Some Inconvenient (and Uncomfortable) Truths on Homosexuality

Earlier this year, as Ezra Klein’s Vox.com was launched, when describing why another news and politics site was necessary, Klein remarked that Vox would be “as good at explaining the world as it is at reporting on it.” It seems that is not the case when it comes to homosexuality.

Recently Vox reported on a new study from the Centers for Disease Control which revealed that from 2001 to 2011, annual diagnoses of HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM)—in the 13 to 24 age group—increased 132.5%. This is a much larger increase than the one among older homosexuals, and enormous compared to the nearly 33% drop in HIV diagnoses among the general population.

Even more striking, and left out of the Vox report, is the fact that, though male homosexuals are only about 2% of the U.S. population, they account for over half (56%) of all HIV infections in the U.S. In 2011, homosexual men accounted for 79% of new HIV infections among men. Male homosexuals are 60 times more likely to contract HIV than other men. A 2008 study showed that 1 in 5 gay men in the U.S. has HIV.

The World Health Organization, which Vox also "conveniently" ignored, is so concerned about the “exploding epidemic” of HIV that it recently recommended that all homosexual men consider antiretroviral medications “to help prevent HIV infection.” However, even more likely to contract HIV than gay men are “transgender women” (who are, of course, biologically male). They are 50 times more likely to be infected than the general population and are among the most at-risk groups to contract HIV.

And it’s not just HIV. In May of this year WebMD reported that, “Syphilis has returned with a vengeance to the gay community.” According to the CDC, among homosexual men, cases of syphilis have more than doubled since the year 2000. The CDC also revealed that, in 2008 “men who have sex with men” accounted for 63% of all new syphilis cases.

Additionally, the CDC reports that homosexuals are 15 times more likely than the general population to get Hepatitis B and 17 times more likely to get anal cancer.

Speaking of the anal region, homosexual men who are on the “receiving end” of a penis (using their anus like a vagina), are over 17 times more likely to contract HIV than women who engage in sexual activity as it was meant to be. Although Vox referenced this, even including a graphic, they left out other important information. Such as the fact that the vast majority of gay men, 75% according to author Steven Gregory Underwood, engage in anal sex.  One researcher referred to it as the “sine qua non of sex for many gay men.”

Yet, as the previous link points out, and as Vox again leaves out, “human physiology makes it clear that the body was not designed to accommodate this activity. The rectum is significantly different from the vagina with regard to suitability for penetration by a penis. The vagina has natural lubricants and is supported by a network of muscles. It is composed of a mucus membrane with a multi-layer stratified squamous epithelium that allows it to endure friction without damage and to resist the immunological actions caused by semen and sperm. In comparison, the anus is a delicate mechanism of small muscles that comprise an ‘exit-only’ passage.”

Anal intercourse, as Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, points out, traumatizes the soft tissues of the rectal lining. “These tissues are meant to accommodate the relatively soft fecal mass…and are nowhere near as sturdy as vaginal tissues. As a consequence, the lining of the rectum is almost always traumatized to some degree by any act of anal intercourse. Even in the absence of major trauma, minor or microscopic tears in the rectal lining allow for immediate contamination and the entry of germs into the bloodstream.”

Vox also reports that “compared to young men who have sex with women, those who have sex with men are nearly 10 times as likely to have ever injected illegal drugs.” In 2007 the Los Angeles Times reported the frequency of methamphetamine use is 20 times greater among MSM than in the general population.

Such information, though graphic and uncomfortable even to read, is very necessary and should be widely discussed given where we are in this nation when it comes to homosexuality. With same-sex marriage, homosexuality, and transgenderism being hailed as normal— even the American Psychological Association deceptively declares that “Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior are normal aspects of human sexuality”— and is now welcomed and celebrated by politicians and pundits, courts and corporations, Hollywood and high schools alike, more than ever the American public is in dire need of “the whole truth” on these matters.

The truth is that homosexual behavior, especially male homosexual behavior, is very dangerous and unhealthy. And it is certainly not something that governments or organizations of any type should promote. Those dealing with homosexual desires deserve understanding and compassion, but they also deserve the truth.

However, as Vox again demonstrates, the liberal media will never present the whole truth on homosexuality. (Sadly, we can’t even trust many churches on homosexuality!) If you do happen to report the facts on this matter, you are at least accused of perpetuating “false stereotypes” of homosexuals, or, at worst, labeled a bigot and a homophobe in need of being “stamped out...ruthlessly.” For the sake of our nation, more people better start telling the truth.

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Liberals and "the least of these"

As America endures a massive invasion of illegal immigrants at our southern border, many liberals, whether in the media or on Capitol Hill, are attempting to claim the moral high ground in this matter and remind us that this is all about “the children.”

Slamming those protesting and blocking buses attempting to bring the illegal immigrants into their communities, CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield, full of false piety, declared “It’s devastating. And God help if you’re ever in need of help and you show up and there’s a bus telling you to get out. This is America. Just read what we’re about.” Jesse Jackson said that “getting support for those children in the humanitarian crisis is the moral and right thing to do.”

Nancy Pelosi went so far as to lecture us that “every person has a spark of divinity in them, and is therefore worthy of respect – what we saw in those rooms was [a] dazzling, sparkling, array of God's children, worthy of respect.”

It is no surprise that the left in America would stoop to using children as pawns in their never-ending quest for political supremacy. When you are willing to take positions that call for the killing of the most vulnerable among us—those in the womb—are there any depths to which one wouldn’t sink?

Obama demonstrated such willingness before he got elected President. Back in 2008, after he described his daughter’s hypothetical pregnancy as a “punishment,” and several weeks prior to the election, candidate Barack Obama was asked by pastor Rick Warren what he thought was, “the greatest moral failure of America.” Obama responded with, “I think America’s greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me…”

In justifying their votes for Obamacare, like-minded liberals used similar reasoning.

It is appallingly duplicitous that liberals, whether referencing the “least of us,” or calling for government action on behalf of “the children,” are never talking about the unborn. Whatever moral causes one chooses to champion, nothing compares to the helplessness of an unborn child. In other words, there is no one among us more “least” than the unborn. It is the height of hypocrisy for liberals to preach about “social justice” and reference the “least of us,” while supporting policies which have led to the slaughter of millions still in their mothers’ wombs.

Such duplicity would be enough for any reasonable God-fearing person to abandon liberalism, but sadly this hypocrisy doesn’t stop with abortion. As has been noted ad nauseam, for decades liberals have wrought havoc on the American family and traditional (biblical) American values. In other words, tens-of-millions of American children have suffered and continue to suffer terribly under the Big Government policies of liberals. As Jesse Jackson himself recently noted (see link above), Chicago, like many other American urban areas dominated by liberal politics, is a tremendously dangerous place, especially for young people, and in dire need of help.

Ironically, Jackson, his fellow race pimps, publicity prostitutes, and other like-minded liberals, have helped make black neighborhoods the most dangerous places in the U.S. (Eight of the top 25 are neighborhoods in Detroit and Chicago.) Rarely do liberals look to the biggest reason for the existence of such chaos: the breakdown of the family. (Such breakdown has especially harmed black families.) Instead, they insanely continue to promote politics that directly attack the traditional (biblical) American family.

As was noted on American Thinker last year, in dozens of large cities (pop. 50,000+) all across America—from Savannah to Atlanta, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Hartford, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Detroit—more than half of all families are led by single parents, with the numbers for minorities—especially blacks, being significantly higher.

Of course, most of these single parent homes are led by mothers. The absence of dad is devastating for children in a wide variety of ways. Children from single-parent homes are twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school and are more than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 85% of children with behavioral disorders don’t have a father at home.

Children living without dad are much more likely to abuse drugs, commit suicide, and run away from home. They are more likely to have lower academic achievement along with lower self-esteem. Children born to unwed mothers are about seven times more likely to live in poverty than children with fathers in the home. The correlation between fatherless homes and the negative effects on the family is irrefutable.

Of course, similar irrefutable conclusions with motherless homes can be drawn as well. Thus, despite a recent bogus attempt at painting same-sex parenting as normal and healthy for children, most studies show what common sense and sound morality already reveal: children are always best served by a loving and married mother and father in the home.

What’s more, as has been noted before, the same-sex marriage movement is nothing more than a means to an end: the full-on legitimization of homosexuality. With full legal protection, homosexuality, in all of its forms and in spite of its extreme dangers, is being promoted as normal and healthy. Of course, school children are targets.

In addition to destroying the biblical family model, another favorite cause of liberals, man-made global warming, which, of course requires Big Government solutions, also set its sights on children. Since 1970, when the “Earth Day” nonsense began, American school children have been targets as well as pawns (“Save the planet—for the children!”).

For decades now, liberals have shamelessly used children, as well as other vulnerable citizens, to further their Big Government agenda. At the same time, supporting and/or promoting everything from the welfare state, to same-sex marriage, homosexuality, homosexual adoption, transgenderism, pornography, abortion, global warming, and so on, liberals have waged continuous war on the biblical family and biblical values. Of course, “the least” of us, “the children,” suffer the most. Remember this the next time a Democrat and their lackeys in the media want to take action “for the children.”

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Our Financial Story on Life Focus TV

Nearly three years ago, our family was asked to participate in a television production telling our story of debt-free living. I took the day off from teaching mathematics, and a film crew from Life Focus TV came to our home and spent most of the day with us. It was a neat experience, and we looked forward to the finished product. We had no good idea of the time frame for actual airing, and over two years later with no sign of the show, and after we started our book, we pretty much forgot about the episode.

A bit to our surprise, a friend of Michelle's contacted us today and said that she saw us on TV! It seems that the episode, "Dealing With Debt," has been out for a few months. Life Focus TV airs on a variety of Christian networks, including TBN and the Miracle Channel, as well as on PBS. Right now it seems that "Dealing With Debt" is not yet available to embed. Go here to watch it in its entirety. (We do not make a significant appearance until about 9 minutes in.)

Also, below is the video of our financial testimony that Crown Financial Ministries did several years ago (2008):

Liberal Lies Follow the Hobby Lobby Ruling

After the ridiculously close Hobby Lobby ruling came down Monday morning, the left went into its predictable hyperventilations. Also predictable, especially among those whose morality is driven by politics and opinion polls, was the frequent—seemingly coordinated—deceit emanating from the abortion apologists.

Along with the “war on women” nonsense that continues to be parroted by liberals, we also got to hear again about how “corporations are not people” (for the left, corporations are only people when it’s tax time), and how companies like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood want to “impose their religious beliefs on their employees.”

Liberals typically use religion like they do corporations (and most other things, for that matter): only when it is politically convenient or profitable. Whenever conservatives use their morality as a basis for making business decisions or passing legislation, liberals, seemingly unaware of their hypocrisy, love to note how conservatives are “forcing their religion” or “forcing their morality” on others.

When liberals talk in terms of the “evils” of corporations and the “one-percent,” or the “rights” of women (or men) to have all the sex they want without any of the consequences, or how “wrong” it is to deny homosexuals the privilege of “marrying,” they are also making moral and religious arguments. Of course, when one’s “morals” allow for the killing of children in the womb, marriage perversions, and the like, it is rather easy to deceive others into thinking that your arguments are rooted not in some perverse morality but in “science” and “reason.”

Another common lie that made the rounds after the Hobby Lobby ruling was that the four birth-control devices opposed by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood don’t really cause abortions. Sally Kohn of the Daily Beast said that such devices are “mis-label[ed] and malign[ed]” by those on the right as abortifacients. She adds “That characterization is factually, scientifically untrue.”

Similarly, Robin Abcarian of the L.A. Times said that to conclude the two IUDs and two morning-after pills objected to in this case cause an abortion was “wildly at odds with the scientific consensus that a pregnancy begins at implantation.” Most people have probably never considered what the definition of pregnancy is, but for liberals seeking to avoid having their “contraception” labeled as abortion-inducing, this has become important.

As Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell pointed out several years ago, “Stedman’s Medical Dictionary 27th edition, copyright 2000, offered a bandage for the conscience of the general medical community and the society they serve: it redefined conception. Once upon a time, conception was synonymous with fertilization; in the new millennium, conception became synonymous with implantation, which typically occurs 6-9 days later. Stedman’s semantic alteration, like an earlier change by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, reflected not medical science but sociological and political correctness.”

One New Zealand pro-life organization points out that, “In normal situations, pregnancy begins at fertilisation, not at implantation…It is interesting to note that a ‘wanted’ pregnancy is counted from the first day of a woman's last period. This means that at conception, the foetus is already considered to be two weeks old.”

Some liberals argue that the “contraceptives” objected to by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood prevent fertilization, and thus could never cause an abortion. Even Jay Bookman, liberal columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution didn’t bother with this argument as he noted that, “The contraceptives in question are two types of morning-after pills and two types of IUDs, all of which work by preventing a fertilized egg from attaching to a uterus.”

Obviously Bookman didn’t get the latest liberal talking points on contraception and the definition of pregnancy. While it is true that the devices in question sometimes prevent fertilization, in early 2013, Dr. James Trussell, Director of Princeton’s Office of Population Research and one of the world’s leading authorities on the morning-after pill, concluded that “To make an informed choice, women must know that [emergency contraceptive pills] … prevent pregnancy primarily by delaying or inhibiting ovulation and inhibiting fertilization, but may at times inhibit implantation of a fertilized egg in the endometrium.”

Of course, as with every type of contraception, a woman can become pregnant with an IUD. If this occurs, according to WebMD, “your doctor will recommend that the IUD be removed. This is because the IUD can cause miscarriage or preterm birth.”

So again we see that, in order to satisfy the libidos of liberals and deceive as many as possible, the leftist talking-heads play games with words—just as they have with “global warming,” “illegal immigrants,” and the “Redskins.” (At least we are no longer debating the definition of “is.”) Likewise, to continue to perpetuate the “war on women” lie, liberals must pretend that all women, and all supporters of women—which, with a wife, daughter, mother, mother-in-law, and sister, includes me—buy into their perverted view of what it means to be a woman.

After the ruling, Abcarian declared that, “women lost.” On Monday, Cecil Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said that, “Today the Supreme Court ruled against American women and families, giving bosses the right to discriminate against women...”

Not only do such statements ignore the views of tens-of-millions of Americans, but obviously Abcarian, Richards, and the like refuse to acknowledge the accomplished women behind companies like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood. Women like Barbara Green and Elizabeth Hahn want nothing to do with the pro-abortion worldview preached by Planned Parenthood and its ilk.

Also, examine the photos and videos of the women outside the Supreme Court when the ruling was released. There are many images showing dozens of women who, moments after the ruling, were elated.

Ultimately this debate is not about women or contraception. Just as the marriage debate is an attempt, through the force of law, to legitimize homosexuality in America, the Hobby Lobby case was an attempt to force those of a different worldview to bow at the altar of liberalism and its views on sexuality.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Hobby Lobby: We’re Teetering on the Edge

The most stunning—and disappointing—thing about the victory won by Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court yesterday is that the decision was a narrow 5 to 4 win. We’re one Supreme Court Justice away from the left having even more power of the law behind it to force even more of their perverted sex-obsessed lifestyle upon the American people.

After this ruling, the DOMA ruling, and a cascade of rulings by federal judges overturning the will of tens-of-millions of American voters when it comes to the definition of marriage—the institution upon which all sound cultures rest—it should be more apparent than it has ever been the important role that a U.S. President plays when it comes to the judiciary.

Back in 2008, after Mitt Romney dropped out of the race, and it became clear that John McCain was going to be the GOP nominee for President, I attempted to make “The Case for John McCain.” I pointed in particular to two specific duties of the U.S. President—Commander in Chief, and the power to nominate federal judges—and made note of the fact that America would be vastly better off with these duties in the hands of McCain instead of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Whenever the electorate will not give liberals the results they desire, as quickly as a Clinton can cash a speech check, they will turn to the judiciary. And if this doesn’t work, as long as they occupy the White House, they will use the power of the Executive Branch (with its “pen and phone”) to get what they want.

Conservative candidates for president would do well to regularly remind the often and easily distracted American voters of the judicial appointment power that rests with the U.S. President.

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com