SLANTED AND BIASED REFUGE STATISTICS STILL UN-RE-SOURCED

THESE WORDS ARE BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE NUMBER 8

BACK IN JULY Love In Action removed The International Organization of Heterosexual Rights as a source on their REFUGE Home page for a couple of very biased and seemingly unfounded statistics about gay people. The following stats still remain on their REFUGE site, however the source has been removed, seemingly due to complaints about the source of these quotes, and how hate-fueled, and nasty the rest of the IOOHR website, in fact, is.

People who engage in homosexuality, who make up only one to two percent of the population, account for three or four percent of all gonorrhea cases, 60 percent of all syphilis cases, and 17 percent of all hospital admissions (outside of STD's) in the United States.8

78% of homosexuals are affected by STD's, mainly AIDS, Gonorrhea, Herpes Simples Virus, and Chlamydia. 8

So, as we have the father of a LIA client going on national TV outlets in defense of his decision to place his child in such a program, making the following statements:

“We felt very good about Zach coming here because… to let him see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to face in the future, and to give him some options that society doesn't give him today,” Stark said. “Knowing that your son... statistics say that by the age of 30 he could either have AIDS or be dead.”

We are deeply concerned as we realize that every person on this earth should have the right to make informed decisions about what they want to do with their lives. Unfortunately, when you are misled, and misinformed...then you do not have the opportunity to make the most informed, honest, and healthy choice for you, or those you love.

We cannot stress enough how much this becomes the basis for how such programs as LIA are able to continually build clientele and followers alike, using and withholding information in order to manipulate the circumstances. Unfortunately, people in need then fall further victim to their already instituted self-hatred, and shame as their fears are fed, and all practical, proven medical, and mental health knowledge of the feared "condition" is ignored.

Every former client that has spoken with QAC has repeated that they were never presented with the true facts. That any negative attribute which could be applied to one's "sense of being gay" was praised as a true stepping point towards "freedom in Christ", never questioned, never presented with the alternative of being able to move on, accepting oneself as a happy, whole, productive gay person.

The reason we bring up, again this issue of Love In Action removing the IOOHR as a source for the aforementioned statistics is that they've still left the little "8" beside these statistics, however, nearly a month later there still is simply no source listed, leaving us with a looming bit of highly biased information, yet no reference point in which to verify that this information has any credible grounding. The fact that much time has gone by, and no one has reposted a new source, leads us to believe that this organization may not care too much about the credibility of their "facts", or their "statistics".

It is also very symbolic, that the number 8 is simply invisible on their list of sources. It has been hidden, erased. It seems that Love In Action may have been ashamed of what the number 8 represented. It seems that the number 8 could have brought LIA some sort of judgment, that is, it could have made them look bad. So what does Love In Action do? They simply hide the source, hoping that people will not think that they too, like the IOOHR are a hate-filled and ignorant organization that couples biased information, with the promotion of shame and judgment. We can only hope, as many individuals in need might turn to these kind of organizations first for help, that the best interest of the client is what is heald most important, and that no crucial, potentially helpful information is heald from them due to shame, bias, or fear, as we know that in the long term, these qualities have harmful and unhealthy affects upon our fellow human beings.