How often will the social engineers use taxpayer funding to sponsor their radical agendas? How many bits of misinformation, misleading facts and out and out howlers can be squeezed into one small 44-page booklet? And how many times will the homosexual lobby resort to deception and propaganda to make its case?
I refer to POSH, a La Trobe University booklet about “Peers Out-Smarting Homophobia”. This is one long exercise in indoctrination and propaganda, with only a modicum of reliable information. Also sponsored by VicHealth, this booklet is paid for – at least in part – by taxpayers. As such, we have a right to know if we are getting good value for money. I would say we are not.
The booklet is designed for young people struggling with their sexuality, and takes on what it calls “myths and assumptions about same-sex attraction” which are “very negative and harmful”.
Well, let me begin with what is the biggest myth of all, the myth of homophobia. This is a favourite tactic of the radical homosexual lobby: every time they encounter someone disagreeing with them, they simply toss out the term, ‘homophobia’. That is a good way to end a debate. It beats dealing with the arguments or facing the facts. Simply resort to name-calling every time you have an opponent and you will think you have successfully made your case.
The truth is, those concerned about the high risk lifestyle known as homosexuality usually do not fear homosexuals, as the term implies. Instead, it is out of concern for them that people warn about the dangers inherent in the lifestyle.
If you warn a cigarette smoker about the high risks to his health, is that being tobacco-phobic? Hardly. So please, spare us this foolishness about homophobia, and instead, start grappling with the facts.
The booklet starts off by admitting its anti-Christian bias: “We have restricted the booklet to Christianity because it is the dominant religion in Australia.” It complains about Christian beliefs that “cause a lot of hurt”. Well, truth telling will always be hurtful for those who reject the truth.
The first ‘false belief’ it mentions is that “homosexuality is a sin”. This section is absolutely riddled with misinformation and falsehoods. It begins by questioning whether Christianity even condemns homosexuality.
For those uncertain, the short answer is, yes, it does in no uncertain terms. I have made this case elsewhere, but the theological revisionists have no leg to stand on here. Indeed, in this booklet they rely on the widely discredited research of homosexual writer, John Boswell. I have recently written about his shoddy scholarship in detail, so will not repeat myself here.
The booklet claims there are only a handful of passages directly dealing with homosexuality. But it does not tell us that from Genesis to Revelation, God’s plan for human sexuality is made quite clear: one man and one woman in marriage is God’s ideal design, and all other expressions are sinful. It is in that context that any Biblical discussion of homosexuality must take place.
The booklet also appeals to the Uniting Church a number of times throughout, in order to justify its position. That is about as honest and helpful as appealing to David Irving as a spokesman for mainstream thinking on the Holocaust.
The booklet also features stories of young homosexuals. One says he is created in God’s image as a homosexual. Sorry, but it does not work that way. All humans are indeed made in God’s image, but all humans are affected by the Fall. Thus we are all born with sinful orientations that lead us away from God, not to him. Homosexuality is just one expression of living in a fallen world. But we are not called to stay in our fallen condition, but to find healing and wholeness through Jesus Christ.
Thus all sin, including homosexuality, must be renounced as we turn to God in repentance, seeking his forgiveness. And quoting St Francis here does not help either: “God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change…” This is just mischievous and misleading. Many thousands of homosexuals have changed, and are changing. Ex-homosexuals the world over give lie to the idea that homosexuals can never change.
Another “myth” is that homosexuality is a mental illness. The booklet mentions how the American Psychiatric Association changed its mind on this, and removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders (DSM) in 1973.
It does not fully tell us how this happened, however. It does say that gay activists lobbied the APA. That is true as far as it goes. But it was more a case of intimidation, bullying and stand-over tactics, until the APA finally relented. And it was a long, bitter battle to arrive at this outcome. Almost 40 per cent of the 10,000 voting members opposed the change. This is all fully documented in Dr Ronald Bayer’s 1981 book, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis.
Then the booklet makes this enormously misleading statement: “The belief that HIV/AIDS is a gay disease is also wrong. HIV is transmitted through homosexual and heterosexual contact. World-wide, the majority of HIV transmissions have been through heterosexual contact.”
But we are not talking about South Africa here, or Thailand. We are talking about young people living in Australia, where some 85 per cent of cases are due to male homosexual activity. This booklet is deliberately deceiving Australian youth, and its authors ought to be ashamed of doing this, when more lives may be put at risk because of this misleading information.
The booklet also dismisses the idea that homosexual attraction is a phase that many young people go through. But the exact opposite is the case. It is in fact a phase, a fairly normal one, which many adolescents and teens go through. But most go on to a normal life of heterosexuality. Again, this booklet is simply peddling propaganda here.
Another idea promoted here is that the homosexual lifestyle is fully natural. But from a purely biological point of view, it is most unnatural. Nature has not designed us to engage in homosexual acts. And to quote Foucault here – who is called “a great thinker about sexuality” – in support of this idea is incredulous. The booklet of course does not inform us that Foucault was a homosexual who died from AIDS. Hardly an impartial commentator here.
And to seal their argument, the bright lights at La Trobe Uni inform us that animals engage in homosexual behaviour. Might I remind these intellectual giants that human beings are more than just animals? And it is pretty silly to argue that if animals do something, therefore we can (and should) do it as well. Some mammals eat their own young. Should we therefore do it too? The research on this issue does find various types of coupling in the animal world, but it is often in the context of expressing dominance and submission. And almost all of this behaviour is temporary and limited. We do not know of long-term homosexual bonding in the animal world, only in the human.
The booklet then quotes the APA, saying homosexuality is not chosen, and homosexuals make up 10 per cent of the population. All these myths have been adequately dismantled time and time again, yet the activists keep trotting them out, hoping that mere repetition will make their case.
There is no solid evidence for a genetic basis to homosexuality, and some of the more honest homosexual activists admit to a real element of choice. “Being gay is a choice,” is the way one Australian homosexual has put it. Or as another has said, “I think the idea that sexuality is genetic is crap”. Even atheist biologist Richard Dawkins thinks the idea is lousy: “Whether you hate homosexuals or whether you love them, whether you want to lock them up or ‘cure’ them, your reasons had better have nothing to do with genes. Rather admit to prejudiced emotion than speciously drag genes in where they do not belong.”
And the 10 per cent figure has long ago been discredited. As two homosexual activists have admitted, “Activists seized on the double digits to strengthen their political message. . . . Policymakers and the press adopted the estimate – despite protests from skeptical conservatives – citing it time and time again. But new evidence suggests that ideology, not sound science, has perpetuated a 1-in-ten myth.” Indeed, all the international studies show the figure to be between 1 and 2 per cent.
In the end, this booklet is simply one big effort in propaganda and indoctrination. It plays fast and loose with the truth time and time again, and deliberately misleads its young readers. Given the very dangerous lifestyle which homosexuality is, to peddle these half-truths and deceptions will only result in more people falling prey to the homosexual lifestyle, and for some, an early grave.
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