Posted on 06/07/2007 1:05:08 PM PDT by Jose Pen
The nominee in question is not just any doctor. James Holsinger is also one of America’s most prominent United Methodists, a former president of that denomination’s Judicial Council and one of the leaders of the Confessing Movement renewal organization. That means he’s conservative, particularly with regard to sexuality issues. For many gay rights groups, that means he’s radioactive:
President Bush’s nominee for surgeon general, Kentucky cardiologist Dr. James Holsinger, has come under fire from gay rights groups for, among other things, voting to expel a lesbian pastor from the United Methodist Church and writing in 1991 that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy.
The case the writer is referring to is the Beth Stroud case, in which a sexually active lesbian lost her credentials, running afoul of the Book of Discipline’s requirement of celibacy for clergy who are unmarried. She was not “expelled” from the United Methodist Church, and continues to work as a lay minister at Philadelphia’s First UMC of Germantown (she even still preaches, though she can’t perform Communion or baptisms). Wouldn’t it be nice if reporters did their homework before they wrote stuff like this? Later in the article, Jeffrey McMurray compounds the error by writing:
As president of the Methodist Church’s national Judicial Council, Holsinger voted last year to support a pastor who blocked a gay man from joining a congregation. In 2004, he voted to expel a lesbian from the clergy. The majority of the panel voted to keep the lesbian associate pastor in place, citing questions about whether she had openly declared her homosexuality, but Holsinger dissented.
Actually, he voted with with majority on a 6-2 vote. Details, details.
Also, Holsinger helped found a Methodist congregation that, according to gay rights activists, believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be “cured.”
“He has a pretty clear bias against gays and lesbians,” said Christina Gilgor, director of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, a gay rights group. “This ideology flies in the face of current scientific medical studies. That makes me uneasy that he rejects science and promotes ideology.”
Actually, it’s Gilgor’s statements that are pure ideology. The verdict is still open as to whether homosexuality is a condition that can be changed through therapy, but for her and her colleagues it’s an open-and-shut case, no further research or discussion necessary. If the world had taken that attitude toward Galileo…
Sixteen years ago, he wrote a paper for the church in which he likened the reproductive organs to male and female “pipe fittings” and argued that homosexuality is therefore biologically unnatural.
“When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur,” Holsinger wrote, citing studies showing higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases among gay men and the risk of injury from anal sex.
The “complementarity” argument regarding sexuality is far more complicated that this, of course (see Dr. Robert Gagnon’s web site for further insight), but the statistical information that shows far higher rates of both certain physical and mental illnesses in those who engage in homosexual behavior is indisputable. Unless, that is, you have an ideological ax to grind that causes you to simply shut your eyes to reality:
Gilgor, the gay rights activist, called the paper “one twisted piece of work.”
She then went on to declare, “Yeah, and his mother wears combat boots, too.”
As for the congregation Holsinger helped establish, Hope Springs Community Church, the Rev. David Calhoun told the Lexington Herald-Leader last week that the Lexington church helps some gay members to “walk out of that lifestyle.”
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is opposing the nomination along with the Human Rights Campaign and other local and national groups, calls such a practice “nothing short of torture” for gays.
No quotes were cited from those who have actually seen their lives and sexuality changed, because for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, those people simply don’t exist.
I don’t know if Dr. Holsinger will be confirmed by the Senate, but I’ll be interested to see whether the campaign of demonization that has apparently started in the press moves to the halls of Congress.
He has taken a stand, both as a Christian and as a physician, that flies in the face of the Received Wisdom of the Age regarding the Unquestionable Wonderfulness of All Things Gay, and that means he needs the prayers of his brothers and sisters in the faith as he steps forward to face the assault.
If he loses that means no Evangelcail could hold this federal seat ever. This is about religious freedom, and right of consince.
All this fuss because Holsinger's describes male and female genitalia as ‘complimentary.”
Imagine that.
Unnatural is a matter of opinion.
Unhealthy is a matter of fact.
Gay males had tremendously higher rates of infectious disease before AIDS came along.
“far higher rates of...mental illnesses in those who engage in homosexual behavior is indisputable”
That would be about 100%
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