Note from Randy Alcorn: This article is very dated and some of what it says would be even more widely contested today than it was in 1992. Yet I think it’s worth leaving up as an historical document that reminds us how radically different our view of human sexuality has become in the last 25-30 years or so.
It’s also significant, I think, that so many young people throughout history have gone through periods of private sexual uncertainty or confusion before their true sexual identity, in accord with their DNA, was firmly established in their minds.
But today when they have what in the past were transitory sexual desires and confusions and uncertainties, they are pressured and conditioned to boldly come forth and declare their sexual orientation. Is this one of the reasons that the percentage of people believing themselves to be homosexuals has significantly risen since the research presented in this article was done?
The following excerpts are from a carefully documented eight page Family Research Council paper by Robert Knight, entitled “Sexual Disorientation.”
On the question of whether the Kinsey reports of the 40’s and 50’s were accurate in saying 10% of the population is homosexual
It is routinely reported that 10 percent of the population is homosexual. But such a statement ignores a number of recent studies which show that the incidence of homosexual behavior in the general population is less than three percent and may be as little as one percent.
Despite its pervasiveness, the 10 percent figure does not stand up under serious scientific scrutiny. Among other questionable methods, Kinsey relied heavily on data gleaned from criminals-including sex offenders-and extrapolated his findings to the general population. In fact, convicted criminals comprised 25 percent of Kinsey’s male sample, even though they made up less than one percent of the total U.S. population.
For example, a 1989 study of randomly-selected adult males, published in the British Medical Journal, yielded a result of just under three percent for homosexual activity. Similarly, a 1989 study of 36,741 Minnesota teenagers reported in Pediatrics, found that only 1.5 percent of the males and 1.1 percent of the females were bisexual or homosexual. Of the 18-year-olds, only 0.8 were homosexual or bisexual.
Ongoing, broadly-based national surveys of about 10,000 subjects conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control have found that less than three percent of men say they have had sex with another man “at some time since 1977, even one time.” (Since the incidence of lesbianism is estimated to be less than half the rate of male homosexuality, these surveys suggest homosexuality in the total population may be less than two percent.)
Moreover, a study released in 1991 by the National Opinion Research Center and funded by the National Science Foundation found that only “two percent of sexually active adults reported being exclusively homosexual or bisexual during the year preceding the survey, and five to six percent have been exclusively homosexual or bisexual since age 18.”
Since the figures cited do not take into account millions of people who are not sexually active, (including children, some elderly people and celibate singles) the aggregate figures for the incidence of homosexuality or bisexuality are even lower for the general population.
Kinsey openly criticized traditional sexual mores and advocated unorthodox and even illegal sexual behavior (including sex between adults and children, and between humans and animals.)
Kinsey also reported on experiments involving 317 boys, aged two months to 15 years, who were sexually manipulated by “technically trained” observers who used stop watches to record “orgasms.” What could Kinsey’s motivation have been in utilizing data obtained under such ethically-questionable circumstances?
On the question of recent research hailed by the Media as proving homosexuality is inborn
Simon LeVay, a professed homosexual who worked until recently at the Jonas Salk Institute, examined the brains of 35 male cadavers and found significant differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men. Specifically, LeVay found that a cluster of neurons known as INAH3 (the third interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus) was more than twice as large in heterosexual males as in homosexual males.
Problems abound with the LeVay study. First, LeVay did not verify the sexual orientation of his 16 supposedly non-homosexual male subjects. This failure to identify accurately a comparison group, which LeVay acknowledges as “a distinct shortcoming of my study,” is an especially serious lapse since six of the 16 reportedly heterosexual men had died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The disproportionate number of heterosexual males who died of AIDS (37.5 percent in LeVay’s sample compared to less than one percent in the general population) is so high as to cast serious doubts about the validity of the study.
Moreover, not all of the presumedly heterosexual men had larger brain node clusters than the homosexuals. Three of the “heterosexuals” had clusters smaller than the mean size of the clusters of the homosexuals, and one of the “heterosexuals” had the third smallest node cluster in the entire study. Further, three of the homosexuals had larger clusters than the mean size for the “heterosexuals.” These major exceptions undermine any claim that the clusters are a determinative factor in sexual orientation.
Finally, to the extent that any relationship exists between homosexuality and smaller brain nodes, there is no proof that the hypothalamus causes sexual orientation. Since behavior can alter brain patterns, the size of the nodes may be the result, not the cause, of homosexual activity.
The absence of data proving a determinative genetic basis for homosexuality is significant because it undermines the oft-repeated claim that homosexuality is and immutable characteristic like race or ethnic origin. This claim is debunked further, and rather conclusively, by the existence of men and women who have changed their sexual preference and left the homosexual lifestyle. Masters and Johnson report a 79.1 percent immediate success rate for their clients who attempt to discontinue their homosexual practices and a 71.6 percent success rate after five years. (Some slip back into the homosexual lifestyle-just as some recovering alcoholics fall off the wagon.)
Thus, homosexual activists have no basis for equating their struggle for special legal privileges with that of the civil rights movement. Homosexual behavior--which one can choose or choose not to act out--cannot be equated with an immutable characteristic, such as race or ethnic origin, over which one has no control. Put another way, one can become a former homosexual, but not a former Hispanic or a former black.
Similarly, homosexual behavior cannot be equated with religious belief, which is protected by the United States Constitution. Behaviors are not covered under the First Amendment. If they were, alcoholics or drug addicts or compulsive shoppers, for example, could claim special privileges.
On the Economic Status of Homosexuals
Nor is there any evidence that homosexuals as a class have suffered serious economic hardships from discrimination, as blacks and other minorities have. According to 1988 surveys by Simmons Market Research Bureau In., the average household income of the readers of the top eight homosexual newspapers is $55,430, compared to $32,144 for all Americans. Since the average homosexual household has fewer than two people, per capita income among homosexual households is three times that of the general population. In addition, 59.6 percent of the homosexual population have college degrees compared with 18.0 percent among the overall population, and 49.0 percent of the homosexual population hold professional or managerial positions, compared with 15.9 percent of the general population.
Homosexuality generally only becomes an issue when homosexuals make it one; that is, when they force their choice of behavior--or approval of their choice of behavior--on others. Most employers do not inquire into an employee’s private life. But when formerly private behavior becomes public, it is a different arena. Should employers have to accommodate employees who indulge in any behavior they choose? Should a Jewish employer, for example, be forced to employ a white supremacist who brags about the fact that he spends his weekends burning crosses?
On Homosexual Promiscuity & Disease
A 1981 study found that only two percent of homosexuals could be classified as monogamous or semimonogamous (10 or fewer lifetime partners).
Most male homosexuals show a high degree of promiscuity, and most male and female homosexuals show a pattern of self-destructive behavior. For example, a 1978 study found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals estimated that they had sex with 500 or more different partners, and 28 percent reported having more than 1,000 partners. Seventy-nine percent said that more than half their partners were strangers, and 70 percent said more than half of their partners were men with whom they had sex only one.
By 1984, in the face of the AIDS epidemic, average homosexual promiscuity dropped from 70 to 50 partners per year, according to an American Psychological Association study. This is still an enormous number of partners, especially in light of high rates of AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, genital warts, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and tuberculosis among homosexuals.
Indeed, a compilation of recent health studies shows that homosexuals account for 80 percent of America’s most serious sexually transmitted diseases. Homosexual youths are 23 times more likely to contract a sexually-transmitted disease than heterosexual youths. Lesbians are 19 times more likely than heterosexual women to have had syphilis, twice as likely to suffer from genital warts, and four times as likely to have scabies. Male homosexuals are 14 times more likely to have had syphilis than male heterosexuals. They are also thousands of times more likely to contract AIDS.
According to the Centers of Disease Control, nearly two-thirds of all AIDS cases in the U.S. are directly attributable to homosexual conduct. Surprisingly, however, AIDS has had only a modest effect on the average life expectancy of a homosexual male. According to a recent study of 5,246 obituaries in 16 homosexual newspapers from coast to coast, the average age of men dying from AIDS is 39. The average age of homosexuals dying from all other causes is even more revealing: 41. Only one percent die of old age.
Accordingly, in study after study, less than three percent of all homosexuals surveyed are over the age of 55. High rates of risky and self-destructive behavior (for example, a report by the National Lesbian-Gay Health Foundation found that homosexuals are about three times as likely as heterosexuals to have an alcohol or drug abuse problem) no doubt contribute significantly to the reduced life expectancy of homosexual men.
It is often argued that this destructive behavior is due to society’s unwillingness to accept homosexuality. But San Francisco, with its open validation of homosexuality, has an abundance of the social pathologies associated with homosexuality. The city has a rate of infectious Hepatitis A twice the national average, a rate of infectious Hepatitis B three times the national average, and a rate of venereal diseases 22 times the national average.
Despite a blizzard of information on so-called “safe sex” practices, some homosexuals still frequent Bay area bathhouses and 46 percent of young homosexuals in San Francisco admitted in a 1990 poll that they had had unprotected anal intercourse during the preceding month. Nearly 43 percent of the homosexual men aged 17 to 19 who participated in a 1991 San Francisco Department of Health survey said they were engaging in unprotected anal intercourse.
On Homosexual Involvement with Children
Even though homosexuals represent less than three percent of the U.S. population, at least one-third of all child molestations involve homosexual activity. Thus, the propensity for pedophilia is far higher among homosexuals.
Moreover, some parts of the homosexual movement openly endorse pedophilia. For example, a March 26, 1992 editorial in the San Francisco homosexual publication, Sentinel, supports “homosexual men who love boys,” and states that “the love between men and boys is at the foundation of homosexuality.”
Homosexual-themed travel publications include sections on where to obtain boy lovers most inexpensively (Mexico and Thailand), and an international guide includes a list of several houses of prostitution in the Netherlands that specialize in boys.
In 1990, the Journal of Homosexuality devoted an entire issue to the theme of “Male Intergenerational Intimacy.” In his essay, David Thorstad, a founding member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and former president of New York’s Gay Activists Alliance, writes: “The issue of man/boy love has intersected the gay movement since the late nineteenth century.” Yet, he complains that pedophilia is being suppressed by the “gay movement,” which “seeks to sanitize the image of homosexuality to facilitate its entrance into the social mainstream.”
According to a recent content analysis of The Advocate, the mainstream homosexual magazine, 58 percent of the personal ads are for prostitution, many of them openly soliciting boys. Of 2,000 personal ads a month in The Advocate, only one percent advertise for monogamous relationships.
On Suppression of Opposition to Special Homosexual Rights
The debate over homosexuality and homosexual rights has not been conducted in an open atmosphere where there is a free exchange of information and opinion. Increasingly, radical homosexual activists affiliated with groups like ACT-UP and Queer Nation have used disruptive tactics designed to close off debate.
In Springfield, Oregon, several businesses that advertised in a May, 1992 pro-family newsletter openly opposing homosexual rights legislation had their windows smashed. In 1991, homosexual activists tried to vandalize the Sacramento, California office of the Traditional Values Coalition, a group that opposes special privileges for homosexuals, but they were stopped by security guards. At least one prominent journalist, former Sacramento Union editor Joseph Farah, has had to fend off physical attack. Farah was targeted partly because his newspaper began using the word homosexual instead of gay.
It is no wonder that radical homosexual activists have employed methods characteristic of those used by extremist groups. In a remarkable article in The Washington Blade, a major homosexual newspaper, ACT-UP/D.C. founder Eric M. Pollard calls the AIDS activist group “a truly fascist organization” and said he and other group members learned “subversive tactics, drawn largely from the voluminous Mein Kampf, which some of us studied as a working model.”
So long as ignorance and intimidation continue to produce silence on these issues, silence will truly equal death-death to any responsible understanding of the dangers homosexuality poses to its practitioners and to American society at large.
