Is there anyone left to defend traditional marriage?

By Paul Kokoski

Recently, the European Court of Human Rights accepted a suit from two female Muscovites, Irina Fet and Irina Shepitko claiming that the authorities of the Russian Federation refused to register their same-sex union. They are trying to legalize and make socially acceptable the perversion of homosexual acts and same-sex marriage in Russia. The European Court of Human Rights has been trying, for some time, to force homosexuality on all union members. Russia should be militant in opposing the acceptance of homosexual acts

In the West the legalization of homosexuality has already lead to the proliferation of crime and the destruction of the family unit. Children as young as 5 years old - who have no knowledge of sex - are being brainwashed in schools to accept the perversion of homosexual acts as being normal and praiseworthy.

There is a lot of misinformation and a distortion of facts disseminated by the press today about homosexuality. The Western media often portrays the homosexual lifestyle and relationships as happy, healthy, and stable. On the contrary there are very high rates of sexual promiscuity among the homosexual population with short duration of even "committed" relationships. Homosexuals also have very high rates of sexually transmitted infections such as HIV.

Further, many studies show much higher rates of psychiatric illness, such as depression, suicide attempts and drug abuse among homosexuals than among the general population. And statistics - which compare homosexuals with ethnic minorities exposed to racism - indicate this is not due to homophobia. The homosexual lifestyle is also associated with a shortened life expectancy of up to 20 years.

Homosexual behavior is abnormal, immoral and anti-life. It closes the act of sex to the gift of life and is not innate as some believe. The so-called "gay gene" has never been found. The Bible clearly and unequivocally also condemns homosexual acts.

Dr. Francis Collins, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work sequencing the human genetic code has in fact proven that homosexuality is not genetically "hardwired." If genetics were determinative, he said, then identical twins should virtually always show the same pattern of same-sex attraction. However, a study of the Australian Twin Registry showed that only 11% of identical twins with same-sex attraction had a twin brother who also experienced it. The Bible also condemns homosexual activity outright.

In 1973 Homosexual activists succeeded in pressuring the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from their official list of mental disorders. This about face, according to a 2005 scientific study by Dr. Jeffery B. Satinover, Director of the Durckheim-Gladstone International Center for Quantitative Analysis in Washington, was due to certain bias, false claims, lack of scientific expertise, lack of clinical experience and fabrication of evidence.

Essentially, the APA's decision was influenced by the arguments of Evelyn Hooker and Alfred Kinsey whose data was fraudulently skewered by blatant population sampling bias and the badgering, and even bribing, of its imprisoned and largely otherwise institutionalized subjects. Hooker's study which contained no details of the scientific procedure involved, failed the most basic tenets of the scientific method. The inadequacy of her research was even acknowledged by the journal that published it.

Authentic scientific studies show that homosexuality is linked to pedophilia. For example, a 1992 study in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found that homosexual men are three times more likely than straight men to engage in paedophilia. A 1988 study of 229 convicted child molesters published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour found that 86% of paedophiles described themselves as homosexual or bisexual. A 2000 article in the same journal concluded that among paedophiles the rate of homosexual attraction is six to 20 times higher than among the male population generally. Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a U.S. psychiatrist with vast experience in treating priests with pedophilia, has stated: "Every priest whom I treated who was involved with children sexually had previously been involved in adult homosexual relationships."

Equally compelling is the evidence of gay activists themselves who clearly state that there is a link between the gay lifestyle and paedophilia. For instance, Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher, found in 1948 that 37% of all gay men admitted to having sex with children under 17 years of age. Gay activists Jay and Young also reported in 1979 that 23% of gay men preyed on adolescent or younger boys.

Dr. Michelle Cretella, a board member of the American College of Pediatricians has also concluded from multiple studies that children reared by gay couples have gender confusion and are put at high risk for sexually transmitted diseases. Cretella noted that homosexually behaving teens and young adults suffer increased rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addictions and suicidal thoughts. In addition, boys who adopt a homosexual lifestyle because of the influence of their same-

sex parents face a 30% chance of being dead or HIV-positive by the age of 30.

The Laumann Report, published in 1994, is today universally recognized as definitive. In summary, its major findings are that homosexuality is not a stable trait and that it tends spontaneously to convert into heterosexuality as an individual gets older; that sexual identity is not fixed at adolescence but continues to change over the course of life and that there is no evidence for homosexuality being innate. We may now say that young persons who develop a homosexual identity, retain it due to the social milieu. This social milieu is the family setting and culture created by, inter alia, the decisions enforced by the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States acting in coordination with the misrepresentation of the scientific evidence provided to it by the APA, and the National Association of Social workers.

Homosexuals tend to recklessly and unjustly labels all those who oppose homosexual activity as "homophobic" - the term "homophobia" itself intended to denote a disorder. In this way they seek to impose their own disordered behaviour and lifestyle on society under the guise of tolerance. Gay activists have gone to great lengths to overturn or distort the evidence, but it remains too strong to be discarded. At the core we are dealing here, not with "human rights" but with homosexuality and the destruction of the family unit - the fundamental cell of society.

Marriage is an institution that predates civilization, ordained by God, and exclusive to one man and one woman who are given the responsibility to procreate the human race, and to nurture, educate, and pass on shared values and mores to their offspring. To redefine marriage to include same-sex couples is to strip marriage of an essential component, namely the ability and obligation to procreate. This would render marriage meaningless and open it up to endless revision and redefinition.

Not surprisingly, every credible study supports the fact that children do better in school, live healthier lives, and become better contributors to society when raised by both a mother and a father in the same household. Society is now seeing the results of "causal divorce" from the 70's and the "out of wedlock children" of the 80's, as the children of this generation now have all these psychological problems.

Once legal, the state's coercive power will punish those who refuse to embrace gay marriages. This is already happening in the Province of Saskatchewan in Canada. Under a legal regime that permits homosexual marriage, public officials are obliged to officiate at same-sex "weddings." Public schools are also required to teach children that homosexual acts are good and healthy regardless of their parents wishes. Oh Canada!

Gay marriage is an oxymoron. The family is the fundamental cell of society. The family - and through it, all human society - have their source and origin in marriage. Marriage is ordered to the procreation and education of offspring.

As the basic expression of man's social nature, marriage exists solely between a man and a woman who through their personal gift of self to each other, perfect one another into a communion of persons. This human development of the spouses and the proper nurturing of children who are the fruit of such unions makes an immense contribution to the common good of society. One does not need to have any particular religion or belong to a particular political party to recognize this, or that the family based on marriage is the best way to bring up happy, productive children.

Caesar Augustus, a pagan, sought to strengthen Roman society by outlawing adultery and sodomy and by encouraging traditional marriage and procreation He understood that there is such a thing as public morality. Emperor Augustus saw this, but it was too late to overcome the sexual licence of the late Roman Republic. This was the real reason why it collapsed. Let us hope that the same does not happen in Russia.

Given the overwhelming evidence about homosexuality and it penchant for undermining the foundation of the family, same-sex couples should be given no legal rights. On the contrary it should be vigorously opposed. St. Paul tells us that the ""aberration"" of homosexuality is both the proof and the result of the exclusion of God from collective attention and social life. The Christian approach to modern-day homosexuality must distinguish between the respect due to persons and the necessary repudiation of any exalted ideology of homosexuality.

In defending traditional marriage and family and renouncing homosexual acts one does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood.

Paul Kokoski
Canada