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Has greater acceptance of the Sexual Revolution improved the mental health of kids?

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I found a very interesting in my favorite site for current events – The Federalist. In it, the author (Scott Yenor) talks about whether society’s ever-increasing embrace of sexual anarchy has produced better health and safety for children. And he’s not just giving his opinion, either. He has several studies, so we will see some numbers.

It starts with this:

Sexualizing childhood in the name of harm reduction is the latest roll in our rolling sexual revolution. We are told that childhood sexual education is necessary to prevent suicide and interpersonal violence, prevent AIDS, avoid pregnancy, and build a safe environment in schools. According to what is known as “minority stress” theory, people with non-heterosexual orientations experience an endless series of microaggressions, overt rejections, invidious discrimination, or stigmatization that undermines their psychiatric and physical health.

Secular leftists are sure that the bad feelings that people who are reckless and irresponsible have are not the natural consequences of their own choices. No! Their bad feelings are the result of your lack of acceptance. It’s not that they are choosing behaviors that are dangerous for them. It’s YOUR lack of acceptance and celebration that is dangerous to them – YOU’RE forcing them to harm themselves… YOU’RE forcing them to be mentally ill.

The problem with this view is that society is MORE accepting of reckless, irresponsible behavior today, and yet the people who do these behaviors feel even worse than they did in the past.

Here’s a study from PLoS One (2021):

And indeed, the social environment has become much less stressful for sexual minorities than it was 50 years ago. The average age for coming out of the closet among Americans has decreased from 26 years old for those roughly born in the 1970s to 16.9 years old for those born in this century. The average age for same-sex sexual activity is decreased from 19.2 years old for those born in the 1970s to 16.3 for the younger cohort, driven by “marked improvements in the social and legal environments for sexual minorities,” according to UCLA epidemiologist Ilan Meyer.

[…]According to Meyer’s study, “we found little evidence that the social and legal improvements during the past 50 years … have altered the experience of sexual minorities people in terms of exposure to minority stressors and resultant adverse mental health outcomes.” Younger cohorts have higher suicide attempt rates (30 percent) than the older cohort (21 percent). The younger group reports more everyday discrimination, more psychological distress, more stigma, and more internalized homophobia. All in all, according to these scholars, “our findings are clearly inconsistent with the [minority stress] hypothesis.”

And another study from Archives of Sexual Behavior (2020):

In another study, J. Michael Bailey, an early adopter of the minority stress model in the 1990s, could find “no evidence to support” minority stress predictions and, he acknowledges, that “there is much evidence against it.”

Greater tolerance of sexual minorities has not led to better health outcomes or lower suicide rates or to decreases in neuroticism among gay men. Health and psychological results in the tolerant Netherlands, Bailey points out, are not much different from the results of the supposedly intolerant United States. Suicide rates barely budged in nations that have adopted same-sex marriage.

This is why LGBT activists in government, when they are confronted with the facts about how monkeypox is spread, are not concerned about setting boundaries on people’s behaviors. In their view, boundaries are harmful, because boundaries cause the people who are engaged in reckless, irresponsible behaviors to feel bad. And their feeling bad is WORSE than getting monkeypox. So, you are actually helping the monkeypox crowd if you lie to them about the direct consequences of their actions. Lying to them will hurt them less than warning them. Because nothing is really dangerous. The only thing people have to fear is being disapproved of.

Weighing 400 pounds isn’t bad for your health, the “compassion” crowd says. What’s dangerous is people who say that this is unhealthy. That’s what actually causes the diabetes and heart disease – the disapproval. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a 1000 lifetime sexual partners. That is perfectly moral, and it wouldn’t cause any harm, as long as we can use the laws and the government to force everyone to approve of it as much as they approve of stable, long-lasting heterosexual marriage, and a minivan full of well-behaved homeschooled kids.

People who behave badly turn to big government to force everyone else to subsidize and approve of their bad behavior. This is where poverty and tyranny come from. And that’s why we should be battling against the secular left and their war on morality, marriage and children.

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The seven fatal flaws of moral relativism

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Moral relativism is the view that moral values and moral duties do not exist in reality, but only exist as opinions in people’s minds. When you ask a moral relativist where the belief that stealing is wrong comes from, he may tell you that it is his opinion, or that it is the opinion of most people in his society. But he cannot tell you that stealing is wrong independent of what people think, because morality (on moral relativism) is just personal preference.

So what’s wrong with it?

I found this list of the seven flaws of moral relativism at the Salvo magazine web site.

Here’s the summary:

  1. Moral relativists can’t accuse others of wrongdoing.
  2. Relativists can’t complain about the problem of evil.
  3. Relativists can’t place blame or accept praise.
  4. Relativists can’t make charges of unfairness or injustice.
  5. Relativists can’t improve their morality.
  6. Relativists can’t hold meaningful moral discussions.
  7. Relativists can’t promote the obligation of tolerance.

Here’s my favorite flaw of relativism (#6):

Relativists can’t hold meaningful moral discussions. What’s there to talk about? If morals are entirely relative and all views are equal, then no way of thinking is better than another. No moral position can be judged as adequate or deficient, unreasonable, acceptable, or even barbaric. If ethical disputes make sense only when morals are objective, then relativism can only be consistently lived out in silence. For this reason, it is rare to meet a rational and consistent relativist, as most are quick to impose their own moral rules like “It’s wrong to push your own morality on others”. This puts relativists in an untenable position – if they speak up about moral issues, they surrender their relativism; if they do not speak up, they surrender their humanity. If the notion of moral discourse makes sense intuitively, then moral relativism is false.

I sometimes get a lot of flack from atheists who complain that I don’t let them make any moral statements without asking them first to ground morality on their worldview. And that’s because on atheism morality IS NOT rationally grounded, so they can’t answer. In an accidental universe, you can only describe people’s personal preferences or social customs, that vary by time and place. It’s all arbitrary – like having discussions about what food is best or what clothing is best. The answer is always going to be “it depends”. It depends on the person who is speaking because it’s a subjective claim, not an objective claim. There is no objective way we ought to behave.

So, practically speaking, everyone has to decide whether right and wrong are real – objectively real. If they are objectively real, that means that there is a right way for human beings to behave, and a wrong way for human beings to behave. It means that things that are really objectively wrong like rape are wrong for all times and all places, regardless of what individuals and societies might think of it. In order to rationally ground that kind of morality, you have to have a foundation for it – a cosmic Designer who decides for all times and places what the conduct of his creatures ought to be. And then our moral duties are duties that are owed to this Designer. It is like playing football or playing a boardgame – the person who invents the game decides the rules. But if there is no designer of the game, then there are no rules.

Without a designer of the universe, the question of how we ought to act is decided by people in different times and different places. It’s arbitrary and variable, and therefore it doesn’t do the job of prescribing behavior authoritatively. It’s very important not to get involved in any serious endeavor with another person or persons if they don’t have a sense of right and wrong being absolute and fixed. A belief in objective moral values is a necessary pre-requisite for integrity.

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Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about spending, saving and charity

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A practical lecture on money – spending, saving, charitable giving – from famous pastor Wayne Grudem.

I like the way that Wayne Grudem navigates the Bible finding the passages that tell you who God is, so that you can make better decisions by analyzing alternatives and choosing the one that gives your Boss a maximum return on investment. He’s very practical.

The MP3 file is here.

The PDF outline is here.

Spending:

  • Christianity does not teach asceticism (= don’t enjoy anything in this world), Paul condemns it in 1 Timothy 4:1-5
  • When you buy nice things, even if it is a little more expensive, it’s an opportunity to be thankful for nice things that God has provided
  • Even being rich is OK, but don’t let it make you haughty and arrogant, and don’t set your hopes on your money (see 1 Tim 6:17)
  • It is important for you to earn money, and you are supposed to use it to support yourself and be independent
  • It is possible to overspend and live recklessly (Luke 15:13) and it’s also possible to overspend and live too luxuriously
  • Increasing your income through career progression is wise, because it allows you to give away more and save more
  • God gives us freedom to decide how much we spend, how much we give away, and how much we save
  • every choice a Christian makes with money will give him or her more or less reward in his or her afterlife
  • Do not spend more than you have – you should make every effort to get out of debt as quickly as possible

Saving:

  • Saving money is wise so you can help yourself and others, and have money in your old age when you will not be working
  • If you do not save your own money, you end up being dependent on others (e.g. – family or taxpayers)
  • Not saving money for the future is a way of “putting God to the test” (Matt 4:7)
  • You are to “be dependent on no one”, to the extent that you can (1 Thes 4:12)
  • We don’t know the future, that’s why we should prepare for an emergency, and buy insurance to guard (James 4:13-17)
  • It’s right for us to learn how to save to be able to buy bigger assets, like a car or a college education
  • Saving and investing in stocks and bonds lets people in business start and grow companies, creating jobs and new products
  • Don’t over-save, trusting too much in money more than you trust in God (Ps 62.10; Matt 6:19,24; Luke 12:15-21)

Giving:

  • it is required for the people of God to give something out of what they earn, but no percentage is specified (Deut 26:12-13)
  • you do not give money to become right with God, you can’t earn your salvation
  • a Christian gives to show God that you trust him to take care of you, and to experience trusting him through your giving
  • the quality of your resurrection life with God is affected by giving you do for the Kingdom (Phil 4, Matt 6:19-21; 1 Tim 6:18-19)
  • when you get involved in the lives of others and give to them, you have the joy of experiencing caring for others (Acts 20:35)
  • it’s possible to give too little, but it’s also possible to give too much – be careful about pride creeping in as well

The first part of this lecture made me think of my treat for the week, which is to get a double chicken burrito bowl after my weight lifting. It is very easy to say grace when you are hovering over a double chicken burrito bowl. It is good to have nice things especially when it makes you thankful for what you have.

I was so happy listening to this talk because he was condemning bad stewardship, which I see in a lot of young people these days. I was happy until he got to the part about trusting in your savings for your security, and then I thought – that’s what I do wrong! I save a lot but it’s not just for emergencies and to share with others, like he was saying – I want a sense of security. This was more of a temptation in my 20s than it is now in my 30s, though.

Charity should hurt

I can remember being in my first full-time job as a newly hired junior programmer when the 2001 recession struck. I would cry while signing checks to support William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith ministry, because I was so scared. I had no family or friends where I lived to help me if anything went wrong, and that’s been the story of my working life. If anything goes wrong, there is no backup. But it’s that experience of crying when I gave that allows me to say today “that’s when I became the man I am, that’s what a man does when he is a follower of Jesus”. If you are not doing the actions of charity, then you will not having the experience of trusting God and letting him lead you. There is more to the Christian life than just saying the right things – you have to do the right things.

Don’t follow your heart

If you’re scared about giving when you are young, then do what I did in my 20s: work 70-hour weeks, get promoted often, and save everything you earn. I volunteered every Saturday for 9 months in order to get my first white-collar part-time job when I was still in high-school. The faster you increase your savings, the easier it’s going to be to take a genuine interest in caring for the people around you. Read Phil 1 (fellowship), Phil 2 (concern for others), and Phil 4 (charity). Turn off your emotions and desires when it comes to choosing what to study and what work to do, and put Philippians into practice. Your freedom to give is very much tied to the quality of your decisions of what to study, where to work, how much you spend on entertainment, and so on. That’s why you need to turn off your feelings and desires and do what works, even it it’s not fun, and even if it involves responsibilities, expectations and obligations.