Going, Going, Gone? The Church of England and LGBTQ Part 1 focused on the alarming situations in the UK, comparing the trajectories of the established churches in Wales and England. We are at a crossroad and only God knows how things will end.

This is personal for me. One of my closest (now) ex-evangelical friends, 'Sue', recently 'saw the light'. Why? The conservative arguments she had relied on in the past appeared insufficient in meeting the needs of the hurting LGBTQ individuals she loved.

Sadly, Sue's views have hardened and she can no longer hear different perspectives. However, others may still be open, and of course, with God, all things are possible.

But Sue's situation (and there are scores like her) is a key reason I focused on in Part 2 on the specific issues of sexual fluidity, therapies, 'gay as symptom' and the exciting ex-LGBTQ world. More could be said, but here may I encourage my reader to do their own research, perhaps starting with The International Federation for Therapeutic and Counselling Choice (IFTCC). 

Capturing the kids

As lesbian activist, Patricia Warren, has observed, 'Whoever captures the kids owns the future'. And thus far, guess who is winning?

There are many contributing factors, such as the implosion of a coherent communal moral/sexual ethic, secularism, hedonism, radical autonomous individualism, ubiquitous pornography, sexual abuse and technological advances, including the internet and the pill. Carl Trueman's superb Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution is well worth a read for more insight on this. 

Losing the next generation

This article focuses on the agenda of the LGBTQ and its impact on the next generation. Though many in the Church appear oblivious, those outside its walls see it clearly.

It is a well-known phenomenon which a few of us have been monitoring over many years. However, our concerns are met with yawns, capitulating shrugs, or a 'well, this is important but not our responsibility'.

My Muslim colleagues ask me what happened: 'Don't Christian parents care their kids are going gay?' Answer: 'Basically, no.' Sadly, many do not appear to care about their own going gay, never mind the rest. But what of Jesus' clear teaching on children, millstones etc?

In a recent meeting with Muslim leaders, one told me that despite the negatives of this work, she would carry on. 'I will have to give an account of my actions to God one day. How can I face Him if I have done nothing?'

The LGBTQ agenda

It has provided a conducive milieu for kids to 'explore' their sexuality and gender identity. Though not totally lost, what was once so obvious - the goodness, rightness and normality of heterosexuality, marriage and the family - is now up for grabs.

Most adults have some inkling their offspring (children, adolescents, and young adults, perhaps especially grandchildren) operate with rather different assumptions about these matters from themselves, but few realize the extent and ramifications.

Often a form of DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell) works until a grandchild announces they are transitioning, and their new name is ..., while their pronouns are ... For the parents, 'Better a live trans child than a dead cis one.' Game, set, match.

In and out of the classroom

Even if youngsters are relatively solid in their own moral understanding and psycho-sexual identity, 'out' LGBTQ youngsters - T and Q especially - force the issue, so all kids become involved through compelled speech or intimate contact in changing rooms with penis-possessing 'females' or vagina-possessing 'males'.

Depending on their age/stage/development, some youngsters can handle such madness, while others cannot.

Even if they still manage (somehow) to maintain a biblical perspective, do they know how to defend it when challenged by woke peers, teachers, Tik Tok, Instagram and so on?

Though many aspects and arguments could be explored, the focus here is on powerful strategies deployed to influence youngsters which remain largely unchallenged. They are, in turn: anti-gay injustice; full inclusion; and gay is healthy.

Claim number one: the injustice and cruelty of being 'anti-gay'

The following is 'A message from the gay community', sung by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus in 2021:

You think we're sinful, you fight against our rights, you say we all lead lives you can't respect.

But you're just frightened, you think that we'll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Funny, just this once you're correct.

We'll convert your children, happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly, and you will barely notice it ...

We'll make them tolerant and fair ...

We're coming for your children ...

We'll convert your children, and make an ally of you yet  

Thus far this 'conversion crusade' to make youngsters 'tolerant and fair' has been fabulously successful. They have a keen sense of justice, feel the pain of the underdog, and hate bullying and discrimination. However, these laudable, legitimate aims are sabotaged and weaponised to serve the LGBTQ agenda.

Pushback

Conservatives must stand against the bullying of all youngsters, regardless of their sexual orientation status. Sometimes we have been silent, to our shame.

However, for the most part, the pendulum has swung too far in the opposit direction and now those who question LGBTQ values and this 'new normal' are bullied and punished. How is that right?

See for instance, this illuminating account shared in The Telegraph last month under the title "I supported the trans community unquestioningly – until my sister wanted to become a boy".

"There are strict rules my generation is expected to follow when it comes to trans, and I know I'd be breaking them if I told the full story and how it made me feel ... [S]o few people of my age dare to talk about trans in any way but positively."

Real help for LGBTQ youngsters

It is quite true that many youngsters honestly struggle with their same-sex attraction and/or gender dysphoria and yet are given little real help. They find nothing shifts over the years, though they have done all they could to change. They feel trapped. Many are trapped.

This is a key reason I focused on sexual fluidity and the ex-LGBT community. These individuals have the T shirt, and intimately know those worlds, but also, have found something so much better, healthier, holier. Some of their powerful testimonies can be found here. See also the powerful testimony of former gay rights advocate, James Parker.

Even those who are spared this plight have LGBTQ friends. What about their needs?

Claim number two: we include all, unlike those racist, ignorant haters!

Conservatives are constantly backfooted by the uncontested claim to the moral high ground by LGBTQ entities who are kind, good, inclusive, loving, progressive, educated, unlike increasingly ridiculous, boorish Neanderthals like me.

Powerful LGBTQ school groups such as Educate and Celebrate insist that 'Together we can make society a more welcoming place for everyone'. Just Like Us, another such school group, claims to be 'For you, for me, for all of us.' 

According to Christians at Pride in June 2022, "We believe God's inclusive love is for all, and that our sexualities and gender identities reflect the beauty of who God is." 

Newsflash: Official LGBTQ entities discriminate too - and they are hypocritical about it

I have in mind the various still-closeted sexualities and sexual minority communities. Many echo gay talking points verbatim: born this way; tried to change but couldn't; not hurting anyone; tired of the 'closet'; the real authentic me; my true identity; our young are damaged by societal stigma, ignorance and discrimination etc.

Sound familiar? I will focus on two here.

What about those in consensual incestuous relationships? Does inclusivity include them? Or Minor Attracted People (MAPS aka paedophiles, despite their insistence that they are not). The smart ones add a 'NO' before MAP, meaning non-offending. Does inclusivity include them?

Other sexual minorities include polyamorists (for whom two will not do); zoophiles (who have loving consensual relationships with animals, mostly larger mammals) and necros (those who claim to 'love' the dead). Of these three, polys have been the most successful.

For Canadian poly leader, John Ince, "Gay history shows that liberation comes in steps. First gay relationships had to be accepted as legitimate and non-criminal. Once that occurred then gay marriage followed. I think our normalization will follow the same course."

And of course, in a very different vein, what about including those from the ex-LGBT world?

So in fact, activists get away with doing what they condemn us for doing. Call them on it. If they can 'discriminate', then so can we. Another approach is to answer the specious claims from Kirk and Madsen's seminal After the Ball on gay being the 'new black': it isn't and ex-LGBT voices prove it.

Claim number three: gay is healthy

Activists have convinced youngsters that respecting people means respecting and validating what they do. That is false. As writer and speaker Dr Andre Van Mol notes, "People are equal, but behaviours are not."

There are huge downsides to LGBTQ lifestyles, but mostly they remain unknown and invisible. I focus here on gay sexual activity because important research has been done there, and also because all our youngsters are being treated as potentially queer, which involves orifice 'equality' in short.

Many struggle to discover their identity and so 'explore' different sexual options as a way of 'sorting themselves out'. They are told, 'Try this, try that, see what suits.'

Not so healthy after all

Mandatory sex education has a lot to answer for. One of the worst is CSE (Comprehensive Sexuality Education) with its promotion of high-risk sex common and popular in the MSM community (Men who have Sex with Men. This is one reason the LGBT programme to 'make schools safe and inclusive' is alarming.

And to be sure, heterosexuals engage in high-risk sex: think E L James' dreadful Fifty Shades of Grey and the proliferation of increasingly violent, obscene pornography.

However, professionals can push back and protest. Why are MSM behaviours sacrosanct?

I have consistently maintained that what adults do is their business (to a large extent). However, youngsters need far more protection.

Small population, high rates of disease

So, for instance, are these kids taught that even though the MSM population is actually very small, it has high rates of disease and damage?

And to be sure, not all MSM engage in anal sex, but gay health charities provide graphic details of niche sex acts - you can find out more about what I'm talking about here but I must warn you it's graphic. 

According to 2021 figures from the Office for National Statistics, 3.2% of the population aged 16 and over identifies as LGB. 

However, this tiny population accounted for over a third (36%) of new HIV infections in England in the same year, according to the Terrence Higgins Trust. 

It also accounts for 71% of increasingly-hard-to-treat new gonorrhoea cases and 80% of new syphilis cases, according to the UK Health Security Agency in 2021. 

The above statistics exclude the latest alarming rise of STIs in these communities from June 2023.

And what of the other diseases and health conditions which beset the MSM communities? 

Receptive anal intercourse (RAI) and females: uh oh!

Even the Guardian newspaper is now acknowledging serious downsides, though only, oddly, for women. In August last year, the newspaper ran this story: "Rise in popularity of anal sex has led to health problems for women." The article cited two top surgeons who reported that incontinence, bleeding and STIs were among the consequences. Little wonder these surgeons wanted doctors to raise the topic with their patients. 

Moreover, in terms of HIV, worldwide RAI is 17 times riskier than receptive vaginal intercourse for getting HIV. Is it any surprise that HIV is the single largest killer of women of reproductive age?

Why then are youngsters encouraged to 'explore' such high-risk practices? For an egregious, flat-earth example (this time for underage lads) endorsed by the NHS see The Sexy Stuff.

Too dangerous

In reality, no one should do anything sexual with their anal/rectal area. It is far too risky - and this is not about 'orientation', 'identity', rights, homophobia or transphobia, but about basic human anatomy, physiology, pathologies and public health.

Furthermore, youngsters should be discouraged from exploring that part of their anatomy. They are far likelier than adults to engage in risk-taking, thrill-taking and novelty-seeking. Their bodies are being flooded with sex hormones and for starters, their limbic system - the brain's reward/pleasure centre, or the gas pedal as it were - appears to be far more mature than their prefrontal cortex - the brakes.

In fact, road traffic accidents are the main cause of death among those aged 15-29 around the globe. Why? Teens/those in their 20s take more risks and underestimate risks. They are also poorer at impulse regulation. 

We teach them not to smoke because 'smoking kills', yet we tacitly or openly encourage them when it comes to sex. Why? See Miriam Grossman's You're Teaching My Child What?.

A positive ending

A relatively new approach has emerged called Sexual Risk Avoidance, an evidence- based programme from the Atlanta-based We Ascend group which highlights the huge downsides of all kinds of teen sex and how youngsters, regardless of sexuality, should press pause and focus on wider life goals. It is applicable for all youngsters and has an impressive track record. 

Other wonderful resources are Joe McIlhaney Jr and Freda Bush's Hooked: The Brain Science on How Casual Sex Affects Human Development and Dr Joe Malone's Battles of the Sexes: Raising Sexual IQ to Lower Sexual Conflict and Empower Lasting Love.

Dr Lisa Nolland is CEO of the Marriage Sex and Culture Group, London.