The New Gay Teenager: Anti-Gay Activists Horrified

The release of a book focusing on the increased acceptance of homosexuality among teenagers has horrified America’s religious right. Peter LaBarbera, noted anti-gay crusader, has made it his mission to debunk the author’s “dangerous” ideas.

Ritch C. Savin-Williams, a Cornell University psychologist, has recently released The New Gay Teenager (Adolescent Lives), a study of teen sexuality across the United States. It seems that non-heterosexual teens are increasingly comfortable with their sexuality, and adopting terms for themselves other than “gay” or “bi”.

The publisher (Reed Elsevier) says of the book:

“In some respects,” Savin-Williams explains, “these teenagers might relate better to their pre-labeled, pre-identified grandparents than they do with their gay-liberated parents or their gay-resigned older cousins.” “For them ‘gay’ carries too much baggage,” and apparently they get along just fine without it. Much of the volume is devoted to Savin-Williams’s detailed critique of the psychological models currently used to study gay adolescence, which were developed in the 1970s and have barely changed since. These old models, Savin-Williams argues, don’t reflect the diversity of the current gay adolescent experience and should be replaced with a “differential developmental trajectories perspective.” His book is an excellent resource for professional psychologists with gay patients, but it also contains enough invigorating, real-world case studies to interest general readers.

So, it appears to be a book about how best to handle gay teens, aimed primarily at practicing psychologists.

Peter LaBarbera, an anti-gay activist known for his compassionate Gay youth suicide: Myth is used to promote homosexual agenda (Insight) now spends much of his time working through his single-issue Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, which he calls “a newly reorganized national organization devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda.”

Where Savin-Williams states that 21% of American teens today report either being homosexual or having had “homosexual experiences” (undefined), LaBarbera comes unhinged, crying that he believes (without research) that the figure is exaggerated. He adds,

God gave us boundaries to protect us, and what seems to be happening here is that elites are telling kids that they can be anything, and kids are practicing all sorts of behaviors and they think that there’s basically no absolute morality anymore.

But, less than 21% of them are doing it.

LaBarbera also thinks the book will encourage teens — frequent readers of books on psychological treatment models — to try something new this week. “I just don’t like the idea of encouraging kids to experiment with what is essentially sexual sin,” says LaBarbera. “As young people become more convinced that homosexuality is acceptable, they are more likely to explore it themselves.”

Of course! As we all know, sexuality is 100% personal choice, having nothing whatsoever to do with either nature or nurture.

. . . right?

Related articles:

1. While Condemning Religious Bigotry, Romney Aligns Himself With Anti-Muslim Activists
2. More Anti-Gay Activists Sign On To Rick Perry’s Prayer Rally
3. Anti-Immigrant Activists Blast Perry Over DREAM Act Defense
4. Radical Anti-Choice Activists Put Scarlett Johansson In Klan Robe
5. Anti-Islam Activists Demand Sheriff’s Firing For Accepting CAIR Award

Jenny Donati is webmistress and co-editor of Secular News Daily. Jenny is an outspoken secularist who believes firmly in the separation of church and state. She demands evidence to support arguments, and holds herself to the same standard. She doesn't write about herself in the third person . . . but there's a first time for everything.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry.