Today being Martin Luther King Day in the United States, radio news features have presented a number of the speeches of Dr. King. In one radio address he made, he quoted Victor Hugo. The quote was from Les Miserables

If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

In his/her most recent post, GfS reiterates the contention that gender orientation is a matter of choice and that same-sex orientation can be "cured" with appropriate therapy. S/he has been told repeated, complete with verifiable documention, that this has long since been proven to be, not just ineffective, but psychologically detrimental to the recipients of such "therapy." The results of such attempts to "cure" homosexuality are generally a high rate (in the neighborhood of 70%) of recidivism, with the next highest percentage being complete withdrawal from any kind of sexual activity—abstinence. And that there is a very high rate of the subjects becoming clinically depressed, with about 6% of them committing suicide.

Not what one would generally consider good results. But both celibacy and suicide certainly have the effect of reducing homosexual activity!

And Ake keeps repeating the same frequently debunked statistics and expressing his heartfelt concern for the health of homosexual men, while, at the same time, ignoring the fact that HIV is only one of many diseases which can be transmitted by (but not only by) promiscuous and unprotected sexual activity (both homosexual AND heterosexual). And then, he wants to deny same-sex oriented people the choice of antidote for promiscuity, the promise of stable, single partner relationships. He keeps claiming that gays don't want such stable, monogamous relationships, preferring promiscuity, while gays themselves have amply demonstrated otherwise (the high level of same-sex marriage in California after the law was passed, but before it was rescinded by Proposition 8).

Ake wants to deny them the option because he believes they might not want to take advantage of it. What's wrong with letting them make the choice?

Both GfS and Ake keep spouting the kind of misinformation that homophobes and bigots in general—and the fundamentalist Christian anti-gay groups in particular—are promulgating:   the very same ideas that the Ugandan lawmakers are using as the basis for their effort to pass laws declaring homosexuality to be a crime punishable by death.

You know, I can see those laws being used like the Inquisition was sometimes used some centuries ago:   you dislike someone, or for some reason you want them out of the way, so you denounce them to the Inquistition as a heretic. Or, in more recent times, denouncing someone who is in your way to HUAC as a communist. The Ugandan anti-homosexual laws could be used the same way.

The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

Take a good look in the mirror, you two!

Don Firth