Due to recent court rulings, the number of states where same sex marriage is allowed now exceeds thirty. While this battle may be lost, conservatives and supporters of traditional family values should not surrender the culture war nor allow LGBTQ activists to take away their First Amendment rights of religious freedom.
This is not a black and white issue or a good vs evil issue. An honest look at the current status of same gender attraction should recognize that there is good as well as bad and ugly.
THE GOOD
1. Gay Support for Traditional Families. They don't make the headlines that LGBTQ activists do, but there are many people with same gender attraction who recognize that the best family structure for raising a child is a married father and mother. Why shouldn't we strive for the best wherever we can?
2. Gay Support for Religious Values. There are also many people with same gender attraction who continue to participate in their religious faith and honoring the commandments. While some LGBTQ activists flaunt their promiscuity, their believing counterparts can find meaning in life without partaking in a deviant permissive lifestyle.
3. Gays are not Jailed or Killed. Unlike many Muslim countries, people who come out of the closest are not lawfully physically harmed here in America. All people should be treated with civility and respect, even when there is disagreement in values.
4. Gay Couple Adoption of Special Needs Children. Young children without special needs are easy to place in homes with both a father and mother. However, there are some older children or others with mental or physical challenges that cannot easily find a adoption. They still would benefit from a stable home life, rather than be in orphanages or foster care. Gay couples that take on the responsibility of raising such children are providing a loving and selfless service.
5. Support for Gay Civil Unions. While opposition to same sex marriage remains high, there is growing majority support for same sex civil unions. People are recognizing that committed same sex couples should not be denied partner rights given to committed opposite sex couples and this can be achieved by civil unions. It's a better solution than gay marriage. Best selling authors Richard and Linda Eyre compare marriage to mixed doubles tennis. Two men can play tennis on a team and so can two women, but when they do this, it is not mixed doubles tennis. It should be called something else because it is something uniquely different. Marriage is traditionally defined as being between a man and a woman. Civil unions give same sex couples the legal rights they desire without hijacking the concept of marriage.
THE BAD
1. Same Gender Child Abuse. Firm stats are hard to find, but it is probable that child abuse has happened to less than 10% of children among the hetero population, but it is probably 30-50% and maybe more among those in the LGBTQ community. It is possible that this abuse rewires people's brains to homosexuality? It is unfortunate that this issue is not a high priority in the LGBTQ community. In a subculture of diversity and tolerance, you can get a pass from many in the LGBTQ community when an adult-child sexual relationship is "consensual." That is wrong. Everyone wins when society reduces child abuse.
2. Knowingly Spreading AIDS. As an accommodation to the LGBTQ community, the health industry has never made it a practice to isolate AIDS carriers to prevent the spread of the disease. Even worse, many gays with AIDS have knowingly infected others without telling them they were HIV positive. If you tried this behavior with Hepatitis C or Ebola there would be a national outrage.
3. Knowingly Acquiring AIDS. Some gays consider it part of being gay to acquire AIDS and knowingly engage in risky activities that result in an HIV infection. People practicing such life threatening behavior need help to avoid making such damaging choices.
4. Sexual Assaults on Males. The media has given a lot of coverage to the "fact" that 20% of women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetimes. Far less attention is given to sexual assaults on males. The assault numbers are lower because far fewer men are disposed to attack men rather than women. However, if you look at the numbers in relation to the number of homosexual men, the rate of attack is much higher than 20% and probably under-reported due to the stigma of reporting such assaults. Since the man-on-man sexual assault problem is a higher rate based on the population size of attackers, shouldn't this be a higher priority than assaults on females?
5. Health Problems. It is rarely spoken of, but there are significant physiological damage (apart from AIDS) that can happen from gay sexual behavior. This is particularly bad when it is a result of sexual assault.
6. Transgender Mutilation Considered Normal. Dr. Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for John Hopkins University, has done the politically incorrect action of pointing out "the transgender emperor has no clothes." Frankly speaking, his first hand study of the transgender population resulted in his conclusion that it is a mental disorder. We need to get this minuscule portion of the population the mental health services they need and not kowtow to their desires to mutilate their bodies.
7. Gender Elimination. Actions in California and elsewhere want to allow men to use women's rest rooms if they identify as female. To appease a portion of the population likely to be much less than 0.1% of the population we have to subject 50% of the population to losing privacy from jerks taking advantage of this option.
THE UGLY
1. Bullying. Some people make fun of and bully people with same gender attraction. Such action is juvenile and not Christian or mature behavior. But bullying is not only an anti-gay problem. Many LGBTQ activists go out of their way to bully small businesses owned by Christians. They demand they provide services to gay weddings knowing it is against their Christian values. Even worse, some young people, who proclaim themselves as gay but plan to stay celibate, are mocked and bullied into engaging in sexual activity to prove they are gay and to be accepted by other gays.
2. Incomplete Science Study of Homosexuality. Prior to 1973 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders listed homosexuality as a mental disorder. It was removed from the DSM-III, not based on scientific research or a preponderance of peer reviewed studies, but rather on a trustees vote influenced by politics not science. Since that time, many scientists have ignored studying this condition, afraid that they would be attacked as bigots by the LGBTQ community. As a result there is a lot of "facts" not supported by science and a dearth of research examining elements of the gay lifestyle that would reflect poorly on the LGBTQ community.
3. The "Born That Way" Argument is Wrong. If all homosexuals were born gay, then if one identical twin was gay, the other would be too. This is not the case. People can choose to act gay or not and especially can choose to act bisexually or not. Selling the idea that "if you're gay, you were born that way" is selling a lie.
4. Excessive Promiscuity. Early pre-AIDS era scientific studies found that it was common for homosexuals to have more than 500 sexual partners and not uncommon for it to be over 1,000. While AIDs may have lowered these numbers for many, more recent studies still show gay promiscuity continues to be several times higher than with hetero men. How many parents would like to see their children fall into a lifestyle full of meaningless, transactional sex?
5. Adult Wants Are Valued More than Children Needs. Time and again the LGBTQ community takes positions that make adults feel better but are harmful to children. These include: applauding gays for abandon a traditional marriage with children to follow a gay lifestyle, encouraging young people to explore sexuality as teens, having schools teach about gay sex to elementary school age children, encouraging that young people mutilate their bodies to switch genders, and advocating that raising children with a father and mother is not the best option. We owe the next generation the best childhood we can give them and not put the wants of adults first.
6. No Male / Female Balance. A lot of the excesses of the LGBTQ community is due to the lack of opposite gender balance. Both men and women benefit from marriage where male and female traits work together and make both partners better people. This balance is generally not there with men/men and women/women partnerships. People should be free to choose their relationships, but society is best served when the culture recognizes that some relationships have greater value than others.
We need to support the Good, eliminate the Bad, and speak out to oppose the Ugly. Did I leave anything out? You are welcome to add to the list of Good, Bad, and Ugly.
