Light is Right Joe Campbell
I’ve tried, really I have, but I can’t understand why, as a society, we discriminate so aggressively against homosexuals. Rare is he, or she, who at some point in life does not need help for mental, physical or spiritual disorders, if not all three. But when homosexuals need help, we deny or ignore afflictions that ought to be obvious to anyone, let alone doctors and spiritual advisors.
We haven’t always neglected to help them. In days gone by, we used to recognize and treat their psycho-sexual condition as best we could. Why, it once occupied a prominent place in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Now it’s excluded, banished by uncaring psychiatrists, the very ones who should help, rather than hinder. Not only have they excluded the disorder. They seek to exclude colleagues who dare to treat it.
Psychiatrists don’t discriminate this way against psycho-ingestive conditions. Even unusual abnormalities like a disordered love of paper are included. When the afflicted meet, they might not ask, “have you read any good books lately?” They could, however, ask, “have you eaten any good books lately?” Most of us have devoured paperbacks figuratively. They devour paper literally.
But theirs is only one of numerous psycho-ingestive conditions. Some of the afflicted eat wood, coal, lead, glass, plastic and plaster, among other non-edibles.
I can’t imagine psychiatrists refusing to treat patients for being attracted to diets that are indigestible and non-nutritious. Everyone recognizes that eating is about sustaining life and supporting health and that consuming non-edibles acts against both. But I don’t have to imagine psychiatrists refusing to treat patients for being attracted to liaisons that lack procreative potential and sexual diversity. As I said, psychiatrists already refuse. What’s more, as a society, we endorse their discriminatory behaviour. We fail to recognize that sex is about procreating life and supporting male-female complementarity, and that embracing same-sex relations acts against both.
If you have unwanted hallucinations, respected psychiatrists will help you control or banish them. No psychiatrist will tell you, “Enjoy the show. Yours is an alternative and equally acceptable way of perceiving.” But if you have unwanted same-sex attractions, respected psychiatrists will refuse you reparative therapy. They may tell you, “be gay. Yours is an alternative and equally acceptable way of feeling.”
Not just psychiatrists, but all medical doctors know, or ought to, that a gay lifestyle exposes both men and women to abnormally high risks to their physical and mental health. Although they’re aware of unhealthy lifestyle choices, medical authorities make a curious educational choice. They support campaigns that graphically depict the risks of smoking, but not of engaging in same-sex activity. It makes you wonder what the caring professions have against homosexuality that motivates such discrimination.
Many Christian spiritual leaders are equally prejudicial. They follow the Bible in helping us avoid and repent from all manner of sin, but not from homosexual sin. One biblically inspired cleric declared that the biblical argument against homosexuality is nonsense. I thought he was joking. It didn’t occur to me that he had lost his sense of irony.
Since politicians created, and judges endorsed, a flourishing human rights industry, many of us have avoided telling homosexuals the truth about their condition. Telling the truth used to indicate love. Now, according to political and judicial wisdom, it can indicate hatred. In our culture, this is known as progress.
So, if you’re a repentant homosexual who hates the behaviour you once embraced but loves your gay friends, be careful what you publish. Otherwise, you could be in trouble with the Supreme Court of Canada.
The learned judges outlawed hate speech aimed at behaviour that is integral to and inseparable from the identity of a vulnerable, protected group. The hate speech, they ruled, is directed toward behaviour in an effort to mask the true target, the vulnerable group. You may think that you hate only the behaviour, but Supreme Court judges can read minds and they know yours better than you do.
The ruling, of course, is discriminatory. You may still publicly hate risky behaviour in general, but not risky homosexual behaviour in particular, even if the hated truth helps your gay friends avoid it.
More specifically, without incurring judicial or professional displeasure, you may publicly hate, and doctors may privately treat, behaviour ranging from bipolar to schizophrenic, which solid research indicates is genetically linked. If any behaviour is integral to and inseparable from identity, you would think that it would be genetically linked; this raises the question why bipolar and schizophrenic behaviour, but not homosexual activity, may be publicly detested and privately treated. Homosexual activity would seem less closely tied to identity, as a genetic link to homosexuality remains elusive.
As I indicated, I can’t understand why our society discriminates aggressively against homosexuals by denying them truth and treatment. I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s because we’re homophobic.
