ABC and "Dancing With the Stars": preying on the mentally disturbed

By Bryan Fischer

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"

Chaz Bono, the surgically-altered daughter of Sonny and Cher, has become America's newest celebrity by appearing on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."

Chaz Bono is not a "he," Chaz Bono is a "she." She is a "she" in every single cell of her body, and will be until the day she dies. Her DNA from the moment of conception was indisputably female, and it will always be female.

No amount of surgical mutilation and hormone injections can change that. God designed her to be a female and a female she will be for the rest of her life.

Chaz Bono had her breasts surgically removed by a surgeon, and has been receiving injections of male hormones, but remains unmistakably female from the waist down.

It's bizarre, by the way, to find ourselves as a culture celebrating Chaz Bono's sexual mutilation while at the same time we try to stop the female genital mutilation of young girls in Islamic countries. This kind of schizophrenia is certainly a sign that Chaz Bono is not the only one with mental health issues. Our entire society is suffering from a severe mental disorder on the whole subject of human sexuality.

According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) — not a part of the pro-family movement, you will note — Chaz Bono suffers from "gender identity disorder."

According to the dictionary, a "disorder" is "a state of confusion" or a "disruption of normal physical or mental functions; a disease or abnormal condition."

The "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition" (DSM-IV), the Bible of the APA, has a section devoted to gender identity disorder. In this section, the word "disturbance" is used no less than six times.

DSM-IV is quite frank: "The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." You will note that the "distress" and "impairment" here is caused by the disorder itself, not by the imaginary hate from supporters of sexual normalcy.

Opponents of the truth about sexuality admit that suicidal ideation is very high among homosexuals and transsexuals. But they argue that the fault should be assigned to the pro-family movement for making such people pariahs.

This is absurd on its face. The pro-family movement is relentlessly demonized by those who want to normalize sexual aberrations. We are accused without ceasing of being hateful, homophobic bigots. Our organizations are tagged as hate groups. If anybody has been demonized, marginalized, and turned into social pariahs, it is the pro-family movement.

Meanwhile, Chas Bono is hardly a pariah by anyone's definition. She is the talk of Hollywood, and when the dancing starts will literally be the belle of the ball.

If the left's template is correct — that turning folks into social pariahs makes them kill themselves — then we should be awash in suicides here at the American Family Association. Our staff should be suffering from an epidemic of self-murder. But here we are, enjoying our lives, our families, our friends and our churches while nary a thought of suicide crosses our minds.

The bottom line here is that, according to America's mental health professionals, Chaz Bono is a mentally disturbed individual.

Chaz Bono needs to be helped, not lionized. She needs restorative therapy rather than stardom. She needs to become a patient, not a celebrity.

Anyone who cares genuinely about people will want that for her. No one who loves people would want anyone to be stuck in the swamp of pathologies that accompany such a disorder. When individuals are so mentally unsettled that they start cutting body parts off themselves, it's time to get them some help.

And it is possible for an individual like Chaz to reconcile her psychological identity with her biological identity.

As Dr. Keith Ablow of the Fox News Medical A-Team wrote, "It would be wrong to think that gender dysphoria — discomfort with one's gender — must always end either in misery or sexual reassignment surgery. It can end with coming to terms with deep psychological conflicts that are fueling the gender dysphoria." Help is possible and change is possible.

This means the issue here is ultimately about ABC, not Chaz Bono. ABC executives are unashamedly preying on her mental illness, cannibalizing her psychologically disturbed soul for ratings, and profiting handsomely in the process. This is immoral, uncaring, greedy and just plain wrong.

If "hate" is the opposite of "love," then the producers of "Dancing With the Stars" are the true haters here. ABC is helping to forge the chains that will imprison Chaz Bono for the rest of her life in a dark dungeon of confusion and despair.

This is not a proud moment for ABC. And every advertiser who spends money to promote such sexual abnormality should be embarrassed even to be connected to this charade.

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer