|
Issues - gender bias - Child molestation and homosexuality
Child Molestation and Homosexuality
By Paul Cameron, Ph. D.
Dr. Cameron is Chairman of the Family Research
Institute of Colorado Springs, Colorado USA. Click here for
more information about this organization. You may contact
him at: Family Research Institute, PO Box 62640, Colorado
Springs, CO 80
Ann Landers (1) says the statement "Homosexuals
are more inclined to molest children sexually than heterosexuals"
is false. The American Psychological Association has sponsored
a work that asserts: "Recognized researchers in the field
on child abuse,... almost unanimously concur that homosexual
people are actually less likely to approach children sexually."
(2)
Why is it, then, that we read about sex between
boys and men in every newspaper? Does it merely reflect sensationalist
journalism? We know that heterosexual molestation also occurs.
But since there are so many more heterosexuals than homosexuals,
which kind of child molestation – homosexual or heterosexual
– is proportionately more common?
Three kinds of scientific evidence point to
the proportion of homosexual molestation: 1) survey reports
of molestation in the general population, 2) surveys of those
caught and convicted of molestation, and 3) what homosexuals
themselves have reported. These three lines of evidence suggest
that the 1%-to-3% of adults who practice homosexuality (3)
account for between a fifth and a third of all child molestation.
In 1983, a probability survey of the sexual
experiences of 4,340 adults in 5 U.S. cities found that about
3% of men and 7% of women reported sexual involvement with
a man before the age of 134 (i.e., 30% was homosexual).
In 1983- (4), a random survey of 3,132 adults
in Los Angeles found that 3.8% of men and 6.8% of women said
that they had been sexually assaulted in childhood. Since
93% of the assailants were male, and only 1% of girls had
been assaulted by females, about 35% of the assaults were
homosexual. (5)
The Los Angeles Times (6) surveyed 2,628 adults
across the U.S. in 1985. 27% of the women and 16% of the men
claimed to have been sexually molested. Since 7% of the molestations
of girls and 93% of the molestations of boys were by adults
of the same sex, about 4 of every 10 molestations in this
survey were homosexual.
In a random survey of British 15-to-19 yr olds,
35% of the boys and 9% of the girls claimed to have been approached
for sex by adult homosexuals and 2% of the boys and 1% of
the girls admitted to succumbing. (7)
In science, a review of the professional literature
published in a refereed scientific journal is considered to
be an accurate summary of the current state of knowledge.
The latest such review was published in 1985. (8) It concluded
that homosexual acts were involved in 25% to 40% of the cases
of child molestation recorded in the scientific and forensic
literature.
Drs Freund and Heasman (9) of the Clarke Institute
of Psychiatry in Toronto reviewed two sizeable studies and
calculated that 34% and 32% of the offenders against children
were homosexual. In cases they had personally handled, homosexuals
accounted for 36% of their 457 pedophiles.
Dr. Adrian Copeland, a psychiatrist who works
with sexual offenders at the Peters Institute in Philadelphia,
said (10) that, from his experience, pedophiles tend to be
homosexual and "40% to 45%" of child molesters have
had "significant homosexual experiences."
Dr. C. H. McGaghy (11) estimated that "homosexual
offenders probably constitute about half of molesters who
work with children." Other studies are similar:
– Of the approximately 100 child molesters
in 1991 at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually
Dangerous Persons, a third were heterosexual, a third bisexual
and a third homosexual in orientation. (12)
– A state-wide survey of 161 Vermont adolescents
who committed sex offenses in 1984 found that 35 (22%) were
homosexual. (13)
– Of the 91 molesters of non-related children
at Canada's Kingston Sexual Behaviour Clinic from 1978-1984,
38 (42%) engaged in homosexuality. (14)
– Of 52 child molesters in Ottawa from
1983 to 1985, 31 (60%) were homosexual. (15)
– In England for 1973, 802 persons (8
females) were convicted of indecent assault on a male, and
3,006 (6 of them female) were convicted of indecent assault
on a female (i.e., 21% were homosexual). 88% of male and about
70% of female victims were under age sixteen. (16)
Because of this pattern, Judge J. T. Rees concluded
that "the male homosexual naturally seeks the company
of the male adolescent, or of the young male adult, in preference
to that of the fully-grown man. [In 1947] 986 persons were
convicted of homosexual and unnatural offences. Of those,
257 were indictable offences involving 402 male victims....
The great majority of [whom]... were under the age of 16.
Only 11%... were over 21."
"[T]he problem of male homosexuality is
in essence the problem of the corruption of youth by itself
[i.e., by other boys] and by its elders. [And thereby]...
the creation... of new addicts ready to corrupt a still further
generation of young men and boys in the future." (17)
The 1948 Kinsey survey found that 37% of the
gays and 2% of the lesbians admitted to sexual relations with
under-17-yr-olds, and 28% of the gays and 1% of the lesbians
admitted to sexual relations with under-16-yr-olds while they
themselves were aged 18 or older. (18)
In 1970 the Kinsey Institute interviewed 565
white gays in San Francisco: 25% of them admitted to having
had sex with boys aged 16 or younger while they themselves
were at least 21. (19)
In The Gay Report, 23% of the gays and 6% of
the lesbians admitted to sexual interaction with youth less
than 16 years of age. (20)
In France, 129 convicted gays (21)(average age
34 years) said they had had sexual contact with a total of
11,007 boys (an average of 85 different boys per man). Abel
et al reported similarly that men who molested girls outside
their family had averaged 20 victims each; those who molested
boys averaged 150 victims each. (22)
About a third of the reports of molestation by the populace
have involved homosexuality. Likewise, between a fifth and
a third of those who have been caught and/or convicted practiced
homosexuality. Finally, a fifth to a third of surveyed gays
admitted to child molestation. All-in-all, a rather consistent
story.
Nowadays parents are labeled bigots for fearing
that homosexual teachers might molest their children. But
if homosexuals are more apt to molest children and are in
a positon to take advantage of them, this fear makes sense.
Indeed, accounts of disproportionate homosexual teacher molestation
appear throughout the scientific literature.
The original U.S. Kinsey study reported that
4% of the non-criminal white gays and 7% of the non-criminal
white lesbians reported that they had their first homosexual
experience with a `teacher or other caretaker.' None of the
heterosexuals were recorded as having a teacher as their first
sex partner. (18)
In England, Schofield reported that at least
2 of his 150 homosexuals had their first homosexual experience
with a teacher and an additional 2 reported that their first
homosexual contact with an adult was with a teacher. One of
the 50 men in his comparison group had also been seduced by
a homosexual teacher, while none of the men interviewed claimed
involvement with a heterosexual teacher. (23)
In the 1978 McCall's magazine study of 1,400
principals, (24) 7% reported complaints about homosexual contact
between teachers and pupils and 13% reported complaints about
heterosexual contact between teachers and pupils (i.e., 35%
of complaints were homosexual). 2% "knew of instances
in which teachers discussed their homosexuality in class."
Of 400 consecutive Australian (25) cases of
molestation, 7 boys and 4 girls were assaulted by male teachers.
Thus 64% of those assaults were homosexual.
In 1987, Dr. Stephen Rubin, associate professor
of psychology at Whitman College, conducted a 10 state survey
(26) and found 199 sexual abuse cases involving teachers.
122 male teachers had abused female pupils and 14 female teachers
had abused male students. In 59 cases, however, male teachers
had abused male pupils and in 4 cases female teachers had
abused female students (overall 32% were homosexual).
A 1983 survey asked 4,340 adults to report on
any sexual advances and any physical sexual contact by elementary
and secondary teachers (4% of those who were teachers in the
survey claimed to be bisexual or homosexual).4 29% of the
advances by elementary and 16% of the advances by secondary
school teachers were homosexual. In addition, 1 of 4 (25%)
reports of actual sexual contact with an elementary school
teacher were homosexual. In high school, 8 (22%) of 37
contacts between teacher and pupil were homosexual. 18% reported
having had a homosexual teacher (8% of those over the age
of 55 vs 25% of those under 26). Of those reporting a homosexual
teacher, 6% said that the teacher influenced them to try homosexuality
and 13% of the men and 4% of the women said that the teacher
made sexual advances toward them.
Whether examining surveys of the general populace or counts
of those caught, homosexual teachers are disproportionately
apt to become sexually involved with children.
Study after nationwide study (3) has yielded
estimates of male homosexuality that range between 1% and
3%. The proportion of lesbians in these studies is almost
always lower, usually about half that of gays. So, overall,
perhaps 2% of adults regularly indulge in homosexuality. Yet
they account for between 20% to 40% of all molestations of
children.
Child molestation is not to be taken lightly.
Officials at a facility which serves about 1,500 runaway youngsters
each year estimate that about half of the boys have been homosexually
abused and 90% of the girls heterosexually assaulted. (27)
Investigation of those suffering severe chronic mental illness
implicates child
molestation as a primary cause (45% of Bigras et al's (28)
patients were homosexually abused).
If 2% of the population is responsible for 20%
to 40% of something as socially and personally troubling as
child molestation, something must be desperately wrong with
that 2%. Not every homosexual is a child molester. But enough
gays do molest children so that the risk of a homosexual molesting
a child is 10 to 20 times greater than that of a heterosexual.
The gay movement is forthright about seeking
to legitimize child- adult homosexual sex. In 1987, The Journal
of Homosexuality – the scholarly organ of the gay rights
movement – published "Pedophilia and the Gay Movement."
(29) Author Theo Sandfort detailed homosexual efforts to end
"oppression towards pedophilia." In 1980 the largest
Dutch gay organization (the COC) "adopted the position
that the liberation of pedophilia must be viewed as a gay
issue... [and that] ages of consent should therefore be abolished...
by acknowledging the affinity between homosexuality and pedophilia,
the COC has quite possibly made it easier for homosexual adults
to become more sensitive to erotic desires of younger members
of their sex, thereby broadening gay identity."
In 1990 COC achieved a significant victory:
lowering of the age of consent for homosexual sex in Holland
to 12 (unless the parents object, in which case it goes up
to 15). (30) In the U.S. and Canada, the North American Man-Boy
Love Association marches proudly in many gay pride parades
with the stated goal of removing the barriers to man-boy sex.
Note the phrases "oppression towards
pedophilia" and "liberation of pedophilia."
It is clear that those who advocate the legalization of sex
between adults and children intend to argue that such conduct
is a "civil right," deserving of the same legal
protections afforded to other minorities. A large proportion
of Americans regard that argument as a mere pretext to giving
"sexual predators" free reign to take advantage
of vulnerable
children.
Not only is the gay rights movement upfront
in its desire to legitimize sex with children, but whether
indexed by population reports of molestation, pedophile convictions,
or teacher-pupil assaults, there is a strong, disproportionate
association between child molestation and homosexuality. Ann
Landers' claim that
homosexuals molest children at no higher a rate than heterosexuals
do is untrue. The assertion by gay leaders and the American
Psychological Association that a homosexual is less likely
than a heterosexual to molest children is patently false.
www.familyresearchinst.org/FRI_EduPamphlet2.html
|
