Ray Honeyford says that it is time for a real debate about homosexuality 

About three years ago a distant relative of mine died of AIDS. He was neither gay, bisexual, nor a drug addict. He was a life-long sufferer from the blood disease, haemophilia. During a routine transfusion he received blood contaminated by the HIV virus. This blood, to judge from press reports, probably came from an infected homosexual. 

Until this happened I had no interest in the business of homosexuality. I regarded it as a purely private arrangement between consenting adults of the same sex. I suppose one could say my view were essentially liberal--live and let live, and any moral aspects there might be were for those involved, and none of my concern. But this laissez-faire mentality seemed a less than adequate response to behavior which can cost lives. What had been a fairly abstract issue having no direct impact on my life and family became something I could no longer ignore. I felt I owed it to my dead relative to develop an informed viewpoint. The gay world could, for me, no longer be regarded as the exclusive, clandestine world of those actively involved. Homosexuality was now a public issue the link between the defining act of male homosexuality--sodomy--and the AIDS virus that had killed my relative meant I had to encounter facts I would, previously, have preferred not to know about. 

My reading and research have convinced me that society is deeply confused about homosexual behavior and AIDS. Whilst, speaking generally, there is now a more tolerant and open public attitude, there is little understanding of how the issue has been distorted by organized gay propaganda. Two recent events illustrate this point. 

First, there is the government's Reality Campaign. This, essentially, means that the government has dropped its hugely expensive, misguided and insulting campaign aimed at convincing the general public that everyone has an equal chance of developing AIDS. Gay pride spokesmen have publicly admitted that the original campaign was a triumph of homosexual pressure, aimed at protecting gays from public disapproval--an approach which, by reducing the impact of the message regarding the link between gay sex and AIDS, has almost certainly cost homosexual lives. Now the government, very late in the day, is targeting the most vulnerable group, male homosexuals. It is always heartening to see a government admitting to error, but why, we are entitled to ask, did it only do so after squandering £1.5 billion since 1987 on propaganda which, in its assumptions, was fundamentally flawed? The false notion that we are all at risk was manifestly obvious from figures readily available from about the late 1980s. The current figures spectacularly illustrate the government's egregious folly: out of 12,565 people in Great Britain who have developed AIDS since 1982, just 161 have been heterosexual, i.e., a fraction over one percent. No other serious disease could have been so blatantly misrepresented to the public, but then no other disease has such an influential and self-interested misinformation crusade standing behind it. But at least the government appears to have learned its lesson. 

This is very much more than can be said for the Barnet Healthcare NHS Trust. This publicly-funded body has just demonstrated how far the perceptions and vested interests of the gay pride lobby continue to hold sway over official thinking. The Trust wants to engage two 'AIDS Educational Field Workers' at salaries of £20,000. These workers will cater for the health and welfare of 'men who have sex with men', i.e., men who regularly and as a matter of course, engage in sodomy. There will be particular concern for the well-being of those gay men who practice what is known as 'cottaging and cruising', which means carrying out lewd and unlawful acts in public lavatories and public arenas such as Hampstead Heath. By behaving in this way, of course, the Trust is validating the gay pride assertion that homosexuals are people with special needs, and that they are entitled to increase public money in relation to their behaviour. Homosexuality, that is, can only be defined in terms of which homosexuals approve--the corollary being that anyone who seeks to challenge this is to be regarded as a misguided and neurotic bigot suffering from something called 'homophobia'--a condition invented and implanted in the public mind by gay activists. 

This tactic is reminiscent of the technique employed by the Soviet authorities, who always claimed that any who dissented from the official party line must be mad and in urgent need of psychiatric incarceration. 

How has this extraordinarily inappropriate view of behavior which has played the major part in spreading a deadly disease come about? The roots of gay success lie in the challenge by homosexual intellectuals to the Wolfenden Committee report of the 1950s. Wolfenden has been set up in the light of a number of scandals involving politicians, civil servants, diplomats and spies. National security resulting from blackmail was raised as an issue. The committee's report recommended a limited decriminalising of homosexual offenses. But the report also said, that this should 'not be taken as saying that society should condone or approve of homosexual behaviour'. So, at that point, though there was some softening of official attitudes, homosexuality was still seen as an unfortunate form of behaviour. 

As a result the Homosexual Law Reform Society was set up in 1958. Its aim was to overthrow the attitude reflected in Wolfenden, and to campaign for the removal of all legal restrictions on all forms of homosexual behaviour. This was supported by a number of prominent people, and by some sections of the media. Two successful films shown at the time helped to reduce resistance to legal reform--The Killing of Sister George and Victim, which portrayed homosexuals as victims of an unjust and uncaring society. Moreover, the 1960s was a fertile period for the undermining of established moral values. Traditional Christian teaching was under attack. Censorship in the theatre was abolished, divorce was made easier, the restrictions on pornography were relaxed, and abortion was legalised. 

It was from within this intellectual climate that the 1967 Sexual Offenses Act was passed. However, despite permissive change being in the air, this Act was very limited in its scope. It decreed that homosexuals acts in private between consenting adults were no longer criminal offenses. In all other circumstances homosexual behaviour remained unlawful. But the effect of the Act on homosexuals sub-culture was dramatic. Within five years 'the love that dare not speak its name' became the object of aggressive public display: 'Glad to be gay' badges proliferated, gay bars, clubs and restaurants proclaimed their presence, demonstrations were held, and gays in public life declared their sexual propensities with an air of defiant self-satisfaction. After the Stonewall riots of 1969 in the U.S.A., militant gays in the United Kingdom sought to create a political case. They borrowed the language of the civil rights movement, and campaigned for homosexual rights. 

Homosexuality, the lobby insisted, is no more than a preferred life-style--as valid as heterosexuality, if not more so. Indeed, all sexual activity, according to homosexual theorists, was of equal worth and moral status. Sex was a value-free phenomenon whose only limits lay in individual choice. A new vocabulary was fashioned in addition to 'homophobia'--'gay', 'gay-pride', 'orientation' and 'coming out' were all enlisted to communicate the new, liberated view of homosexuality. The culture of victimhood and complaints also assisted the cause: gays constantly moaned and whined about the failure of the media to promote a 'positive image' of their behaviour. In reality, of course, gays have been projected as the nice guys in films, television and large parts of the press for years--the latest recruit to the Radio 4 Archers soap is a charming, gentle and kind man who just happens to be gay. The truth about the homosexual lobby in Great Britain today is that it has enormous influence; and never in the whole of our history has homosexuality been more openly tolerated--and in certain quarters positively promoted. 

Politicians covet the gay vote, and business, gay money, and in 1995 parliament bowed to homosexual pressure and lowered the age of consent for homosexuality from 21 to 18 and this was followed by having it reduced to the age of 16 in 2000. All this has happened whilst the authorities in the churches, with one or two brave exceptions, have stood back and dithered, or openly supported the bizarre notion that homosexual spirituality is a viable option for the contemporary Christian. 

The most dramatic and disturbing evidence of homosexual success, however, has been the acceptance of homosexual practices as value-free, perfectly acceptable practices in the schools. Sex education sessions now routinely portray gays as they portray themselves--innocent, misunderstood victims of a society that denies them rights. The link between actual gay behaviour and a killer disease is masked by reference to the moral imbecilities of 'safe sex', and the condom culture is explicitly recommended. 

Attempts to give sex proper moral consideration, and to link sexual relationships with marriage and the family, in accordance with Clause 28 and the 1993 Education Act are very much the exception in state schools without a religious foundation. This is particularly serious since many adolescents experience a sense of sexual ambiguity, and are confused about the direction their own sexual nature should take. If, at that stage, youngsters are subjected to the typical gay-based, value-free version of human sexual behaviour, there is a real possibility that they will adopt a homosexual stance--a stance which begins as an experiment and finishes up as a life-long commitment to the sterile, non-creative gay practices which mean nothing beyond themselves, and which many cases develop into a frantic but futile search for sexual nirvana via promiscuous sodomy. 

The death of my relative from a frightening and horrible disease has convinced me that the whole debate about homosexuality and AIDS is profoundly dishonest--a mixture of misguided liberal guilt, vested interest and irresponsible gay activism. It is time there was an informed an open public debate about how society should regard homosexuality. Current, fashionable thinking is woefully inadequate. 

This essay was first printed in Right NOW! magazine (January/March 1999). It is reprinted with kind permission.