Category Archives: Homosexuality

Loree Rudd: Support for homosexual marriage caused a Labor Party member to quit the Party

Loree Rudd (brisbanetimes.com)

By Spencer D Gear

Loree Rudd has a famous brother, Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime Minister. But something has been troubling Loree, according to the mass media. The Labor Party’s 46th National Conference in Sydney, 2-4 December 2011[1], voted to support homosexual marriage and give MPs a conscience vote[2].

Loree Rudd objected so strongly to the support for homosexual marriage that she resigned from the Labor Party, Nambour, Qld., branch. This is reported in, ‘Kevin Rudd’s sister quits Labor over gay marriage policy’ (The Age, 13 December 2011).[3] According to The Age, these are the reasons given:

  • She cannot back a party that supports “homosexuals marrying”.
  • “It’s not something I believe in and it’s also the way it happened that I dislike”;
  • “I don’t believe gay marriage is good for the community”.
  • “Homosexuals should be loved and treated right and they should not be discriminated against”.
  • “But to make that huge leap from their rights to breaking a commandment of Moses”.
Bible bashing antagonists

It was this last comment in The Age that used support from “a commandment of Moses” that caused a battering in the online letters of response about Loree Rudd’s decision and association with Moses. This is a small sample of what was said about the “commandment of Moses” issue:

1. “Moses? Please? Being Christian and screaming Moses does not give you special rights to deny citizens of this country marriage equality”.

2.”She can’t say ‘I love and cherish gay people’ and then say ‘I uphold the laws of Moses’. Last time I checked, gay people and other ‘undesirables’ were ordered to be stoned to death under the ‘Law of Moses’. Unless I am mistaken, Ms Rudd is a Christian and ought at least to be aware that Jesus decreed the ‘Law of Moses’ to be secondary to his golden ‘love thy neighbour’ rule. Again, she is entitled to her convictions but her theology seems a little muddled to me”.

3. “The laws of Moses allowed for slavery and subjugation of Women as well. Ms Rudd support this as well?”

4. Marriage is a Christian/Religious institution and “hijacking” the sanctity of marriage for the purposes of justifying unnatural unions is ultimately an exercise in futility. Rant all you want about your rights etc etc but it doesn’t change the basic fact that gay relationships are abhorred by God”.

5. “Hey, it’s against her religious beliefs, you morons are pretty bigoted yourselves, you’re all ragging on the old girl for holding to her beliefs. I applaud her”.

6. “Ms Rudd, I respect your right to express your clueless, bigoted, moronic opinions….You lady are an imbecile”.

7. The only huge leap is to believe that Moses actually existed. I’m sorry Ms Rudd, that is utter nonsense. I’m sure you believe that you are a decent person but here is an example of where your religious beliefs have blinded you. Please, live & let live”.

What some other media reported

The Sunshine Coast Daily reported the following points on 13 December 2011 in the article, “Rudd’s sister quits Labor”:[4]

  • “I’m not representing any particular church or religious group. It is me giving my thoughts and taking a stand which is important for my integrity”.
  • “This is a huge issue in our society. Any government honest with its people would take this matter to a referendum after a couple of years of open debate”.
  • ‘She was also concerned with the way “Jesus is misrepresented”.
  • “The whole concept of equality comes from the Bible, from the sacred scriptures. All people are equal before God, but not all relationships,” she said.
  • ‘Miss Rudd said she had also sent Member for Nicklin Peter Wellington a letter expressing her views on same-sex civil unions, but she was “sad he felt harassed or intimidated by Christians”‘.

What were some of the online responses to this Sunshine Coast Daily article?

1.”Flabbergasted at the contradictions in her comments: All people are equal before God, but not all relationships – what?
Gay marriage won’t affect my life at all, but it would be a tragic loss for our society. – wouldn’t that affect your life pretty profoundly then?
If the benefit was that homosexual couples knew more joy, it would be worth the trade-off. But I don’t think they will experience more joy”.

2. “Loree Rudd has to be congratulated for her stand on this issue. Her previously favoured political party (Labor) has certainly lost it’s way since Gillard became leader and seems to be controlled by the Greens Bob Brown”.

3. “Marriage is what it is and cannot be changed. Marriage is between a man and a woman excluding all others for life. They are the rules of the game. They have been the rules for thousands of years. If you don’t like the rules go and play another game but don’t call it Marriage. Loree Rudd is a courageous woman of character and conviction who should be applauded by every fair minded Australian for pointing out the obvious”.

4. “I am male and my wife is female and we are “MARRIED”. If a male and a male or a female and a female want to unite in their relationship then that is their choice but they need to choose a name that that will not offend the male/female tradition of being married. My suggestion is “GAYRIED” as is easily accepted on Google”.

5. “Is she serious? Gay marriage was the deal breaker? Yet she’s happily been in a political party that, for years, has encouraged and financially supported the rapid decline and breakdown of decent family homes for children? A party that finances males and females to indiscriminately procreate, and a lot of times not care decently for the those children? A political party that rewards slothfulness, bad values and welfare dependant households? And she’s worried a few gay marriages is the breakdown of the family unit and family values. The mind boggles at the sheer ignorance”.

How do I respond to this berating of a person & her Christian views?

Congratulations Loree Rudd on your resignation from the Labor Party over its support of homosexual marriage.  You appealed to a “commandment of Moses” to support heterosexual marriage. Jesus Christ gave the same reason.

When Jesus was asked about divorce, he appealed to the same “commandment of Moses” to state that marriage was between a man and a woman. According to Mark 10:7-9 (NRSV), Jesus Christ stated, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Genesis 2:24 NRSV).

We already have an historical example of what happened to cities that supported homosexuality. They were Sodom & Gomorrah. Genesis 13:13 states that “the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord” (ESV). What was the sin of Sodom & Gomorrah? Genesis 19:4-13 states:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9 But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. 10 But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 11 And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.

12 Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. 13 For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it” (ESV).

Yes, there was some homosexuality in this city, but the unrighteousness was broader than homosexuality, as we find in Gen. 18:20, 2 Peter 2:6, and Jude 7.

Genesis 18:20 states: ‘Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave”‘ (ESV).

2 Peter 2:6 explains further: ‘If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly’ (ESV).

Jude 7: ‘Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire’ (ESV).

It has been stated that “there are 27 references outside of Genesis where Sodom is mentioned. It is emblematic of gross immorality, deepest depravity, and ultimate judgment”.[5]

No person or nation will get away with indulging in sexual immorality of any kind and to giving free rein to gratifying unrestrained pleasure. Whether that sexual immorality be heterosexual or homosexual, it brings judgment on individuals and nations according to Scripture. However, most secular people don’t give a hoot about what God says. Nevertheless, for them, this is God’s assessment: “Just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27, NLT).

One minute after they die, they’ll know the reality of what God has stated. What have been the words of dying people?

  • Sir Julian Huxley, the famous agnostic: ‘It is reported by his nurses that on his deathbed, as he looked up to heaven with a blank stare, he said, “So it is true”’.
  • Sir Francis Newport, head of the English Infidel Club, said to those gathered around his death bed, “Do not tell me there is no God for I know there is one, and that I am in his angry presence! You need not tell me there is no hell, for I already feel my soul slipping into its fires! Wretches, cease your idle talk about there being hope for me! I know that I am lost forever”.
  • Dwight L. Moody, Christian preacher, awakening from sleep shortly before he died said: “Earth recedes. Heaven opens before me. If this death, it is sweet! There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go.” “No, no, Father,” said Moody’s son, “You are dreaming.”
    “I am not dreaming,” replied Moody. “I have been within the gates. I have seen the children’s faces.”
    His last words were, “This is my triumph; this is my coronation day! It is glorious!”
  • David Hume, the atheist, cried: “I am in flames!” His desperation was a horrible scene.
  • Josef Stalin, communist tyrant and one of the most murderous dictators in history: ‘In a Newsweek interview with Svetlana Stalin, the daughter of Josef Stalin, she told of her father’s death: “My father died a difficult and terrible death. . God grants an easy death only to the just…. At what seemed the very last moment he suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane or perhaps angry…. His left hand was raised, as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. The gesture was full of menace…. The next moment he was dead”‘.
  • Voltaire, the famous skeptic, died a terrible death. His nurse said: “For all the money in Europe I wouldn’t want to see another unbeliever die! All night long he cried for forgiveness.”
  • Sir Thomas Scott, once president of the English Lower House said: “Up until this time, I thought that there was no God neither Hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am delivered to perdition by the righteous judgment of the Almighty.”
  • A Chinese Communist who delivered many Christians to their execution, came to a pastor and said: “I’ve seen many of you die. The Christians die differently. What is their secret?”

I am grateful to Loree Rudd for taking a stand for heterosexual marriage as being the norm since the beginning of time. She is right on track, but not with the politically correct crowd.

Notes:


[1] See: http://www.alp.org.au/australian-labor/national-conference-2011/(Accessed 14 December 2011).

[2] The Brisbane Times, 4 December 2011, ‘All’s fair in love, but now for the war in the House’, available at: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/alls-fair-in-love-but-now-for-the-war-in-the-house-20111203-1ocio.html (Accessed 14 December 2011).

[3] Available at: http://www.theage.com.au/queensland/kevin-rudds-sister-quits-labor-over-gay-marriage-policy-20111213-1os44.html (Accessed 14 December 2011).

[4] Available at: http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2011/12/13/rudds-sister-quits-labor/ (Accessed 14 December 2011).

[5] Gregory Koukl, Stand to Reason, ‘What was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?’, available at: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5702 (Accessed 14 December 2011).

[6] Available at: http://www.theage.com.au/queensland/kevin-rudds-sister-quits-labor-over-gay-marriage-policy-20111213-1os44.html (Accessed 14 December 2011).

 

Copyright (c) 2012 Spencer D. Gear.  This document last updated at Date: 9 October 2015.

Tolerance, homosexuality and not inheriting the Kingdom of God

God love you

(image courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

It is standard fare to hear of theological liberals who accept and even promote the homosexual lifestyle. But getting acceptance from a supposed Bible-believing pastor is quite another thing. Former homosexual, Joe Dallas, wrote in 1995 in “Answering Pro-Gay Theology”, “The debate over homosexuality and the Bible – specifically, whether or not the Bible condemns homosexual acts in all cases – will do no less than rip the body of Christ apart in the next decade. It will force believers to declare, in black and white terms, where they stand on issues of sexuality and Biblical interpretation” (p. 172).[1] Joe hit the mark – big time!

A theologically liberal Anglican clergyman

 

We saw this in Brisbane with a liberal Anglican clergyman, Peter Catt, supporting the Queensland Bill for the legalising of homosexual civil unions. See the article, “Anglican Church’s Peter Catt backs gay civil unions at Queensland parliamentary hearing” (Courier-Mail, 11 November 2011). What were some of his arguments?

  • The same-sex unions’ Bill does not denigrate the legitimacy of marriage;
  • It extended “liberties” to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples;
  • “I really don’t see that this impinges on marriage at all”;
  • This will mean that children in same-sex unions are in a relationship with good values;
  • Bad marriages did more to undermine the institution of marriage.
  • He said, “To some extent … [I’m] putting my neck on a chopping block”;

Rev. Dr. Peter Catt is the Anglican Dean of Brisbane. This link provides a reflection on what liberal Anglicanism means: “We strive for open-minded conversation, seek to practice inclusion, and reflect on how we might see our beliefs put into action”. Open-minded, inclusive practice means that homosexuals are included in the name of inclusion, tolerance and open-mindedness. Do you notice what he missed out in what was reported?

The Courier-Mail did not provide one statement from Rev. Dr. Catt on what the Bible says about homosexuality. There was not a word about the content of anything in I Corinthians 6:9-11,

9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (ESV).

Liberal, inclusive, open-mindedness means that the full story of God’s view of homosexuality (and all other sin) as portrayed in the Bible is censored. Also, theological liberalism has a low view of the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of God, so it’s not surprising that that this liberal view downplays the importance of a biblical view of sexuality, including homosexuality. Now, I expect that from a liberal Anglican, but I did not expect something similar from a charismatic preacher.

What about the ‘tolerance’ view from a leading charismatic minister?

Rob Buckingham is the senior pastor at the large charismatic Bayside Church, Cheltenham, Victoria.  The Sunday Herald Sun, 17 November 2011, reported on his approach to homosexuals in, “Preaching tolerance bayside. You can hear this message by Rob Buckingham at Youtube online, ‘Real Christianity is accepting‘. It was preached in 2009. What is your view on this approach?

What some other churches are concluding

a. Australia: There is an assumption among some that the Bible and religious tradition do not teach that homosexual relationships are contrary to God’s plan. A brochure, representative of the Uniting Church in Australia, stated that ‘Homosexuality is a good part of God’s diverse creation’.[2] Adelaide’s new Anglican Bishop, Dr Tim Harris, supports homosexual clergy but they must follow church guidelines and not engage in homosexual sex.[3]

b. The USA: The United Church of Christ’s General Synod (USA), in 2005, affirmed a resolution that there should be “equal marriage rights for all people regardless of gender”, but that denomination does not require pastors to perform homosexual marriage.[4] The United Church of Canada urged its federal government in Ottawa to recognise same-sex relationships.[5] The Presbyterian Church USA in 2011 ratified support for homosexual clergy, stating that

“persons in a same-gender relationship can be considered for ordination,” General Assembly Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons told the Presbyterian News Service. “The gist of our ordination standards is that officers submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and ordaining bodies (presbyteries for ministers and sessions for elders and deacons) have the responsibility to examine each candidate individually to ensure that all candidates do so with no blanket judgments”.

c. Canada: The United Church of Canada has developed a resource that “offers four workshops to help a congregation or a group within the congregation to explore civil recognition of same-sex relationships from a faith and justice perspective. It also offers a process for congregational decision making on same-sex marriage”.

d. Europe: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany has affirmed that

Gay and lesbian Lutheran ministers in the conservative German state of Bavaria may live with their partners in parish parsonages, but only if they enter into a state-sanctioned civil union. Although the move may seem bold for what is generally considered one of Germany’s most traditional states, Bishop Johannes Friedrich of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria said it was no great departure from existing policies. He noted that the church had already welcomed openly gay ministers and same-sex unions. “We had only left out that a couple could live in a civil union in the parsonage,” he said. To abide by the ruling, gay or lesbian ministers must receive a church blessing for their union and enter into a civil union officially recognized by government officials.[6]

tolerance by bedpanner - John 14:2 In my fathers house are many rooms.

(image courtesy openclipart)

Of the Church of Scotland, the Herald Scotland reported:

THE Church of Scotland is being starved of donations due to the growing schism in the Kirk over moves to allow gay ministers. The Church has been riven with internal divisions since its decision to set up a special commission on same-sex relationship in the ministry in 2009. An internal report by Glasgow Presbytery described how in one church – St George’s Tron in Glasgow – the “general disquiet and sadness about the Church of Scotland’s decision to set up a special commission on this matter had been a contributory factor in several members directing their sacrificial giving and tithing towards the congregation’s evangelical ministry and outreach, rather than the central funds of the Church of Scotland…. “Someone,” he says, “said to me recently, ‘I’m in the wrong church.’ I know a lot of people are feeling like that”.[7]

e. Africa:

The largest Protestant church in Africa grabbed the world’s attention when it publically denounced homosexuality and said people who support gay rights were not welcome in the church—and neither was their money. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) posted a notice on its Web site entitled: Church rejects homosexuality. “Those in same sex marriages, and those who support the legitimacy of such marriage, shall not be invited to work in the ELCT,” a press release states. “We further reject their influence in any form, as well as their money and their support.” In addition the fastest-growing church in Africa with 5.3 million members said it “supports all those around the world who oppose churches that have taken the decision to legalize same-sex marriage.” This loud warning was seen as a prelude to split from its main financial partner, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which now supports gay rights.[8] In Uganda in 2010, African Anglican bishops forcefully opposed homosexuality in the church: The question of homosexuality reared its head for the umpteenth time this week at the all African Anglican Church conference that is taking place in Entebbe. Despite pressure from the western world, African bishops have renewed their condemnation of the practice of homosexuality in the church. The widely criticised practice in Africa has been viewed as a threat to the unity of the church. Homosexuality and ordination of women prelates are two of the underpinning practices that have put the Anglican Church at cross-roads over how its pastoral commitments should be exercised. Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of the province of Nigeria says the church has always had differences of opinion over certain issues. Breeding disunity “Homosexuality is not a new phenomenon in the society but the only trouble is that the issues dividing us (church) now are very difficult to handle. They are threatening the unity of the church because they disobey the authority of the scriptures,” says Bishop Okoh. He says homosexuality is a result of some people engaged in making their culture to be superior to the biblical teachings. “It is two sided; while some people want to be obedient to their culture to determine the content of the church, others say no and it must be the guidance of the bible,” he added. The primates describe homosexuality as an imposed interpretation and alien culture that has hindered the growth of an authentic church which could respond to its people. “We are saying homosexuality is not compatible with the word of God. We are saying that this culture of other people is against the traditional belief of marriage held by the Anglican Communion,” says the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi. Bishop Orombi says that the Anglican Church will never accept homosexuality because the scriptures too do not allow people of same sex to join in marriage.[9]

f. South America: Time magazine reported in 2010 that

the legislators of the South American nation passed a law on Thursday, July 15 [2010], that made Argentina the 10th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. By a vote of 33 to 27, they gave homosexual couples the same inheritance and adoption rights as heterosexual ones. Against the intense and sustained opposition of the church, President Cristina Fernández staked her political reputation on passing the law, deepening her often bitter feud with the country’s Catholic hierarchy. “I am very satisfied. It has been a positive vote,” said the President in Shanghai, where she is on an official tour of China. “This is a positive step that defends the right of a minority.” Her Cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández was slightly more effusive, posting on Twitter, “Same-sex marriage is law in Argentina. Don’t worry, be happy”.[10]

g. However, these views contradict the biblical Scriptures which state that God’s plan for love and sexuality does not include homosexual relationships, either in the Old Testament or the New Testament. See Genesis 19:1-29; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:24-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:8-11. The Bible is clear that from the beginning of time, expressions of sexual intimacy were designed for a man and a woman in marriage and there were severe consequences for the practice of homosexuality. h. Heterosexual sin and homosexual sin are so serious that people who continue to practise these sins ‘will not inherit the kingdom of God’ (1 Corinthians 6:9). i. Jesus Christ defined marriage: ‘“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate’ (Matthew 19:4-6). j. A nation that dares to promote the violation of God Almighty’s laws, is calling for judgment (see Romans 1:18-32; Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 3:5-6). k. ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’ (Psalm 33:12). The New Testament teaches that homosexuals need to be changed by the living Christ and “such were some of you”. Yes, God changes homosexuals.  Read the story of a lesbian whom God radically changed: “One woman’s journey out of lesbianism: An interview with Jeanette Howard”.

 

Notes:

[1] This is from a chapter in the book, Michael Mazzalongo (ed) 1995. Gay Rights or Wrongs: A Christian’s Guide to Homosexual Issues and Ministry. Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company.

[2] Uniting Network, NSW/ACT, ‘Gay and Lesbian Couples: Prayers and blessings’, available at: http://www.unitingnetworkaustralia.org.au/resources/UN%20NSW%20Gay%20and%20Lesbian%20Couples.pdf (Accessed 12 March 2012).

[3] David Jean, The Advertiser, ‘New Anglican bishop welcomes homosexual ministry’, November 19, 2011, available at: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/gay-clergy-practice-what-we-preach/story-e6frea83-1226199415441 (Accessed 12 March 2012).

[4] See the BBC News report, 5 July 2005, US Church backs same-sex marriage, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4651803.stm (Accessed 12 March 2012).

[5] See the United Church of Canada, available at: http://www.bible.ca/cr-united-Can.htm (Accessed 12 March 2012).

[6] Neils Sorrells 2011. German church allows gay pastors to live with partners. The Huffington Post, 25 May. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/german-church-allows-gay-_n_784518.html (Accessed 15 March 2012).

[7] Herald Scotland 2011. The gay divide, 28 May. Available at: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/the-gay-divide.13864698 (Accessed 15 March 2012).

[8] Wayne M. Anderson n.d. African church waivers on homosexuality. Gnesio [Lutheran], available at: http://gnesiolutheran.com/african-church-waivers-on-homosexuality/ (Accessed 15 March 2012).

[9] Ephraim Kasozi 2012. Uganda: African bishops unite to denounce homosexuality. The Monitor (All Africa). 29 August. Available at: http://allafrica.com/stories/201008290002.html (Accessed 15 March 2012).

[10] Uki Goñi / Buenos Aires 2010. Defying church, Argentina legalizes same-sex marriage. Time, July 15. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2004036,00.html (Accessed 15 March 2012).

 

Copyright © 2012 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 23 October 2018.

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Homosexual unions, homosexual marriage, mass media & politicians

Marriage cover photo

Courtesy Salt Shakers (Christian ministry)

By Spencer D Gear

When homosexuality is in the media spotlight, we get plenty of politically correct speak. Politicians have jumped on this bandwagon for what seems like political expediency. This is what is happening in my home state of Queensland (Qld), Australia. There is ample mass media coverage and the State of Qld is promoting a private members’ bill in support of legalising civil homosexual unions.

It is appropriate for me to make an assessment of these issues. Let’s start with an example from the mass media.

My local freebie newspaper[1] had 3 letters in favour of homosexual marriage in its ‘Speak up’ (letters to the editor) section, under the heading, “Pollies are under fire over gay rights”. This was an opportunity for the newspaper to print 3 pro-homosexual marriage letters. There was not any letter opposing homosexual marriage.[2]

Let’s summarise what these letters promoted:

1. One said that it was amazing that government agencies, Centrelink and the tax department, allow same-sex relationships but ‘the government will not allow it’. This person found this to be a contradiction and considered that it was discrimination against homosexuals. Pollies need to ask: “Would they be in government without the votes of homosexual citizens?” This person did not think so.

2. The line taken by the second person, a father, was that he supported gay marriage because his son is gay and has found his ‘soul mate’. This son and his partner are organizing a wedding in Sydney for next year. Both families support this union ‘wholeheartedly’ and believe they should have the same right to marriage as anyone. Homosexuals can’t change and it’s a hard road when they experience so much discrimination. This son and his male partner will marry whether it is legal or not and celebration will be with family and friends. This Dad is ‘proud’ of his homosexual son and the son will live with his partner ‘as a gay married couple’.

3. We need to ‘move with the times’ and legalise same-sex marriage, said the third advocate of gay marriage. Because marriage has always been a heterosexual union, doesn’t mean it should continue to be that way. There were no votes for women, no IVF, etc, but “we live in the 21st century” and we should allow same-sex marriages, with the legal protections of a heterosexual couple.

How should we respond to the promotion of gay marriage?

1. Not one of these writers or I would be here if same-sexual relations were the norm. It takes an ovum and a sperm (woman and man) to create a human being. Same-sex marriage will not do it. A contribution from the opposite sex, whether through sexual intercourse or IVF, is necessary for a child to be born.

A zygote is the initial cell formed when an ovum is fertilized by s sperm. An ovum from a female and a sperm cell from a male are needed to create a new human being. A zygote contains DNA that originates from the joining of the male and female. It provides the genetic information to form a new human being. Two males can’t achieve a zygote; neither can two females. It requires a joining of a male and a female in sexual union or through IVF. Shouldn’t this need for the genetic material from a male AND a female send an important message? Gay marriage will not do it!

2. Besides, from a biological point of view, the vagina was designed for sexual penetration. The anus and rectum were not. A 1982 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the anal cancer rate for homosexuals was up to 50 times higher than the normal rate.[3] The New England Journal of Medicine (1997) showed the “strong association between anal cancer and male homosexual contact”.[4]

Why? The lining of the anus is very much thinner than the much thicker lining of the vagina. The anus tears readily and thus makes that region of the anatomy more vulnerable to viruses and bacteria.

The human body was not designed for anal penetration. But the politically correct speak would not want us to know that.

No matter how much some want to make same-sex marriage appealing, from the beginning of time marriage has involved the union of a man and a woman. If that link is broken, we don’t have marriage. It’s as simple as that. No claims like “I have a gay son”, “we must move with the times”, or “we live in the 21st century”, will change the fact that marriage is a heterosexual union.

What about these issues?

(1)   Mother and father are important for a child’s up-bringing. This Millennium Cohort Study: Centre for Longitudinal Studies in the UK found that

“children in stable, married families were said to have fewer externalising problems at age 5 than virtually all of those with different family histories. The most marked differences were seen for children born into cohabiting families where parents had separated, and to solo mothers who had not married the natural father. These children were three times more likely than those in stable, married families to exhibit behavioural problems, judging by mothers’ reports”.

See Bill Muehlenberg’s summary of this study of the need for both a heterosexual mother and father in, ‘Why children need a mother and father‘.

(2)   God’s design from the beginning of time was for marriage of a man and a woman. See Genesis 2:24-25, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (ESV).

Jesus Christ affirmed this passage according to Matthew 19:4-6, “He answered,

‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’ (ESV).

(3)   Paul, the apostle, was able to speak of ‘men who practice homosexuality’ as being among those who were among ‘such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’ (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). In this list, homosexuals were placed among the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers who were the ‘unrighteous’ who would not inherit God’s kingdom. But Jesus changes all of these people – even homosexuals. If you don’t believe me, read my interview with a redeemed lesbian, Jeanette Howard, “One woman’s journey out of lesbianism: An interview with Jeanette Howard“. I recommend her book, Out of Egypt: Leaving lesbianism behind.

Here are some more reasons to oppose homosexual marriage.

The homosexual sexual act is a revolt against nature. For procreation to allow for the continuation of the human race, a heterosexual liaison is needed. If homosexual sex were normal and practised extensively, the human race would be greatly diminished.

My interaction with Queensland politicians

At the time of posting this article to my homepage, my home state of Queensland, Australia, is considering a private members’ Bill, the Civil Partnerships Bill 2011, to legalise homosexual civil unions. While civil unions are not the same as marriage, I consider that it is a step towards the legalisation of homosexual marriage in Qld. & Australia.

I sent the following content to a number of Queensland politicians:

I urge you and your party not to support the private members’ Bill to be introduced into the Qld parliament by Andrew Fraser that promotes a lifestyle that has these very dangerous consequences?

  • Up to 50% higher cancer rate of the anus;
  • 47% increase in HIV diagnoses;
  • More behavioural problems among children up to 5 years old.
  • Multiple other health problems.

If you support Andrew Fraser’s gay civil unions’ Bill in Qld, that’s what you will be doing – based on the research evidence. Let’s look as some of the evidence:

1. The USA Center for Disease Control & Prevention’s (CDC) Weekly Morbidity & Mortality Report was reported in CBS News, 26 June 2008, and it does not give favourable medical information to support Andrew Fraser’s promotion of the homosexual lifestyle that will come with the affirming of homosexual civil unions in Qld.

As far as health issues are concerned, this is some of the evidence. Part of the following report shows that men who have sex with men account for 46% of the increase in HIV diagnoses. Is this what you want to to promote in Qld? Isn’t our health budget at breaking point now? Here is part of a CBS News report in the USA:

HIV diagnoses in the U.S. are on the rise among men who have sex with men, especially among males aged 13-24.

That news comes from the CDC, which tracked HIV/AIDS diagnoses reported by 33 states from 2001 to 2006.
During that time, those states had 214,379 HIV/AIDS diagnoses. Men who have sex with men account for almost half – 46 percent – of those diagnoses.[5]

2. A study in the Netherlands (2002) found that “HIV incidence is increasing among homosexual attendees of an STD clinic. It is imperative to trace recently infected individuals, because they are highly infectious, and can thus play a key role in the spread of HIV” (Dukers et al 2002:F19). In an examination of “trends in HIV notifications and in other measures of HIV incidence in homosexual men in developed countries”, it was found that “there were increases in HIV notifications in homosexual men in almost all developed countries, starting in the late 1990s and continuing to 2006? (Grulich & Kaldor 2008:113).[6]

There is further evidence to demonstrate the danger of Andrew Fraser’s legislation: The big increase in HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men.

3. Medical researchers have known for many years that the homosexual lifestyle is accompanied by significant health risks. One example, from a biological point of view, is that the woman’s vagina was designed for sexual penetration. The anus and rectum were not. A 1982 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the anal cancer rate for homosexuals was considerably higher than for heterosexuals; in some cases it was up to 50 times higher than the rate for heterosexuals.[7] Many other more recent studies have confirmed this trend.[8] The New England Journal of Medicine (1997) showed the “strong association between anal cancer and male homosexual contact”.[9]

Why? The lining of the anus is very much thinner than the much thicker lining of the vagina. The anus tears readily and thus makes that region of the anatomy more vulnerable to viruses and bacteria when there is sexual penetration through homosexual and other sex. The human body was not designed for anal penetration. But the politically correct speak of Andrew Fraser, with his promotion of homosexual civil unions, seems to be not making these medical consequences available to the general public for the sake of political correctness.

4. What about the impact on young children who don’t have a mother and father?   Mother and father are important for a child’s up-bringing. This Millennium Cohort Study: Centre for Longitudinal Studies in the UK found that

“children in stable, married families were said to have fewer externalising problems at age 5 than virtually all of those with different family histories. The most marked differences were seen for children born into cohabiting families where parents had separated, and to solo mothers who had not married the natural father. These children were three times more likely than those in stable, married families to exhibit behavioural problems, judging by mothers’ reports”.[10]

5. For further information on the significant medical consequences of the gay lifestyle, see: “On the unhealthy homosexual lifestyle”.[11]

I urged these serious and sensible Queensland politicians to reject Andrew Fraser’s promotion of a lifestyle that is deleterious to the health of Queenslanders with his promotion of gay civil unions.

Responses by politicians

At the time of writing this article, there have been four responses from MPs. Two affirmed their support for the continuation of heterosexual marriage. There were comments such as: “marriage is to remain between a man and a woman”; “my conscience however tells me that marriage is between a man and a woman” but this politician understood that the current Bill is not about marriage; “I consider that civil unions proposed by Labor are designed to mimic marriage. I support marriage being between a man and a woman as the most stable foundation for the family in society, which requires strengthening, not weakening”.

Another politician responded by asking: “In your email you include a lot of relevant medical information, but the supporters of the bill are saying that by encouraging the relevant people to live more settled lives you will actually reduce the spread of some of the diseases you mention.   I would be pleased to know what you thought of that argument put by the proponent of the bill.”. This is how I responded to this last request:

You asked for my comment about the view of the supporters of the Civil Partnerships’ Bill that it encourages ‘the relevant people to live more settled lives’ and it ‘will actually reduce the spread of some of the diseases’ you mentioned.

What I didn’t tell these politicians in my letter was that I have just retired after 34 years as a practising youth, general and family counsellor and counselling manager, the last 17 years with counselling agencies here in Queensland. I have found through counselling homosexuals that the homosexual lifestyle is often very promiscuous in sexual contact – even with supposed committed relationships. My clinical experience tells me that I can’t see the passing of a homosexual Civil Partnerships’ Bill changing that lifestyle.

Why?

Research evidence confirms what I found in counselling: In a study of male homosexuality in the 1980s in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, M. Pollak found that few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners.” Pollak concluded, “Even in those homosexual relationships in which the partners consider themselves to be in a committed relationship, the meaning of ‘committed’ typically means something radically different than in heterosexual marriage”.

Research has shown that

for gay men, sex outside the primary relationship is ubiquitous even during the first year. Gay men reportedly have sex with someone other than their partner in 66 percent of relationships within the first year, rising to approximately 90 percent if the relationship endures over five years. And the average gay or lesbian relationship is short lived. In one study, only 15 percent of gay men and 17.3 percent of lesbians had relationships that lasted more than three years. Thus, the studies reflect very little long-term monogamy in GLB relationships.[12]

See this study from the Netherlands which already had homosexual marriage. What did it find?

This offers little hope for improving the longevity of homosexual relationships through legal sanctioning in the Civil Partnerships Bill in Queensland.

Research studies have shown that the average male homosexual has hundreds of sex partners in his lifetime.:

  • A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, in their classic study of male and female homosexuality, found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, with 28 percent having 1,000 or more sex partners.[14]
  • In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al., found that only 2.7 percent claimed to have had sex with one partner only. The most common response, given by 21.6 percent of the respondents, was of having a hundred and one to five hundred lifetime sex partners.[15]
  • A survey conducted by the homosexual magazine Genre found that 24 percent of the respondents said they had had more than a hundred sexual partners in their lifetime. The magazine noted that several respondents suggested including a category of those who had more than a thousand sexual partners.[16]
  • In his study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, M. Pollak found that “few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners.”[17]

Concerning the promiscuity among homosexual couples, even in those homosexual relationships in which the partners consider themselves to be in a committed relationship, the meaning of “committed” typically means something radically different from marriage.

  • In The Male Couple, authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison reported on a study of 156 males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years. What did it find?
    • Only seven couples had a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men all had been together for less than five years. Stated another way, all couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationships.[18]
  • In Male and Female Homosexuality, M. Saghir and E. Robins found that the average male homosexual live-in relationship lasts between two and three years.[19]

Those who are promoting homosexual civil unions to encourage homosexuals ‘to live more settled lives’ are not basing these statements on the research evidence. It is a promotion of political correctness and not a promotion of a lifestyle that leads to better health and stability for those concerned.

I urged politicians NOT to vote for legislation that endorses homosexual civil unions. Saying that homosexual civil unions are not the same as homosexual marriage, does not alter the facts of the above research. The homosexual lifestyle is very promiscuous and quite unstable.

Other links

Genetic cause of homosexuality?

Governments may promote gay marriage: Should we as evangelical Christians?

Polyamory: Poly leads to society’s destruction.

References

Dukers, Nicole H. T. M.a; Spaargaren, Jokeb; Geskus, Ronald B.a; Beijnen, Josd; Coutinho, Roel A.a,e; Fennema, Han S. A.c 2002. “HIV incidence on the increase among homosexual men attending an Amsterdam sexually transmitted disease clinic: using a novel approach for detecting recent infections”, AIDS: Official Journal of the International AIDS Society, 5 July, vol 16, issue 10, F19-F24, available at: http://journals.lww.com/aidsonline/Abstract/2002/07050/HIV_incidence_on_the_increase_among_homosexual_men.1.aspx(Accessed 7 November 2011).

Grulich, Andrew E and Kaldor, John M.2008. “Trends in HIV incidence in homosexual men in developed countries”, Sexual Health (CSIRO Publishing), 2008, 5, 113-118, available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.169.6206&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Accessed 7 November 2011).

Notes:


[1] Northern Times (Pine Rivers edition), September 2, 2011, p. E8.

[2] I sent a letter-to-the-editor to this newspaper, opposing homosexual marriage, but it was not printed. Some of what follows was in that letter.

[3] These details are in the article ‘The unhealthy homosexual lifestyle’, available at: http://home60515.com/4.html (Accessed 26 September 2011).

[4] Ibid.

[5] “Troubling trend in HIV/AIDS diagnoses”, CBS News, 28 June 2008. Available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/26/health/webmd/main4213629.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody (Accessed 7 November 2011).

[6] Grulich, Andrew E and Kaldor, John M. 2008. “Trends in HIV incidence in homosexual men in developed countries”, Sexual Health (CSIRO Publishing), 5, pp. 113-118, available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.169.6206&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Accessed 7 November 2011).

[7] Council on Scientific Affairs, “Health care needs of gay men and lesbians in the United States,” Journal of the American Medical Association, May 1, 1996, p. 1355.

[8] See: M. Frisch, “On the etiology of anal squamous carcinoma,” Dan Med Bull, Aug. 2002, 49(3), pp. 194-209; M. Frisch and others, “Cancer in a population-based cohort of men and women in registered homosexual partnerships,” Am J Epidemiol, June 1, 2003, 157(11), pp. 966-72; D. Knight, “Health care screening for men who have sex with men,” Am Fam Physician, May 1, 2004, 69(9), pp. 2149-56; S. Goldstone, “Anal dysplasia in men who have sex with men,” AIDS Read, May-June 1999, 9(3), pp. 204-8 and 220; Reinhard Hopfl and others, “High prevalence of high risk human papillomavirus-capsid antibodies in human immunodeficiency virus-seropositive men: a serological study,” BMC Infect Dis, April 30, 2003, 3(1), p. 6; R.J. Biggar and M. Melbye, “Marital status in relation to Kaposi’s sarcoma, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and anal cancer in the pre-AIDS era,” J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr Hum Retrovirol, Feb. 1, 1996, 11(2), pp. 178-82; P.V. Chin-Hong and others, “Age-related prevalence of anal cancer precursors in homosexual men: the EXPLORE study,” J Natl Cancer Inst, June 15, 2005, 97(12), pp. 896-905; R. Dunleavey, “The role of viruses and sexual transmission in anal cancer,” Nurs Times, March 1-7, 2005, 101(9), pp. 38-41; P.V. Chin-Hong and others, “Age-Specific prevalence of anal human papillomavirus infection in HIV-negative sexually active men who have sex with men: the EXPLORE study,” J Infect Dis, Dec. 15, 2004, 190(12), pp. 2070-6; J.R. Daling and others, “Human papillomavirus, smoking, and sexual practices in the etiology of anal cancer,” Cancer, July 15, 2004, 101(2), pp. 270-80; and A. Kreuter and others, “Screening and therapy of anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN) and anal carcinoma in patients with HIV-infection,” Dtsch Med Wochenschr, Sept. 19, 2003, 128(38), pp. 1957-62 (cited in, “On the unhealthy homosexual lifestyle”, available at: http://home60515.com/4.html [Accessed 7 November 2011]).

[9] Cited in, “On the unhealthy homosexual lifestyle”, ibid.

[10] Kiernan, Kathleen & Mensah, Fiona n.d. Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education, University of London. Available at: http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/downloads/01_briefing_web%284%29.pdf (Accessed 7 November 2011). This research was conducted in the early 21st century, with the first survey of families and 19,000 children conducted in 2001-2002 (p. 1 of this report).

[11] Available at: http://home60515.com/4.html (Accessed 7 November 2011).

[12] ‘Monogamy’, Facts about Youth, available at: http://factsaboutyouth.com/posts/monogamy/ (Accessed 9 November 2011).

[13] Maria Xiridou, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” AIDS 17 (2003), p. 1031

[14] A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 9; see also Bell, Weinberg and Hammersmith, Sexual Preference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).

[15] Paul Van de Ven et al., “A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men,” Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 354. Dr. Paul Van de Ven reiterated these results in a private conversation with Dr. Robert Gagnon on September 7, 2000.

[16] “Survey Finds 40 percent of Gay Men Have Had More Than 40 Sex Partners,” Lambda Report, January/February 1998, p. 20.

[17] M. Pollak 1998. “Male Homosexuality,” in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, edited by P. Aries and A. Bejin, pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991), pp. 124, 25.

[18] David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984), pp. 252, 3.

[19] M. Saghir and E. Robins, Male and Female Homosexuality (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1973), p. 225; L.A. Peplau and H. Amaro, “Understanding Lesbian Relationships,” in Homosexuality: Social, Psychological, and Biological Issues, edited by J. Weinrich and W. Paul (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).

Copyright © 2011 Spencer D. Gear.  This document last updated at date: 9 October 2015.

FlowerFlowerFlowerFlowerFlowerFlowerFlower

Whytehouse Designs

Why should we oppose homosexual marriage?

Marriage cover photo

Courtesy Salt Shakers (Christian ministry)

Spencer D Gear

My local freebie newspaper[1] had 3 letters in favour of homosexual marriage in its ‘Speak up’ (letters to the editor) section, under the heading, “Pollies are under fire over gay rights”. This was an opportunity for the newspaper to print 3 pro-homosexual marriage letters. There was not any letter opposing homosexual marriage.[2]

Let’s summarise what these letters promoted:

1. One said that it was amazing that government agencies, Centrelink and the tax department, allow same-sex relationships but ‘the government will not allow it’. This person found this to be a contradiction and considered that it was discrimination against homosexuals. Pollies need to ask: “Would they be in government without the votes of homosexual citizens?” This person did not think so.

2. The line taken by the second person, a father, was that he supported gay marriage because his son is gay and has found his ‘soul mate’. This son and his partner are organizing a wedding in Sydney for next year. Both families support this union ‘wholeheartedly’ and believe they should have the same right to marriage as anyone. Homosexuals can’t change and it’s a hard road when they experience so much discrimination. This son and his male partner will marry whether it is legal or not and celebration will be with family and friends. This Dad is ‘proud’ of his homosexual son and the son will live with his partner ‘as a gay married couple’.

3. We need to ‘move with the times’ and legalise same-sex marriage, said the third advocate of gay marriage. Because marriage has always been a heterosexual union, doesn’t mean it should continue to be that way. There were no votes for women, no IVF, etc, but “we live in the 21st century” and we should allow same-sex marriages, with the legal protections of a heterosexual couple.

A.  How should we respond to the promotion of gay marriage?

1. Not one of these writers or I would be here if same-sexual relations were the norm. It takes an ovum and a sperm (woman and man) to create a human being. Same-sex marriage will not do it. A contribution from the opposite sex, whether through sexual intercourse or IVF, is necessary for a child to be born.

A zygote is the initial cell formed when an ovum is fertilized by a sperm. An ovum from a female and a sperm cell from a male are needed to create a new human being. A zygote contains DNA that originates from the joining of the male and female. It provides the genetic information to form a new human being. Two males can’t achieve a zygote; neither can two females. It requires a joining of a male and a female in sexual union or through IVF. Shouldn’t this need for the genetic material from a male AND a female send an important message? Gay marriage will not do it!

2. Besides, from a biological point of view, the vagina was designed for sexual penetration. The anus and rectum were not. A 1982 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the anal cancer rate for homosexuals was up to 50 times higher than the normal rate.[3] The New England Journal of Medicine (1997) showed the “strong association between anal cancer and male homosexual contact”.[4]

Why? The lining of the anus is very much thinner than the much thicker lining of the vagina. The anus tears readily and thus makes that region of the anatomy more vulnerable to viruses and bacteria.

The human body was not designed for anal penetration. But the politically correct speak would not want us to know that.

No matter how much some want to make same-sex marriage appealing, from the beginning of time marriage has involved the union of a man and a woman. If that link is broken, we don’t have marriage. It’s as simple as that. No claims like “I have a gay son”, “we must move with the times”, or “we live in the 21st century”, will change the fact that marriage is a heterosexual union.

B.  The intolerance of tolerance

During the 2019 Australian Open Tennis Grand Slam, Anna Wintour, fashion editor with Vogue, raised her disagreement with champion tennis player, Margaret Court, over the homosexual issue.

Dame Anna Wintour DBE dived into the ‘intolerance’ issue against homosexuals. Her target was tennis champion, Margaret Court.

A woman with brownish hair, lit by the sun from outside the top right of the image, is seen from her front left. She is wearing a light-colored short-sleeved collared jacket with elaborate jewelry, a white top beneath it, and sunglasses. In her right arm she is holding a cell phone to her mouth; she is apparently in the midst of a conversation(Wintour at the September 2013 Milan Fashion Week, photo courtesy Wikipedia)

The Canberra Times reported that Wintour ‘has thrown her support behind the push to rename Margaret Court Arena over the tennis champion’s opposition to same-sex marriage’.

Wintour stated, ‘I find that it is inconsistent with the sport for Margaret Court’s name to be on a stadium that does so much to bring all people together across their differences”’, in a speech delivered at the Australian Open Inspirational Series in Melbourne on Thursday, to applause.

She continued: ‘This much I think is clear to anyone who understands the spirit and the joy of the game. Intolerance has no place in tennis” (Singer 2019, emphasis added).

I find it interesting when a person opposes the ‘intolerance’ of Margaret Court on the subject of homosexuality and doesn’t see her own intolerance towards Court’s view.

B.1  Anti-Margaret Court intolerance

The Collins’ Dictionary (online) defines ‘intolerance’ as an ‘unwillingness to let other people act in a different way or hold different opinions from you’ (2019. s.v. intolerance).

Therefore, to accuse Margaret Court of intolerance because she didn’t support same-sex marriage is to engage in an act of intolerance towards Court. When will the supporters of homosexual relationships wake up to the fact that to accuse opponents of being intolerant, is to engage in an act of intolerance perpetrated by themselves?

That’s what happened with this example from Anna Wintour and her opposition to Margaret Court’s view on same-sex marriage.

It is a self-contradictory statement to accuse another person of intolerance while perpetrating intolerance oneself.

Image result for clipart intolerance homosexuality

(image courtesy Brotherhood News: Facebook censors biblical posts against homosexuality)

C.  What about these issues?

(1)   Mother and father are important for a child’s up-bringing. This Millennium Cohort Study: Centre for Longitudinal Studies in the UK found that

“children in stable, married families were said to have fewer externalising problems at age 5 than virtually all of those with different family histories. The most marked differences were seen for children born into cohabiting families where parents had separated, and to solo mothers who had not married the natural father. These children were three times more likely than those in stable, married families to exhibit behavioural problems, judging by mothers’ reports”.

See Bill Muehlenberg’s summary of this study of the need for both a heterosexual mother and father in, Why children need a mother and father‘.

(2)   God’s design from the beginning of time was for marriage of a man and a woman. See Genesis 2:24-25, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (ESV).

Jesus Christ affirmed this passage according to Matthew 19:4-6, “He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’ (ESV).

(3)   Paul, the apostle, was able to speak of ‘men who practice homosexuality’ as being among those who were among ‘such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’ (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). In this list, homosexuals were placed among the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers who were the ‘unrighteous’ who would not inherit God’s kingdom. But Jesus changes all of these people – even homosexuals. If you don’t believe me, read my interview with a redeemed lesbian, Jeanette Howard, “One woman’s journey out of lesbianism: An interview with Jeanette Howard“. I recommend her book, Out of Egypt: Leaving lesbianism behind.

Here are some more reasons to oppose homosexual marriage.

The homosexual sexual act is a revolt against nature. For procreation to allow for the continuation of the human race, a heterosexual liaison is needed. If homosexual sex were normal and practised extensively, the human race would be greatly diminished.

There is a natural factor: Which part of the body lubricates when stimulated: The vagina (through clitoris) or the rectum? The answer is obvious. The vagina is meant for penetration; The anus isn’t.

See my article: The dangers of anal sex and fisting

Other resources

Genetic cause of homosexuality?

Governments may promote gay marriage: Should we as evangelical Christians?

Polyamory: Poly leads to society’s destruction.

Works consulted:

Singer, M 2019. ‘Intolerance has no place in tennis’: Wintour criticises Margaret Court’, The Canberra Times (online), 24 January. Available at: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/intolerance-has-no-place-in-tennis-wintour-criticises-margaret-court-20190124-p50tcs.html#comments (Accessed 25 January 2019).

Notes:

[1] Northern Times (Pine Rivers edition), September 2, 2011, p. E8.

[2] I sent a letter-to-the-editor to this newspaper, opposing homosexual marriage, but it was not printed.

[3] These details are in the article ‘The unhealthy homosexual lifestyle’, available at: http://home60515.com/4.html (Accessed 26 September 2011).

[4] Ibid.

 

Copyright © 2014 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 25 January 2019).

Reasons to oppose homosexual marriage.

Marriage cover photo

Courtesy Salt Shakers (Christian ministry)

By Spencer D Gear

There are rational reasons to oppose homosexual marriage. These are some of them:

1. The homosexual sexual act is a revolt against nature. For procreation to allow for the continuation of the human race, a heterosexual liaison is needed. If homosexual sex were normal and practised extensively, the human race would be greatly diminished.

2.  The rectum is not designed for sexual penetration; the vagina is. Anal sex is a high risk sexual activity. One of the many hazards is the vulnerability of the tissues to tearing and bleeding. Damage can be done to the sphincter muscles that may lead to incontinence and rectal prolapse. There is a high level of organisms that may cause disease in the rectum. If pathogens are introduced in the sex act, contagious diseases may spread. There are some authorities who oppose all anal sex as an unsafe sexual act because of the high rates of condom failure, even among condoms that are strengthened. (Some information from Wikipedia, “Anal sex“.)

3. Some research has shown that the risk for transmission of the HIV virus is higher for anal sex than for vaginal sex.

This report from 2008, “Inequitable Impact: The HIV/AIDS epidemic among gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men in Massachusetts“, demonstrates the increased HIV rate among MSM (men having sex with men) in Massachusetts:

“This is the second in a series of reports examining the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on residents of Massachusetts. The first report, An Added Burden: The Impact of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic on Communities of Color in Massachusetts, focused on the ongoing racial/ethnic disparities in HIV incidence and prevalence in the Commonwealth. This report examines one mode of HIV exposure, same-sex sexual behavior between men, and its role in an inequitable impact of HIV on gay/bisexual men and other men who have sex with men.

Efforts to reduce the transmission of HIV in Massachusetts have been successful in a number of populations at risk, including injection drug users and heterosexual men and women. However, less success can be reported from work with gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), who represent over 50% of HIV cases reported among Massachusetts men between the years 2004 and 2006, and 39% of all HIV cases reported during this period. These rates of new infection are striking in light of the fact that only 4.3-9.4% of Massachusetts men (18-64 years old) report having had sex with men in the past twelve months on standardized behavioral surveys over the past seven years. These impacts represent an inequitable rate of infection that is nearly 25 times higher for men who have sex with men than for men who report only having had sex with women (emphasis added).

While the impact of HIV on MSM is most evident among white men, at 70% of new white male cases, MSM has emerged as a first- or second-ranked mode of exposure for black and Hispanic men in recent years. In half of the health service regions of the Commonwealth, MSM is the leading mode of exposure for persons recently reported with HIV, particularly evident in Boston, Metrowest, and Southeastern Massachusetts. The inequitable impact of HIV on MSM is also seen among the youngest persons at risk, with 44% of individuals age 13-24 recently reported with HIV having MSM as their mode of exposure. Even among men not born in the US, MSM represents over a third of new HIV cases reported in Massachusetts.

In Africa, “On average it is estimated that HIV infection rates amongst MSM (men who have sex with men) are four to five times higher than the population overall, with highs in certain areas” (AFRICA: Homophobia fuelling the spread of HIV).

The male homosexual lifestyle does increase the risks of HIV.

The levels of promiscuity in the homosexual community also elevate the rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). This summary report, ‘The health risks of gay sex’, by John R. Diggs Jr. M.D., states:

Sexual relationships between members of the same sex expose gays, lesbians and bisexuals to extreme risks of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), physical injuries, mental disorders and even a shortened life span. There are five major distinctions between gay and heterosexual relationships, with specific medical consequences. They are:

  • Levels of Promiscuity

Prior to the AIDS epidemic, a 1978 study found that 75 percent of white, gay males claimed to have had more than 100 lifetime male sex partners: 15 percent claimed 100-249 sex partners; 17 percent claimed 250-499; 15 percent claimed 500- 999; and 28 percent claimed more than 1,000 lifetime male sex partners. Levels of promiscuity subsequently declined, but some observers are concerned that promiscuity is again approaching the levels of the 1970s. The medical consequence of this promiscuity is that gays have a greatly increased likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS, syphilis and other STDs.

Similar extremes of promiscuity have not been documented among lesbians. However, an Australian study found that 93 percent of lesbians reported having had sex with men, and lesbians were 4.5 times more likely than heterosexual women to have had more than 50 lifetime male sex partners. Any degree of sexual promiscuity carries the risk of contracting STDs.

4.  I found some interesting dynamics in the front-page news of The Courier-Mail newspaper of surrogacy for homosexual male parents (Joy and condemnation of gay dad’s legal surrogacy, 20 November 2010).  For a child to be born to make such surrogacy possible, it is not feasible without the involvement of a female ovum and a male sperm. Paradoxical, isn’t it? What would happen if the child born for this male homosexual couple were a female? Would that be another reason for killing the pre-born through abortion?

5.  This is not just an issue for homosexuals. A 2005 survey found that ‘40% of men and 35% of women have had anal sex with an opposite-sex partner,” 40% of men and 35% of women, aged 25-44” (CDC), were engaged in heterosexual oral sex. This was a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

6. Please read this assessment by Brian Camenker in 2008 of “What same-sex marriage has done to Massachusetts: It’s far worse than most people realize“.

Examine the impact in Massachusetts on education in schools right down to the primary school level. Observe how it influences public health, increased domestic violence, business, the legal profession, adoption of children, Government mandates, the public square and the mass media.

7. These are excellent physiological reasons for rejecting homosexual marriage and the anal sexual act. However, for me a greater moral issue is God’s view that heterosexual marriage is God’s ordained method for marriage and reproduction. From the very earliest of times, according to Genesis 1:27-28, we know this: “’So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ˜Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This is impossible for the homosexual to do. As for the marriage union, God said: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (Genesis 2:24-25). From the beginning of time, God’s design is for the marriage union to be between a man and a woman.

For any country or state to vote against this law of heterosexual marriage and support homosexual marriage, it will be promoting what is unnatural, ungodly and destructive to the country.

 

Copyright (c) 2013 Spencer D. Gear.  This document last updated at Date: 9 October 2015.

Noah's Animals

One woman’s journey out of lesbianism: An interview with Jeanette Howard

Out of Egypt

(image courtesy Book Depository)

By Spencer D Gear

Former lesbian, Jeanette Howard of England, says: “I stand in awe at what God has done in my life. Where I saw hopelessness, he saw hopefulness. Where I saw pain, he saw potential. Where I saw disaster, he saw a daughter” (from the cover of her book, Out of Egypt: Leaving Lesbianism Behind. (1991. Oxford: Monarch Publications).

During her visit to Australia’s capital city of Canberra in 1993, I (Spencer Gear[1]) interviewed Jeanette. At that time I spoke with Jeanette about her lesbianism and the way out. I found Jeanette to be a forthright, open and friendly woman with a burden to minister to people at all levels of society, not just the homosexual community. (Note: My questions to Jeanette are in bold.)

Spencer: Jeanette, when did your struggle begin with lesbianism?

Jeanette: I wouldn’t have put a name on it, but from a very early age (about four or five), I felt very different, very alienated from my own sex. I had very much gender confusion. I would look at boys and think, well I’m not a boy, but I would look at girls and think: I don’t think I’m a real girl either. And although I never classified it as lesbianism, it certainly was a path towards choices that I made later in life.

There was a sense that biologically I knew I was female, but I really didn’t have an identity of being female, a sense of femaleness – very much a third sex mentality. I just couldn’t emotionally relate to what a woman was all about.

In my pre-teen years, my greatest delight was being mistaken for a boy. I have photographs of one incident I remember. We all bought cowboy outfits, my brothers, sister and myself. I bought a cowgirl outfit with my sister, a nice looking skirt for cowgirls, but in the photo I am without the cowgirl’s skirt. “That’s not who I am, so I’d rather not wear anything than be identified with a female,” was how I thought.

Can you understand when that began? What were the influences that caused you to feel that way?

Gender confusion? I really don’t know. It was just an increased sense of “I do not belong.”

Was there some kind of rejection in your family?

You know, there is a funny thing about rejection, whether it’s real or perceived, the individual feels it. If you ask my mother, “Did you reject Jeanette?” she’ll say, “Absolutely not.” You must understand that my mother worked full time fairly soon after the five of us were born, so she had five children under the age of six years and was a school teacher. She always talked about her children in school. My understanding was that they meant more to her then we did. We were unable to express ourselves emotionally at all.

The whole family?

Oh yes, and my parents did not express their love for one another in any way that I saw, either verbally or emotionally.

So you had this gender confusion. When did you begin to identify with or practise as a lesbian?

I didn’t practise lesbianism until I was 18 years old, but in the early teenage years I went to an all-girls’ school and we were quite happy pretending to get married and there was a lot of unity there. I was very happy, but I certainly took a tomboy role. That was natural to me, I guess. I was very much the boyish type. Very early in the teenage years, it almost seemed like overnight the girls became aware of boys. And they were beginning to be obsessed about pop stars and the boys across the river, the boys’ school across the river. It really left me quite high and dry. It’s almost like I’d stood still; they were wandering off and I made quite abortive attempts to retain their interest. I had my hair cut like the most popular pop star; I wore boys clothes. I didn’t particularly act in a mannish manner, but when I look back on it now it was a very non-feminine type of behaviour.

So, if you put on the facade, you will get their support?

That’s right, because I didn’t understand what else they could be interested in. Naturally enough, that didn’t work. Then I started having crushes on teachers and older girls in the school. Female teachers. That was a little worrisome, so I went to the library and got out a book on child development. I was about aged 14. Of course I read that it’s often a phase that people go through and grow out of, so that waylaid my fears, except that I didn’t grow out it. It was a long wait, this outgrowing.

You said you moved into lesbianism at about 18. What happened at that time?

I had opportunities to go into lesbianism before, from a couple of the girls in school, but I was too frightened. Fear was always a great motivator in my life. But when I went to university, I was seduced by the senior lecturer. She was 30 years older, had four children, the eldest of which was only three years younger than I. But it was a sense of belonging, this is me.

This relationship lasted three years. I guess I was faithful for two years, and then I used to go to the gay night clubs and had a series of relationships after that.

We use the term “gay” and some counsellors and others are saying that it’s not quite as gay as it’s made out to sound. What was your lesbian lifestyle like?

Well it was a sense of belonging, a sense of sisterhood, bonding, that I had lost from about age 11. I didn’t have that for about six years. So when I walked into my first gay bar, I sensed that this is where I belong. If you’ve spent that long not belonging anywhere, you’ll take on anything.

I would look at men and women in the street holding hands, and I guess my thought really was, “Why can’t I have a girlfriend and do it that freely?” So it wasn’t a sense of being . . . it’s like, why must I hide?

So you weren’t ashamed?

I guess I must have been ashamed in that I didn’t tell my parents. I kept it from most of my straight friends; there was fear of rejection. If they really knew me, they wouldn’t have liked me. So what was it like to be a lesbian? I was never good at making friends, so there was no great depth to a relationship. I think part of this was because I was brought up in a family that did not know how to express themselves, either verbally or emotionally. I don’t know if that has to do with my lesbianism, but I knew that I couldn’t really invest in people. I trusted no one but me. I was very withdrawn emotionally. The only way I knew how to express myself was through sexual relations.

What then are the roots of lesbianism? What are the factors that influence one towards a homosexual lifestyle?

This is not set in concrete, because of what I’m going to say. I’ve been in ministry now for five years, and spoken with a number of ministry leaders, and I’ve found there seems to be a consensus of opinion, but bearing in mind that everyone’s individual, and not everyone has every factor in their life. But one of them is a sense of rejection from the same sex parent, and the lack of bonding.

This has been my experience in counselling homosexuals over a number of years. It seems to be fairly much across the board, male and female, that sense of rejection, lack of bonding with the same-sex parent.

That’s right, lack of bonding, and then the relationship with the opposite sex parent often is at fault. For me, I always strove to get affirmation from my father.

And did you get it?

If I performed. But I think of one occasion when I was shattered. I was useless at maths and I got 9 out of 10 for a test, which I thought was pretty good. I came home, told my father, who turned to me and said, “What was wrong with the other one?” And yet I think he was pleased. He had no idea how to express himself, or to receive anything good. He probably was doing the best he could, he had no idea. He still has no idea.

Jeanette Howard 140x210 (photograph Jeanette Howard, courtesy Hope for Wholeness Network)

What was your relationship like with Mum.

Distant and cold, I guess. It took me a long while to realise that her way of expressing love was through finances. I remember as a teenager coming home and she gave me some money, and I remember thinking, “All I want is for you to hug me.” I had a nervous breakdown when I was 10. The relationship with my mother was not good. I remember at the age of 18 months (yes, I can remember back that far) when I was being potty-trained. I didn’t want to go on the potty and mother was making me. We were watching a circus on television and she sat behind me and put her hands on my shoulders and made me sit. And I remember thinking, “You’ll never touch me like that again.” So there was a real detachment on my part too, there was a pulling away from, and I think that’s probably why I spent so much growing-up time watching television with those happy families and wanting her to be my mum. There were a number of women I wanted to be my mother, who expressed care, compassion, love and acceptance, which is what I didn’t feel.

Your book, Out of Egypt: Leaving Lesbianism Behind (Monarch Publications) describes your journey. What’s the significance of the phrase, “out of Egypt”?

Long before I knew that I was going to deal with my homosexuality, I was talking to a woman about my story and she said, “You know, that is just like coming out of Egypt.” That was back in 1987 and it pierced me. I don’t know why. But of course later I knew. I looked at the walk of the Hebrews and saw that the journey out of Egypt was just the first step. God’s almighty parting of the Red Sea, a mighty deliverance, then on into the wilderness and finally Canaan, the land of promise. I thought that really has been my walk. God delivering me out of a bondage and yet it has not been straight from bondage to promise. I don’t believe there’s a three-minute prayer that’s going to pop me out of one life into another.

What sparked your interest in Jesus Christ?

I was a school teacher with a low threshold of interest and I became bored teaching in the school that I was in and we had a sister school in Tamworth, NSW. Some of the students would go for a term exchange. I thought of a way to retain my job and go to the other side of the world, and leave my current lover. (I didn’t know how to do that properly.) So I suggested that I’d do a year teacher’s exchange in Australia. But I didn’t realise it was a Christian school. I fought tooth and nail against anything Christian, and I strongly objected to people thinking they had two minutes to convert you now.

What spoke to me were those people who didn’t mention Jesus. Their quality of life would haunt me, the way they lived their life. One woman purchased a new car one week and she lent it to me the next week. That just threw me beyond belief that someone did not see that the things she owned were hers, but were to give out and bless others. That struck me beyond anything else. But it was their quality of life that spoke to me and I started getting interested in God. But of course pride got in the way. For eight months, I’d been close to stoning the Christians, I wasn’t really going to turn round and say, “Now can I come to church?” But there was a woman on the staff, a pastor’s wife, and I was able to speak to her and I said, “Please give me a book to read, but put it in a brown paper bag, put it under my desk in the staff room and don’t you dare tell anyone that I’m going to read a Christian book.” And I used to read it at night under the bed clothes with a torch. And that was my first interest. This was at Calrossy Girls School in Tamworth.

You haven’t shared with anybody at that School about your own struggle and how you came out of lesbianism?

The pastor’s wife knows, but she has moved to Sydney.

So that was the starter, the lifestyle of Christian teachers.

Observing them. I knew they had something I did not have. That was powerful stuff. But you know how Satan is? At the same time I got into a relationship with a Christian girl. She was everything I’d always wanted in a relationship. So I had this tussle–I wanted God, but I also wanted my lover. I thought: I’ll be a gay Christian, that’s the obvious thing to do. I’m a great one for going to textbooks, so I got out some theological books and of course half of them were so theologically liberal. They said, “Yes, of course you can. It’s just another expression of God’s love.” In retrospect, I knew the Holy Spirit was beginning to work.

It’s interesting the way people acted with me. I did end up going to church and I got in the drama team, the evangelistic drama team. This was a good ploy because I was good at drama.

At Christmas I moved out to stay with someone. I led her to the Lord without ever being a Christian myself. I told her what to do. She said, that seems good. I said it does, doesn’t it? She became a Christian. I left Australia as a non-Christian but with a Bible. I went back to England on New Year’s Eve, and went straight to a gay bar to bring in the new year. From a year of complete Christian company, to walking into a gay bar on new year’s eve night is what I needed. I needed the shock value and I went round telling my friends, “I have something better than this.” They asked what it was. I said I didn’t know, but it’s better than this.

I went round all the friends I’d not seen for a year saying, “I have something better.” Of course I hadn’t a clue what it was. I thought it was Christianity but I’d not really heard the gospel.

The amazing workings of God, the prompting of the Spirit of God, now that you look back.

That’s right. And I just read my Bible. I knew that I wouldn’t go back to the bar and I didn’t know one Christian in England. So I just read my Bible all the time, apart from teaching. And I’d be reading all through the night, a couple of hours sleep and I’d get up, teach, and I’d come straight back to read the Bible.

I read the Bible for hours and hours. I nearly read the whole Bible through in the month, and then I got to John 15:16 where it said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last.” And it suddenly hit me that God had chosen me and my response was that I either totally rejected or I totally accepted. A black and white thinker is good when it’s under the lordship of Christ.

But I also knew that if I was to become a Christian, I had to turn my back on homosexuality. I couldn’t be both, I knew that.

So here you were, you hadn’t yet made a commitment to Christ, but you knew

that you had to go away from the lesbian lifestyle.

Yes, and I knew that it was not God’s best for me. Now that was a major decision because I really didn’t know anything about God. And yet I had to put all my eggs in one basket.

How do you respond to the statement that the biblical teaching with regard to

homosexuality relates to homosexuality as sin and we need to grieve over our

sin, and of course repentance is involved. How do you see that?

I didn’t think I had to grieve over it. I did repent. But lesbianism to me was not a sin, it didn’t feel like a sin. Now God said it was a sin, but it sure didn’t feel like it to me. So the first thing I had to do was to ask God to help me see my lesbianism as He saw it. Because I saw it as somewhat fulfilling, natural and acceptable, that’s not what I read.

How did you move from a third sex view to it’s natural, I like it, to the point

where God is confronting you with what He thinks of it?

I just had to ask Him for His eyes. Gradually that happened. At the point of conversion, I turned my back on homosexual activity and identity. That was a choice, that was not an emotional response. All I had at my point of conversion was tears. That was on January 23, 1985, 2:30 am.

Reading your Bible?

Yes, reading my Bible.

You weren’t with anybody else at the time?

No, but I had read somewhere that you’re meant to tell someone. And I thought, well, I don’t know anyone and also it was 2:30 in the morning. So I phoned Australia. I thought I have to tell someone, so I actually phoned my Christian lover and she was pleased, but she knew what it meant for our relationship–it was over. So that was with mixed feelings too.

I understand that you went to an ex-gay ministry, Love in Action, in the San Francisco Bay area of California for a 12-months live-in program. What was the purpose of this?

Psalm 68:6 says “God sets the lonely in families”. The way this ministry is set up is that people who struggle with homosexuality live in different houses with leaders and assistants. The goal is to re-establish or perhaps establish for the first time a family-type environment and do the normal duties in a family. This helps to bring some stability into your life within a family. That part of my life was very stable anyway, apart from the family relations.

There were group meetings to deal with issues. We attended Bible study nights and were integrated into the life of the church. This was an instrumental part of my healing process. I would say a year in that program took three years out of the healing process.

What were the elements in the Love in Action program that projected you into a faster growth rate?

Accountability, honesty, communication, just everything came under the lordship of Christ. You could run but you couldn’t hide. It’s interesting that most people now stay on for a second year because obviously not everything’s dealt with in a year. You’re in a very intensive program, so the second year eases off; it gives you more responsibility to get back into society.

Let’s talk about instantaneously coming out of homosexuality. There’s a view that says, “Jesus is in the supernatural business, He has the ability to change you immediately.” Obviously He has that ability, but what happens with homosexuality? Do you see much of that taking place, where somebody is lesbian one minute, and the next day is something quite different?

You have to look at the reasons why people express themselves in a homosexual way–their background, motivation factors, rejection, sexual abuse, peer group pressure. There are a number of areas like that, which you’re not delivered from but are healed through.

A lot of homosexuality is learned behaviour, which has to be unlearned and then new behaviour taken on board. In my five years of being in ministry, I’ve yet to see anyone instantaneously changed. With wholehearted commitment you see major change in a few years. With half-baked commitment, I see them sliding back.

On the healing scale, if we could use that sort of analogy, where are you in the

healing process? Let’s say 100% being you are perfectly whole and healed.

Well, today, I’m about 98%. Tomorrow I could be 90%, or I could be 99%. It’s not one day at a time inasmuch as I live in fear, but I am aware. Recently a prominent Christian in America has sexually fallen, again. It keeps coming time and time again, so I am careful lest I fall, but I know what I call my red flag areas. I know when I need to be more careful.

Can you share some of those?

Sure, like I need to know my body cycle, the times of the month when I’m more vulnerable to people showing me affection. With women, emotional dependency often precedes lesbian activity.

One of the chapters in your book has that title, “Emotional dependency”. What are you referring to?

We’re talking about healthy relating. If I have a friend, I often say, if she breathes out, I breathe in. It’s an unhealthy enmeshment. My security is dependent on her being in my life. The two become one almost; there seems to be a lack of boundaries; I don’t know where I end and you begin. Often it ends up that you wear similar clothes. The “I” becomes “we”. There’s a state of panic if you think that you’ve got to not see her for a day, not be in contact by phone for a day. There’s a fear of loss because you see her as a possession. This is unhealthy emotional dependency that often is a lead into lesbianism.

Now that can happen in male/female relationships as well.

Course it can. It’s not a homosexual problem, it’s a people problem, but we find it manifests itself greatly with the lesbian. Interestingly, many of the men have not experienced emotional dependency until they start the healing process, until they stop allowing themselves sexual expression. It opens the doors to how they feel. And often the guys will get into a dependent relationship for the first time ever during the healing process. So it’s not necessarily to be seen as something totally negative for the guys especially. But it does need good control in accountability area.

The liberal church tends to want to endorse homosexuality, right? How can the evangelical church minister to the homosexual?

You don’t need to be an expert, and that’s the good news. Most of my healing has come from being accepted, feeling secure, affirmed within my church body. My church body recognised a call on my life to full-time ministry and they paid for me to go to a discipleship school and it was there God convicted me that I had to be real with my church, I had to go back and tell them. So I did that, received the pastor’s permission, and one Sunday morning I asked for their forgiveness. For two years I’d presented an image to them, an acceptable image of Christianity, but that was not who I was, and I shared who I really was. And as one, they stood up, gave a standing ovation, and said, whatever it takes for your healing, we will support you.

That’s an encouraging response. But that’s not always the way it is. In talking with male and female homosexuals through the years, they generally find that the evangelical church can be a place of rejection.

Rejection often is the response to ignorance and fear. One of the desires I have in my heart is to educate the churches.

What are some of the elements of the education process? What would you tell the evangelical church in Australia, concerning homosexuality, that would help them to better understand it, accept the homosexuals and minister to them?

First, they need to know that God changes lives. It’s worth investing in an individual. It’s not a wasted cause. Second, by knowing some of the root causes, you can apply the healing balm, that sense of identity. You can draw out of churches the Christian woman, Christian man, who can be role models. So, you need to get your own life in order to be a good role model. By going to lunch after church with a family, I learnt things like a husband and wife can argue and still respect one another, the children have a voice in the house, there’s really no problem that’s too big if God is the head of the household. I came from a dysfunctional family and I had much to learn. Not out of a textbook, I learnt by going to lunch with people just what a Christian family is all about, transparency. It is no good saying, “Hey we’re a church that welcomes those who hurt, come in, but we’ll keep our Sunday masks up, we’ll hide behind masks of arrogance, or humour or anger.” You need to be transparent yourself.

There should be no taboo subject in the church, because I should not feel too shamed to speak out about those areas that hurt me, and have affected me. There’s no sin too big for God.

Yet homosexuality is very often almost looked upon as the unpardonable sin. Is that your experience sometimes?

Yes. If you believe a lie long enough, it’s as though it’s truth, and society

puts out that you’re born that way, and therefore, what can the church

do? You’re never going to change, you’re just as you’re going to be, a

bad influence in this church and I’ve got children; the doors close and the

arms get folded. But because it’s a sin, that’s good news.

How can that be?

If it’s genetic, hormonal, or anything like that, then I’ve got no hope apart from some scientific breakthrough, but if it’s sin, then like any other sin, Jesus Christ died for it. When Paul tells the Corinthians the list of sins–of being drunkards, swindlers, everything else. [I Corinthians 6:9-11] He says that “such were some of you.” We often stop at the list and forget the next phrase, “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.”

That was good news for me, that it was sin, because then you know that you can be changed.

Let’s say a church wants to help the homosexual community. Where can it begin?

In my opinion, it’s not going on the streets. If you come from a basis of rejection, and you get someone on the street challenging you that your homosexuality’s wrong, to the person challenging they’re saying one aspect of your life is wrong, but to the homosexual that is their life. You’re saying the way you think, the way you breathe, the way you emote, every single aspect of your life is completely wrong. You see, what you say to me and how I receive it are two entirely different things. And if you come from a basis of rejection, you do not want someone telling you overtly that you are unacceptable. And it’s also no good saying, “But you know I love you.” God has to open your eyes to the sin of homosexuality. God opened mine.

The heterosexual community has far more in common with homosexuals than is immediately recognised. I struggle with pride, but you struggle with anger, but we all struggle. But we all need a Saviour. Not I need a Saviour because I’m a homosexual.

So let’s work on the similarities and not on the differences. Then you will win trust eventually, and then you let them bring up the homosexual issue. Let them lead the way on it.

So really, you’re doing evangelism and it doesn’t matter what sin you’re committing?

Exactly. It’s not a bigger deal to reach the homosexuals. Crusades into the homosexual community produce anger, violence and a real closing down to the gospel.

So you don’t head onto the streets to minister to the homosexual?

You go on the streets and evangelise everyone. Let them raise the issue of their homosexuality. We must get this straight: God’s not concerned whether you go to hell as a homosexual or a heterosexual. So homosexuality’s not an issue. It’s the fact that you need a Saviour, whatever you’ve come from.

Where does one begin if one wants to counsel the homosexual?

You’ve got to build trust, but that’s through any counselling, so that’s no different. You have to be aware that people are living under deceit very much. They will have been brought up thinking, I’m born that way, life is tough, the change process is tough, and of course you’re always tempted to return to your old thought processes. Or haven’t I changed enough God? At least I’m not sleeping with her! So at every level of healing there will be a bit of marching time, I am weary of this, and understandably so. But it’s like: how much of God do you want in your life? The pursuit is wholeness, not heterosexuality.

The angle I take is that they’ve still got homosexuality, that’s the common factor within the group. But if I’m just aiming for heterosexuality I’m aiming low, because heterosexuality is as fallen as homosexuality in this world. So I pursue wholeness in Christ, what it is to have Jesus in every aspect of my life, in every thought that I think, every action that I do, every emotion that I feel. A by-product of that is a heterosexual orientation. But if I aim for heterosexuality, God can get by-passed in that. Guess what happens when your sexuality comes under the lordship of Christ? The Elim program I do with my men and women coming out of homosexuality hardly touches on homosexuality.

I spend a few weeks on who God is. With a faulty understanding of God, we’ll get faulty healing. You build a tower and the foundations are cracking; guess what happens to the tower? So who is God? I spend weeks on that. Now can I trust Him? Yes. So we look at who I am. God gives me an identity. I had one as a lesbian, but God’s giving me a new one: who I am in Christ.

You’re not a homosexual in your identity; who are you in Christ now?

A child of God. What on earth does that mean? The apple of His eye, accepted in the beloved.

Then I look at forgiveness, trust, honouring your parents, things that I’ve taught regular men and women too; it’s the same program. But I have questions at the end for their homework. Do the teaching before you start going over the questions; we take a few weeks at that and praying through it to find out where their faulty thinking is. That’s where the homosexual information comes up.

Any new books in the pipeline?

I’ve had a number of requests for a workbook to go with Out of Egypt. So I’ll be preparing something similar to the program that I run, to go with the chapters in the book. I would like to do a follow-up book, but I believe I’m walking that process at the moment.

Since that interview 22 years ago, Jeanette has written a new book. In January 2016, Monarch Books (Oxford, UK) will release Jeanette Howard’s new book, Dwelling in the Land: Bringing Same-Sex Attraction Under the Lordship of Christ.

Dwelling in the Land

(image courtesy Book Depository)

Notes:


[1] This interview was published in two parts, “A Changed Life”, New Day, October 1994, pp. 12-14 and “A Changed Heart”, New Day, November 1994, pp. 14-15. New Day is currently not being published.

 

Copyright © 2010 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 28 September 2016.

 

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Governments may promote gay marriage. Should we as evangelical Christians?

LGBT flag
(courtesy LGBT, Wikipedia)

Spencer D Gear

Governments have changed legislation and brought in new social changes through the centuries. Christians are bigoted, intolerant and narrow-minded for considering that homosexuals will burn in hell.

That’s the view of Meryl Miller, a new columnist in the Fraser Coast Chronicle (FCC), in her new column, The M-Files, “Face the facts, folks: gay marriage is on the way” (3 December 2010, p. 21). On 6 December 2010, I phoned the FCC editor, Peter Chapman, to ask if he would accept an article as my right of reply to Miller’s article. Even though I pressed for the need for balance by adding my opposing article, he refused, claiming that the controversial nature of some columnists encourages people to write letters to the editor. He said that he would consider a lengthy letter from me.

Miller’s new column generated so much telephone response that editor, Peter Chapman’s “My Comment” column, “New column had the phone ringing” (FCC, 4 December 2010, p. 18), stated that “I have asked her not to write about religion next week nor cats, dogs and dingoes”. Miller had advocated for “the rights of homosexuals and lesbians to marry their partners”, according to Chapman. However, Chapman’s views are that “it’s a touchy subject for many of us” and “the truth is it’s really something we are going to have to accept”.

Really? Not in your life for me. On 7 December 2010, I sent a letter to the editor of the FCC that incorporates some of the following material.

Miller promotes the following fallacies on which her philosophy teeters.

Taking examples from contemporary society as norms for morals is a dangerous practice (examples given in the article were of deaths of the indigenous, equal rights for women and against domestic violence, out-of-wedlock babies, defacto relationships, climate change, flat-earthers, Salem witch-hunters, etc). It’s dangerous because relativism and pragmatism at government level, have produced some of the most horrendous ethics in world history. Ever heard of the Holocaust, Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, Stalin’s killing fields, the genocide of abortion, euthanasia in Holland, etc? When I give individuals and governments the right to make up their own moral framework, I cannot stop the logical conclusions of giving that right to everyone.

By the way, I take public stands against discrimination and immorality based on ethnicity, domestic violence against women, sexual abuse, pedophilia, abortion, euthanasia, etc. However, that does not give governments or individual human beings the authority to invent what is right and wrong. Ethics needs a higher norm than puny human decisions.

To say that “slowly, inexorably, we are inching towards a society which is more tolerant, more understanding, more compassionate, more open-minded” is a very intolerant statement because it opposes all those who do not accept Miller’s agenda of ‘tolerance’. Miller is as intolerant as anyone around, except she is intolerant towards those who oppose her views, while blaming the Christians and heterosexuals for being intolerant.

If “gay marriage is no more harmful to our moral fibre than other modern conventions we once found so shocking”, why is it that heterosexual marriage has been the norm throughout human history? Scoffing at “archaic views on gay marriage” amounts to being scornful of the tried and tested moral absolute of marriage exclusively for a man and a woman. Miller establishes her own absolute of relativistic pragmatism. She promotes her intolerant ‘tolerance’ towards those who support exclusively heterosexual marriage. Hers is a self-defeating argument. It is not an “open-minded” approach but a promotion of homosexual marriage while rejecting the heterosexual exclusive nature of what God has created.

God’s view is that heterosexual marriage is His ordained method for marriage and reproduction. From the very earliest of times, according to Genesis 1:27-28, we know this: ‘God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it”’.

This is impossible for the homosexual to do. As for the marriage union, God said: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24-25). From the beginning of time, God’s design is for the marriage union to be exclusively between a man and a woman. This is impossible for homosexuals to do.

As for the marriage union, God said, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:24-25). From the beginning of time, God’s design has been for the marriage union to be between a man and a woman. Governments that change this are working according to their own, fallible, imperfect human ethics.

So they are “religious extremists who preach from their lofty soap-boxes that homosexuals will burn in hell”, according to Miller. This is a self-defeating argument as the author herself is promoting an extremist position of tolerance towards homosexuals but she is not prepared to be tolerant to “religious extremists” who differ from her view. By the way, she has no clue about the doctrine of hell when she doesn’t understand who will be going there. It’s time she read and understood the Bible (I’m working on my PhD in New Testament).

Miller opposes the intolerant, bigoted, narrow-mined, heartless people who state that homosexuals will burn in hell, while claiming she is a Christian. It’s time that Miller knew the Scriptures which state that all unrepentant unbelievers will not inherit the Kingdom of God. First Corinthians 6:9-11 includes the sexually immoral, including adulterers, prostitutes, homosexuals, idolaters, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers. The good news of the Gospel is “that is what some of you were”. Jesus changes all sinners from the inside out.

Since when did Miller become a systematic theologian to pronounce that “the laws of God do not, should not, determine the laws between consenting adults in a committed relationship”? That’s Miller’s relativistic invention, not God’s standard.

She says that “I consider myself a Christian – but that does not give me the right to be a moral dictator”. What is a Christian that enables Miller to make such an anti-biblical statement? Christians believe that governments “do what is good” (according to God’s standards) and government is “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoers” (Romans 14). These are wrongdoers according to God’s absolutes of right and wrong according to Scriptures, not relativistic governmental standards and the norms of morality created by Miller.

She rejoices in the birth of Connor Harris through surrogacy and two male homosexuals are the parents. It takes a male sperm and a female ovum to create human life. Homosexuals cannot create human life alone.

What has happened in Massachusetts (USA) with the legalisation of homosexuality and homosexual marriage has provided an example of the increase in HIV infection within the homosexual community. This report from 2008, “Inequitable Impact:The HIV/AIDS Epidemic Among Gay and Bisexual Men and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men in Massachusetts”, demonstrates the increased HIV rate among MSM (men having sex with men) in Massachusetts:

“This is the second in a series of reports examining the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on residents of Massachusetts. The first report, An Added Burden: The Impact of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic on Communities of Color in Massachusetts, focused on the ongoing racial/ethnic disparities in HIV incidence and prevalence in the Commonwealth. This report examines one mode of HIV exposure, same-sex sexual behavior between men, and its role in an inequitable impact of HIV on gay/bisexual men and other men who have sex with men.

Efforts to reduce the transmission of HIV in Massachusetts have been successful in a number of populations at risk, including injection drug users and heterosexual men and women. However, less success can be reported from work with gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), who represent over 50% of HIV cases reported among Massachusetts men between the years 2004 and 2006, and 39% of all HIV cases reported during this period. These rates of new infection are striking in light of the fact that only 4.3-9.4% of Massachusetts men (18-64 years old) report having had sex with men in the past twelve months on standardized behavioral surveys over the past seven years. These impacts represent an inequitable rate of infection that is nearly 25 times higher for men who have sex with men than for men who report only having had sex with women (emphasis added).

While the impact of HIV on MSM is most evident among white men, at 70% of new white male cases, MSM has emerged as a first- or second-ranked mode of exposure for black and Hispanic men in recent years. In half of the health service regions of the Commonwealth, MSM is the leading mode of exposure for persons recently reported with HIV, particularly evident in Boston, Metrowest, and Southeastern Massachusetts. The inequitable impact of HIV on MSM is also seen among the youngest persons at risk, with 44% of individuals age 13-24 recently reported with HIV having MSM as their mode of exposure. Even among men not born in the US, MSM represents over a third of new HIV cases reported in Massachusetts.

In Africa, “On average it is estimated that HIV infection rates amongst MSM (men who have sex with men) are four to five times higher than the population overall, with highs in certain areas” (AFRICA: Homophobia fuelling the spread of HIV).

The issues here are God’s absolutes versus humanistic relativism created by Miller, the Massachusetts legislature and others. What’s the difference? The differences are the reasons for opposing homosexual marriage. Miller’s major fallacies are that she creates her own relativistic absolutes that oppose God’s standards. None of us would be on earth if homosexuality were the norm. In addition, she is discriminatory against other relationship aberrations such as bigamy, polygamy and polyandry.  See Bill Muehlenberg’s excellent piece of satire, “Time for some real marriage equality”. The high level of HIV infection in the male homosexual community should sound alarm bells!

The Fraser Coast Chronicle deserves better than to promote a one-eyed columnist who is narrow-minded in her opposition to what has sustained societies throughout human history – heterosexual marriage.

On 7 December 2017, Australia became the 26th country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage.

 

Copyright © 2015 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 1 September 2018.

Genetic cause of homosexuality?

Female Homosexual Symbol Clip Art

clker.com

By Spencer D Gear

Homosexuality is “not some kind of insidious disease” [1] according to an anonymous letter writer to the Fraser Coast Chronicle (Name & address supplied to the editor). Instead, homosexuality “is a genetic inheritance handed down from the parents’ gene pool. Both mother and father may or may not contribute however in balance, it favours the mother’s side of the gene distribution”, says the writer who does not want to be identified publicly.

Part of the following is in my letter to the editor, sent 11 December 2010, to the Fraser Coast Chronicle. This letter was not published.

This genetic argument to support homosexuality was expected. To those who oppose homosexual marriage, this writer in the FCC states that homosexuality is caused by the “gene pool”. In other words, we are born this way. What is the inference if the cause is our genetic heredity? Is homosexuality therefore to be treated like Down Syndrome? The implication is that it cannot be changed. This letter writer did not quote any authority or research to support his/her views.

But for those who oppose this genetic cause (people like myself)[2], this writer lambasted us as “narrow-minded experts” and “slanderers” who are depriving homosexuals of “democratic rights and freedom of belief that the Christian God loves them”.

Name-calling is detrimental to a healthy discussion about any subject and especially a controversial one such as homosexuality.

When he was asked if homosexuality was rooted solely in biology (e.g., genetic inheritance), gay gene researcher, Dean Hamer, replied,

“Absolutely not. From twin studies, we already know that half or more of the variability in sexual orientation is not inherited. Our studies try to pinpoint the genetic factors … not negate the psychosocial factors”.[3]

In addition, a gay neuroscientist, promoter of gay rights and whose gay partner died of HIV, Simon LeVay, has acknowledged that there are multiple factors that may contribute to a homosexual orientation.[4]

LeVay told Discover Magazine, “I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work”.[5]

A study published in 2006 by Anthony F. Bogaert[6], Brock University, Canada, has been promoted worldwide as evidence of a biological basis of homosexuality in young men with older brothers. Bogaert’s research has been reviewed and some have found significant flaws in it.[7] Dr. Neil Whitehead, a NZ research scientist, found that one of Bogaert’s broad statistics could easily hide crucial confounding data.[8]

A recent study reported in the UK’s Guardian newspaper (2008) stated that US researchers found a growing consensus that sexual orientation is an inborn combination of genetic and environmental factors.[9]

Therefore, it is inaccurate and misleading for the FCC letter writer to place exclusive emphasis on genetic inheritance of homosexuality received from the parents’ genetic pool.

I agree that the Christian God loves everyone, but all behaviour has eternal consequences.

For your research:

There’s a range of articles dealing with the genetic or other causes of homosexuality on the NARTH website.


Notes:

[1] Fraser Coast Chronicle letters, “Sexuality is in the gene pool”, Name and address supplied but not printed, 10 December 2010, p. 20. The Fraser Coast incorporates Maryborough, Hervey Bay and Fraser Island in south-central Queensland, Australia.

[2] I have incorporated a letter-to-the-editor that I had published in the Fraser Coast Chronicle, 8 December 2010, “Heterosexual marriage has sustained societies” into this article, “Governments may promote gay marriage. Should we as evangelical Christians?

[3] Cited in Julie Harren 2008, “Homosexuality 101”, available from NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality) at: http://www.narth.com/docs/hom101.html (Accessed 11 December 2010).

[4] Ibid.

[5] Cited in A Dean Byrd, Shirley E Cox, & Jeffrey W Robinson 2001. “The innate-immutable argument finds no basis in science”, available from NARTH, http://www.narth.com/docs/innate.html (Accessed 11 December 2010).

[6] Details from, “Do mothers create gay sons in the womb?”, available from NARTH at: http://www.narth.com/docs/domothers.html (Accessed 11 December 2010).

[7] See “Canadian psychiatrist finds major flaws in Anthony Bogaert’s study of gay brothers”, available from NARTH at: http://www.narth.com/docs/bogaert.html (Accessed 11 December 2010).

[8] In ibid.

[9] “US researchers find evidence that homosexuality linked to genetics”, The Guardian [UK], 1 December 2008. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/01/homosexuality-genetics-usa (Accessed 11 December 2010).

 

Copyright © 2010 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 1 September 2018.

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