The Australian Family, July 2003, p. 35
The Challenge of Homosexuality
Bill Muehlenberg
The homosexual community, like the heterosexual community, is a diverse and multifaceted phenomenon. In talking about the homosexual community, one must not over-generalise, but be sensitive to distinctions and differences.
For example, the militant, vocal homosexual lobby does not represent all homosexuals. Many homosexuals simply want to be left alone, to live their lives quietly and peacefully. The homosexual lobby, on the other hand, is militant, vocal and very public. It wants to promote the homosexual way of life as an equal alternative to heterosexual lifestyles. It is very aggressive, demanding that homosexual behaviour be embraced and accepted by the straight community. It publicly flaunts and promotes homosexuality, as in the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras. It is this militant lobby group that we are primarily concerned about when speaking about homosexuality. Most people do not mind the private, discreet activities of homosexuals or anybody else for that matter. But most Australians do worry about the militant homosexual lobby and its never ending agenda of demands, demands which will have a very real effect on family and society.
And we need to remember that all homosexuals deserve to be treated with respect, love and compassion, even though society has a legitimate right to dislike and censure homosexual behaviour and activity. Society, for example, can rightly disapprove of alcoholism, while seeking to help individual alcoholics. So too, society has a right to deem homosexual behaviour as unhealthy, a threat to the family, and not in the best interests of society, while ensuring that individual homosexuals are not vilified or roughly treated.
Consider the following statement: "Even in purely nonreligious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty and, in the words of one...educator, of 'human construction.' It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding, and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as a minority martyrdom..." And the author of this statement? Fred Nile? Jerry Falwell? No. It was uttered by Time magazine in January 21, 1966. Would Time magazine ever dare to utter such comments today? Of course not.
The moral and intellectual climate has changed dramatically in just a very short period of time. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan has put it, we are "defining deviancy downwards". Deviancy has reached such huge proportions that in order to deal with the problem, we have changed the way we think about normality and abnormality. What used to be regarded as deviant behaviour is now reclassified as normal, and what we used to call normal behaviour we now call abnormal. Thus the only abnormality now is to be "homophobic". Indeed, the pressure by the gay lobby to redefine deviancy resulted in the 1973 decision of the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the listing in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Mental Disorders (DSM-1).
The homosexual lobby has been very successful in reframing the issues. For example, an interesting article appeared in the gay press some years ago entitled "The Overhauling of America". The article outlined a strategy by which homosexuals could best implement their goals. It included the following elements: desensitisation; portraying gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers; giving the protectors a just cause; and making the victimisers looks bad. Here are some quotes from the article: "In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims in need of protection so the straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector. . . . Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, but instead make anti-discrimination as its theme. . . . In the early stages of the campaign, the public should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex per se should be down-played, and the issue of gay rights reduced as far as possible, to an abstract social question."
This strategy of the homosexual community to shift attention away from homosexual behaviour and instead to focus on vague notions of civil rights, discrimination, and the like has been an ingenious and successful ploy. As Australian homosexual and Reader in Politics at La Trobe University Dennis Altman put it, "The greatest single victory of the gay movement over the past decade has been to shift the debate from behavior to identity, thus forcing opponents into a position where they can be seen as attacking the civil rights of homosexual citizens rather than attacking specific and (as they see it) antisocial behavior."
Thus civil rights, not behaviour, has taken the limelight. By taking attention off homosexual behaviour, a second strategy has been successfully implemented by the gay community, namely, to convince the general public that homosexual relationships are just the same as heterosexual relationships, only a bit different. Indeed, the homosexual lobby argues that except for the fact that they are in a same sex partnership, their relationship is similar to that of any married or de facto relationship. But are homosexual relationships just the same as heterosexual ones? In a number of crucial areas, homosexual relationships are qualitatively different from heterosexual relationships
A staff reporter with The Australian once began an article on homosexuality claiming there were 1 million of them in Australia. How did she get this figure? As it turns out, she took the word of a member of Significant Others Marketing Consultants, who is later quoted in the article as saying there "are more than 1 million gays and lesbians in Australia". A month later, again in The Australian, the same spokesman for Significant Others was quoted in an article saying that there are "1.4 million gay and lesbian adults in Australia". That was a jump of 400,000 in one month. At that rate there should have been 24 million gays in Australia in the year 2000!
Now do these numbers seem a bit high? They should. An issue of Newsweek admitted that the 10 per cent figure which Alfred Kinsey used was highly inflated: "Activists seized on the double digits to strengthen their political message. . . . Policymakers and the press adopted the estimate - despite protests from skeptical conservatives - citing it time and time again. But new evidence suggests that ideology, not sound science, has perpetuated a 1-in-ten myth."
Gay activists have confirmed this to be a case of deliberate deception: " Based on their personal experience, most straights probably would put the gay population at 1% or 2% of the general population. Yet . . . when straights are asked by pollsters for a formal estimate, the figure played back most often is the '10% gay' statistic which our propagandists have been drilling into their heads for years."
What is the evidence? The 10 per cent figure is actually about eight to ten times too high. Lets look at Kinsey's findings, for example. A recent article in The American Journal of Psychiatry claims that Kinsey's work suffered from "severe methodological limitations" and that his sample group - male prisoners and sex offenders included - was "far from representative". The authors of the article says that the actual figure should be about 1.1 per cent.
Furthermore, while most people seem to know about Kinsey's original study, very few know about a more recent Kinsey Institute study conducted in 1970 and released in 1989. This study found the number of homosexual males to be only 1.4 per cent. It also found that lesbians are far fewer than male homosexuals.
Some years ago the Wall Street Journal presented a summary of some of the recent studies on the extent of homosexuality. All the findings present similar low figures. In the United States a 1989 University of Chicago study found that only 1.2 per cent of both male and female adults reported homosexual activity. And a 1993 survey found only 1.1 per cent of men who claimed to be exclusively homosexual. Furthermore:
Unless Australians are significantly different from their Western counterparts, it seems clear that the claim that one million Australians are homosexual is overstated at least six-fold. But as all good propagandists know, throw a figure around long enough, and pretty soon the general public won't even question its validity.
If the homosexual lobby is willing to use faulty statistics to support its cause, just how reliable is it in other areas? As one homosexual warned: "If you say a number that you can't prove, there's always the chance that by disproving one part of your argument, your opponents weaken you overall. I think that's dangerous."
While it is understandable that a movement would want to overestimate its importance and influence, it is reprehensible that such large portions of the media parrot these figures, without doing their homework first.
But the truth is, those who have sought to do the figures in Australia have come out with quite low figures. A recent study by Monash University entitled "How Gay is Australia?" based on 2001 Census figures found very low numbers indeed. It found that only 37,774 persons who are in same sex couples; persons in same sex couples are only 0.2 per cent of the total population; and persons in same sex couples are only 0.47 per cent of all persons in couples.
A more recent study of sexuality in Australia has confirmed that the ten per cent figure is greatly overblown. In a study of nearly 20,000 Australians, La Trobe University researchers found that 97.4 per cent of Australians said their sexual identity was heterosexual. A mere 1.6 said it was homosexual, and a paltry 0.9 per cent said it was bisexual. So much for the 10 per cent myth.
Is homosexuality a genetic condition in which people have no choice? Are people born gay? Can a homosexual break free of homosexuality? Can one make a distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual behaviour? These and related questions deserve careful attention. The answers to these questions will help determine the way the gay rights arguments are assessed. For example, if gays are born that way, then it would be hard to argue for legislation that discriminates against something they have no choice over.
First, one must make a distinction between homosexual orientation and behaviour. It is clear that not everyone with a homosexual orientation acts out this orientation. That is, some may have feelings of sexual attraction to another member of the same sex without acting on those feelings. Just as some may have an orientation to other activities, one need not act them out. As one author put it, "The question about choice and homosexuality is often asked the wrong way. It is not so much that one chooses to engage in homosexual acts as it is that one can choose not to. We are all predisposed to some things, and frequently tempted. But we make choices every day not to engage in certain activities, for any number of reasons."
The cause of homosexual orientation is far from known and would appear to be multifactorial. It is apparent that social, psychological and cultural factors are involved as well as the aggressive promotion of homosexuality. In this it is no different from the development of alcoholism. In the case of homosexuality, many studies have noted the influence of weak or absent father figures as an important factor in offspring becoming homosexuals. Whatever the factors associated with the development of homosexuality, in each individual case certain factors will need to be weighted so that treatment can be tailor-made to the individual and his or her needs.
But leaving aside this distinction for a moment, what about the claim that gays are born, not made?
The Victorian AIDS Council President, recently repeated the claim that homosexuals "did not choose their homosexuality". Facts, however, speak otherwise. In America, for example, there are around 200 centres which help gays to go straight, and there are thousands of former gays who now are straight, many of them happily married with children.
And it is not just "religious" organisations that are involved in helping gays go straight. The decidedly non-religious Masters and Johnson Clinic in St. Louis has treated hundreds of homosexuals and bisexuals. Masters reports that they have successfully "changed" more than half of their homosexual clients, and higher than 75 per cent of bisexuals.
Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist who has taught at Yale University and is a past president of the C. G. Jung Foundation, after examining the evidence, says this: "The desire to shift to a biologic basis for explaining homosexuality appeals primarily to those who seek to undercut the vast amount of clinical experience confirming that homosexuality is significantly changeable".
A two year study involving nearly 860 individuals and 200 therapists found that change is clearly possible. The study found that "before counseling or therapy, 68% of the respondents perceived themselves as exclusively or almost entirely homosexual, with another 22% stating they were more homosexual than heterosexual. After treatment, only 13% perceived themselves as exclusively or almost entirely homosexual, while 33% described themselves as either exclusively or almost entirely heterosexual".
One male respondent said: "Change is extremely difficult and requires total com mitment. But I have broken the terrible power that homosexuality had over me for so long. I haven't been this light and happy since I was a child. People can and do change and become free".
But it is an aggressive homosexual lobby, along with the pressures of Political Correctness, that has robbed many of a chance of going straight. As psychologist Joseph Nicolosi, author of Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, points out, "Psychology and psychiatry have abandoned a whole population of people who feel dissatisfied with homosexuality".
Indeed, Political Correctness and the homosexual lobby have had such an influence that in the mid-90s, delegates of the American Medical Association voted to scrap the Association's 13-year-old policy of encouraging practitioners to alert homosexual patients to "the possibility of sex preference reversal in selected cases." The new policy calls instead for attitudinal adjustment for medical personnel, saying that health care is improved by a "nonjudgemental recognition of sexual orientation and behavior." Physicians involved in assisting homosexuals to change their sexual behavior criticised the new policy as a "political maneuver."
But homosexual activists continue to insist that homosexuality is genetically based, and nothing can be done about it. Science, again, begs to differ. One person who should know is Oxford's Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene. Dawkins argues that "the body of genetic determinism needs to be laid to rest." Says Dawkins, "Whether you hate homosexuals or whether you love them, whether you want to lock them up or 'cure' them, your reasons had better have nothing to do with genes. Rather admit to prejudiced emotion than speciously drag genes in where they do not belong."
Indeed, scientists involved in genetic research are becoming increasingly convinced that "genetic determinism" is a fallacy. One distinguished Harvard University professor, Dr. Ruth Hubbard, recently wrote a book denouncing genetic determinism. One summary of the issue concluded by saying that scientists are coming to realize one truth at least: "DNA is not destiny". And the two men most responsible for the humane genome project, Francis Collins and Craig Venter, have both argued that their discoveries imply the end of genetic determinism. Their discoveries about the human genome have made any simplistic statements about one or two genes predisposing someone to complex behaviors such as gayness or schizophrenia appear untenable.
In America a recent study has found that while various factors might contribute to a person's homosexual orientation, biological factors alone cannot be substantiated. After an in-depth review of the literature, the study makes this observation: "Recent studies postulate biological factors as the primary basis for sexual orientation. However, there is no evidence at present to substantiate a biological theory, just as there is no compelling evidence to support any singular psychosocial explanation."
A stronger statement comes from Dr. Charles Socarides, Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He says theories seeking to relate sexual orientation to brain structure and hormones are "completely erroneous. There's no possibility of someone developing homosexuality from hereditary or organic causes. It's just impossible . . . a cluster of the brain cannot determine sexual object choice. We know that for a fact."
Closer to home, gay activist and Latrobe University lecturer, Dennis Altman, wrote this uncomfortable fact in 1986: "To be Haitian or a hemophiliac is determined at birth, but being gay is an identity that is socially determined and involves personal choice. Even if, as many want to argue, one has no choice in experiencing homosexual desire, there is a wide choice of possible ways of acting out these feelings, from celibacy and denial . . . to self-affirmation and the adoption of a gay identity." "Being gay," says Altman, "is a choice".
Another Australian homosexual activist has much more recently said similar things about homosexuality and genetics: "I think the idea that sexuality is genetic is crap. There is absolutely no evidence for it at the moment, and I think it is unhealthy that people want to embrace this idea. It does reflect a desire to say, 'it's not our fault', as a way of deflecting our critics. We have achieved what we have achieved by defiance, not by concessions. I think we should be recruiting people to homosexuality. It's a great lifestyle and something everybody should have the right to experience. If you believe it's genetic, how are you going to make the effort?" Or as he put it elsewhere: "On the question of recruiting to homosexuality - well, of course, I am in favor of this. I believe homosexuality to be a perfectly valid lifestyle choice. . . . I am naturally keen to encourage people to participate in [the gay lifestyle]."
Other homosexuals have admitted that choice plays at least a partial role in the overall equation. However, the tendency is to deny choice, to make it appear that homosexuals cannot help it, and to argue that any criticism of the gay lifestyle is as silly as criticism of being left-handed or red-haired.
As Thomas Schmidt has noted, "a large component of homosexual activists applaud biologic causation theories for their effect on public opinion, but are philosophically committed to personal choice as opposed to any deterministic theory, biologic or environmental."
Even if there is a genetic predisposition to homosexuality, one can overcome this just as one can overcome a predisposition to, say, overeating, anger, or even alcoholism. We are not animals, and can therefore, as Altman points out, make choices about how we live out the life that nature accords us.
Or as one science writer reminds us, "even if genetic determinism is shown to be very powerful, we are still left having to decide what we want to do with it. After all, genetics can give someone a predisposition to cancer, but we don't applaud cancer."
A few scientific studies have been heralded by a sympathetic press recently as evidence that homosexuality is genetically based. Studies by National Cancer Institute researcher Dean Hamer and gay researcher Simon LeVay are two such studies. While both studies urged caution in the interpretation of the findings, the media featured headlines claiming a genetic basis for homosexuality. Both studies have been heavily criticised for methodological shortcomings and other problems.
Indeed, later attempts to verify these studies have proven a failure. A study of 52 gay brothers by a team of clinical neurologists "found no evidence of linkage of sexual orientation to Xq28", the so-called 'gay gene' identified by Hamer in 1993. Another study of 54 pairs of gay brothers also failed to find the link.
Jeffrey Satinover has dealt with this question extensively. He concludes that "hard science is far from providing an explanation of homosexuality, let alone one that reduces it to genetic determinism". And homosexuals themselves have criticised these "gay gene" studies. For example, Edward Stein PhD, a homosexual activist, has written a whole book on the subject. In an interview with a homosexual magazine he says this: "There are serious problems with the science itself. . . . My training had taught me that a lot of what was being said was, well, highly unscientific. . . . Many gay people want to use this research to promote gay rights. If gay people are 'born that way,' then discrimination against them must be wrong. . . . A gay or lesbian person's public identity, sexual behaviors, romantic relationships, or decisions to raise children are all choices. No theory suggests that these choices are genetic."
The Victorian AIDS Council President said that homosexuality is "just a fact of life. The concept of someone becoming a homosexual because of something they see or hear is something I find quite bizarre". He rejected the idea that young people could be seduced into homosexuality by homosexual propaganda and recruitment.
But if this is so, why do we keep hearing statements like this coming from the homosexual movement?: "We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups . . . Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us."
If young people cannot be seduced, why this statement from a gay activist?: "I have found that even many of my most unbiased straight friends grow skiddish with my homosexual candour - say, kissing my mate - when their chidden are around. Underneath it all, they too understand that sexually free ideas are infectious and that, once introduced to the suggestion of same-sex love, their kids might just try it and like it."
There are very real dangers of homosexuals seeking to recruit impressionable youth. The promotion of homosexuality, in the schools for example, will result in a number of young people being enticed to experiment with anal intercourse and other practices endemic in the gay community. Public policy should seek to discourage this kind of promotion of the homosexual lifestyle. The health and well-being of our children is at stake. Indeed, a war is waging over the minds and hearts of our young people. As one commentator puts it:
"From history, sociology, and anthropology, what we learn is 1) that it's not just Judeo-Christian Western culture that has scorned homosexual behavior; and 2) that in those (rare) cultures where homosexual behaviour has not been scorned, gayness didn't stop at some hypothetical 10 per cent, but ended up being virtually an epidemic. Homosexual behavior throughout a society is not static, but fluid. It can change radically in either direction, depending upon societal attitudes toward it. Isn't that what sexual taboos have always been about? Both society and the individual have a say in the matter. Society can ban it or bless it; and whatever society decides, it is likely that its individual citizens will choose to go as far as they are permitted to go."
To conclude this section, perhaps the best argument that can be made against the 'once gay, always gay' mentality is to hear from former homosexuals themselves. As I have noted, countless thousands of homosexuals have known the experience of liberation from the homosexual lifestyle. And hundreds of organisations around the world are helping homosexuals make that change. Many books have been written documenting these changed lives.
One such book, Coming out of Homosexuality, tells the story of how the book's co-authors went through the difficult but rewarding path of change. They also speak of many others who have taken this tough journey: "We have witnessed solid, substantial healing in so many men and women over the years that we can say without hesitation, 'There is a way out of homosexuality'." They continue, "During the past fourteen years, we have become personally acquainted with hundreds of men and women who have left behind the gay and lesbian lifestyle. . . . Now some of these men and women have been free from homosexual involvement for ten or twenty years. They are not just suppressing their strong homosexual or lesbian longings. There has been a true resolution of this issue in their lives."
And it is not just the lifestyle, but the orientation as well, that can be changed, albeit slowly and painfully. Another former homosexual, Jeff Konrad, puts it this way: "Despite what we hear from the media and the world at large, your homosexual orientation can be changed. I want you to know there is hope. . . . And I'm not just talking about behaviour or surface stuff. I'm talking about deep-down change. I no longer have the feelings, desires, temptations, orientation, or identity of the past. I am convinced you can experience this also."
The push for gay rights, as we have seen, is the main means by which the homosexual lobby seeks to further its agenda. By talking about discrimination, civil rights and minority status, the impression is created that homosexuals lack basic human rights that others enjoy, and that they are a persecuted minority.
There are several things wrong with regarding homosexuality as a civil right. First, homosexuals enjoy the same protections under law of basic civil rights as does anyone else.
Second, one's behaviour should not be the basis of civil rights legislation. Homosexuality is not a benign factor like race or gender, but is primarily a behaviour-based activity. We do not extend special rights to other behaviour-based groups, like smokers or stamp collectors.
Analogies between homosexuality and race have proven to be insupportable. Special protected status has historically been granted when three criteria are met. First, economic, educational and cultural opportunities are denied a group. While this has been true of various races in the past, it is not true of homosexuals. Homosexuals as a class have higher than average annual incomes, are more often college educated than non-homosexuals, and especially predominate in culture, as in the arts world.
Second, obvious, immutable traits must be identifiable in protected classes. Again, this is true of race, but not of the homosexual community. Blacks cannot help being black, but as we have seen, gays can help being gay. Moreover, some characteristics are immutable but not protected. Height, good looks and predispositions to obesity are also immutable, but do not warrant in themselves special protection. Homosexual behaviour is not innate or immutable, so again, they fail the test.
Third, protected classes should demonstrate political powerlessness. Just the opposite is the case in Australia. The amount of influence one to two per cent of the population has over the rest of the population is staggering.
Shouts of discrimination, so often heard from homosexuals, need to be examined more closely. Often we hear lesbians talking about a right to children, or homosexuals talking about being denied the right to marriage. But discrimination means the denial of a right that one really has. It makes no more sense for a same-sex couple to talk about the right to have children that it does for me to talk about the right to be 5 metres tall. If two people decide to place themselves outside of the conditions that make procreation possible, then it is silly to talk about discrimination and the denial of rights.
Gay rights laws, in summary, meet none of the traditional criteria for human rights protection.
Also, it needs to be stressed than whenever you grant special rights to homosexuals you have to take rights away from other people. If gays are granted special rights to force homeowners to rent to them, those homeowners will have lost certain rights - the right to conscientiously choose who one wishes to rent to, for example. If a homosexual is granted the right to teach sex education in schools, the parent of the child in that school loses the right to have a say in the moral calibre of the teacher.
Admittedly, morality and law is not based on numbers, but how is it fair that one and a half percent of the population should be granted special rights at the expense of the other 98.5 per cent? Why should Australia's four and a half million families be forced to concede rights to Australia's 250,000 homosexuals?
Let's illustrate the situation this way. Mrs. Murphy is renting a room. A student applies. Mrs. Murphy asks him, "Do you like the music of J.S. Bach?" "Yes" he replies. "Then you will never rent from me" she retorts. Next come two men dressed in female clothing. Mrs. Murphy eyes them over and tells them to get lost. What are the rights of each? Roger Magnuson puts it this way: "Before the passage of a gay rights law, both the student and the homosexuals have the same rights: none." Mrs. Murphy may be opinionated, bigoted or confused, but she can reject both applicants. Neither party has the right to claim special protection of the law for its preference for Bach or homosexuality. However, after a gay rights law is passed, says Magnuson, "the homosexuals win a privilege for their unnatural sexual practices that the student does not have for his baroque musical tastes, or the average citizen for his normal preferences. The homosexuals can sue, and win."
The truth of the matter is this: almost all societies and cultures throughout history have recognized the importance that the institutions of marriage and family offer to society. Especially in the raising, teaching and protection of children, families, preferably cemented by marriage, offer the most secure, stable and loving context for preparing the next generation for their role in society. Societies thus have a vested interest in promoting marriage and family. Indeed, societies have therefore granted special recognition to marriage and family. In this sense they have positively discriminated in favor of marriage and family.
But such a discrimination is both desirable and healthy. In the same way that society "discriminates" against 8-year-olds by not granting them licenses to drive, so society "discriminates" against those who choose to remain outside of the institutions of marriage and the natural family. A homosexual relationship is just that, a relationship. It has never been, nor can it ever be, considered to be a family. Thus if a person wants the benefits and privileges of family life, then he or she needs to meet the criteria and responsibilities thereof.
Finally, the issue of rights is often one of whoever shouts the loudest, gets the most attention. Homosexual activists have made many noisy demands over the years and have done quite well, often at the expense of other groups who may in fact exhibit more genuine need. Anthony Buthcher offers this example: "In 1992, with some 250,000 Australians suffering from major mental illness, approximately $8.2 million was spent on psychiatric research. In the same year $10.6 million was spent on AIDS research, even though by December 1994 the total number of AIDS cases diagnosed had reached only 5732". For a poor persecuted minority group, homosexuals have done quite well out of the public purse.
We have already examined gay strategies. However, a few more words must be devoted to what the homosexual lobby actually wants. What are their demands? What changes do they propose? How will the family be affected by such changes?
Since Australian groups like GLAD (Gay men and Lesbians Against Discrimination) quote freely from their American counterparts, let me mention some of the agenda items listed in the USA. The homosexual lobby's list of demands, as presented at the 1993 March on Washington, includes the following:
It should be noted that many of these proposals have been put forward in Australia, and some have even been adopted. One example of a item which might be adopted here is the recent proposal put forward by the Australian Education Union that AIDS and sex education classes become compulsory, from primary school on up. The AEU urges that "positive" information about homosexuality also be included. It claims that children's rights are violated when parents, for reasons of conscience or religion, seek to withdraw their children from such classes. The AEU even urged that these parents should be prosecuted for violation of human rights legislation. The Brave New World implications of such a proposal are all too apparent.
Also, in New South Wales a recommended reading list of fiction and non-fiction books providing positive images of homosexuals and lesbians is being distributed to NSW schools. The lists have been distributed by the Department of School Education as a response to perceived anti-homosexual attitudes.
The extent to which the homosexual agenda is being implemented is nicely laid out in a recent book by Australian homosexual activist Graham Willett. In his book Living Out Loud he presents a history of homosexual activism in Australia. His book shows how successful the homosexual lobby has been in achieving its ends. Indeed, the author expresses amazement at how quickly and easily its ends have been attained.
A few representative quotes set the tone. He begins his book by noting "how very different" attitudes are today compared to not so very long ago: "Anti-gay ideas still exist in society, of course, but a basic liberal tolerance is the dominant mood. . . . It is a startling indication of just how far we have come that the moral crusaders' demands are widely regarded as silly and unfair."
His concluding chapter offers more of the same: "Never have homosexuality, the gay and lesbian community and their issues been more visible or more seriously dealt with by the mainstream, or more entrenched in social and political life. . . . One of the great changes of the past 40 years has been the growing visibility of lesbians and gay men in Australian society. . . . This visibility is reinforced by the role of the mainstream media."
"The triumph of liberal tolerance is now more or less complete." Indeed, so successful has the gay offensive been that Willett argues that the real problem for the homosexual community may be internal fragmentation due to its own diversity and acceptance.
After Willett made those comments new and more ominous developments have occurred. In June of 2003 the Ontario Supreme Court declared that exclusive heterosexual marriage laws violated the human rights of Canadian homosexuals and lesbians. In the same month the US Supreme Court decided that Texan laws against sodomy were unconstitutional. And also in June, English Anglicans and Australian Uniting Church members debated the ordination of gay clergy.
All of this spurred one homosexual commentator to express amazement at how rapidly and easily the homosexual agenda was being implemented. He said he had previously doubted whether same-sex marriage was a "worthwhile or attainable objective for gay and lesbian activism. How wrong I was. This is clearly now the last great frontier of the 40-year struggle for gay and lesbian equal rights." He went on to say, "Progress in this area has been much faster, and has met much less resistance, than I or anyone else anticipated".
It is clear that the homosexual lobby is on a roll. It has made tremendous advances in a very short period of time, and looks to make more gains in the near future. The effect this is having, and will have, on families is of great concern. For centuries the family has been the bedrock and safeguard of society. As the homosexual juggernaut continues, the influence and viability of the family will be lessened. At stake is nothing less than the survival of the family unit. All concerned citizens need to become informed on these issues and take a stand on behalf of the family.
The institution of the family has survived many assaults. But the homosexual assault on the family may be the most severe and the most important thus far. With these considerations in mind, we offer the following recommendations concerning the issue of homosexuality and public policy.
Negatively,
Positively,