For decades, homosexual activists have claimed that their same-sex attractions are inborn, genetic, and unchangeable. Now, transgender activists and their homosexual allies are beginning to claim that sexual orientation is fluid. So, which is it?
A strange thing is occurring within the homosexual movement. In the early years of homosexual activism, homosexuals referred to their same-sex desires as "sexual preferences," but soon rejected this term because it indicated that "choice" might be involved in their deviant sexual behaviors.
The preferred term for decades has been "sexual orientation" because it conveys the impression that being a homosexual is morally neutral, inborn, and unchangeable. In 1979, several homosexual groups worked with federal legislators on passage of a pro-homosexual bill in Congress. They insisted that "… the old term 'affectional or sexual preference,' has been changed to 'affectional or sexual orientation.' The reason for this is that it was felt 'orientation' best expresses the nature of human sexuality, while 'preference' raises the possibility that we believe that sexuality is a matter of choice." (Rueda & Schwartz, Gays, AIDS, and You, The Devin Adair Company, Old Greenwich, CT, 1987, pgs. 70- 71.)
“Sexual orientation is one component of a person’s identity, which is made up of many other components…” NEA/ APA Booklet |
The homosexual movement has gained immense political power by claiming that homosexuals are "born gay" and that it is harmful to try to change them. The University of Washington's homosexual lobbying group Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, Transgender Commission, for example, makes this claim on its web site: "Homosexuality is not a choice any more than being left-handed or having blue eyes or being heterosexual is a choice. It's an orientation, part of who you are. The choice is in deciding how to live your life."
The National Education Association and the American Psychological Association have helped perpetuate the "born gay" myth through its pamphlet, Just The Facts, which was sent to every school superintendent in the country. Just the Facts claims that "Sexual orientation is one component of a person's identity, which is made up of many other components, such as culture, ethnicity, gender, and personality traits."
The author of this NEA/APA pamphlet then goes on to promote homosexuality as normal and attacks any attempts by ministries or psychological groups like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) from helping individuals become free of same-sex attractions.
Homosexual activists and their allies at the NEA and APA believe that "sexual orientation" is just part of who a person is and that we must not only tolerate but support individuals who have differing sexual desires. Pro-homosexual politicians insist that we must pass special rights laws to protect homosexuals from alleged discrimination. Moreover, those who oppose homosexuality are considered to be suffering from a non-existent mental illness called "homophobia."
“No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous. . . Homosexuality is an adaptation, not an inborn trait.” — Camille Paglia |
In recent years, however, even homosexual researchers and philosophers are beginning to admit that there is no such thing as a "gay gene" that predisposes homosexuals to engage in sodomy. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality has published a series of these admissions by homosexual researchers and philosophers in "The Innate-Immutable Argument Finds No Basis in Science." Homosexual researcher Dean Hamer has stated: "There is not a single master gene that makes people gay … I don't think we will ever be able to predict who will be gay." Simon LeVay, a homosexual researcher and activist studied the differences in the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men. He admits: "It's important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work."
Lesbian author and activist Camille Paglia has stated: "Homosexuality is not 'normal.' On the contrary it is a challenge to the norm … Nature exists whether academics like it or not. And in nature, procreation is the single relentless rule. That is the norm. Our sexual bodies were designed for reproduction … No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous … homosexuality is an adaptation, not an inborn trait."
Here Comes The
Sexual Continuum Concept
After decades of claiming that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable, homosexual activists who are allied with the growing transgender movement are now beginning to assert that sexual orientation is fluid—and that one can become whatever he or she wants to be along a sexual continuum. The sexual continuum concept is not new. Sex researcher Alfred Kinsey invented what is known as the "Kinsey Scale" that places heterosexuality on one end of a sevenpoint scale and homosexuality on the other end. In between are varying degrees of either homosexual or heterosexual behaviors. Bisexuality is in the middle and was considered by Kinsey to be the ideal. Kinsey believed that all sexual behaviors were normal—even bestiality. Kinsey's co-author Wardell Pomeroy, for example, described the possibility that boys could have a loving relationship with farm animals in his 1981 book, Boys and Sex. Some boys, says Pomeroy, "...build a strong emotional attachment to a particular animal … a loving sexual relationship with an animal …"
Kinsey's sexual continuum scale is ideally suited to the transgender movement, which claims that maleness and femaleness are simply social constructions—not genetic realities. Gender- Pac, for example, has created a whole new vocabulary to blur the distinctions between male and female. In its online "Glossary of Terms," GenderPac defines "Gender" as "...the way we perceive things to be masculine or feminine." GenderPac also defines "Gender Expression" as "...things like clothing and behavior that manifests a person's fundamental sense of themselves as masculine or feminine, male or female." It then defines "Gender Identity" as "… an individual's fundamental sense of themselves as masculine or feminine, and male or female."
GenderPac has successfully redefined what it means to be male or female by describing gender as simply a perception or a feeling. Not only is gender relegated to a person's opinion about himself, anyone who disagrees with this view is guilty of "genderphobia."
GenderPac leader Ricki Wilchins, a male-to-female transgender compares "genderphobia" with the non-existent condition called "homophobia" in a press release issued on April 17, 2003. He notes that GenderPac has joined forces with the homosexual group Human Rights Campaign in order to fight for federal laws to protect "gender expression" and "gender identity" in the workplace. According to Wilchins, "...homophobia comes from the same hateful place as genderphobia." Transgenderism is considered a sexual orientation just like homosexuality —and transgender activists are working to gain protected minority status under hate crimes laws and laws ostensibly designed to protect minorities from discrimination.
Do Changing Sexual Behaviors Deserve Legal Protections?
If the new homosexual/transgender view is correct—that sexual orientations are fluid and not fixed, then why should government protect—what in essence are lifestyle choices—not fixed identities? Why should any individuals who engage in freely chosen, unsafe sexual behaviors be given protected status under our nation's anti-discrimination laws?
If sexual orientation is fluid, not fixed, then homosexuality, transgenderism, pedophilia, etc., are all due to freely chosen or compulsive behaviors—not genetics. They do not deserve protected class status because these behaviors are no different than smoking, alcoholism, drug addiction, or other self-destructive behaviors. These behaviors can—and should be—modified or eliminated.
The behavior of homosexuality, for example, is inherently unsafe and frequently leads to serious infections from sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. Likewise, sadomasochism is inherently abnormal and unsafe. These behaviors need not be protected. Nor, should our culture be overhauled in order to cater to transgenders who "feel" as if they're trapped in an opposite sex body. A person may "feel" he is from another planet—like Rael, the head of the Raelians, a cloning cult, but we should not pass laws based upon a person's distorted view of reality. Transgenderism is the evidence of a disturbed mental condition, not a fixed identity that should be protected in federal law. We cannot allow our culture's future to be determined by individuals who are mentally disturbed—yet that is what is occurring.
Which Sexual Orientation Will Next Achieve Protected Status?
There are literally dozens of groups of individuals who engage in bizarre sexual behaviors and who have mental conditions known as paraphilias or behaviors known as fetishes. These include Coprophagia—individuals who get sexual satisfaction from eating feces; Klismaphilia— individuals who are sexually aroused by enemas; Pederasty—male homosexuals who enjoy having sex with children; Sadomasochism—individuals who derive sexual pleasure from receiving or inflicting pain upon others; Diaper fetishes—adults who get sexual pleasure from wearing diapers and wetting themselves; Necrophilia—individuals who are sexually aroused by viewing or having sex with corpses.
All of these behaviors could be considered to be "sexual orientations"—and many of the individuals who engage in these behaviors are working to have their peculiar sexual behaviors declared to be normal in psychiatry and in the culture at large.
At a symposium sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in San Francisco on May 19, 2003, two psychiatrists presented a paper arguing for such deviant sexual behaviors as Pedophilia, Sadomasochism, as well as other Gender Identity Disorders to be removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR). The presenters were Drs. Charles Moser from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco and Peggy Kleinplatz of the University of Ottawa. Both are involved in an international organization called "ReviseF65 Project," a subsidiary group of the Norwegian National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation. This group lobbies national governments to remove Sadomasochism as a mental disorder from psychiatric guidelines.
Sociologists refer to groups of individuals who engage in bizarre sex practices as "deviant subcultures." With the success of homosexuals and transgenders in organizing as pressure groups to normalize what has been considered abnormal behaviors, other groups will feel empowered to do the same. Pedophiles, for example, have found allies in academia who support adult/child sex. In 1999, the University of Minnesota press published Judith Levine's book, Harmful to Minors, which argues that adult/child sex is not necessarily a bad thing. The foreword to her book was penned by former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.
In addition, the deviant homosexual subculture has fueled efforts to normalize adult/child sex and to lower the age of sexual consent. Mary Eberstadt's article, "'Pedophilia Chic' Reconsidered," in The Weekly Standard (January 8, 2001) details the close linkage between homosexuals and the pedophile movement. Eberstadt observes that the reason why sex with boys is being openly debated today is because it's driven by "certain parts of the gay rights movement. The more that movement has entered the mainstream, the more this 'question' [of adult/child sex] has bubbled forth from that previously distant realm into the public square."
Pedophilia and Sadomasochism are just two of many sexual orientations that may eventually be normalized in our society. The sad truth is that because of the pervasiveness of the Internet, many sexually confused and mentally disturbed individuals are finding mutual support in forums and chat rooms. They are reinforcing their mental illnesses instead of finding the help they need to overcome these sexual perversions. Author Carl Elliott details this dangerous social trend in "A New Way To Be Mad," published in the December, 2000 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Elliott describes a bizarre online underworld of individuals who suffer from what is called "Apotemnophilia." These individuals "feel" like they should not have arms or legs. In essence, they wish to have their arms or legs amputated in order to "feel" normal. One amputee said: "My left foot was not part of me." Is Apotemnophilia a "sexual orientation," a paraphilia, or a fetish? Whatever the psychiatric diagnosis, the fact is that this is a serious condition that must be treated, not given societal approval. Yet we may not find much solace in so-called mainstream psychiatry. Fortunately, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is providing a voice of sanity in a world that seems to have gone insane. Likewise, Traditional Values Coalition will continue to promote a realistic view of sexuality and expose the dangers that homosexuality, transgenderism, and other deviant sexual subcultures pose to our nation and families.
Exposed: The Myth That "10% Are Homosexual
Exposed: Homosexual Child Molesters
Exposed: The “Born Gay” Legend
Exposed: Epidemic of Homosexual Hate Crimes?
Exposed: 30% Of Teen Suicide Victims Are Homosexuals... NOT!!
Exposed: Sexual Orientation- Fixed Or Changeable?
Exposed: Do Homosexuals Really Want The Right To Marry?
Source: TraditionalValues.org
