It’s Not So “Gay” After All . . .

The National Catholic Register ran an article last week about a case decided by a New Jersey Appellate Court which declared that those with homosexual lifestyles do not have a right to marry. Of particular interest in the article are testimonies that we do not hear enough about. One is from a young woman with homosexual inclinations but who is trying to live a chaste life. She describes how difficult chastity is in today's environment when the media seems to extol the virtues of same sex relationships. Another is from a girl whose father is a practicing homosexual and the problems which she experienced due to his disorder. Her point that the disorder comes with selfishness and emotional immaturity making lasting relationships impossible, is borne out by the data. A 1994 "gay" census happily reports that 52% of gays are in relationships and of these 29% are in them for 8 years or more. How they picked 8 years seems to do more with monkeying the data than anything else, since 8 years is no where near a lifelong commitment. Further more, 29% of the little over half (52%) means that only 15% make it to 8 years or more. This is not the stability that children need. Homosexual relationships, because they are disordered, cannot be stable. A study based on the health records of young Dutch homosexuals by Dr. Maria Xiridou of the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service and published in the May 2003 issue of the journal AIDS found that men in homosexual “monogamous” relationships have an average of eight partners a year outside their main partnership, and that the main partnerships last only an average of a year and a half. Even in the age of throwaway marriages, according to the US National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), 67 percent of first heterosexual marriages last 10 years and 50 percent last 20 years. Besides stability, the homosexual lifestyle is unsafe for children. The disorder of ephebophilia (the attraction to post pubescent children which is different from pedophilia) is significantly higher in gays (as high as 620 times higher –see first study below) than in the normal population (less than 2%). In fact, homosexual activists Karla Jay and Allen Young revealed in their 1979 Gay Report that 73% of all homosexuals have acted as "chicken hawks" (i.e., they have preyed on adolescent or younger boys). The following studies support this.

Ray Blanchard, et al. "Fratemal Birth Order and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles." Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 29, Number 5 (2000), pages 463 to 478. A. Zebulon, Z.A. Silverthorne and Vernon L. Quinsey. "Sexual Partner Age Preferences of Homosexual and Heterosexual Men and Women." Archives of Sexual Behavior, February 2000 [Volume 29, Number IJ, pages 67 to 76. 'Ray Blanchard, et. aI. "Pedophiles: Mental Retardation, Maternal Age, and Sexual Orientation." Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 28, Number 2,pages 111 to 127. Kurt Freund, Robin Watson and Douglas Rienzoo "Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Erotic Age Preference." Journal of Sex Research, February 1989 [Volume 26,Number 1), pages l(J7to 117. W.D. Erickson, et al. "Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters." 17 Archives of Sexual Behavior 77,83 (1988). IOJ{. Freund, G. Heasman, I.G. Racansky, and G. Glancy. "Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality." Journal of Sex andMarital Therapy, Fall 1984 [Volume 10, Number 3], pages 193 to 200. "Homosexual activists Karla Jay and Allen Young. The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak OutAbout Sexual Experiences and lifestyles [Simon and Schuster, 1979], page 275. K. Freund & R.I. Watson. "The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study." 18 34, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 34-43 (1992).

Neither is the lifestyle healthy for either children or gays themselves. For example, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has shown that the life expectancy for homosexuals is about twenty years shorter than that of the general public. The study, entitled “Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS”, has been published in Psychological Reports (2005;96:693-697). Another study in Vancouver British Columbia and published in 1997 in the International Journal of Epidemiology (Vol. 26, 657-61: http:/ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract...">http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/657) reveals almost the exact same findings.

However, the dangers are not solely associated with AIDS. Two studies appearing in the October 2000 issue of the American Medical Association's Archives of General Psychiatry show a strong link between homosexual sex and suicide, as well as a relationship between homosexuality and emotional and mental problems. One of the studies in the same journal (by David M. Ferguson et. al.) discovered that “gay, lesbian and bisexual young people are at increased risk of psychiatric disorder and suicidal behaviors.” A summary of other health problems associated with homosexual behavior can be found in the Catholic Medical Association’s (http://www.cathmed.org/) paper, “Homosexuality and Hope.” These include: homosexuals are four times as likely as their peers to suffer from major depression, almost three times as likely to suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, nearly four times as likely to experience conduct disorder, five times as likely to have nicotine dependence, six times as likely to suffer from multiple disorders, and over six times as likely to have attempted suicide (and it points out that an “extensive study in the Netherlands (published in the Archives of General Psychiatry) undermines the assumption that homophobia is the cause of increased psychiatric illness among gays and lesbians. The Dutch have been considerably more accepting of same-sex relationships than other Western countries -- in fact, same-sex couples now have the legal right to marry in the Netherlands”). Homosexuality and Hope also showed that “compared to controls who had no homosexual experience in the 12 months prior to the interview, males who had any homosexual contact within that time period were much more likely to experience major depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia and obsessive compulsive disorder. Females with any homosexual contact within the previous 12 months were more often diagnosed with major depression, social phobia or alcohol dependence. In fact, those with a history of homosexual contact had higher prevalence of nearly all psychiatric disorders measured in the study. Also, a recent study in the American Journal of Public Health has shown that 39% of males with same-sex attraction have been abused by other males with same-sex attraction.” The document also shows physical illnesses associated with homosexual sex: “the diseases found with extraordinary frequency among male homosexual practitioners as a result of abnormal homosexual behavior is alarming: anal cancer, chlamydia trachomatis, cryptosporidium, giardia lamblia, herpes simplex virus, human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, human papilloma virus -- HPV or genital warts -- isospora belli, microsporidia, gonorrhea, viral hepatitis types B and C, and syphilis. Sexual transmission of some of these diseases is so rare in the exclusively heterosexual population as to be virtually unknown. Others, while found among heterosexual and homosexual practitioners, are clearly predominated by those involved in homosexual activity. Men who have sex with men account for the lion's share of the increasing number of cases in America of sexually transmitted infections that are not generally spread through sexual contact. These diseases, with consequences that range from severe and even life-threatening to mere annoyances, include hepatitis A, giardia lamblia, entamoeba histolytica, Epstein-Barr virus, neisseria meningitides, shigellosis, salmonellosis, pediculosis, scabies and campylobacter." It seems that the media has turned a blind eye to the stories of those who have experienced the real horror of a homosexual lifestyle. However, fortunately there are good apostolates, such as Courage, which are available to help those who recognize that they have the disorder of same sex attraction and want help in overcoming it.