Want an insight into recent attempts by the Christian Right to link homosexuality with child molestation? Just remember New York’s “gay” penguins.<\/p>\n
In 2004, news circulated around the world that penguins in the Central Park Zoo had formed long-term same-sex pairs. Reports soon surfaced of “gay” penguins in other zoos as well.<\/p>\n
One of the most memorable accounts of the phenomenon was created by Samantha Bee<\/a> for Comedy Central’s Daily Show. She accompanied antigay activist Paul Cameron<\/a> to the Zoo’s penguin exhibit and got his take on the birds.<\/p>\n (Cameron is a gold mine of material for The Daily Show. Last month, Samantha Bee’s real-life husband, Jason Jones, interviewed him for a piece about the US military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Cameron declared the notion of gay and lesbian penguins “silly” and told Bee “There is no such thing as gay penguins.”<\/p>\n But in other contexts Cameron has argued that a single homosexual act makes someone gay. When interviewed recently by the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em><\/a>, for example, he asserted that a man who thinks of himself as straight, is married with children, and has sex with women is nevertheless gay if he sexually abuses a young boy.<\/p>\n “If a fellow molests a boy, why would anyone consider him heterosexual even if he has a girlfriend or a wife?” Cameron asked.<\/p>\n Cameron isn’t alone in promoting such ideas. As I discussed in a previous post<\/a>, the Family Research Council and other Christian Right groups are all in accord on this. Never mind that many pedophiles and child molesters aren’t even capable of relationships with adults and that their sexual attractions are directed solely at children. If they molest boys, they’re gay, according to Cameron and the FRC.<\/p>\n