This blog is dedicated to demonstrating the flaws in heterosexist arguments (against homosexuals) using a combination of logic and scientific research.
Article B uses a good source (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC) but in at least one case lies and in the rest, fails to demonstrate the relevance of its points and fails to quote. For the purpose of this response, Article B's "Facts" are numbered in the order that they appear within it and have a yellow background. Quotations from other sources will be given a light orange background.
FACT 1
Article B: "Estimated that 71% of homosexuals had HIV in 2005;"
From the CDC webpage that TIA.org provide for their "fact": "A recent CDC study found that in 2008 one in five (19%) MSM in 21 major US cities were infected with HIV, and nearly half (44%) were unaware of their infection. In this study, 28% of black MSM were HIV-infected, compared to 18% of Hispanic/Latino MSM and 16% of white MSM." "Stigma and homophobia may have a profound impact on the lives of MSM, especially their mental and sexual health. Internalized homophobia may impact men’s ability to make healthy choices, including decisions around sex and substance use. Stigma and homophobia may limit the willingness of MSM to access HIV prevention and care, isolate them from family and community support, and create cultural barriers that inhibit integration into social networks.
Racism, poverty, and lack of access to health care are barriers to HIV prevention services, particularly for MSM from racial or ethnic minority communities."
This first "fact" provided by TIA is actually a lie, which perhaps explains why they did not quote their source directly. It is not mentioned anywhere on the webpage they link to. What is mentioned as quoted above is the 19% statistic for 2008, which directly contradicts the TIA claim... unless they argue that HIV infection has astronomically decreased among MSM from 2005-2008. Furthermore, if we actually look at the study that the CDC are referring to, we find that: "These findings are limited to men who frequented MSM-identified venues (most of which were bars [45%] and dance clubs [22%]) during the survey period in 21 MSAs with high AIDS prevalence; the results are not representative of all MSM. A lower HIV prevalence (11.8%) has been reported among MSM in the general U.S. population (8)."
FACT 2
Article B: "Over 40% of all STD cases occurred amongst homosexuals in 2002"
This supposed fact is again not present on the webpage which is linked to. The webpage that TIA provide is actually for hepatitis, not all STIs. Being disproportionately affected by STIs is not an indication of immorality or pathology, unless TIA would argue that being black is pathological or immoral.
The CDC: "In 2009, blacks/African Americans made up approximately 13% of the population of the 40 states (surveyed) but accounted for 52% of diagnoses of HIV infection." (See slide 5).
FACT 3
Article B: "Infection of HIV co-infections with syphilis has ranged from 20%-70%;"
TIA now provide a "fact" that does actually exist. Syphilis infection increases the risk of HIV contraction, though why this is relevant certainly isn't clear here.
The CDC quotation that TIA should have used to make it easier for their claim to be verified: "In the recent outbreaks, high rates of HIV co-infection were documented, ranging from 20 percent to 70 percent."
FACT 4
Article B: "STD positive cases for homosexuals who participated in getting tested for 2005 Gonorrhea: 1-21% - Syphilis: 11% - Chlamydia: 6%;"
Unfortunately, the link provided by TIA no longer works. The statistics for heterosexuals are not provided, so for all we know, the rates of infection may have been higher among them. Furthermore, it is extremely probable that anybody who "participated in getting tested for STIs" would be vastly more likely to have an STI than an average member of the population. People typically get tested when they are worried they have an STI, which would skew this kind of statistic away from being representative of any general population.
Chlamydia among black people, CDC, 2007: "The rate of chlamydia among blacks was over eight times higher than that of whites (1,398.7 and 162.3 cases per 100,000, respectively)."
FACT 5
Article B: "CDC estimates 64% of men who have sex with men (MSM) comprised of cases for P&S Syphilis cases in 2004;"
The CDC, 2004: "However, the male-to-female ratio for P&S syphilis has risen steadily between 2000 and 2004 (from 1.5 to 5.9), suggesting increased syphilis transmission among MSM. This increase occurred among all racial and ethnic groups. Additionally, CDC estimates that MSM comprised 64 percent of P&S syphilis cases in 2004".
From the above we can clearly see that if we regard homosexuality as pathological or immoral on the basis of STI infection rates, we must also regard being male as pathological or immoral. Strong support for racism can also be derived again on this basis, given that two paragraphs on from where TIA gets its claim, we find that:
The CDC: "Racial gaps in syphilis rates are narrowing, with rates in 2004 5.6 times higher among blacks than among whites, a substantially lower differential than in 2000, when the rate among blacks was 24 times greater than among whites."
The global epidemiology of syphilis is described in this review in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy Journal (Stamm, 2010, 54(2), 583–589): "While the widespread epidemics of syphilis that occurred in Russia in the 1990s and more recently in China mostly involved heterosexuals, smaller outbreaks in the United States, Canada, and England predominately involved men who have sex with men (MSM)."
FACT 6
Article B: "MSM are at increased risk for multiple STDs;"
The link provided by TIA.org is again an outdated one, however, the CDC does make this claim on its website (though it actually says "at elevated risk for certain sexually transmitted diseases"). As established however, the same could be said about black people. Heterosexual women are also at higher risk than men for certain STIs, such as HIV. This is irrelevant to women's or African American's morality or legal rights.
FACT 7
Article B: "Gonorrhea treatment resistance increased in MSM to 23% in 2004;"
The CDC, 2005: "In 2004, the gonorrhea rate among African-Americans was 19 times greater than the rate for whites, down from 28 times greater in 2000."
FACT 8
Article B: "Rates of STDs in MSM for 2005, slides 73-80;"
Another broken link is provided by TIA for this fact but the point it attempted to make has likely already been demonstrated above to be nothing more than the misuse of statistics.
CLOSING PARAGRAPH
TIA next provide a few paragraphs detailing more concerns, though the link they provide does not show what is claimed by them. The information provided is also qualitative rather than quantitative. Article B is concluded with this sentence from TIA: "The issues surrounding personal, family, and social acceptance of sexual orientation can place a significant burden on mental health and personal safety."
Ironically, this actually appears to support the idea that it is heterosexism that causes the detrimental effects listed, such as the higher LGBT teen suicide rate, not homosexuality itself. Using the link provided by TIA, we can see that while suicide is at 17.8 per 100,000 of the population for men, their 7th highest cause of death among men, it is not even in the top-10 causes of death for women.
Suicide rates are actually known to be about 4x higher among men than women, so from this we can conclude, according to TIA's rationale, that being male is immoral/pathological.
Section 1 of this URL provides many studies that have identified the link between heterosexism/minority stress and mental illness. Section 2 details studies linking increased substance abuse with the same and section 3 quotes studies identifying the link between substance abuse and risky sexual behaviour:
It may help to read Article C alongside this response in order to follow the paragraph by paragraph response. The content of the following link will be termed "Article C" when it is referenced: http://www.traditioninaction.org/Questions/B390_Doctors.html
RESPONSE TO ARTICLE C's PARAGRAPH 1 (first paragraph after "Excerpts"):
The very first reference in Article C (Diggs 2002) is not actually a peer reviewed study but simply an essay on a right wing, Christian website. A full critique of Diggs' article can be found here.
Diggs 2002 is referenced in Article C to evidence homosexual promiscuity and in Diggs article the 1978 Bell & Weinberg study is the source used. This is same study used in the other TIA statistics (Article A) on promiscuity. TIA tout Article C as providing more modern statistics that corroborate its Article A but in reality it misrepresents the same source.
RESPONSE TO ARTICLE C's PARAGRAPH 2:
Article C: "Of greater concern is that despite knowing the high risk of contracting HIV, many MSM repeatedly indulge in unsafe sex practices such as ‘bare-backing,’ i.e, deliberate, ‘unprotected’ anal intercourse"
As do heterosexuals, though it's hard to imagine how somebody might have anal sex by accident. Higher risk of STIs is covered previously and anal sex is practised by heterosexuals too. A systematic review of sexual health intervention programmes (Lazarus et al. 2010, Croat Medical Journal. 51(1):74–84) also found the general population do not alter behaviour in line with sexual health knowledge: "Peer-led interventions were also more successful in improving sexual knowledge, though there was no clear difference in their effectiveness in changing behavior. The improvement in sexual health knowledge does not necessarily lead to behavioral change."
CDC's National Survey of Family Growth: "Percent of males and females 25-44 years of age who have ever had anal sex with an opposite sex partner, 2002: Males: 40.0%, Females: 34.7%"
Article C: "Rectal carcinoma in MSM results from infection with a highly carcinogenic strain of HPV (Diggs, 2002)."
Cervical cancer is caused by a "highly carcinogenic" strain of HPV, which is transmitted via penile-vaginal sex. "More than 99% of cases of cervical cancers are thought to be caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV)" according to the UK's National Health Service. Girls aged 12-13 are even vaccinated, as part of a national program, against HPV because of this and HPV can also cause vaginal, vulvar and penile cancer among heterosexuals.
Article C: "Homosexual women are also at higher risk for STI and other health problems than are heterosexual women (Evans, Scally, Wellard, & Wilson, 2007.)"
Looking at Article C's source, we see the following, Evans et al., 2007: "A cross-sectional study recruiting lesbian women volunteers from community groups, events, clubs and bars. Heterosexual women were recruited from a community family planning clinic." "Smoking significantly increased the risk of BV regardless of sexuality (adjusted OR 2.65; p?=?0.001) and showed substantial concordance in lesbian partnerships but less than for concordance of flora." "The prevalence is slightly lower than clinic-based studies and as volunteers were recruited in community settings, this figure may be more representative of lesbians who attend gay venues. Higher concordance of vaginal flora within lesbian partnerships may support the hypothesis of a sexually transmissible factor or reflect common risk factors such as smoking."
- Heterosexuals recruited from a family planing clinic may not be an accurate control against which to compare homosexual females from (among other places), clubs and bars.
- The study itself points out that a "substantial" chunk of the increased risk of BV for lesbians seems to be due to the increased instances of lesbian smokers, rather than lesbianism.
- The link between heterosexism/homophobic abuse suffered by LGBT people and use of legal and illegal drugs is established in numerous studies.
According to The Family Planning Association (FPA), other risk factors for BV include: "use (of) scented soaps or perfumed bubble bath"
and "Semen in the vagina after sex without a condom".
Other points the FPA make about BV include that: "Around half of women with bacterial vaginosis will not have any signs and symptoms at all." "Sometimes bacterial vaginosis is noticed during a cervical screening test, but you will only need treatment if you have problems with discharge... One in three women will get it at some time... For many women bacterial vaginosis goes away by itself. However, there is some research to suggest that women with bacterial vaginosis may be at a higher risk of having pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) or getting HIV."
The primary downsides of BV are that it may slightly increase risk of HIV infection and miscarriage in pregnant women. Neither of these are really an issue for lesbians. This is in reality a very weak attempt by Article C to suggest lesbians have poor sexual health when in fact, they seem to have far better sexual health than heterosexuals, as is evident from their extremely low risk of HIV.
CDC, 2005: "To date, there are no confirmed cases of female-to-female sexual transmission of HIV in the United States database."
RESPONSE TO ARTICLE C's PARAGRAPH 3 AND 4:
- While New Zealand, Denmark and the Netherlands may be less heterosexist/homophobic than the United States, they still feature heterosexist.
- They may also have lower crime rates than the U.S. but that does not equate to them being entirely without crime.
- Heterosexism is also not limited to direct verbal and physical abuse and can manifest itself in nuanced ways, such as the expectation that all people will be heterosexual.
- The link between heterosexism/minority stress and negative mental health implications for LGBT people is well established in a range of studies, including some performed in the Netherlands.
RESPONSE TO ARTICLE C's PARAGRAPH 5 AND 6
Article C: "The teenage ‘brain is pretty adept at learning by example,’ so parents - and the other adults involved in the lives of teenagers - teach healthy ways of behaving by showing and giving good examples of how to live (Voit, 2005), and unhealthy behaviors by showing or giving poor examples."
Presumably this is intended to suggest that homosexuality is a learned behaviour, despite NARTH, the organization that Article C is sourced from, as well as the general scientific consensus, holding that homosexuality is at least partially genetic. Neither of Article C's references here (Voit, 2005 and Strauch, 2003) actually seem to mention homosexuality.
Further evidence that Article C's attack on same-sex parents is not justified is available in the American Psychological Association's review of the studies on the subject by C. Patterson: "Fears about children of lesbians and gay men being sexually abused by adults, ostracized by peers, or isolated in single-sex lesbian or gay communities have received no support from the results of existing research... Taken together, the data do not suggest elevated rate of homosexuality among the offspring of lesbian or gay parents... The results of some studies suggest that lesbian mothers' and gay fathers' parenting skills may be superior to those of matched heterosexual couples."
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2015: "Despite almost a century of psychoanalytic and psychological speculation, there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences have any role in the formation of a person’s fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation".
ARTICLE C's CONCLUSION: "The concerns of parents, family members and friends of persons whose sexual behaviors and/or attractions leave them at risk for such harms are understandable and scientifically and clinically justified."
It is heterosexism that leaves people at risk and it is concerns about this that are clinically justified. While gay men do have higher infection rates for some STIs than heterosexuals, not only do studies demonstrate that this is contributed to greatly by minority stress and heterosexism but other minorities, such as black people, also have very high STI rates.
Lesbians appear to be no more at risk of STIs than heterosexuals and the weakness of Article C's attempt to suggest otherwise is evident from the mild STI (BV) that they try to demonstrate this with. BV is significantly more prevalent in black women than white women and lesbians and this is linked to stress. Every STI mentioned by TIA is significantly more prevalent among black people than white people.
STIs only affect those who contract them. Each individual's health is their own responsibility and their own concern. Scientific and medical associations do not collect statistics to try and lend some illusionary legitimacy to discriminatory agendas. They do so in order to determine how best to direct medical care for specific pathogens and ailments towards those sub-populations where it would prove most effective.
This webpage provides rational refutations of all frequently used arguments and claims that homosexuality is immoral. "Heterosexist" is used here as a descriptor, rather than a pejorative. Clicking any of the blue contents sections below will jump straight to that section, though this will refresh the page. Quotes from official sources will usually have a light orange background.
These words incorporate negative connotations that may delude the heterosexist into believing that they have advanced a justified argument against homosexuality when in fact, the negative connotations are all unjustified:
- A few natural things include; death, disease, pain, natural disasters, arsenic and nudity. - A few unnatural things include; miracles, medical care, electrical devices and plastics.
Heterosexists often accuse gay men of not using their anus for its naturalpurpose:
Naturalness;
- Anticoagulants are given to heart attack sufferers to alleviate coronary artery blockages.
- Immunosuppressants are given to organ transplant recipients to prevent organ rejection.
- Both of these and the transplantation of organs itself, are just a few of the many examples of medical care that directly counter our bodies' natural physiological mechanisms and save lives as a result.
- Non-medicinal antiperspirant is used by the vast majority of the population despite the fact that it directly counteracts a natural biological process.
Purpose;
- The premise that "using something outside of its intended purpose is wrong" is simply unjustified and flawed, as shown above. The defusing of a bomb negates the intended purpose of an object, while clearly having great potential benefits.
- Perceived purpose is a subjective quality of our perceptions, rather than of that which we perceive.
- This is why different people may perceive different purposes for the same object.
- Purpose has no units of measurement (grams etc) because it isn't a property of what we perceive.
- It is not a measurable, demonstrable property like mass or length. If you crack open a rock, or even an organ, you cannot pinpoint or quantify its purpose, you can only identify objective characteristics, which may predispose that object towards the fulfilment of certain subjectively designated functions.
- To help to clarify this, consider what the purpose of a rock or a puddle is.
As something being natural, or not, is irrelevant to its moral standing, whether or not animals exhibit homosexuality is similarly irrelevant. For completion however, it is worth noting that:
Bailey & Zuk, 2009, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24(8), 439-446: "Same-sex sexual behavior has been extensively documented in non-human animals."
Levan et al. 2009, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 22(1), 60-70: "Diverse animal groups exhibit homosexual interactions".
Gay penguins foster a child and reject mating with females in Germany 1:27
Heterosexists frequently claim that homosexuality is abnormal and involves deviant behaviour:
- All major breakthroughs in the history of mankind were made by abnormal people, such as the abnormally intelligent or innovative. A person can be abnormally kind, generous or compassionate.
- Deviance is really just another reference to abnormality or to lack of societal acceptance of homosexuality, which merely diminishes the heterosexist's argument to an argumentum ad populum fallacy.
- Without deviance, society would never change and so never improve or evolve.
- Other words with unjustified negative connotations include; perverse, wrong, disgusting, immoral, incorrect, ungodly, sinful, dysfunctional, confused and many more.
The American Psychiatric (and Psychological) Associations both removed homosexuality from their lists of official mental illnesses by 1974:
American Psychological Association (APA) 1973: "Homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities"
APA 2005: "The decision to remove homosexual orientation from the list of mental disorders reflects extensive research conducted over three decades showing that homosexual orientation is not a psychological maladjustment (Gonsiorek, 1991; Hart, Roback, Tittler, Weitz,Walston, & McKee, 1978; Reiss, 1980)."
Dr. Gregory Herek, UCD Psychology Professor: "Some psychiatrists who fiercely opposed their action subsequently circulated a petition calling for a vote on the issue by the Association's membership. That vote was held in 1974, and the Board's decision was ratified."
Even as far back as 1935, homosexuality was not necessarily pathologised. Sigmund Freud's, 1935, "Letter to an American mother", American Journal of Psychiatry, 1951, 107(10), 786-787: "Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function... Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them. (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc)."
Was homosexuality removed from the DSM due to political activism?
Some heterosexists argue that homosexuality was removed from the DSM solely on the basis of political activism, however, there are multiple studies prior to its removal that found that homosexuality was not inherently associated with psychopathology. Even were homosexuality removed due to political pressure, were such pressures to historically dictate the DSM's contents, this would only serve to further undermine the reliability of homosexuality's initial inclusion in the DSM. Some examples of the empirical basis for the decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM are listed below. For further details of Hooker's study (below), see Dr. Herek's website.
Hooker E. 1957, Journal of Projective Techniques, 21(1), 18-31:
Thompson et al. 1971, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 78(2), 237-240: "Homosexuals did not differ in important ways from heterosexuals in defensiveness (and) personal adjustment".
Marvin Siegelman, 1972, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2(1), 9-25: "For the total samples, the homosexuals, compared to the heterosexuals, described themselves as less well adjusted on four scales, better adjusted on three scales, and not different on six scales."
The consistency and validity of psychiatric diagnosis was severely undermined shortly before the time that homosexuality was removed from the DSM in the famous Rosenhan experiment (1973, Science, 179(4070), 250-258). This experiment helped to stimulate the revision of the DSM-II into the DSM-III.
Even if homosexuality were a mental disorder, that may not make it as shocking and terrible as the average person might imagine:
Bijl et al. 1998, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Journal, 33(12), 587-595: "A total of 7076 people were interviewed in person in 1996. Psychiatric disorders were found to be quite common. Some 41.2% of the adult population under 65 had experienced at least one DSM-III-R disorder in their lifetime"
Sexual orientations technically can include both voluntary actions and involuntary attractions, as they are poorly defined. Sexual orientations are however a term commonly used to reference purely the attractions and this appears to be the only sensible way of defining them:
- Given that we would still classify an adolescent who had not yet had the opportunity to act upon their attractions, or a celibate, as heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.
- We would still classify a man who was raped by or who prostituted themselves to another man as heterosexual if they were exclusively attracted to women.
- Involuntary attractions are therefore both necessary and sufficient to assign sexual orientation, while voluntary actions are neither necessary, nor sufficient to do so.
- Earls & David, 1989, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 18(5), 401-419 details heterosexual male prostitution.
American Psychological Association, 2015: "Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes."
American Academy of Pediatrics, 2004: "The current literature and most scholars in the field state that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice; that is, individuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual."
Sexual orientation is demonstrably involuntary:
- If homosexuality is simply chosen then it is entirely nonsensical that "ex-gay" organisations, which attempt to change sexual orientation, exist at all, considering that their clients attend voluntarily.
- These organisations would be completely redundant were sexual orientation a choice because those who attend them would instead simply choose to change.
- The idea that their predominantly Christian clientele and Muslims and Jews around the world "choose" to be gay, sometimes while spending decades praying not to be, is absurd.
- Section 6 features many examples of such individuals.
Members of the Public being asked about sexuality 1:33
As established, it is not a choice, though it would not matter even if it were:
- Consenting adult sexual relationships only affect those consenting to them and do not harm anybody else.
- For this reason they are not immoral and interfering with them is unjustifiable.
- This is true for both involuntary attractions and voluntary consensual actions.
- Note that this is an oversimplification in the interest of conciseness.
Homosexuality is occasionally referred to as an addiction by heterosexists, in an attempt to somehow semantically discredit its legitimacy:
- This claim is not supported by any medical association or evidence.
- What about homosexuality makes it an addiction?
- Any answer given will likely refer to another argument countered here.
Spiritual addiction is actually possible and as much heterosexism is derived from religion, a religious heterosexist who feels that homosexuals have a burden of proof should perhaps try to prove that they are not addicted to religion/spiritualism:
P. A. Vanderheyden, 1999, Pastoral Psychology, 47(4), 293-302: "This paper acquaints one with and examines critically the reality of religious addiction." "Rigidity, black and white thinking, low self-esteem, magical thinking, judgmental attitudes are but a few of the symptoms of this complex phenomenon."
Homosexuality's genetic or non-genetic origin is not relevant to whether or not;
- It is a choice to be homosexual, given that humans have a subconscious mind. Regional speaking accents, scars and pubic hair for instance, are all involuntarily, post-natally developed,
- Homosexuals are culpable, given that homosexuality has no innate links to the harm of anybody,
- Homosexuality is detrimental to the individual, given that both genetic and non-genetic characteristics can be beneficial or detrimental,
- Attempts should be made to change homosexuality, given that genetic or non-genetic origin does not specify a need or ability to change.
Why do many homosexuals claim to have been born gay?
- Homosexuals are aware that they did not choose their sexual orientation and therefore often assume that they were born gay, when in fact, a postnatal cause would not preclude the possibility of it being involuntary.
- There may be many different biological factors that can predispose a person towards homosexuality, individually or in unison and therefore many different potential causal origins of homosexuality.
- Regional speaking accents are examples of non-biologically determined traits that are clearly involuntary.
- The environment of the womb is a biological factor that is also an "environmental" one, rather than a genetic one, despite it being prenatal.
Does childhood molestation cause homosexuality?
Examining the three studies below reveals firstly that most homosexuals are not molested as children and secondly, that if there is a disparity in molestation prevalence between homosexuals and heterosexuals, it is not an especially large one. The first study is on the general population.
D. Finkelhor, 1990, Child Abuse & Neglect, 14(1), 19-28: "This paper reports on the first national survey of adults concerning a history of childhood sexual abuse. Victimization was reported by 27% of the women and 16% of the men."
The following study, on gay and bisexual men, found that 15.5% reported childhood sexual abuse. It also provides an overview of other studies on the topic. Brennan et al. 2007, American Journal of Public Health, 97(6), 1107–1112: "Many of the studies of gay and bisexual men, however, have enrolled high-risk convenience samples of men recruited from gay-specific commercial venues (e.g., bars, clubs) and STI, drug, and other medical clinics.7–14 Previous research has highlighted that individuals at risk for HIV/STIs are more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse. The reported prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among men who have sex with men (MSM) has ranged from 11% to 37%; the highest prevalence was reported from HIV/STI clinic samples (i.e., 34%–37%).7,8,10 A lower prevalence of childhood sexual abuse (i.e., 15%–28%) has been reported in nonclinic-based samples that were recruited using census data or randomized-digit dialing methods,11,13,15"
The third study is on self-identified lesbians. Aaron & Hughes, 2007, Obesity, 15(4), 1023–1028, DOI: 10.1038/oby.2007.634: "Overall, 31% of women in the sample reported CSA" (childhood sexual assault).
Some other factors to bare in mind include that:
- LGBT kids with atypical gender expression may be more likely to be targeted by molesters either due to a sense that they won't report it for fear of implicating themselves or due to a perception by the molester that they are sexual beings.
- Atypical gender expression may additionally lead to some LGBT kids being targeted for "corrective" rape.
- Many studies define sexual abuse purely on the basis of the age of the "victim" and perpetrator, such that a 15 year old with a 20 year old partner would be classified as a victim, irrespective of how consensual the relationship was.
- LGBT adolescents have far less partnership options, especially if closeted, consequently biasing them towards coupling with older partners, such as at adult venues (clubs/bars) far more so than their heterosexual counterparts. The above factors are largely or entirely resultant from heterosexism.
There appears to be no evidence of any specific social effect on sexual orientation:
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2015: "Despite almost a century of psychoanalytic and psychological speculation, there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences have any role in the formation of a person’s fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation".
The American Psychiatric Association, 2015: "Homosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development. Those assumptions are now understood to have been based on misinformation and prejudice."
This section has been removed from the main essay to a separate post, as it is considered broadly irrelevant to the main contention; the moral legitimacy of homosexuality. It discusses the causal origin of sexual orientation and the evolutionary viability of homosexuality.
Changing sexuality is either impossible, only possible for very few or not possible at this time. Attempts to change sexual orientation are typically referred to as Conversion or Reparative Therapy. Consider this list of the types of sources which suggest that orientation cannot change:
1) All reputable mental health/ social science organisations. 2) Founders, leaders and prominent advocates of the ex-gay movement itself. 3) Ex-gays, who are now "Ex-ex-gays". 4) The overall social science research/ literature.
Each is evidenced sequentially, below.
1) All reputable social science organisations:
The American Psychiatric Association's stance on Reparative or Conversion Therapies: "There is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of reparative therapy as a treatment to change ones sexual orientation." "The potential risks of reparative therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone reparative therapy relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction."
Dr. Russell, member of the APA's task force charged with revisiting guidelines for treating gay and lesbian clients speaks about the topic. 5:50
2) Founders, leaders and prominent advocates of the ex-gay movement itself:
The following video shows 5 founders and former key leaders of the ex-gay movement who between them have over 60 years of experience leading it. They have all since rejected the claim that sexual orientation is changeable and apologised for their involvement in promulgating the myth that it is. 5:02
John Smid, former Executive Director of one of the oldest ex-gay ministries, "Love In Action", which he was involved with for over two decades has since claimed the following: "I've never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual."
John Paulk (not in the above video), "Love Won Out" founder and former chairman of the board of "Exodus International" appeared on “Oprah” and “Good Morning America" in support of ex-gay therapy. He has since issued an apology for his involvement in the ex-gay movement: "For the better part of ten years, I was an advocate and spokesman for what’s known as the "ex-gay movement"... I do not believe that reparative therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to many people."
3) Ex-gays, who are now "Ex-ex-gays":
The video below features short clips of over 30 ex-ex-gays, many of whom spent years or even decades dedicatedly trying to change from gay to straight unsuccessfully, using a variety of methods. 17:40
There is a lengthy litany of scandals and defections involving the ex-gay movement, equivalents of which are simply not found among legitimate forms of medical treatment. Examples include:
- John Evans, who co-founded "Love in Action" in 1973 and renounced change therapy when a friend committed suicide after failing to become heterosexual.
- Michael Johnston, another famous ex-gay, and the founder of “National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day” and "Americans for Truth", who was revealed to have had unprotected sex with men he had met on the internet and consequently infected them with HIV in 2003.
- Some famous cases of alleged conversion are of entirely fictitious individuals.
- Former ex-gay Peterson Toscano, who was involved in the movement for 17 years and founded "Beyond Ex-Gay" in 2007, an online community for “ex-gay survivors”.
4) The overall social science research/ literature:
In a study of non-heterosexuals within heterosexual marriages, the majority were Christian, with 29.2% self-identifying as bisexual and 35.8% self-identifying as gay/lesbian. 44.8% agreed that one of their motivations to marry was that they thought their same-sex attractions would disappear. On the Kinsey Scale of sexual attraction (1= Straight, 7 = Gay), there was no significant change in orientation for participants after marriage:
Yarhouse et al. 2011, Edification: The Transdisciplinary Journal of Christian Psychology, 4(2), 41-56: "On the Kinsey Expanded version, the mean score for both before marriage and the current assessment were 4.33 and 4.57 respectively. Both of these scores fall in between the -Equal amounts of heterosexual and homosexual- and -Largely homosexual, but more than incidental heterosexual- categories."
Evangelical Christian Psychology Professor, Warren Throckmorton, commented on the study: "The sexual minority participants had been married an average of just over 16 years and the average age was 45. While it was not a study of efforts to change, one could reasonably assume that if a group had participants who had shifted orientation very much, then this would be the group... At any rate, the results are consistent with what I am finding as well. People adapt their behavior to their beliefs and commitments but their orientation does not shift, on average."
Some of the 202 participants in the study below were coerced in to attending ex-gay therapy, such as students in religious universities, who would be expelled if non-compliant, while others were motivated by "anticipated fear of social stigma and rejection by their church community". Only 8 (4%) reported a shift towards heterosexuality, though even they still "experienced same-sex desire". Seven of these eight "provided ex-gay counselling. Four of the 7 had paid positions as ex-gay or conversion counsellors." Given the prevalence of bisexuality, it is surprising that more did not report a shift, although it appears that only those working in the ex-gay industry tend to.
Shidlo & Schroeder, 2002, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 33(3), 249-259, DOI: 10.1037//0735-7028.33.3.249 "202 consumers of sexual orientation conversion interventions were interviewed... The results indicated that a majority failed to change sexual orientation, and many reported that they associated harm with conversion interventions. A minority reported feeling helped, although not necessarily with their original goal of changing sexual orientation."
As evidenced above:
- There is no sound evidence that sexual orientation conversion is possible.
- Claims of sexual orientation change are sometimes fictitious.
- Many claim to have tried changing their orientation for years, to no avail.
- Others who allege to have changed orientation are often caught out as having lied.
- Many conversion claims are later publicly recanted, even among prominent proponents, founders and leaders of the ex-gay movement. Others simply don't publicly acknowledge their failure to change.
Homosexuals' lack of ability to reproduce is often incorporated in to arguments against them:
- If the ability to reproduce is an effective measure of a relationship's validity then relationships involving infertile and elderly people should clearly be prohibited or regarded as inferior to those of others.
- Catholic priests and others who take vows of celibacy are patently immoral based upon this standard.
- Heterosexuals who simply choose not to procreate must likewise be inferior degenerates.
- Heterosexuality is neither necessary nor sufficient for procreation, given the existence of infertile heterosexuals and that a homosexual male and female can procreate "naturally" or via artificial insemination.
Heterosexists' hypocritical double standards become even more apparent when considering the fact that the vast majority of sex between heterosexuals is not motivated by a desire to procreate:
- Even when heterosexuals engage in penile-vaginal intercourse, less than 1 in 2500 heterosexual copulations result in a child (<0.04%). Such infrequency indicates that procreation is not its primary role.
- Oral sex has no chance of impregnation yet it is almost universally practised. CDC's National Survey of Family Growth: "Percent of males and females 15-44 years of age in 2006-2010 who had ever had oral sex with an opposite-sex partner: Males: 81.7% Females: 80.4%".
- According to the 2010 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, masturbation, which also has no chance of procreation, is practised by the vast majority of the population (~90% of males, ~75% of females).
- Even among heterosexuals that do fall pregnant, 38% of all pregnancies worldwide (49% in the U.S.) are unintended (Speidel et al. 2008; Finer et al. 2007, DOI: 10.1363/3809006).
The notion that homosexuals' lack of procreative potential is a threat to our species becomes laughable when considering the reality of human population growth throughout history:
- There are a large number of orphans in need of parents and so procreation is not especially important until they all have parents. The world population currently consists of about seven billion people.
- As people cannot be converted to homosexuality, it is no threat to the world's net reproductive output.
- Even if it were, that would not necessarily be a bad thing given that the world is already overpopulated or rapidly approaching that situation. Click the graph below to enlarge it.
- The enormous threat of heterosexuality-driven overpopulation is expounded upon here.
Far from equating to responsible procreation, heterosexuality is a factor that decouples and disassociates procreation from the desire to procreate. Heterosexuality exacerbates unwanted, unplanned and unbridled procreation, unlike homosexuality which enables total preparation for and willingness to engage in parenthood. Heterosexuals have to use contraception specifically to compensate for this.
Heterosexists sometimes challenge homosexuals to name something else that is good that could cause the end of the species if everybody engaged in it:
- A person sacrificing their life under the misconception that in doing so they would save the lives of others is a good act that would end the species if performed by everybody.
- Homosexuality is not "good", it is morally neutral, just like heterosexuality.
- It is no more likely that everybody will turn homosexual than that everybody will become infertile.
- If everybody were female or male, the human race would die out yet this informs us nothing about the morality of being male or female or of being infertile.
A frequent key premiss of heterosexist arguments is that reproduction is inherently good and/or that it is somehow our species' most valuable, impressive or noteworthy ability:
- If people genuinely maintain this then they should advocate that all children immediately and continuously attempt to procreate the moment that they reach puberty.
- To fail to do this whilst maintaining that premiss is inconsistent, just as it is to fail to rejoice at rape-induced pregnancy. If reproduction is only good subject to certain conditions then it is not inherently good.
- Pathogens can replicate, yet this is not a cause for celebration. Over 99% of species ever to exist have gone extinct despite all having the ability to procreate and even our closest genetic relatives may follow suit thanks to our excessive procreation, despite the fact that they can reproduce just as we do.
Walsh et al. 2003, Nature, 422(6932), 611-614: "Rapidly expanding human populations have devastated gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) and common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) habitats... The next decade will see our closest relatives pushed to the brink of extinction".
Some arguments rely on the fact that a LGBT person's existence is contingent upon a past instance of heterosexual sex and assume that this somehow creates an obligation to replicate that:
- Our existences are contingent on a huge range of factors.
- We attribute no moral obligations to the repetition of these things because it would be insane to do so.
- Consistent application of this heterosexist rationale would require that children born of rape have a moral obligation to procreate through the rape of others.
- Humanity's existence ultimately originated from and is therefore contingent upon asexual reproduction.
Heterosexist criticisms of homosexuals and their sexual repertoire are typically based upon issues that are not specific to homosexuals:
CDC's National Survey of Family Growth: "Percent of males and females 25-44 years of age who have ever had anal sex with an opposite sex partner, 2002: Males: 40.0% Females: 34.7%"
D. T. Haplerin, 1999, AIDS Patient Care STDS, 13(12), 717-730: "In terms of absolute numbers, approximately seven times more women than homosexual men engage in unprotected receptive anal intercourse."
Bruce Voeller, 1991, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 20(3), 233-276: "Considerably more heterosexuals engage in the act than do homosexual and bisexual men, not all of whom participate in anal coitus."
Studies suggest that about 25% of homosexual males do not have anal sex, though representative lifetime prevalence rates are very hard to find:
- In a U.S. survey, 50% of men who had had a same-sex partner since age 18 had never had anal sex (Laumann et al. 1994, "The Social Organization of Sexuality" table 8.6, p318).
- The authors of the same study noted that "20-25 percent of the narrowest categorization of the men report never having had anal intercourse" (p320), regarding table 8.6.
- A large Scottish study found that 25% of MSM had no anal sex in the past year, despite it recruiting from gay bars (Hart et al. 1999, Sexually Transmitted Infections, 75(4), 242–246, table 2, p244).
- A CDC survey that also recruited from clubs/bars found that 38.8% of MSM reported not having had anal sex in the preceeding 6 months in 1997 (CDC MMWR Weekly, January 29, 1999 48(03):45-48).
- 37% of the MSM in the Young Men's Health Study reported no receptive anal intercourse in the last year. No data is readily available for insertive anal intercourse. (Osmond et al. 1994, American Journal of Public Health, 84(12), 1933–1937, p1935).
Goldstone & Welton, 2004, Clinics in Colon and Rectal Surgery, 17(4), 235–239: "Anal sex can be performed safely."
Who should heterosexist's criticisms really be directed towards?
- Multiple surveys and studies indicate that more heterosexual anal sex occurs than homosexual anal sex.
- Heterosexists not only tend to focus on male homosexuals, ignoring lesbians, but also purely on the act of anal sex, ignoring loving relationships. It remains to be established that anal sex is in any way immoral.
- Their issue is therefore with anal sex, not homosexuality and furthermore, in the context of STIs, it should be with a lack of condom usage more so than anal sex.
- Both anal sex and lack of condom usage are common to heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Carey et al. 1992, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 19(4), 230-234: "Worst-case condom barrier effectiveness (fluid transfer prevention), however, is shown to be at least 10,000 times better than not using a condom at all".
The findings of the studies of the general population below indicate that exposure to faecal matter is practically universal, irrespective of specific sexual practices. Condoms however provide an impermeable barrier to bodily fluids:
Judah et al. 2009, Epidemiology and Infection, 138(3), 409-414: "Of the 404 people sampled 28% were found to have bacteria of faecal origin on their hands".
Val Curtis & Ron Cutler, 2011, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine: "16% of phones were found to harbour bacteria of a faecal origin". "Experts say the most likely reason for the potentially harmful bacteria festering on so many gadgets is people failing to wash their hands properly with soap after going to the toilet".
Barker & Jones, 2005, Journal of Applied Microbiology, 99(2), 339-347: "Many individuals may be unaware of the risk of air-borne dissemination of microbes when flushing the toilet and the consequent surface contamination that may spread infection within the household, via direct surface-to-hand-to mouth contact. Some enteric viruses could persist in the air after toilet flushing and infection may be acquired after inhalation and swallowing".
Heterosexist occasionally accuse homosexuals of trying to mimic heterosexuals:
- The genitals happen to be structurally predisposed to be most efficiently stimulated through activities similar to heterosexual intercourse.
- All people live in a predominantly heterosexual world and so their concepts regarding what constitutes a sexual interaction are unsurprisingly, likely to be largely shaped by typical heterosexual sexual interactions.
- Additionally, an instinctive desire for penetration may even exist.
- This is why it is unsurprising that homosexual sex is in some ways similar to heterosexual sex.
- The insinuation that this somehow delegitimizes or devalues a homosexual relationship is completely unjustified.
These responses to HIV/AIDS based criticisms are broadly applicable as responses to homosexual STI rates/transmission criticisms in general:
HIV's origin is described by AVERT - International AIDS Charity: "The most commonly accepted theory is that of the 'hunter'. In this scenario, SIVcpz was transferred to humans as a result of chimps being killed and eaten or their blood getting into cuts or wounds on the hunter." (See Gao et al. 1999, Nature, 397(6718), 436-441 for confirmation)
Lesbian sex has the lowest risk of HIV transmission by far, of all forms of sex, therefore demonstrating that HIV/STI transmission, anal sex and homosexuality are all independent and separate phenomena:
CDC, 2005: "To date, there are no confirmed cases of female-to-female sexual transmission of HIV in the United States database."
- HIV is transmissible through anal, oral and vaginal sex.
- Sexual orientation does not affect ability to use a condom.
- Condoms protect against STIs during anal, vaginal and oral sex.
Homosexuals are not the only subpopulation that are disproportionately affected by HIV:
AVERT - International AIDS Charity: "Despite comprising less than 1% of the total UK population, Black-Africans accounted for one third of all new HIV diagnoses in 2009."
The Health Protection Agency (HPA): "In 2009, there were 23,288 diagnosed HIV-infected black-Africans and 1,932 diagnosed HIV- infected black-Caribbeans seen for HIV care in the UK, which accounted for 36% (23,288/64,378) and 3% (1,932/64,378) of all HIV-infected persons accessing care."
CDC, 2010: "In 2009, blacks/African Americans made up approximately 13% of the population of the 40 states (surveyed) but accounted for 52% of diagnoses of HIV infection." (See slide 5).
- Are black people all immoral?
- Should black people be banned from marriage?
- Should black people be banned from adopting?
- Should black people attempt to change race?
- According to some heterosexist's rationale, the answer to each of these questions should be "yes".
Men who have sex with men are not significantly overrepresented in the global HIV epidemic. Note that other modes of transmission include IDU and breastfeeding:
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Fact Sheet 1 July 1996, Page 2: "Heterosexual (male-female) intercourse accounts for more than 70% of all adult HIV infections to date and homosexual (male-male) intercourse for a further 5-10%." 2010 Source:http://tinyurl.com/Mansergh2010
T. Quinn, 1996, The Lancet, 348(9020), 99-106: "Incidence rates have been the highest in developing countries where heterosexual transmission is most common... By the year 2000, the number of new infections among women will be equal to that of men."
It is a commonly accepted principal within society that an individual may choose the degree of risk they place themselves at, provided they do not risk harming others:
- Many things that are perfectly accepted by society come with some heightened degree of risk, for example;
Extreme sports, driving, horse riding, sun-bed usage, fast food, drinking, smoking, piloting aircraft, joining the military, being a bouncer, treating the sick, living near fault lines or travelling abroad.
- It is people's "risk" to take to have anal sex because everybody partaking in it consents to it.
- The maintenance of each individual's health, sexual or otherwise, is their own burden.
- If a bisexual acts as a "bridge" for STIs, between homo and heterosexual individuals, the consequences affect the individual who consented to unprotected sex with that bisexual person and nobody else.
- The fault is not bisexuality itself and if the bisexual lied about their sexual history or persuaded their partner not to use a condom or get STI tests then the fault becomes "deception" and/or "coercion".
If we look more closely at the risks associated with driving, a practice that is extremely common and widely accepted within society:
- According to the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe), in the UK in 2009, 38 people per million died from road traffic accidents, which equates to 2356 total road deaths in 2009. According to the Health Protection Agency: "A total of 516 people (362 men and 154 women) infected with HIV were reported to have died in 2009."
- Clearly anybody who criticizes homosexuality/anal sex based on HIV/AIDS should also be protesting against drivers, with quadruple the enthusiasm.
- It is important to note that consensual sex only affects those involved, while road accidents do not.
- In the UK in 2009, 524 of those deaths were pedestrians and 27,214 pedestrians were injured (UNECE).
Anti-gay attitudes and laws have been shown to drastically increase HIV transmission rates because they prevent people from seeking medical help out of fear of prosecution and discrimination. 6:28
Dr Moncrieffe, 2010, UN Development Programme: Jamaica: "Across the Caribbean, HIV prevalence is higher (among MSM) in those countries that criminalize homosexuality".
UNAIDS, HIV - Related Stigma, Discrimination and Human Rights Violations, 2005: "From the start of the AIDS epidemic, stigma and discrimination have fuelled the transmission of HIV and have greatly increased the negative impact associated with the epidemic... This may be exacerbated in cases where individuals are members of particular groups that are already isolated and stigmatized, such as injecting drug users, men who have sex with men, and sex workers, or migrants."
It is not uncommon for heterosexists to express concerns that acceptance of homosexuality may lead to acceptance of other unusual sexual "lifestyles", such as incest, polygamy, paedophilic relationships and bestiality:
- There is no evidence that homosexuality's acceptance or marriage legalisation would lead to these things.
- On the contrary, as of 2014, 15 countries and 16 US states, have legal same-sex marriage, but polygamy is not legal in any of them. In contrast, of the 196 countries in the world, all of which have opposite-sex marriage, 49 have legal polygamy. Many of these 49 even criminalise homosexuality.
- It would be equally cogent to ask how heterosexuals can allow the continued legality of opposite-sex marriage, when it may ultimately lead to marriage between animals and humans or infants and adults.
- Furthermore, if same-sex marriage is illegalized then all marriage is in danger, next opposite-sex marriage will have to be illegalized, then all romantic relationships.
Ironically, there is a strong association of acceptance of the above practises with the most anti-gay nations in the world, while the opposite is true of those that have legalised SS marriage, as tabulated below (please click to enlarge). This is greatly elaborated upon here.
Heterosexists occasionally suggest that homosexuals are inconsistent in that they discriminate against incest and polygamy despite these also consisting of loving, consensual relationships:
- Bestiality and child molestation are not consensual, which is why they are immoral.
- Polygamy is not wrong if everybody involved consents. They risk harm to nobody and so it is amoral.
- The same is true for adult consent to incest. Incestuous procreation is a separate issue.
- To ask why pro-gay marriage activists do not also champion polygamy is equivalent to going to a cancer research facility and demanding to know why they are not also researching HIV.
- Polygamy and incest are simply cultural taboos, though in reality, their practise often involves coercion/exploitation. Most importantly however, this is intrinsic to neither of them.
Note: Like heterosexuals, homosexuals will tend to be divided over issues such as polygamy and incest but homosexuals are, hopefully, less prone to irrational prejudice than the average individual.
Anti-gay activists sometimes misuse studies to point out the disproportionate prevalence of "homosexual child molestation" relative to the homosexual population:
- The very same studies used by these people frequently point out that paedophilia is an attraction to children, often irrespective of the child's gender, as will be expounded below.
- The sex of the victims of paedophilic molestation does not necessarily indicate whether the perpetrator possesses a heterosexual or a homosexual teleiophilic sexual orientation or even if they possess one at all.
- Attraction to a person is typically filtered through the requirement for physical attraction.
- Children have a fundamentally different appearance from adults, particularly as secondary sex characteristics, which distinguish the two sexes, only develop post-pubescently.
- If this were not the case, we would not be able to distinguish between height and age. Dwarfs would always be mistaken for children and tall children for adults, for instance.
Even if a certain characteristic is grossly overrepresented among child molesters, this does not mean that all who possess this characteristic are child molesters or even more likely to molest:
- Heterosexists should consider whether or not they would regard the actions of a heterosexual child molester, or even a heterosexual rapist of adults, to be representative of themselves or their sexuality.
- The vast majority of child molestations are carried out by men, not women, so even were heterosexists correct, their rationale would necessitate the condemnation of all men at least as much as homosexuals.
- This does not occur simply because men are not a vulnerable, stigmatised minority.
D. Finkelhor, 1994, The Future of Children, 4(2), 31-53: "Most sexual abuse is committed by men (90%)".
A wide range of studies find both that homosexuals do not present a heightened risk to children and that many male abusers of boys are actually attracted to their feminine characteristics:
Jenny et al. 1994, Pediatrics, 94(1), 41-44: "In... 269 cases (of child molestation), two offenders were identified as being gay or lesbian". "A child’s risk of being molested by his or her relative’s heterosexual partner is 100 times greater than by someone who might be identified as a homosexual".
Groth et al. 1978, Archives Of Sexual Behavior, 7(3), 175-181: "All regressed offenders, whether their victims were male or female children, were heterosexual in their adult orientation... The possibility emerges that homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia may be mutually exclusive and that the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater risk to the underage child than does the adult homosexual male."
Nathaniel McConaghy, 1998, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 32(2), 252-265: "The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in older men or in women" (p259).
Freund et al. 1989, The Journal of Sex Research, 26(1), 107-117: "Homosexual males who preferred physically mature partners responded (sexually) no more to male children than heterosexual males who preferred physically mature partners responded to female children".
Silverthorne & Quinsey, 2000, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29(1), 67-76: "Results suggest that age and sex preferences develop independently".
Marshall et al. 1988, Behavior Research and Therapy, 26(5), 390: "Amongst the heterosexuals, the commonest remarks concerning attractive features of the victims, were that the young boys did not have any body hair and that their bodies were soft and smooth. These two distinct descriptions of their victims suggests that the heterosexual offenders were looking for female-like features in the boys while the homosexuals were looking for male features."
Freund et al. 1984, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 10(3), 193-200: "In pedophilia, the development of heterosexuality or homosexuality is brought about by factors different from those operative in the development of androphilia or gynephilia" (attraction to adult men/women). "Androphiles actually responded significantly less to the male children."
Hall & Hall, 2007, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 82(4), 457-471: "Pedophilia, especially the exclusive type, may be best thought of as its own category of sexual orientation, not something that is superimposed on an existing heterosexual or homosexual identity." "Females were the most commonly abused, with the percentage of abused females increasing with age [relative to males]."
If same sex paedophilic attraction is typically based around the child's age, rather than the child's gender, as described above, then we might expect to see molesters who target both male and female children tending to target younger, less physically developed, victims than molesters who target only one gender:
Carlstedt et al. 2009, Sexual Abuse, 21(4), 442-454: "Offenders with 0- to 5-year-old victims significantly more often abused both boys and girls." Levenson et al. 2008, Sexual Abuse, 20(1), 43-60: "The proportion of offenders with victims of both genders significantly increased as the victims' ages decreased, and sex offenders with preschool-age victims were most likely to have abused both boys and girls. A sex offender with a victim 6 years of age or younger had more than 3 times the odds of having perpetrated sex crimes against both genders than a sex offender with only older victims. Sex offenders with victims of both genders had more than 3 times the odds of having preschool victims."
Freund et al. 1991, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 20(6), 555-566: "Pedophiles differentiated erotically between females and males less than males who erotically preferred physically mature partners."
The practice of Bacha Bazi is known to occur in some Muslim states:
- In Bacha Bazi, powerful businessmen and warlords get young boys to dress in women's clothing and dance provocatively for them. The boys are also owned, traded and used for sex.
- Bacha Bereesh ("beardless boys") is another term for this pastime, the name of which specifically identifies a feminine, rather than manly, characteristic as being integral to the activity.
- This practice is further evidence that many molesters that target boys are actually drawn more to the feminine characteristics of the boys than any masculine attributes.
- Bacha Bazi was brought to light in the documentary "The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan".
There are occasionally attempts to link child molestation within the Catholic Church to homosexuality yet a report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops disconfirmed this:
Terry et al. 2011, "The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010", Page 64: "The data do not support a finding that homosexual identity and/or preordination same-sex sexual behavior are significant risk factors for the sexual abuse of minors."
Ironically, stigmatisation of homosexuality is likely inhibitory to attempts to prevent child molestation. Watkins & Bentovim, 1992, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33(1), 197-248: "A variety of explanations have been advanced to explain the apparent under-reporting or under-detection of the sexual abuse of boys. Prominent among them have been the boy's fears of disbelief and of being labelled homosexual".
Attention erroneously focused upon homosexuals directs it away from actual molesters. One of the more rigorous studies to date on sexual abuse found that "being less homosexually orientated than other homosexual offenders (those who sexually abused adults), more of the homosexual offenders vs. children married (heterosexually)-47 per cent". The study was able to extrapolate that "ultimately nearly two thirds would marry" (Gebhard et al. 1965, Sex Offenders: An Analysis of Types, Institute for Sex Research, NY: Harper and Row, page 282). Hall & Hall, 2007 reaffirmed that over half of paedophiles marry.
The Judeo-Christian religion subsection of this essay is located here. The vast majority of the post is directed towards the analysis of scripture in order to demonstrate that whether or not religiously motivated heterosexism has a sound biblical basis is debatable. It additionally examines whether or not the alleged sin of homosexuality conveys any exceptional degree of culpability in the context of biblically-derived morality, relative to other sins committed by the population at large.
People sometimes complain about homosexuals rubbing their sexuality in other people's faces and forcing it upon them:
- Often this involves complaints about mild expressions of affection that many heterosexuals take for granted, such as holding hands, or even kissing in public. Homosexual affection simply attracts more attention.
- Those opposed to LGBT equal rights legislation frequently cite religious doctrine, therefore attempting to force their personal beliefs and "lifestyle choice" on to others.
- The Christian cross, Jewish kippah and Muslim hijab could all be seen as signs of rubbing religion in people's faces, if using the same flawed reasoning as heterosexists.
- Just like heterosexuals, homosexuals want to form romantic relationships but they do not have the enormous luxury of assuming that everybody they meet has a sexual orientation compatible with their own.
- Homosexuals are limited on the basis of sexual orientation alone to about 3% of the population that may reciprocate their feelings. It is not unreasonable that they might therefore need to make their sexual orientation public to some extent in order to find a partner. Many have no interest in clubs or bars.
Gay pride is often taken as an example of overt homosexual- associated behaviour and "rubbing it in people's faces":
- People with limited rights or who suffer discrimination have often marched in order to demonstrate their presence, such as the suffragettes, or Indian Independence marchers.
- Many people treat Pride parades as a normal carnival, while others more thoroughly embody the above sentiment. It is unfortunately the former that heterosexists highlight and critique, while ignoring the latter.
- Many homosexuals never attend a pride parade and so are not even represented at them.
- The general population also has carnivals, which often involve scantily clad men/women and extreme, sometimes dangerous, behaviour, such as Mardi Gras, Bull running festivals or La Tomatina festival.
- A video of New Orleans 21/02/12 Mardi Gras provides the perfect analogy for gay pride by demonstrating how foolish it would be to take the behaviour of people on a carnival or parade as representative of all heterosexuals in their everyday lives. Contains partial "heterosexual" nudity.
- The World Naked Bike Ride is another example, which occurs in many countries around the world.
Occasionally there are complaints about homosexual's prevalence on TV and suggestions that they are superior in terms of fashion tastes:
- Such as on gay-dating shows. There are however many more straight than gay-themed shows.
- References to gay fashion prowess are gimmicks, designed to play up the gay stereotype. Gimmicks and stereotypes are very common on TV and certainly aren't limited to LGBT people.
- Heterosexuality is disproportionately expressed in the media. Almost all adverts and movies depict exclusively heterosexual interactions.
Are all homosexuals effeminate/butch?
- Stereotypical homosexuals likely comprise a minority of gay people.
- Acting stereotypically comes naturally to those that do.
- Only stereotypical homosexuals are easily identifiable as homosexual and this gives rise to the misconception that all gays act "gay". This mechanism is known as an illusory correlation.
- Gay men who suddenly become effeminate after coming out were likely putting on a masculine act prior to doing so.
What causes atypical gender expression?
- Atypical gender expression among homosexuals is likely a product of the subconscious assimilation of what constitutes attractiveness and a subsequent, involuntary inclination towards the emulation of those characteristics.
- A gay man for instance is bombarded with images of men finding women (with feminine mannerisms) attractive and so can be subconsciously motivated to emulate those feminine mannerisms.
- The same mechanisms can be seen in all people to varying extents, such as in the assimilation of a contemporary fashion sense and the acquisition of regional speaking accents.
Those who advocate rigid conformity to gender stereotypes, especially for men, should consider the potential implications of overzealously encouraging machismo or femininity:
Parrott et al. 2003, Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 4(1), 70-78: "Results indicated that high-hypermasculine men displayed higher levels of aggression... and reported to have assaulted women more often than their low-hypermasculine counterparts."
McKelvie & Gold, 1994, The Journal of Sex Research, 31(3), 219-228: "Women high in hyperfemininity... had more antisocial tendencies... Hyperfemininity was negatively correlated with giving socially desirable responses and positively correlated with selfreported symptoms of psychopathology... Traditional "stereotypic" gener role socialization has been associated with increased risk for involvement in sexual aggression for both men and women".
Mosher et al. 1986, Journal of Research in Personality, 20(1), 77–94: "Macho personality was related to experiencing less affective disgust, anger, fear, distress, shame, contempt, and guilt as the men imagined committing a rape."
- The "gay lifestyle" doesn't exist any more so than the white, black, ginger-haired or female lifestyle.
- Taken literally, it should refer exclusively to participation in same-sex relationships and nothing more.
- The only ubiquitous characteristic among homosexuals is their homosexuality.
- Concerns raised about transgender people using public toilets seem to be scaremongering, given that majorities in countries such as the UK and France are comfortable using unisex toilets, as are 48% of Americans (Kate Palmer, 13/09/2013, Omnibus Research).
- Unisex toilets have additionally been in use for decades, well before any significant LGBT equality legislation and they feature enclosed cubicles.
The CDC carries out a large amount of population surveillance and notes that: "People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) are members of every community. They are diverse, come from all walks of life, and include people of all races and ethnicities, all ages, all socioeconomic statuses, and from all parts of the country."
What is the gay agenda?
- There is no "agenda" except to promote (understanding and therefore) tolerance of homosexuality. In other words, to prevent ignorance and prejudicially motivated discrimination.
- Politically active homosexuals ultimately simply want legal rights that are equal to those of heterosexuals.
- As homosexuals comprise only about 5% of the population, it is very unlikely that they will ever be the majority in politics and therefore unlikely that they can "infiltrate public offices and city councils".
- CNN's televised mini-debate discussion on whether anti-bullying laws push a gay agenda is enlightening.
Heterosexists occasionally attempt to reinforce their insinuations about the unhealthiness of a "homosexual lifestyle" by suggesting that homosexuals suffer a reduced lifespan:
There are only two lifespan studies on gay men that are typically cited by heterosexists. The first is a Canadian one conducted from 1987 to 1992 (Hogg et al. 1997, International Journal of Epidemiology, 26(3), 657-661). The second was performed by the discredited, heterosexist, propagandist, Paul Cameron.
Hogg et al. have since published a response to the use of their study by heterosexists in the International Journal of Epidemiology (Hogg et al. 2001, 30(6), 1499): "If we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved... there has been a threefold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia... It is essential to note that the life expectancy of any population is a descriptive and not a prescriptive measure... It cannot be attributed solely to their sexual orientation or any other ethnic or social factor... Overall, we do not condone the use of our research in a manner that restricts the political or human rights of gay and bisexual men or any other group."
Paul Cameron's Study:
- Paul Cameron is the founder of the Family Research Institute, a recognised hate group. He was repudiated by the American Psychological Association, the Nebraska Psychological Association, the American Sociological Association, and the Canadian Psychological Association due to misrepresentation of others' research. His work has also frequently been demonstrated to be methodologically flawed.
- The methodology of his lifespan study is so poor that in an educational resource entitled "The Seven Deadly Statistical Sins", The University of Columbia uses Paul Cameron's lifespan study as an archetype of a "Non-representative sample", stating that "This is the biggest sin of all".
- Researcher Dr Gregory Herek also elucidates the methodological flaws in Cameron's lifespan study.
Another study on homosexuals' lifespans (Frisch & Bronnum-Hansen, 2009, American Journal of Public Health, 99(1), 133–137) not only refutes Cameron's claim but additionally explains how his methodology was flawed (not included in quote), noting that: "Elementary textbooks in epidemiology warn against such undue comparisons between group averages because they lead to seemingly common-sense yet seriously flawed conclusions." "The claims of drastically increased overall mortality in gay men and lesbians appear unjustified."
Even were it definitively proven that eating only Brussels sprouts was by far the healthiest diet that anybody could consume:
- The world's populace would not simply universally eat only Brussels sprouts.
- It certainly would not be immoral to not eat only sprouts.
- There would be no moral obligation to do so.
- In the same way, even were heterosexuality definitively proven to be healthier than homosexuality, this would not generate a moral obligation to be heterosexual, even if it were possible.
- U.S. men and black people have lower life expectancies than women and white people respectively.
Some heterosexists fear that homosexuals are trying to "recruit" children:
- If this were possible then the LGB population would greatly increase in line with increasing acceptance of homosexuality. Demographic surveys indicate no major changes in the total population of homosexuals.
- A frequent false premise is that homosexuality is portrayed in a positive light in anti-heterosexism presentations, when in fact it is actually portrayed as being no better, nor worse, than heterosexuality.
- There is extensive evidence of conservative groups such as EXODUS and NARTH attempting to change people's sexual orientation but none of homosexuals trying to "recruit".
- Religious heterosexists often make this argument despite the fact that they indoctrinate their children in to religion, beginning far earlier than any exposure that they may have to the concept of homosexuality.
- This indoctrination even extends to schools, where historically and even within many contemporary societies, children have been made to sing hymns and say prayers, regardless of what religion they follow.
LGBT anti-bullying programs are aimed at reducing bullying, not "recruiting" and are needed:
Lampinen et al. 2008, American Journal of Public Health, 98(6), 1028-1035: "Our study findings indicate a high risk for physical assault among adolescent and young adult MSM". "Given that we and others have observed sexual orientation–related violence to occur at very young ages, school-based programs to generate tolerance of and support for sexual minority youths are warranted."
Heck et al. 2011, School Psychology Quarterly, 26(2), 161-174: "The results indicate that youth who attended a high school with a GSA report significantly more favorable outcomes related to school experiences, alcohol use, and psychological distress."
Some people express concern about educating children regarding topics that are traditionally left to the family:
- The family extremely rarely has a comprehensive knowledge of contemporary sex education, unlike teaching establishments and those specifically trained to provide sex education.
- School sex education allows children/adolescents to get the information from two sources instead of one.
- Parents always assume that their children are not homosexual and so almost always fail to educate them on homosexuality. Heterosexual parents are perhaps also particularly likely to lack knowledge of this topic.
- The premise that "Maintaining tradition is always good" is not justified and we would still be living in caves, were we always maintaining tradition. All progression and improvement requires change.
Some parents are displeased that they cannot opt their children out of curriculums that they have a personal dislike of, usually it seems, due to some sense that their child will be negatively affected:
- Knowledge is not innately harmful. It is how knowledge is used that is or is not harmful.
- Why should parents be able to deny their children knowledge just because of their own prejudices?
- Censorship is a form of manipulation and purely denies people the option of an informed opinion.
- The concepts of hell and war are not especially censored from children despite them featuring far more adversarial and antagonistic themes than the repugnant evils of loving or sexual relationships.
- STI prevalence among homosexuals is a common homophobic complaint, making it hypocritical to actively prevent their education on how to avoid them.
A study of 1605 parents of school-age children in Minnesota concerning support for different sex education topics (Eisenberg et al. 2008, Journal of Adolescent Health, 42(4), 352–359) found that: "Less controversial content received almost universal support... although the more controversial topics of sexual orientation (66.6%) and abortion (63.4%) still received majority support".
Goldfarb & Constantine, 2011, Encyclopedia of Adolescence, 322–331: "There is a particularly strong need for sexuality education among traditionally underserved youth, including sexual minorities, youth with disabilities, and those in foster care".
Blake et al. 2001, American Journal of Public Health, 91(6), 940-946: "In schools where gay-sensitive HIV instruction was provided, GLB youths reported lower sexual risk behaviors".
A review of the scientific studies concerning same sex couple adoption by the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association is quoted below:
Lesbian and Gay Parenting, A joint publication of the APA's: "Fears about children of lesbians and gay men being sexually abused by adults, ostracized by peers, or isolated in single-sex lesbian or gay communities have received no support from the results of existing research... Taken together, the data do not suggest elevated rate of homosexuality among the offspring of lesbian or gay parents... The results of some studies suggest that lesbian mothers' and gay fathers' parenting skills may be superior to those of matched heterosexual couples."
A multitude of other medical, scientific and child-welfare organizations similarly concur that same-sex couples are fit to parent. Section two of this link quotes over ten of these.
- The argument that same-sex (SS) couples might raise homosexual children additionally makes the unjustified assumption that this would somehow be a bad thing.
- Child protective services are available to resolve any problems, whether the parents are gay or straight.
- The number of children awaiting adoption greatly exceeds the number of heterosexual couples seeking to adopt. Children that are not adopted by SS couples are therefore not automatically adopted by heterosexuals but may instead be left in institutional care, without any parents at all.
- Homosexuals have opposite sex relatives and friends and children have teachers and nannies etc who can provide opposite gender role models. Single parents can additionally legally adopt children.
- Single parenting is very common with over 1 in 4 children in the U.S. and 1 in 5 in the UK living in a single-parent household.
Page 28 of a 2007 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that 25.8% of children are living with single parents in the US. The average of the nations involved in the report is 14.9%. Furthermore, page 29 explains that this is expected to increase in the future.
Judge Rules Against Florida Gay Adoption Ban after "numerous experts in child psychology, social work and other fields testified that there is no science to justify a gay adoption ban". 1:26
The notion that SS adoption constitutes a "risky social experiment" with children is occasionally advanced by heterosexists:
- Not only does existing research refute concerns raised by those who subject prospective homosexual parents to far more stringent tests of parenting suitability than heterosexuals but the idea that SS adoptions involve any more of an "experiment" than any other adoption appears to be fallacious.
- Every time a prospective parent adopts, it is an "experiment" in that the parent has never done so before.
- Each parent or couple consist of a huge amalgam of characteristics, among which their sexual orientations' are a mere drop in the ocean of the traits which they possess both as individuals and as a couple.
- By referring to SS adoption as a dangerous experiment, the heterosexist simply asserts that the gender combination of prospective adopters has some overriding, decisive influence on a child's future well-being, which significantly outstrips the influence of the vast number of other characteristics that they possess.
- The heterosexist therefore needs to justify that the gender of prospective parents has a decisive impact.
- Until that substantiation is provided, references to "dangerous experiments" are no more than unjustified, scaremongering nonsense that impose a double standard regarding the consideration of sexual orientation relative to all of the other conceivable characteristics that parents may possess.
America's "Dont Ask, Dont Tell" (DADT) Policy has been repealed but here are a few points to counter criticism of homosexuals' participation in the military:
- The "Dont ask dont tell" policy discharge rate dropped by 35% in the 5 years after the 2001 world trade centre attacks, compared to the 5 years prior to them. Click the bar chart below to enlarge it.
- This strongly suggests that the military itself does not believe that homosexual military personnel are detrimental to its combat effectiveness.
- An estimated $40+ million a year have been wasted discharging perfectly competent people from the military since DADT's 1993 inception.
- These 14,000+ people were kicked out for something totally unrelated to their ability to perform the job.
- Alan Turing was instrumental in cracking the enigma code, which was a huge step in winning world war two and gay men/women have served successfully within even the most elite ranks of the military, such as Brett Jones, a Navy SEAL.
American Psychological Association: "Empirical evidence fails to show that sexual orientation is germane to any aspect of military effectiveness including unit cohesion, morale, recruitment and retention (Belkin, 2003; Belkin & Bateman, 2003; Herek, Jobe, & Carney, 1996; MacCoun, 1996; National Defense Research Institute, 1993)."
A study on the Israeli armed forces, where restrictions on LGB soldiers were lifted in 1993 provided an opportunity to assess "the impact of lifting a gay ban in a high-stakes security context":
Belkin & Levitt, 2001, Armed Forces & Society 27(4), 541-565, DOI: 10.1177/0095327X0102700403 "Our findings are that Israel's decision to lift its ban had no impact on performance".
This author is in favour of the criminalisation of speech which takes the form of intimidation, blackmail or harassment or which involves direct incitement to violence but opposed to criminalisation of any other form of speech, including one-off or derogatory statements aimed at groups of people.
Do LGBT People get Special Protections?
- All people are actually protected by hate crime legislation because it protects members of all races, religions, ethnicities and sexual orientations.
- Those groups that are especially protected by hate crime legislation are therefore simply those that are especially vulnerable and especially targeted.
- Criminalisation of rape/sexual assault similarly tends to be used to protect female victims from male aggressors. Nobody is foolish enough to insinuate that women therefore have "special protections".
- Arguments against hate crimes/speech legislation in general are not specifically relevant to arguments against LGBT hate crime/speech legislation.
Punishment Fits the Crime:
- Another reason for hate crime legislation would be the increased harm done by hate crimes relative to crimes that are not motivated by hate, bias and prejudice.
- It is a commonly accepted principal that the severity of the punishment should match that of the crime.
McDevitt et al. 2001, American Behavioral Scientist, 45(4), 697-713: "Findings from the respondents replicate prior empirical research and indicate that bias crime victims experience more severe psychological sequelae, for a longer period of time, than victims of similar nonbias offenses. Specifically, the level of intrusive thoughts, feelings of safety, nervousness, and depression were all significantly higher for bias crime victims."
Herek et al. 1999, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67(6), 945-951: "Compared with other recent crime victims, lesbian and gay hate-crime survivors manifested significantly more symptoms of depression, anger, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. They also displayed significantly more crime-related fears and beliefs, lower sense of mastery, and more attributions of their personal setbacks to sexual prejudice than did nonbias crime victims and nonvictims."
Herek et al. 1997, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12(2), 195-215: "Compared to other respondents, bias-crime survivors manifested higher levels of depression, anxiety, anger, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress."
Hate Speech Versus Freedom of Expression:
- Arguing against somebody's opinion is not equivalent to telling them that they can not have it.
- The price for being an unjustifiably hateful person should be social ostracisation, not criminalisation.
- The media often sensationalize anti-LGBT statements that the average LGBT person would not care about.
- This is common to all forms of political correctness and is not indicative of LGBT intolerance of others.
- Hate crime/speech legislation may occasionally be involved in miscarriages of justice but just as with other laws, that does not necessarily mean that the law itself is inherently or entirely flawed.
Anti-Gay activists sometimes try to stir up angst against homosexual equal rights activists by arguing that their comparison to the black civil rights movement is disrespectful:
- The genetic aetiology of race is not the reason why racism is wrong, it simply demonstrates irrefutably that race is not chosen, which is one means of showing the condemnation of an individual exhibiting a certain characteristic to be unjustifiable.
- Sexual orientation, like race, is a totally involuntary attribute, as is evident from those who try to change it.
- Hate crimes are those motivated by prejudice and whether that prejudice is against something that is or is not entirely genetic does not negate the prejudice or validate it as a motivation.
- Both race and sexual orientation are additionally seemingly immutable and victimless.
- Coretta Scott King, author, activist, prominent civil rights leader and widow of Martin Luther King Jr regarded homophobia to be akin to racism, as explained by her in the video below, 1:03.
Black Americans of Achievement by Dale Gelfand quotes Coretta King as stating that: "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood".
Bayard Rustin was Executive Director (chief organiser) of the 1963 March on Washington and had advised MLK Jr from the 1950’s onwards. He was also an openly homosexual advocate of LGBT rights and in a 1986 speech noted that: "Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change... The new “niggers” are gays... gay people are the new barometer for social change... The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people."
Heterosexists sometimes claim that gay people do not suffer from prejudicially motivated discrimination of a remotely comparable magnitude to that which black people historically have:
- Somebody who is badly beaten is not as much of a victim as somebody who is beaten to death but they are both still victims of a violent crime.
- The fact that one was more of a victim does not prevent the other from being a victim and does not mean that punishment of the perpetrator and protection of potential victims is not needed.
- Claiming that two things are incomparable because they are not identical is fallacious in the extreme.
- Comparisons between racism and heterosexism are qualitative, not quantitative.
Despite heterosexist accusations of higher domestic abuse prevalence among homosexuals, The National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center (NVAWPRC, sponsored by the CDC), claims the following:
Suzana Rose, Ph.D. of NVAWPRC: "Violence appears to be about as common among lesbian couples as among heterosexual couples."
Vera E. Mouradian, Ph.D. of NVAWPRC: "Statistics indicate that somewhere between 23 percent (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980) and 66 percent (Roy, 1982) of American women are physically assaulted by a spouse or cohabitant lover during their lifetimes."
American Bar Association, (ABA): "11% of lesbians reported violence by their female partner and 15% of gay men who had lived with a male partner reported being victimized by a male partner. Patricia Tjaden, Symposium on Integrating Responses to Domestic Violence: Extent and Nature of Intimate Partner Violence (2003)."
Key points here include that:
- Domestic abuse prevalence is not an exact statistic yet. Reluctance to report domestic abuse, the use of convenience samples and failure to distinguish between the abusers and the abused all exacerbate this.
- Domestic abuse prevalence could just as likely be higher among heterosexuals than homosexuals.
- If it were, would this mean that homosexuals should be exclusively entitled to marriage and adoption and all heterosexuals prohibited from partaking in them? Clearly not.
- While studies on domestic violence against men are rare, other types of studies indicate that gay men are, on average, actually less aggressive than their heterosexual counterparts.
Gladue at al. 1995, Psychoneuroendocrinology, 20(5), 475-485: "Consistent with past findings, heterosexual men were more physically aggressive than were homosexual men".
Traditional households, unmarried couples and racial minorities all exhibit a higher likelihood of domestic abuse, while same-sex couples do not, according to the exact same study often used by heterosexists against homosexuals:
Tjaden & Thoennes, U.S. National Institute of Justice, 2000: "Results from these studies suggest that same-sex couples are about as violent as heterosexual couples" "Unmarried, cohabiting couples have higher rates of intimate partner violence than do married couples, (racial) minorities have higher rates of intimate partner violence than do whites." "Research shows that wife assault is more common in families where power is concentrated in the hands of the husband or male partner and the husband makes most of the decisions."
- The same study also finds a far greater prevalence of men abusing women than women abusing men.
- The first quote above even shows that heterosexists misusing this study's statistics are actually contradicting the findings of the study's authors.
- A statistical correlation is not necessarily proof of a direct causal link.
Heterosexism exacerbates domestic abuse and inhibits its reportage:
Carrie Brown, 2008, Journal of Family Violence, 23(6), 457-462: "Gender-role socializations and heterosexism create and enforce stigmas and obstacles for validation and reporting of this abuse."
Ard & Makadon, 2011, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26(8), 930–933: "LGBT individuals often hide outward expression of their sexual orientation or gender identity for fear of stigma and discrimination; abusive partners may exploit this fear through the threat of forced outing... LGBT shelter services are rare to non-existent in many regions".
Balsam & Syzmanski, 2005, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29(3), 258-269: "Minority stress variables (internalized homophobia and discrimination) were associated with lower relationship quality and both domestic violence perpetration and victimization".
Edwards & Sylaska, 2013, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42(11), 1721-1731, DOI: 10.1007/s10964-012-9880-6: "The purpose of the current study was to assess how facets of minority stress... relate to physical, sexual, and psychological partner violence perpetration among LGBTQ college youth. Physical and sexual perpetration were both related to internalized homonegativity; physical perpetration was also related to identity concealment."
Conclusions:
- Arguments based on domestic abuse incidence or prevalence would require the banning of racial minorities, all men, traditional households and many other groups from marriage/adoption.
- At worst, same sex couples appear to have domestic abuse rates no higher than opposite sex couples.
- Heterosexism and gender role stereotypes are detrimental to attempts to prevent/ resolve domestic abuse.
- Any attempts to use domestic abuse statistics against homosexuals are therefore flawed and hypocritical.
- If heterosexists consider arguments from a domestic violence prevalence perspective to be valid, LGBT people should be granted marriage equality, given that married couples are less likely to suffer domestic abuse than cohabiting couples.
Claims of unbridled homosexual promiscuity certainly have no basis in fact considering that:
- Lesbians seem little more promiscuous, perhaps even less so, than heterosexuals.
- Gay males are likely slightly more promiscuous than heterosexuals on average, though certainly not to the extents frequently asserted by heterosexists and this is not a ubiquitous characteristic.
- There appears to be great disparity within the gay population, with a subset of hyper-promiscuous gay men, such as those who attend bath houses, who do not typify all gay men, such as those in the video below.
- Members of this hyper-promiscuous subgroup are usually overrepresented in the studies presented by heterosexists, making those studies unrepresentative of gay men in general.
The following three nationally representative studies are from Sweden, the U.S. and UK respectively. They provide an indication of the lifetime number of sexual partners that opposite and same sex couples have. The CDC values are likely lower because they are medians, rather than means:
Langstrom et al. 2010, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(1), 75-80, Ages 20-47 years old: "The average number of same-sex sexual partners among those reporting any such partner was 12.86 in men and 3.53 in women".
CDC's National Survey of Family Growth, 2006-2008: "Median number of female sexual partners in lifetime, for men 25-44 years of age, 2006-2008: 6.1". "Median number of male sexual partners in lifetime, for women 25-44 years of age, 2006-2008: 3.6".
Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles in Britain: Highlights from Natsal-3, 2010-2012: "Average (mean) number of opposite–sex partners, lifetime (people aged 16–44), 2010-2012 = 11.7, 7.7" for men and women respectively.
Claims that gay men average hundreds of partners per year are simply absurd. The below study refers to two separate nationally representative studies in the UK, indicating that the majority of men who have sex with men had just one partner in the preceding year:
Mercer et al. 2004, AIDS, 18(10), 1453-1458: "A total of 44.7% of men in 2000 who reported homosexual intercourse ever reported only one male partner ever... Among men who reported homosexual intercourse ever 53.9% had not had a male partner in the past 5 years... we limited further analyses to MSM, defined as men reporting at least one male partner with whom they had genital contact in the 5 years prior to interview... In the past year, 77.8% of MSM reported having had at least one male partner. The median reported number of male partners in the past year was one in both 1990 and 2000."
Bailey et al. 2003, Sexually Transmitted Infections, 79(2), 147-150: "803 lesbians and bisexual women attending, as new patients, lesbian sexual health clinics, and 415 lesbians and bisexual women from a community sample... 98% of the whole sample gave a history of sexual activity with women, 83% within the past year, with a median of one female partner in that year."
Homosexual relationships are not significantly different from heterosexual ones, though they do suffer from decreased legal and social support, relative to their heterosexual counterparts, American Psychological Association (APA), 2004: "Research indicates that many gay men and lesbians want and have committed relationships. For example, survey data indicate that between 40% and 60% of gay men and between 45% and 80% of lesbians are currently involved in a romantic relationship... Survey data indicate that between 18% and 28% of gay couples and between 8% and 21% of lesbian couples have lived together 10 or more years. Researchers (e.g., Kurdek, 2004) have also speculated that the stability of same-sex couples would be enhanced if partners from same-sex couples enjoyed the same levels of social support and public recognition of their relationships as partners from heterosexual couples do."
Subsequent studies reinforce the American Psychological Association's 2004 statement:
Koh et al. 2005, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 32(9), 563-569: "Lesbians were more likely to be in committed relationships (78%) in comparison to the bisexual (60%) and heterosexual women (69%)... Among those who had sex in the past year, women reported similar numbers of male and female sex partners (mean = 1.4 and 1.5, respectively)."
Balsam et al. 2008, Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 102-116: "Compared with heterosexual married participants, both types of same-sex couples reported greater relationship quality, compatibility, and intimacy and lower levels of conflict."
Roisman et al. 2008, Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 91-101: "Results indicated that individuals in committed same-sex relationships were generally not distinguishable from their committed heterosexual counterparts, with one exception--lesbians were especially effective at working together harmoniously in laboratory observations."
Carpenter et al. 2008, Demography, 45(3), 573–590: "These data indicate that 37%–46% of gay men and 51%–62% of lesbians aged 18–59 are in cohabiting partnerships (compared with 62% of heterosexual individuals in coresidential unions at comparable ages)."
Oits et al. 2006, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23(1), 81-99: "Higher levels of internalized homophobia and discrimination were predictive of less favorable perceptions of relationship quality. As hypothesized, the impact of perceived discrimination and/or victimization was mediated by perceived stress."
It should be noted that, while promiscuity does present a heightened risk of STI transmission, a high STI prevalence among a sub-population is not an automatic indicator of rampant promiscuity:
A CDC study on data from the nationally representative NHANES 2003-2004 survey: "The authors analyzed data on 838 female adolescents (aged 14-19) who participated in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)... Even among girls reporting only one lifetime partner, one in five (20.4%) had at least one STI... The total prevalence might be slightly higher than these estimates indicate, because some STIs – including syphilis, HIV and gonorrhea – were not included in the analysis".
Opportunism, casual sex and restroom sex are far from exclusive to homosexual men:
- Restroom sex is certainly not unique to homosexual men and is commonly involved when heterosexuals decide to join the "mile high club", for instance.
- Homosexuality may provide more of an opportunity for some promiscuous men to act upon their inclinations than heterosexuality does, not a cause.
- Gay bathhouses do have similar heterosexual equivalents, such as brothels and swingers' clubs, like the infamous Plato's retreat, which originally specifically prohibited gay men from entering.
- These acts and establishments are no more representative of the homosexual population at large than their heterosexual counterparts are of the heterosexual population at large.
Studies on public sex are difficult to find due to its clandestine nature. Laud Humphreys' famous 1970 Ph.D. dissertation on the topic is summarised on the University of Missouri's website:
Dr. Joan Sieber, Professor of Psychology, California State University: "Fifty-four percent of his subjects were married and living with their wives, and superficial analysis would suggest that they were exemplary citizens who had exemplary marriages. Thirty-eight percent of Humphreys' subjects clearly were neither bisexual nor homosexual... Only 14 percent of Humphreys' subjects corresponded to society's stereotype of homosexuality. That is, only 14 percent were members of the gay community and were interested in primarily homosexual relationships (Humphreys, Laud. 1970. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine)."
Semple et al. 2010, BMC Public Health, 10, 178, DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-10-178: "If, as our data would suggest, the typical man who has unprotected sex with other men in public venues is depressed, not connected to the gay community, stigmatized, and highly compulsive, then condom-promotion efforts in gay-identified establishments are unlikely to reach this subgroup... Higher depression scores, greater experiences of social stigma, and higher sexual compulsivity scores reported by the public-venues group may be markers for internalized homophobia. Some of these men could be avoiding public, gay-oriented establishments in favor of venues where sex tends to be anonymous. Their greater perception of social stigma could reflect shame or discomfort about their sexual orientation... Community interventions that promote acceptance of MSM lifestyles and address depressive symptoms and social stigma may be the best long-term option for reducing the need that some men feel to seek sex in public spaces."
Conclusions:
- Numerous studies demonstrate that minority stress resulting from heterosexism increases risky sexual behaviour, such as extreme promiscuity.
- It appears that gay male promiscuity, if it exists, is actually a male phenomenon, not a homosexual one. Any Christians who pardon straight men because they are not given the opportunity to act upon their desires should consider Matthew 5:28.
- Statistics supposedly demonstrating gay male promiscuity are typically severely outdated and rely on non-random/convenience sampling.
- The extreme studies that the anti-LGBT activists use will often have recruited a lot of gay men from venues associated with heightened promiscuity, such as bath houses, clubs and bars.
- The hyper-promiscuous subset of gay males will also skew the mean for any group including them. For instance, the mean of 9 people who have had 1 sexual partner and 1 who has had 991 is 100 partners each, despite 90% of those involved actually having only 1 lifetime partner.
Heterosexists sometimes use the relatively high prevalence of mental health issues among sexual minorities to suggest that homosexuality is pathological:
- Mental health issues are not synonymous with white padded rooms.
- Over 40% of the general population under the age of 65 has had a mental disorder (Bijl et al. 1998).
- Sexual minorities do have slightly higher instances of mental health problems.
- Research has in fact repeatedly shown that it is heterosexism/minority stress that causes increased mental health issues among sexual minorities, rather than homosexuality itself.
- Heterosexist arguments against homosexuality based around mental health disparities are therefore both flawed and hypocritical.
Section 1 of this link features over 20 studies which identify the relationship between heterosexism and negative mental health outcomes for sexual minorities.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2015: "The experiences of discrimination in society and possible rejection by friends, families and others, such as employers, means that some LGB people experience a greater than expected prevalence of mental health and substance misuse problems. Although there have been claims by conservative political groups in the USA that this higher prevalence of mental health difficulties is confirmation that homosexuality is itself a mental disorder, there is no evidence whatever to substantiate such a claim".
It is also worth noting that, unlike other minorities, such as racial minorities:
- LGBT discrimination is far more accepted within society than racial discrimination.
- LGBT people can not easily identify each other and so feelings of isolation may be particularly strong.
- Most people would agree that family and friends are a person's core, and perhaps entire, support network.
- LGBT people are likely to suffer from their families expectation of them being heterosexual.
- LGBT people have to come out to family and friends, before standing any chance of receiving support, risking rejection by the very people who other minorities can always fall back on for support.
Wight et al. 2013, American Journal of Public Health, 103(2), 339-346: "Same-sex married lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons were significantly less distressed than lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons not in a legally recognized relationship; married heterosexuals were significantly less distressed than nonmarried heterosexuals."
- This does not mean that the impoverished should be disallowed marriage, or that they are morally inferior.
- The drug abuse risk of poverty can be explained and is of course not an innate part of having less wealth.
- In the same way, the slightly increased prevalence of drug abuse by homosexuals can be explained and is not innately part of being homosexual.
- Some homosexuals likely abuse substances as a coping mechanism due to heterosexism.
- It is heterosexism that needs to change and heterosexists criticizing LGBT drug abuse are hypocritical.
- Mental health and substance abuse are interlinked. Street drugs are sometimes used to self-medicate for existing mental health issues and/ or can lead to mental health issues.
Section 2 of this link details many studies indicating that increased minority stress correlates with increased substance abuse.
The protective effects of marriage against substance abuse have been identified in studies:
Austin et al. 2012, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(2), 167-178: "We conclude that the partnership options available to lesbians and gay men do not provide the same health-protective benefits that marriage does for heterosexuals."
According to a survey from 1999-2002 of general population adults aged 20 to 59, by the CDC: "Persons with more than a high school education had the lowest percentage of ever used and past year use of cocaine or street drugs... Men were more likely to have ever tried cocaine or street drugs (26%) than women (17%)... Past year use of cocaine or street drugs increased as the age group became younger, with the youngest age group (20-29 years) having the highest prevalence."
Conclusions:
- Those married were approximately half as likely as cohabiting and never-married individuals to have used cocaine or street drugs (cannabis not included) in the CDC study above.
- From a substance abuse statistics perspective, we can see that marriage and/or adoption should be limited to women, with more than a high school education, who are over 29 years old.
- We can also see that married couples have a reduced risk of substance abuse.
- Anybody who is concerned with drug abuse, particularly LGBT drug abuse should also therefore advocate same sex marriage, if they are to be consistent.
The premise that the possibility to which we are anatomically most efficiently predisposed (heterosexual intercourse) is the only morally legitimate form of expression is unjustified:
- This premise also appears to be flawed as a heterosexist would be highly unlikely to apply it consistently when, for instance, comparing using the body to race cars versus playing catch with a ball.
- One requires months of training, whilst the other can be learnt during infancy.
- The former can potentially cause life-threatening injury, while the latter is extremely unlikely to.
- The former option would seem to be one we are far less anatomically predisposed towards.
- Using the same reasoning as the heterosexist, racing cars is therefore immoral.
Complementarity is distributed along a spectrum, not restricted to the antipodes of compatible or incompatible. Gender is also not the exclusive determinant of it. People consist of innumerable characteristics which complement each other to different extents, gender being just one among many:
- Heterosexuals have failed relationships all the time, clearly demonstrating that heterosexuality is therefore not sufficient to guarantee compatibility.
- Even with those couples that do stay together, some have happier, easier relationships than others.
- The people that get to decide if they are sufficiently compatible are the people who will be having those relationships. It is not for others to dictate. This is clearly true of both homosexuals and heterosexuals.
Other possible implications of viewing relationships from a purely gender-based complementarity perspective include that:
- Same sex partners would be familiar with their own type of genitals, therefore arguably more anatomically compatible with each other for sexual acts such as oral sex and mutual masturbation.
- Likewise, it could be argued that same-sex couples are more apt to interpret each other's psychology.
- A fluid, such as water, fits its container perfectly, making it the only morally acceptable filling for a vagina.
- The notion that genitalia determine who you are "meant" to be attracted to would require that hermaphrodites are "meant" to be bisexual.
"Bug chasing" is a phenomenon involving deliberate exposure to HIV, while "gift giving" involves the deliberate transmission of HIV. They may be practised by an extremely small minority of gay men though appear to be almost entirely, if not entirely, fantasy based:
- Most gay men have never heard of bug chasing and whether or not it is actually just a myth is still a matter of contention. There is very little research on the topic, likely due to its obscurity.
- It is sometimes practised by heterosexuals, again, extremely rarely.
- Unsurprisingly, there are no known cases of lesbian bug chasing.
A study conducted exclusively on self-identified bug chasers; Grov et al. 2006, AIDS Education and Prevention, 18(6), 490-503: "Only a small portion of men were genuinely seeking partners of discordant serostatus: 1.1% of HIV-positive men and 21.3% of HIV-negative men."
B. Adam, 2006, Social Theory & Health, 4(2), 168-179, DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700066: "It must be stressed, against the panic icons of "barebackers" and "bug-chasers" circulating in the press and in popular discourse, that none of these practices nor the moral reasoning associated with them, overtly intend HIV transmission to happen. No one in [this] study expressed any willingness or acceptance of the idea of knowingly infecting a partner. When the premises of individual responsibility are knowingly absent, many express a strong reluctance to allow unprotected sex".
In a study (Sylvie C. Tourigny, 1998, Qualitative Health Research, 8(2), 149-167) in Detroit, Michigan, it is detailed how six African-American youths, four women and two men: "Initially enrolled as auxiliary respondents in a longitudinal research project centered on HIV/AIDS in inner-city Detroit, they joined family members as primary respondents when they seroconverted after deliberately seeking HIV exposure... Although the structural constraints and psychosocial pathways mediating them differ, willful instances of exposure to HIV are almost certainly not exclusive to U.S. innter cities." "Belindas's Story: He said he was afraid to pass it on, so I brought condoms and I sorta made it hard for him to refuse. I knew I would be bleeding... so John don't know there was holes in the condoms." "Luen's story: I felt he (my HIV positive boyfriend) deserved to have someone with him... and I know I am destined to love and lose and I don't want that anymore... I made the choice not to be left anymore... We don't need to worry about the future, we can enjoy the day, because there is no future to think about”.
Heterosexual Transmission:
- Both of the above case studies are of women who chose to be infected by male sexual partners.
- There are also many cases of heterosexuals deliberately infecting partners with HIV, listed starting halfway down AVERT's page on the topic, which have resulted in criminal convictions.
- These cases of deliberate heterosexual transmission no more represent heterosexuals as a whole than gay male bug chasers represent gay men as a whole. http://informoverload.com/teen-girl-infects-324-men-with-hiv-on-purpose/
This essay proves that there are no logically sound arguments against homosexuality. Clearly heterosexism and homophobia are therefore simply products of prejudice or misconception.
Heterosexism is additionally highly hypocritical and counter-productive, as demonstrated above and below. Even those criticisms of homosexuality that attempt to draw upon scientific/statistical analysis of the homosexual population describe attributes that are a product of heterosexism itself, rather than of homosexuality.
Ryan et al. 2009, Pediatrics, 123(1), 346 -352: "Lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who reported higher levels of family rejection during adolescence were 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide, 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression, 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs, and 3.4 times more likely to report having engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse compared with peers (other LGBT people) from families that reported no or low levels of family rejection."
A fantastic illustration of how the world might look if the roles were reversed. 19:12.
Heterosexists sometimes misuse scientific studies to justify their criticism of homosexuals. This can involve taking pieces of research out of context, to the extent that its true meaning is obscured, sometimes deliberately, such as linking homosexuality with paedophilia. Alternatively, scientific studies with major methodological flaws are sometimes used, such as Paul Cameron's claim that gay men have much shorter life expectancies. Examples of how statistics may be misused are below.
The UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2004: "Men outnumber women in all major crime categories. Between 85 and 95 per cent of offenders found guilty of burglary, robbery, drug offences, criminal damage or violence against the person are male. Although the number of offenders are relatively small, 98 per cent of people found guilty of, or cautioned for, sexual offences are male."
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Suspects arrested and booked for Federal offenses in 2004 were predominantly male (86%)"
This statistic appears to be reasonably consistent, as likewise, in 2006: "Men (83%) accounted for a larger percentage of persons convicted of a felony, compared to their percentage (49%) of the adult population"
It appears that men are far more likely than women to commit crimes, including child molestation, substance abuse and domestic abuse, as well as having a higher propensity for promiscuity, all as evidenced by the above quotations and those throughout this essay. Men additionally have shorter lifespans than women and commit suicide approximately four times as much. Therefore, based upon the same types of statistics used against homosexuals, men are irredeemable scum and should immediately be subject to fewer legal rights, ostracised from civilized female society and attempt to pray away their biological gender.
Suppose a study had found that 25% of homosexuals had bacteria of faecal origin on their hands, even those indifferent towards homosexuality may consider this linked to anal sex. Heterosexists would likely hold this up as an example of homosexual "filthiness", indicative of immorality. The 25% statistic is not a real statistic, it is totally fabricated. A real statistic exists however, on members of the general public commuting to work via bus and train.
Judah et al. 2009, Epidemiology and Infection, 138(3), 409-414 : "Of the 404 people sampled 28% were found to have bacteria of faecal origin on their hands."
Does the above statistic instantly cause us to link bus and train users with anal sex?
RELIGION:
Heterosexists will often fall back on to religion once all their secular arguments are shown to be flawed, though not all heterosexists are religious and not all religions are heterosexist. Without a rational basis, it appears that a religious condemnation would be... irrational.
The primary message of the religion section of this essay is that whether or not the Bible condemns homosexuality is debatable. The difficulty in finding a rational condemnation of homosexuality could perhaps be best interpreted by theists as a sign that judgement should be left to their god. As a victimless "crime" or "sin", homosexuality really should not concern anybody who is not homosexual.
Pew Research Centre, 4/06/2013, Greater Acceptance in More Secular and Affluent Countries: "There is far less acceptance of homosexuality in countries where religion is central to people’s lives".
