Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Rom 1 reply, 51: A note on homosexualist advocate and pollster Mr Peter Wickham's survey on "homophobia" in the Caribbean

Last evening, on an Antigua-based radio station, there was a regional news item on homosexualist advocate and pollster Mr Peter Wickham's recent survey on "homophobia" trends in the Caribbean.  Where, of course, according to his CADRES organisation, the "religious" and "illiterates" are presented as the reservoirs of "homophobia" in the region.

This, is in a context where through radical activists' demands, Professor Dr Brendan Bain was recently fired by UWI under obvious threats to funding, for the thought-crime of writing the scientifically grounded but obviously politically incorrect truth about the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in an on oath expert witness affidavit to the Belize Supreme Court. Where also, shortly after this, one of the involved activist groups -- JFJ/CVCC -- was soon embroiled in a scandal over circumventing safeguards on age inappropriate content in ways that were tantamount to grooming underage orphans for sexual abusers. (Also cf. here.)

 As well, on Friday last, Caribbean listeners heard on the BBC morning news how the World Health Organisation has had to acknowledge that "gays" and "men who have sex with men" are nineteen times more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than the general public. On the strength of this, the WHO is recommending that such men -- even if they do not yet have the HIV/AIDS infection -- should take the antiviral cocktails as a preventive measure.

A few regrettably painfully sharp but needed words are in order -- this is a public discrediting attack dressed up as a "scientific" survey done by a leading pollster in the Caribbean, not merely a statement of personal opinion.

It must be firmly answered.

But before I address what needs to be said, let me point to a video that I think we all need to take time to see, and should show in churches and to youth groups:



 (And, sirs, principled objection to a radical, ill-founded agenda is not to be dismissed as a bigotry-based moral "panic." Cynically dismissive talking points in derision of the June 29th Half Way Tree Rally in reply to your aggressive activism are duly noted for what they are.)

Mr Wickham [et al], with all due respect, you threw the first punch.

In fact, it is worse than that, you are (and for quite some time have been . . . ) indulging in the notorious and unprofessional destructive public relations tactic the Americans call, poisoning the well. A well that FYI, whatever you may think about it, many of us in the Caribbean recognise we need to drink from. As in:
1 Cor 6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
[NET. And if you imagine the gospel is ill-founded superstition and rubbish, I suggest you and ilk take a timeout to read, view and follow up here on, as a start. (A worldviews issues oriented discussion is here on.) Two current examples of deliverance from homosexuality are here -- Donnie McClurkin -- and here (a lesbian). Suggestions for ministry by former lesbian and leader of a ministry to homosexuals, Janet Boynes, are here. A more structured testimony on the road of recovery is here. I suggest something reflecting the highly successful 12-step addiction recovery model will be helpful for same-sex attraction and behaviour, as well as porn, fornication, adultery, drugs addiction, tobacco, gluttony, greed, drunkenness, thievery and many other life dominating sinful bondages. I again point to My Genes Made Me Do It, for scientifically grounded facts that are usually drowned out in the popular media, on the campus, on the street, and even in churches. Note Rev. Al Mohler's courageous exposition of Gen. 19 here.]

I would dare to suggest that there are in fact many thousands who have been delivered from homosexual entanglement, and millions from alcohol, greed, thievery, general sexual immorality and adultery, swindling and worse, through the gospel over these past two thousand years. The power of the gospel and its truth are not on trial, we are. And, we are responsible to respect and receive the transforming truth of the gospel, not rail against it and seek to poison hearts and minds against it in attempted defence of sinful, patently destructive lifestyles. 

And, while I am at it, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of Barbados, please -- on fair comment -- you knew or should have known that Professor Dr Brendan Bain personally led in some of the first responses to HIV/AIDS victims in our region in the early 1980's, and you should have known the equally courageous scientific and public health leadership he showed . . . including in the testimony that just cost him his job. And if you did not know, both your editors should have known. And, all of you knew or should have known this Christian gentleman's character and faith. So, with all due respect, there is much for you to explain in the following words you wrote in a UWI Press book meant to guide the legal, rights response to HIV/AIDS in the region:


 And, Prime Minister Denzil Douglas of St Kitts, also on fair comment, kindly explain to us how the people of the region as a whole came to and drew the following "lessons learned" regarding HIV/AIDS, buggery law and in particular Age of Consent Law:


(I note that yes, "lie" is a strong word -- but at this level it can only be willful misrepresentation to claim that a legal provision against a particular unnatural, insanitary, medically damaging and proved disease spreading act often used to corrupt boys is equal to the attitude of being attracted to people of one's own sex. Attitudes and acts, sir, are categorically distinct.  And, given that despite a buggery provision Jamaica has a quite high "reach" to the homosexual community and given the regional challenge of sexual abuse of underage girls, please explain to us how laws such as age of consent and buggery "must go" if we are to effectively address HIV/AIDS. Especially, as the document just excerpted seems to express part of the "consensus" that just cost Dr Bain his job for the thought crime of contradicting it. For one, I am absolutely sure there is no regional consensus to remove age of consent law. Where, Dr Gomes of JFJ and CVCC etc -- on fair comment --  if you cite this CARICOM document as showing a policy "consensus" on removing Buggery law, that logic implies that the next sentence implies a "consensus" to remove or cripple the force of age of consent law. But in fact, there is no such consensus, just obvious radical activism subverting regional health policy through agendas that must use fronts like this. )

In short, we must put Mr Wickham's survey and implied arguments in context, showing a hint or two about what is at stake, and at what levels in our region. In further short, we face radical and ruthless agendas, with obvious influence in halls of power. This is not merely about what consenting adults do in their bedrooms -- and it never was.

I must now be painfully specific.

With all due respect, Mr Wickham, you are the one pretending and suggesting by the very structure of your survey that to dare differ with you  is to be irrational and next to an illiterate ignoramus. The invidious associations: phobias, illiterates, "religious" are obvious.

Obvious well poisoning, in a context where you recently had to be called out publicly in the Barbados Nation and Barbados Today for unwarranted hostility to the Christian Faith and for cheering on patent injustice on the Bain affair.

 Please, bear that in mind.

 And please, think again about what kind of matches you are playing with:
James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we will be judged more strictly.

 2 For we all stumble in many ways. If someone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect individual, able to control the entire body as well. 3 And if we put bits into the mouths of horses to get them to obey us, then we guide their entire bodies.

  4 Look at ships too: Though they are so large and driven by harsh winds, they are steered by a tiny rudder wherever the pilot’s inclination directs. 5 So too the tongue is a small part of the body, yet it has great pretensions. Think how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze. 6 And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence—and is set on fire by hell.
 
7 For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature is subdued and has been subdued by humankind. 8 But no human being can subdue the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. [NET]
A position as a Newspaper Columnist, talk show host and pollster is a position of responsibility to instruct others, so kindly ponder this warning.

 Now, obviously all of this advocacy seems to reflect a topsy-turvy age of newspeak in which too often  light is dark, dark is light, words do not mean what they seem to say, the false is perceived true and the true false, and good is presented as evil, evil as good. Isaiah, prince of prophets warns:
Isa 5:20 Those who call evil good and good evil are as good as dead,
who turn darkness into light and light into darkness,
who turn bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter.
21 Those who think they are wise are as good as dead,
those who think they possess understanding.
22 Those who are champions at drinking wine are as good as dead,
who display great courage when mixing strong drinks.
23 They pronounce the guilty innocent for a payoff,
they ignore the just cause of the innocent.
24 Therefore, as flaming fire devours straw,
and dry grass disintegrates in the flames,
so their root will rot,
and their flower will blow away like dust.
For they have rejected the law of the Lord who commands armies,
they have spurned the commands of the Holy One of Israel. [NET]
I know, I know, you are prone to accuse Christians of imposing their myths and notions in the name of truth and right, and challenge us to define truth.

 That Barbados Nation and Barbados Today article did that for you, in the words of Aristotle: truth says of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not.

 Likewise, that which is right and good and wholesome morally, will contribute to thriving, it will not undermine and destroy individuals, families and societies.  (And that reflects Kant's Categorical Imperative.)

 Which is exactly what prof Bain was warning against concerning buggery and promiscuity, associated drunkennes and drugs-taking etc. -- at the cost of his unjust dismissal As in, from the Barbados Today/Nation article:
“All sexually active persons [not just homosexuals, “all”] must be urged to take responsibility for private and public behaviour change as part of a comprehensive national approach that includes individuals delaying their sexual debut, reducing the number of their intimate sexual partners, getting tested for HIV and other STIs in relation to known risky exposure, learning and practising assertive skills in order to avoid coercive sex, disclosing the presence of an STI to prospective partners, using approved barrier protective devices, avoiding the use of mind-altering drugs –  especially during or in temporal proximity to intimate sexual activity, and eliminating behaviours that carry the highest risk of coming into contact with infections . . . .
“In this approach, public and private health and education authorities ensure that everyone in the nation has accurate information and is supported and enabled to take responsibility for the health and safety of self and others.”

Dr Bain then pleads (in vain) for reason rather than rage: “A comprehensive approach calls for honest collaboration rather than confrontation.”
And to what result at the hands of the radical activists you support? Let us read on:
For this, he was fired. Not, because the CHART Centre’s charter calls for abolition of buggery laws (it does not), nor because he violated the trust of the major clients of CHART (public health educators, and so on, or the general public, or even those at risk of AIDS who desperately need to hear and heed Dr Bain’s counsel). No, because he cut across an agenda by speaking unwelcome truth to power.

UWI was cowed by obvious threats to cut funding, and has instead sacrificed academic freedom and has disrespected the right of courts to seek the unfettered truth from expert witnesses in light of their research. Along the way – sadly – the value of a UWI degree just went down drastically, as it seems politically correct indoctrination is now likely to prevail over sound truth, scientific integrity and critical thinking.

All of which should be of sobering concern to every Caribbean citizen and to every parent who is thinking about sending his or her son or daughter to university.
And, what about your hobby-horse?
As for Mr Wickam and his hobby horse, blaming the Christian faith and scriptures for slavery, he needs to ask himself why it is that it was Christians, Bibles in hand, who led the fight against slavery. To the point that the motto of the Antislavery Society that we can see in our textbooks, Am I Not A Man And A Brother?, comes straight from the same Bible, in the Book Of Philemon. Which is in fact one of the earliest, most historically significant undermining works against slavery and oppression of women, based on the heart-softening principle of our equality under God and resulting moral worth that demands respect.
Mr Jordan then rightly called for a return to balance and reasonableness:
It is time for a more balanced, less angry response to issues of our day, especially as the whole region sees one of its major institutions caught red-handed in injustice instigated by radical activists and their appeal to the power of “he who pays the piper calls the tune”.
So, we have a bit of backdrop to address some of the more specific concerns in your latest bit of well-poisoning, in the interests of setting some record straight, by right of fair comment in reply to unjust provocation.

 First, the key word and alleged survey variable you used, "homophobia" is patently not a legitimate term, certainly in any context that presents itself as seeking to establish objective and reasonable facts.

By definition, a "phobia" is an IRRATIONAL fear.

So, patently, a major question is being begged here. 

Sir, those who --
a: properly understanding that there is no credible body of scientific findings that grounds the commonly met claims that same sex attractions and behaviour are genetically determined -- have 

b: principled, medically informed and morally grounded objections to same sex behaviour, acts and ongoing radical attempts to warp our civilisation to try to enact under false colours of law that perversion of marriage under false colours of "equality" is as legitimate as Creation-Order rooted marriage and family
. . .  are not to be portrayed as hewing to an irrational fear, at least by the fair-minded. 

Even, 
c: the simple man on the street corner by the Probyn Street bus stand where Clement Payne used to speak, who 

d: looks at the obvious complementarity of the sexes, the pivotal importance of the procreative act of marriage, and the patent unnaturalness, insanitary and damaging behaviour involved in unnatural acts,
. . .  is fully capable of forming a reasonable and common sense grounded objection to the pretence that the inherently disordered is as good as that which it twists.

 So, 
e: the whole project of your survey is illegitimate. Which,

f:  needs to be publicly said.
Similarly, for decades homosexualist activists have repeatedly resorted to Orwellian twisted newspeak tactics. 

 This needs to be said, also, to help restore sanity.

 First, as it is now a commonplace to see the pretence that "how dare you call us homosexuals," I note that this term was introduced in C19 to objectively describe certain sexual behavioural patterns and associated attitudes.

Next, it is quite obvious that the kidnapped word, "gay" is not exactly an apt description of the consequences of the lifestyle that have indisputably been epidemiologically associated with all too typical patterns of homosexual behaviour, as the WHO has just had to admit. 

Nor is this simply a matter of what men do in private, homosexualist activists plainly and openly are seeking to distort marriage and family life, education, views and values, law and much more under false colours of claims about genetically in-stamped behaviour and pretended "rights."

 So, there is a reason for principled, informed objection, and resistance to an activist, radical agenda.

 Likewise, there is an agenda-serving attempt to redefine what "sex" -- sexual intercourse -- means, as for instance was just pushed into law without proper consultation with the public and over objections from the opposition benches, in Montserrat:


I therefore must object to terms such as "Men who have SEX with men."

 Acts such as buggery -- an unnatural, insanitary, medically damaging and proved disease spreading act that imposes unreasonable costs on the region's public health resources -- are simply not to be rendered as equivalent to the procreative act of marriage. 

God gets to define sex, not us. 

Period.

In the words of our Saviour:
Matt 19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” [NET]
That holds for Sue interfering with Adam and Eve to break up their marriage, and it holds for Steve interfering with Adam or his son Seth to indulge in perverted behaviour, and it holds for Genevieve interfereing with Eve also. That is, Jesus our Lord and Saviour very clearly established that he stands foursquare on the foundation of Creation Order Marriage and family life. Anything that undermines that is inherently disordered, damaging and destructive. Period.

 Where also, no, we do not accept that there is a dividing wall between Jesus and his Apostles in their teachings. Including the man Jesus personally arrested on the road to Damascus, and tutored for three years in the Arabian desert, Saul of Tarsus.

In short, our Creator gets to define that sex is meant for marriage, such that any patterns of behaviour that take it out of that context are wrongful. I know this is unpopular and even viewed as hopelessly old fashioned to the point of being silly, but that does not change the truth. And, the damaging consequences of ignoring the Creator's instructions for our own good, on persons, families, and societies should be obvious to all. 

At least, to all willing to see them.

 So, the time has come for us all to take a serious look at what we are doing and to reform our ways in the interests of what is right and good for us. END

 PS: Some references that I think will help us:
First, the KF pamphlet on homosexualism, here. And also:



     
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