In their book The Lessons of History, historians Will and Ariel Durant caution that, “No man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group.” (Durant 43) The rebellion and sexual revolution against the alleged “archaic” and “outdated” traditions and customs of the ancients plays a significant role in the modern acceptance of licentious behavior between men and women, and most especially in upholding homosexuality as well. To lightly dismiss such lessons from history in favor of this “enlightened” worldview is short-sighted, foolish and self-defeating. Homosexuality is a mental and cultural aberration that must be seen as the disease it is instead of being condoned, if not praised. Literary critic, novelist, Christian apologist and philosopher C. S. Lewis, on the subject of adherence to tradition, writes in The Abolition of Man that, “In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by the Tao - a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they had claimed no liberty to depart. They did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed down what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly.” (Lewis 451) The ancient world, with few exceptions, universally condemned homosexual practices. Although it was most severely censured with the advent of Christianity, it was thoroughly denounced by the ancient Hebrews (i.e. Genesis 19:1-12; Leviticus 18:22, 20:13) as well as in the long-lived pagan societies such as the ancient Greeks and amongst Roman, Frankish and Teutonic tribal cultures (Flaceliére 62-4). Christianity by no means instigated a hostility towards homosexuality; it rather continued faithfully in the way that the ancient cultures - pagan and Hebrew - had already begun. The New Testament likewise contains various strong words against homosexuality (i.e. Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:9-10; Jude 6-7). Even today, traditional Christianity - Roman Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox - continues to treat such behavior as a mental and moral aberration to what God had truly intended - sexual intercourse prohibited outside of the marriage bed between a man and a woman. Homosexual behavior, condemned throughout the centuries, also carries with it a body of disease accompanied with physical and social disorder. Dr. Edward R. Annis, a distinguished medical doctor and past president of the American Medical Association writes in his book Code Blue: Heath Care in Crisis that, “The anus and rectum are not sexual organs; they are the drainpipe of the body’s sewer. Anyone foolish enough to play in a sewer can expect unhealthy consequences.” (Hoar 31) Aside from the fact that the AIDS epidemic first appeared amongst homosexual groups (commonly known as the “gay plague”), sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea are three times more likely and hepatitis is eight times more likely to be found amongst homosexuals (Kidwell 7). Intestinal infections such as Shigella, Amoeba dysenteriae, and Giardia and commonplace. Rectal infections and trauma caused by certain sexual habits peculiar to “gays” are so prevalent that doctors refer to such conditions as “gay bowel syndrome” (Kidwell 8). However, homosexuals are not only susceptible to physical disease; there are larger implications that come to play within their social lives as well. For instance, 1.4 percent of homosexuals die as murder victims, a rate of 21 times higher than black males and 116 times higher than white males. Similarly, homosexuals commit suicide at a rate of 30 times higher than black males and 24 times higher than white males. They die violent deaths at a rate of 17 times higher than that of black males aged 24 to 44, and 28 times the rate of white males in the same age group. In the city of San Francisco, 31 percent of the homosexual population is addicted to drugs or overuses them (Cameron 55-6) Altogether, whereas 73 percent of the white male population lives to age 65, only 9 percent of male homosexuals live to that age. Although the average life span is approximately 75, for a homosexual with aids it is 39, and for one without AIDS it is 42 years (Cameron 51-9). Homosexuals also have a lack of fidelity toward their partners. A study conducted by the Center for Disease Control reported that among homosexuals the median number of sexual partners during a lifetime was 1,100 (Kidwell 9). One survey discussed by Dr. Cameron demonstrates that couples remained together, on average, for 3.5 years in the case of male homosexuals, and 2.2 years in the case of lesbians (Cameron [2] 1). Modern society would lead us to believe that what goes on behind closed doors should not be a cause for judgment. However, homosexuality clearly possess enormous social implications and justifications for its suppression and general condemnation within society. Against all tradition and medical justification, homosexuality now is entering the mainstream, slowly being accepted as a social norm. In 1991, the results of a research project were published in Science magazine which claimed to offer indications that homosexual tendencies are hereditary. The researcher, Simon LeVay, noted unusual properties in a certain region of the brain among the bodies of dead homosexuals and offered this as “proof” as compared to the brains of rats. However, Dr. Paul Cameron shows this study as completely flawed. Since all of the corpses had been of men who had died with AIDS, there is now way to know whether the part of the brain was a genetic indication of homosexuality or a result of the ravages of AIDS. LeVay also mistakenly identified the respective regions of the rat and human brains, so that the two did not correlate (Cameron 70). A sizable body of empirical evidence strongly supports the view that homosexuality is not innate. A 1970 study reported that 84 percent of male homosexuals changed their sexual orientation at least once, 60 percent twice, 32 percent thrice, and 13 percent five times or more. Among lesbians, 97 percent changed once, 81 twice, 52 thrice and 29 percent at least five times. Furthermore, 74 percent of homosexual males admitted to being sexually attracted to females, and 80 percent of lesbians confessed an attraction to males (Cameron 71-2). As Dr. Cameron puts it, “Immutable traits like eye and skin color don’t change cone, much less two, three, four or five times!” (Cameron 72) In another front, in December 1973, the American Psychiatric Association, under intense pressure from homosexual radicals, reclassified homosexual behavior in order to no longer regard it as a disorder (Lyons 1). Commenting on the APA decision, Dr. Melvin Anchell noted that it was “in total contradiction to psychoanalytic precepts that have been repeatedly substantiated by clinicians for the past 100 years . . . It is a psychological fact - ‘when the normal life-sustaining sexual instincts are perverted, the death instincts take over’.” (Anchell 15) And from what can be seen, homosexuality has brought nothing to society except death. Homosexuality is a poor substitute for the love and bond between a man and a woman - the core of a family. It is ironic that within the past few years politics has stressed the importance of family values. America is supported on the firm foundation of strong families holding together with selfless love and determination. As in the creation passage of the Bible, a man and a woman, through the aspect of sexual relations in marriage, are united by an internal unity that involves the total merging of two independent personalities so that they become a single unit. This is the true expression of selfless love which is most frequently cultivated within the traditional family unit (Sorokin 247-8). Society, through espousing such radical and anti-traditional innovations such as homosexuality, promotes its own self-destruction - the end of all values, morals, traditions and heritages that have once been held so dear. It is being replaced with a minimalistic liberal agenda built upon the false axiom that ambiguously states that anything goes “as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” This creates a groundless and sterile society that foolishly has sold all of its wealth and richness for a wasteland. Conservative sociologist Robert A. Nisbet once compared people living in such societies to stray dogs running lose across the landscape (Nisbet 108). If there is any hope for society and restoration, aberrations like homosexuality must be denounced, liberal innovations must be halted and the consistent traditions and teachings of the ancients, like rich garments, must be faithfully worn once again. Works Cited Anchell, Melvin, M.D. “A Doctor Looks at Homosexuality” The New American March 17, 1986 Cameron, Dr. Paul The Gay Nineties: What the Empirical Evidence Reveals About Homosexuality Franklin, Tennessee Adroit Press, 1993 Cameron, Dr. Paul Same Sex Marriage: Til Death do Us Part? Colorado Springs, Colorado Family Research Institute, 1998 Durant, Will and Ariel The Lessons of History Simon & Schuster Publishers, June 1968 Flaceliére, Robert Love in Ancient Greece New York, New York Crown Publisher, Inc., 1960 Hoar, William P. “Overdose of Government” The New American October 18, 1993 Kidwell, Kirk “When Perversion Prospers” The New American January 19, 1987 Lewis, C.S. “The Abolition of Man” The Essential C. S. Lewis Ed. Lyle W. Dorsett. New York, New York. Collier Books. MacMillan Publishing Company, 1988 Lyons, Richard D. “Psychiatrists, in a Shift, Declare Homosexuality No Mental Illness” The New York Times December 16, 1973 Nisbet, Robert A. The Sociological Tradition New York, New York Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1966 Sorokin, Pitirim Society, Culture, and Personality: Their Structure and Dynamics New York, New York Harper & Brothers, 1947
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