This is America in 2007. The Torah Is Deemed Offensive & The Courts Won’t Take The Case.

I find it incredible that in the free country of the United States of America one can not quote a passage in the bible on a billboard because it is deemed too offensive. Yet any type of provocative display of sexuality on a billboard is deemed acceptable.

How far does this go? At what point will we wake up?

This billboard was not an editorial nor did it contain any inflammatory language, it was a straight (pun intended) quote from the bible.

Unbelievable!


In a Fight to the End, the Billboards Lose

By JEFF VANDAM
Published: New York Times February 25, 2007

AT the moment, the Rev. Kristopher Okwedy has only one billboard on public view on Staten Island. No bigger than a poster and sitting above Misu’s Unisex Salon on Victory Boulevard in Tompkinsville, it shows a pair of hands holding a box wrapped with pink ribbon. The text assures passers-by that eternal life is “the Prescribed Lifestyle for All Humanity.”

Though few people paid much attention to the message on a warm afternoon last week, two of Mr. Okwedy’s other billboards prompted considerable outrage on Staten Island when they were installed in March 2000. “Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination,’ ” they read, quoting a translation of Leviticus 18:22.

The two billboards, which were installed in Port Richmond and St. George, were called antigay by gay groups and civic leaders, and were replaced the next day by PNE Media, the company that had installed them. Mr. Okwedy, who had commissioned the billboards, in turn sued the company, along with the city and Guy Molinari, then the borough president, claiming that his First Amendment rights had been infringed.

On Feb. 16, after nearly seven years of battles in state and federal courts, the United States Supreme Court reviewed Mr. Okwedy’s lawsuit to determine whether it would hear the case. The answer, the court reported on Tuesday, was no.

Though disappointed, Mr. Okwedy sounded philosophical about the ruling. “When the Supreme Court says no, there’s nowhere else you can go,” he said the day after the ruling was announced. “That case is dead.”

Mr. Okwedy, who was represented by lawyers from the Mississippi-based American Family Association, a conservative group, said he still believes that his freedom of speech was violated. But in the view of a lawyer from the city’s Department of Law, which represented Mr. Molinari and the city, judges saw little to agree with in Mr. Okwedy’s arguments.

“They found he simply hadn’t established any merit to his claim under the First Amendment of the Constitution,” said Alan Krams, senior counsel for the department’s appeals division.

Mr. Okwedy plans to continue to preach at his church, KeyWord Ministries in Mariners Harbor, and to spread his message through outreach, but he acknowledged that his opinions are in the minority.

“I believed that God wanted to make a statement, and he did,” Mr. Okwedy said. “Obviously, people felt that statement is not something America wants to hear. But I go on, and I preach the message of hope and salvation to all.”

Are we going to ban this billboard next?

Prominent Gay Activists Admit in N.Y.Times Article That They Want Promiscuity (“Sexual Generosity”) and Abhor The Notion of Monogamy.

The following article in Sundays New York Times really made me do a double take. Basically these gay activists are openly arguing what I have been trying to point out to those that have been emotionally won over by the propaganda about the gay lifestyle.

Basically the propaganda has been saying that homosexuals are just like heterosexuals and want to settle down and live happy monogamous lives in wedded bliss with a partner they love. That they are the same, it’s just that biology created them differently and they don’t have a choice.

The following gay activist are repulsed by this line of thinking and advocating because it does not ring true to them. They want to openly state that they don’t need the confines of marriage and that it’s okay to have multiple partners, and that it’s a pity that Aids has crimped their style.

This is in their own words, printed in the most liberal of papers. It’s an unbiased and honest look at the REAL Gay lifestyle.

For Some Gays, a Right They Can Forsake

The New York Times
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: July 30, 2006

WHEN Bill Dobbs sees the heartwarming photographs of gay couples cuddling, grinning and holding dogs and children, accompanied by pious remarks about how many years they have been a couple — “five years,” “eight years,” “24 years!” — in news releases and newspaper and television reports about the fight for gay marriage, it turns his stomach.

Mr. Dobbs’s reaction is, he admits, probably not that different from the one he imagines that the anti-gay forces feel. But Mr. Dobbs is gay, part of an intense strain of gay activists who have fought against the idea of gay marriage from the beginning and who think that the escalating pursuit of it is a mistake, especially in light of legal setbacks like the decision on Wednesday by the Washington Supreme Court that lawmakers may restrict marriage to a man and a woman.

To these activists, the fight for gay marriage is the mirror image of the right-wing conservative Christian lobby for family values and feeds into the same drive for a homogeneous, orthodox American culture. The Stonewall confrontation and early gay rights movement, after all, was about the right to live an unconventional life, and to Mr. Dobbs and others like him, marriage is the epitome of convention. He said that he does, however, support civil unions for all as a replacement for civil marriage.

“For those of us who are single, there is this constant drumbeat,” said Mr. Dobbs, who went to college during the last years of the Vietnam War and became a crusader for gay and antiwar causes. “You must be coupled to be really fulfilled, for us to treat you as a full person.”

For better or for worse, to be unattached and gay is not what it used to be. Gone are the guilt-free days of free love in the clubs, of hooking up at bathhouses and reveling in promiscuity, which Mr. Dobbs prefers to call “sexual generosity.” In are elaborate weddings, shared property, pets and children.

Mr. Dobbs said that even on Fire Island, where cohabitating with 12 other men was once a time-honored tradition, a friend who is an utterly bourgeois gay homeowner complains that he gets the gimlet eye from gay and lesbian parents because he is not in a relationship. Another friend scolded Mr. Dobbs that if he had never wanted to marry, there must be something wrong with him.

But as the fight for same-sex marriage rages across the country — this month being defeated in the highest court in New York State as well as Washington — the anti-marriage gay men and lesbians say they are feeling emboldened to speak out against what they view as the hijacking of gay civil rights by a distressingly conservative, politically correct part of the gay establishment. They say the gay marriage movement, backed by major well-funded organizations like Lambda Legal, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has drained resources and psychic energy from other causes like AIDS research, universal health insurance and poverty among gay people.

The dissenters have been around since the early 1990’s, when the idea of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage was introduced in Hawaii, especially among gays and lesbians who came out of the activist tradition of the 1960’s, and in academic settings. But they say they have muffled their voices by censoring themselves.

“I think the discussion was foreclosed because nobody wanted to speak up against our brothers and sisters,” who wanted marriage, said Jim Eigo, editor of two gay sex magazines, Playguy and Inches. “These are people they’ve worked with, people they knew they would hurt.”

But he and others in the opposition say they increasingly feel that they have nothing to lose given that “there has been political defeat after political defeat” for the gay marriage lobby, while Massachusetts remains the only state that has legalized same-sex marriage and voters in dozens of other states have passed “defense of marriage” acts.

They question whether monogamy is normal. They wonder why gay men and lesbians are buying into an institution that they see as rooted in oppression. They worry that adapting to conventional “family values” will destroy the cohesion that has made gay men and lesbians a force to be reckoned with, politically and culturally.

In the 70’s, many gay people saw themselves as “an army of lovers,” to borrow the title of a German documentary of the time, Mr. Eigo said. “I still hold the candle for a gay community like that, in which every man is linked to every other by at least the potential of being his lover.”

Opposition among gay people to same-sex marriage enrages and frustrates its defenders, like Evan Wolfson, a lawyer who was co-counsel in the Hawaii marriage case and is now the executive director of Freedom to Marry.

“My organization is called ‘Freedom to Marry’ not ‘Mandatory Marriage,’ ” Mr. Wolfson said. “Gay people in America can’t really say they’ve rejected marriage in favor of something else, because for most of us it hasn’t been offered.”

He says that states like Vermont and California would not have adopted civil unions or domestic partnership rights if the pressure of marriage litigation had not raised awareness of the need for social validation of committed gay relationships.

Yet dissenters like Sarah Schulman, a playwright, novelist and English professor at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, see a more subtle form of regression coming out of the movement, a return to the values of the 1950’s. As a teacher, she said, she sees a lot of younger gay people, especially women adopting the heterosexual fantasy that even Barbie has distanced herself from — “that someday they will meet the right person and they will get married and they will have children.” She fears that lesbian mothers are embracing a “poverty model” and taking themselves out of the running to be the next George Sand or Emma Goldman.

Some gay activists who are critical of the marriage movement also see it as part of the fallout from the AIDS epidemic, which quashed the sexually liberated lifestyle of gay men as they tried to fight the perception that they were promiscuous carriers of a plague by becoming more like everybody else.

And some see the insistence on defining homosexuality as strictly a matter of biology — rather than a matter of choice and sensibility as well as biology — as part of the same conformist impulse.

Rob Klengler, a businessman in Marblemount, Wash., is troubled by the focus on what is normal in sex or domestic life. “I don’t know if I would use the term ‘normal’ or not,” he said. “To me, it’s a simple choice. To me it’s a choice like whether I eat red meat. I like chocolate versus vanilla ice cream. It’s just a choice.”

Other groups, while supporting gay marriage, are using the issue to push for legal recognition of other nontraditional relationships, like unmarried couples of all kinds.
Minutes after the Washington state court ruled on Wednesday, some 250 academics, celebrities, writers and others, including Gloria Steinem, Barbara Ehrenreich, Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun magazine, Armistead Maupin, Terrence McNally, Holly Near and Cornel West, signed a manifesto called “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage, A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families and Relationships.” It calls for the legal rights and privileges of marriage to be extended to arrangements like extended families living under one roof, and close friends in long-term caregiving relationships.

“We hope to move beyond the narrow confines of marriage politics as they exist in the United States today,” reads the document, which was organized and written by academics and activists including Joseph DeFilippis, executive director of Queers for Economic Justice.

Then there are those gay men who find themselves embracing marriage in spite of their iconoclastic temperament. Florent Morellet, the French-born owner of Restaurant Florent in the once-raunchy meatpacking district of Manhattan, had a commitment ceremony in 1988 with his partner, Daniel Platten. Mr. Platten died in 1994 and Mr. Morellet says he is at a stage in his life when he is looking for a monogamous relationship.

Yet, influenced by French attitudes toward erotic life, he does not subscribe to the American ideal of marriage as a narrowing of sexual opportunity. “In France, which is nominally a Catholic country, adultery is actually an equal opportunity,” he says. “Women have almost as much adultery relationships as men.”

Anorexia & Homosexuality: Turning Denial of Harmful Behaviors Into Defiance.

When I originally read this article a year ago I was flabbergasted by the syndrome it talks about. The notion that people with serious issues are tired of fighting it and doing the hard work of overcoming their underlying issues and the manifestation of those issues, and would rather fight for acceptance of their urges and take on a tone of defiance.

Read this article carefully. You will see a clear comparison to the homosexual roadmap to acceptance. In fact replace the terminology for anorexia and bulimia with gay and lesbian and its startling to see the exact same approach.

My issue with this type of approach is the dishonesty and ultimate damage that one is doing to themselves by living in denial. How can you heal from anorexia and bulimia if you believe it is a legitimate alternative lifestyle choice? How can you heal from homosexual urges if you believe it is a legitimate alternative lifestyle choice?

Web Sites Celebrate a Deadly Thinness

The New York Times
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Published: June 7, 2005

Before the Web site's pages begin to load, a box pops up the screen.

"Caution," it reads. "This site contains pro-eating disorder images and information. If you do not have an eating disorder or are in recovery, do not enter this site."

Click O.K., and a new box appears.

"Seriously. You enter this site of your own volition, and I am not responsible for the decisions you make based on the information you see here."

Click. A third box.

"So don't send me hate mail. It's your fault if you don't like what you see."

However sincerely intended, the warnings, posted on one of a growing number of Web sites that promote eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, may serve more as a lure, especially for curious teenagers. And a recent study by researchers from the Stanford School of Medicine has found that the Web sites are commonly visited by adolescents who have eating disorders.

Such sites are the public face of a movement that goes beyond the denial that often accompanies addictive behaviors like alcoholism and gambling, into something more like defiance.

Many of the sites dispute that anorexia and bulimia are diseases, portraying them instead as philosophies of life. They offer tips on how to lose weight - by purging, among other methods - and how to hide eating disorders from family members or friends.

In the new study, presented at a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, the researchers said it was unclear whether the Web sites played a role in drawing people into eating disorders or in making recovery more difficult, in part because the study sample was fairly small. A larger study is planned.

But the researchers found that adolescents who reported visiting so-called pro-ana, for anorexia nervosa, or pro-mia, for bulimia nervosa, Web sites spent more time in hospitals and less time on school work than those who said they did not visit the sites. For reasons that are unclear, the study also found that even when adolescents visited pro-eating-disorder and pro-recovery sites, they still fared worse than those who visited neither kind of site.

Pro-eating-disorder Web sites can be very attractive, experts say. Many are well designed and well written, and they appeal to an adolescent sense of rebellion.
"The belief that centers the pro-ana movement is the belief that eating disorders are a lifestyle choice and not a disease," said one of the study's authors, Dr. Rebecka Peebles, a specialist in adolescent medicine at Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

Consider the page that greets visitors when they finally get past the warning boxes. "Quod me nutrit, me destruit," it declares. What nourishes me destroys me.

The site goes on to give tips on how to conceal an eating disorder, including wearing baggy clothes, pretending to eat and hiding the health problems the disorders can bring on.

The author of the site, in a "disclaimer," says she is not promoting eating disorders.

"These sites," she writes "do not exist to say: 'I'm anorexic! Aren't I cool? Don't you want to be like me?' " The goal, she says, is to offer support: "This is a place where people can come to say, 'This is part of who I am. These are people who understand.'"

Jenny Wilson, a Stanford medical student and the author of the study, is skeptical of efforts to attach a philosophy to eating disorders.

Instead, she sees the Web sites as efforts by people with eating disorders to convince themselves that they have control over their lives. "I think it's an expression of the disease more than anything," Ms. Wilson said.

Many of the Web sites show a kind of ambivalence, the researchers said. They defend people's right to be anorexic or bulimic, but they spend a lot of time talking about the difficulties of having eating disorders.

Dr. Peebles of Stanford said that for some people, the sites might serve as no more than a support community, and not as a source of encouragement to continue destructive behavior. "They can express their innermost eating-disordered thoughts in a sort of anonymous way where they won't be judged," she said.

Still, when the researchers spoke to adolescents who had visited the sites, more than 60 percent reported trying weight-loss techniques they had learned there. (About a quarter of the adolescents who visited Web sites intended to help people with eating disorders recover also said they had found tips on ways to keep their weight down.)

For the study, the researchers sent surveys to the parents of 678 people, ages 10 to 22, who had been treated for eating disorders at Stanford. They also asked the parents to give separate surveys to their children.

In all, 64 patients and 92 parents responded.
And while the forms were anonymous, the researchers were able to link the responses of the patients with those of their families, to compare answers.
The study found that 39 percent of the patients had visited pro-eating-disorder Web sites, 38 percent pro-recovery sites and 27 percent both types of sites.
Despite the differences in reported hospital stays, the researchers found that those who spent time on the pro-eating-disorder sites provided basically the same information when asked about health changes as those who did not. Their weight was not much different from their ideal body weight, the researchers said, and they were no more likely to have changes in their menstrual cycles or to have symptoms of osteoporosis.

When the researchers tried to see how familiar parents were with the Web sites, they found that the parents whose children visited the sites were more likely to know about them and to be concerned about what their children were learning on the Web.
But 39 percent of those parents said they did not know whether their children visited pro-eating-disorder sites. And 15 percent wrongly reported that their children did not use them.

Some large Web servers like Yahoo, responding to complaints, have removed sites that promote eating disorders.

But the sites remain easy to find. And some experts wonder whether they are doing a better job of getting their message out than do the sites intended to promote recovery from eating problems.

Dr. Richard Kreipe, chief of adolescent medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said he was struck by how attractive the pro-eating-disorder sites tended to be. Still, he said, it is hard to prove whether the sites actually make the problem worse.

The issue, Dr. Kreipe said, is probably not whether the sites can draw the average teenager into an eating disorder but whether they may influence someone with an inherited predisposition to develop the disease - especially an adolescent who is feeling isolated.

"The kid who's probably most vulnerable to this is the kid who's least connected to other people," he said.

Nice Jewish Guys & Gals Promoting Homosexuality

I am fascinated. I recently spoke to two female friends and told them about this new blog that I started to discuss homosexuality. I was amazed at the reaction I received.

With both friends the bottom line for them was that since they knew a number of homosexuals, both dysfunctional (depressed, self-destructive, etc) and functional, and particularly they knew a happy homosexual couple, then it must be an okay and acceptable lifestyle.

So I challenged the first friend a bit. I asked her since she is basing her belief that homosexuals are innately born that way on this happy monogamous couple, I asked her how well does she know the couple?

I told her that I have found statistics on homosexuals that was quite disturbing:

“One study reports that the average homosexual has between 20 and 106 partners per year (6). The average heterosexual has 8 partners in a lifetime” (Bayer, R. Homosexuality and American Psychiatry)

That “happy monogamous homosexual couples” were surveyed how they define “monogamy” they responded that it means having a steady partner they love plus other casual sexual partners.

“A Canadian study of homosexual men who had been in committed relationships lasting longer than one year found that only 25 percent of those interviewed reported being monogamous." According to study author Barry Adam, "Gay culture allows men to explore different...forms of relationships besides the monogamy coveted by heterosexuals."

(Please note. I have not read these studies and I will try to stick to statistics that are verifiable and unbiased. These are just an example of studies I have found on the web and are not part of my statistical proofs. I will be posting from such sources as the CDC - Center of Disease Control, New York Times, and other sources that are clearly not biased against homosexuality.)

She was having a very hard time hearing what I was saying. So I bluntly asked her if she was interested in looking up unbiased statistics and following the truth?

She responded, “No”. She was not ready emotionally to hear that homosexuality is a choice based on trauma and self-confidence, even if it is the truth.

I find that astounding that she is so emotionally caught up in having a particular result – namely that the gay rights issue is simply about people wanting to love one another and they have no choice, so how can we possibly be mean to them and not accept the lifestyle as a valid legitimate alternative lifestyle?

I let it be because if someone is not ready for truth, they are not ready. But I am severely disappointed that one would choose to not pursue the truth. I am not talking about accepting what I say at face value, but rather exploring non-partisan studies and facts and only then drawing a conclusion.

My second friend was extremely emotionally perturbed by the notion of my exploration of this topic. She wanted to know why am I doing this?

I told her that I feel like it is part of my responsibility as a human being when I see others suffering to help them discover the root of their suffering.

She then asked me why don’t I respond to people who are drug addicts and alcoholics who are suffering?

I told her that those means of covering deeper pain is accepted by everyone as exactly that – an escape and a means of hiding from the underlying issue that requires therapy and a LOT of hard work to heal. Homosexuality is the one dysfunction that the world – psychologists, politicians, and now most people, actually believe that there is no need to heal.

That is simply cruel to tell people that their dysfunction is normal and they should celebrate it, thereby never giving them the opportunity to work on healing. If you don’t know there is a problem, how can you ever heal it?

It reminds me of bulimia - a terrible eating disorder. There are a group of people who are sick and tired of being told that there is something wrong with them that they are bulimic and have started a group to accept bulimia as a normal alternative lifestyle. (I will post the New York Times article on this at a later date.)

It is so much easier to believe that we are healthy and don’t need to do the terrible hard work of dealing with our issues and overcoming cravings. But in truth it is terribly harmful towards our goal as humans to heal our wounds and elevate ourselves to a higher level of existence.

She was so distraught by what I was saying that she began to personally attack me and call me names. I was flabbergasted. Clearly this issue is extremely emotionally ingrained in people who are generally loving and caring about others. The fact that logic and doing research to find truth is so anathema to those that are emotionally entangled in the Gay agenda makes it clear to me that this blog is more important now than ever.

Just as I was writing this post I received a comment from Nice Jewish Guy. His comment is one that I have heard over and over. In fact I would say that it is the definitive position of people who believe the Gay agenda.

1. “the bottom line is no one really knows why people are homosexual. Each theory put forth can be refuted. Everything you have said here regarding homosexuality's originations can only be qualified as your opinion, since you have provided no hard research data”

First thing that everybody wants is my smoking gun. Where is my absolute scientific data that homosexuality is caused by trauma and that it is a choice.

There is no smoking gun. What there is, is an overabundance of statistics (which I will catalog and post over time) that show the destructive force that compels homosexuality. Statistics about disease, Statistics about the average life expectancy, Statistics about destructive behavior, Statistics about causal anonymous sexual behavior, Statistics about depression, Statistics about the suicide rate, Statistics about childhood sexual or other abuse.

Each one deserves its own post and exploration, which I intend to do over time. But clearly the Statistics show that homosexuality is anything but a GAY lifestyle.

2. “True, many gay people have undergone traumas; there are likely just as many gay people who have not undergone traumas; likewise, there is no shortage of heterosexuals who have also undergone traumas and did not turn to homosexuality or any other escape.”

I never said that trauma ONLY causes homosexuality. Clearly childhood trauma causes all kind of dysfunctions, from drug and alcohol abuse, personality disorders, sexual dysfunctions from bizarre fetishes, sex addictions, using sex as a tool or means to make money. Homosexuality is just one form of dysfunction. There are many, many more that afflict every persuasion.

3. “I truly believe (and I have personal experience in this regard.. with other homosexuals, that is.. I am hetero!) that homosexuality is beyond my control, and can be independent of any sentinel event. The only criteria for identification as a homosexual is self-identification. I once asked a homosexual, "how do you know that you're gay?", and the reply was, "how do you know you're straight?"

What is your “personal experience” with other homosexuals that makes you believe that it is beyond their control? Did they tell you they wish they were straight but can’t help the feelings they have? That they suffered terribly from the homosexual feelings and identity crisis and if there was someway that they could be heterosexual they would gladly choose it? Is it the oft asked question, if it’s a choice why would anyone choose this lifestyle?

That is another great fallacy. No one would knowingly choose to be an alcoholic or drug addict. Yet are you saying that alcoholics or drug addicts were born that way? That they don’t have the ability to stop, regardless how strong their urges are? Just replace the word homosexuality with alcohol or drug addiction in your third point and you will see that it falls apart from a logical perspective.

"how do you know you're straight?" I will tell you how I know. We are not created with a sexual preference at all. We are all designed to mate with a member of the opposite sex. A male has a penis and a female a vagina. I know that when those two connect there is A RESULT – a new life is created. Clearly, everybody must admit to this - we are ALL DESIGNED to function that way.

Sure we can put our sexual parts into any receptacle, be they inanimate, different species/animals, or other bodily orifices – but none will produce a result showing that the two parts are MEANT to fit together. So clearly we are all born and functionally are designed to mate with a member of the opposite sex – ergo we were all created heterosexual.

4. “One can know they are gay even having never practiced it. They just know, they feel they are different. I personally know gay people who had wonderful childhoods.”

Also a very common argument, probably the most common, particularly for people who emotionally want it to be true: “I know people with happy childhoods or are a happily committed homosexual couple.”

Very few people have happy childhoods; otherwise the therapist profession would be out of business. I know a family that has well adjusted children that follow in their parents footsteps of what life should be like. The kids would tell you that they had a wonderful childhood. Accept they have one child (teenager) who because of his personality and personal needs suffered terribly growing up in such a household. His parents are good people but they did not understand that each child may need different type of parenting. That what can be very successful for one child can be destructive for another. This child has tragically become a heavy drug abuser.

The people who know this family all believe that his family did the right things and he had a happy childhood. I know this family well and can clearly see how their approach destroyed his sense of self.

I am in the social services business and I have met many people who have told me they have had very happy childhoods, until I started exploring their childhoods with them. Many of their concepts of what normative happy childhood consists of turns out to be actually emotionally and psychologically abusive behavior.

If you speak to someone who has homosexual urges and considers him or herself to be gay and you bring up this topic, they may say they had a happy childhood, particularly if it helps them prove a point that they were born this way.

But if you sit down in a non hostile environment where the focus is on their life and feelings and you really know how to broach a topic in a loving way, you may hear a very different tune.

Just to sum up –

A. Even if from the outside their upbringing seemed ideal to the casual observer, it clearly does not mean it was so for the particular individual with different personality Meta needs.
B. Even if the person themselves states that they had a happy childhood, it may not be the case.

Your last point really has me puzzled:

5. “I think it's great and noble that you are trying to understand homosexuality, but I think that ultimately it is futile. They exist, we must be understanding, and the rest is up to G-d.”

First let me say that I really appreciate your civil and positive approach. I hope that the discussions on this blog can continue to be civil and respectful. Thank you for being willing to have a discussion about it.

But then you ended with a disappointing notion. You agree that we don’t know the cause and can’t prove it either way. So why would you be against exploration and discussion to try and discover truth? You can completely disagree with me and bring statistics and examples that state your case, I will be happy to post it.

Searching for truth is NEVER futile. That is part of the purpose of our existence. Yes, people with homosexual tendencies do exist, as do people with cancer, smokers, alcoholics, etc. It is crucial that we try to understand the causes and help them overcome their struggles.

I completely agree that we must be understanding and compassionate. That is one thing I insist on anyone who wants to comment pro or con, whatever ANYONES dysfunction is they must be treated with compassion and lovingly helped to overcome their urges.

I love the alcoholic even if I think his behavior is self destructive. I love the homosexual even if I believe his behavior is self destructive. Because I love ALL human beings and someone who is suffering needs even more love.

Believe it or not, I am doing this for love.

Response To Anonymous Lesbian

I received the following question:

“As a recovering addict I find your view fascinating. What would you say if I told you that the reason I drank was in order to run away from my homosexual tendencies and only through living openly as a lesbian woman have I been able to address my addictions?”



I would say that it makes a lot of sense. It is a very difficult struggle dealing with homosexual tendencies and trying to bury it without dealing with the underlying issues, could very easily lead to (alcoholic or drug) addictions.

By living openly as a lesbian woman it is very cathartic having the healing love and understanding of another person who has gone through what you have. It’s also a very powerful comfort to live in an embracing and loving community like the gay community. It makes perfect sense that you are happier and in a much better mental state having such love and sense of self esteem that being in a loving relationship and community brings.



All of that is great, except for one thing. And this is a very scary and difficult subject to broach. What was the underlying reason for have those homosexual urges in the first place?



After struggling and combating your difficulties and finding a happy place in a lesbian relationship and community, what is the incentive to look deeper and reexamine your childhood and possibly deal with very painful issues?

If you found a sense of comfort with your identity it is a very difficult thing to contemplate going back and reexamining who you are. Why should you question your identity when you are being lovingly embraced?

There is one reason that you might want to do such heavy lifting. To find the truth of who you really are and to heal the trauma that was inflicted on you as an innocent child. To have complete healing by forgiving the people who have hurt you and not given you as a child, the most vulnerable of creatures, the kind of love and recognition that we all crave, need, and require desperately to be at peace with ourselves.



As a child did you receive the kind of love, encouragement, and sense that you are a wonderful amazing person, worthy and deserving of love, affection, and recognition? Were both, your father and mother, people who gave you the kind of completely loving embrace as you are now receiving from the gay community? Did they value how precious and special you are and that you are a gift from G-d to humanity? Did their actions reflect the love and affection they should have been showering you with constantly?

Honestly?

Its true very few children receive the kind of love and sense of personal value as we all really should. The question is how far from that kind of parental love was our personal situation, how sensitive we were, and what specific triggers and negative emotions/situations stayed with us. This lack of complete and proper parental love effects different people in very different ways.



One of those ways is sexuality confusion. Sexuality is deeply tied to our most intimate sense of ourselves and it is very natural that when we lack the proper sense of self it will reflect in our sexuality.



Can this be healed? Absolutely. Is it a very difficult road and does it require opening up old wounds? Yes. Will it be a struggle and a time consuming process? You bet. Can it be done with the right kind of mindset and loving assistance? Big time.

However, the fact is that the majority of people, Gay and straight, are living with varying degrees of hurt and unresolved issues. Most find some way of coping and having some kind of comfort zone, or Band-Aid, to make life livable.

What I am talking about is removing the Band-Aid, doing the hard work to heal, and living life on a higher plane. That higher awareness can only come from healing the wound completely, not dulling the pain with Band-Aids. Only then can we truly reach the kind of potential human beings are capable of.

Please note, in all of this I am not judging anyone, and I applaud everyone for doing the best they can with the tools that they have, to find comfort and love. I view everyone, including myself, as G-dly beings who are striving to be on a path of healing and growth. The only difference between people is the varying levels of achievement in their healing and growth. I encourage everyone to continue on in their journey and find the inner strength to climb that mountain and be the best human being you can be.

I wish you much love and success on your journey!

Emotional Truth and Homosexuality

By and large most of my discussions with people who are defenders of a gay lifestyle, hinge on emotions. It is difficult for a kind, compassionate human being to see another person, lets call him Ralph, proclaim that all he wants to do is love someone, and not try and help and support Ralph in his seemingly universal desire. It just happens to be that Ralph wants to love someone of his own gender. Ralph also claims that he has no choice in the matter, that he is not attracted to females and that he has always felt this way.

What is your average kindhearted person supposed to do with this pain and longing that they see in Ralph? The easiest thing to do is give Ralph what he wants. But in order to do that one must add a host of issues to the mental okay that Ralph desires.

The following must be indoctrinated to all otherwise you are heartless and uncaring about Ralph:

1. Gay people are born that way and they have no other choice.
2. Homosexual love is no different then Heterosexual love.
3. ALL of the isolation, depression, self-destructive tendencies is caused by society not excepting their homosexuality as the norm or legitimate alternative lifestyle.
4. ANYONE who disagrees with these premises is uncaring, bigoted, small-minded, and just plain cruel.

I would like to offer another alternative. I would like to open the possibility that there can be people who love ALL people and are terribly pained to see another human being suffer and in turmoil. These people are highly compassionate and would go to great lengths to help ease the suffering and struggles of others.

However there is one thing that distinguishes them from the majority of folks. They stop and look at a situation beyond the powerful immediate emotional pull.

I will give you an example. I have a close friend, David, age 30, who is one of the most thoughtful, kindhearted, good and caring people I know. David has suffered through much trauma and difficulties in his life. His trauma was in very silent and self-imposed ways. In fact anyone who knew him up to a few years ago would have a seen a normal well adjusted human being. Then the headaches and stomachaches started. He was so tough on himself with self-imposed sense of responsibility that his body started acting up to give his mind relief from his rigid sensibilities. David is very intelligent and well read. He read a couple of books how Marijuana is not an addictive substances and can bring relief to physical ailments. So he tried it and started feeling better. His Marijuana use began increasing and he found himself using it numerous times a day.



Throughout this process of about 5 years, I was devoted to David. I spent countless late nights talking to him, listening to his pain, and trying to be a comfort. I found for him therapists, in fact four or five until he found one he liked. I used to drive him to his therapist on a weekly basis. I spoke with his Rabbis and family trying to find ways to help him. David’s situation became worse and worse. He was spending all of his life’s savings to buy Marijuana. He borrowed money from friends and relatives to buy Marijuana. His daily living was all about his next high, his next relief from pain.

David has a very high IQ. He is extremely intelligent. Even after thousands of hours of discussion and the downward spiral of his life, he still believed that Marijuana is a healthy medicinal natural substance and is legitimately helping him with pain relief.



Marijuana Addiction Information

[Marijuana is the Nation's most commonly used illicit drug. More than 83 million Americans (37 percent) age 12 and older have tried marijuana at least once, according to the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA).25 ]

Then one day his supplier got busted. David began panicking as his stash dwindled. He repeatedly asked me to help him find another supplier. David is a fearful type and he wanted I should go with him to the Bronx to find a dealer that he would feel comfortable with.

I repeatedly told him that I love him and would do anything in the world for him, except help him find a new supplier. That was NEVER going to happen.

One day I was sitting in David’s room and he had reached a point of great desperation. He had tears streaming down his face as he pleaded with me, “P-Life if you really care about me, if there is one favor you ever do for me, I am begging you please help me with this. I am suffering so much, I am in complete agony, please, please help me find a new supplier.”

I don’t know if you can possible fathom what it is like to see someone that you have been close to all your life and particularly for the last five years, doing everything in your power to help in any way that you can. Sitting there and watching him beg you to do this one thing that would make him so happy, and bring such great relief to his miserable existence.

It would be so easy to make him happy. I almost relented and said okay. It took everything in my power to not give in to him. I walked out of his room to get some fresh air and to clear my head. I realized then and there how powerful emotional compassion is and how horribly wrong it can be. If I would have “been compassionate” in that moment, I would be helping David destroy his life. I would be helping him live a lie that his mind has concocted to help him cope with life. That Marijuana is not an addictive substance and in fact is a healing substance that can be a pleasurable part of life.

I worked very hard with his Rabbis and family to get him to a rehab center. David was so angry with me, he cursed me, yelled at me, told me what a betrayer I was. While it was painful to hear, I did not take it personally because I knew it was David’s addiction and his demons talking.



David’s story goes on and on. He ran away from rehab, and finally collapsed. He was hospitalized, heavily medicated, suffered through ups and downs. All the while I was there with him trying to help him. He had days when he would curse me, days when he was very thankful.

Today David is stabilized. He hasn’t used Marijuana in over a year. He still talks about and fantasizes about using Marijuana again. He still has a very difficult road ahead of him.

All of his obsession with Marijuana and his struggles with its use is all a smoke screen. It has nothing to do with his deeper internal subconscious issues. His problem is not with Marijuana, his problem is with his deep seated and buried unresolved issues.

It is human nature to cling to an external source as the cause or solution to internal strife. We are scared to delve deeply into our own deficiencies to find healing. When we can find an outlet, a way of externalizing our unhappiness, our angst, our deepest unfulfilled needs, the human mind rushes to embrace it. We close out all other possibilities, because they are too painful and scary.

Movements spring up to defend this easy route out, this path that emotionally seems helpful and satisfying. That’s why you have today a huge movement to legalize Marijuana and hundreds of books claiming that it is not addictive and is very healthy. You have the Gay movement trying to make it a legitimate alternative lifestyle. The same goes for Bisexuals, Transsexuals, and Transgender.



Gay Pride Month is sponsored by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex Diversity Working Group (LGBTI DWG), the Diversity Affirmative Action Board and DVO.

These movements have all sprung up to take the easy way out. It is much harder and braver to be really honest with yourself about underlying issues. But giving someone temporary relief with a false sense of legitimacy is not being compassionate. It is being (unintentionally) cruel and destructive. Just because you think you are being compassionate does not mean that you are truly compassionate.

"That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is."
Timaeus

My main point of the David story is not to compare drug use to Homosexuality beyond the following two points:

1. What FEELS compassionate is not necessarily the right thing or a good thing.
2. Obsessions, addictions, fetishes, or any external solutions are a relief mechanism for internal underlying issues.

Trembling Before G-d: A different understanding of the roots of Homosexuality.

SYNOPSIS

"Trembling Before G-d is an unprecedented feature documentary that shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma - how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality. As the film unfolds, we meet a range of complex individuals - some hidden, some out - from the world's first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted, married Hasidic gays and lesbians to those abandoned by religious families to Orthodox lesbian high-school sweethearts."

I just watched, Trembling Before G-d. I must say that it is a very moving film. I was very concerned that it would portray Judaism’s outlook on Homosexuality in a negative light. I was pleasantly surprised that overall it showed Rabbi’s who were loving and understanding while being firm in their principles.

My heart goes out to these suffering individuals. Anyone who would not treat these struggling souls with love and compassion, does not understand what Judaism is all about.

Clearly there is much unhappiness and turmoil within these individuals. There seems to be a major contradiction within two major forces of their lives.

1. The very clearly defined Biblical prohibition and very strongly worded language against Homosexuality.

2. Their feelings that they are intrinsically homosexual and the only way to find happiness is being a Homosexual.

These opposing beliefs cause great strife and anguish. How can G-d say that my very essence is an abomination? How can G-d love me while creating me as someone who can only find happiness through what He has deemed abominable?



This paradox is at the root of this film and it heartbreakingly portrays the struggle of this conflict.

I would like to postulate another possibility that perhaps might resolve this conundrum.

I believe that people who have Homosexual tendencies are people in great pain. You would naturally reply, “Of course they are in pain, they have to struggle with being shunned and grappling with their own identity.” You would be right except, I would like to bring up the possibility that they are struggling with something a bit deeper. They are struggling with some sort of trauma from childhood. Whether it is some form of emotional abandonment or being socially ostracized for various reasons, the trauma has deeply affected them in a visceral way and has scarred their psyche.



For some who have been scarred, Homosexuality becomes their outlet, their escape from the pain. This of course leads to more pain and struggle as it brings a host of issues and problems to deal with. It then becomes a struggle of acceptance of their Homosexuality rather then focusing on healing their original trauma.

For example someone who is an alcoholic finds relief and comfort from his or her demons through alcohol. Is it resolving their issues? No. Are alcoholics evil? No.



They are just people struggling with a deeper underlying issue that needs very scary work to heal and overcome. Some people never overcome their alcoholism, and nobody knowingly chooses to be an alcoholic.

I once dated a woman who was sexually molested by her father. Even though it was 20 years later the damage and emotional scarring were present in her daily life. She suffered terribly and her sense of self was horrendously damaged. She is working hard to heal and find completeness within herself. I wish her much love and success in her valiant efforts. I pray that one day she will be able to recover from such a life altering trauma.

I have known many people who have been scarred in different ways through their formative years. Trauma affects each person in a different way. Some seek solace in alcohol, drugs, sex, food, fetishes, or various other forms of temporary escape from the constant drum of feeling hollow and incomplete within themselves.



Homosexuality is another form of escape. It also has a number of other great lures. It connects you with another traumatized person and that brings great comfort. It also connects you with a sense of empowerment being part of a loving community and many others who share the same issues of traumatization, both from the original trauma and the secondary trauma of being Homosexual. (Family alienation, societal condemnation etc.)

Telling an alcoholic to accept himself and be proud of who he is, is destroying any possibility he has of doing the incredibly hard work of staying sober and confronting his demons. Telling a Homosexual the same thing is a travesty and a terrible disservice to the afflicted.

I want to be very clear, the ONLY way to act towards anyone who has an addiction or fetish, be it Homosexuality or alcoholism, is with love and kindness. That means being honest and helping them face and overcome their internal demons. If you truly love and care about someone, the last thing you would tell them is that your actions (addictions) are perfectly okay and you don’t need to exorcize your demons and heal your trauma.



G-d is the most loving Being in the universe. He loves each and every one of His creations. He is telling one and all that when you are hurting and want to turn to Homosexuality as an outlet for relief, don’t do it, it will destroy you. It will bury your trauma and lead you on a life’s path filled with pain, depression, and self destructive tendencies. Just like all other fetishes and addictions will do.

Read the following article about

Overcoming Same-Sex Attraction

Excerpt:

…American Psychiatric Association (APA). In the report, Dr. Robert Spitzer announced the results of a study he had conducted, concluding that "contrary to conventional wisdom, some highly motivated individuals, using a variety of change efforts, can make substantial change in multiple indicators of sexual orientation."

The researcher interviewed 200 men and women who have experienced a significant shift from homosexual to heterosexual attraction, and have sustained this shift for at least five years. By the time of the study interview, three-quarters of the men and half of the women had become married.

The atmosphere around this issue has become so emotionally charged that it is hard to have an honest loving conversation about it. I hope that my words are a source of opening up a dialog about another possibility and not a source of pain to the afflicted. My prayers and heartfelt wishes go out to all victims of trauma for full recovery and healing. May G-d give you the strength to find peace, serenity, a sense of wholeness and true and lasting happiness.

Amen.