THE population of the world is estimated to be seven billion. Of that, only a small percentage are practising homosexuals, though it is well nigh impossible to get an accurate count of the number of homosexuals in any country. Even the most tolerant countries keep no count of the number of homosexuals in their population — they don’t include them in their censuses.

A study done by the Williams Institute of the University of California some time ago said that 11% of adults in the United States have engaged in ‘same-sex’ relationship, but only 3.5% of the population identify themselves as either gay or bisexual.

In 2002, the Gallup Organisation, renowned for its polls, said on its website in an article entitled, ‘What Percentage Of The Population is Gay’, “In his 1948 book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred Kinsey shocked the world by announcing that 10% of the male population is gay. A 1993 Janus Report estimated that nine per cent of men and five per cent of women had more than “occasional” homosexual relationships. The 2000 US Census Bureau found that homosexual couples constitute less than 1% of American households. The Family Research Report says “around 2-3% of men, and 2% of women, are homosexual or bisexual.” The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force estimates three to eight per cent of both sexes. So who’s right — what percentage of the population is homosexual?”

So we can see that only a handful of people in the world are practising homosexuals, possibly less than 5%. Yet we in the West are becoming deathly afraid of homosexuals and what they will do to us. If we say their lifestyle is wrong and resist them imposing it upon us, why? How could so many people who are right become so terrified of so few who are wrong?

One reason is that homosexuals, in the United States in particular, have fooled people into thinking they are greater in number than they actually are, and hence more powerful. These groups get together and with money from a few rich sympathisers they donate to their representatives in government and threaten them if they do not promote the ‘gay agenda’.

Now the government of the United States, out of fear, is persecuting its own citizens who even speak against the gay lifestyle.

Not content with that, the US Government is working to spread acceptance of homosexuality abroad. President Obama recently endorsed homosexual marriage and he says that his country is struggling to end discrimination against homosexuals abroad. We know that struggle means to threaten, intimidate and withdraw aid from those countries that do not toe the ‘homosexual’ line. Small countries such as those in the Caribbean will quickly fall in line, lest they begin to starve; even if it means to go against their religions, and consciences and embrace what they know is wrong.

We who are Christians want to be loving and accepting; the last thing we want to be seen as is hateful. Knowing this, homosexuals brand as hateful anyone who even says homosexuality is wrong; to make people feel guilty and question their very motives. If you say you are against homosexuality you are homophobic, indicating that you have a phobia; a persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation.

Since we don’t want to be labelled as irrational and hateful, some of us have begun to say that homosexuality isn’t wrong and that all persons must be free to follow their sexual preferences. But the Bible says homosexuality is wrong and that persisting in it will bring down God’s wrath upon its practitioners and its supporters. Leviticus 18: 22 says “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.” And lest you say that this is the Old Testament, and Jesus with his ethic of love says differently, Paul the apostle, the greatest interpreter of Jesus’ mind says that homosexuality is practised by people whom God has abandoned for rejecting him: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use unto that which is against nature. And likewise the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.” Romans 1:26-27.

This is from a tolerant and loving God.

Before we accept that homosexuality is normal, let us remember that the risks of sexually transmitted diseases among homosexuals are far greater than among heterosexuals. One reason is that homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous and indiscriminate in their choice of partners — the loving monogamous gay relationship is almost a myth. Though only about three per cent of men in America are homosexual, over 50% of persons who have AIDS are homosexuals.

With these physical maladies come other severe social and psychological disorders. A gay man on average has a lifespan of some 8 to 20 years shorter than the typical heterosexual man. In the US, domestic violence among homosexuals is higher than among heterosexuals. And homosexual men are more prone to depression than other men.

Finally, let’s ask another question. Why since the dawn of history have most societies been repulsed by homosexuality? Homosexuals, and their supporters will say it has been so because of peoples’ fear of and hate of those who are different. I disagree. I believe that the worldwide opprobrium of societies against homosexuality is a God-given mechanism to warn us of how wrong and destructive homosexuality is.

To embrace homosexuality will avoid the wrath of man, but certainly not the wrath of God.

Ewin James, a freelance journalist, pastor and Bible teacher lives in Florida.