Gays are victimized, says crime specialist

Anita Bryant is wrong, 10 to one.

This charge comes from one of the country's leading sex crime experts, not a gay.

Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign has blasted gays as morally unfit to teach in the schools.

"The facts are that 10 little girls are molested by male heterosexuals for every little boy that is molested by a male homosexual," said former FBI agent Walter V. McLaughlin of Philadelphia.

He is lecturing this week at the Case Western Reserve University Law School's Center for Criminal Justice.

"I have been with the FBI for 36 years, specializing in homosexual crime. I have to tell you that gays are more sinned against than sinning themselves," he said.

"The gay is burglarized, assaulted and blackmailed. He is often the. victim of what we call the 'fairy hawks,' who prey upon him."

McLaughlin, speaking to police officers, said that one of the biggest complaints against the average officer is that he treats homosexuals with contempt, ridicule and hostility.

Two leading Cleveland psychiatrists believe that gays in the classroom will not harm children.

"I don't believe that any legislation giving gays freedom in employment will increase child molestation," said Dr. Phillip Resnick, director of the court psychiatric clinic for Cuyahoga County.

"The public has a deep fear that homosexuals will molest children if they have no access to partners of their own. That's crazy," said psychiatrist Stephen Levine, an assistant professor and teacher of sexuality at CWRU.

How about a role model? Would a child be harmed by admiring someone with a homosexual life-style?

"There are many, many forces that impinge upon a child and that determine his sexual orientation," said Dr. Levine.

The public image of a depraved homosexual, lusting after children, is hysterical foolishness, prejudice and ignorance, he said.

"I'm not saying that there aren't men who molest children, but statistics show that they are usually heterosexual."

The three experts disagree about

the causes and possible cures of homosexuality.

"Reasons? I've heard about 16. Heredity. Environment. A possessive mother. I don't believe anyone really knows for sure," said McLaughlin.

He tends to agree with gays he has talked to who claim that they are born that way and can't change.

A male homosexual dotes on youth, McLaughlin has found, but this is not so of the female.

"She can't get rid of the womanly part of her that demands and gives affection, and she will stay with a partner even when she is older. Some still have a roving eye, though," he said.

Possibly, the homosexuality is involuntary, he said. It's either in them or it isn't.

"I would say that it is involuntary," said Dr. Resnick.

"However, I have had some who wanted to change, and some of these have been successful. Others have tried and have been unable to change."

Is the gay person born this way? There is no scientific evidence to suport that, said Dr. Levine.

"There may be some undefined constitutional element toward it, but there is no good evidence. So we think that homosexuality is a response to postnatal factors, many of which can not be identified."

Dr. Levine knows people who have given up the gay life.

I know that this is a politically unpopular statement. Members of the gay community believe that they were born gay. But I have known people with a homo-erotic pattern of response for many years who have been able to suppress it.

Different people have different willpower. Some have remarkable willpower, he believes.

"Once a homosexual, always a homosexual?

"That may be true for a large number of people, but it is not true for everyone. Some can be helped. You have to see the whole spectrum of the problem. The degree of homosexuality differs in every person," Dr. Levine said.

McLaughlin said that he is not in favor of gays or against them.

"But they have a right to live as a minority in this country," he said. By Jane Scott