NOT A NOUN

"HOMOSEXUAL" IS NOT A NOUN
Winning the Battle of Words
By Allan Dobras
July 14, 2004

As the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment to the United States Constitution is debated, the public and Congress will be subjected to a relentless public relations assault from homosexual advocacy groups claiming that the marriage amendment would discriminate against same-sex couples.  Implicit in these claims is the presumption that the term “homosexuals” refers to an identifiable class of people—a claim that even its staunchest supporters know is a myth.  

Lost in the debate is the fact that in its original context, homosexual—as well as its nearly synonymous counterpart, gay—was most often used as an adjective and referred to erotic desires for the same sex.  In the past, it was common to refer to someone who practiced homosexual activity as a sodomite, and the act of homosexuality—i.e., unnatural carnal copulation—as sodomy.

Actually, both homosexual and heterosexual are relatively new terms, having found their way into the lexicon in the 1930s.  The associated term gay, did not come into common usage until the mid-1970s.

The use of those words as nouns has come into relatively common usage in recent years, in large part due to homosexual practitioners and their apologists who know that any debate centered on the homosexual lifestyle would be a lost cause.  For obvious reasons, therefore, it was politically necessary to perpetrate the myth that homosexuality is an inborn state of being and a civil rights issue rather than an atypical sexual behavior, like pederasty—sexual activity between a man and a boy.

Myth Becomes Reality
The public relations machine of the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transgender movement (GLBT) achieved an important victory last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that unnatural carnal copulation, i.e. sodomy, was a constitutionally guaranteed right and its practitioners are to be regarded as a protected minority group.  Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for the majority, said,

Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest under the Equal Protection Clause because legal classifications must not be “drawn for the purpose of disadvantaging the group burdened by the law.

In addition, there have been a plethora of statements by GLBT groups and their sympathizers that have perpetrated the false impression that science has proven that homosexual practitioners are born into the lifestyle and cannot change their sexual preferences.  As “proof,” several scientific studies have been cited: studies of the hypothalamus; identification of a “gay” gene; hormone research; studies of identical twins; and studies in brain chemistry. 

The common thread that ties these studies together is that not one produced any result that established a biological link to sexual orientation.  What has been shown is that the most prevalent common denominators in homosexual orientation are dysfunctional relationships with the same-sex parent and early childhood sexual abuse.  Three facts about homosexuality are indisputable:

• There is no scientific evidence that supports the conclusion that homosexuality is inborn or that it is unchangeable.
• A person can be seduced into the homosexual lifestyle.
• A person can leave the homosexual lifestyle and live a fully productive and fulfilling heterosexual life, albeit not without difficulty, as with any life-altering addiction.

Homosexuals Can Only be Identified by Behavior
In the legal pursuit of GLBT rights, it is well known that no one can prove that he/she is a so-called homosexual. The Maryland Anti-discrimination law of 2001, for example, provides no procedure to establish how an individual can be identified as male or female homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual.  In fact, the law essentially recognized the futility of attempting to verify an individual’s sexual orientation when it added the following waiver:

An employer shall be immune from liability, under this article or under the common law, arising out of the employer's reasonable acts to verify the sexual orientation of any employee or applicant taken by the employer in response to a charge filed against the employer on the basis of sexual orientation.

The California Domestic Partners Law cites a domestic partnership as a declaration of shared responsibility between two persons of the same sex—the declaration is not made between two homosexuals since it is not possible to rationally classify someone by using such a designation.  In fact, the California law makes no mention of either homosexuals or sexual orientation in the legislation.

The recently passed Senate hate crimes bill, S.966, provides additional penalties for “offenses involving actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.” The crafters of the bill, recognizing that sexual orientation is an indeterminate term, added the word perceived as a descriptor to the protected categories. Again, the word homosexual is nowhere found in the legislation.

The Homosexual Lifestyle
Since it is indisputable that homosexuality is solely a declared statement of a person’s behavior and not an innate characteristic of a class of people, it is of paramount importance that we understand what that behavior is and its physical and societal ramifications before any actions are take to legitimize the lifestyle. There is a wide body of readily available evidence that places the homosexual lifestyle in perspective:

• No matter what image of the homosexual lifestyle GLBT groups may want to project to the public, the facts are that the great majority of homosexuals engage in risky sexual practices that most people would consider beyond bizarre.A frank and open look at the homosexual lifestyle can be found at the web site of the Family Research Institute
• Promiscuity, pornography, and the elusive pursuit of sexual fulfillment fuel the engine of the homosexual lifestyle.
• It is not uncommon for homosexuals to have hundreds, if not thousands, of casual sexual encounters during their lifetime, whether in a “committed” relationship or not.Sexual fidelity has little meaning in homosexual relationships.

Dr. Tim Dailey, Senior Fellow for Cultural Studies at the Family Research Council, has documented certain studies that describe the many health and societal risks associated with the homosexual lifestyle.  In his recent book, Dark Obsession, Dr. Dailey notes,

• Human Papillomavirus (HPV)—which can lead to anal cancer—infects over 90 percent of HIV-positive gay men, and 65 percent of HIV-negative gay men.
• Gay men are at increased risk for contracting hepatitis—a potentially fatal liver disease that increases the risk of liver cancer.
• Homosexuals acquire syphilis at a rate ten times that of heterosexuals.
• Men who have sex with men comprise the single largest exposure category of people with AIDS.Homosexual men with HIV have a 37-fold increase in anal cancer, a 4-fold increase in Hodgkins disease, a 2.7-fold increase in cancer of the testicles, and a 2.5-fold increase in lip cancer.
• Thirty-six percent of homosexuals engaging in unprotected oral, anal, or vaginal sex failed to disclose that they were HIV positive to casual sex partners.
• The incidence of anal cancer in homosexuals is 35 times greater than that of the general population.
• Lesbians have more male sex partners then their heterosexual counterparts, putting lesbians at greater risk for contracting STDs.
• Lesbians are three times more likely to abuse alcohol.
• Homosexual and lesbian relationships are far more violent than traditional married households.
• Seventy-five percent of lesbians have pursued psychological counseling of some kind—many for treatment of long-term depression.
• Life expectancy for gay and bi-sexual men is eight to twenty years less than average.
• There is a significantly higher rate of suicide for homosexual men than heterosexual men.
• Having a homosexual parent or parents appears to increase the risk of incest with a parent by a factor of about 50.

These behavioral, physical, and societal ramifications paint a dismal picture of a lifestyle that is portrayed to the public as equivalent to the traditional nuclear family. Unfortunately, if the Federal Marriage Amendment does not become the law of the land, homosexual unions will soon hold a place alongside true marriage between a man and women—the God-blessed family unit that has been the backbone of civilized society since the dawn of creation.  This will have happened in large part because of a debate that never took place… a debate that would have revealed the facts about the homosexual behavior before we so recklessly enshrined it into law.