Recently the Times has run news stories and opinion pieces about homosexuality. Before people decide that being gay is just another lifestyle choice that should be regarded as normal, they might consider these findings:
*According to the Gay Community News, "The statistics do point to the gay community, particularly gay men, as being most at risk of becoming alcoholics."
*The Archives of Sexual Behavior says "The levels of depression and anxiety in our homosexual subjects, whether HIV positive or HIV negative, are substantially higher than those found in representative general population samples."
*A 1978 study by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg, 18% of white gay men reported trying to kill themselves at least once; 3% of white heterosexual men said they had tried to commit suicide.
Significantly, the publications and individuals reporting these data are very much in favor of the societal normalization of homosexuality.
Mary Eberstadt wrote the following in a short article to First Things magazine in February 2004: "None of that evidence, of course, will suprise those who actually minister to homosexual persons from a traditionalist perspective. But this same evidence is almost entirely unknown, because culturally verboten [forbidden] throughout the secular world and particularly among our secular elites".
No one wishes gay men and women to suffer the afflictions documented above and elsewhere. Nevertheless, the push to normalize gay behaviour is rampant throughout what is commonly called the "mainstream media". Before we confirm that way of life for individuals, however, we would do well to consider if it is good for them. The statistics indicate that it is not.
Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com
