We have looked at the reasons why parents should be concerned about "gay" recruitment and the homosexual agenda. We now turn to the question of how to recruit-proof a child. The first key is a strong family.

Earlier we rejected the notion put forth by "gay" activists that "love makes a family." Such a concept might appeal to the soft and sentimental side of our personalities, but intellectually we know that love alone cannot make a family. A family is more substantial than that; it is the social unit upon which all of civilization is built. But what does family structure itself have to do with our definition of family? Why can't just any set of unrelated individuals live together as a "family," simply by calling themselves one?

To understand the answers to these questions, we must look deeper into the way that people are organized and functionally related in families. All families, as defined in every society, begin with a male-female pair (this is true even in our age of artificial insemination and surrogate parenting). Just as this pair contains within it the reproductive possibility of many offspring, even many generations, so also it contains the seeds of the society and culture to which these offspring will belong. This is so because we humans are social beings who learn through our childhood experiences in our families how to interact in complex, organized, purposeful and even ingenious and selfless ways. In addition, at least in our "Western" cultural tradition, we humans produce individuals, people who regard themselves as whole and independent beings, beings with rights and responsibilities which derive from their individual worth and autonomy. Both the social being and the individual spring from the possibilities contained in the male-female pair, but these conflicting entities are only effectively balanced in a child's life in the context of an intact, healthy family structure.

The meaning held in the male-female pair begins with the lesson of duality. The central idea of relationship is self and other, "you" and "I." This idea forms early in a child's mind as he or she differentiates "self" from "mother," but it is very incomplete. The child needs to understand the far-reaching implications of being equal to, yet unlike, another human, and of having to step outside the limits of one's own personality and experience to understand the motivations of another.

The mother and father represent the two poles of humanity to their child, who can see that they don't look the same, sound the same, or even move or react in the same ways. Nevertheless, they clearly love each other and their child, and this circumstance of both love and obligation leads them to interact in many ways which do not escape the attention of the child. The child sees them having conflicts of self-interest and clashes of personality; he then sees them each set aside some part of their personal claims to reach a resolution. The child sees them approach a common goal from completely different, distinctly male and female perspectives; he sees them cooperate, each contributing differently, to reach the goal.

The child sees when they fail to understand each other and struggle to communicate, each slowly reaching a better working knowledge of the other. The child sees them show delight in each other's differences, in ways which reveal their natural complementarity and which model their unique qualities of maleness and femaleness. He see them behave sometimes as if they were one person, other times as complete opposites. He sees all this daily, in an intimate way, set against a background of many events and stages of his life. And he never fails to absorb the smallest detail because so much of it centers on him.

On this central core of the mother-father relationship are constructed the functions of the family: nurturing, accountability, intimacy, protection, training in every aspect of social behavior, skills development, recreation, comfort, advocacy, companionship, and many more. And the values and practices which support these functions are also modeled by the parent couple: altruism, compassion, loyalty, trustworthiness, courage, forgiveness, respect, considerateness, cheerfulness, willingness and many more. In short, the family is there to meet most of the needs of all of its members, and all of this complex functioning is passed from generation to generation by an originating pair, a man and a woman who commit themselves to this task.

A few decades ago, it would not have been necessary to describe how a family is built and what it is supposed to do. Then, as now, many families did not match this "ideal" of family function, but nearly everyone agreed on the model. Then, as now, there were many variations on the central pattern: members were lost or gained, generations lived together, sibling families shared parental duties among themselves. Then, as now, functional success was a relative thing; some families functioned well in many areas, some failed to function well in most respects. But common knowledge of the model helped people to correct the flaws. When a family member was lost, for example, through death or desertion or divorce, other people recognized what functions were missing, and often succeeded in replacing them. When a family member malfunctioned, through violence or addiction or criminal behavior, responsible relatives often moved in to separate that person from the people who were harmed, and to undo the damage, if possible. There was a common standard, and most people could judge whether or not it was being met, and act accordingly.

We have the same ability today, if we are willing to accept the model, based on a healthy male-female relationship. There is no reason why a single-parent family can't accomplish most of the functions of the "model" family, if the parent knows what those functions are and is willing to find people and means to fulfill them. Grandparents, close family friends, church families, neighbors can often provide what is missing. The important thing is to know what is missing and then to work to replace it. The same thing applies to families that are seriously malfunctioning, if one or both parents is willing to acknowledge what's wrong, then repairs can be made and functions can be replaced. Families don't have to be thrown away just because they're broken.

While a family can be repaired, one cannot be constructed from unrelated parts. A family is more than simply a collection of exchangeable components. It is not like a machine which can be disassembled and reassembled with no loss of function or serviceability; it is more like a living organism for which replacement parts are always something less than what was lost — like a prosthetic limb to replace a missing arm or leg. Such a substitute may be adequate to meet a person's basic needs, perhaps substituting so well as to be nearly unnoticeable, but it is never equal or preferable to the real thing.For this reason a homosexual "family" is the most inadequate of substitutes for raising a child.

Not only is the child disadvantaged by the absence of his natural parent of the same or opposite gender, but the proffered replacement (the natural parent's same-sex partner) doesn't fit, like trying to substitute a leg for an arm.

A final consideration deserves mention in this discussion of the role of family structure in raising healthy children. We must acknowledge that many single parents, for various reasons, cling to the belief that their children are not disadvantaged by the loss of the other parent. Such an attitude may contribute to the possibility of gender dysfunction in a child if it deters a single mom or dad from finding a parental substitute for his or her child to learn from. Popular culture has not helped in this regard, legitimizing as it does the concept of throwaway marriages and "take-it-all-in-stride" kids. Significantly, most former homosexuals testify that family dysfunction and/or missing parental role models played a major part in their becoming "gay." Thankfully, however, the majority of single parents seem to recognize that broken and incomplete homes affect children very deeply and work to provide their children with parental surrogates. (See "Advice to Single Parents" in Step Five).

This having been said, we return to the specific family dynamics which help steer a child towards healthy sexual function as an adult.

If our model of the healthy family is true, the thing to repair first in a dysfunctional home and the relationship to strengthen first in an already healthy home is the husband-wife relationship. We have discussed the ways in which healthy couples interact. Here we focus on the distinct roles of husbands and wives in a family.

A child is better prepared to avoid recruitment into the "gay" lifestyle if his parents model healthy male and female roles in the home. A child not only needs to see his parents working through their differences to achieve common goals, he needs to envision himself as one of the parts of a successful couple. He or she needs to identify what it means to be a man or a woman. When we speak of roles in this context we are not necessarily talking about the division of housework, but about the way in which a husband and wife relate as a man and a woman. Feminist doctrine envisions husbands and wives as the equivalent of partners in a business enterprise in which roles are interchangeable and duties are apportioned according to a partner's greater knowledge or skills. But marriage is not a business and many of men's and women's most important roles are not interchangeable. While men and women are equal in worth and dignity, they are not equal in traits and qualities which are helpful in meeting various family needs. Each tends to be better at certain things simply by virtue of gender. As violently as some people will react to the suggestion, it remains true that the child with the best chance for developing a healthy gender identity and enjoying happiness in life will have parents that look something like Ozzie and Harriet.

If a family seeking to protect a child from homosexuality were somehow limited to enhancing just one factor in that child's life, it would most certainly be the influence of a father's love. Of all the factors which shape a child's sense of sexual identity, the influence of a father seems the most vital. Among the published testimonies of former homosexuals, both male and female, the parent most often blamed for leaving children emotionally vulnerable to sexual seduction or gender identity problems is Dad. Conversely, the factor which appears to characterize a home which produces sexually healthy offspring is the presence of a loving, involved father during childhood. The mere presence of a father in the home, however, does not ensure a child's healthy sexual identity. Many ex-"gays" report that their fathers were physically present in their families, but were somehow distant or detached from the lives of their children. Commonly, Dad was an alcoholic or sometimes just a workaholic.
Often the fathers of "gay" men who adopt an effeminate persona are themselves ultra-macho and aloof from or condemning of their sons. Lesbian sexual dysfunction, as well, seem closely linked to the father's rejection or abuse, traumatizing refusals to love, which result in an unwillingness to trust any man for emotional security or physical intimacy.

Lesbianism and the Destruction of Fatherhood

Since the rise of radical feminism in the 1960s and 70s, the perception of a man's role in the family has changed dramatically. In feminist thought, fathers have been removed from their roles as chief breadwinners and protectors of their wives and children and have become almost superfluous in the family unit. In lesbian political rhetoric, fathers often appear as society's chiefest villains; they are, by their very nature, presumed to be child abusers and wife beaters. Lesbianism has become the driving force behind the modern feminist movement (the part of it which gets media attention) and it is the lesbian distortion of feminism with which families must contend in their efforts to recruit-proof their children.

Until recent decades, feminism has been family centered. Early feminists envisioned a society in which women were empowered, not for their own selfish purposes, but to fight injustice and immorality which threatened their families and their society. Only since the "gay" movement has become a more potent political force has feminism come to be dominated by lesbians and female homosexualists. The feminist agenda has shifted from altruistic and egalitarian goals to more selfish ones, including the goal of consequence-free sexual liberty. Traditional feminism has not viewed men as adversaries to be defeated, but as family members to be persuaded. The lesbian-influenced version, however, portrays men as enemies of women whose role can be sidestepped. The two most feminine of all roles, those of wife and mother, are treated as evidence of patriarchal oppression. The hallmark attitudes of radical feminism clearly did not originate among emotionally healthy women, but they are entirely consistent with the emotional profile which often characterizes lesbians: bitterness and anger toward men and their roles. Many women have tolerated the more extreme distortions of feminism because they were sold as part of a larger package of beliefs and goals which held genuine appeal for women: greater economic independence and career opportunities, workplace equality, and greater recognition for their personal and collective accomplishments outside of the domestic sphere.

Lesbianized feminism today serves the "gay" agenda far better than it serves women. Indeed, the goals and strategies of the "gay" agenda have been recast as tenets of feminism which, especially at universities, have been marketed to women as personal goals to be zealously pursued. Where else but in the upside-down world of homosexuality would femininity be redefined in masculine terms (competitive, aggressive, and individualistic) and feminist goals be stretched to include the "right" to kill on the battlefield? Where else but in the "gay"-influenced mind would childbearing be seen as an obstacle to the "more important" benefits, sexual freedom and pleasure — benefits which are held to easily outweigh the value of an unborn child's life? What other group but the "gay" community would place a higher value on encouraging women to put self before family than on exhorting men to put family before self? (Recall that making men more responsible, not enabling women to be less responsible, was the goal of the early women's movement.)

As with any other social movement which threatens the traditional family, we must ask who truly benefits from radical, lesbianized feminism (often called "gender feminism"). The average woman does not, certainly. Under modern feminism, earlier victories have been turned against women. The hard-won option of choosing a career over family, for example, has now become a mandate to have both; women are made to feel that they haven't lived up to their full potential if they stay at home to raise their children. But the "gay" movement does benefit, and substantially, from the indoctrination of women with radical feminist goals. The devaluing of the pivotal role in the family, the at-home wife and mother, helps to destabilize the family itself. The undermined and downgraded image of family life, added to the many poorly-functioning families, makes the normalizing of "alternative" lifestyles such as homosexuality easier, and the contrast between normalcy and deviancy less noticeable.

"Gender" feminism also encourages women to seek so-called equality in some of the least healthy areas of male behavior, such as sexual libertinism. The increase of sexually libertine behavior and attitudes among members of both sexes has caused major disruptions in the institutions of marriage and the family, as well as unleashing on society epidemics of sexually transmitted disease, illegitimate births, abortions, infanticides and violent behavior associated with sexual addiction. It has also increased the incidence of divorce and "serial marriage" and has made men less willing to accept the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood.

Perhaps lesbian-dominated feminism's most telling blow to the traditional family is the emasculation of fathers. Stripped of authority as the heads of their households and robbed of the sense of worth and purpose which men derive from their traditional roles, fathers in feminist-influenced homes often lose sight of their importance to their wives and children. Such men may then seek their sense of self-worth and value outside of the family — in their careers or perhaps even in extramarital relationships. The vital role of the father is weakened and diminished, or lost altogether, resulting in ever greater numbers of "fatherless" children. These children will be willing to believe whatever radical feminism teaches about the "evils" of family and fatherhood; conversely, they will also be doubly vulnerable to the "fatherly" approach of adult sexual predators.

Androgynous Children

A final area in which "gender" feminism has influenced the family is the sex roles of children. Starting in the 1960s, certain child care manuals advocated encouraging children to take opposite-gender roles in their play, i.e., trying to get boys to play with dolls or girls to focus on trucks. Certainly, under normal circumstances, no child should be discouraged from playing with the toys he or she chooses, but to try to change these choices in favor of opposite-gender ones sends confusing messages, suggesting to the child that there is something wrong with his or her gender. Recent years have seen a retreat from this kind of foolishness, even as popular journalism has rediscovered the importance of sexual differences. But the bitter heritage of "gender" feminism is still with us, and goes on contributing to the erosion of the family.

Parents of both sexes should examine their beliefs and assumptions about the roles of men and women, and test whether these views contribute or detract from unity and cooperation in their family and marriage. If a belief or practice only promotes selfishness or conflict between the sexes, then your family would be better off without it.

Your effort to recruit-proof your child should include teaching him basic attitudes that we might call strength of character. Unfortunately, along with the decline in morality in our culture, we have seen a tendency in many parents to indulge children's weaknesses, perhaps because parents have been more inclined to indulge themselves. All children naturally develop some level of self-restraint and personal responsibility in childhood, but the strength of such qualities in a child's character are largely determined by parents. Parents who (as a team) firmly, consistently and lovingly insist on proper behavior, good habits, and a positive attitude will be more likely to produce strong and emotionally secure children; children who will be less vulnerable to "gay" recruitment. Most harmful to a child is a parental figure who confuses indulgence with love and allows the child to define his own rules. Such a child will be forced to learn self-control and other necessary qualities (if he ever learns them) through painful lessons in the real world. Our jails are filled to overflowing with people who haven't yet learned these lessons. So is the "gay" community.

One of the most important concepts a parent can teach a child is the value of logical thinking. Logic helps a child to challenge and to test new ideas, preventing him from simply being swept along by his emotions. Unfortunately, the trend in our culture is for people to let themselves be ruled by their feelings and not by logic. Axioms such as "Follow your heart," and "Do what feels right" have, in popular speech, replaced earlier standards like "Use your head." This is partly because of laziness. Reasoning one's way to a logical conclusion can be hard work, but making a decision based on feelings is easy: you determine your emotional response to an idea, then you act upon it. But, as always happens when you follow the line of least effort, there is a problem: over-reliance on feelings can easily cloud a person's reason, allowing him to reach false and sometimes harmful conclusions on important issues. For example, we have seen that pro-"gay" propaganda is intellectually very shallow, yet many non-homosexuals are passionate defenders of the "gay" lifestyle. For many such defenders, whose ranks include a great many young people, the sole explanation for their pro-"gay" stance is their susceptibility to emotional manipulation. They have bought into the notion that "gays" are helpless victims, or confused "gays" with racial groups who are genuinely disadvantaged, and because of their reaction to these issues, preexisting emotions take over. Unfortunately, factual arguments have little impact on feelings-reliant people, so it is very difficult to persuade them of the truth once they have made an emotional commitment to a position.
This is one reason why parents should stress logical thinking from the very beginning of their child's learning process. And, of course, there is no area of life in which the ability to think logically doesn't give you an advantage.

How to Teach Logic

Logical thinking is taught by example. A parent who establishes sensible rules and applies them fairly and consistently, and who takes time to sit down with a child and think through a problem, will have a pretty good chance of raising a logical and clear-thinking child. A parent whose rules are arbitrary or unreasonable, or who fails to properly enforce or apply the rules, or who deals with personal problems in an emotional and unreasoning way, will probably raise an illogical and emotionally vulnerable child. The principles of teaching logic to a child are much like the principles of bringing about justice in society. Justice requires the equal application of the law; law that is made up of the minimum of rules and restrictions that are necessary to preserve the good order of society. These cannot be arbitrary laws, they must directly serve the best interests of the people and they must be applied fairly to everyone. They must also be firmly and consistently enforced. A truly just society is stable and secure because its citizens know that their system is fair and predictable. In the same manner, a family with a sensible parent, presiding over sensible parenting rules, is a safe and secure environment for children. In the process of growing up in such a home, a child learns the relationship between rational thinking and successful living and is thus less susceptible to emotional manipulation.

A slogan of "gay" pedophiles which was common in the 1960s is, "Sex before eight, or it's too late." This slogan reflects a belief among pederasts that children are easier targets for later recruitment into the homosexual lifestyle if they are sexualized (molested or otherwise sexually traumatized) in early childhood. This doesn't mean that older children or teenagers who have never been molested cannot be recruited into homosexuality, just that early sexualization makes children more vulnerable. Alfred Kinsey made the sexualization of children all the more possible by popularizing the view that children are naturally sexual from birth. We forcefully reject such a concept as the wishful and self-justificatory thinking of a man who is arguably the most destructive sexual predator in American history. However, we believe that children can become sexualized at any age through sexual trauma. Based upon personal observation, we believe that every person has a built-in "switch" that controls sexual awareness and response. Undisturbed, this switch is probably triggered by the body's hormones during puberty, but premature and traumatic exposure to a sexual experience can also awaken sexual awareness in a child. We believe that such an occurrence is also irreversible; one cannot "unring" the bell.

Wolves Among the Lambs

If our theory in the section above is true, then it should serve as an increased motivation to parents to shield their prepubescent children from premature exposure to sexuality. How can this be accomplished? In a later chapter we will address the impact of sexual imagery and content in entertainment media, but here we will focus on the actual physical contacts your child may have with family members and other children and adults. The first rule is never, never trust your child alone with anyone who has ever been charged or convicted of a sex-related crime involving children, or who you personally know or have good reason to suspect has engaged in such activity (even activity you might consider "minor"). It doesn't matter how much time has passed since the offense or how much counseling the person has received or how hurt he or she will feel by your stance. The nature of this type of sexual compulsion makes such a person absolutely untrustworthy. Sexual obsession with children is a lifelong, insoluble problem for most pedophiles.

The Wolf in Lamb's Clothing

Add to the list of people not to trust alone with your child, any other child who appears prematurely sexualized. Such children are not always readily identified, but if a child displays an interest in sexual matters well beyond his age level, he should not be trusted alone with your child. Chances are such a child has already begun exploring his sexual possibilities and will want to share his discoveries with your child. Don't let your less protective friends minimize such activity as harmless games. Childhood sexualization spreads through a community of children like a game of tag, stealing the innocence of every child who is touched. We don't place sexual experimentation by children in the same category with sexual molestation by an adult, which can cause immediate and far more serious emotional problems, but we believe such experimentation does make a child more vulnerable to sexual predators. It is also true that many of the children of today have been sexualized traumatically, either by a predatory adult or teenager, or by exposure to pornography or the like. These children will be likely to pass their distorted and unhealthy attitude about sex on to your child.

In the event that a parent learns of a problem after the fact, his response should be measured according to the type of activity that has sexualized his child. Molestation by an adult should be reported immediately to the authorities, preferably with the assistance of an advocate for the family such as a lawyer, minister or family counselor, to minimize the traumatic impact on the family. Many parents, out of ignorance of the effect of sexual molestation or fear of the stigma which may attach to the child, choose to sweep the problem under the rug and pretend that nothing has happened. Not only does such a failure to respond allow the sexual predator to preserve his anonymity and his access to other children, but it leaves a ticking time bomb of emotional rage and pain within the abused child. A sexually abused child needs special help to repair the damage; time alone will not heal the wound. Indeed, a very common factor which we have encountered in the testimonies of homosexuals is the occurrence of unremedied childhood molestation.

On the other hand, a parent should avoid overreacting to the discovery that a child has sexually experimented with peers. The bell cannot be "unrung," but a parent can avoid magnifying the bad effects on the child by not reacting too strongly. The best response is to inform all of the parents of the children involved of what has occurred and then to sit down with the child and have a reassuring talk about sexuality and its proper place and time, giving appropriate information to counter any distortions the child has picked up, and listening for emotional reactions to the experience. Included in the discussion should be the message that sex within marriage is a very important, healthy and normal part of a person's life, but that sex outside of marriage can cause terrible problems. (We challenge the reader who may not share this belief to reexamine the issue, keeping their children's emotional health in mind.) Such a talk should be tailored to the age of the child, but should not be delayed out of a belief that a particular child is too young. With the occurrence of a sexual incident, the child has become permanently sexually aware.

A parent's job at this stage is to help the child make a commitment to save sex for marriage and to help him understand why this is the very best way to have a happy life. The worst possible outcome is for the child to believe that further sexual experimentation is acceptable. A young child's vista of sexual adventure has even fewer boundaries than an adult's, because his moral standards have not yet been fully formed. The next most harmful result is for the child to believe, because of a parent's inappropriate response, that sex is dirty and secret, so that he learns to associate sexual excitement with shame and to carefully hide his further sexual experimentation.

A key to both preventing and to solving problems in our children's lives is good communication.Children are hungry for information and for feedback about their ideas.They seek answers to their many questions.If their parents are accessible and emotionally "safe," that's where they will go to satisfy their communication needs.If the channels of communication are closed or are overly difficult or uncomfortable to access, they will seek answers elsewhere.Good parent/child communication can prevent bad ideas and false information from skewing a child's outlook on life.In the event that faulty thinking somehow "gets past" a mom and dad, good parent/child communication can root it out later when it becomes an issue.

Lots of people in our modern culture have lots of bad ideas they want to teach to our children.The public schools, children's television, and a myriad of media have the ability to bypass parents and take their messages directly to the kids.A parent's best line of defense against harmful information is easy and open communication with his child.