By BRIAN CLOWES
Part 1
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For electronic copies of previous articles on homosexual “marriage,” the special rights agenda, and the role of homosexuality in the Church crisis, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)
+ + +
Due to clergy sex abuse scandals centered primarily in the Northern hemisphere, the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church has been subjected to an opportunistic siege by prominent individuals and organizations who have seized the chance to advance their goals, which include the ordination of women and the suspension of the requirement for priestly celibacy.
There is also a defensive element to this strategy: Opponents of the Church know that there is a well- documented and strong correlation between male homosexuality and child sexual abuse, but claim that there is no evidence supporting this connection.
Those who are currently attacking the Church hope that they can undermine its moral authority to preach on the sinfulness of homosexual behavior and weaken its opposition to ersatz homosexual “marriage,” as happened recently in both the United States and Ireland.
Studies and surveys performed over the past three decades have shown beyond any reasonable doubt that there is indeed a very strong link between male homosexuality and child sexual abuse. Interestingly, when compared to the Catholic priesthood, there is a similar or higher rate of child sexual abuse among other very large groups of adult males (e.g., Protestant clergy, who are usually married), thus proving that celibacy is not the root of the problem — homosexuality is.
The Tragedy In
The Catholic Church
Some Catholic priests and other leaders have taken advantage of their positions of authority and influence in order to gain sexual favors or to take advantage of the helpless. The problem of clerical child sexual molestation, particularly in the United States and Europe, has been widely exposed and publicized over the past two decades.
During the crisis currently being discussed, major homosexual groups — both Catholic and otherwise — have done everything they can to divert attention away from even the possibility that homosexuality may be the root cause of the problem of child sexual molestation within the Church. These activists particularly seek to deny the link between homosexuality and child sexual molestation.
For example, the group “Dignity USA” kicked off its “Stop Blaming Gay Priests” campaign in 2002. The group said “DigntyUSA [sic] is calling on the U.S. Catholic bishops to stop blaming gay priests for the clergy sexual abuse scandal. All credible evidence discounts any link between the molestation of children and homosexuality.”
Interestingly, Dignity did not provide any examples of the allegedly “credible evidence.”
In 2010, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, the Holy See’s secretary of state, suggested that there is a link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse. “Gay” groups all over the world reacted with horror and fury, and echoed what Dignity USA had said years before. Rolando Jiminéz, president of Chile’s Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, said: “No reputable study exists to support the cardinal’s claims.”
Obviously, a proven link between homosexual orientation and child sexual molestation would badly damage the carefully crafted public relations image of the “gay rights” movement. Therefore, instead of calmly and rationally discussing the issues, homosexual rights leaders subscribe to the axiom: “The best defense is a good [and loud] offense.”
The media and liberal groups seem almost pathologically careful to avoid stereotyping an entire group of people because of the actions of just a few. For example, we are told repeatedly that we must not perceive jihadists as representing Islam. We are admonished that murderous MS-13 gang members and other violent felons are not representative of immigrants from the South. And we are instructed that we especially must not attribute any unfavorable characteristics whatsoever to homosexuals in general.
Yet, when dealing with the Catholic Church abuse crisis, the media and homosexual groups cast even the vestiges of decency and restraint to the wind. As one example, one writer described the Vatican as “an international criminal conspiracy to protect child rapists.”
Pope Benedict, because of his strong defense of the family, was singled out for the most vicious abuse. According to dissenting theologian Fr. Hans Kung, “Pope Benedict has made worse just about everything that is wrong with the Roman Catholic Church and is directly responsible for engineering the global cover-up of child rape perpetrated by priests.”
While pleading for diversity and tolerance, homosexuals have no problem with stereotyping all of those who do not agree with them on the issues. As one blog headline shouted, “If You Oppose Equal Marriage, You Are a Bigot.”
The only way to get at the root of the problem of priestly child molestation is to objectively study all of the facts pertaining to the situation, and then muster the courage to respond by taking the appropriate steps. If this is not done, any effort to address the problem, no matter how well intentioned or vigorously pursued, will be utterly squandered.
A Large Percentage
A number of studies performed over a period spanning more than half a century — many of which were performed by homosexuals or their sympathizers — have shown that an extremely large percentage of sexually active homosexuals also participate in child sexual molestation.
This is not “homophobia” or “hatred.” This is mere scientific fact.
The first study of this nature was performed by none other than the “Father of Sexology,” homosexual Alfred Kinsey, who found in 1948 that 37 percent of all male homosexuals admitted to having sex with children under 17 years old.
Several much more recent studies have confirmed that the rate of child sexual molestation among male homosexuals is much higher than among the general male population:
A 2000 study published in The Archives of Sexual Behavior found: “The best epidemiological evidence indicates that only 2-4 percent of men attracted to adults prefer men. In contrast, around 25-40 percent of men attracted to children prefer boys. Thus, the rate of homosexual attraction is 6-20 times higher among pedophiles.” This confirmed previous results in the same journal.
Another 2000 study in The Archives of Sexual Behavior found that “all but 9 of the 48 homosexual men preferred the youngest two male age categories.” These age categories were 15 and 20 years old.
A 1989 study in The Journal of Sex Research noted that “the proportion of sex offenders against male children among homosexual men is substantially larger than the proportion of sex offenders against female children among heterosexual men…the development of pedophilia is more closely linked with homosexuality than with heterosexuality.”
A study of 229 convicted child molesters published in The Archives of Sexual Behavior found that “eighty-six percent of [sexual] offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.”
A 1978 study by The Institute for Sex Research, which was founded by Alfred Kinsey, determined that 25 percent of white homosexual men have had sex with boys sixteen years and younger.
The homosexualist movement also points to certain studies to support its claims. However, these studies are invariably afflicted by one or more fatal flaws.
A typical example, oft-quoted by “gay rights” activists, is a July 1994 Pediatrics article claiming: “Using the data from our study, the 95 percent confidence limits of the risk children would identify recognizably homosexual adults as the potential abuser, are from 0 percent to 3.1 percent. These limits are within current estimates of the prevalence of homosexuality in the general community.”
The fatal flaw of this study is that it examined sexually abused children with a mean age of just 6.1 years. Children this young are usually targets of true pedophiles, those persons with no sexual attraction to adults of either sex. By contrast, homosexual pedophiles are usually classified as pederasts (those who sexually molest children of the same sex) or “ephebophiles,” persons sexually attracted to pubescent or post-pubescent children of the same sex.
These studies are certainly interesting, but some may claim that they do not really prove decisively a link between homosexuality and child sexual molestation. The next article will show that homosexual activists themselves have acknowledged the link many times.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress