Issues Tearing Our Nation's Fabric The Center for Reclaiming America

[ Previous | Table of Contents | Next ]

Homosexuality
Chapter Eleven

Thanks to years of social conditioning and the constant drumbeat of homosexual activists and their allies in the media, many Americans have decided that homosexuality is no longer an important concern. Either homosexuals have a right to do as they please in the privacy of their own homes, as some would say, or it’s nobody’s business but their own. So what right do we have to impose our views on the rest of America?

There was a time when the answer to such questions would have been obvious, but no more. The effort to move the ancient boundaries of law and morality in America has been so relentless and so successful that what remains illegal in 24 states is, in the minds of many Americans, just an innocent alternative.

The fact is, no matter how much we might want to subscribe to a "live and let live" philosophy, we cannot. The gay and lesbian community will not settle for that, either; they have a strategic, systematic plan to enforce, not just tolerance, but complete acceptance and affirmation of their immoral behaviors.

The homosexual agenda includes a program of sweeping changes to virtually all the basic institutions of the family and the nation. The following eight objectives, outlined in a special report from the American Family Association, were originally included in the list of 62 platform demands announced at the 1993 Gay & Lesbian March on Washington:

Is there any chance these or any of the other 54 demands will be met? Read the headlines. Every day, it seems, another fortress of America’s traditional moral values faces the socialist wrecking ball, while judges, juries, and legislators tell us that the values we once took for granted can no longer be invoked.

A Trail of Deception

In 1993 the mainstream media trumpeted the news that researchers had found proof that homosexuality is innate, genetic, and a normal behavior within a predictable percentage of the population. News stories generally suggested that these new discoveries only confirmed what homosexuals had been saying all along, and showed that those who have disapproved of homosexuality are either ignorant, biased, or both.

The only problem was that the findings (those by Simon Levay and Dean Hamer in particular) were faulty, and the stories were false. By misusing terms such as "heritable," the early press releases had implied a genetic link. Responsible researchers, however, actually use this term, "heritable," to indicate a range of physical and environmental factors that may contribute to a particular behavior, but not a "hard-wired behavior" or "a gene" that can be passed from parent to child.

Subsequent to the press sensation, scientists at Yale, MIT, Columbia, and Washington University School of Medicine discounted the findings in all the studies and denied that any of the data or statistical analysis could substantiate any such claim of a so-called "gay gene." Some experts even indicated that a proper interpretation of the data would most likely lead to the precise opposite interpretation. But these conclusions, indicating (once again) that homosexuality is a learned behavior and not a genetic trait, went mostly unreported by the press.

Over the past twenty years homosexuals have waged a relentless campaign to focus the debate on "rights" instead of "behavior." In the age of civil rights they understood that their chances of misleading the nation and winning public acceptance would be much better if they appeared to be an oppressed minority than if they revealed what they actually do behind closed doors.

Blacks and Hispanics who have won legitimate civil rights struggles, however, are rightfully among the most offended by the claims of the activists and the media. General Colin Powell, in his opposition to gays in the military, said that, "Skin color is a benign, nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument." Skin color is morally neutral and tells nothing about the character of the person. Sexual behavior, on the other hand, has everything to do with character and morality.

It is not incidental that homosexual behavior has been punished and discouraged from earliest times. Civilized societies have always promoted traditional families, founded on a life-long commitment of marriage between a man and a woman and the bearing and/or adoption of children. Promotion and encouragement of traditional families has allowed society to prosper, to reproduce itself, to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases, and to provide healthy nurture and training for future generations.

Can Homosexuals Change?

But, some might ask, can homosexual behavior be changed? Homosexuals often argue that the behavior is innate and cannot be changed, but the experience of more than fifty years of research in homosexual therapy provides conclusive proof that while homosexuality is indeed a deeply imbedded impulse in many people, vast numbers of homosexuals intentionally leave the lifestyle each year and return to normal heterosexual relationships of their own accord. Many others who seek qualified therapy have been cured of addictive and self-destructive homosexual behaviors.

A meta-study combining the results of research conducted by nine psychotherapists and psychoanalysts indicates complete recovery in more than 52 percent of the cases treated. In cases where Christian counseling and conversion to Christ is involved, results are even higher.

The most serious long-range concerns regarding the agenda to enforce public acceptance of homosexual behaviors is the devastation this lifestyle wreaks on both young people and society itself. The constant barrage of pro-homosexual indoctrination makes it difficult for young men and women to escape the homosexual environment, even though they may earnestly desire to return to a normal heterosexual life and family. Vulnerable high school age and younger children, already damaged by family disintegration, the erotic images in television and the movies, vulgar rock music, and other conditions that promote identity confusion, are pushed into destructive, demeaning, life-threatening, and desperately unhappy behavior choices.

Medical researchers and epidemiologists have found that homosexual practices—which include anal and oral sex, as well as contact with, and even ingesting, human waste—are invariably linked to serious and deadly diseases. Despite more than 15 years of well-funded education programs to teach young men to avoid high risk behaviors, the practices continue and are common.

An article in the journal, Clinical Psychiatry News, reports that: "Epidemiologists estimate that 30% of all 20-year-old gay men will be HIV positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are age 30." And the journal, Omega, reports that the average age of death for HIV-infected men is age 39; while the average age of death of homosexual men for all other causes is age 42.

The problem is not merely the type of sex preferred by the homosexual, but the accompanying lifestyle, as well. Authors Bell and Weinberg reveal that 43 percent of white male homosexuals estimate they have had sex with 500 or more different partners, and 28 percent report more than 1,000 partners. Also, 79 percent said that half their partners were strangers and 70 percent said more than half their partners were men with whom they had sex only once. A study in the early 1980s reported that just 2 percent of homosexuals are "monogamous or semi-monogamous" (meaning 10 or fewer partners in a lifetime).

What the Bible Says

There is nothing ambiguous in the Bible’s teachings about homosexual sin. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the first account of the annihilation of a nation as judgment for wickedness and open rebellion against God’s moral order. Moses tells us, "the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord" (Genesis 13:13). And in chapter 19, we read:

Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground (Genesis 19:24-25).

This evil of Sodom was homosexuality, and is mentioned again in Jeremiah 23:14, Ezekiel 16:49-50, 2 Peter 2:6-10, and Jude 7, in the strongest terms of condemnation. Another story in Judges 19:22-30, speaks of the depravity of such sin. In the law code in Leviticus 18:22, homosexuality is referred to as an abomination, and anyone guilty of a homosexual act was to be punished by death (20:13).

The apostle Paul made it very clear in the New Testament that homosexual sin was perverse and could not be tolerated. In his letter to the Romans, Paul said that homosexual sin is a sign of God’s wrath on unrepentant sin. Such behavior is degrading, an unnatural passion which, until our time was punishable by imprisonment or death (1:26-32).

Finally, Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth:

Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9b-10).

The condemnation is clear, but it is also vital to make clear that we cannot react so quickly or so resolutely that we end up hating not just the sin but the sinner, as well. We must love the sinner regardless of the sin. Further, we need to share the Gospel, we need to make sure we give those who will listen the opportunity to experience the life-changing redemption of Christ’s love. And we need to be willing to demonstrate our love by works of mercy as, for example, volunteering in an AIDS hospice.

As much as we might prefer to take the easy route and let someone else deal with it, we must each make a commitment to get involved while there’s still time. Will you get involved? Will you reach out in love to those who are lost, and then, in the power of His might, get involved in the battle for America’s freedom and our heritage of moral integrity? Let this be the day.

You can contact these organizations:

Exodus International
P.O. Box 77652
Seattle, WA 98177-0652
(206) 784-7799

Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, CO 80995
(719) 531-3400

For further reading:

Joe Dallas. A Strong Delusion. Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1996.
Jeffrey Satinover. Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996.

On the World Wide Web:

Leadership University: http://www.leaderu.com/index.html
Christian Resources about Homosexuality and AIDS:
http://www.messiah.edu/hpages/facstaff/chase/h/index.htm

[ Previous | Table of Contents | Next ]

Copyright 1997, Coral Ridge Ministries. All rights reserved.