Yesterday a once-upon-a-time friend reestablished contact via e-mail: he thought it important I should know “homosexuality is a learned behavior.” Just in case I harbored any doubt, he assured me that “lots of research has been done.”
Still I couldn’t help wondering whether his own doubtless meticulous investigations had convinced him or that he had been persuaded by the laboratory discoveries of other researchers into the sexual proclivities of mice and men.
The long-overdue on-going debate about gay rights in Saint Lucia, evidently inspired by recent HIV/AIDS-related U.N. initiatives, can hardly be served by the unanswerable question whether or not homosexuality is an acquired taste. After all, smoking is an acknowledged learned habit, whether tobacco or marijuana or crack cocaine. So is equally addictive boozing. Indeed, there is a preponderance of literature on the Internet and elsewhere supportive of the notion that violence is as much a learned behavior (with parents as the main teachers!) as is xenophilia or pedophilia or prejudice based on race or sexual preferences. (Interesting to note, the worst cases of sexual abuse in our time have persistently been denied or blamed on a relative handful of clergymen with uncontrollable congenital birth defects—not on learned behavior on a massive scale!)
The more useful question might be this: Why does our society treat homosexuals, in or outside the closet, with less regard than it treats dopers, alcoholics, wife batterers, child molesters and fingered rapists? Regardless of the cost to taxpayers, few would deny a citizen charged with the most heinous of crimes his or her constitutional right to a fair trial. Why, then, should another citizen be denied the right to petition for constitutional adjustments that might have salutary impact on his or her life?
The usual response is that “no one is denying gays any of their constitutional rights.” However, the greater truth is that not even the bravest of our society have been brave enough to confront the question how the public and its mirrored reflection the police treat hate crimes involving gays. Even fewer have spoken out against discrimination based on sexual preference, imagined or otherwise.
Not one of our politicians has dared to suggest what two men or two women do in the privacy of their homes may be their business and of no concern to peeping toms—except in self-serving defense of a colleague accused of raping a relative when he was still a child in his care. As for the gay community, not to say our more open-minded supportive citizenry, they are too scared of public scorn and worse to speak up against prejudice based on perceived sex preferences.
If the reasons for such bizarre behavior are to be found in what the Scriptures say about buggery and men lying down with men, prostitution and so on, then how to explain the public tolerance of several other breaches of the Ten Commandments—including hypocrisy by whatever name and the covered-up abuses by some of God’s agents of trusting children by the hundreds of thousands?
At this point, it might be worth reminding the ostensible faithful of Matthew 18.6: “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
I know not whether to praise or denounce the efforts of local NGO heads who seem to be leading an uphill battle on behalf of so-called commercial sex workers, gays and other ostensible threats to this nation’s established moral values and belief system, largely because I am not certain about their motivations. I note that while most of them are closely connected to politics, even to the incumbent party, none has so far directly addressed the government or the House opposition. It’s as if their sole intention is to make some funded noise then move on to the next chicken to be plucked. It does not help me that over the years we’ve had ample reason to believe there’s more in the NGO business for the peripatetic females who usually lead them as a profession than there is for the deprived and abused people they claim to serve.
It certainly would be good to know NGOs are accountable for the funds placed at their disposal. We might begin with requiring these professional good girls and boys to publish their audited annual accounts. After all, they lead tax-exempt organizations.
On Monday, I had a hard time discerning whether Newsspin’s two female guests had been invited primarily to comment on the latest shock to the nation’s debauched psyche or to promote the day’s CAFRA event. I noted, however, that although the victims were a two-year-old girl and her pregnant 17-year-old mother, constant reference was made to “the double murder,” more proof that in our advertised Christian society babies are not considered human until they are out of the womb!
I couldn’t get over the fact that one of Newsspin’s guests on the occasion repeatedly talked about the alleged perpetrator as if indeed he were a pathetic figure to be gently patted on the back and pitied, for in his broke and unemployed state how can he be held accountable for his murderous actions? It sounded to me as if already a defense were being mounted. Moreover, there was much talk about this latest example of “domestic abuse”—a Saint Lucia commonplace and not nearly as abhorrent to the ear as the murder of a mother and her two children, one of them still in her womb.
I was reminded yet again that CAFRA and other such organizations have never claimed to be primarily concerned with societal mores. They have their own calculated and well-funded agenda that may or may not coincide with government or religious positions and that’s primarily what they care about. I need quickly add that I see nothing wrong with that. I underscore the fact only that the population should be informed.
For instance, while the collective church might predictably stick to its teachings and on religious and moral grounds denounce prostitution, gays and the use of contraceptives, CAFRA stubbornly holds itself at liberty to brag about its free distribution of the tools required for the safe pursuit of sex as a profession.
It would not surprise me in the least to hear over the airwaves how sex workers can deliver safe satisfaction to their clients with the help of certain paraphernalia, including “lubricant,” available for the asking from CAFRA—whose stated purpose is to do everything possible to curb the proliferation of HIV/AIDS
and other sexually transmitted diseases, while at the same time “empowering women.”
They have no particular interest in saving souls. That they leave to those in the business of preparing us for after-life life in the spirit world.
So, no surprise to hear the CAFRA representative stating boldly over the airwaves that should a woman choose prostitution over regular 9-5 employment, because she can make more money from a two-hour sex session than she can from a regular job where “some man is harassing her for sex,” she would not get into an argument about morals. Instead, she would furnish the woman with the tools of her chosen trade and advise her to take care of herself. Presumably, her attitude to a male or female prostitute would be the same.
Of course, placed in a similar position, the priest would speak only of sin and morality and hellfire!
Again, I repeat: I am not here being judgmental but simply pointing out that NGOs (several churches among them), like other organizations, exist in the first place to promote their particular agendas—not because they are desperate to channel their soon to be canonized Mother Theresa!
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