Danger (Warning) LabelNorman Geisler and Frank Turek observe an inconsistency in U.S. lawmaking. On the one hand, use of government force to discourage smoking is deemed appropriate because studies find that smokers die, on average, seven years sooner than non-smokers. On the other hand, though at least one study indicates that homosexual practices correlate with a much greater reduction in life-expectancy than smoking, government force is not only not used to discourage homosexual behavior, but is even used to encourage acceptance of homosexual practices as legitimate (through selection of public school textbooks and planning of biased sexual education curricula, for example).

“One study of objective data regarding homosexuality was published in 1994 in the Omega Journal of Death and Dying. The study compared 6,737 obituaries/death notices from eighteen U.S. homosexual journals with obituaries from two conventional newspapers….The obituaries from the non-homosexual newspapers indicated longevity similar to the U.S. averages…median age of death for married men…seventy-five, and for married women, seventy-nine. But the median age of death for homosexuals, documented in the homosexual publications…,….for homosexual men who did not have AIDS…was forty-two….[and for] homosexual men who did have AIDS…was thirty-nine….The 163 lesbians in the study registered a median age of death at forty-four….What is alarming about these results is that—even without the AIDS epidemic—the homosexual lifestyle is so unhealthy that homosexuals are dying at nearly half the age of the general population! Compare this to the average age of death of cigarette smokers….[who] die, on average, nearly seven years earlier than non-smokers. If we believe that it is right to discourage and restrict smoking in our society, how can we honestly believe it is right to sanction and encourage homosexual behavior?”—Norman Geisler and Frank Turek, Legislating Morality: Is It Wise? Is It Legal? Is It Possible?, pages 131-2 in the 1998 Bethany House edition.