Why Do I Think Homosexuality Is An Illness?

Why Do I Think Homosexuality Is An Illness?

Read this article from the March 16, 2009 Weekly Standard by an artistic sort from New York City, who contributed to the Yes On 8 campaign in California--and is now paying the price for it. I won't quote the article. Much of the language--even with the four letter words dashed out--is simply too vulgar.

Her experience has some strong parallels to my own experiences almost 20 years ago. I asked in a gay newsgroup what I thought was a simple, not terribly offensive question: Why, since "homosexuals as child molesters" is a vicious, nasty, unfounded stereotype, was the North American Man-Boy Love Association marching in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade? It was a genuine question. I didn't buy that stereotype as being accurate, since the news media continually claimed that it was false. It just seemed weird to allow a group like NAMBLA into the parade. It would be rather like if the NAACP held a black pride parade, and the floats had black men chasing white women around them while making remarks about rape. I was genuinely startled, and I was trying to get clarification, because this made no sense.

I didn't even oppose gay rights at that point. When California repealed its ban on oral and anal sex in 1975--and a small number of pastors has gone to Sacramento asking the legislature not to do so--I thought this was just so weird. Why would anyone care what people were doing in private?

Unlike Maureen Mullarke, who wrote the article above, I didn't actually contribute anything to a group opposing gay rights. I was just asking for clarification of something that made no sense to me, and I thought in a way that would show that I wasn't their enemy. If anything, I was hoping to get some sensible answer that would reassure me that people like Focus on the Family were taking something out of context.

Yet in short order, I found that what Maureen Mullarke experienced is actually very much the norm when you question in any way at all the orthodoxy of homosexual activism. Over a period of a couple of years, I received not just nasty emails, threats of violence (and yes, I started carrying a gun regularly for this reason), harassing and obscene phone calls at my home (some to my children, who weren't old enough to understand what these creeps were saying), attempts to get me fired from my job, and threats to perform obscene sexual acts in front of my house.

I was a pretty active participant in political discussions on the old USENET newsgroups. I took a lot of positions that were unpopular with the overwhelmingly liberal crowd that dominated there: in favor of capitalism; in favor of gun ownership; in favor of monogamy; in opposition to Communism. Yet as many people as I must have upset with those positions, there was not a single instance of threats, harassment, nasty emails, etc. caused by any of those other discussions.

I know that many homosexuals--maybe even most homosexuals--are pretty well content to live their lives without making dangerous and annoying pests of themselves to others. I know that there are many homosexuals who pursue their political agenda through legal and ethical channels. But what Maureen Mullarke, myself, and many others have experienced over the years for questioning homosexual orthodoxy, tells me that there is a non-trivial number of homosexuals who are profoundly disturbed people--far too many to regard this as just a coincidence. This is a pretty damaged bunch--and the last thing these sickos need is anything that tells them that they are okay.