Calling homosexuality a “perversion,” and “sinful, destructive and changeable,” Peter LaBarbera (image, left) today suggests that the victims of Jerry Sandusky will grow up thinking they’re gay, despite any factual evidence to support his mistaken argument. Jerry Sandusky, now in jail, was — as the world has learned in recent days — the heir-apparent to revered and now fired Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Sandusky stands accused of sexually molesting, assaulting, or raping up to 20 young boys across a 15 year period, amid rumored new allegations of child prostitution.
In a blatant attempt to intermix homosexuality, an innate trait fixed at birth, with pedophilia, a psychological disorder, LaBarbera flouted his ignorance and bigoted hatred through none other than the decades-old Christian News Wire.
Peter LaBarbera is the 48-year old president of the SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, who has bounced around the extreme right-wing fringe groups that serve as self-appointed anti-gay crusaders, like Accuracy in Media, and the Culture and Family Institute, yet has been unable to secure an official role in the Republican Party. Recently, the IRS stripped Labarbera’s group of its tax-exempt status.
“Many openly homosexual (“gay”) men, like CNN anchor Don Lemon, were molested as boys or experienced abnormally early sexualization,” LaBarbera writes, ignoring the possibility that they could have been born gay and molested or assaulted anyway. “Yet many of these same men do NOT see their boyhood victimization at the hands of homosexual male predators as causing their homosexuality.”
The lack of simple logic — not to mention, empathy for victims of child sexual abuse — is staggering.
Offering no sympathy for Sandusky’s victims, nor offering any evidence of attempting to contact any who might now be adults, LaBarbera asks, “how many boy victims of homosexual predator Sandusky will end up believing that being homosexual (‘gay’) is ‘who they are’? How many will struggle with sexual identity issues? And how many will be told by LGBT advocates and liberal-minded people just to “accept being gay” as “who they are” because they were ‘born that way’?”
Had LaBarbera bothered to read the 23-page Grand Jury indictment, he would know that it lists eight victims (although there are reports that state there are up to 20 victims,) and five of the eight are now adults ranging from 22 to 27 years of age.
LaBarbera should also remember that Sandusky is not a homosexual, but a pedophile (assuming the mountainous charges are true) and is married with two grown sons.
Were Peter LaBarbera, himself a father, especially concerned about the victims, or, a little thing called accuracy, he could have traced them, or attempted to locate them. No doubt, if they are gay, and if they attribute their homosexuality to Sandusky’s molestation and rape, no doubt they would consider responding to a public request from someone so devoted to demonizing homosexuality.
But LaBarbera is only interested in spreading false information, furthering his personal stature as an avowed homosexual hater, and padding his bottom line — this time on the backs of sexual assault victims. One has to ask, has LaBarbera no shame what so ever?
LaBarbera offensively identifies “pederastic molestation” as the cause of homosexuality, leading any logical human being to assume that homosexuals are created by sexual assault, and therefore, every homosexual on earth must in fact be the victim of sexual assault. never mind what all the psychological associations say about homosexuality, a certified hate group President must know best, right?
This line of thinking is clearly false, and LaBarbera, for all his blind hatred, should know better.
“There IS a long history connecting homosexuality to pederasty, and a disproportionate link between homosexuality and pedophilia: why else would so many child molestation victims be boys when only 1-3 percent of the population is homosexual?,” LaBarbera writes, effectively negating his entire argument.
Yes, Mr. LaBarbera, why would so many child molestation victims be boys when only 1-3 percent of the population is homosexual?
“Since cases of women molesting boys remain rare, if homosexuality were not such a strong factor, nearly all of pedophile victims should be girls, which is far from the case.”
The mind absolutely reels.
The facts, not that LaBarbera has ever been interested in spreading those — despite his Orwellian-monikered group — is that heterosexual men sexually assault or molest young girls in far greater numbers than they do young boys, and heterosexual men molest children of either sex at a far greater frequency than do homosexual men, or women, for that matter.
Here’s a fact, straight from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who report that for each year between 2000 and 2005, “female parents acting alone” were most likely to be perpetrators of child abuse.
Kind of blows LaBarbera’s false claims right out of the water, doesn’t it?
Here’s another fact: “According to the Third National Incidence Study, girls are sexually abused three times more often than boys.” And another study offers this:
Statistics indicate that girls are more frequently the victims of sexual abuse, but that the number of boys is also significant. Estimates suggest that males account for 25-35% of child sexual abuse victims.
What LaBarbera might want to do instead of placing blame on homosexuality or homosexuals — which, by LaBarbera’s own admission, Sandusky is not — is to first try to understand the problem, and then, as the head of a “Christian” organization, offer assistance. That is what any real Christian would do.
Editor’s note: Alvin McEwen at LGBTQ nation, Jamie McGonnigal at Talk About Equality, and Kevin Naff at The Washington Blade have all since expressed their concerns about this latest move by Peter LaBarbera.