The Case for Traditional Marriage/Program 3

Introduction

John Ankerberg: Welcome. We’re trying to make The Case for Traditional Marriage. And along the way, we’ve got to talk about the myths of homosexuality. We’re going to name at least three today. These questions revolve around this: How many people in the country are homosexual? Does science tell us that people are born gay? Can homosexuals change their orientation? A hot topic. What percentage of gays and lesbians have also been in heterosexual relationships? Do all homosexuals want to be married?

Alright, we’re going to talk about these things. And our guests are three of the best. We’ve got Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council in Washington, DC; former member of the Louisiana State Legislature, where he served for eight years. Dr. Jim Garlow is also with us, one of the leaders that led the successful campaign in California which passed Proposition 8, in which 7 million Californians voted for traditional marriage to remain the law of the state. He’s also the Senior Pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, and he’s Chairman of the Renewing American Leadership, in Washington, DC. And Craig Parshall is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters. He has tried cases before the Supreme Court, and a lot of the state courts as well. And we’re glad you guys are here today.

Let’s start with a booklet that the Family Research Council put out, Tony. It’s called The Ten Myths of Homosexuality. And let’s just start with number one, the myth that is widely circulated – I remember when I was at the university this was really coming on the fore – 10% of the population is gay. That’s just not true. Why?

Tony Perkins: Well, this came from Alfred Kinsey, the notorious early sex researcher. But the homosexuals jumped on that number. And if you go back to, really kind of their playbook, where… After the Ball, where they say, “Hey, we’ve got this number, here, let’s use it; let’s look bigger than we are.” And so they have promoted this number that 10% of the population is homosexual, where more accurately, even by self-description of those who are consistently homosexual or lesbian, is less than 2%.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Jim.

Jim Garlow: Kinsey’s reports have been debunked by anybody who’s serious in this study. His sample group consisted of people in prison, prostitutes, etc. This is not a study that should have any credibility to us today. And even somebody as liberal as Planned Parenthood, their group, Alan Guttmacher research, they say it’s around 1.4-2.8%, roughly 2% of the population considers themselves homosexual.

Ankerberg: Yeah. And in 1990, Craig, the University of Chicago also published a study. What did they come up with?

Craig Parshall: Yeah. If you leave some of the other ones, take a look at these reputable studies. A nationwide study of persons who self-identified themselves as homosexuals resulted in only 1.5% of the population being self-identified, describing themselves as homosexual. But it’s actually much less than that, because they really found that .7%, less than 1%, of those people surveyed had actually acted on their homosexual tendencies in terms of sexual conduct within the last year.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Tell me about what happened at the Supreme Court when a consortium of 31 of the leading homosexual rights groups in America, they filed an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief, with the Supreme Court, and they admitted that the figures from the National Health and Social Life Survey found that 2.8% of the male and 1.4% of the female population identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Here you have the other side actually saying it’s not 10%, it’s far less.

Parshall: And not only saying it, but saying it in an official amicus brief, friend of the court brief, filed with the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence vs. Texas on a case dealing with homosexual issues. So this could be said to be the official position of the homosexual movement in America.

Ankerberg: Yeah. And, Jim, I look at this one from the University of Chicago Press, which was Edward Laumann’s fantastic study in 1994, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. They really broke it down. What did they say?

Garlow: They said of those who are exclusively homosexual, even drops further, to .6 or 6/10 of 1% for males and the way down to .2 or 2/10 of 1% for females. This really drops the number.

Ankerberg: Yeah. And they based that on the fact of three categories: attractions, behavior and self-identification. Now, Tony, what are the ramifications of this? Why is this myth, if it’s knocked out, so important?

Perkins: Well, it’s extremely important that we realize what the real numbers are. And I think Craig is absolutely right. When you actually state this, and they state it in their court case or in their amicus brief filed with the court case, they stand behind that number as being genuine. They’re not the broad number that they have suggested to be. Why is that important? Well, because it has implications. Obviously, when you look at birth rates and you look at the population, if it’s at that small percentage, then obviously, their whole line of explanation for how homosexuality comes about has flaws to it.

Ankerberg: Yeah. And this group wants to change the definition of marriage for 98% of the population.

Perkins: Yeah. You got 2%, 2% of the population defining what marriage and family means for the other 98%.

Ankerberg: Alright. Myth number two, which is broadly published even today, okay, really gets to me, because it’s,… myth number two is science has proven that people are born gay. And the three most prominent studies that usually come up are the brain study in 1991, by Dr. Simon LeVay at Salk Institute of La Jolla, CA. Actually, when he published his study, I went out and interviewed him. I might show you a little tape of that. The identical twins study in 1991, conducted by researcher Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and Richard Pillard, is there talking about pairs of identical twins. And then there was the gene study in 1993 by Dr. Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute, who’s also gay, examined genetic material in the X-chromosome of some non-identical twin gay brothers. He thought that there was an inherited trait. But let’s look at these. How would you start, Jim?

Garlow: Well, first of all, in the case of La Jolla, CA, Dr. LeVay, they later discovered that all the people he investigated were not necessarily homosexual. Some were heterosexual. And so that really debunked, in the sense, what he was claiming.

Ankerberg: Yep. What else?

Perkins: Well, at the bottom of most of these studies, you look at the methodology, which is very important as a researcher that there’s consistency. They have serious flaws in their methodology. In fact, in Bailey’s twins study, he advertised for these twins. You know, say, “Hey, we’re here doing this study on homosexuality. We want you to come forward.” And so obviously, it’s not a random sampling that would be reflective of all society.

Garlow: He actually advertised in gay magazines.

Perkins: Right. I mean he was, he was almost trying to…

Garlow: He was prejudicial.

Perkins: He was trying to prove his point in getting to that point by working his way back. And that is a serious problem with almost every one of the studies that have been used to advance the homosexual agenda.

Ankerberg: Logically, let’s just take what he said: 50% of the identical twins, their genetic material being the same, if that was the cause of their being gay, what happened to the other 50%?

Perkins: Yeah.

Ankerberg: Okay. But the fact is, later on when he repeated his own studies, it came down to 20%. And when it was replicated by other researchers, it went down to 6 and 7%, okay. Now, what they don’t know, across the land, is if you look this up – and we’re going to post more detailed information about all these studies, ‘cause if my mom’s listening, or your mom’s listening, at this point, the fact is, she’s not interested in the statistic. But let me give you the fact that all three of these researchers, that people tout, have disclaimed their own studies, and said that it does not prove that it’s biologically determined. Craig, start us off.

Parshall: You know it’s important to see how, not only do they have flawed methodology, but also if jumping into conclusions were an Olympic event, they’d get gold medals. To give you an example, the 1993 Dean Hamer, National Cancer Institute study. He’s gay. Now, of course, you could conclude that, well, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s disqualified from conducting this study. Well, let’s see how he did it. He took non-identical twin gay brothers and then he looked at their X-chromosome genetic material. And he said, “Oh, I found a common genetic marker, okay, in non-identical twin brothers.” Now, what he should have done for proper methodology is then compare with heterosexual, non-gay brothers to see if the same marker was there for them, because they’re related by blood. But what he does then is further jump to a conclusion and say, “Because there is a genetic marker, it must be an inherited trait.” The connection has never been made between that marker and being an inherited genetic trait.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Now, let me tell you something that you’re not going to read in the New York Times or hear on the CBS Evening News: LeVay, Bailey, Pillard, Hamer have all stated their studies did not prove that homosexuality is genetically or biologically determined. Let me put their statement on the board, okay. Put this up on the screen.

“It’s important to stress” Simon LeVay said about his brain study, “what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality was genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work.”

Dean Hamer, of the Cancer Institute said, “Homosexuality is not purely genetic... environmental factors play a role.” This is family again. “There is not a single master gene that makes people gay.... I don’t think that we will ever be able to predict who will be gay.”

And then, here you have, in the archives of General Psychology, you’ve got an article entitled Human Sexual Orientation: the Biological Theories Reappraised. And they said, “Critical review of these studies shows the evidence favoring the biologic theory to be lacking…. In fact, the current trend may be to underrate the explanatory power of extant psycho-social models.” And what do they say here, Jim, in terms of Columbia University Professors, Richard Friedman and Jennifer Downey, they sum up the state of the research.

Garlow: “At clinical conferences, one often hears… that homosexual orientation is fixed and un-modifiable. Neither assertion is true…. The assertion that homosexuality is genetic is so reductionistic that it may be dismissed out of hand as a general principle of psychology.”

Ankerberg: Alright. What does this mean for everything that we’re talking about?

Perkins: Well, the bottom line is that there is no scientific consensus that homosexuality is an inborn trait. And that’s extremely important when we move into these public policy debates, because now you’re hearing, if you watch TV it is presented as fact that they’re born that way. You hear that: homosexuals, gays, lesbians are born that way. There is no scientific evidence that backs that up. And that’s important because that means, as we have seen a number of ex-homosexuals – those who have come out of the lifestyle – that people can change, too. People do make choices. And that’s important. Because they’re not locked into this lifestyle; therefore, we’re not obligated to recognize a new form of relationship.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Tony, you know we got to stop here, because I had staff members that were Christians when I was in Intervarsity, doing 78 university campuses and speaking, okay, that came up to me while we were doing our evangelistic work and preaching and ministering to students. And he says, “I’m plagued with same-sex attraction.” So, this is personal to me. The fact is, I have a deep love for the homosexual community, because this… they say, “I feel different.” You were telling me last night that you had some meetings with folks, and folks have come up. Tell me about that.

Perkins: I think we have to be very clear that when we say it’s a choice, I don’t think homosexuals or lesbians choose a lifestyle. There are factors, very complex factors, that play into this; experiences as a young person, as a child. But I had an encounter, I was invited to New York to come speak to the staff of a cable talk show host. I’ll leave it at that. A very large staff. And I went and spent two hours with him, taking questions and answers. And New York values are not the same as values in Louisiana where I grew up. But one of the first questions that was fired to me by one of his assistants, who was a homosexual, and said, “Why do you want to deprive me of me and my partner to enjoy the relationship that you and your wife have?” And of course I can give the, you know, the public policy answer. But what really struck me is that, as I saw the pain and the hurt in his eyes, that he somehow sees those of us who are defending traditional marriage as standing in the way of between them and their fulfillment and their happiness, when we know that’s not true. Because even in the states that have legalized marriage or these unions for homosexuals, the majority don’t choose them. And those that do are not finding the satisfaction. And so there’s a reason, as Christians, why we continue to hold up a standard of truth. It’s because we do love; we are compassionate. And Jesus said, He said, “I’m the way the truth and the life.” And He said, “I come to give life and give it more abundantly.” And as we stand for the gospel, we have to stand for truth, but knowing these folks need a relationship with Jesus Christ. But they need the fulfillment that they’re looking for. And they’ll never find it if we give them marriage. We can give them anything they want, they’ll not find that satisfaction.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Folks constantly tell me that are having same-sex attractions, “I just feel different. I don’t know why I feel this.” And if you were to say to them, “Do you want to change?” They say, “Yeah.” And you say, “Okay, what would be the first thing you would do?” And they’ll tell you, “I don’t know,” okay. And there’s good information that can be explained to them, and I think we’ll talk about that more when we come after the break, of this myth that homosexuals can’t change, okay. The statistics, the research shows that that’s not true. So, folks, stick with us. We’ll be right back

Ankerberg: Alright, we’re back. We’re talking with Tony Perkins and Jim Garlow and with Craig Parshall. And we’re talking about the three myths of homosexuality. There’s actually 10, but we’re talking about three. And we’ve talked, first of all, 10/% are gay: that’s not true. And science shows that they’re born gay: we’ve shown that’s not true. We want to talk about myth #3, which is Tony?

Perkins: Well, myth #3 is that sexual orientation can never change, that you’re somehow locked into this sexual orientation. And why are these myths important? I mean, why are we spending time talking about it? Well, one is because these myths are actually finding their way into legal findings. You know, Judge Walker, out in California, cited this myth as one of the rationales for overturning Prop 8. In fact, he said that, in Number 46 of his findings of fact, that people don’t choose their orientation, that they can’t choose it. But what’s interesting, down in his findings of fact, he actually cites 88% of gay men reported that they had no choice at all about their sexual orientation. My question is, what about the other 12% that had a choice? And 68% of lesbians said they had no choice. What about the 32% that did? If it’s not across the board, where you have no choice, where it’s fixed, if there’s some changing, it’s not fixed.

Ankerberg: Jim, you wanted something at the end of the last program, what was it?

Garlow: Well, the Bible doesn’t even address the issue of sexual orientation, if there is any such thing. It addresses actions, what we choose to do. It addresses conduct. For example, a heterosexual male: a heterosexual male may be innately polygamist, and frankly, probably most are, but we are wise enough not to act on that. And society even prohibits us from doing that. Wisely so. So it is with the homosexual population, if there is such a thing as an orientation, that’s not the heart of the matter; it’s what I choose to do, in terms of conduct, acting out certain things.

Ankerberg: Yeah.

Garlow: What intrigues me is how angry the radical homosexual lobby gets when they hear stories of people who have been set free from acting it out. You would think they would rejoice that people could have a choice. But they get very, very upset, because they do not want it known that people can change and don’t have to act on that.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Theologically, again, the fact is if we’re all part of the fall, then the fall affects us both spiritually – our mental capacities – and physically. And why wouldn’t sex be a part of this thing, okay? People were affected in different ways because of the fall. But we’re coming to this question here of, can people change orientation? Can they come out? And we’re not going to quote a Christian here, we’re going to talk about Robert Spitzer from Columbia University. And why is that so important, what he found?

Parshall: John, I remember back in the 1970’s when there was a great debate within the American Psychiatric Association by taking out of the DSM – which is the manual that basically defines all of the basic mental disorders that are treated by psychiatrists – they were going to take homosexuality out of there and say, “No longer are we going to treat this, consider this to be an emotional or personal abnormality.” Robert Spitzer, from Columbia University, a physician, a psychiatrist, was one of the leaders in that movement. He has since changed his mind. And if you look at the report of his studies now, more recently, he took 200 men and women who had participated in what we call reorientation counseling, those who say, “You know, I really would like to change my orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.” Here are the statistics. These are shocking: 66% of men in that counseling, 44% of the women in that counseling, ended up having what he termed “very good” heterosexual functioning after counseling. And then 89% of the men, 95% of the women, those that were getting counseling, said later on they were bothered only very slightly by homosexual feelings after the successful counseling. So that’s a tremendous success story. And it also belies this myth embedded in Judge Walker’s decision that somehow this is unchanging. Unchanging, by the way, because I believe there’s a political and legal agenda behind the argument that this is immutable and unchanging, because then we can be compared to race and gender and have special legal protection.

Ankerberg: Which we’re going to talk about next week. But, Jim, also on this thing, a lot of people say that such therapy is harmful and, boy, you guys are just terrible for even bringing it up.

Garlow: Well, what’s remarkable is the people who long for that kind of therapy ask for it themselves. They themselves feel traumatized; they themselves suffer from depression. A practicing homosexual brings upon themselves all kinds of challenging health factors, including mental health. And so people who long for reorientation therapy do so out of a good sense that they want a better life than what they have.

Ankerberg: Yeah. In the 1970s, sex researchers Masters and Johnson, a lot of folks, they read their stuff, but they don’t recognize what Masters and Johnson said about this question: “The view that homosexuality cannot be changed is certainly open to question.” Reuben Fine, the former director of the New York Center for Psychoanalytical Training, has stated that “the misinformation spread by certain circles that homosexuality is untreatable has done incalculable harm to thousands.” I think of kids that are coming up in school, and they’re faced with these feelings that they have and they want to get some information, and they’re not getting a chance to get help at that point.

Garlow: Well, they’re actually confused. They’re actually encouraged towards their confusion. A boy that would grow up with just normal responses of a male, or a girl growing up with normal responses of a female, is intentionally mixed-up. The homosexual movement has a lot at stake. What they want, the people to raise questions, be confused about their own sexual orientation.

Perkins: And this is why the education system is so important. Because when kids are wrestling with this at the young age and you have this pro-homosexual curriculum introduced into the schools – in fact, they go after these children – and when they begin to indoctrinate them with these ideas, “Oh, that’s normal, and you need to act it out,” they get locked into a lifestyle. It goes from a thought into an action, and that action then becomes habitual.

Garlow: Well, the LGBT – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender – they’ve added a Q, and the Q is in part Questioning.

Ankerberg: For questioning.

Garlow: Questioning, to automatically, you should question what your orientation would be.

Ankerberg: Yeah, lesbian author Camille Paglia says in her book Vamps and Tramps, “Gay activists are guilty of Stalinist disinformation when they assert that homosexuality is no different than the equivalent to heterosexuality….” They said, “Is gay identity so fragile that it cannot bear the thought that some people may not wish to be gay, that they can actually change?”

Ankerberg: Now, here’s a really interesting question, do all homosexuals want to get married? What do you think? There’s actually four groups of homosexuals and they’re divided, they’re seriously divided on this question. The first group, they desire a life similar to married heterosexuals. They want gay marriage legalized. They think it will be healthy for gay couples. What do you think?

Perkins: Well, I think that’s the media image that the homosexual movement wants to create. But when you look at Vermont where they had civil unions, after four years only 27.5% of same-sex couples actually married. Go to California. While same-sex marriage was legal, less than 20% chose it. I think that’s a very small percentage that actually follows that route.

Ankerberg: Second group, Craig, is they view marriage as a ball-and-chain; they don’t want it to be legalized. Why?

Parshall: Well, it’s essential that you recognize this group, because I think it’s an overwhelming majority of those who practice a homosexual lifestyle. Let me give you the 2004 report, University of Chicago. They interviewed Chicago’s gay community. They found that 61% of the men who were homosexuals had at least 30 sexual partners, and 43% of the group reported more than 60 partners. You know, you look at lesbian writers like Camille Paglia, herself a lesbian author, she says, “Look, the gay men I know, they define monogamy as they wait two weeks before they seek another partner. So, in fact, here’s the irony. The case that brought this to the Supreme Court, the very first case, Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986. The court, you know, in subsequent cases talks about an intimate, loving, deep, emotional bond between homosexuals, much like heterosexual marriage couples. But, in fact, in that case it was a one-night-stand between two individuals who had never met each other before. Very characteristic of a lot of these relationships.

Ankerberg: Yeah. Third group is, namely, lesbian family law scholars who argued for the complete deconstruction of marriage. They don’t want to have any boundaries.

Garlow: They are for social anarchy. They see marriage as repressive, as patriarchal, as archaic. These are such radical people they call for social destruction of our culture. They even view something as so God-given as even the birthing process as an act of rape on a woman. These people are extremely left-wing and would literally destroy everything that’s foundational to our culture.

Ankerberg: Yeah. They want not only polygamy, but group marriage or any kind of marriage; any three, four, whatever the number might be. Fourth group is actually homosexuals that believe that to tinker with the institution of marriage and legalizing the same-sex unions could destroy our society.

Perkins: Well, there’s a growing body of evidence that suggests that’s true. If you look at Stanley Kurtz’ work, and what he has done in Norway, where we have seen over a decade worth of same-sex marriage, the fact that it has begun to bring down marriage rates, out of wedlock births, which is the very core of society when you look at the family. So, I think that is an accurate assessment of what same-sex marriage will do.

Ankerberg: Jim, what should we conclude about these four groups?

Garlow: The gay community does not speak with one voice. There’s a lot of diversity of opinion of this whole issue: should homosexuals be allowed to get married to each other.

Ankerberg: Alright, next week we’re going to talk about the important topic, is same-sex marriage an individual right that’s guaranteed by the Constitution? You hear this on every TV program. And we’re going to answer that question. I hope that you’ll join us.