CHRISTINE Holt (Your Letters, August 7), complains about myths surrounding homosexuality. But I fear she is herself guilty of simply repeating gay lobby propaganda.

She ignores the crucial distinction between the individual homosexual, for whom I can have a great deal of sympathy, and the systematic, organised lobby presenting itself to the world as a persecuted minority determined to impose its definition of itself on the rest of us.

Gay spokesmen employ the technique of neutralising criticism by labelling their opponents as "homophobic" (i.e. people with a mental disorder) which is precisely the technique used by the Soviet regime which always insisted that its critics were mad, and must be confined to a psychiatric prison. Frank and open discussion is suppressed, and a climate in which selective perception and false and distorted arguments can flourish is thereby created.

Underlying Ms Holt's allegations about the treatment of homosexuals is the fashionable notion that homosexuality and heterosexuality are equal. But this is manifestly false. Homosexual behaviour is sterile, dead-end sex which rarely means anything beyond itself, whereas heterosexual behaviour carries with it the possibility of creating new human life. Homosexuality is biologically futile and statistically rare. (See "Sexual Behaviour in Britain", Wellings K. et al, Penguin Books, 1994). If we relied on homosexuals to perpetuate the species, humankind would become extinct.

It is right and proper that our institutional arrangements should reflect these obvious differences - to speak of homosexual marriage is to pervert the meaning of words and to insult those who are legitimately married and struggling to raise a family.

Ms Holt says that Clause 28 prevents homosexuality being mentioned in schools. This is not so. Clause 28 forbids the promotion of homosexuality among children in school and I believe that, in doing so, it expresses the views of the vast majority of parents.

She also implies that homosexuality is genetic in origin. But the aetiology of the condition is a matter of considerable debate - there is some American evidence that it may be a learned response and may be curable.

Moreover, again contrary to Ms Holt's assertion, homosexuals are significantly more implicated in the sexual abuse of children than sexually normal people. Though most homosexual men are not paedophiles, the fact remains that 35 per cent of paedophiles are homosexual, while only about 2 per cent of adult males are homosexual. Around 80 per cent of the victims of paedophiles are boys molested by adult males (see "The proportions of homosexual and heterosexual paedophiles among sex offenders against children", Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 1992, 18, 34-43). What is more, homosexual behaviour is a serious health hazard (according to a speech of Lord Quirk in the House of Lords debate on the age of consent, Hansard, July 22, 1998). It is a sad but well attested fact that the life expectancy of male homosexuals is considerably less than their heterosexual counterparts.

As for Aids, the "gay community" bears a heavy responsibility for its development and spread. Current figures indicate that 12,565 people have developed Aids since 1982, and just 161 have been heterosexual victims (Daily Telegraph, July 2, 1996).

These are the realities of homosexual behaviour and culture, realities which have been effectively concealed from the public by an aggressive minority intent on suppressing the truth, and by successive governments outrageously supporting them (see the material produced by, and for, homosexuals by the Terence Higgins Trust at public expense).

And, far from being a sinned-against minority afraid of "coming out", homosexuals positively trumpet their condition. Has Ms Holt not noticed the "Glad to be Gay" badges, the pink ribbon days, the "gay villages", and the triumphant march through London with homosexuals and assorted sexual perverts strutting their stuff, with drums beating, whistles blowing, flags flying and defiant shouting and bawling? A less repressed and inhibited group of people would be hard to imagine.

As for Ms Holt's attempts to enlist biblical support for homosexual behaviour, has she forgotten the defining characteristic of male homosexuality is sodomy? And has the Bible or the Church ever supported that?

Ms Holt speaks of the need to halt the moral decline in our society. I entirely agree with her. We might begin that urgent task by honestly facing the realities of the homosexual life style and its effect on the general moral climate.

RAY HONEYFORD,

Wragby Close, Bury.

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