Matt Barber: The Entire LGBT Narrative Just Crumbled

CDC graphic shows preponderance of HIV cases in 2014 was among “men who have sex with men (MSM).”

By Matt Barber; this column first appeared in WND.com, August 26, 2016

If your daughter, sister, mother or friend “identified” as a fat person trapped in a perilously emaciated body – if she truly believed she was obese, but, in reality, suffered from anorexia – would you affirm her “fatness” and get her liposuction, or would you go to the ends of the earth to help her bring her subjective (and mistaken) identity into alignment with objective reality? When someone is engaged in demonstrably self-destructive behavior, it is not loving, but hateful, to encourage persistence.

It was, ironically, lesbian activist and writer Dorothy Allison who once wrote, “Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.” In validation of this truism, a series of new peer-reviewed studies have just been released that serve to utterly debunk and deconstruct key “progressive” homosexual-activist talking points.

‘Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences’

This study, conducted by world renowned Johns Hopkins University scientists Dr. Lawrence S. Mayer and Dr. Paul R. McHugh, is a meta-analysis of data from over 200 peer-reviewed (and left-leaning) studies regarding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” It was published in the fall 2016 edition of The New Atlantis journal and is, far and away, the most objective, exhaustive and comprehensive study on the topic to date.

The research established [see Executive Summary here and full report here], among other things:

• “The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings – the idea that people are ‘born that way’ – is not supported by scientific evidence.”
• “Sexual orientation” in adolescents is “fluid over the life course for some people, with one study estimating that as many as 80 percent of male adolescents who report same-sex attractions no longer do so as adults.”
• “Compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse.”
• “Gay”-identified people are “at an elevated risk for a variety of adverse health and mental health outcomes.”
• “Gay”-identified people experience “nearly 2.5 times the risk of suicide.”
• “The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex – that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ – is not supported by scientific evidence.”
• “Studies comparing the brain structures of transgender and non-transgender individuals … do not provide any evidence for a neurobiological basis for cross-gender identification.”
• “[S]ex-reassigned individuals [are] about five times more likely to attempt suicide and about 19 times more likely to die by suicide.”
• “[T]he rate of lifetime suicide attempts across all ages of transgender individuals is estimated at 41 percent, compared to under 5 percent in the overall U.S. population.”
• “Only a minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.”

Lest you buy the liberal talking point that so-called “homophobia” leads to high rates of suicide and other devastating consequences of the “LGBT” lifestyle, a recent study from “gay”-affirming Sweden dispels this myth. The research, published in the May issue of the European Journal of Epidemiology, found that people entering into a “gay marriage” were, as mirrored above, nearly three times as likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.

“Even in a country with a comparatively tolerant climate regarding homosexuality such as Sweden,” observed the researchers, “same-sex married individuals evidence a higher risk for suicide than other married individuals.”

To borrow from James Carville: It’s the lifestyle, stupid.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Meanwhile, the CDC, no bastion of conservatism, just released this month a report establishing and detailing the devastating effects of “LGBT” identity and behaviors on teens “grades 9-12.”

Writing at WND, child advocate Linda Harvey expressed frustration that, despite its irrefutable conclusions, the CDC yet insists upon using such propagandist terms as “sexual minorities” to describe same-sex-attracted teens. She notes that “these adolescents no more qualify as ‘minorities’ than kids who eat junk food,” and cuts through the smokescreen to summarize the report’s findings:

• “Self-labeled homosexual and bisexual teens were twice as likely as heterosexual teens to have been victims of sexual or physical dating violence, to be regular cigarette smokers, to have tried marijuana before age 13, to ever have used cocaine, hallucinogenic drugs, ecstasy, taken prescription drugs without a doctor’s prescription, or to have felt sad or hopeless.
• “They were more likely to be current marijuana users than heterosexual students, more likely to drink alcohol, and over four times as likely to have used methamphetamines or heroin.
• “They were four times as likely to actually attempt suicide.
• “Homosexual and bisexual students were about 25 percent more likely to have had sexual intercourse, and more likely to be currently sexually active and to have had four or more partners.
• “They are more than twice as likely to have had sexual intercourse before age 13. Can we just have a heart and ask: with whom? Were these adult ‘partners’? (aka molesters).”

It’s notable here that, in past studies, researchers with the CDC have indeed discovered that “gay” men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse),” while the left-leaning Archives of Sexual Behavior similarly determined in a 2001 study that nearly half of all “gay”-identified men were, as children, molested by a homosexual predator:

“46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender.”

Considering the above non-biased, replicated, empirical and irrefutable scientific facts, it’s little wonder that an earlier study (1997) in the International Journal of Epidemiology, determined that: “In a major Canadian centre [Vancouver], life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men.”

Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. “Gay” is not who they are. “Gay” is what they do.

You think me callous. You think I hate. I’m not and I don’t. Truth is hate to those who hate truth. I love self-identified “LGBT” individuals with a love beyond my own power to summon. I love them because Christ first loved me. I love them because, like them, I am a sinner in need of a Savior. They are under deception. The enemy of man is the father of lies, and he prowls like a lion seeking to both deceive and devour us all.

I know what it’s like to have someone close to me struggle with same-sex attraction and adopt an aberrant sexual identity. I have a dear family member wasting away with AIDS at this very moment. While I love him, I also understand that if I were to affirm his lifestyle and offer well-intentioned yet dangerously misguided “compassion,” I would be hurting him, not helping him.

I offer true compassion. I offer truth, in love.

If you truly love someone, you should never, ever encourage them in a demonstrably destructive and subjective “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual” or “transgender” identity. Love them unconditionally, but encourage them to find freedom from it.

Because, whether spiritual, physical, or both, it may be the difference between life and death.

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Matt Barber is the founder and editor of Barbwire.com, a pro-family Christian news and opinion site. He is Associate Dean for Online Programs at Liberty University School of Law, and is also on the Board of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. Barber, a former professional boxer, was fired by the Allstate Corporation after writing a column, on his own time, critical of homosexual activism. Barber is the author of a new book, “Hating Jesus: The American Left’s War on Christianity,” with Paul Hair.