This informative chapter now lapses into a rant on pedophiles, and is highlighted by a quote from some crazed but creative writer for Gay Community News, named Michael Swift: “We will sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums… Your sons will become our minions and do our bidding…” Mr. Swift’s spiel goes downhill from there, for a thousand words or so.
James mercifully ends the quote and asks, “Did these words represent one man’s private views, or are they representative of a larger community?” And he answers, “I don’t know.” So why he included this soliloquy and his own rant on pedophiles in the chapter is something of a mystery, at least to me.
But this section does lead into further fatherly advice, which hopefully you’ll find useful: “I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave your children of either sex in the care of teenage boys. Nor would I allow my teenage son to baby-sit. Why? There is so much going on sexually within adolescent boys.”
Looking back, I can certainly agree with that, though I’d also add that most of it had to do with repression, guilt, misinformation, and, at least in my case, “leaving six inches for the Holy Ghost” (that Catholic code that’s right up there with the DiVinci code, and which many of us are still trying to deciper).
But if you aren’t worried yet, you really need to expand your thinking. “How about the other cultural influences, including television and movies, that are urging boys and girls to ‘think gay’ and to experiment with role-reversal behavior?”
Exactly which tv shows and movies are not mentioned, but I realize you may well know something I don’t.
Anyway, when these shows and movies are “combined with the absence or disengagement of fathers, we can begin to understand why the incidence of homosexuality appears to be rising and why more and more children and teens are reporting that they think they are homosexual.”
There is a footnote for a study bearing out that children are indeed thinking more homosexually, presumably more than I ever did, since there is no other reference frame here, but you have to register at some oddball website to read the survey, and for some reason I didn’t feel up to it.
However, here’s the point you want to keep straight: This grand movement to make your kids think homosexually “is the greatest threat to your children.” More threatening, we are left to assume, than global warming, a bankrupt world, unemployment, collapsed ecosystems, World War III, a failed educational system, or even George Bush.
One might wonder if there is there anything more important than taking the time to protect your kids from pedophiles, who are apparently behind this movement. “I think not,” answers James, to his own question.
Last but not least, James responds to the woman who wrote to him: “My church tends to be on the liberal side of most social issues, and it teaches that since homosexuality is inherited and therefore involuntary, it should be affirmed and accepted by Christians.” Her son is 17 and announced that he is gay, and she wants James to “make sense of the situation.” Which of course he does, in faithful and true Dobsonian fashion.
He implores us to ask: So what if someone were born homosexual? And he answers: “Being genetically inclined to do immoral things does not make them right… I know of no instance in Scripture where God winked at evildoers because of their flawed inheritance or early experiences. In fact, the opposite is implied.” This is because an angel informed Ishmael’s mother that her child to be would be “a wild donkey of a man,” inclined to violence and rebellion. “Yet there is no indication that he enjoyed a special dispensation from God that excused his sinful behavior.”
Now if that doesn’t make a believer of you, I really can’t imagine what will. This towering intellect of a moralist assures us that we are accountable for what we do, no excuses, God-given genetics included.
But hark and rejoice! There is a solution! “That’s why we all need a Savior who died to eradicate our sins, regardless of their source.”
And hear ye this: You free-wheeling heterosexuals are in no better shape than gays! “Promiscuity for unmarried heterosexuals is the moral equivalent of promiscuity for homosexuals.” We know this is true because James assures us it is his “understanding of Scripture.”
So there you have it. Everything you wanted to know about homosexuality. Oh! Except for this, the advice James gave to the confused mom who wrote about her son: “Your task at this time is to stay on your knees and ask the Lord to talk to him in the terms he needs to hear.”
