Norman 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.
Update (originally added to the above post on 04 June 2014; revised and moved into a comment 06 June 2014): My local (San Diego County) Republican Party chose to endorse two openly homosexual candidates for offices in the recent (03 June 2014 primary) election (results of which, by the way, may be found here, at least for a time; it appears the page will be overwritten each election rather than archived). The party even highlighted the two by making them key speakers at the monthly “all Republicans” event. How much this party support helped I do not know, but both candidates did well (one avoided a feared runoff, the other qualified to be the second of two candidates in the main election). Endorsing a party that endorses persons openly and unrepentantly engaged in what Scripture identifies as abominable sin does not square with my Bible-believing Christian convictions, so I’ve submitted my change of voter registration. I doubt the increasingly libertarian, let’s-ignore-divisive-social-issues local party will miss me. While I agree with those who think biblical government tends in many ways toward the libertarian, having once self-identified as a pro-life libertarian, I’ve come to doubt application of libertarian thinking to many non-economic issues, such as drug prohibition, earlier alcohol prohibition, and publicly acknowledged/accepted sexual aberration. (By this last locution, I mean I object to laws indicating aberrant sexual practices, not to be confused with “orientations” claimed to motivate such practices, are acceptable and should be publicly acknowledged as such. Since government has no legitimate authority to observe or “spy out” what consenting parties do in private, laws against sexual aberration, such as sodomy laws, only address, insofar as enforcement is concerned, such behaviors as are not kept private.) I no longer see ordered liberty as sustainable where one legalizes (or stops enforcing laws against) activities destructive of self and of the moral values that prevent society’s disintegration.