Wednesday, May 1, 2002
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Wednesday, May 1, 2002 |
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The gay lifestyle is extremely hazardous to one's health In addition to the moral concerns, there are considerable health consequences associated with the homosexual lifestyle. As a group, practicing homosexuals account for an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases, including gonorrhea, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and syphilis (The New York Times). Homosexual youth are 23 times more likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases than heterosexuals (American Medical Association). Lesbians are 19 times more likely than heterosexual women to have had syphilis, twice as likely to suffer from genital warts, and four times as likely to have scabies (New England Journal of Medicine). A recent study of Massachusetts teenagers, published in the American Journal of Public Health, discovered that self-identified gays were nine times more likely to have reported using alcohol on a daily basis; six times more likely to report having recently used cocaine than their heterosexual counterparts; 19 times more likely to report having used cocaine on 10 or more occasions per month; five times more likely to report having used other illegal drugs, including cocaine, 20 or more times in their life; nearly seven times more likely to report ever having injected an illegal drug; 50 percent more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to have considered committing suicide. The average homosexual of any age is three times more suicidal than the heterosexual (Family Research Institute). Life expectancy of homosexual men and women without AIDS is about 33 years shorter than that of the heterosexual (Family Research Institute). Surprisingly, AIDS has only modest effect on the average life expectancy of a homosexual male. The average age of men dying of AIDS is 39. The average age of homosexuals dying from all other causes is even more revealing: 41. Only 1 percent of homosexuals die of old age. In study after study, less than 3 percent of all homosexuals surveyed are over the age of 55 ("The Homosexual Lifespan," Family Research Institute). With statistics like this, why would anyone champion the homosexual lifestyle as positive and desirable? Keith Turner Fayetteville kturner@harpscrossing.com
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