By Ralph Sheffield
See also the Washington Post, 00-01-27 (Issue-ad)

HO were they? Why the ashen looks of self-be-trayal? “Consciousness-Raising at the Campus Christian Center,” the ad had read. With esteem for the nonpareil Jewish Messiah, we came hoping to “raise our consciousness” of Christ. But we were dismayed: It was not about Jesus. These were homosexuals, self-palliating, commiserating about “homophobia” (really homonausea?—except in APA’s pusillanimous flight from science to sycophancy—see Podhoretz, Commentary, November 1996). Some hoped to conquer a great sin, others, wished to “out” themselves. When we encouraged the former, a spokesman told us to leave, revealing his intent to daunt them into the latter mentality. A campus official agreed the ad was devious and must thereafter read, “Gay Consciousness-Raising,” admitting that “gay” was indeed a misnomer. “Shame,” I mused, “folks would surrender an innocent word and lady’s name to blatant euphemism—à la ‘relocation’ of another time.”

As to the source of homosexuality—see also www.narth.com—an earlier experience brought definitive insight. Some homosexuals had tried to impose their deviate attentions on me. Backing them off in turn (having to become fierce), I felt that a depressing influence I sensed in their presence was trying to come upon me, infusing perverted images into my mind like an infection, cajoling, “this is you—discovering who you are.” The vileness and absurdity of this suggested a stratagem of Satan (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 28:22). A sympathetic LDS bishop agreed to give me a priesthood blessing. With fasting and prayer, he and his counselors ministered to me according to Biblical practice and authority. As he charged Lucifer to cease accosting me, one of his counselors was suddenly knocked to the floor (later recovering unharmed)—which ended the priestly ordinance. Still, I was greatly advantaged, since Satan, though exceedingly cunning, is not wise, and sometimes “overplays” his hand. This crude disruption, meant to prevent spiritual protection, had carelessly ceded adscititious protection—that is, I now knew with empirical certainty the source of the lurid images. No longer confused by the deceptive mantra of it being “me,” my opposition to these vagaries became so adamantly confident that the Evil One had to withdraw, because, as a tyrant, he cannot endure being relentlessly ignored. The Bible says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Solemnly, I witness this is true, and warn those corrupting our country’s public policy that retribution is sure: whether it be a President and First Lady whose respect for truth rivals the recluse spider; or hell-with-the-people-bench-legislating-judges; or power-obsessed bureaucracy; or the fervid nostalgie de la boue of “liberal” decadence (elitist dupes, bloated with sanctimony as bereft of sense, smuggling moral abominations aboard the noble galleon of social justice); or intelligenceless “intellectuals;” or hedonic-tainted “science;” or systemically biased “news” media—when Mr. Shepard (who grabbed the groins and licked the faces of strange men) is beatified by monolithic media genuflect, while seventh-grader Jesse Dirkhising, tortured and sodomized to death by homosexual sadists, gets not even the mercy of mention by the ilk of Dan Rather’s CBS Evening Views (er...News”?), it appears the media have enlightened us with a new distinction, “crime” and “uncrime” (i.e. “atrocities” and “politically-correct atrocities”); and when scientists found claims for a supposed genetic cause of sexual orientation to be invalid, yet were ignored by left-leaning editors (leaving former misinformation to abscess in the public mind), it seems that news and entertainment media have swallowed the swill of their own propaganda in the panting effort to downgrade the word “moderate” to somewhere between the sewer and Styx River, while “correcting” America’s “outdated” vision to match their own: “Government of the media, by the media,  for the media.”

The wrong-headed effort to impose perversion into the sacred bonds of marriage and family (and Boy Scouts?) evinces gross civil degeneracy. FDR said new ideas can be bad just like old ones. This one is  disastrous—exploiting citizens’ desire for fairness by masquerading sexual fashions as civil rights. But people are not born homosexual any more than they are born thieves. Seduced by others, or self-corrupted by flirting with vice against conscience and divine command, they fall into a desolating world, imputing hatred and bigotry to those who disagree, falling prey to panderers—politicians, reporters, lawyers, preachers (Jeremiah was prescient: “The pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord”)—who, like unethical physicians, seek a fee (votes, praise, money, self-conceit) without serving the patient, proposing a “celebration of tumors” instead of life-saving surgery of repentance and self-mastery, which has set thousands free of this addiction, for “with God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27).

Constitutional mandate charges government to promote beneficial activities and proscribe those deleterious to society. Accordingly, drivers must obey traffic laws—driving the wrong direction in traffic is prohibited because of extreme danger. So, history shows that men and women being married creates enormous societal benefits. Thus, governments have recognized a duty to promote traditional family life. Conversely, statistics show sexual perversion not only forfeits these benefits but produces real- world harms—increased risk of disease, drug-dependency, depression, diminished life-expectancy, pedophilia and suicide—in addition to being anathema to enlightened world religions, inimical to the  esprit of American heritage, and repulsive to the natural feelings of most people. (Do not mistake this savvy homonausea—perishable in transgression—for the bigotry of misopederasts, or the actual homophobia of the politically “correct.”) If perversion attains its logical conclusion, there is no future—no caring parents, no precious children, no soldiers defending, no workers producing, no one sustaining the infirm—nothing. Another stern fact: Nothing is more provocative of Divine wrath than sexual perversion—judging from the grave warnings of scripture and the fate of cultures as Sodom and Pompeii, where it became epidemic. Even if the doomed shrilled in dying agony, “But we don’t  believe in God,” it was pathetically impotent, having crossed the line, as a moth flying too close to the flame is not saved because it doesn’t comprehend the fire.

George Washington said tyranny is “most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” And though people become belligerent as they become depraved—spite does not make right. To defer to evil because others demand it, is despicable—and deadly. Sacred word enjoins, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exodus 23:2). Citizenship, a trust for which we are accountable, must be bravely exercised to survive. Dante warned, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, remained neutral.” I urge Americans to resist with all their powers, the tide of moral putrescence flooding the land.

Ralph Sheffield (author of Poems on Purpose) is a prize-winning poet, composer, and conductor of the Sheffield Family Consort, performing (Boston Pops-style) at public and private occasions.