Much Ado About Nothing!
A NEWLY RELEASED REPORT from the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics reveals that only 2.3% of the population considers themselves homosexual. The statistics come from a 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and are based on 12,571 interviews with men and women ages 15-44 years of age. (The findings were reported in WorldNetDaily, September 16, 2005).
According to this survey, only 2.3% of the males surveyed considered themselves to be homosexuals; 1.8% considered themselves to be bisexuals. Among men ages 18-44, 92% said they were attracted “only to females” and 3.9% “mostly” to females. Among women, 86% said they were attracted only to males, and 10% “mostly” to males.
For most of the last four decades the prevailing sentiment, thanks in large part to the studies done by Alfred Kinsey, was that the percentage of homosexuals or bisexuals was around 10% of the population.
Not one to miss an opportunity, the Religious Right, in an obvious “We Told You So” manner has been harping on this latest evolution – oops, sorry, another dirty word – in theory. As usual, nothing seems to satisfy these myopic individuals. When it was thought that 10 percent of the population was gay or bisexual, their theme was to stop the homosexual agenda from ruining the American Way. Their fear was that homosexuals would spread their perversion – like it was some kind of black plague – throughout the millions of decent, upstanding heterosexuals. Now that the actual number seems to be approximately half of what it was thought to be, the goal is to slam the gay-loving scientists that spread their contempt for good old-fashioned family values, by conducting unscientific research.
Now frankly, I’ve always thought it extremely amusing that a group that has as much use for science as a roach has for a can of Raid, would make such a fuss about getting scientific research right, but in this case, I must grudgingly agree with them. Not because I agree with their views, but because bad science is just that: bad science. While no field of scientific endeavor is immune from its share of mistakes, when those mistakes are the result of bad research, and that research is followed up by still more bad research, it tarnishes the good research, thus giving religious groups the thunder and political capital to challenge other areas of scientific research; i.e. evolution, the age of the universe, the Big Bang, etc… The latest “push” by certain evangelical movements to foist Intelligent Design into public schools as a scientific theory equal to evolution is a classic case in point. When God wasn’t preoccupied with bending the light of stars that were millions of light years away so that they could be seen by us in the here and now, He’s making sure we all understand that he “limited” himself to a mere week to create everything we see and hear. This is the kind of nonsense St. Augustine addressed in 415 AD when he wrote The Literal Meaning of Genesis. More than 1500 years later and we’re still dealing with this crap! These people won’t be satisfied until everything that disagrees with their world-view is eliminated or marginalized.
For my vantage point, having met and gotten to know several gay men, my feeling is that this is much ado about nothing. The only agenda here is the one that seeks to condemn a group of people who, regardless of their numbers, have been among us for thousands of years. Wishing them away because you feel superior to them, or because you find something intrinsically defective in them reminds me of the passage in John when the Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus to be stoned who had been accused of adultery. They quoted the law of Moses, but Jesus refused to play along. Finally when they gave up and left, he asked the women where her accusers had gone. "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. Now I know what many of you will say next. Peter, you left out the part where Jesus says to the woman “go and sin no more.” True, but I’ve always wondered if that quote wasn’t meant as much for us as it was for her.
We are all sinners, but the greatest sin is believing you are superior to another of God’s creatures. Let us not forget the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18: 9-14. "Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Don’t we have enough Pharisees in this world?
