More on Dr. King and homosexuality

edited for space-DL

Three facts emerge as crystal clear:
(1) The American Psychiatric Association is incompetent and unqualified to make judgements to any effect which has it that homosexuality is not pathological. There is a considerable scholarly literature in print that makes a compelling case that the APA itself has been hopelessly compro- mised ever since 1973 when homosexuals and their supporters effectively took control of the organization.

(2) It is absurd beyond belief to treat the acknowledged experts on this pathology as no longer relevant, to toss overboard the research findings of no less than Anna Freud, Karen Horney [Hor-nay], Irving Bieber, and many others, and in the process accept the horribly distorted so-called "findings" of a demonstrable sexual pervert, Alfred Kinsey, someone who not only oversaw sexual abuse of children for his major books, but who mutilated himself repeatedly, the last time inflicting serious damage to his testicles for sexual pleasure. Which is anything but some sort of urban legend; this has been documented in scholarly literature. For a short but explosive summary of the material that debunks Kinsey and exposes him as a complete fraud see the chapter on him in Daniel Flynn's 2004 book, Intellectual Morons. Kinsey, someone who took part in homosexual acts, who falsified research to make a polemic case in favor of bisexuality and homosexuality to a public that could not know better about his dishonesty, provides the foundation of modern day homosexual polemics, not someone else.

(3) For an outstanding source of reliable information about the pathological nature of homosexuality see Dr. Charles Socarides 1995 book, Homosexuality -A Freedom Too Far. No-one who comments on the issue can possibly be seriously informed who has not read this book or some equivalent in psychoanalytic or related literature. Socarides was a founder of NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and has been for many years the leading expert in this field.

King, needless to say, was not expert in these matters. The point is that his views were consistent with the very best psychoanalytic and other research of his era. As Socarides makes clear, moreover, the viewpoint of people like Bieber, etc, is just as true to the facts now as at any time in the past. All relevant evidence, much of which is reviewed in Socarides' book, makes it clear beyond reasonable doubt that homosexuality is now and has always been a mental illness. King's views, rather than being obsolete or incorrect, are what are correct, and what is incorrect and harmful are the opinions of people like Coretta Scott King and various leaders in the black community. More will be said about this matter later but let us return to Martin's views since he said a great deal more that is directly relevant to the issue.

King took the view that homosexuality was a grievous moral wrong. How many times King made an issue out of morality is anyone's guess, but certainly thousands of times. Which is hardly surprizing. What Baptist faith is all about, after belief in Christ, is morality. This is what distinguishes Baptists. Even though some other denominations also stress the impor- tance of morality the Baptists maximize this theme like no other Christian group. And here is the one comparison that can be made between Baptists and Puritans. Each of these groups had somewhat different sets of morals, with the Baptists clearly more liberal in various ways, but both took , or take, morality as having supreme worth in the life of the individual.

For some readers the point has already been made. But it seems necessary to provide enough evidence so that the Politically Correct parasites of King's legacy will have no remaining recourse.The point should also be made that any Baptist preacher necessarily knows the Bible with real thoroughness. No-one becomes a Baptist minister unless familiarity with the Bible is second nature.

On the issue being considered there is zero doubt that the Judeo-Christian scriptures unequivocally condemn homosexuality each and every time the subject is discussed. Not that King counted, but he surely knew the many negative references to homosexuality in the Bible, altogether a minimum of 25 passages in 20 books of the text, exactly half in each testament.

Arguments to the effect that since Christ taught us to love one another, therefore we should be tolerant of homosexuals, are nonsensical and disregard all necessary and logical rules of valid Bible interpretation. Or does it make sense to you that on an issue about which he made it a point to be clear, Christ contradicted himself ?

If you don't like various of the recommendations in Leviticus, in other words, that is hardly a serious problem. As many as half of the injunctions in that book are ignored by just about everyone including the most earnest of believers. Tear that book up if you want to. But what you cannot do is pretend that the position on homosexuality in Leviticus is any different than it is in the other 19 books of the Bible where this psychological disability is discussed.

And Leviticus isn't exactly the only book in the Hebrew scriptures in case you do not accept the worth of the New Testament.

King, not at all incidentally, knew the Old Testament quite well. For example he once wrote a major paper about the book of Jeremiah. King thought highly of the book. He praised it profusely. He also studied it in depth. That is, he knew what it said. from the first page to the last. Jeremiah 23 :14 talks about Sodom and Gomorrah is ways that leave no doubt that the sin being condemned is homosexuality. King saw no reason to dispute this verse.

King also wrote at length about Amos, another Biblical book that he thought highly of. Amos 4 : 11 also condemns Sodom and Gomorrah. And there are other books of the Old Testament that King cited any number of times, such as Isaiah. Homosexuality is also condemned there. Perhaps you get the idea.
As noted, King was especially favorably disposed to the Apostle Paul. In fact when he was a pastor, one of his sermons was in the form of an imaginary epistle written by Paul to the Christians of the United States. That is how much Paul meant to him.

Such passages give context to the many times that King talked or wrote about morals. But one last religious text needs to be cited. King also did a study of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs . This work, written in the first century BC, was regarded as the equivalent as scripture for many years. Obviously it was not included in the canon when all was said, but such writings are studied in divinity schools to give candidates for the ministry some idea of the spiritual mileau that existed in the era when Christ was on Earth. King was very impressed with the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. It, too, contains several verses that condemn homosexuality. You can look up the Stanford University site called "The Martin Luther King Papers Project." It has the most extensive collection of King documents on the Web. From this archive there are these comments made by King about the need to rediscover our roots as Christians. "The first principle of value that we need to rediscover, " he said," is that all reality hinges on moral foundations." In an article published in The Christian Century in April of 1960, on the subject "How My Mind Has Changed," King explained why he ceased to be captive to liberal theology. Again, this was not a repudiation of all of that theology, but it certainly was a repudiation of some of it, including important parts of it.
What King found especially wrong-minded in liberal tradition was its denial of the "reality of sin on every level of man's existence." For King the insistence of liberal thinkers on the necessity of a lifelong quest for truth was indispensable. But ironically this principle led him to discover that another principle from this tradition was faulty -that is, simply outright wrong. There is no escape from the effects of sin, nor of the author of sin, Satan.

About Satan, King was not as clear as we might like, in part, it seems, because of the disdain for the concept of the Devil on the part of many or most contemporary clergymen of that era. Dispute about Satan was not a battle that King wanted to fight. Also, perhaps, because King wanted to keep personal responsibility for wrong-doing in focus. But nothing else explains sin nearly as well as this malignant evil being. And in any case sin is the problem of problems that must be dealt with. Doing so requires people to live moral lives.

This motif in King's thought can be found almost everywhere. For instance answers to an exam he took in 1953 are extant in which he argues that sin can be defined as "disobedience to the ethical and moral law of God."

The Playboy interview makes a similar point.."There are two kinds of laws," King said, "man's and God's. A man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God, is a just law. But a man-made code that is inhar- moneous with the moral law is an unjust law." And it should be disobeyed, he concluded.

Obviously the context of his comments was the struggle for Civil Rights, but the principle at stake applies to all situations, including sexual questions. But would Martin Luther King have approved civil laws against homosexuality ?