Session 2012-13

Marriage (Same Sex Couples)

Memorandum submitted by Marriage, Sex and Culture Group, Anglican Mainstream (MB 137)

INTRODUCTION

1. Lisa S Nolland, MA MCS PhD (Bristol), is a sex-culture historian who has worked with kids and their families as a primary and secondary school teacher, youth worker, mentor and chaplain for many years. She convenes the Marriage, Sex and Culture Group (MSC) of Anglican Mainstream, which researches and raises awareness on these issues. This submission is made on behalf of the MSC.

SUMMARY

2. Though arguably well-meaning in its conception, same-sex ‘marriage’ (SSM) has serious short- and long-term ramifications which few appear aware of: it is a game-changer. Once sexual differentiation is removed from marriage, there is no area of life where we can in principle insist upon it, as seen in current developments in states with SSM.

3. This submission concentrates upon SSM’s impact on children and young people via the instruction and formation of kids, in schools, ‘health’ and community groups. The influence of the LGBT agenda on our young---publicly presented in positive terms like ‘equalities’---is already problematic. Because gay has become the ‘new black’ being ‘anti-gay’ is considered racist, and critical comments in relation to how gays choose to do life is increasingly considered hate crime. It can be professionally suicidal to be critical in public of those with ‘protected characteristics’ now; gay ‘marriage’ will push this tendency further.

4. With SSM schools and other groups will, legally, have to promote gay relationships and sexuality and be constrained by a rather whitewashed version of the facts. This is evident in countries that already have SSM. Those who will pay the most are our young, while all of us will have forfeited our freedom of speech, conscience and religion, or risk fines, law suits and loss of employment. In countries with SSM, incidents of this nature are happening now.

I. EQUALITIES AND INCLUSION

5. Because of the ideological power of and concerns for ‘equalities and inclusion’ and anti-bullying and homophobia, we begin here. Though couched in terms of justice, respect and tolerance---deeply treasured English/British values!---the LGBT campaign has successfully hijacked these terms by radically altering their original meanings. To dissent in public now is often counter-productive, because what is heard is bigotry, discrimination and hatred.

6. Schools must promote LGBT rights (and will, by extension, SSM) because of ‘equalities and inclusion’, so that every child can feel good about her/his family. This argument gives Stonewall’s ‘Education for All’ the moral high ground. [1]

7. However, Stonewall’s ‘all’ still excludes vulnerable children and families from politically-incorrect polygamous and polyamorous family structures, among others.

8. There are 1000 or so polygamous families (mostly Muslim) here now (with polygamist Kody Brown challenging consensual adult polygamy in the US court). [2]

9. Similarly, Stonewall excludes polyamorous (literally, ‘plural loves’) gay, straight or bisexual families. Polys ‘came out’ on ITV August 2011, and the Independent and Mail recently ran poly features. The Scientific American (February 2013), claims 4-5% of the US population is experimenting with polyamory while Australian Greensparty leaders are campaigning for poly marriage. [3]

10. If SSM is legalised, there will be no way to halt the embedding and tacit or open promotion of these (and other even more extreme) alternative family forms and sexualities across the education system over time.

II. ANTI-BULLYING AND HOMOPHOBIA

11. All bullying is sickening---whether for reasons of obesity, race, sexuality, etc. and must not be tolerated. However, we find here a similar hijacking of important values which have been sabotaged to legitimise and promote the LGBT agenda, and at the expense of other forms of serious bullying.

12. For instance, bullying on the basis of sexuality received the lion’s share of attention in last year’s Ofsted report on ‘Bullying’: 14 (out of 70) pages. Oddly, though, it admits students’ ‘most common experience of more serious bullying’ is appearance-related and only ‘a very small number of pupils reported being bullied directly about their sexuality’ (p 29). What has happened here? [4]

13. More fundamentally, ‘being gay’ is being sold to kids like ‘being black’. This is pure (and relatively recent but highly successful) myth launched by PR specialists, Kirk and Madsen: ‘We argue that, for all practical purposes, gays should be considered to have been born gay [emphasis theirs]’. [5]

14. Identical twin studies disprove the ‘born gay’ theory (if one twin is gay the other most often is not) as does Frisch et al’s 2006 marriage study of two million Danes : ’Childhood family experiences are important determinants’ of future heterosexual or homosexual marriage decisions. [6]

15. Another myth sold to kids now is that ‘once gay always gay’. Not so! Research by Savin-Williams and Ream (2007) found that three quarters of young people who identified as gay at 17 realised by age 22 that they were heterosexual. [7]

III. THE FULL AGENDA

16. In fact, ‘Equalities and bullying’ concerns are far more about stealth social engineering than meeting the needs of children in school. Otherwise, why include only certain family forms and sexualities? And contra Stonewall, in our pluralist society children may be taught to respect others and schools can target all forms of bullying without automatically endorsing LGBT practices. A primary end game of the ‘Equalities and bullying’ agenda is a free approach to sexual activity, with a sole focus on the autonomous individual. Instrumental to this, is the recruiting of kids to become ‘social justice’ activists and champions of certain human, especially LGBT, rights and sexualities and who experience those with contrary views as ’haters’.

IV. SOME CONSEQUENCES IN STATES WITH SSM

17. In Hamilton, Ontario (Canada legalised SSM in 2005) in February 2012, primary-aged children married a same-sex friend in a mock gay ‘marriage’ rite in the classroom. [8]

18. An Ontario school board---increasingly acting as ’co-parent’---insists primary school children be taught about SSM and that parental requests for notification (even) are invalid. [9]

19. A Toronto District School Board’s [TDSB] campaign on ‘Love’ for 11+s promotes the equal validity of straight, LG or bisexual trio ‘couples’ (Autumn 2012). [10]

20. The TDSB’s K-12 resource, Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism, encourages artistic contributions from early primary-aged children for the TDSB/school bus float in Toronto’s Annual Gay Pride Parade (though ‘family friendly’, nudity and overtly sexual behaviours are allowed/celebrated). [11]

21. Pink Project 2012 involved 1,500 kids (kindergarteners through 18s) from just under a dozen schools dancing to Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ (‘born gay’), to promote gay ‘acceptance’. [12]

22. Gay teacher Ms Allen admits she has explained lesbian sex techniques to 13 year-olds in her Massachusetts classroom after SSM passed (N ational Public Radio , September 2004 ) . [1 3 ]

23. Planned Parenthood, Toronto [PPT], active in many Toronto secondary schools, is developing its ‘queer sex ed’ curriculum. PPT’s official website for 13s+ commends ’Fisting’ etc to kids of all sexualities as ‘low risk’ for STIs and potentially ‘very enjoyable’. [14]

24. MyGSA.ca (My Gay Straight Alliance)---Canada’s national LGBTQ-inclusive and safer schools website and the education arm of the Human Rights group, Egale (like Stonewall)---has hundreds of GSA clubs and affiliated school and community groups across the country.

25. MyGSA.ca commends Outland’s Coming Out (2000) to schools as ‘a comprehensive road map for navigating this exciting, complicated period of life’. [15] Readers (14 years+) are told:

A bottom on crystal meth can get fucked for hours on end, experiencing a continuous state of physical ecstasy. After the fog clears, however, he may suddenly think, Oh my God, I can’t believe I even did it with him… If you are going to use hard drugs and have sex, be prepared for this experience. (p 58)

26. For Canadian educator and activist, Phil Lees, ‘Experience shows that whenever homosexual marriage becomes law, children will be exposed to an increasingly sexualized curriculum and school environment at an early age, as early as kindergarten.’ [16]

27. Once you remove biological difference from marriage, it is much harder to withstand the demands to strip biological sex from all realms. This ‘gender-neutral’ approach is now being adopted across the board in states like Massachusetts, with particular impact on school locker rooms, sports teams etc. ‘Trans’ individuals’ rights to be treated as their preferred sex/gender are trumping the rights of everyone else, with punitive action to be taken against kids who refuse to fall in line. [17]

V. UK SCHOOLS, MAINSTREAM YOUTH ‘HEALTH’ AGENCIES AND COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS LIKE THE SCOUTS

28. SSM includes SS relationships and sex. Very few appear to realise we already have serious problems on this front, both in terms of certain curricula as well as mainstream sexual advice from ‘health’ agencies and community organisations. That there are varying degrees of helpful advice mixed in with the bad, means kids are more readily deceived by the latter. The approach taken by these agencies combines ‘risk reduction’ and ‘damage control’ with tacit acceptance/promotion of recreational sex (for 13s+) for whatever ‘orientation’, based on an inviolable personal autonomy and agency. ‘Gay’ 16s+ get additional ‘advice’ (see below).

29. Some gay (and straight) sexual ‘health’ sites tacitly promote extreme, potentially dangerous sex acts, experimentation and promiscuity. Sex is seen as being central to the life and identity of gay kids and by extension, all others, though there are caveats to the contrary---‘Only do it when you are ready and want to!’ Sex is tacitly prioritized in developmentally-inappropriate and damaging ways for all kids; in fact it is by ‘experimenting’ with sex that kids supposedly ‘find themselves’ (and note the emphasis on the role of the prostate in sex for lads; what is actually being said?). An added pressure is that as the old norms of heterosexuality and sex/gender are being questioned, some kids feel pressure to decide on their ‘orientation’ and even their gender identity long before adulthood. This is most unwise (see below).

30. SSM will shut down criticism of gay relationship and sexual ‘health’ sites for youngsters. Even now because it is professionally suicidal to criticize homosexuality, few censure what kids of whatever ‘orientation’ do as long as they are in their teens and the sex is ‘safe’ and ‘consensual’. However, kids doing sex is never ‘safe’, as we shall see.

31. The popular CGP Key Stage Four PSHE Curriculum (2001) for 14s+ says [underlining theirs]:

Oh My---They do…that? A lot of people are really grossed out by the idea of anal sex. Some people like it, and here’s a reason why: men have a gland called the prostate, near the rectum. If they’re on the receiving end of anal sex, this gland is stimulated, causing sexual pleasure. (p 6)

32. See also the Respect Yourself SRE programme for 13s+ in many Warwickshire secondary schools. Included is tacit acceptance of high frequency sex, multiple partners, anal experimentation, and even a potential openness to human/animal sexual relationships (this sexual minority self-describe as being ‘zoo’). [18]

33. The Sexy Stuff, the NHS-endorsed sexual ‘health’ manual for 13s+ which features anal sex (‘some do it simply for pleasure’) and the benefits of ‘rimming’ (analingus). AOC (Age of Consent) issues are minimised. [19]

3 4. Brook Advisory Service now partners with the Scouts; a Scout sexual ‘health’ poster directly links to its site. Brook also works in schools. Brooks’ approach and content are similar to the above.

35. The ‘GMFA [Gay Men’s Fight Against Aids] - The Gay Men’s Health Charity’, which the NHS presently links kids 16+ to from ‘LiveWell’/’Ready to Go All The Way’ via its ‘Sexual Health for Gay Men’, covers similar, also new, aspects. Fisting, ‘watersports’ (erotic urine ‘play’) and group sex are discussed; the GMFA handbook even advises on cottaging, sauna and sex club etiquette, and illegal drug use in sex. [20]

VI. WHAT CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SSM AND SEX ISSUES

36. Children are not mini-adults! They are mentally, psychologically, physically and sexually immature. As their critical thinking skills are non-existent (most will still be in the concrete operations stage (Piaget)), they can only evaluate the concept of SSM at a rudimentary level: ‘Love and family are good so this must be good too!’

37. Children have vitally important psychological needs of love and bonding with same-sex peers which must be met in order to develop into healthy adults. However, we are hearing of how LGBT teaching is eroticising non-sexual same-sex affection: ‘I love my best friend Josh so I must be gay’. For kids who do not consider themselves ‘gay’, they will retreat from vital intimate same-sex friendship and thus be psychologically deprived.

38. With SSM, schools will have to teach that marriage (now) does not necessarily entail monogamy. Married LB couples can have (non-adulterous!) same-sex sex outside the relationship. Indeed, ‘open’ marriages may work better: see Huffpost Gay Voice’s February 2013 ' " Monogamish": Two Is Company, but Is Three Really a Crowd?’ [Answer: Likely not ]. However, though ‘open’ marriage (N and G O’Neill, Open Marriage , 1972) may excite, that few ‘open’ heterosexual couples remained married years on is telling. [21]

39 . If SSM becomes legal, it will be harder to discuss the negative aspects of kids doing sex, because once gay sex is introduced---and it must be in order not to ‘discriminate’---negative comment sounds homophobic! And doing sex is unwise for teens---gay or straight---and contributes to serious health concerns.

— Teenage girls’ vulnerable cervixes place them at greater risk of getting an infection; ¼ US teen girls (14-19) have at least one diagnosed STI (CDC, 2008)

— Teens brains are immature: the pre-frontal cortex (which deals with the executive brain function) is unfinished, leading to poorer decision-making

— Teen brains are flooded by sex hormones which also contribute to unwise decision-making, especially increased risk-taking

— Young people’s sexuality is only finished developing when they are past their teens [22]

— The philosophic basis of most ‘health’ advice, Autonomous Individualism, is limited, even deeply flawed. Given the above, kids are serious disadvantaged (vis-à-vis adults) and thus the basis for their ‘choices’ compromised, as seen in the Rochdale Report on sexually-exploited 10-17 year-olds females [23]

— In sex, neurochemicals are produced which physiologically and psychologically attach partners: ‘No strings’ sex is pure myth

— The earlier the sexual debut, the more partners, the higher the frequency, the greater the risk to the health of our kids

— For receptive partners, anal sex is at least 20 times more risky than vaginal sex because of factors involving human anatomy, physiology and histology. Fisting is far riskier still [24]

— There used to be two STIs, now there are two dozen viruses, bacteria, fungi etc., some of which are transmitted via the skin

— Condoms can provide some but not complete protection against getting an infection. Studies have shown that continuous condom use reduces risk of HIV heterosexual transmission 85%, while its effectiveness in relation to syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia is significantly lower [25]

— STIs out there include those which are incurable, debilitating or cause infertility while three lead to life-threatening diseases (HIV/AIDs, anal and cervical cancer)

— If the LGBT can ‘come out’ so can more ‘alternative’ sexual minorities, such as the ‘zoos’, as demonstrated by the ‘Respect Yourself’ programme (see above).

— Sexually active kids have higher rates (than non-sexually active kids) of depression and suicide ideation; being sexually victimized; becoming infected by an STI/STD; or having an abortion after failed ‘protection’

4 0 . In relation to gay sex in particular, lads with same-sex attraction deserve to know that SSM may be of little help in terms of health issues , as admitted in ‘"Monogamish"’ (see above):

‘ Our findings suggest that certain types of non-monogamous relationships - -- especially " monogamish " ones- - -are actually beneficial to gay men, contrary to assumptions that monogamous relationships are always somehow inherently better. ’ So being in a ‘ monogamish ’ relationship seems to mean that you may do more illicit drugs and take more sexual health risks, but you may actually be happier as a person.

(The sole caveat is that being ‘monogamish’ entails deeper commitment to communication and negotiation than is the norm for many couples---and here the author repeats a frequently-heard caution) [26]

41. MSMs (men who have sex with men) are 50 times or so more likely to get HIV/AIDS, which shortens life spans of about 20 years.[27]

· 44% of those with HIV were MSMs (2010). HIV/AIDS costs between ca £280,000-£360,000/lifetime of care and kills between 400-600/year [28]

· In cases where ‘orientation’ was recorded, MSMs accounted for 75% of syphilis diagnoses, 50% of gonorrhoea diagnoses (which is becoming increasingly drug-resistant), and 15% of chlamydia diagnosis. [29]

· A January 2013 Lancet article, ‘High risk drug practices tighten grip on London gay scene’ worried about the prevalence of barebacking (condom-‘free’ sex), group sex and crystal meth in London gayworld. ARVs (antiretroviral drugs) for all with HIV is the solution(!) [30]

42. Gay life is a high-risk lifestyle and people, especially lads, should be discouraged from engaging in it, even as they now are discouraged from smoking. No one is ‘born gay’ and people can and do develop their heterosexual potential. With SSM it will be even harder to tell kids the actual risks of especially gay sex.

March 2013