If You Put This Book On The Same Shelf With Heather Has Two Mommies

Would you get the philosophical equivalent of a matter/anti-matter explosion? Would both books be mutually annihilated with a burst of X-rays?

It is interesting that the book combines two different explanations of homosexuality--one a traditional view (strong mother, weak or emotionally absent father), the other an explanation based on the disproportionate reporting of child sexual abuse by adult homosexuals.

I find the book (at least the sample pages shown here) to be simplistic because there may well be multiple causes of homosexuality. The fact that there does seem to be a weak genetic factor in homosexuality suggests that there might be a genetic predisposition towards it. The disproportionate child sexual abuse reporting by adult homosexuals could indicate that both the predisposition and the victimization are required--or perhaps these could be two different, unrelated factors that both lead to homosexuality. (Obviously, most sexual abuse victims don't become homosexuals--the surveys that I have read would suggest that about 1/3 of girls and about 9% of boys are sexually abused.)

Still, this book doesn't appear to be anymore propagandistic and simplistic than other books aimed at children that discuss homosexuality. Wouldn't it be entertaining if school districts started to include this book in their curriculum? At least, it would be amusing to watch the ACLU file suit to get this book removed from the public schools, while insisting that parents had no right to have Heather Has Two Mommies or Hello Sailor or King and King.

UPDATE: A reader asked if he had misread (or I had miswritten) above where I indicated that about "1/3 of girls and about 9% of boys are sexually abused" or if that referred only to the percentage of homosexuals who had been sexually abused. No, sorry, but as I pointed out several years ago:

First of all, it's important to recognize that until the late 1970s, child molestation was regarded as a rare, bizarre, and unusual phenomenon--how shockingly common it was just wasn't recognized. Even today, many people are startled to find out how large the percentages are of children who are sexually abused. The data that I have is somewhat dated--but then again, before Political Correctness had taken over the field.

How many victims of childhood sexual abuse are there? A variety of surveys have been conducted, using a variety of methodologies, none of which can be considered perfect. Many of the studies before 1990 were conducted among college students, and so tend to leave out those victims of child sexual abuse who fail to reach college because of their problems. [Christopher Bagley and Kathleen King, Child Sexual Abuse: The Search for Healing, (New York, Tavistock/Routledge: 1990), 69-70.]

The range of the 11 studies summarized in Bagley & King are 12%-40% of females, and 3%-8.6% of males.[Bagley and King, 76] Faller quotes the same studies, though in less detail. [Kathleen Coulborn Faller, Child Sexual Abuse: An Interdisciplinary Manual for Diagnosis, Case Management, and Treatment, (New York, Columbia University Press: 1988), 150] The Everstines use the figures 15%-45% of females and 3%-9% of males, but "believe that the currently accepted percentages for males who have been molested will be revised to 10% or 15% of the population when more accurate data are forthcoming." [Diana Sullivan Everstine and Louis Everstine, Sexual Trauma in Children and Adolescents: Dynamics and Treatment, (New York, Brunner/Mazel Publishers: 1989), 2] These studies were conducted in Britain, Canada, and the United States, with Bagley and King asserting that child sexual abuse survey reports in California are unusually high, though it is unclear whether this is a methodological problem, or reflects higher incidence in California. [Bagley & King, 69]

Another problem is that we really don't know how accurate our sampling methodology is. Boys who are molested may be less willing to report it than girls because there is a homosexuality shame associated with their victimization. There may also be more repression of memories among boys for this same reason.

Surveys of homosexuals report substantially higher rates of sexual abuse as children than these shocking and disturbing numbers. If there is a causal connection between sexual abuse as a child, and adult homosexuality, it is not surprising that homosexuals have higher rates of substance abuse and what anecdotally seems like abnormally high rates of dysfunctional behavior relative to straight people.