From Study Finds New Evidence that Childhood Family Factors Influence Sexual Orientation, by Linda Ames Nicolosi of NARTH, published Nov 29, 2006, by LifeSite News:

A major study published last month in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal, Archives of Sexual Behavior, provides striking new evidence for the influence of childhood family factors on sexual-orientation development.

The study used a population-based sample of 2,000,355 native-born Danes between the ages of 18 and 49. Denmark — a country noted for its tolerance of a wide variety of alternative lifestyles, including homosexual partnerships — was the first country to legalize gay marriage. The researchers assessed detailed marriage records for all Danish-born men and women marrying a same-sex partner from the years 1989 through 2001.

With access to the “virtually complete registry coverage of the entire Danish population,” the study sample therefore lacked the problematic selection bias that has plagued many previous studies on sexual orientation.

Parental Influences on Sexual Orientation Development

The authors conclude: “Our study provides population-based, prospective evidence that childhood family experiences are important determinants of heterosexual and homosexual marriage decisions in adulthood.”

This week you and your kids are going to hear a lot about “World AIDS Day,” observed on December 1.

But most of the official coverage will avoid key facts about AIDS. It’s particularly troubling when our children miss the most important news about AIDS, and how this epidemic could be effectively fought.

We know how to do this. It’s just that the secular gatekeepers of information are much more interested in acceptance of homosexuality and promiscuous “safe sex” ideas.

Do we really want to reduce the suffering of millions of people? Or do we just want to pose for the cameras? We now have famous preachers like the sadly compromised Rick Warren, who seems to have fallen in love with non-Christian “christians.” ….

How sad that Scripture must now be kept in the closet, while deviant sin comes out.

Every parent, therefore, in order to counter the PC school lessons, the false church teachings, and the contrived compassion of youth media like MTV and others, needs to share a few simple facts with any student in their household under the age of 18:

1. The major cause of HIV and AIDS in the U.S. has been and remains male homosexual behavior. The next largest transmission category is intravenous drug use, followed by high-risk heterosexual contact. This last group consists of people who have had sex with anyone who falls into the first two groups. If we eliminated homosexual male sex and intravenous drug use, HIV would be reduced by at least three fourths in this country. Both are unnecessary, chosen behaviors. Schools need to make sure this point is absolutely clear in the minds of every student in health education. Click HERE for CDC statistics.

2. Homosexual sex is absolutely forbidden in the strongest terms in the Bible. The only type of marriage endorsed is the union of one man and one woman. Here are the relevant passages:

• Genesis, chapters 18 and 19 (chapter 18 is helpful for a broader context)
• Leviticus 18: 22 and 20: 13
• Deuteronomy 23: 17
• 1 Kings 15:12
• Matthew 19:3-9
• Romans 1: 18-32
• 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
• 1 Thessalonians 4: 3-8
• 2 Peter 2 (whole chapter)
• Jude 7-8
• Revelation 22:15

Pastors and churches who say accepting “gays and lesbians” is part of “loving your neighbor” or that one can be a proud open homosexual and still be Christian, have seriously distorted the teachings of Christianity. This is deliberate rebellion against God’s word and His created order of male/female genders and marriage. It cannot be emphasized enough that this is an affront to God, and that anyone — I don’t care how famous — who is teaching this, is broadcasting his/her rebellion. Can such a person be a genuine believer, while spreading false teachings and encouraging rebellion
in others?

And then, to lead people into a behavior that may infect them for life with an often fatal disease — it’s heartless, not compassionate.

3. In Africa, one of the leading causes of AIDS is high risk heterosexual sex. Several countries, Uganda and Kenya, have seen considerable success in reducing HIV by teaching their youth to practice abstinence until marriage. Uganda’s program reduced HIV rates from 15 % to under 7%. However, many of the global AIDS programs are highly critical of Uganda’s success. Why?

This is a good question. Why are the U.N. and other AIDS programs not following the Uganda model? The reason goes to the heart of many global philosophies that are blatantly anti-Christian. One pillar of international AIDS efforts is that non-married sexual practices, including homosexuality, must be accepted, and made somehow “safer” using condoms. Not only has this method failed to reduce AIDS, it’s totally an affront to Christians, and no Christian, especially no pastor, should sign on to such programs.

Attacking AIDS through wide distribution of condoms is a complete failure. Do we want to keep promoting sex, or do we want to save lives? Or do some influential people have financial ties to the condom and contraceptivemanufacturers? Is this an example of corruption and big business at work in exploiting poor Third World people?

These are great questions to ask in a classroom setting. Do a report on Uganda, and make sure you get all the facts by consulting sources other than the U.N. and its agencies.

4. If homosexual sex is a leading cause of HIV in the U.S., doesn’t it make sense to teach people to not engage in these acts? Perhaps “gay” social establishments should close until the HIV rates are severely reduced. And no students should be encouraged to enter homosexuality through “gay” clubs or tolerance lessons.

If we are serious about reducing AIDS — if we really care about people more than certain special viewpoints — we will do the right thing. And as Christians, if we really want to be faithful to our Lord, we must reject these corrupt ideas and try where we can to do something that will really
save lives and bring people to know Him.

“Baptist minister” and author Oliver “Buzz” Thomas suggests in the USA Today article linked below that the church will lose its moral authority if it does not admit that homosexuality is innate and acceptable to God.

Dr. Albert Mohler responds in his Nov 27, 2006, radio program entitled “In the World, But Not of the World: Credibility and the Church.”

Click HERE to listen online

The following is excerpted from When Religion Loses Its Credibility, by Oliver “Buzz” Thomas, published Nov 20, 2006, by USA Today:

Galileo was persecuted for revealing what we now know to be the truth regarding Earth’s place in our solar system. Today, the issue is homosexuality, and the persecution is not of one man but of millions. Will Christian leaders once again be on the wrong side of history?

What if Christian leaders are wrong about homosexuality? I suppose, much as a newspaper maintains its credibility by setting the record straight, church leaders would need to do the same:

Correction: Despite what you might have read, heard or been taught throughout your churchgoing life, homosexuality is, in fact, determined at birth and is not to be condemned by God’s followers.

Based on a few recent headlines, we won’t be seeing that admission anytime soon…

Continue reading in USA Today…

A Breakpoint Commentary by Chuck Colson, published Nov 21, 2006:

Well, it may finally be time to send for the guys with the white coats to wrap me up and cart me off.

It used to be, in the old days, that the biggest decision new parents had to make was the name of their baby. The one thing they didn’t have to decide was the kid’s sex—that decision had been made for them, all they have to do is take a peek. That would be that.

Well, not any more, at least not in New York City.

You see, under a proposed Board of Health rule, “people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates.” They would need only to provide “affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex.” They would also have to promise that “their proposed change would be permanent.”

The proposed rule isn’t aimed at people who have had “sex-change surgery.” They are already permitted to do this. Instead, it’s directed at people who “had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years . . . ”

Read those words carefully: adopted and especially gender, instead of sex. It is a big hint that there’s some major postmodern mischief at work here. “Sex” is what scientists call “binary”: You either have an XX (that is, female) or an XY (that is, male) chromosome.

But if nature can’t be twisted and shaped to suit our ideological predilections, words, especially in the hands of postmodern vandals, can be. If the goal is to separate “anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman,” then the use of the word gender is a must.

You see, “transgender” activists can get away with saying that gender is just “socially constructed” and more than “the sum of one’s physical parts” because gender is a word that most people don’t regularly use.

Substituting an obscure word, in this case, gender, for the more common one, sex, is intended to confuse and obscure. It’s the kind of verbal tactic George Orwell, in “Politics and the English Language,” compared to a cuttlefish squirting ink to confuse its predators.

Of course, what makes this squirting necessary is the denial of the obvious: “Living as a woman,” whatever that means, no more makes you a woman than hiding a pot of gold makes you a leprechaun.

These verbal parlor games may wow them in the faculty lounge, but nature is unimpressed. They remind me of the hoax perpetrated by physicist Alan Sokal. He submitted a paper to a leading postmodern journal filled with postmodern gibberish like “physical ‘reality’ . . . is at bottom a social and linguistic construct.”

After the paper was published, he revealed the hoax, that it was all gibberish, adding that those who believe that physics really is a “social construct” should test their beliefs from his twenty-first floor window.

Christians should not be shocked at any of this. Romans 1 tells us that God’s truth is made plain in creation, and to deny this truth—in this case, “male and female created He them”—is to exchange the truth for a lie, which Paul illustrates by an example of men lying with men, in other words, rejecting their God-given gender, which is a challenge to God’s created order. Well, today we have renewed that old lie—that we can create ourselves the way we want, and peeking doesn’t make any difference.

(Additional resources are offered on the Breakpoint site.)

There are six homosexual bathhouses in Ohio, at least according to one online directory:

• Club Wolf (owned by Ray Wolf), operates in Cleveland and Columbus
• Flex (owned by Charles Fleck)
• Akron Steam & Sauna
• Diplomat Baths in Toledo

The following is excerpted from Cleveland Health Officials Scrutinize Opening of New Bathhouse, published Jul 16, 2006, by Associated Press:

City health officials want the owner of a new, upscale gay bathhouse [Flex] to provide condoms, offer customers regular HIV testing and appoint employees to answer questions about preventing sexually transmitted diseases…

“I think it’s going to be a big mess in the not-too-distant future,” said William Tiedemann, AIDS director for the Cleveland Department of Public Health.

Last year, an 11-year-high 118 new HIV diagnoses were reported among Cleveland residents, according statistics gathered by the city health department. As of Dec. 31, 2,458 Cleveland residents had been reported as living with HIV or AIDS, a rate of about 514 per 100,000 residents, and about four times the state rate.

Two of every three Ohio cases of HIV/AIDS occur in men, and homosexual sex is believed to be the source of many infections.

Charles Fleck, founder and owner of the Flex club, said he’s concerned about health and safety at the club. He said he wants to work with the health department to ensure that customers are protected.

“Look, I’m a gay man,” he said. “I went through the entire AIDS saga, and I am still going through it.”

…City Councilman Joe Cimperman, who learned about the project 18 months ago when an architect contacted the city zoning board, said he has few concerns. Cimperman said he asked about public health measures and was told that condoms and prevention messages would circulate throughout the club.Public health officials and AIDS activists in Cleveland said they aren’t opposed to bathhouses. Research has shown they are a valuable and convenient venue for promoting safer sex practices, and AIDS organizations acknowledge that the clubs are safer for gay men than cruising other areas, such as parks.

Flex will compete with a smaller gay bathhouse, Club Cleveland, located in the same area. Club Cleveland has always provided HIV testing and free condoms, said owner Ray Wolf.

When Flex opens, it will become the fifth bathhouse in Ohio. The Flex and Club chains both have branches in Columbus. A bathhouse in Toledo is independently operated.

Flex’s other location are in New Orleans and Phoenix.

Continue reading at Free Republic…

The following is excerpted from Bath Time: An Old Bus Depot Gives Way to Homo Heaven, by Joe P. Tone, published May 3, 2006, in Cleveland Scene (owned by The New York Times):

Charles Fleck’s money-colored eyes dart around the dusty old bus depot, searching for something new to show off. Here’s where he’ll put the Russian sauna. There, a eucalyptus-vapor room. Over there, the 18-man Jacuzzi…

He’s just giddy about his creation. Building the country’s coolest bathhouse apparently has that effect.

Fleck is a millionaire real-estate investor from South Florida… But upscale bathhouses are his passion. The West Side native built his first bathhouse near Detroit Avenue on West 32nd Street in the 1960s. He now owns the Flex bath chain, with clubs in Atlanta, Phoenix, New Orleans, Columbus, and Los Angeles.

But he saved his most ambitious project for his hometown.

The former Greyhound depot near East 26th and St. Clair will be 48,000 square feet of unfettered opulence — a blue-tiled funhouse of private cabanas, steamy saunas, food, entertainment, and men. Lots and lots of men…

Some view bathhouses as little more than legalized brothels. Many were shut down in the ’80s, with the explosion of AIDS. And they remain the targets of conservatives, health officials, and others who blame them for spreading sexually transmitted diseases.

In Atlanta, after he was denied his spa and liquor licenses, Fleck battled the city all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court. New Orleans also tried to deny his spa license, unsuccessfully arguing that he was running a sex club. He’s still in court in Phoenix, where he was accused of running an illegal entertainment venue…

And there’s another advantage to Cleveland: He doesn’t expect much opposition. When he opened his Columbus Flex near a library, he endured protests from conservatives, who gasped at what would go on in the private “cabanas.”…

Customers will come in through the original depot entrance and immediately be greeted by (no doubt strapping) receptionists. From there, they’ll head into a spacious locker room — Greyhound’s original driver/mechanic locker room, Fleck says.

Beyond that will lie every imaginable way to relax. Fleck turned the depot’s mechanic pits — formerly used to service buses — into an 18-man jacuzzi and a sizable indoor pool. Near that, shrouded by tropical plants, will be the shower area, its automatic shower heads spouting perfect-temperature water.

The club also will boast a cedar-lined Russian sauna, a eucalyptus vapor room, and a cavernous steam room. A full-service kitchen will provide food. And Fleck envisions a sprawling lounge and stage, which he hopes to use for live music or even Sunday church.

Twenty small “resting rooms” will be available for rent…

Your local Y, this ain’t…

Fleck expects 40 percent of his business to come from outside the metro area. And with the amenities he offers, he hopes to draw from beyond the standard horny gay-guy clientele.

“With the mix we get,” he says, “I hardly know who’s doing what to who.”

Continue reading in Cleveland Scene…

From Gay Culture and the Riddle of Andrew Sullivan, by Dr. Albert Mohler, published Oct 27, 2006:

Andrew Sullivan is a man of ideas. In recent years, Sullivan has emerged as one of the most influential intellectuals in American public life. Furthermore, he has been identified with some of the most controversial issues of our times–a fact that is hardly surprising given his libertarian view of morality, conservative views of politics, Roman Catholic views of Christianity, and the fact that he is a prominent homosexual advocate…

In the October 24, 2005 issue of The New Republic, Sullivan writes about “The End of Gay Culture.” Of course, Sullivan’s perspective on homosexuality and gay culture is deeply rooted in his own homosexuality and his ardent embrace of his own homosexual lifestyle. He is anything but a dispassionate observer…

As he reviews the impact of the HIV crisis, Sullivan points to some patterns that emerged in its aftermath–patterns that would likely be missed by those outside the gay subculture. The emergence of lesbians as leaders of the major gay rights organizations was, Sullivan suggests, largely due to the fact that the gay male leaders were largely dead…

“Gay marriage is not a radical step,” Sullivan insisted…

But, even as Sullivan argued for the acceptance and legalization of same-sex marriage, more radical homosexual theorists were dismissing marriage altogether. As Sullivan explained,

“Marriage of all institutions is to liberationists a form of imprisonment; it reeks of a discourse that has bought and sold property, that has denigrated and subjected women, that has constructed human relationships into a crude and suffocating form. Why on earth should it be supported for homosexuals?”

Sullivan’s 1995 book, and his most recent article, must be read in light of his 1998 testimonial, Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival. This book was written after Sullivan had been diagnosed as HIV-positive. As he recalled:

“I contracted the disease in full knowledge of how it is transmitted, and without any illusions about how debilitating and terrifying a diagnosis it could be. I have witnessed first-hand a man dying of AIDS; I have seen the ravages of its impact and the harrowing humiliation it meant. I had written about it, volunteered to combat it, and tried to understand it. But I still risked getting it, and the memories of that risk and the ramifications of it for myself, my family, and my friends still forced me into questions I would rather not confront, and have expended a great deal of effort avoiding.”

When a high school friend asked Sullivan how he had contracted the virus, Sullivan informed him that he had no idea which sex partner had been the source of the viral transmission. “How many people did you sleep with, for God’s sake?,” his friend asked. Note Sullivan’s answer carefully:

“Too many, God knows. Too many for meaning and dignity to be given to every one; too many for love to be present at each; too many for sex to be very often more than a temporary but powerful release from debilitating fear and loneliness.”

In other words, the public Andrew Sullivan emerged as a major proponent of responsibility, stability, and self-control, while the private Andrew Sullivan was deeply involved in homosexual promiscuity.

All this broke into public view in 2001, when a homosexual columnist discovered that Sullivan had been posting advertisements for unprotected homosexual sex at internet web sites. The ensuing controversy within the gay community was vitriolic, even as it was revealing.

“The End of Gay Culture” is an eye-opening essay. As an exercise in cultural analysis, it demonstrates genuine insight and an insider’s perspective. More than anything else, Sullivan’s article should awaken thinking Christians to the fact that homosexuality is being normalized in the larger culture. This surely represents a matter of urgent missiological concern, for the normalization of sin represents a progressive hardening of the nation’s heart against the Gospel.

At a more personal level, this article reminds me to pray for Andrew Sullivan. I say this even as I realize that he may be more offended by my prayer than by anything else. In most of his writings, Mr. Sullivan demonstrates a consistent and ardent determination to celebrate homosexuality as central to his own self-discovery and personhood. Yet, he also reveals significant doubts. When he explains that he “never publicly defended promiscuity” nor publicly attacked it because “I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold,” I detect a glimmer of doubt. I have faced Mr. Sullivan in public debate on issues related to homosexuality. I consider him to be among the most gifted, thoughtful, and unpredictable intellectuals on the current scene. More than anything else, I want Mr. Sullivan to find his self-identity and deepest passions in the transforming power of Christ–the power to see all things made new. Without apology, I pray that one day he will see all that he has written in defense of homosexuality, and all that he has known in terms of his homosexual identity, as loss, and to find in Christ the only resolution of our sexuality and the only solution to the problem we all share–the problem of sin.

Andrew Sullivan has been a focus of my prayer since I first learned of his HIV-positive status. I do pray that God will give him strengthened health and the gift of time. After all, our Christian concern should be focused not only on the challenge of homosexuality in the culture, but the challenge of reaching homosexuals with the love of Christ and the truth of the Gospel.

Continue reading at Albert Mohler…

Excerpted from Student: Teacher Gave Me HIV, published Nov 3, 2006, by WNBC Channel 4:

…Hassan Vann, 29, a former music teacher at West Side High School in Newark, was indicted Thursday, accused of sexually abusing a student who now has AIDS, the Essex County prosecutor’s office said.

Vann faces up to 30 years in prison and 14 charges, including sexual assault and contact, official misconduct, child welfare endangerment, giving drugs and alcohol to a child and failing to notify a sexual partner that he had a sexually transmitted disease.

“Mr. Vann’s alleged conduct involving his former student was vile and has forever changed this young man’s life,” said Essex County Prosecutor Paula T. Dow…

Paul Loriquet, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said the victim told authorities he’s only had unprotected sex with Vann and that prosecutors plan to ask a judge to order Vann to undergo an AIDS test. The student believes the frequent, unprotected sex with Vann led to him contracting the virus, Loriquet said.

Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Mark S. Ali said the indictment covers a period from September 2000 to June 2004, with the initial incident happening in December 2000 when the then-14-year-old male was pushed against a high school wall and sexually abused.

The student graduated in 2004 and tested positive for HIV in May 2005, which is when the prosecutor’s office said it was notified.

Continue reading at WNBC Channel 4…