Refuting Five Myths about Homosexuality #1

We are going to refute five common myths about homosexuality. I choose the word carefully, myths, fiction, falsehoods, lies, all of which has become the new foundation of our society. It's sad, but it's true that you're more likely to hear lies from the culture today than truth, especially when it comes to homosexuality. Thankfully, God has given us the unvarnished truth in Scripture and through the Holy Spirit, the ability to receive and understand it. Today on The Truth Pulpit, as Don Green continues to teach God's people God's Word, he turns to that very Word of God as the authority in refuting five myths on homosexuality.

Right now, here's Don with a word about this month's series. Well, Bill, we are undertaking a month-long series of messages here on The Truth Pulpit to counteract the existence of Pride Month. You know, in my opinion, Bill, the Pride Month is the most ridiculous and destructive propaganda campaign that has ever been perpetrated on the American people and beyond them to the entire world.

It started with the acceptance of homosexuality, moved to the mandated acceptance of homosexual marriage, from there to the promotion of transgenderism, to the infliction of transgenderism on children, to the current grooming of children through the appalling existence of drag queen hours. You know, it seemed to me that there needed to be someone saying something each day in opposition to Pride Month in response to all of those things. So, my friend, as you listen today, all that is being promoted here on The Truth Pulpit this month is designed to bring a biblical perspective to help you process what you are seeing in the world around you. Our goal is to be a voice in the wilderness of opposition to it all one day at a time. And so I trust it will help you see things clearly from God's perspective and that you will be encouraged to speak boldly for Christ in your circle of influence. Thanks for being with us today on The Truth Pulpit. Let's join our teacher right now in The Truth Pulpit. What does society tell us today?

What has our culture been cramming down our throats for the past few decades? We are told that homosexuality is a normal alternative to heterosexual relationships, that it's not sinful, it's not true. Some people say that even Jesus approves homosexuality, asking what is often an insipid question, what would Jesus do?

And it's funny how what Jesus would do in their minds conforms to whatever liberal politicians and the politically correct spirit of the day is saying, as they fashion a Jesus in their own likeness and in their own image rather than the one who is revealed to us in the holy pages of inerrant Scripture. Beloved, whatever else Scripture says, whatever culture presses upon you here in the days to come and in the lives of your children to come, beloved, whatever else we say about anything else, you still have a responsibility to think. Scripture calls us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God, to examine everything carefully. That means that we have a biblical responsibility as those under the authority of Christ and under the authority of the Word of God to examine what is laid before us and to determine what is true and what is false. And God has given us exactly what we need.

He has given us all that we need for discernment in the 66 books of the Bible and by the indwelling Holy Spirit. This isn't difficult, except for those who want to be approved by the spirit of the age. We don't care about that here. The only approval that we care about is the approval of our Lord Jesus Christ when we stand before him and give an account at the end of time.

Let the approval of men come and go. Let those who snort at that which we treasure the most take note that we haven't moved. Society may have moved, but we haven't. We're standing on the Word of God, and there we shall stand until God calls us home.

And so we still have the responsibility to think. And in light of what has been foisted upon us, we need to examine the issue of homosexuality. We are going to refute five common myths about homosexuality so that you can have clear thinking about these issues, so that you can see through what society is trying to foist upon us, so that you have reasonable answers to the world around you, and to those family members and friends and co-workers who come and have questions, either hostile or sincere. We're going to know what to say to these things by the time that we're finished here. Five myths.

I choose the word carefully. Myths. Fiction. Falsehoods. Lies. All of which has become the new foundation of our society. Well, myth number one. We're going to state the myth, the fiction in their terms, and then we're going to systematically dismantle them.

All of these are going to surprise you, every single one of them. Myth number one. Homosexuality is common. Homosexuality is common. That's myth number one. It's an utter fabrication.

It is not true. If you only saw news reports or movies or only got fed by common media, you might think, without anyone saying so, that the number of homosexuals in society is approximating that of heterosexuals. After all, we're sure talking about it a lot more. Certainly the theme of a lot more movies and TV shows, not that I follow any of that. But it's just common, and it's just so pervasively displayed. And their gay pride parades walk through the streets and receive all kinds of favorable coverage.

You'd think, man, this must be a growing dynamic that is overtaking the world, kind of like a bowl of yeast that just grows and grows and grows. It's not true. Others think, I saw someone yesterday who quoted this statistic, saying that, well, one person in ten is a homosexual. And that was the common line for a long time.

One out of ten. And it's insinuated to you that you start to look around with suspicion at the other nine people around and wonder who fits the bill. It's not true. It's an utter fabrication. It is all demonstrably false.

And I'm going to show you that right now. On July 15, 2014, the Obama administration released a report titled, Sexual Orientation and Health Among U.S. Adults. This is the Obama administration's figures, not mine.

This isn't off some fringe Christian website. These are government statistics that I'm about to quote to you. Specifically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just outside of Atlanta, stated in their studies and their conclusions that 96.6% of American adults identify as straight. 1.6% identified as gay or lesbian and 0.7% identified as bisexual. Less than two and a half percent. Now those numbers don't add up to 100%. I won't trouble you with what the others say about themselves. But beloved, over 96% of American adults identify as heterosexual, as straight.

That has nothing to do. This is in complete opposition to what is portrayed in the media around us. A Gallup poll, perhaps arguably the most respected pollster in America, in the wave of homosexual marriage going on, estimated that the total adults living in the United States in a same-sex marriage or with a same-sex domestic partner was 0.8%. Less than 1%. In other words, 99.2% of American adults 18 and older were not in a same-sex marriage or partnership. Those numbers are shocking. According to statistics compiled by the Williams Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles in 2011, a generous estimate of those who would identify themselves as lesbian or homosexual in the world population is under 2%. It's not just one study that says this.

You can cross-reference it. Government statistics, the same government that has supported and advocated this, their own statistics contradict the narrative that is trying to be portrayed. Estimates for homosexuality from the late 1990s were similar.

I won't go into quoting those studies, but it is not an overstatement to say that our media creates an image that homosexuality is pervasive. It's not. It's not true. Now, admittedly, it may be more common in Hollywood circles, it may be more common in liberal political circles, but that says nothing about how common it is in the broader population overall. The U.S. government and Gallup contradict the illusion. Friends, the idea that homosexuality is common is a myth. It's a fiction. That's not the only myth that we're told.

Myth number two. We're told that homosexual love is like heterosexual love, and that was one of the common quotes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision. Love is love. You heard that, right? Love is love. You love a woman, I love a man.

It's all love. It's not true. It's a despicable fiction. The media portrays homosexuality as being comparable to the relational stability of heterosexuals. Hold on to your hats with what I'm about to describe to you, because you're used to, just like I am, news agencies that predictably tell stories about older homosexuals who shared a long relationship together, implying that all homosexual relationships are of like kind, and so they stand outside the courtroom hand in hand and portray an image as if that symbol of one or two couples is representative of the entire whole.

It's a fiction. It's absolutely false, and despicably false, I might add. Listen to these statistics found in multiple sources. Homosexuals average eight different sexual partners annually. One study found that 43% of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners over their lifetimes. 28% had 1,000 partners or more. 79% said that more than half of their partners were complete strangers. Under 2%, less than 2% of homosexuals said that they were monogamous to one lifetime partner, compared to 83% of heterosexuals. Give that a moment to sink in, huh?

Shocking. Now, let's be honest. It's not like heterosexuals have a monopoly on virtue. We understand that heterosexuals commit adultery and that fornication and adultery are problems even within the Church of Jesus Christ.

We understand that. But we won't bow before a moral equivalency argument that makes these drastic differences as though they were somehow equal in shame. Many unsuspecting people, maybe even some of you, approve homosexuality on completely false premises and make the assumption, not knowing many homosexuals, because after all, they're not that common, and so there's not that many to get to know, comparatively speaking. And so, based on media portrayals of a camera that always shows you only what it wants you to see, many unsuspecting people approve of homosexuality having no idea what they're assenting to. By any standard, homosexual promiscuity is shocking. It shocks the conscience. And I won't go into detail seeing pictures on Facebook of homosexual men wearing t-shirts advertising their preferred form of engagement, let's say.

It's sick. It's wrong. It's sinful.

It's not normal, no matter what is said to us to the contrary. And so the notion, beloved, that homosexual relationships are comparable to heterosexuality is a myth. It is a complete fiction. And of course, it's portrayed that way.

Do you think that if it had been portrayed that way consistently, according to reality 30 years ago, that we ever would have gotten to this point? There had to be a deception at work in order for people to buy it, because if they had known the truth, they never would have drunk the poison. Myth number three. Homosexuals are born that way. Homosexuals are born that way. Many people think that homosexuality is genetically determined. The media refer to the gay gene as if it were an established fact. Now, if homosexuality was genetically determined, that would be a strong argument for not raising a fuss about it. I mean, after all, who fusses about their eye collar? You couldn't do anything about it.

You just received the genes from your parents, and you got the eye collars that were assigned to you by the combination of DNA. That would be a great argument, if it were true. But you know, there's only one problem. It's demonstrably false. The death blow to this argument comes from studies of identical twins. Now you know that identical twins coming from the same mother and father share the exact same genetic material. It's one fertilized egg splitting into two, and they share the exact same genetic material. Australian researchers, back in the year 2000, released a study that they did of identical twins in which one of the twins was a homosexual. Now, follow this. It really isn't that difficult.

It's not that complicated. If one genetically identical person is a homosexual, and if homosexuality is genetically determined at birth, then the identical twins would both be homosexuals because they share the exact same genetic material. What did these researchers find? Only 38% of the time was the identical twin also a homosexual.

Stated differently, in round numbers, two-thirds of the time he wasn't. Four other studies reached similar results, and one writer interpreted the significance of those findings for those of us that are scientifically challenged. He said, identical twins have identical genes. If homosexuality was a biological condition produced inescapably by the genes, like eye color, then if one identical twin was homosexual, in 100% of the cases his brother would be too. But we know that only about 38% of the time is the identical twin brother homosexual. The quote goes on to say, genes are responsible for an indirect influence, but on average they do not force people into homosexuality. Listen to this next quote. This conclusion has been well known in the scientific community for a few decades, but it has not reached the public.

The public increasingly believes the opposite. The American Psychological Association on their website carries an article titled, Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality. Can we all agree that the American Psychological Association is not out to advocate a Christian worldview? So that if there is any bias that is not filtered through them, what does the American Psychological Association say about what causes homosexuality? I'll quote it for you. Straight off their website, in fact, just to enjoy a prop.

Right here it is, holding it in my hand on page two. It says, quote, There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. End quote. Do you know what you just heard? You just heard in academic jargon, a psychological association shrugging its shoulders and saying, I don't know. That's all that says. They're saying, I don't know. But it's cloaked in so much jargon that it tries to sound like they're saying something significant, but what they're saying is, we don't know what causes homosexuality. Trust me, if they were able to connect it to something genetic, they would, because it's consistent with the liberal mindset that they want to portray.

But there's enough intellectual integrity in the group right now to say, we don't know. The National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality, a professional organization with members from a variety of medical and scientific backgrounds, says this, and I quote, There is no such thing as a gay gene, and there is no evidence to support the idea that homosexuality is simply genetic. Numerous examples exist of people who have successfully modified their sexual behavior.

End quote. Beloved, no one could change their homosexual behavior if it was genetically fixed. Now, before the upswing of political correctness that forbade studies like what I'm about to describe, before our modern age impinged itself upon academic and medical thought, past secular treatment of homosexuality supports the assertion that it is not genetically determined. Between 1930 and 1986, many medical studies were published that documented a composite 50% success rate in producing considerable or complete change from homosexual behavior. That's over 50 years of research.

It's now been flushed down the commode because of political winds. But listen, beloved, if homosexual behavior is genetically determined now, it was always genetically determined. And as shown by the fact that 50% success rate existed in prior treatment shows that it's not genetically determined.

What we're seeing here is individual arguments under this third point, the myth that homosexuals are born that way, what you're seeing is a culmination, a cumulative argument that is being made here indicating that this is just not true. The twin studies refute it. The American Psychological Association says, no, we don't know, we can't say that. A professional organization known as North says no.

In the past, there were medical studies that said 50% change. Do you see how massive the lie is that's perpetrated just on this one argument? Today on The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green has shown you the inescapable evidence as he has begun refuting five myths on homosexuality. The last two myths will be highlighted next time, so be sure to join us then.

But right now, Don's back in studio and he has some closing comments. Well, friend, if you're listening today and you struggle with homosexuality or homosexual desires, I want to make something really plain to you. We extend the gospel of Jesus Christ to you as well.

All of your sins can be forgiven through repentance and faith in Christ, and we just want you to see what scripture says so that you could have the hope of eternal life that comes through faith in Christ alone. Keep listening this week as we study together on The Truth Pulpit. Thanks, Don. And friend, if you'd like the full five CD album with all the unedited for time messages in the Bible and Pride Month series at no charge, visit us at thetruthpulpit.com for ordering information. That's thetruthpulpit.com. And now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright. See you again next time as Don teaches God's people God's word from the Truth Pulpit.