“A Case Against Homosexuality” by Paul Cameron, The Human Life Review, Summer 1978.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
Cameron’s article is introduced by Human Life Review editor J. P. McFadden as “closely argued”, “fascinating”, and “remarkably different”. Rather, it is myopic, obsessive and “remarkably different” in that it is so out of touch with research and with homosexuals! One wonders how it could have been published until one recognizes that McFadden is also associate publisher of National Review and that the two periodicals share an enthusiasm for “Right-wing” causes. Cameron’s identity as an associate professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary promises much more than is delivered here. [He did not last long at Fuller.] His claim to serious research is not supported by his work. He uses “sex” as a verb (e.g., “homosexuals can sex until blue”), writes of homosexuals’ “hot, dripping sex” that he contrasts with heterosexuals’ “poorer sex initially, and, who knows, perhaps … poorer sex permanently”, and argues for antigay social policy built on the idea that “heterosexuality ‘needs all the help it can get’ [because] the developmental process is decidedly tilted toward the adoption of homosexuality!” His own style is best described by his projected “cluster of traits” of homosexuals: “egocentric / supercilious / narcissistic / self-oriented / hostile.”
As honest, scientific writing, his piece has no value. As propaganda, though, it will be useful to Human Life Review subscribers in their continued homophobic battle against gay rights. As “crammed with facts and figures” as McFadden promises, the article is full of irrelevancies, contradictions, false statements, etc. For example, Cameron states that, “Animal sexuality is beside the point”, but proceeds, nonetheless, to argue that “none have [sic] been known to systematically practice homosexual actions with another of its sex”, a redundancy which is, at any rate, false. He fails to note that, intrinsic to his own assertion, is the fact that it is true that no animals have been known to systematically and exclusively practice heterosexual actions! Animals mount whatever. He erroneously claims that, “the ‘lesbian animal’ has yet to be noted”. He makes false statements about the Kinsey research, e.g., that Kinsey failed to differentiate between childhood and adulthood experience. What is Kinsey’s cut-off year of 16 if not such differentiation? Incidentally, typical of Cameron’s activist zeal is his faulting of Kinsey for allegedly mixing intent and activity [not always true] and his acceptance of Playboy statistics, in agreement with his own, even though Playboy did mix intent and activity.
He plays word games. Defining homosexual orientation, he maintains: “Only when desire and activity mesh are we talking about the genuine [homosexual] article”. He speaks of being “switched” if only the individual does not yet practice (here, violating his own definition) or no longer practices homosexual acts. One should “hang in there” and engage in “a dogged determination to wrest happiness from the cards life deals”. The term, “discrimination” is also subjected to word games. He makes light of it, as though discrimination is simply a right like selecting one TV program over another.
He wavers, with seeming regret, between complaining about the “hardships [of] heterosexuality” and exaggerating the “ease [of] homosexuality”; between bemoaning an allegedly “bad fit [of] heterosexuality” and fearing the allegedly “good fit [of] homosexuality”. Cameron repeatedly makes his point that “homosexual encounter offers better sex, on the average, than heterosexual”. Masters and Johnson’s latest research seems to support this in a sense (though their data were not available at the time of Cameron’s writing), but he argues, contrary to empirical research findings, that there can be no interpersonally responsible relationship between two homosexuals, whom he ignorantly labels as too similar. Here, both his too simplistic concept of sexual difference and his failure to appreciate the wealth of differences experienced between individuals are appalling.
Cameron does much false witness bearing, too. Without even trying to back up his accusations scientifically – in fact, acknowledging: “It is difficult to find anything like ‘hard’ scientific evidence to substantiate” his notions – he repeatedly makes charges that he admits are only “reportedly” or “apparently” true. Lacking evidence, however, does not temper his “building his case” against homosexuals. Not content with his accusing homosexuals of only “masochistic provocation”, “defensive malice”, “flippancy” and “general unreliability”, Cameron goes so far as to say that the “homosexual is apparently better suited to take human life”. Without a shred of evidence for his charge of the “personal lethality” of homosexuals, he states: “Young men populate our armies and their female counterparts sacrifice their issue on abortion tables”. But aren’t most soldiers and most women who “sacrifice their issue on abortion tables” heterosexual?
His editor promises: “Dr. Cameron assures us that he has more such studies in process and we can hardly wait to see them”. This reviewer can wait.
[When Cameron produced “more such studies”, he was expelled from his professional psychological associations.]