"As I pointed out before, NAMBLA is the only 'organization' I know of,by EITHER gender, that advocates having sex with children."

I understand that in the past, the fringe Christian organisation "Children of God" (Now rebranded as "the Family International") advocated sex between adults and children. The group's publication and distribution of writings, photographs and videos advocating and documenting adult-child sexual contact and the sexualization of children led to numerous reports of child sexual abuse.

NAMBLA is an organisation with abhorrent aims that should be utterly condemned by all right thinking people, "liberal" or otherwise, straight or gay. However, they no more represent the overwhelming majority of gay men than the Children of God represented the overwhelming majority of Christians.

Ake: "I think the current promotion of homosexuality as being "just another lifestyle" is completely and dangerously wrong."

Since when was homosexuality a lifestyle?

I really struggle with this idea. I live in Manchester, which has a big and very visible gay and lesbian community. Gay friends or colleagues or acquaintances don't have a single lifestyle. They have as many different lifestyles as their straight counterparts, depending on all sorts of factors such as upbringing, politics, religious views, morals, preferences and so on. My gay neighbours, who are as good as married, hold down responsible jobs, go fell walking at any opportunity, love holding dinner parties (with gay and straight friends) and are decidely non-camp and non-scene, would be amused and horrified at your concerns about their health problems, poor life expectancy, promiscuity, paedophiliac proclivities and psychiatric problems. They certainly wouldn't recognise themselves from your description. Anecdotal? yes. Based on a real life example? Also yes.

And honing in on the "psychiatric problems" part your walk of shame, as a mental health practitioner, the vast majority of the people who my team sees identify as straight. There are also a minority of patients who have major problems arising from conflicts between their religious beliefs, family views and so on and their sexuality, and often go to great lengths to deny or repress their same-sex orientation. Is that the fault of a "lifestyle choice"?...

No doubt this will be taken as evidence of "Orwellian liberalism" rather than just a) a good old-fashioned dose of common sense or b) a slice of normal every day life.

I also think Ake, GfS et al should re-read CS's post of 06 Nov 09 02:47pm (which seems to have been largely ignored - too much uncomfortable truth, perhaps?) and reflect on the perspective she brings to the discussion: especially as she is talking about real life and not theory, ideology and so on. Child sexual abuse is a real issue affecting real children, not a tool be cynically used to promote an anti-gay agenda.