Myths about homosexuality debunked

Today I am going to abstract an article authored by Schlatter and Steinback of the Southern Poverty Law Center, entitled, “10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked”. The SPLC founded by attorney Morris Dees, 40 years ago in Montgomery, Alabama has been a privately funded legal advocacy service for oppressed minorities. A link to the full treatise of this gay rights issue is: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/10-myths.
Gay rights issues seem to be the last bastion of human rights struggles in our country’s history. What is there about same sex marriage that puts some folks into a fearful tailspin? Our resistance to granting rights to minorities stems from economics, family cultural myths, religious bigotry, and outright ignorance. Why does the United States usually become the last major power or developed nation to embrace equal human rights?
History has clearly shown that when we oppress any group based on sexual orientation, race, religion, nationality, or gender identification that not only does the minority group suffer, but our society in general loses out on the benefits of the minorities talents, skills, and contributions.
My general point is not just about focusing on the oppression of gay individuals, but why our fears, misinformation, and prejudices continue to transfer from one minority group to the other. Decades ago it was women, Jews, Blacks, Catholics, and Asians, these days the whipping persons are gays, Hispanics, and Muslims.
1: Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals. Depicting gay men as a threat to children may be the single most potent weapon for stoking public fears about homosexuality, and for winning elections and referenda.
FACTS - According to the American Psychological Association, “homosexual men are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.” Gregory Herek, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation’s leading researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than heterosexual men. 2: Same-sex parents harm children. Most hard-line anti-gay organizations are heavily invested, from both a religious and a political standpoint, in promoting the traditional nuclear family as the sole framework for the healthy upbringing of children
FACTS - No legitimate research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any more or any less harmful to children than heterosexual couples. The American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2002 policy statement declared: “A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.” That policy statement was reaffirmed in 2009. 3: People become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents. Many anti-gay rights proponents claim that homosexuality is a mental disorder caused by some
psychological trauma or aberration in childhood. This argument is used to counter the common observation that no one, gay or straight, consciously chooses his or her sexual orientation.
FACTS - No scientifically sound study has linked sexual orientation or identity with parental role-modeling or childhood sexual abuse. The American Psychiatric Association noted in a 2000 fact sheet on gay, lesbian and bisexual issues that “no specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse.” The fact sheet goes on to say that sexual abuse does not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual than in children who grow up and identify as heterosexual.
4: Homosexuals don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals. Anti-gay organizations want to promote heterosexuality as the healthier “choice.” Furthermore, the purportedly shorter life spans and poorer physical and mental health of homosexuals are often offered as reasons why gays and lesbians shouldn’t be allowed to adopt or foster children. FACTS - This falsehood can be traced directly to the discredited research of Paul Cameron and his Family Research Institute, specifically a 1994 paper he co-wrote entitled, “The Lifespan of Homosexuals.” Using obituaries collected from gay newspapers, he and his two co-authors concluded that gay men died, on average, at 43, compared to an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.S. men.
5: Homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust. This claim comes directly from a 1995 book titled The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, by Lively and Abrams. These claims have been picked up by a number of anti-gay groups and individuals, including Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, been roundly discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars as proof that homosexuals are violent and sick.
FACTS - The myth that the Nazis condoned homosexuality sprang up in the 1930s, started by socialist opponents of the Nazis as a slander against Nazi leaders. Credible historians believe that only one of the half-dozen leaders in Hitler’s inner circle, Ernst Röhm, was gay. In 1942, the Nazis instituted the death penalty for homosexuals.
6: Hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia. Anti-gay activists, who have long opposed adding LGBT people to those protected by hate crime legislation, have repeatedly claimed that such laws would lead to the jailing of religious figures who preach against homosexuality
FACTS - The claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of those who “oppose the homosexual lifestyle” is false. The Constitution provides robust protections of free speech, and case law makes it clear that even a preacher who suggested that homosexuals should be killed would be protected.
7: Allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed forces. Anti-gay groups are adamantly opposed to allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces. If gays can serve honorably and effectively in this meritocracy, that would suggest that there is no rational basis for discriminating against them in any way. THE FACTS Homosexuals now serve in the U.S. armed forces, though under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy instituted in 1993, they cannot serve openly. At the same time, gays and lesbians serve openly in the armed forces of 25 countries, including Britain, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia.
8: Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol. Anti-gay groups want not only to depict sexual orientation as something that can be changed but also to show that heterosexuality is the most desirable “choice” — even if religious arguments are set aside.
FACTS - All major professional mental health organizations are on record as stating that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. It is true that LGBT people suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression, and depression-related illnesses and behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population. But studies done during the past 15 years have determined that it is the stress of being a member of a minority group in an often-hostile society — and not LGBT identity itself — that accounts for the higher levels of mental illness and drug use. 9: No one is born a homosexual. Anti-gay activists keenly oppose the granting of “special” civil rights protections to homosexuals similar to those afforded black Americans and other minorities
FACTS - Modern science cannot state conclusively what causes sexual orientation, but a great many studies suggest that it is the result of biological and environmental forces, not a personal “choice.”
10: Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality. If people are not born gay, as anti-gay activists claim, then it should be possible for individuals to abandon homosexuality.
FACTS - “Reparative” or sexual reorientation therapy — the pseudo-scientific foundation of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the established and reputable American medical, psychological, psychiatric, and professional counseling organizations.
Imagine a world where we strive to work on the improvement of our own self esteem and education, instead of transferring our insecure feelings and fearful hatred to minority groups.