SPLC propagates falsehoods about homosexuality, belongs on own list

By Bryan Fischer

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In 2010,, the Southern Poverty Law Center added the American Family Association to its list of "hate" groups, lumping pro-family groups like the AFA and the Family Research Group in with true hate groups such as the KKK.

Since then, the SPLC has relentlessly demonized both the FRC and the AFA, with the Ministers of Propaganda in the meanstream media mindlessly repeating the brain-dead mantra that we are "certified hate groups."

Tony Perkins, president of FRC, was quite right yesterday when he said that such incendiary and inflammatory language gave Floyd Corkins a "license to shoot an unarmed man" at FRC headquarters earlier this week.

The SPLC's attack on us is predicated on the fact that we tell the truth about homosexuality and oppose the normalization of homosexuality in any way, shape or form. What we are for is natural marriage and the historic "laws of Nature and Nature's God" on which this nation was founded. Because we are for natural marriage, we must oppose any attempt to give society's sanction to marriage counterfeits and aberrant forms of sexual expression.

In updating its list, the SPLC made a thoroughly lame attempt to discredit what it claims are ten "myths" about homosexuality that groups like AFA spread.

Unfortunately, what the SPLC calls "myths" about homosexuality turn out to be what neutral observers call "truths" about homosexuality. Below are some of the elements of SPLC's "myth" list updated to what it truly is, a "truth" list about the reality of deviant sexuality.

SPLC says it only puts groups on its "hate group" list who propagate "known falsehoods" about homsoexuality. As this article makes clear, if propagating falsehoods qualifies you as a hate group, then SPLC belongs on its own list. I've picked several for closer examination.

TRUTH # 1

Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.

Absolutely true. Homosexuals comprise perhaps two to three percent of the population, yet according to the Journal of Sex Research, homosexual pedophiles are responsible for 33% of all child sex offenses. Homosexuals molest children at 10 times the rate of heterosexuals, and that's at a minimum.

TRUTH # 2

Same-sex parents harm children.

Research indicates that children raised by homosexuals experiment with sexually aberrant behaviors at a higher rate than children raised by heterosexuals and do so at earlier ages. Heartbreakingly, according to a 1996 study by an Australian sociologist, children raised by homosexual parents did worse in nine of 13 academic and social categories compared to children raised by heterosexual married couples.

A 2001 article in American Sociological Review reported that children raised by lesbians are more likely to engage in homosexual behavior and are "more sexually adventurous."

In the fall of 2010,, Kansas State University family studies professor Walter Schumm released a "detailed analysis" which reveals that, according to AOL News, "gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents."

In fact, he concludes that when the analysis is restricted to children in their 20s, a staggering 58 percent of the children of lesbians self-identify as gay, and 33% of the children of gay men self-identify as gay. All this while the overall population of gays and lesbians represents just two to three percent of the population.

Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas did the most thorough study of children raised in same-sex households that has ever been done. It was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Social Science Research.

Regnerus' study reported on 80 outcomes that have to do with emotional, academic, relational and behavioral health, and discovered that children raised in same-sex households fared more poorly than children raised in an intact biological family in a staggering 77 of the 80 outcomes measures.

For example, children raised in such households report lower educational levels, more depression, more arrests, and more sexual partners than children raised by married biological parents. An astonishing 23% of children raised by same-sex parents report sexual molestation of one kind or another, compared to just 2% for children of married biological parents.

TRUTH # 4

Homosexuals don't live nearly as long as heterosexuals.

According to an extensive study of the homosexual community in Vancouver, B.C. published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, active participation in the homosexual lifestyle will rob an individual of a significant portion of his life span. Say the researchers, "[L]ife expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men." In fact, they observe that participation in the homosexual lifestyle knocks life expectancy for a Canadian male back to what it was in 1871.

Homosexual activists will accuse me of misusing the results of this study even though I am only quoting it. But worse for them, the Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition (CRHC) released a report in 2009 listing all the health issues Canada's homosexual population faces. Says Xtra!, a Canadian homosexual website (emphasis mine), "The report's list of health issues affecting queer Canadians includes lower life expectancy than the average Canadian, suicide, higher rates of substance abuse, depression, inadequate access to care and HIV/AIDS."

The Centers for Disease Control reports that homosexuals are 50 to 60 times more likely to become infected with AIDS than other groups. AIDS, of course, is often a fatal disease and thus has a dramatic impact on life expectancy. We spend billions and billions of dollars trying to keep children from taking up cigarette smoking because it will shorten life spans by six or seven years. If we're going to spend that kind of money, it's time we spend some of it to stop children from taking up homosexual behavior as a habit, and for the same reason: it will kill you.

TRUTH # 5

Homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.

William Shirer, author of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," said, "But (in) the brown-shirted S.A...many of its top leaders, beginning with its chief, Roehm, were notorious homosexual perverts." Shirer observes at another point that of the men gathered around Hitler, not 10% of them were sexually normal. According to historian Samuel Inga, the assassination of Roehm and his associates in 1934 was carried out by other homosexuals at Hitler's behest for the purpose of protecting Hitler from a possible political threat from Roehm and from possible public exposure of his own homosexual proclivities. Inga says the assassins "were all known to be sex perverts or sexual maniacs of one type or another."

According to noted German historian Lothar Machtan, Hitler's own homosexuality is a well-established fact. He was denied military promotions in WWI because of sexual deviancy, and was well-known to the Munich police in the 1920s as a practicing homosexual. He later carried on a raging love affair with his deputy, Rudolf Hess. Hitler persecuted homosexuals as a means of self-protection. Says Machtan, "'Hitler himself never condemned homosexuality, but he allowed the persecution of gays in order to disguise his own true colours."

Nazi hunter Elie Wiesel points out in his book Night that homosexuality and pedophilia were frequent practices of concentration camp guards. He said of the head of his own tent in Auschwitz that, "like the leader of the camp, he loved children." He adds parenthetically, "[T]here was considerable traffic in young children among homosexuals here."

TRUTH # 8

Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.

Even the pro-homosexual Gay and Lesbian Medical Association admits that homosexuals "use substances at a higher rate than the general population," have "higher rates of alcohol dependence and abuse," and are subject to higher rates of "depression and anxiety." Homosexual activists attempt to blame homophobia for this, but the same trends are evident even in Scandinavian countries where homosexuality has received virtually unanimous societal approval for decades.

Reporting on an extensive study of the Dutch population, The Journal of the American Medical Association — not the research arm of the American Family Association — concluded as follows: "The findings support the assumption that people with same-sex sexual behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders," which include "mood disorders" and "anxiety disorders."

The New York Times — not the publication arm of the AFA — had the honesty to declare, "Studies have indicated that gay men are more likely than the general population to have health problems like substance abuse, depression and some infectious diseases." The Times added that a study published in the American Journal of Public Health "found higher rates of substance abuse and major depression among men with male sexual partners than among heterosexual men."

The Massachusetts' Department of Public Health, probably the most pro-homosexual health department in the country, published what it called a "look at health disparities based on sexual orientation." Its a sad and tragic list. According to a press release, "The report revealed significant disparities among people who identified as homosexual or bisexual in the areas of access to care, self-reported health status, anxiety, depression, suicide ideation, smoking, binge drinking, illicit drug use, sexual assault victimization, intimate partner violence, disability, obesity, asthma and heart disease." Who is the AFA to argue with the Massachusetts' Department of Public Health?

Even the pro-gay website PrideSource referred to the LGBT community as "a community that has higher rates of mental health and substance abuse problems." And the website gaywired.com, in its list of "Ten things gay men need to know" (apparently since pulled down) says, "Gay men use substances at a higher rate than the general population," and adds, "Depression and anxiety appear to affect gay men at a higher rate than in the general population."

If we can't take their own word for it, who can we believe?

Here's the question: Will the SPLC now classify the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, the New York Times, the American Medical Association, the Massachusetts' Department of Public Health, PrideSource, and gaywired.com as hate groups? If not, why not?

TRUTH # 9

No one is born a homosexual.

No researcher has ever even claimed to have discovered the "gay gene." And I'm convinced that homosexuals now don't want to find it even if it's there, for fear that advances in prenatal genetic screening will lead to the systematic abortion of babies who carry the suspect genetic marker. They know what happens to Down syndrome babies in the womb. Even if there were some innate disposition toward homosexual inclinations, no human being is compelled to yield to every sexual impulse he experiences. You can ask Tiger Woods about that. Homosexual behavior is always, always, a matter of choice.

If homosexuality is genetically determined, then if one identical twin is homosexual, the other one ought to be as well. But researches Peter Bearman (Columbia) and Hannah Bruckner (Yale) found that the concordance rate was just 6.7% for male and 5.3% for female identical twins. It is simply a falsehood that people are "born that way."

TRUTH # 10

Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality.

When I pastored, happily married ex-homosexuals spoke in my church about their journey from homosexuality to heterosexuality.

Nicholas Cummings, who served as the president of the American Psychological Association in 1979-80, says that leaving the homosexual lifestyle is quite possible and that it is "absurd" to deny it. In his own clinical experience, counseling homosexuals in San Francisco, he found that 67% of those homosexuals who came to him with a desire to change "had satisfactory outcomes," with "2,400 actually reorienting."

Robert Oscar Lopez, formerly active in the homosexual lifestyle, published a lengthy article on "The Public Discourse" website in which he describes his own journey toward heteroseuxal marriage and fatherhood.

He says this: "Once I was a father, I put aside my own homosexual past and vowed never to divorce my wife or take up with another person, male or female, before I died. I chose that commitment in order to protect my children from dealing with harmful drama, even as they grow up to be adults."

People leave the homosexual lifestyle every day, just like people stop abusing drugs and alcohol every day. Any addiction to a self-destructive behavior can be broken with determination accompanied by the right kind of spiritual and emotional support.

It's also worth noting that homosexual behavior is so dangerous and risky that the FDA — hardly a member of the vast, right-wing conspiracy — will not allow a male to donate blood if he has had sex even one time with another male since 1977. The risk of contaminating the nation's blood supply is simply too great. The FDA cannot afford to be politically correct when it comes to the nation's health.

And the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) — not the research arm of the AFA, you will note — has found that of all the males who have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the history of the epidemic, 90% of them got it either through having sex with other males or through injection drug abuse. Clearly, homosexual behavior is as dangerous to human health as shooting up with illicit drugs. No sane society should ever endorse and grant special rights and protections based on either kind of behavior.

Until the Southern Poverty Law Center adds the FDA and the CDC to its list of "hate" groups, there is no reason to think that either the AFA or the FRC belongs on that list. In point of fact, we are "truth" groups, not "hate" groups. And you can't go wrong telling people the truth about behavior that could destroy them. We're sticking with the FDA and the CDC on this one.

(Note: this is an updated version of a column first published in 2010. For more information, be sure to read Peter Sprigg's excellent white paper, Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality, from which I have gleaned some key content for this column.)

(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