Regarding the Matter of Milo Yiannopoulos

As a conservative, I’ve come to admire Milo Yiannopoulos. Despite being a flamboyant homosexual, he’s done more to destroy the cult of Political Correctness than any ten movement conservatives I can think of. (I’m looking at you George Will, Evan McMillan and Rich Lowery.)

That’s not to say I approve of his lifestyle. Far from it. But here’s the thing: the same PC culture that he’s helped overturn, has made it impossible for ordinary Christians, conservatives and traditionalists to express their revulsion for sodomy. We’re caught in a Mobius loop. On the one hand, we can’t criticize his lifestyle but on the other hand, we can’t hold him up as a hero either. That’s untenable.

I myself have the scars on my back to prove it. When Monomakhos was started way back when, it inadvertently came to my knowledge that there was a lavender mafia within the bowels of the Orthodox Church here in America. And those of us who commented on it were roundly pilloried for it. And some of those who stood up against it were thrown out of their ministries.

“Homophobes”, “bigots” and “haters” we were called. Unjustly I might add but that didn’t make a difference. Because we couldn’t abide the particulars of that lifestyle, we were deemed unfit for polite society. “It was now [insert year here] and society had evolved.” Didn’t we get the memo?

So, what’s a self-respecting Christian conservative to do? Defend Milo or castigate him? If we defend him, we’re hypocrites, if we throw him under the bus, we’re evil bigots.

Does anybody else see the problem with this?

OK, let me spell it out: homosexuality is a pathology. There, I said it. No, you’re not “more wonderfully made” because you can’t (or won’t) enter into real Christian monogamy. And yes, so’s heterosexual porn addiction, fornication, embezzlement, drunkenness, and extortion. It’s right there in the Bible. Don’t like it? Start your own church.

Now Milo’s a big boy. He can take it. I imagine he’ll rise like a phoenix from the ashes of his recent press conference. And I’ll still respect him, both his convictions as well as his courage. Like I said earlier, anybody who has to wear a bullet-proof vest when giving a speech is more of a man than any of the eunuchs over at National Review Online.

But what I don’t respect is what he said about paedophilia. In fact, I’m revolted by it. And to his credit, he’s condemned those words, which he said were taken out of context. But let’s be honest here, we conservatives and been saying the same thing about adult homosexuals for, well, since forever. It’s an open secret among homosexuals that this lifestyle is perpetuated by recruitment.

Yes, I stand by what I just said. Homosexuals see nothing really wrong with adults grooming post-pubescent minors. Don’t believe me? Read passages from Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. Or watch what George Takei said about his own seduction at age 14 by an older man. Or watch Bill Maher’s defense of young boys being seduced by older women. When Lena Dunham wrote in her own autobiography no less that she molested her baby sister, there were no howls of outrage. Crickets. And let’s not forget, the age of consent in Germany is fourteen –the same age Milo was when he got molested by an older man.

The question is why?

I think I have an answer. The reason is not so much on the act itself, but upon the ethos that homosexuality imposes on an institution. In this case the entertainment industry and the political sphere. But in the case of the Church, I’m talking about a real, severe paralysis. One that makes it incapable of exerting any serious moral witness. As rational sheep, instead of the meat of the Gospel, we are fed the thin gruel of only the most anodyne statements. Pabulum that does not prepare us for the mission work of evangelism or the rigors of the persecution which is to come.

Seriously, think about it. In 2003, the Standing Council of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America (SCOBA) put out its reasons why the Orthodox Church could not, nor would not, ever sanction gay marriage. That was the last significant thing SCOBA ever did. Does anybody really think that the Episcopal Assembly of the United States of America (EAUSA) as presently constituted could reissue that exact same statement? I doubt it.

Perhaps I’m wrong. I certainly hope so. But the fact remains that so much of what has beset our churches here in America, what has prevented us from going forth and getting our house in order, are the petty games that homosexual men are prone to playing. And always thinking, wondering and worrying about when the other shoe will drop. Let’s be honest: manly men don’t spend precious hours poring over canonical arcana that were obsolete centuries ago in order to ensure their place in the pecking order.

And no, being open about it doesn’t make it any easier. There are literally dozens of mainstream denominations which are caught in the grips of this vice. Homosexuality is open and often celebrated within their walls and halls of power. And they’re all imploding.

“Openness”, “inclusiveness”, “tolerance” and “acceptance” are not the answer. Nobody is more open about his homosexuality than Milo. He’s so flamboyant that his hair’s practically on fire. And many of us in the conservative movement have accepted Milo and other gays (such as Guy Benson, Richard Grenell and Tammy Bruce) with open arms. As far as I’m concerned these are all good people. As William F Buckley once said: “I’d rather have dinner with Noel Coward than with Al Gore”. Copy that.

We’re all broken. We’re all sinners. I’m a Christian after all and that’s why I try to be merciful. Having said that, I don’t know what it must be like to live within the grips of that particular passion. It’s not the secrecy (although there is plenty of that) it’s the act itself which brings the internal contradictions of that lifestyle to the forefront of the mind. Everything is colored by that act. Nothing is immune from it.

That doesn’t mean that all is lost. Nor that compromised men can’t lead the Church or that the sacraments aren’t valid. If the Holy Scriptures can include a book about about Joshua, a man who conducted the first genocide in history, then the Church can withstand a few effeminate men in the episcopate. Indeed, when the persecution comes, some of them might surprise us. (I on the other hand, may be the first to fold.)

But the fact remains; sodomy is a precursor to nihilism. We are seeing it with the internal contradictions that l’affaire Yiannopoulos has exposed for all the world to see. At its most basic level, the left can’t decide what to do. If they condemn Milo’s words then why do they praise his lifestyle? Incessantly and ad nauseam? Why indeed?

It’s really that simple.

Comments

  1. Peter A. Papoutsis says

    Milo exposed the truth about the link, the very real link between Homosexuality and Pedophilia. This is not a hard and fast link, and there are exceptions along the way, but the link is there, the link is real and Milo exposed that.

    Milo also exposed the abuse the creates a homosexual. He exposed it as a pathology instead of supporting the lie that some people are “Born that way.” No these men were abused and abused repeatedly.

    No study, no scientific analysis no nothing stands up against the revelations that Milo, a Gay man and part of the so-called Gay community, made that outed (pun intended) the dirty little secret that we all knew, but were not willing to accept. Homosexual men were made Gay. Are there exceptions? Of course, but pathology it is. a dreadful pathology that by and large we are finally seeing the culmination of from all those years, year after year, of sexual abuse on boys by adult gay men, especially by the RCC priesthood, finally coming to fruition. These adult monsters distorted and destroyed so many young boys that grew up into broken and fractured men.

    There is no hate here only sorrow and pity for lives that could have been and lives of what if. Instead we have a gay community and a transgendered community that says that it is free and becoming more liberated every day when in reality the chains of their destructive passions are getting tighter and tighter as the days go on.

    May the Lord have mercy on them, on all of them, for the abuse they suffered, and the broken lives they lead, and shame on us for not doing anything to protect them. May the Lord have mercy on us all.

    Peter

    • George Takei, another outspoken homosexual lobbyist, was abused in his youth and undoubtedly made him who he is today.

      Milo could be a hero if he would only name the names. The pedophile ring needs to be exposed, and someone who knows has to speak up. That’s where Elijah Wood failed.

      • Milo was also abused as a child. So, was the evangelical hippie preacher Lonnie Frisbee of Calvary Chapel and Vineyard fame.

    • M. Stankovich says

      Peter,

      As I have detailed many times on this site, anecdote serves one purpose only, and that is to indicate the need for research. As I noted here previously, some of the best literature to date has demonstrated a predictable prevalence among male children for sexually assault. While males who identify as homosexual consistently report a higher than average rate of sexual abuse as children, there is no evidence that any external factor – e.g. sexual abuse, lack of male role-modeling, non-sexual trauma – play any role in the later recognition of homosexual orientation. And let me emphasize again, there is no research evidence that child sexual abuse plays any role in sexual orientation. Equally important is the fact, while the prevalence of child sexual abuse history is consistently higher among those identified as pedophiles, again, there is no research evidence that supports a conclusion that childhood sexual abuse is “causal” of pedophilia. Consider the fact that females are abused at a rate five times that of males, yet female perpetrators of child sexual abuse are virtually anomalistic in comparison to male perpetrators, and obviously indicates that pedophiles, as a group, dramatically “prefer” females to males at a ratio of five to one. In this same vein, it is essential to understand that homosexuality and pedophila are not the same “pathology/disorder”; male pedophiles consistently do not desire men, and female pedophiles consistently do not desire women. They both desire children. If sexual abuse was causal in the development of homosexuality, and homosexuality is the same disorder as pedophilia, there is no explanation for the gross disparity in sexual “preference among pedophiles for females. There is research evidence to support one conclusion only, that homosexuals and pedophiles have the common variable of a greater prevalence of a history for child sexual abuse.

      Yannopulos is neither a “clinical model” of homosexual orientation, nor a representation of the “natural history” of homosexuality. He is, however, an anecdotal example of a very sinister, very deviant criminal cohort of the always extraordinarily secretive world of pedophilia. He also is not an “exclusive,” nor particularly persuasive spokesperson for the phenomenon. Within the past five years, similar victims of organized child sexual abuse in the entertainment industry have “named names” and filed suit in court against well know industry executives. As best I recall, most drop the charges and are never heard from again, leading to the conclusion that they have “settled” with non-disclosure agreements, and “non-opposition” to declarations of exoneration by the accused.

      I would suggest that that we maintain consistency in accepting anecdote – regardless of its seeming importance – for anything more than an indication for us to research. Research is not simply gathering data that supports our conclusion – which is the dangerous practice of the google scholar – but necessarily accumulating that data that contradicts our research premise, and accounting for the disparity.

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        Do you think that the reseach all these years may have been biased to push an LGBT agenda? I’m the father of an Autistic son and research tells me there is no link between autism and the MMR vaccine and yet I and many, MANY parents like me saw our children, usually male children, change drastically after the MMR vaccine administered. I know my son and I know who he was before the MMR vaccine and who he became after the MMR vaccine.

        So to me research is good and helpful as long as it is not biased. The research on the homosexual /pedophile link is, in my humble opinion, biased because in the real world the link is real, the so-called researchers most likely had an agenda. The controversy around declasdifying homosexuality as a mental pathology tells me that bias was present in the scientifix world. MILO exposed that link and they took him down for it.

        So as much as I respect you, on this point we will agree to disagree. The link is real and MILO”s sin was that he exposed it for the whole world to see. He showed that gays are made, not born, and worse he made it real. That could go unpunished.

        I bid you peace.

        Peter

        • M. Stankovich says

          On the day we abandon empirical research – and clearly understand that this refers to controlled, refereed, and replicable results of experiment and observation, neither anecdote or conjecture – we have nothing to help us distinguish “gut-level” personal opinions and beliefs from documented evidence. In fact, this idea dangerously promotes “personal opinion” – e.g. the more parents who “believe” MMR is causal of autism despite the lack of empirical evidence, the more likely – to an equal level of credibility.

          I have worked in forensics for more than 25-years, and just between 2006-2012, I conducted nearly 500 formal, structured clinical assessments of felony child sexual perpetrators, and probably as many other sexual offenders (sexual assault, rape, and torture). I have been certified to testify in court as an expert. In effect, you are raising the “disclosure” of a creep, Yannopulos, and your subsequent generalization of one man’s experience, your historical discussions with men at a clinic outside Chicago “years ago,” and what you come across on the internet as credible as my training, experience, and research. At one time as we debated issues on this site, you said to me, “I’m going to examine you as I would any medical witness on the stand.” I would say to you, what would a skilled, practiced, even “vicious” litigator do to your “credibility” on a witness stand? You know as well as I do: you would be handed your hat in as little as 10 questions and dismissed.

          I would suggest you pay closer attention to my wording, as I am extremely careful, cautious, and purposeful in what I write. I have never, not a single time, said or implied that anyone is “born gay.” I have stated exactly what the evidence suggests: there is no evidence that anything post-delivery occurs to a human being that is causal of homosexuality; this includes, but is not limited to trauma in any form, nor the absence of anything one would consider “essential” to the development of normal psychological/psychiatric well-being (e.g. attachment, positive same-gender role-modeling, supportive & loving environment, etc.). These things may result in a briefcase of other psychiatric and other disorders, but there is no evidence they are causal factors in homosexuality. Factually, the same is of true of pedophilia, and while both groups demonstrate a greater prevalence of child sexual abuse, there is no evidence that there is causal relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia. Male pedophiles do not desire men, nor female pedophiles desire women. They desire children.

          On the other hand, there is evidence that suggests that unknown factors – some believe they are epigenetic, i.e. perhaps external events that amend or change gene expressions without affecting the underlying genome (e.g. imposed famine on certain populations have affected the propensity of obesity overall in as little as a single generation) – that promote a “vulnerability” in a specific cohort within the general group of those who identify as homosexual. This appears to affect a small, specific segment of the poplulation, and cannot be generalized on to homosexuals overall. These conclusions may or may be significant over a protracted period of time and, in fact, could prove to absolutely incorrect, as is the nature of emergent science. There is no evidence of any such mechanism specific to pedophilia.

          I conclude by saying that I am well aware of limitations of “science” and the “scientific method,” and I would simply refer you to retractionwatch.com. Nevertheless, to imagine that anyone has a definitive insight into how or why human beings become homosexual – apart from the ultimate conclusion that homosexuality is contrary to our humanity as it was created “in the beginning,” and is necessarily a consequence of our disobedience and interaction with this broken world, which cannot be ascribed to the intention or desire of our God – is a charlatan, and a deceiver. Again, I am astonished how it could be imagined that a single creep of a human being could be thought to definitively demonstrate & express in toto the etiology of homosexuality by his pathological, anomalistic life and behaviour.

          • Peter A. Papoutsis says

            On the day we abandon empirical research – and clearly understand that this refers to controlled, refereed, and replicable results of experiment and observation, neither anecdote or conjecture – we have nothing to help us distinguish “gut-level” personal opinions and beliefs from documented evidence. In fact, this idea dangerously promotes “personal opinion” – e.g. the more parents who “believe” MMR is causal of autism despite the lack of empirical evidence, the more likely – to an equal level of credibility.

            Dr. Wakefield was destroyed by the same scientific academia that refused and continues to refuse to recognize his empirical research. Robert Kennedy Jr.’s empirical evidence is also disregarded by the scientific community. So when it comes to a politically charged issue like homosexuality or the link between homosexuality and pedophilia the bias, IMHO, runs very high in the far left direction.

            Further, I respect your professionalism and your commitment to the scientific method and nothing that I have said should be taken as a direct attack on you as you have always been and you continue to be an ethical and upright man. My beef is with the research bias, not you, and never you.

            Please forgive me is I said or inferred anything harmful or insulting. That was never my intention. Please forgive me.

            Peter

            • George Michalopulos says

              Bingo! Peter. There is no more “science”, at least not objective science. Especially when it comes to certain phenomena.

              All liberals need to ask forgiveness of the Inquisition for railroading Galileo.

          • Michael Bauman says

            Michael S, unfortunately the public face of the profession of psychology has, as a whole, abondoned any pre-text of science and given itself over to anti-God ideology. Despite the fact there are many fine practitioners who reject that ideology. Intermixed with some ideological “Christians” who frequently muddy the waters.

            That reality makes it really difficult to evaluate any psychological understanding from anyone in the profession except for clinical practice experience. Your particular experience is hardly the norm and IMO largely useless to people like me.

            Your own muddy and confusing statements on homosexuality and same sex attraction combined with your rather arrogant writing style brings a lot of what you say under suspicion.

            Between you and Misha it is rather like wading through a Louisiana bayou at midnight: dense, dangerous and unpleasant.

            • M. Stankovich says

              Michael Bauman,

              This is truly the most ridiculous commentary you have ever set to words. I’m not a psychologist, nor do I work or speak to the matters which concern psychology. You would presume to critique my “experience” as atypical, based on what, exactly? I purposely surround myself with ethical, moral, and dedicated healers, and I do my level best to practice my vocation among the “least of the brethren” as I read in Matthew 25. This is largely “useless” to people like you? Shame on you.

              You offer this pretentious, cynical, but customarily “definitive” dismissal of the body of evidence-based psychiatry as rife with “bias” and “experimenter” errors, based on what, exactly? Your vast meta-analysis of the literature? You have something other than your own cynical, increasingly bitter, increasingly hopeless perceptions? We both know you do not, and while I am too “dark” and now “dangerous” for your bitter sensibilities, Michael Bauman, I am personally filled with joy and gratitude to God our Savior for what I do and the ability to do it well.

              There was a time when you were one of the first commentaries I sought out when I came to read websites. I stopped reading you months ago. Had you not put my name in the header, I would never have seen it because I no longer stop to even see what you comment about. I have a bitter, cynical, and hopeless group of felons to occupy my day, I won’t allow people like you to invade my personal time.

              • Michael Bauman says

                Your prison practice is atypical.

                I can remember some posts I directed to you in the lamentable past that were far worse. If you don’t that is a blessing.

                Did not expect you to agree, but love you any way.

                Blessed Lent.

                • Michael Bauman says

                  I am not bitter. I am blessed to have a wonderful Orthodox community with fine priests and a great Bishop. My wife is fantastic. I am blessed by God though I am clearly unworthy.

                  My comments on the profession of psychology are more about how they present themselves to the public and how foolish that public presentation is. Much like teachers and the NEA.

                  I also know a number of dedicated practitioners who emphatically do not fit the public face of the profession, including you.

                  You folks owe it to yourselves and your patients to take back your profession from the idiot ideologs who seem to rule it.

                  I am deeply untrusting of what is called “science”, “politics”, “religion” and “economics” these days as they all seem under the sway of demonic ideologies. If that is cynicism, then I am a cynic.

                  More and more on a personal note, I seek the Cross for there is the only truth, the only freedom.

                  All the rest is folly.

                  Our basic disagreement is that you rely on empirical data a manner that I find unuseful and at times misleading.

                  My personality style is quite different than yours. We have talked about that. I learned from my parents that the general is of greater importance than the specific. In fact my father always said “Go from the general to the specific.”

                  I am intuitive, as we’re my parents. That approach seems to offend you. As an intuitive I am always observing and analyzing patterns somewhere in the back of my mind. Sorry, but it ain’t gonna change.

                  While I value specific empirical data, it is of little value in and of itself, at least to me.

                  You do not nor do I expect you to understand that. Just the way it is.

                  In any case I love you brother. Have a blessed Lent.

          • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

            “What do Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, George Takei, and Milo Yiannopoulos have in common? They are all out and proud gay men, and they were all sexually abused as underage minors.”

            That’s a quote from this helpful summary of the issue.

            But here’s a question: Does sexual abuse of an “underage minor” always count as pedophilia? The answer depends on one’s definition of pedophilia. The psychiatric community has a rather restrictive definition of pedophilia that excludes attraction to pubescent teens. That’s how Michael gets away with saying, “Male pedophiles do not desire men, nor female pedophiles desire women. They desire children.”

            The same kind of restrictive sophistry applies to his denial of any “evidence” of any “causal” link between post-delivery experience and homosexuality, as in these words above:

            I have never, not a single time, said or implied that anyone is “born gay.” I have stated exactly what the evidence suggests: there is no evidence that anything post-delivery occurs to a human being that is causal of homosexuality; this includes, but is not limited to trauma in any form, nor the absence of anything one would consider “essential” to the development of normal psychological/psychiatric well-being (e.g. attachment, positive same-gender role-modeling, supportive & loving environment, etc.). These things may result in a briefcase of other psychiatric and other disorders, but there is no evidence they are causal factors in homosexuality.

            By “causal,” he means “X happens and Y results—always.” In other words, every time a boy is molested by a man, and the molested boy becomes homosexual. If that’s your understanding of “causal,” then Michael is right because no single experience always results in homosexuality.

            But that’s not how most people understand causation, and there is plenty of evidence that certain experiences do often contribute to homosexuality in such a way that most honest, reasonable people would say they cause it.

            • George Michalopulos says

              I believe the correct term is ephebophilia or the love of youths (i.e. pubescent and/or post-pubescent teens).

              Pederasty is the molestation of pre-pubescent boys.

            • M. Stankovich says

              Frankly, Pdn. Brian, I have neither the inclination, nor the interest in taking the bait of “disproving” your google scholarship, your “hunches” and common sense conclusions, nor your persistent pursuit of topics grossly beyond your capacity and qualification. On the day I need you to misinterpret what I “mean” by causal, I’ll retire. Your present comments are worthy of talk radio & internet chatter, not the realm of medical science.

              Mr. Michalopulos, the terms “hebephile,” “hebephilia,” and “ephebophilia” are terms that have never been accepted, nor are their use ever acceptable in the psychiatric nomenclature of any version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM, currently version V) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) or the ICD-10 of the World Health Organization (WHO). In fact, the topic has been so controversial that one author literally accused the APA that, by not providing a specific and distinct diagnostic criteria and code for the “recurrent sexual urges, fantasies, or behaviors involving sexual activity with pubescent children (generally over the age of 13),” or supporting the use of the diagnostic code for Paraphilia, Not Otherwise Specified (302.9), they were condoning it; this, of course, led to new service headlines, “APA condones sex with pubescent children.” The strongest opposing argument(s) focus on transforming “criminal” behaviour into “psychopathology,” summed up by Allen Frances, MD, my former instructor and supervisor at The NY Psychiatric Institute at Colombia Presbyterian Hospital: “Normal men have fantasies and urges in response to pubescent targets; acting on such attractions is a serious crime, not a mental disorder.” (full text). The DSM-V made no changes from the previous version and a recently published study has, again, stirred attention across psychiatry sites, reporting that an examination of convergent/ divergent validity (simply put, looking for relatedness between things that you would expect to be related, and discovering relatedness you would not expect) between pedophiles and hebephiles suggested they were distinctly different . Personally, I side with those who believe it is crime, not psychopathology.

              • George Michalopulos says

                True enough Dr S, but we know how politicized science has become.

              • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                Ad hominem and irrelevance, signifying nothing.

              • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                On the day I need you to misinterpret what I “mean” by causal, I’ll retire.

                You do sometimes struggle with common English words, like “mutually exclusive.”

                • M. Stankovich says

                  Whatever became of that priest who said you think and argue “like a woman,” Pdn. Mitchell? As I recall, that argument was so persuasive, you were silent for months.

          • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

            Dramatic differences shown here among generations in people who say they are gay: 7.3% for Millennials, 2.4% for Boomers. So either gays don’t age well (higher mortality rates) or they aren’t born that way. Or both.

            • Pdn,

              It’s a disease of sorts. It does not survive or spread well in a patriarchy but flourishes in a feminist matriarchy. As American society has gotten less patriarchal, it has grown more susceptible to this psychosis.

              The Jews in the Talmud actually documented it at one point. Before they came into contact with lots of gentiles, it was not forbidden for two men to sleep under the same blanket as this was “unknown in Israel”. After several generations of gentile influence, they had to make a rule. At least that’s what an Orthodox rabbi told me. I’ve never researched it.

              • M. Stankovich says

                There is no evidence that the prevalence of homosexuality has not remained stable and consistent in any population. As there are no known post-partum factors known to be causal of homosexuality – such as identification and “learning” from a parent or sibling who is homosexual – there is no reason to believe the prevalence is influenced in any significant way by the societal context in which it occurs. Obviously, the problem in accounting for prevalence is that the more societal consequences associated with identifying with a stigmatizing disorder, the less likely individuals will reveal it.

                • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                  So it’s all just a matter of people being free now to admit they are gay? If that is true, then the real percentage of gays in the population must be at least 7.3%, because that’s what the “freest” age cohort is claiming. But who has claimed a percentage that high? Only the completely discredited Alfred Kinsey, whose research was largely prison-based with as many perverts as he could muster.

                  Actually, these polls are evidence of changes in prevalence, since self-identification is a behavior, and like behaviors coincide. Someone who identifies as gay is likely to act gay in other ways. Poll results showing an increase in gay behavior support the theory that homosexuality is largely if not solely environmental and suggest that it can be either suppressed or induced.

                  • M. Stankovich says

                    That you are even capable of drawing such specific conclusions in relation to such a complex, multi-variate disorder, solely from “polls” of stereotypical behaviour, supports the theory that you are a scientific imbecile. You are categorically out of your league, and have no business, other than personal arrogance, to continue these inane posts.

                    • Anal rape is the post-partum variable. Now, we can theorize all day long about how acceptance of homosexuality in degrees and layers in this or that society enables tolerance of that variable to spread. That’s what we’re really talking about and closer to home. But that research is yet to be done in the West for political reasons.

                      But it is also possible that some impressionable boys “misidentify” with a strong maternal figure in the absence of a strong paternal figure and/or presence of a weak/beta pseudo-paternal figure. Humans are imitative, after all, and boys will naturally gravitate toward imitating the dominant personality in their environment. Still, heterosexuality is hard-wired so there would likely still be some watershed experience which traumatizes one into the homosexual/pedophilic psychosis, if one truly has it.

                    • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                      Sticks and stones without facts or logic.

                    • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                      I would expect that the increase in self-identification among millennials is mostly girls identifying as bi-. That seems to be a fashion in some schools, and there’s far less stigma attached to it.

                  • Peter Millman says

                    HI Pdn. Brian Patrick Mitchell,

                    Personally, I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Michael Stankovich so I won’t be challenging him on anything. I believe that he is a very faithful Orthodox Christian. Having said that , I can only offer unscientific, anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately, there are three family members who are either lesbian or gay. I can tell you that the homosexual member has brought tragedy and anguish to his mother, who happens to be a very close relative of mine. His practice of homosexuality is repellent and repugnant to me personally. It makes me want to vomit. I am deadset against any special protections or benefits extended to homosexuals and lesbians. In my opinion, civil unions and gay marriages are wrong. Period!

                    Also, I do not want to share the same communion with someone who swallows sperm whether they be gay or straight. The thought of it is nauseating to me. No Orthodox Church should be communing practicing gays or lesbians. It is against Orthodox teaching since the Ascension of our Savior. I have no sympathy for gays or lesbians and their deviant sexual, highly immoral sexually practices.

        • Dr. Mercola’s blog today has an article on. Harmful vaccines and a $100,000 challenge for research.

          • Monk James says

            Misha (March 7, 2017 at 11:11 am) says:
            Anal rape is the post-partum variable.
            (SNIPPING ALL THE REST OF THIS UNHELPFUL SET OF OPINIONS)
            “““““““““““““““““““““““““““

            That’s an irresponsible and completely unsupportable statement.

            A normal young man who was forcibly subjected to anal rape would be so humiliated and angry about this that he might be in psychotherapy for years, but — far from perpetrating such violence on other young men in his turn — his first instinct would be to kill or maim the next adult male homosexual he encountered.

            Homosexuality isn’t like mythical vampirism, where the bite of one bloodthirsty creature creates another one willy-nilly. There is a whole constellation of affective considerations at work in the self-understanding of people who suffer from same-sex attraction, and that’s long before they decide to act on such a realization, if they ever do.

            Anal rape. Indeed. Really, now!

            • Monk James,

              I’m not talking about “young men”… I’m talking about adult pedophiles, in whom the disease of homosexuality/pedophilia is fully developed, raping pre-pubescent boys (or sometimes seducing pubescent boys and “statutorily raping” them).

              And we need not argue about it for a second because the evidence coming from reparative therapy situations suggests that at least 3/4 of all gay men admit to having had this common experience. Those are just the ones who are not too embarrassed or prevented by political considerations from admitting it.

              • Monk James says

                You’re moving the goalposts here, ‘Misha’.

                The ‘young men’ I wrote of were the victims, not the perpetrators. Now you introduce the notion of ‘statutory rape’ which implies consensual sex between an adult and a minor.

                Your statistics are invalid because they are gleaned from ‘reparative therapy’ in which most adult homosexuals do not participate. In fact, gay propaganda militates against such treatment, calling it not only ineffective but abusive and hypocritical.

                Altogether, the suggestion that most male homosexuals develop same-sex attraction as the result of having been anally raped in their youth remains unattested and insupportable,

                • “The ‘young men’ I wrote of were the victims, not the perpetrators.”

                  How willfully blind can one be, Monk James? What I am telling you is that homosexuality is the result of pedophilia/pederasty. Six year old boys are not “young men”.

                  It will not be possible to empirically demonstrate this until the scientific culture has morphed out of hardcore pc mode. Perhaps research to this effect has been done in other countries but would not be accepted here in the United States and Western Europe because of the political climate.

                  • Monk James says

                    Oh, ‘Misha’!

                    Again, you’re not dealing with what I’ve written, or with what is real and true. You’re merely repeating to yourself what you think is true.

                    May the Lord open your eyes and lead you toward being kind and forgiving and accepting and open to learning the facts about areas in which you are clearly inexperienced.

                    And please remember me in your prayers as I do you in mine.

                  • M. Stankovich says

                    Your claim is fascinating, Scott, given that empirical science has repeatedly – from Asia to Africa and back – demonstrated that there is/are no known event(s) occurring post-partum that is/are causal for homosexuality in males or females. None. Not one. Further, being quite familiar with the fraudulent contrivance that constitutes the “literature” of the charlatan practitioners of reparative therapies, your statement that “evidence coming from reparative therapy situations suggests that at least 3/4 of all gay men admit to having had this common experience,” is complete fabrication and you know it. I’m not exactly sure the point of your “anal rape” fascination (Senza offesa, Scott, ma fai schifo) – perhaps you could comment as to the significance of the number of felony perpetrators of this practice against female children I have met, or perhaps the male porno obsession of this activity among heterosexuals) but even the witch-doctoring liars that NARTH and those like them are, they certainly would not support this transparent fraud you continue to sell. That you would conveniently dismiss the volumes of literature to the contrary, simply as a matter of “repressed” truth by conspirati is predictable of anyone who perpetrates fraud. And that would be you. With a bow on.

                    A real researcher, Scott, does not speculate, conjecture, apply tests of “common sense,” or rely on anecdote for the simple reason that these are fraught with unmitigated bias, most notable confounding: finding what you want to believe. This is the sin of the google scholar, Scott, simply gathering everything that supports your argument – at times voluminous amounts of data and overwhelming “facts” and opinions – and then drawing a conclusion. A real researcher knows where to look, collects everything – particularly everything that directly contradicts & disputes the research hypothesis – and attempts to account for and reconcile the disparities. You are a google scholar, Scott, and a not even a stellar google scholar at that. My thought: stick with your fortune-telling and predictions of the end. It’s not a job, but the results are at least interesting to read.

                    • George Michalopulos says

                      Dr S, while I’m not a social scientist I do believe that human sexuality is more plastic, shall we say, than empirical. It is certainly possible that effeminate boys are more susceptible to seduction by older men than more masculine boys and thereby their budding homosexuality becomes entrenched over time. I hearken back to a memory of my junior high days in which we always suspected that “Dave” was a “sissy” and lo and behold, he later became a queer when he was fully grown. Only 30 years later did I find out that in the bathroom stall of the showers, an older bully forced him to perform fellatio upon him. Was this sexual assault the trigger or was he –because of his effeminency–predisposed to doing this anyway?

                      This was the case of “Dave” the boy we all thought was a “sissy” anyway. What about masculine men and who have no homoerotic inclinations but who because of imprisonment, find themselves without feminine companionship? Is their homosexual identity now “triggered” because of this deprivation and do they go back to being heterosexual upon release? Not always. In the African-American population, there is a higher incidence of homosexuality than in the white population. The fact that black males are far more likely to be incarcerated must play a part in this outcome. Don’t you think?

                    • Stankjoshka,

                      And your persistence as a denialist is not so commendable. My hypotheses on the subject can be reduced to the fact that very many, if not all, “gay” men were sexually molested as boys, by their own anecdotal reportage in one of the few psycho-therapeutic settings where such things might be honestly forthcoming. That, and the pathology of gay/pedophile men in their particular proclivities and fascinations.

                      As I remarked, there is little if any honest research done in the West on this subject due to the fact that political forces have made it an article of faith that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. That precludes discovery of the truth in scientifically controlled research.

                      In short, psychoses/demons are very adept at defending themselves, but not indefinitely, since they corrupt and destroy everything they infect.

                      Monk James,

                      I responded to what you wrote forthrightly and directly. I never claimed to have empirical evidence so criticizing me for not producing it is a straw dummy. As I have related, under the current socio-political regime, it is impossible to do the research required since any such hypotheses would be rejected for funding or inquiry as biased against homosexuals in its underlying assumptions.

                      The apparatus is constructed so as to preclude unveiling of the truth in broad daylight and thus availing ourselves of its disinfecting benefits. And, of course, as a monastic you should know that monastics are always suspect in their treatment of such issues given the gravitation of gay men to monasticism.

                    • M. Stankovich says

                      Mr. Michalopulos,

                      While I appreciate the sentiment and “logic” of your observation, and am even willing to concede that most anything is possible, I will insist that not everything is probable. Your example is anecdotal, serving to give us no generalizable information beyond what it apparently “revealed” to you about “Dave”; and there it stops. The danger in your example is that the variable of “effeminacy” may or may not be of any significance whatsoever in application to the past or in the future.

                      As to your second point – in which I believe you are drawing the logical conclusion that if one engages in “homoerotic” activity, it is necessarily homoerotic “for cause.” Allow me to use a common example to address this idea. Antisocial Personality Disorder is a specific personality disorder, necessarily characterological in nature, and generally unconscious. At the same time, one may chose to engage in “adult antisocial behavior,,” which is frequently considered “situational” – i.e. place a healthy adult in a antisocial environment such as prison – and they may reasonably and and perhaps prudently engage in “adult antisocial behavior,” to a lesser or greater degree, simply in order to survive; it says nothing about them characterologically.

                      As to the matter of (I believe you intended to say) prevalence of homosexuality among African American men, I would feel comfortable with epidemiological data offered by the CDC or the Williams Institute at UCLA. I cannot find any data to support your conclusion as true. Again, while noting the difficulty of gathering accurate data for “stigmatizing” conditions, a 2014 study offered by the Williams Institute employs an interesting analogy to determine the prevalence of homosexuality among racial and ethnic groups by stating “[in 2014] 3.6% of the US population is exclusively comprised as “male, same-sex” couples, whatever that implies; >85% of these couples were white, which outnumbered Hispanics, at 11.5%, at a rate of 7-to-1, and African American, at 5.8%, at a rate of 14-to-1.

                      I will conclude with a study I believe adequately addresses your question:

                      Khan, MR, Golin, CE , et al. STI/HIV sexual risk behavior and prevalent STI among incarcerated African American men in committed intimate partnerships: the significance of poverty, mood disorders, and substance use. AIDS Behav. 2015 Aug; 19(8): 1478–1490. Full text here.

                      This is the report of an ongoing “cohort study of HIV-negative African American men incarcerated in the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) who were in committed intimate partnerships with women at the time of incarceration and who were soon to be released to the community.” And while noting that it is unclear as to why the Deep South continues to be an “important epicenter of the US HIV and STI epidemics,” the authors indicate that this particular study “has a focus on heterosexual partnerships given the relative lack of research on STI/HIV risk among heterosexual African American men and because our pilot work indicated the majority of inmates were in committed partnerships with women.” Relying on pilot studies and the previous work of others, this study set out to measure whether 1) “poverty may increase STI/HIV risk by destabilizing partnerships, leading to initiation of new partnerships. The increased psychological distress associated with poverty can contribute to substance use, a consistent correlate of STI and related behaviors”; whether 2) “Mood disorders are risk factors for sexual risk behavior and infection [in that] depression may decrease impulse control or contribute to psychosocial impairment and reactivity in relationships, while anxiety may increase avoidant coping strategies (i.e. “do the adverse psychosocial effects of these disorders contribute to engagement in sexual risk-taking, substance use, and infection”; and finally, to determine whether “substance use as a factor underlying infection risk is critical, given substantial proportions of the US prison population report a history of heavy drug and alcohol use, and substance use is associated with sexual risk behaviors and infection in numerous populations including among prison inmates.” Let me emphasize the fact that subjects were carefully screened for participation, and “less than four percent of participants reported sex with male partners in their lifetime” (only one participant reported sexual contacts with another man in the six months before incarceration), and any applicant for the study who did not have a committed partnership with a woman was automatically ineligible.

                      They concluded that, “Sexual risk behavior prior to incarceration was common in this cohort of African American men in committed partnerships with women. More than one-third reported multiple and concurrent relationships. Further, approximately 10% had an STI detected prior to release. Poverty and depression were common and strongly associated with risky behavior, and substance abuse, particularly binge drinking, was strongly associated with prevalent STI. These results indicate clearly the need for improved STI testing, treatment, and prevention education as well as mental health and substance use diagnosis in correctional facilities. Results of adjusted analyses suggest treatment of heavy alcohol use may be critical to STI control efforts; that treating depression may help reduce risk-taking though additional investigation is warranted; and that efforts to mitigate poverty during incarceration and release (e.g., by offering education and job training/placement) may improve well-being and reduce sex risk.

                  • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                    What I am telling you is that homosexuality is the result of pedophilia/pederasty.

                    Misha, it’s just not that simple. For one thing, the lack of affection from same-sex parents or peers that many youngsters feel and the response of some of them to try to “repair” the hurt with same-sex romance often precede any sexual contact with members of the same sex.

                    For another thing, while same-sex sexual contact can “eroticize” relations with the same sex, causing youngsters to associate the pleasure with the relation, it does not always change one’s sexual orientation. Quite a few youngsters who experience pederasty still grow up to be strictly heterosexual.

                    So you can’t say categorically that pederasty causes or results in homosexuality, and when you do you leave yourself open to criticism and create opportunities for the ill-meaning to push the no-evidence/born-that-way line.

                    • No doubt, Dcn, nor does heterosexual molestation always make girls overeaters, yet sometimes it does. I don’t think it’s like vampirism, yet I’m sure there’s causality there. As to other causes, there may be some, however, heterosexuality is hard wired. The psychosis has to overcome that and that would take some shocking event.

                      Female “homosexuality” is another matter entirely. Part of it is just sensuality being satisfied without male assistance, not a lack of attraction for males or particular attraction to other females. Most of female “homosexuality” I suspect is ideological. But lesbianism has never been seen as the same type of threat as male homosexual behavior for the simple reason that in a truly patriarchal society, it is almost irrelevant. Women would marry regardless of their inclinations, be content to be “spinsters” or end up in a convent.

                    • M. Stankovich says

                      So you can’t say categorically that pederasty causes or results in homosexuality, and when you do you leave yourself open to criticism and create opportunities for the ill-meaning to push the no-evidence/born-that-way line.

                      I will offer one last comment about the “no-evidence line,” as it epitomizes what, to me, is the most disturbing aspect of your continued arrogance: in effect, Pdn. Mitchell, you are obviously willing to sacrifice the truth in order to promote yourself.

                      It is now six years that I have consistently maintained the position that there simply is no evidence available to us that anything that occurs in the life of a human being post-partum -be it the impact of a direct event such as trauma in any form or manifestation (e.g. physically, verbally, emotionally, or sexually), or the direct absence of any factor (e.g. attachment, same-gender role modeling, same-gender affection, maternal emotional boundary) – or anything we might consider essential to our mental health and sense of well-being is causal of homosexuality. Nothing. Trauma and the paucity of factors that contribute to our mental health and sense of well-being undeniably play a significant role in an extraordinary number of pathological states, both mental & physical, but none are causal of homosexuality. And let me clarify for you that causality is a term regarding probability; it is not measured by quantity, but rather by consistency. You have again flippantly and disingenuously declared, “There is plenty of evidence,” and like in each and every “encounter” we have had over the period of six years, you have not been capable – and I add because you are incompetent and unqualified – of producing any evidence to refute me.

                      Most ridiculous is the fact that it would take me 30-minutes or less to produce a “reasonable,” sound, and prudent position with proper citation as to why everything that you and Scott suggest as “reasonable” and “logical, if you think about it for a minute” must necessarily be further investigated and accepted or refuted as the case may be. That is the nature of emergent data. What would be the point of my producing such an argument? To simply demonstrate exactly how unqualified, incompetent, arrogant, and deceptive you both really are.

                      Finally, I would direct you both to Chapter 150 of the Letters of St. Basil the Great, which, when all the “issues” are set aside, is a simple message about “truth”:

                      I hold, unless, indeed, like an ignorant man, I am quite missing the truth, that there is only one way to the Lord, and that all who are journeying to Him are travelling together and walking in accordance with one “bond” of life [μίαν συνθήκην τοῦ βίου] .

                      And what is this “one bond of life” by which we all travel together – despite the time and distance between us? The realization that “the eyes of the Lord are always upon the righteous,” and that “If, as often as it is my lot to lie and groan in a different corner, I am always to be accused of lying, I cannot contend against your argument, and already condemn myself as a liar, if with my own carelessness I have said anything which brings me under such a charge.”

                      Few things are as despicable in my mind as promoting confusion, divisiveness, and and self-serving manipulation as to make claims to “truth” you can neither substantiate nor corroborate; particularly when it is generated by self-aggrandizement, incompetence, misrepresentation of one’s qualification, and arrogance.

                    • “So you can’t say categorically that pederasty causes or results in homosexuality, and when you do you leave yourself open to criticism and create opportunities for the ill-meaning to push the no-evidence/born-that-way line.”

                      One is always open to criticism from the diabolical minions of the evil one. It is called “spiritual warfare”.

                    • Centurion says

                      Stankovich asserts:

                      It is now six years that I have consistently maintained the position that there simply is no evidence available to us that anything that occurs in the life of a human being post-partum -be it the impact of a direct event such as trauma in any form or manifestation (e.g. physically, verbally, emotionally, or sexually), or the direct absence of any factor (e.g. attachment, same-gender role modeling, same-gender affection, maternal emotional boundary) – or anything we might consider essential to our mental health and sense of well-being is causal of homosexuality. Nothing.

                      Once again he is bearing false witness. Reality and the testimony of many homosexuals say otherwise.

                      What Happens When Men Have Sex with Teenage Boys
                      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-happens-when-men-have-sex-with-teenage-boys_us_58ab8c69e4b029c1d1f88e02?

                      As much as the LGBT world seems to ignore this reality, it seems fairly universal and unfortunately not time-bound to a period when young gay men had fewer options. There is an uncomfortable truth here that I never had sex with anyone my own age as a teenager. Every single man was an adult who recognized my youth and chose to engage in sex anyway. As a 34 year old man today I cannot conceive of doing this with a teenager. I genuinely struggle to understand how it was possible at all.

                      Our culture is obsessed with youth, this is true and the ‘barely legal’ standard of pornographic excitement is not exclusive to gay men by any means. But in many ways we are different. Men who are attracted to teenage girls are far less likely to have the opportunity or willingness to act on their interests. But gay men seem to hold a generational view that sex with teenagers is a rite of passage and a necessity as teenage gays have no other option to explore who they are. As a culture we seem unwilling to consider that what we experienced ourselves as teenagers should not be the acceptable norm.

                      There are real consequences we can measure, although statistics on adult-teen relationships are not readily available we can look at violence and HIV statistics to interpret the impact. According to the CDC upwards of 32% of gay and lesbian youth have been forced to have sex against their will. While it is certainly possible to be assaulted by a peer, it is far more likely a teenager is forced to have sex from an adult. The CDC also states that of the HIV cases found in males 13-24, 80% were gay or bisexual. The number extends outward beyond the age of 18, but it must be considered that boys age 13 to 17 are also included and it stands to reason they are unlikely to be infected by another boy their own age.

                      I often find gay men romanticizing their early sexual experiences and idealizing the men who introduced them to the world of gay sex. Our erotica, sexual fetishism, pornography and sexual roles tend to mimic adult-teen relationships. Often our very concept of the type of man we search for is built on these early experiences. It is easy when so many hold the same experience to believe it is normal. But I believe it is absolutely critical the LGBT world take a serious look at this issue and take action to stop it. This is an issue of gay men abusing young men seeking a great many things in an extremely vulnerable state. These adult men are not guiding, helping, freeing or allowing these teen boys to explore who they are. They are abusing them.

                      We underestimate the emotional and psychological stress and anxiety adult actions cause in immature minds and we cannot rely on our own recollection as proof of its relative harm. The LGBT media, leaders and all organizations must take a stand against adult-teen relationships and firmly stand on the side of protecting young gay people as a part of their overall concept of outreach. In the end we are the only ones who can stop this generational pattern of abuse and I think it is our priority to do so.

                    • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                      Prove it, Michael Stankovich. Take your 30 minutes and write the paper you say will substantiate your invective. Then we will all be able to see whether you really know what you are talking about and whether you are willing to deal honestly with the issue.

                    • M. Stankovich says

                      You truly amuse me, Pdn. Mitchell, but not nearly enough to be baited. You know as well as I do that if there was any reasonable way you could disprove me, that you could “take me down a notch,” and humiliate me because of my “arrogance,” you would have done it long ago. Such is the extent of your arrogance, and it disgusts me to witness. Why? There is nothing altruistic or compassionate in your motivation; you are not attempting to promote mercy or charity, demonstrate Christian love or concern, or ultimately to seek the lost sheep who are so desperate for healing. You have very clearly demonstrated that you are among the most homophobic – in every sense of the classic definition – individuals who appear on this site, and you see absolutely no difference between “correcting” those who have fallen into sin, and humiliating them. And to that end, you will misrepresent your qualification to speak to the issues of research, epidemiology, and medical science without concern for your imbecilic conclusions and shameful errors in interpretation & judgment. No more with you. You waste my time.

                      And now you would attempt to play me with this bullshit challenge, “prove it,” Pdn. Mitchell? I have corrected, refuted, scolded, and flat out placed your fundamental lack of competence and qualification on display for everyone to see, and berated your lack of shame for what the Fathers describe as “like a dog returning to his own vomit,” and you would actually question my integrity? If, in fact, I really don’t know what I’m talking about and am unwilling to “deal honestly,” what sort of person would follow me around for six years, only to be proven incompetent & unqualified at their every ridiculous conclusion? I guess that sort of person would be you.

                    • Pdn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                      Not only does Michael Stankovich wimp out on his boast, he conspicuously ignores Centurion’s post providing evidence against him.

                • While I agree with Monk James that there is no evidence that a minor sexually assaulted by an adult male “causes” same sex attraction, I take issue with his definition of “statutory rape.” Statutory rape — that is, for an adult to have sex with a minor — is a crime. It’s a **crime,** not a relationship, and consent is not a defense. A child below the age of majority is incapable of giving meaningful consent.

                  • Monk James says

                    While we must abide by the law, this is a legal definition, an arbitrary description of personal responsibility, not a reality in human relationships.

                    Some people are more self-aware and possessed of themselves at the age of eight than are others at the age of eighty. I say this from personal experience, although I will not go into greater detail here.

                    • Monk James,
                      Perhaps the subject is a beat dead horse, and I have been hoping it would die on the vine. I hope I am wrong, and I never cared to comment on this disgusting topic in detail, but now you’re going into new territory that is really disgusting.

                      You say you won’t go into detail, but like the devil knocking on the door, you just did, again like the devil, hoping someone will open the door.

                      Forgive me if that wasn’t your intention, but regardless, that’s now where we are. I understand this is not my site but can’t we let it go already.

                  • Melanie,

                    Exactly, beware of monks commenting on male sexuality. Sometimes their baggage twists their perspective.

                    • Monk James says

                      Misha (March 10, 2017 at 9:37 am) says:

                      (BIG SNIP eliminating repetition of mistaken opinions)
                      Then, addressing me, ‘Misha’ writes:

                      ‘ And, of course, as a monastic you should know that monastics are always suspect in their treatment of such issues given the gravitation of gay men to monasticism.’

                      WOW!!! More unattested and insupportable assertions, but getting more vile and disgraceful.

                      Here, in addition to continuing to ignore the statistical weaknesses in his reports which I pointed out, ‘Misha’ descends to an ad hominem attack here and in the post to which this reply is attached.

                      This would be amusing if it weren’t so sad. Obviously, ‘Misha’ doesn’t know very many monks. For modesty’s sake, monks and nuns generally don’t discuss their previous lives ‘in the world’, but if we did, I think that ‘Misha’ would find his self-embarrassing and unfair aspersions and implications refuted at every turn.

                      May the Lord forgive you this sin, ‘Misha’, as I forgive you and ask your forgiveness as well.

                    • “Monk James”,

                      It is not a sin to state the fact that otherwise pious Orthodox males suffering from same sex attraction are attracted to monasticism. Indeed, I’m sure it is often beneficial. Nonetheless, a leopard does not change his spots without much prayer and fasting, and even then, if the damage is too great, he may never shake the “orientation”.

                      It is also not a sin to observe that whenever one listens to the opinion of monastics regarding sexuality, one should bear that fact in mind.

                      Methinks thou dost forgive too much.

                    • M. Stankovich says

                      And perhaps the same warning can be issued regarding those who perilously and ignorantly comment on the etiology and natural history of mental illness when their only “qualification” is self-report of symptoms and diagnoses?

        • I had Aspergers and didn’t received the measles shot because I was born in New Mexico in 1957 where it wasn’t available like big cities. I only found out about the Asperger’s late in life as a kid they just thought I had ADHD.

    • There is less than no agreement in the medical/psychological/psychiatric professions about the etiology of homosexuality altogether. So to assert that homosexuals (male homosexuals, at least) are created in childhood by adult male homosexuals who force themselves on boys is not only not attested in clinical literature, but also fails to explain female homosexuality.

      So let’s back off and stop condemning people about whom we know so little. Rather, let’s welcome people who suffer such temptations, and help them to be holy and true Christians.

      We know that sexual intercourse outside of holy marriage is sinful, and we should just leave it at that without getting into prejudice and politics.

      Let’s be kind to people, even when they approach us in disagreement, and so hope to win them for Christ.

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        That is because the causes of female homosexuality is vastly different from male homosexuality. I can assure you that the damaged young men at Chicago’ ‘s Lakeside Specialty Clinic, that I came to talk to so many years ago I came to find that many of them came from broken homes filled with alcoholism and sexual abuse.

        Many young men from the sixties to today, our immediate historical era, have been and continue to be abused by older men while in their formative years. If you honestly believe that this abuse does not place a young man down the sexual path then you are wrong.

        As far as being unkind, when or how am I unkind. No matter what the mercy and grace of Christ covers us all.

        Peter

        • Maybe that was the Lakeview Specialty Clinic ? Before I went to the monastery in 1977, I lived on Diversey a couple of blocks west of Halsted Street, near St George church on Sheffield and the El, so I’m familiar with the neighborhood, now called ‘Boys Town’ because it’s become home to a large number of gay men and somewhat gentrified. I drove through there once about twenty years ago and hardly recognized the place.

          In any event, I suspect that your perception of homosexuality’s being developed by the next generation of gay men as the result of predatory behavior by older gay men is based on a skewed sample of troubled boys rather than of boys who haven’t been exposed to violence and other criminal behavior, sexual in nature or not.

          If forced initiation into homosexuality were the true cause of a continuing feeling of same-sex attraction in young men — your theory — the unpalatable possibility here is not that importuned sex makes boys crazy angry to the point where they want to take out their hostility by sexually abusing boys in their own turn, but rather that they might actually come to enjoy homosexual activity and so go on seeking it.

          But this is unimaginable for boys who are heterosexually inclined! No, I think that the etiology of homosexuality in the larger, ‘undamaged’ male population is considerably more subtle, and that female homosexuality, far from being differently developed, is rather basically the same phenomenon.

          And finally, dear Peter, please don’t take everything so personally. I did not write that you were unkind. I wrote only that we all ought to be kind. But I still think that your sampling is flawed and much too small, and can not be used to extrapolate a general theory.

          • Peter A. Papoutsis says

            Thank you Monk James. I apologize as well If I took a rude tone with you or was unkind in what I said to you. Please forgive me. As for the small sampling, after 30 years of schooling, working and being in Chicago, I only wish my sampling was small, but unfortunately it is not. Many of the same thinks keep popping up in the young men that I have known that actually runs counter to the research. As for the difference in Female homosexuality, I have unfortunately, and I do mean unfortunately, have knowledge of that as well. Especially when it came to the dissolution of their marriages and its aftermath.

            I bid you peace and once again seek and ask for your forgiveness.

            Peter

      • Monk James,

        You have no authority, so I will decline your offer. As to research, in the present environment, such research is not likely to be conducted and would be ostracized because of its politically incorrect hypothesis.

        Yet it is simply true if you think about it logically for more than a few minutes. Those who conduct reparative therapy sessions routinely report that when asked how many of the male attendees were sexually abused by other men in childhood, the number is usually at least 3/4 of those present. The only question is how many of the rest are too ashamed or politically disinclined to admit it.

        But some serious trauma causes one to misidentify ones sexuality and that is very likely the culprit, rape by an older male. Furthermore, that this same initial trauma replicates itself in the full blown psychosis explains why some homosexuals engage in pedophilia and why it simply does not incur the negative stigma in the homosexual community as it does in healthy society.

        It explains far too much to be untrue, frankly.

        Physician, heal thyself. It is good to be loving, but it is very, very bad to be loving at the expense of the truth. Homosexuality is a deathstyle that can lead to pedophilia and regardless has as its eternal reward hellfire.

        You do not deserve the name “monk” if you do not tell others the truth and instead let them live and die in their sins. So go away and bother the flies.

        • M. Stankovich says

          It seems to me, Scott, that this speaks to Saunca’s request that you provide the sources for your commentary. You have identified yourself as a “researcher,” and any legitimate researcher appreciates the necessity of citation. The only appropriate response to your question, “For my opinions?” is “especially in regard to your opinion(s).” It is difficult for me to understand why you do not appreciate that it is incumbent upon you to clearly, distinctly, emphatically, and unequivocally distinguish your personal opinion when, for example, you make such statements as, “It explains far too much to be untrue, frankly,” and “it is simply true if you think about it logically for more than a few minutes.” This is, of course, precisely the type of conclusion that has historically lead to lunacy, disaster and tragedy.

          I would further note that you have made it a point, on numerous occasions, to suggest that you are privy to revelations from God, derived from sources such as vampire movies and popular music. To be fair, acceptance of the voracity of such claims is purely a matter of statistical probability, the pursuit of which serving no purpose other than to divert from my overall point, but in that you have laid claim to exclusive information as determinants of your conclusions, it only furthers the argument demanding you distinguish opinion; even when it is “obvious” to you, it may not be obvious to others.

          Finally, it is undeniably the Tradition of the Church to “follow those Holy Fathers before us,” citing and repeating both the dogma and the wisdom of those tasked in their patristic mission to further “divide the Word of Truth.” The words of the Holy Scriptures were on the lips of the Prophets; the words of the Holy Scriptures were on the lips of the Savior – and magnificent is the scene of the child Jesus in the Temple, listening and interpreting the very words He inspired in the Prophets; the words of the Holy Scriptures and the words of the previous Fathers were on the lips of the Holy Fathers, and distributed to the faithful. And the point? Accuracy, stability, continuity, revelation. It simply is not unreasonable to demand that when you make emphatic, often “unchallengable” statements you directly associate with specific consequences for not accepting as truth, as you see it, you provide the source(s) for your comments.

          • “I would further note that you have made it a point, on numerous occasions, to suggest that you are privy to revelations from God, derived from sources such as vampire movies and popular music. ”

            Stanjoshka, I’m actually getting to like you, despite myself. You do have a way with words and this serves to lighten the mood, so to speak. Kali sarakosti!

      • Michael Bauman says

        Any official research into homosexuality and it’s etiology is pretty much worthless because the subject has always been filled with religious, political and ideological bias. Given the outsized effect experimenter bias has on sociological and psychological experiments there is little efficacy in any of them.

        I only know this, as a young man I watched a friend be recruited into the homosexual experience. At the very least it was filled with pornography and promiscuous sex with which he was initiated. (the pornography was observed personally as a visitor to his home, the promiscuous sex, self reported)

        While all that was going on, he spent the whole year getting up each morning, looking into his mirror and saying, “I am homosexual” or so he told me.

        It all began because he felt uncomfortable around women and had gotten dumped. I know nothing of his family. Given he was majoring in theater he was surrounded by dysfunctional narcisists and a larger than usual population of homosexual men and the women who traveled with them . Most of the women were hetro-sexual who had a history of parental abuse. (Based upon my own observations and knowledge). A very unhappy group.

        Since this was not long before AIDS hit, the probability is that many are dead. Certainly another theater friend of mine in the same period I know sucumbed.

        Only time I was approached was my first year at the Dallas Theater Center by a man at least 40 years older who happened to be in the same place I was near the Theater Center. I am sure in retrospect that the public spaces around the Theater Center were his stroll. Lots of young men, many already pre-disposed.

        • What is it about the theater…? I very much enjoy a good live performance, especially quality community theater; but I almost hate to go these days. Almost inevitably there are a few ‘flamers.’ And if I am hit up again for a collection for AIDS victims as I exit the theater I think I’m going to puke.

          • Michael Bauman says

            Well Brian, sorry to say there is a disproportionate number of same sex attracted men and women in theater. Since most of them are pleasant to know and often quite good at their craft, in my experience. There is broad acceptance in a community that usually tends to be anti-religious and values skill and emotional quirkyness.

            Theatrically, the “flammers” can be quite entertaining. If you put aside the lonliness, desperation and fear that gives it energy.

            It is deeply sad. I remember one night at the cast party of a production one such man got really drunk and really sad. He came over to where I was sitting, wrapped his arm around my legs and went to sleep. For some reason at that moment I provided some emotional comfort and I was glad to do so because he was a nice guy and deeply needy. Sat there for quite awhile that way.

            I remember nothing else about the production now over 30 years ago. But that moment, that moment I remember and I say a prayer for his soul.

          • M. Stankovich says

            The depth of your compassion is remarkable, and aptly issued during the first week of the Great Fast. Anything you’d like to share about people with cancer, perhaps? What is it about you that provokes this sudden nausea…

            • I don’t know about you, but I go to the theater to see a show, not to be hit up for donations for some pet cause. If a show is advertised as a benefit that is another matter.

              Please don’t make assumptions similar to those some here make about you. I have great compassion for suffering sinners, being one myself. What I cannot abide is supporting ’causes’ that promote the very suffering they claim to want to alleviate.

              • M. Stankovich says

                Pardon me, in that I may be too acutely sensitive to what appears to me as “incongruence.” I read, “Almost inevitably there are a few ‘flamers’,” and recognizing the term “flamers” to be stereotypical, and a specific, derogatory epithet (ἐπίθετον, as the Ancient Greek suggested as “characteristic of the person or thing described”). I did this, as the saying goes here of late, as any reasonable person of common sense would conclude, after thinking about it for a moment. You, apparently, have taken my “common sense” conclusion to be “assumption,” and are offended I have reached an inaccurate, foolish conclusion. wtf. It just goes to show that, if you have an open mind, teaching opportunities and lessons learned arise from the most unexpected places.

                • If by this you mean that I find the behavior of ‘flamers’ revolting and that I use the term in a derogatory (albeit accurate) sense, you are correct. But if you mean that I lack compassion for them, you are mistaken.

                  Are we not allowed to find certain behaviors repugnant? I seem to recall your calling Milo “a pig of a man” (and I would agree). I presume this means you find his behavior revolting. Do you get a pass for this because we had not yet entered upon the season of Lent – as if that matters? And much like me, you were not careful to separate the man from his behavior (although I suspect in reality you do; as do I). Does that mean you lack compassion for him as a person? I certainly made no assumption that you did.

                  I recently took my mother to the theater in celebration of her 80th birthday, something she wanted to do having had fond memories of the last time we went together. She is by no means a prude, but I was nevertheless embarrassed, as was she, for having unwittingly subjected her to an unwholesome display of sheer lewdness. Not only would I not have taken her, I wouldn’t have gone myself had I known what to expect. So yes, it sickens me, as does lewdness of any kind; and I hope it always does.

            • Michael Bauman says

              Michael S, I have no idea. Need some Tums?

      • Monk James says

        Misha (March 11, 2017 at 2:24 pm) says:
        “Monk James”,
        It is not a sin to state the fact that otherwise pious Orthodox males suffering from same sex attraction are attracted to monasticism. Indeed, I’m sure it is often beneficial. Nonetheless, a leopard does not change his spots without much prayer and fasting, and even then, if the damage is too great, he may never shake the “orientation”.

        It is also not a sin to observe that whenever one listens to the opinion of monastics regarding sexuality, one should bear that fact in mind.

        Methinks thou dost forgive too much.
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        Your sin, ‘Misha’, is that you broadly accuse all monks of being afflicted with same-sex attraction, and so demean us and devalue our work in The Church.

        You are greatly mistaken. I suggest that you spend a couple of months in Athos or Valaam, or even Arizona, and learn how we monks live, especially in communities.

        Idiorhythmic monks and solitaries like myself are a bit outside of that pattern, for one reason or another, but we are still faithful to our monastic commitment.

        You, on the other hand, haven’t the slightest idea of what you’re talking about, dealing in some sort of prejudices based in ignorance.

        • “Your sin, ‘Misha’, is that you broadly accuse all monks of being afflicted with same-sex attraction, and so demean us and devalue our work in The Church.”

          Is it the business of a monk to point out other people’s sins? Online?

          The reason I ask is obvious. Now, I am abrasive, decidedly so. When I want ’em to remember it, I give it to ’em loud and dirty, just like Patton. My method is certainly open to criticism. And it is a method more appropriate to a layman than a monk, of course.

          Yet still, I get the job done.

          • Monk James says

            OK. You don’t understand what we monks must be about, or Christians altogether. May the Lord enlighten you.

            I can forgive you for your sin against me, personally, but what you have done to harm monasticism and The Church as a whole may take some serious repentance on your part, after a sincere confession.

            • Monk James,

              How could I harm monasticism? Du spinst. I have been a defender of monasticism against the neo-Patristics. Try to be more consistent.

        • Monk James, you do not help your point, when you say/hint that young boys having sexual relations is arbitrary regardless of laws.

          Monk James(March 9, 2017 at 7:29pm)

          “While we must abide by the law, this is a legal definition, an ARBITRARY description of personal responsibility, not a reality in human relationships.

          Some people are more self-aware and possessed of themselves at age EIGHT than others at eighty. I say this from personal experience, although I will not go into greater detail.”(CAPS BY ME, IN DIGUST)

          Though I don’t believe most monks are gay, and certainly not child abusers, you leave yourself open to much speculation with your comments. As a Monk I would think you would be more guarded with your thoughts on such a horrid subject matter. What compels you to do so, with such manifest thoughts?

          Our Lord made it quite clear how he felt about abusers of children. We all know what a child is, arbitrary or not, sex with one ,I believe, is the worst sin of all, unless one likes flirting with millstone necklaces while going for a swim, take notice.

          • Monk James says

            I was drawing a distinction between the LEGAL age of consent, which varies from country to country, and from state to state in the USA, and personal responsibility. Morality is another, yet more important issue.

            Although I admit that what I wrote earlier is likely to be understood otherly than I meant it, I wrote nothing about myself, only about my personal experiences.

            Observing these last seventy years or so how people behave, and witnessing confessions for more than half my life, I’m in a position to say that not all adult-child sex is predatory and abusive. Once in a while, it’s the legally ‘minor’ but really precocious person who initiates the relationship with someone of the same age or older.

            The clinical literature attests this abundantly, but someone must be blamed, right? The adults in these situations are ‘authority figures’ and should be stronger in their own souls than to succumb to such temptations. But they’re not — not always — the seducers. Sometimes it’s the underage minors. and that’s their sin, compounding and confusing the situation.

            Still, it remains that underage seducers are not innocent, however they came to that. Yet it’s always the adult who is accused in law, if such events come to court.

            Altogether, it’s a terrible sin for adults to take advantage of children, voluntarily or involuntarily, sexually and otherwise. As our Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘they ought to have millstones hung around their necks and be drowned in the sea.’

  2. Altogether, since we’re all adults here, we should be able to separate our personal likes and dislikes about people and their styles of doing things from our feelings of agreement or disagreement with what they say. They’re not always consistent, but it’s good to practice patience once in a while and hold our noses until we make sense of the patterns formed by the manure being shoveled in our direction. Proverbially, we say things like ‘consider the source’, but we also acknowledge that ‘even a stopped clock is right twice a day’. This might be the case with Milo Yiannopoulos.

    In any event, George Michalopulos has here reopened an old wound which hasn’t ever yet been healed, and seems to be getting worse and more septic instead of better. Take a look at this sad, scandalous collection of reports and complaints:
    http://salvareavetrei.org/breaking-news-19-oct-2016-syosset-ny-protest-at-the-chancery-of-oca/

    Lord, please inspire our good bishops to take appropriate steps to help their faltering brothers in the episcopate and bring them back to Christ, their first Love Who has never abandoned them — or us.

  3. “So, what’s a self-respecting Christian conservative to do?… Does anybody else see the problem with this?”

    Yes. I do. Regardless of how often “conservative” seems to correspond to “Christian,” they are never, ever to be conflated.

    • George Michalopulos says

      You’re right but as far as political ideology is concerned, traditional Christianity inexorably leads to a type of mercy-based philosophy. That’s essentially what conservatism is. (Not neoconservatism mind you.)

      Before people jump up and down and scream, please consider this analogy: Once, a Greek proselyte studying Judaism got extremely frustrated. He went to his teacher Gamaliel and asked to him explain Judaism while he was standing on one foot. Gamaliel replied: “Do not do that which is reprehensible to you to others. The rest is commentary, now go and study.”

      In this sense, the essence of true conservatism (whether Burkean or Kirkean or even Hobbesian for that matter) recognizes the brokenness of man in his fallen state. Everything else –including the Constitution–follows from that.

      • George,

        I agree (for the most part). But while being a Christian causes me to lean in general toward my being conservative in terms of the politics of this fallen world, Conservatism itself is little more than an alluring temptation. Although it may ‘work better’ and be more true to the reality of man in his corrupted state, at its ideological core is just as ugly, tyrannical, heartless, and godless as any other ideology.

        We who lean politically conservative as a result of our Christianity are prone to succumb to its ideological temptations and find ourselves unwittingly in league with the enemies of our faith merely because we happen to be in sympathy with some aspects of their views. And is this not the same error for which we rightly criticize those who find themselves in sympathy with the Progressive Left and likewise succumb to its ideological temptations in the name of ‘Christian’ compassion, concern for the poor, social justice, human dignity, etc.?

        Beloved, keep yourselves from idols.”

        • Michael Bauman says

          Any official research into homosexuality and it’s etiology is pretty much worthless because the subject has always been filled with religious, political and ideological bias. Given the outsized effect experimenter bias has on socialogical and psychological experiments there is little efficacy in any of them.

          I only know this, as a young man I watched a friend be recruited into the homosexual experience. At the very least it was filled with pornography and promiscuous sex with which he was initiated. (observed personally as a visitor to his home)

          He spent the whole year getting up each morning, looking into his mirror and saying, “I am homosexual” or so he told me.

          It all began because he felt uncomfortable around women and had gotten dumped. I know nothing of his famiky. Given he was majoring in theater he was surrounded by dysfunctional narcissts and a larger than usual population of homosexual men and the women who traveled with them . Most of the women were hetro-sexual who had a history of parental abuse. (Based upon my own observations and knowledge). A very unhappy group.

          Since this was not long before AIDS hit, the probability is that many are dead. Certainly another theater friend of mine in the same period I know sucumbed.

          Only time I was approached was my first year at the Dallas Theater Center by a man at least 40 years older who happened to be in the same place I was near the Theater Center.

    • Brian,

      The problem comes when “conservative” is defined as American “Goldwater-Reagan” conservatism. That conservatism is not Christian. It has a lot of Christian sentiment and wisdom in it, but it is defective in its understanding of economics. Classical Conservatism had a better working understanding of economics, the responsibility that the upper classes have to redistribute wealth to the lower classes. “Classical Conservatism” is simply wise government.

      When it is practiced in an Orthodox state where the Church is given power in spiritual matters, it can be synonymous with symphonia. But Classical Conservatism is unitary minded, not dualistic. It is the policy of kings. It assumes that there is a right and holy policy course and that dissent need be loyal and only to correct oversights or excesses which might vex a Christian executive and his government.

      It is a bold experiment that is underway in Russia and the United States at this time. I assume that we are moving here toward a dominant party system as is the norm in Russia now and similar to what was the case in Japan for decades after WWII. One dominant party which legislates traditional morality and redistributes from wealthy to needy while preserving the working economic hierarchy that constitutes a mixed market capitalist system.

      The President is right, if he is successful, it will be “beautiful”. Now is probably the time that the Orthodox should grow bolder about propagating the traditional Orthodox faith. But this will likely be piecemeal. Western Christianity does not possess the spiritual framework to make the current metamorphosis gracefully. Catholicism has been ruined even from its conservative, heretical expression pre-Vatican II. Protestantism has been so Americanized that most Protestant Christians cannot navigate the economic issues from a truly Christian (Orthodox) perspective nor address the relationship of church and state coherently and confidently. Their views have been too warped by the various ideologies at work here to which they have succumbed in whole or in part.

      The Orthodox will be doing a lot of triage if we remain here and interact with the wider culture.

      • Peter Millman says

        Hello Misha,
        I have a problem with referring to Roman Catholicism as being heretical. For example, an extraordinary Catholic woman died this past week in Plymouth, MA. This woman is a Plymouth treasure and legend. I know her and her family. She is unanimously regarded in Plymouth as a living Saint. If I was 1/1000th the person she was , I would be miles ahead of where I am today. If the Catholic Church is so heretical, how can it produce such remarkable Saints? The Saints of the Orthodox Church can’t hold a candle to this holy woman.

        As I’ve studied the Great Schism, for the life of me, I can’t say who was right or wrong. It seems incorrect to me to say that the Pope broke communion with the Eastern Patriarchs. I get the impression that the Eastern Patriarchs followed the Patriarch of Constantinople into schism.
        Now, why did I join the Orthodox Church you might ask . Well, I went to one RCIA class, and decided I didn’t have the time for the RCIA process, so I joined the OCA.

        To be honest, I have never encountered a Catholic priest who would ever talk to me the way this Father Linsibiger did. He even said that his congregation would ” laugh me to scorn.” The last time that expression was used was in the Bible when the people of Nazareth did this to our Lord. Some of the cruelest, most unkind things I have read have been on this website. And, yes, I am more guilty than most, but I have repented, and tried to change, which is a lot more than I can say for this Ukrainian Orthodox priest.

        I have seriously thought of converting to the Catholic Church because it seems to make more compassionate, loving Christians. If this site is an example of how Orthodox Christians conduct themselves, it is a very poor example. Some of the posts are downright cruel and abusive. I have never encountered anything like this in conversing with Catholics on facebook. My late Greek grandmother was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, and she was an extremely mean, cruel, ignorant woman. When you go to a Greek Orthodox Church, instead of being friendly like they are in the Catholic Church, the Greeks act like their shit doesn’t stink. That’s a long way from when my extremely beautiful mother was ridiculed for being Greek. When I went to the Greek Orthodox Church, I said to myself, ” Man, these people sure are ugly.”

        • Michael Bauman says

          Peter, I suggest you read the 1848 Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs.

          Yes we are ugly, all of us, sin is ugly.

          What else would you expect?

        • Peter,

          I have no idea what Fr. Linsbiger said to you. As to the RCC, it is settled in traditional Orthodoxy that it is a heresy. A heresy is doctrine either beyond or at odds with Holy Orthodoxy that is insisted upon as dogmatic truth. The double procession of the filioque, papal infallibility, the immaculate conception – all of these are heresies as is the assertion of immediate, absolute and universal jurisdiction of the pope. Heresies, not theolgoumena, heresies. A host of Orthodox saints have testified to this fact as did a number of the Eastern Patriarchs of the ancient sees in the 1848 encyclical referred to above. Neither Moscow nor ROCOR nor Athos would claim otherwise today.

          Those who do, err. It is that simple.

          Are there pious Catholics? Most certainly. Many of them love Christ very much and I’m confident will be spared hellfire on the last day. However, the only reason their confession, the RCC, exists is in reaction to the Orthodox Church. It has no other raison d’etre. It was born of a rebellion against Christ, as was Lucifer’s fall from on high. It’s very existence as separate from Holy Orthodoxy is a testament to the evil pride of its leadership, going on now over 1000 years. It is antichrist.

          Protestants, on the other hand, simply found themselves in the position of being thoughtful Christians caught in the bad position of owing their ecclesiastical existence to heresiarchs of the RCC. They tried to alleviate this situation by breaking away and attempting to rediscover “original Christianity”. Those that returned to Orthodoxy were successful. Those that haven’t are “works in progress” I suppose. But Protestants had no serious conception of Orthodoxy during the Reformation for the most part because it was centered outside the West. There were efforts, of course. The Lutherans who corresponded with Patriarch Jeremias II at least made an effort to dialogue with the Orthodox. However, in the end, they too were too fond of their own ideas (little popes themselves, I suppose) and could not reconcile themselves to the Faith of the Church.

          But that is ongoing. I see more hope in evangelical and fundamentalist Protestantism than I do in Roman Catholicism, which is a festering cesspool of evil, by and large.

        • Peter Millman, you write some very odd things here. I believe you when you write that you ‘have a problem’ understanding why Roman Catholics might be guilty of heresy. This tells your readers more about you than about the issues at stake in ecclesiological and theological disagreements.

          On one important level, you need to realize that your disappointment with Orthodox Christians make it obvious that your problem is that you placed your faith in people rather than in Christ. But let’s go on to a few, just a few points which may be of help in clarifying your thinking here.

          While there are a great many areas of faith and practice in which RCs deviate from the authentically Orthodox Catholic Christian Tradition, it must be admitted that they mostly don’t rise to the level of heresy, which is pretty well limited to mistaken interpretations of divine revelation concerning God Himself.

          Of necessity, then, this will involve Triadology, Christology, and Mariology in the first instance, and other things only secondarily.

          For the sake of this discussion, and to avoid going on endlessly, let’s think about only the ‘filioque’ clause added to the Nicean Creed without the authority of an ecumenical synod. This is heretical because it describes the Holy Spirit as proceeding from TWO sources, the Father and the Son. Yet, only the Father — eternally coexistent with His Son and His Holy Spirit — reveals Himself as the arkhE or ‘beginning, source’. The Son of God and His Holy spirit are described as the Father’s ‘two’hands’ in ancient Christian literature.

          The insertion of the ‘filioque’ clause was resisted even by several saintly bishops of Rome, but RC practice eventually overcame the teachings of their papal fathers, putatively ‘infallible’ in matters of belief and morality. And there are other points in which the RCs can be shown to be in confusion about their beliefs, but they need not detain us here.

          The experience of a holy woman’s life as a Catholic in Massachusetts says something good about her relationship with God, but it pointedly does NOT say anything about the RC faith, and even less allows you to disparage the holiness of Orthodox Christian saints. Such assertions speak only to your ignorance, not to your love of God.

          You seem to be really disappointed in your experience of the Orthodox Christians in the parishes you’ve visited. I want to tell you that — although I don’t have a drop of Greek blood in me — I’ve always been warmly welcomed in Greek Orthodox parishes in America both as a layman more than forty years ago, and as a monk since then. Maybe YOU bring in something which puts people off. Consider that, please, and don’t blame that tension on other people.

          From what you write here, it seems that (wherever you came from) your reasons for entering The Church were shallow and not well thought ought. But here you are.

          You should reconsider all this history of your personal decisions, make a proper confession of your sins and doubts during this holy Fast, and START to learn Orthodoxy from the people around you who are striving, just like you, to ‘work out their salvation in fear and trembling’.

          And then be at peace.

          • Peter Millman says

            Monk James,
            Your letter is rather condescending, but I’ll ignore that. Believe me, son, wherever I go, I am loved. Although I don’t like people around me, it’s smothering, I’ m considered extremely charismatic and exciting. None of these issues, I’ve raised are personal experiences. I’m Greek, and, of course, the Greek people love me, as they should. I was specifically speaking of my mother and grandmother’s experiences in the Greek church, not mine. No, my friend, I’m welcomed with open arms wherever I go, especially where there are women. My appeal and charm for women has always been legendary. Women flock to me like bees on honey; this actual, true fact; of course, creates a lot of jealousy from some men…as a matter of fact. Hey, that’s life, some of us have it and some of us don’t…

            I have a great interest in ballroom dancing, martial arts, bodybuilding and many other things. Due to all the female attention I have always received, even as a little boy, my biggest fault is I have a severe roving eye. When Dr. Stankovitch talks about his loving relationship with his wife, I can in no way relate to that. I’m not a monogamous person; I have to fight severe temptation in that area. Fortunately, the Lord has given me the strength to live a celibate life these last fourteen years.

            • Jim of Olym says

              Fr. James, it should be recalled that St. Therese of Lisieux restored the sight of a blind veteran as she was being carried to her grave. I guess that God can work miracles through ‘heretical persons if they love him enough?

              • Monk James says

                Sure! But we have to play by the rules, and God does not.

                The healings at Lourdes, etc., speak not to the correctness of Roman Catholic beliefs but rather to the fact that God loves us, ‘even while we were sinners’ as St Paul observes.

                The great wonder here is not that such divine gifts are bestowed outside of The Church, but rather that we who are blessed to be within The Church often fail to live in accordance with the truth which has been entrusted to us. Back to St Paul: ‘We carry this treasure in fragile vessels.’

          • Very well said, Monk James.

        • Gail Sheppard says

          Peter, I may be wrong, but I feel you know me through my writing. You have always been very generous with respect to the feedback you’ve given me, which is very much appreciated because I feel *heard.* I suspect you know I genuinely want what’s best for you.

          When I read your exchange with Father Linsibiger, I cringed. You both said some unfortunate things, but my concern was for you because I understood how it might make you feel; not just toward him, but toward all of us. I wish he had exercised more patience. He appears to be a younger priest and he’ll learn. I’ve seen the same thing in the workplace. One of the project managers I work with was particularly on edge one day on a conference call, not knowing my new boss was listening on the line. She sent him an IM to “knock it off” because our business partners were also on the phone. You just don’t lay into a fellow colleague in front of “company.” Fortunately, all who participated understood it was just one guy having a bad day. Should he have known better? Yes. Were there consequences? For him, yes. Did he hurt our organization? I doubt it.

          Priests are instruments of God and they spend a lot more time in Church, but they are no different than anyone else. One of the things I like BEST about the Church is that there are no illusions about the fact that they are just men. If we put them on a pedestal, it would be hard on us when they failed, which they do, and even harder on them because we would bury them with our expectations.

          I have no doubt there are wonderful people in the Catholic Church. We have a saying, “We know where God is, but we don’t know where God isn’t.” This means that we believe He is in the Orthodox Church but He may not ONLY be in the Orthodox Church. We can’t know where “He isn’t.” If I had to guess, I’d say He is with the Catholics, too. “By their fruits you will know them.” The Catholic Church, including many of the clergy and laity, have produced much fruit.

          Notice how I do not mix up the term “Church” with the people who belong to the Church. They are really two different things. Using the well-publicized molestations as an example (the Orthodox have a number of examples, as well), I do not fault the Catholic Church. I fault the clergy who did it and the clergy who allowed it, but that’s not the Catholic Church. In other words, the true substance of the Church is far bigger than the sum of its people. People come and go. What defines the Church is something BEYOND the people and that is where our eyes are to remain fixed. If a Church, any Church, were solely defined by its people, there would be no room for Christ. Wherever you land, I hope you will consider what I am saying. It is often a struggle to see beyond the people and keep the Church in sight, but it is absolutely essential, whether you become Catholic or remain Orthodox.

          With regard to the Great Schism, the way to know who broke away from whom is by their Teachings. You would need to find evidence that what is taught in the Catholic Church was taught in the One Holy Apostolic Church *before* the schism. Yes, all things change; but not the Teachings. There is a great line from a play called, “The Teahouse of the August Moon” that says: “What’s true in the beginning, remains true.”

          The term heresy just means “wrong teaching.” It’s concrete, as opposed to pejorative. However, when people use this term, other people often react negatively because it has taken on an unfortunate connotation. People perceive it as being “bad,” when it’s neither good or bad; it just is. It’s kind of like saying, “We used to have a rule in our family that no one could leave the house on a Saturday until their room was cleaned.” This is not good or bad in a pejorative sense. It just is. The same is true with the idea of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father. Is that good? Good in what sense? If the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son, it would be equally “good;” it just wouldn’t be true according to the Teachings.

          I hope you will consider what I’ve said. It will be important no matter what you choose.

          • Peter Millman says

            Hi Gail,

            Your comments are always welcome and appreciated at my address. Thank you for your wisdom and insight; you have given me much to consider and reflect upon. I think your post is excellent, and is written in kindness, and genuine concern for a person’s soul. As I have stated previously, I believe that you are a deeply committed, Christ loving, Orthodox Christian, full of love and kindness. I really appreciate your insightful post and the spirit in which it is written. I am grateful. You inspire me to be a better, more loving Christian. The Lord knows I need that more than anything. Thank you again.

          • “If the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son, it would be equally “good;” it just wouldn’t be true according to the Teachings.”

            I’m not sure what you mean by “good”, Gail, but I think I get the gist of what you are saying. God is love. Just keep that in mind.

            I apologize for my tone and the perceptions it may have generated. Please forgive me, a sinner.

            Misha

    • Peter Millman says

      Hi Brian,
      You really hit the nail on the head again. Along with Dr. Stankovich, your posts are becoming must reading for me. Misha’s are as well, but his are for my amusement and for his hilarity.

  4. Estonian Slovak says

    I think the OCA’S Bulgarians are ready to revolt as well..

  5. M. Stankovich says

    You will pardon me, Mr. Michalopulos, but I never considered men whose primary concern is the arcania of the International Pharmacopoeia to be “manly” types. A book published in 2016 pretty much sums up the job as memorizing the top 100 prescribed meds, which constitute 85%+ of all prescriptions, and let the computer do the rest. Seem a fair conclusion to you?

    I distinctly recall the days of being hammered on this site – very personally & professionally. – for my statements about genetic research regarding homosexuality and gender – science I did not “invent”; for stating that the personal morality of a researcher was irrelevant to me if the science was proper; and for even mentioning the name Kinsey, if only to describe a statistical error. You even allowed a poster to suggest that I might be pedophile myself, and another moron to repeatedly state I am a member of a movement to “legitimize” homosexuality in the church, yet can’t seem to provide any evidence. And now, an otherwise pig of a human being is touted as an “authority” on homosexuality by you generalizing his ugly, anomalistic, anecdotal experience. You present no legitimate evidence – none whatsoever – to support the idea that he is other than an anomaly and in desperate need of our prayers. You admire him? Homosexuals who live their lives in our Church in repentance, abstinence, and chastity are terrified of being “revealed” and disenfranchised, rejected, and considered a threat to child when they are no more statistically like to seek out children than any man. Yannopulos is on record affirming such relationships. I am baffled how a moral person attending a woman’s march cannot avoid “guilt by association,” while and you and others unashamedly swoon over this pig of a man, yet believe you can “distance” yourself from his immorality of behaviour, and the condoning of the sexual exploitation of children that cries out to heaven for justice. It is hypocrisy.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Dr S, I expect more from our bishops “than poring over arcana”, especially when their only reason for doing so is to ensure their seating arrangements.

      Little mousy men wearing coke-bottle thick glasses are doing their job and enlightening us when they try to find out the mechanism of action of SSRI’s or how to come up with better alternatives than Warfarin in order to prevent thromboses.

    • Dr. Stankovich. What you must understand is Sometimes George, and Misha give a pass to the man, if it serves the big picture.

      Case in point they both gave Stalin a pass, because he “saved” The Soviet Union, and perhaps Europe from Germany, during WW2.

      • George Michalopulos says

        Dino, you’re very kind. I don’t really give Stalin a “pass” per se. That guy was just plum evil. However, someone once said that “history is the biography of great men”. Someone else said that “great men are almost never good men”. (Santayana? I forget.)

        As much as I despise the entire Bolshevik experiment and condemn their crimes against Christ and His Church, I guess I see a silver lining in this (and only) this regard: the nations that made up the Warsaw Pact are remarkably free of the orkish invasion that is currently destroying Europe.

        This will not end well (no matter what the liberals say).

        • George, thirty years ago I would have disagreed with you, in regards to the Warsaw Pact, but now you have good point.
          Western Europe is most definitely rotting from the inside out, while Eastern Europe is financially unstable, spiritually it is miles ahead of Western Europe.

          One sad shock is watching Greece go the direction of Western Europe. I always thought Greece was a special place in so far as it spirituality and it’s close ties with Greek Orthodoxy. Their Prime Minister is a prime example that a fish rots from the head first

          • George Michalopulos says

            Dino, ten years ago I would have disagreed with myself (re the Warsaw Pact)!

            In my heart of hearts, I’m still a Goldwater/Reaganite. The Soviet Union was the Evil Empire. Unfortunately what the Neocon’s don’t know (or don’t want to know) is that the Soviet Union no longer exists.

            I’ll say it here and take the brickbats: Holy Russia now exists. Yes, I am talking about a civilization that is both holy and not-so-holy. One with lots of problems. Truly. But one that lauds the Lord and His Church. We here in America used to be that way (albeit in Protestant fashion). I’m old enough to remember that. Though not old enough to remember FDR and Churchill singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” with a chorus of American sailors as they embarked on a mission.

          • George Michalopulos says

            Dino, for what it’s worth, the defenestration of the Glucksburg Dynasty was a catastrophe for the Greek ethnos. The secularist morass which currently engulfs Greece would not have happened with an intact Orthodox Christian monarchy. For someone with republican sympathies I say this, believe it or not.

            Anyway, I now see why the removal of Orthodox dynasties (beginning with the forced abdication of Tsar Nicholas II) was a now a necessity for the current anti-Christian order. The remaining Protestant dynasties (UK, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, etc.) in my opinion do not possess the charisms to withstand the coming Antichrist.

            • Yes George, tens years ago is more like it, so far as the Warsaw Pact. Most likely they appreciate all that was lost during the persecution of the church.

              Thirty years ago I began to see the beginning of the end for Greece, as those of my generation were going even more to the left, than those of my parents generation, regardless of the poverty they saw in Eastern Europe. My first solo trip to Greece was thirty years ago, and Greece was still “Greek” in the traditional sense, but while hanging out with those of my age, I felt different politically as a Greek American, and back then I was a Democrat!

              My parents and grandparents were/are hardworking, self reliant, but the younger generation believed the Greek government would provide all for them. I also witnessed a cynical and distant attitude towards the church, and a new love for all things western fashion, socially, and a cult like love for the music and entertainment world.

              Next the Albanians came flooding in to do all the cheap labor, that for some reason Greeks could no longer do.(Sound familiar?)Next crime, and drug use rose. The next time I visited Greece, doors that were usually left wide open at relatives homes were shut, in fear of foreigners robbing their homes.

              Say what you want about Greeks, but there was a honor code. I will never forget my Grandmother’s secret phrase, when ever she felt wronged, by a fellow Greek. A simple “Ella calle Christianemou”, translated:” Come on my good Christian”. All was made right by that simple phrase. Those days long gone, with the new Euro-Greek. In another thirty years, what will Greece be? What will Greeks be known as? Another melting pot? All Greece has left is it’s natural beauty and Holy Mount Athos, if the Holy Mountain is ever attacked, then the end will come soon, to all of us! KYRIE ELEISON!

              • George Michalopulos says

                Dino, it’s scary how much your experience mirrored mine. Kyrie Eleieson indeed!

      • George may have given Milo a pass. I never, ever did. I wrote that there were no heroes in the whole spectacle with the Libs in which he was involved before he imploded.

        You have to understand, I am not a conservative in the American sense. I think conservatives are just dead wrong in their libertarian economics. However, as a practical matter, the political climate in the US has not allowed them to prevail on that issue, only reduce taxes and curtain the rate of increase in spending. Thus, their worst sentiments find no actual political expression, for the most part.

        If there were a Labor Party that was steadfast in its devotion to legislate traditional Christian morality, I’d be more inclined to favor them than either the Republicans or Democrats. I’m hoping that that is the end result of Trump’s efforts but we’ll have to see.

        I never condone open homosexuality (or closeted homosexuality, for that matter). It is evil. All the more so when it is flaming, as is Milo. His blood is on his own head and I feel nothing for him other than pity that he has not come to Christ.

        • Misha, Duly noted. Though I always thought you a Fascist!

          Just kidding. Kind of.

        • cynthia curran says

          Well, I think it will be a big messed to undue the welfare state currently.. Personality. I like the Amish community model which means less government for real since a community is taking care of itself and people are self-sufficient in farming and they make and sell their own crafts. This is much better than the Kentucky and west Virginia model where people live a lot by the state but vote Republican.

      • I don’t give Stalin a pass. He probably is in an infernal repose and may burn in hell. Let me be clear about that. But that is up to God, not to us.

  6. “Do you not know you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”-1 Corinthians 3:16-17

    It is rare when the cycle of child abuse is broken. Hopefully Milo is the exception.

  7. Homosexuality/pedophilia is one disorder. It is a type of psychosis or possession, so to speak. Mostly, it is induced by rape at a young age, either pre or post-pubescent. This commences a self-hatred which vexes the victim for the rest of their life. There may be a cure, I don’t know of one.

    But once that psychosis has been inflicted upon a person, it takes hold of them and exerts an effect upon their whole personality. They become much more dismissive of any moral authority, even mocking, and tend to be overly concerned or obsessed with shaming and with any risque sex, allusions, double entendres, etc. If you know many gay men, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a psychosis.

    It can and often does degenerate into true pedophilia. True pedophilia is the sexual abuse of pre-pubescent males by older males. It is one way, the most significant way, that the psychosis of homosexuality/pedophilia is passed on. Gays can’t reproduce other than by somehow instilling the same psychosis in other males. Pedophilia is the way they do it. That is why gay adoption is a terrible, terrible idea.

    These people are actually sicker and more dangerous than we like to admit. We really should insist that they be treated and/or drive any expression of homosexuality back into the closet and out of the public sphere.

    • M. Stankovich says

      You are an imbecile.

    • saunca,

      Sources for what, my opinion?

    • Probably, it needs to be emphasized that homosexuality is a psychological disorder or passion and as such is a sort of mental disease. Now, no one blames a malaria patient for having malaria, or an AIDS patient for having AIDS . . . unless, they seek to infect others – then they are quite blameworthy.

      And that is the problem. Normalizing homosexuality, “uncloseting” it, is in itself an effort to infect others with it. Thus the “questioning” category, gay adoption, Milo, Bohemian Rhapsody, etc. It is the nature of a psychosis to defend itself, to degenerate, and to spread if it can.

      And that is the problem. So, one has to simply say to homosexuals: You are welcome in the Church. However, same-sex sexual relationships of any sort are never welcome in the Church, nor is pederasty, bestiality, incest, etc. So you absolutely, without equivocation, must choose which road you wish to take – towards life, or towards death.

      It is that simple.

      • Homosexuality is a plague sent by the Holy God to people who have entered into the great whore and live for bread alone, ignoring the Word of God. The fact that they claim to be gay, despite being created male or female, is proof, as St John Chrysostom stated, they are being punished by the Holy God. St. John wrote their punishment is, is that they like it. St John wrote, Their punishment is that they like what natural affection, despises. St John outranks anybody alive today as far as I am concerned. Plus, the authentic Church has always agreed with him. Offering these obvious nonbelievers any rank in a church is STUPID. Modern psychotherapy is a smoke screen of nonsense.

  8. George Michalopulos says

    Speaking about the Deep State, it seems that Lynn Forester de Rothschild is getting ready to throw John Podesta under the bus:

    https://www.intellihub.com/lynn-de-rothschild-tweets-hillary-lost-because-podesta-was-arrogant-and-out-of-touch/

  9. According to some research I have been doing, the OCA has it’s own problems with gay Bishops (…), and mammon serving crooks at the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy who stole millions. I cannot admire someone who I know claims homosexuality is normal and not a sin, regardless of whatever seemly honest and truthful activities they engage in. They may even seem to betray their own kind, while still claiming the normalcy of homosexuality which they embrace openly. Good queer, bad queer is just a manipulation technique, which keeps attention on their cause. You cannot serve God and mammon, a command of the Christ, which states the impossibility of trying to do both and pleasing God.Those who disregard the Christ’s command cannot authentically lead any Christian to an acceptable relationship with the Lord and His Christ. Teach and Do is required, Love God and serve Him alone, live by the Word of God and not bread alone, do not tempt God. Only those that do this can be genuinely effective and edifying. Heaven knows, They cannot be fooled, just men.

  10. George Michalopulos says

    Apropos of LGBT issues, here is something from our old friend Fr Calin’s Fakebook page:

    https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15af1fec0e70e5fd