Culture Of Life 101 . . . “How To Avoid Homosexual Semantic Traps”
By BRIAN CLOWES
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For the complete Culture of Life series on homosexuality [with footnotes], e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)
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Most of us know a handful of homosexual friends, co-workers, and family members, and we may also be acquainted with others who support the “gay rights” agenda. We have also seen that it is our God-commanded duty to attempt to save souls and combat evil in this life. We will not be held blameless for the opportunities we miss to preach and teach the truth. This puts us in a bit of a quandary at times.
When discussing the special rights agenda, it is easy to become confused by the morass of indistinct and vague terms such as “perverse,” “normal,” and “natural.”
Nobody who opposes gay rights can hope to benefit from using these terms. A homophile will usually resort to semantic tricks in an attempt to render homosexual acts morally equal to normal acts — a very effective tactic indeed. If the homophile can throw a thick blanket of confusion over the conversation, logic will inevitably suffocate and illogic and emotions will prevail by default.
Remember that those who fight for truth try to make the subject of the debate clear — but those who want to cover up the truth must do all they can to obscure it. This is not a deliberately deceptive act in most cases; it is simply a natural defense mechanism. We will do almost anything to avoid facing the truth when justifying our favorite sins.
Therefore, we must avoid using nebulous terms if we hope to keep the discussion on a rational plane. We must focus instead upon the distinct and specific implications and effects of homosexual behavior — concrete concepts that listeners can visualize and relate to.
Confusion regarding special rights is no accident. It is a carefully developed plan to confuse and therefore neutralize opposition before it can even get started. In fact, the homosexual movement’s saturation campaign of “fuzzy” and imprecise language is the fruit of an actual conspiracy, as explained by homosexual strategists themselves.
In their book After the Ball, homosexuals Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen describe how, in February of 1988, a “war conference” of 175 leading gay activists, representing organizations from across the land, convened in Warrenton, Va., to establish a four-point agenda for the gay movement. The conference gave first priority to “a nationwide media campaign to promote a positive image of gays and lesbians.”
Kirk and Madsen proceed to describe the grand plan:
“Gays must launch a large-scale campaign — we’ve called it the Waging Peace campaign — to reach straights through the mainstream media. We’re talking about propaganda. We mean conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media. We mean ‘subverting’ the mechanism of prejudice to our own ends — using the very processes that made America hate us turn their hatred into warm regard — whether they like it or not . . . propaganda relies more upon emotional manipulation than upon logic, its goal is, in fact, to bring about a change in the public’s feelings [italics in original].”
Read the last sentence of this quote again. Homophiles admit that they completely bypass logic and blatantly manipulate our emotions. It goes without saying that, in order to make progress in the battle against the “special rights” agenda that is suffocating our freedoms, we must steadfastly and unflinchingly employ precise language that cuts through the fog and gets to the truth.
Are Homosexual Acts Perverse? The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines “perversion” as “. . . an aberrant sexual practice, especially when habitual and preferred to normal coitus.”
The use of the word “perverse” can lead into a fruitless argument about some heterosexual activities, some of which are certainly “perverse.” Many heterosexuals participate in the perusal of hard-core pornography, rape, incest, sodomy, and even sadomasochism. However, the point that must be made here is this: Perverse sexual activities are a defining characteristic of the homosexual lifestyle. They are not a defining characteristic of the lives of a great majority of heterosexual people.
To a homophile, of course, no sexual act or orientation is “perverse” (except perhaps virginity), so the word loses its comparative function and becomes utterly useless.
Are Homosexual Acts Unnatural? The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines “unnatural” as “. . . not being in accordance with nature or consistent with a normal course of events.”
The most frequent sex-related activities that homosexuals participate in are certainly not natural. For example, S&M (sadomasochism) is not natural. Healthy people do not enjoy pain and do not inflict it upon others.
Virtually every other type of homosexual activity is also clearly unnatural.
Some homosexual activists will try to refute this point by claiming that many male animals engage in homosexual activity in the wild. This is true, of course — but only when there is a prolonged absence of females. They also neglect to mention that female animals never engage in homosexual activity.
There are even websites devoted to “gay” penguins and other animals.
This phenomenon occurs among human males, as well. In an environment where there is a prolonged absence of women, a very large percentage of men (in some cases, up to one-fourth of the sample population) will engage in sodomy and other activities normally associated with promiscuous homosexuals — but only as long as they have no access to women. Long-term prisoners will commit these acts out of a form of “sexual desperation,” and will vehemently deny that they are homosexuals just because they engage in sodomy and other acts.
Besides, the argument that animals sometimes exhibit “gay” behavior, and therefore this justifies similar human behavior, is simply witless. Animals also practice incest, polygamy, murder, infanticide, cannibalism, and euthanasia. Does this mean that humans should be able to practice these activities as well?
Are Homosexual Acts Normal? In the above definitions of “perverse” and “unnatural,” the word “normal” is pivotal. The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines “abnormal” as “…deviating from the normal or average.”
Just as homosexual acts could be defined as “abnormal,” so could picketing an abortion clinic — or opposing pornography or homosexuality, for that matter. In fact, there are far fewer people picketing abortion mills and actively opposing the “gay” agenda than there are promiscuous homosexuals so, by this definition, pro-lifers and anti “gay rights” activists are more abnormal than the average homosexual!
In general, the descriptive word “normal” is very nearly useless when discussing homosexuality.
Are Homosexual Acts Unbiblical? This is another trap that “gay rights” activists often set for those who do not know the Bible as well as they should.
If we read passages from the Revised Standard Version or the King James Version of the Bible, all homophiles have to do is produce their own version of the Bible. There are several “gay friendly” versions of the Holy Bible in use today, including, believe it or not, the “Gay Bible,” which was written in 2000 by a homophile activist who apparently discovered that God has a second son who came to Earth in order to forgive (and even exalt) the sins of fornication and sodomy. There is also the so-called “Queen James Bible,” which was made up in order to “prevent homophobic misinterpretation of God’s word.”
Homosexual Acts Are Unhealthy and Deadly. If a pro-family debater gets drawn into a discussion of whether or not homosexual acts are “unnatural,” “normal,” “perverse,” or “unbiblical,” he is falling prey to the homophile’s desire to distract attention away from the subject of the debate. The pro-family debater should instead talk about how homosexual activity is unhealthy and addictive, because he has scientific literature to back up his case — not mere opinion, which is all the homophile really has.
As we have seen, active homosexuals lost a full quarter-century of life on the average until about the year 1995. Due to the tremendous medical advances during the intervening period, that number is now about nine years. Why do we not stress this fact, since we as a society actively discourage other activities that are equally unhealthy, including alcoholism, smoking, hard drug use, and morbid obesity?
Conclusion. As the baleful influence of the “gay rights” movement tightens its grip on uninformed and timid minds, we must educate ourselves on the issues so that we can be coherent when discussing them.
We must also forcefully reject the reflexive label “homophobe” and all of the other false “phobes” that are being foisted off on us just because we disagree — “transphobia” (a fear or loathing of people who are so messed up they don’t even know what sex they are), “polyphobia” (a fear or hatred of people who like to married to several other people, or perhaps a fear of parrots), “zoophobia” (a fear or dislike of people who want to marry their pets), “pedophobia” (a fear or abhorrence of adults who like to sexually molest little children), and on and on . . . until we organize and take a stand.