18.

Other Evidence
The same Kinsey study also produced other evidence that can not be explained in terms of biological determinism, but would readily support the idea that choice is involved in sexual orientation and behavior:

• 74% of their gays admitted to having been sexually aroused by a female and 80% of lesbians said that they had been sexually aroused by a male;
• 19% of their gays and 38% of lesbians had been heterosexually married;
• 20% of gays, 5% of heterosexual men, 7% of lesbians and no heterosexual women had had sex with animals.

Consistent with these results, the Family Research Institute (FRI) ¹⁰ conducted a nationwide random survey of 4,340 adults drawn from 5 U.S. cities in 1983 and found:

• 82% of those currently lesbian and 66% of those currently gay said that they had been in love with someone of the opposite sex;
• 88% of lesbians and 73% of gays had been sexually aroused by someone of the opposite sex;
• 67% of lesbians and 54% of gays reported current sexual attraction to the opposite sex;
• 85% of lesbians and 54% of gays, as adults, had sexual relations with someone of the opposite sex;
• 32% of gays and 47% of lesbians had been heterosexually married; and
• 17% of gays, 3% of heterosexual men, 10% of lesbians and 1% of heterosexual women reported sex with animals.

These are the kinds of sexual choices one would expect from the sexually adventurous or confused. Unless Dr. Isay and his supporters are willing to believe that people are “born” to fall in love, get married or to have sex with animals, some measure of choice, rather than biological inevitability, must have been involved.

The ability to change explains the FRI findings that:

• Overall, 7.8% of women and 12% of men claimed to have been homosexually aroused at some point in their life. Yet 59% of the once homosexually aroused women and 51% of the once homosexually aroused men were currently heterosexual;
• 5.1% of the women and 9.4% of the men admitted to at least one homosexual partner. Of these, only 58% of the women and 61% of the men were currently gay;
• 4.1% of women and 5.8% of men reported that they had, at least once, been “in homosexual love.” Yet only 66% of those who had fallen in love with a member of the same sex were currently gay; and
• almost a third of those who admitted to homosexual relations in adulthood were now heterosexual.

People Can Change
Where is the “biological inevitability” or “immutability” in these findings? The evidence suggests that people can modify their sexual tastes. The FRI survey in Dallas,⁽¹¹⁾ similar to the Kinsey survey in San Francisco, found that 1% of heterosexual females and 3% of heterosexual males at one time considered themselves homosexual (i.e., were ex-gay when interviewed).

And a survey of 50 wives who had no homosexual experiences or interests up to age 30, but who participated in homosexual sex acts as part of “swinging” (where married people swap partners) reported that all of these women eventually considered themselves to be bisexual.⁽¹²⁾

These are among the findings that seriously challenge the claim that sexual orientation is predetermined before or after birth, or even that it is permanently fixed in adulthood.

What is at Stake?
If sexual orientation is actually a matter of choice like drug use, we can expect that more of our youth will try homosexuality the more that it is tolerated and encouraged. Along these lines, Dr. Christopher Hewitt’s⁽¹³⁾ analysis of the frequency of homosexuality in various societies is summarized in the Table: societies that accept homosexuality have more of it and those that disapprove of and punish it have considerably less of it

With the above in mind, consider our society’s future in light of D. Minkowitz’s December 29, 1992 editorial in the national gay magazine, The Advocate: “I am increasingly impatient with the old chestnut that our movement for public acceptance has not increased and will not increase the number of gay men and lesbians in existence. `There are more of us than there used to be,` historian John D’Elmilio has written. Firmly believing this, I wanted to… argue the morality of teaching kids that gay is OK even if it means that some will join our ranks….”

Indeed. Youth are often attracted to excitement and rebellion. The gay movement is growing.

Minkowitz also argued that the ‘born gay’ claim is nothing more than a smokescreen: “most of the line about homosex[uality] being one’s nature, not a choice, was articulated as a response to brutal repression…. ‘We didn’t choose this, so don’t punish us for it!’ One hundred years later, it’s time for us to abandon this defensive posture and walk upright on the earth. Maybe you didn’t choose to be gay – that’s fine. But I did.”

When Kinsey ⁽¹⁴⁾ asked 1700 homosexuals in the 1940s how they “got that way,” only 9% claimed that they were “born gay.” In 1970, a similar percentage was recorded for 979 gays in San Francisco.⁽⁹⁾ But in 1983, after the gay rights movement started to politicize the issue of homosexual origins, 35% of a random sample of 147 gays⁽¹⁰⁾ said that they were “born that way.

Perhaps those who commit adultery, molest children or practice homosexuality are “born with” unusual biological influences. But there is no hard evidence of this. In fact, it appears that participation in these activities, like drug abuse or any other chosen behavior, is a combination of will and opportunity. No matter how such desires come about, members of society are rightly expected to control their behavior and not endanger others.

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References
1. Schwartz MF & Masters WH The Masters and Johnson treatment program for dissatisfied homosexual men. Amer J Psychiatry 1984:141;173-81.
2.1910 letter to Sandor Ferenczi.
3. Wall Street Journal 4/21/93 A6.
4. Homosexuality and psychiatry, Psychiatric News, Feb. 7,1992, p.3.
5. LeVay S A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men. Science 1991;253:1034-1037.
6.Bailey JM & Pillard RCA genetic study of mate sexual orientation. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1991;48: 1089-1996.
7. Human sexual orientation: the biologic theories reappraised. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1993:50;228-239.
8. King M & McDonald E Homosexuals who are twins: a study of 46 probands. Brit J Psychiatry 1992,160:407-419.
9. Belt AP & Weinberg MS Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978. /& Hammersmith SK Sexual Preference: Statistical Appendix. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
10. Cameron P, Cameron K. & Proctor K Effect of homosexuality upon public health and social order. Psychol Rpts, 1989,61,1167-79.
11. Cameron P, Cameron K. & Proctor K. Homosexuals in the Armed Forces, Psychol Repts, 1988,62,211-219.
12. Dixon, JK. The commencement of bisexual activity in swinging married women overage thirty. J Sex Research, 1984,20,71-98.
13.1993, after Broude GJ & Greene SJ Cross cultural codes on twenty sexual attitudes and practices. Ethnology 1976;15;409-430.
14. Gebhard P & Johnson AB The Kinsey data Philadelphia: Saunders, 1979.

In 1992 two Jeffersonville, Indiana lesbians, aged 17 and 16, abducted a 12-year-old girl whom they accused of trying to “steal a girlfriend.” The little girl was pushed into the trunk of a car, stabbed repeatedly, and beaten with a heavy metal bar. While still struggling, they poured gasoline on her and set her ablaze. Later that year a Fort Lauderdale, Florida 14-year-old was convicted of first-degree murder for helping to kill his 40-year-old father. The father “was stabbed 45 times and beaten so badly with an iron skillet that the skillet shattered.” The boy confessed that he helped his father’s former homosexual lover and roommate kill him so he and the 31-year-old “could live together.”

These murders fit traditional psychiatric opinion: excessive violence is naturally associated with other forms of social pathology. From this perspective, those who rebel against society’s norms — homosexuals, prostitutes, alcoholics, etc. — are more apt to be violent also. Gay leaders reply that they are not pathological, rebellious, or sexually deviant. They contend that gays are gentle, loving people and that the violence they experience proves that they need special ‘hate crimes’ laws to protect them from non-homosexual ‘gay bashers.’

Who’s right? Does the excess of violence naturally well up from within a pathological gay subculture or do outsiders direct it toward homosexuals? Keeping in mind that only about 2-3% of adults are homosexual or bisexual,¹ let’s examine varieties of violence.

Murder and Mass Murder

Although the total number of victims dispatched by a given killer is often in doubt, (e.g., homosexual Henry Lucas claimed that he killed 350), it appears that the modern world record for serial killing is held by a Russian homosexual, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 of raping, murdering and eating parts of at least 21 boys, 17 women, and 14 girls. The pathology of eating one’s sexual victims also characterized Milwaukee’s Jeffrey Dahmer in 1992. He not only killed 17 young men and boys, but cooked and ate their body parts.

The top six American male serial killers were all gay:

• Donald Harvey claimed 37 victims in Kentucky;
• John Wayne Gacy raped and killed 33 boys in Chicago, burying them under his house and in his yard;
• Patrick Kearney accounted for 32, cutting his victims into small pieces after sex and leaving them in trash bags along the Los Angeles freeways;
• Bruce Davis molested and killed 27 young men and boys in Illinois;
• A gay sex-murder-torture ring (Corll-Henley-Brooks) sent 27 Texas men and boys to their grave; and
• Juan Corona was convicted of murdering 25 migrant workers (he “made love” with their corpses).

Lesbian Aileen Wuornos laid claim in 1992 to “worst female killer” with at least 7 middle-aged male victims. She singlehandedly topped the lesbian nurse team of Catherine Wood and Gwen Graham, who had killed 6 convalescent patients in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The association between serial murder and homosexuality isn’t recent. Two gays compete for the spot of “world’s worst murderer.” During the Nazi reign of terror, Auschwitz executioner Ludwig Tiene strangled, crushed, and gnawed boys and young men to death while he raped them. Though his grand total is uncertain, he often murdered as many as 100 a day. Gilles de Rais (Bluebeard) brutally destroyed the lives of 800 boys. Each lad was lured to his home, bathed and fed. Just as the poor boy thought “this is my lucky day,” he was raped, then killed by being ripped or cut apart and either burned or eaten.

A study of 518 sexually-tinged mass murders in the U.S. from 1966 to 1983 determined that 350 (68%) of the victims were killed by those who practiced homosexuality and that 19 (44%) of the 43 murderers were bisexuals or homosexuals.²

Though probably less than a majority of mass murderers are homosexual, given that no more than 3% of the populace is gay, homosexual murderers show up much more frequently than one would expect (even Richard Speck engaged in homosexuality).

Along with serial murder, there appears to be a connection between homosexuality and murder. Evidence from before the modern gay rights movement is limited. Of 444 homicides in one jurisdiction from 1955-1973, investigators noted 5 clear “sexual motivation” murders. Three of the 5 involved homosexuality and 2 involved heterosexuality.³

Probing more deeply into the connection between murder and homosexuality, Jim Warren, who worked as a counselor at the Washington State Corrections Center, did the intake interview for almost all the younger murderers (i.e., under age 36) in the state of Washington from 1971-82 (during the growth of the gay rights movement). He was “probably the only one who examined the entirety of each of their case files.” Warren testified that he was struck with how frequently homosexuality turned up in the cases.⁴

Starting with a trickle of 2 or 3 murders/year in 1972 until dozens/year by the 1980s, he noted a recurrent pattern: Although the motive listed in the report was often robbery or theft, “about 50% of the time” it was also associated with homosexuality. Typically, a homosexual would meet someone at a bar or park and invite him to his home. Before the morning, an argument would ensue and he or his visitor would be dead.

Violent Sexual Practices

A substantial minority of homosexuals (between 22%⁵ to 37%⁶ indulge in painful or violent sex (e.g., bondage and discipline [B/D], where the partner is physically restrained and mildly tortured, or sadomasochism S/M], where partners are tortured or hurt during sex).

Even in the 1940s, psychiatrist David Abrahamsen noted,

“It is well known that homosexual inclinations may be accompanied by sadistic or masochistic tendencies…. These perversions play a great part in many sexual offenses and in many cases of murder.”⁷

In a national survey of random samples of homosexuals and heterosexuals,⁸ 32% of those males who called themselves homosexual or bisexual versus 5% of heterosexual males reported having engaged in sadomasochism; 17% of lesbians versus 4% of heterosexual women also admitted to S/M. Likewise, gays and lesbians were about four times more apt to engage in bondage than were heterosexuals.

Homosexual books and magazines celebrate the “fun” of violent sex. For instance, a Denver gay columnist (the “leathersex fairy”), told his readers how to strangle and flog one’s partner during sex. He also extolled the practice of “hanging from a tree by meat hooks through the pectoral muscles” and described “guys who like to have burning cigars, cigarettes, or matches held near or pressed into their skin.”⁹ Likewise, national and international gay tour books matter-of-factly list places where sadomasochistic sex can be obtained.¹⁰

In 1993, London gays raised £100,000 to appeal a conviction in which the judge ruled that “sex is no excuse for violence…. Pleasure derived from the infliction of pain is an evil thing.” The crime? “Nailing a foreskin and scrotum to a board” and “pouring hot wax in a urethra.”¹¹

The 1980 CBS-TV documentary, Gay Power, Gay Politics reported that about 10% of the accidental deaths among young men in San Francisco resulted from sadomasochistic sex gone awry.

Deliberately Infecting Others During Sex

Gay activists often argue that what consenting adults do in private is nobody else’s business. However, gays have sex with so many different partners¹² that they increase their risk of getting or transmitting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Indeed, homosexuals are considerably more apt to get STDs than are non-homosexuals.¹³

Most who get an STD decide that they will do all in their power not to infect others. But others — an important minority — decide that they will make their partners suffer as much as they have. As Mirko Grmek noted¹⁴

“every historian of disease knows that such an attitude of vengeance, or at least of recklessness, had contributed in other times to the spread of tuberculosis and syphilis.”

Limited evidence suggests that, compared to heterosexuals, homosexuals are more apt to harm their sexual partners deliberately. The only comparative study on this issue found that about 1% of male and female heterosexuals compared to 7% of gays and 3% of lesbians admitted to deliberately passing on STDs that they had acquired.¹⁵

When the disease is AIDS, the personal and social costs of deliberate infection are exceptionally high. Several examples of homosexuals who were deliberate spreaders of AIDS have been documented,¹⁶ but the most notorious is that of “patient zero,” the Canadian flight attendant who, until his death at age 32, shared his body and infection with 250 men every year. From the late 1970s through the early 1980s he was personally responsible for at least 40 of the first 248 American cases of AIDS and told public health officials in San Francisco it “was nobody else’s business but his own.”

There also appears to be a connection between the practice of violent sex and one’s willingness to deliberately infect someone else. Dividing our random national sample¹⁷ into those with no interest in homosexual activity (non-homosexual) and those with at least some homosexual interest (homosexual) — and combining males and females — we found that 4.0% of the non-homosexual vs. 21.8% of those with at least some homosexual interest said that they had participated in sadomasochism (S/M); 7.8% of the non-homosexuals admitted to bondage (B/D) vs. 27.5% of the homosexuals. Further, those who had engaged in violent sex of either type were twice as likely to have deliberately attempted to infect a partner than those without such violent experience.

In 1992 three London STD clinics reported that almost half of their homosexual patients who knew they were infected with HIV had then gotten rectal gonorrhoea.¹⁸ These gays were not permitting their deadly infection to spoil their sexual fun. By 1993, over 100,000 U.S. gays had died of AIDS and tens of thousands had died of hepatitis B. Most of these had been infected, many deliberately or carelessly, by other homosexuals.

Homosexual Rape

The National Crime Survey¹⁹ reported that about 1 of every 10,000 males over the age of 11 is raped each year (vs. 13 of every 10,000 females) — that is, about 7% of rapes are homosexual. In two jurisdictions, Columbia, SC²⁰ and Memphis, TN,²¹ males accounted for 5.7% of the victims of rape reported to authorities. In only one instance was the assailant a woman.

Along with the rise of the gay rights movement, homosexual rape of men appears to have increased in the past few decades.²² Homosexual rape is twice as common in urban areas where gays congregate than in suburban or rural areas.²³

It may also be more common where the gay subculture is accepted: a 1970 study in San Francisco found that 9% of male heterosexuals and 24% of gays; 2% of female heterosexuals and 11% of lesbians reported having been homosexually raped.²⁴ In our 1983 national urban survey (which did not include San Francisco), 1.3% of heterosexual men vs. 12.5% of gay men and 0.6% of heterosexual women vs. 8.6% of lesbians reported having been homosexually raped.²⁵

More alarmingly, between 15% to 40% of statutory rape (child molestation) involves homosexuality.²⁶ In one study, 25% of white gays admitted to sex with boys 16 or younger when they were aged 21 or older.²⁷

Rape at any age is violent and emotionally devastating. But it can also edge victims toward homosexuality. In our national study, almost half the lesbians said they had been heterosexually raped — perhaps gravitating to homosexuality because of the experience. Males often react differently. Thus the Masters and Johnson Institute reported that a

“25-year-old man had had his first sexual experience when he was 13 years old. It was arranged by his lesbian mother with an older gay man. After that episode, his imagery and interpersonal sexual experience were exclusively homosexual.”²⁸

Likewise,

“Mr. K, age 22, felt that his change in sexual preference was related to his having been raped by two men…. After the assault he experienced sexual identity confusion and began engaging voluntarily in homosexual activity. When he was seen for evaluation he labeled himself as openly homosexual.”²⁹

Impact of Violence On The Homosexual Lifespan

A pioneering study of 6,714 obituaries³⁰ in gay newspapers across the U.S. revealed that 3% of 6,574 gays and 20% of 140 lesbians had died violently:

• 1.4% of gays and 7% of lesbians were murdered (rates over a hundred times those of non-gays);
• 0.6% of gays and 5.7% of lesbians committed suicide (rates dozens of times those of non-gays); and
• 0.6% of gays and 4.3% of lesbians died in motor vehicle accidents (over 17 times the rate of non-gays)

These events, coupled with various STDs (especially AIDS) gotten from other gays, resulted in a median age of death of 40 among gays and a median age of death of 45 among lesbians. In the same study, comparison samples of married men had a median age of death of 75 and married women a median age of death of 79. For divorced or single persons the median age of death was 57 for men and 71 for women.

Conclusion

The ‘hate crimes’ gays complain about are infrequent and seldom involve more than name-calling or snide remarks. The FBI reported 431 hate crimes against homosexuals for the U.S. in all of 1991. Only one was “confirmed” for Washington, D.C. — yet D.C. gay activists claimed 397 incidents! When pressed, they admitted that at least 366 of these “crimes” consisted of “verbal harassment.”³¹

In line with traditional psychiatric opinion, violence goes hand-in-hand with the ‘gay’ lifestyle. Almost all the exposure by homosexuals to violence and disease is encountered within the gay subculture, rather than outside of it. Most of the murderers in the lifespan study whose sexual orientation could be determined were also homosexual. While violence toward homosexuals is deplorable, most violence involving gays is self-induced. Overall, the gay subculture may export more violence than it absorbs from without.