On Americans For Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour, AFTAH president Peter LaBarbera spoke with board members John McCartney and Jim Finnegan about Sheriff Paul Babeu, the Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona who recently came out as gay after his ex-boyfriend accused him of trying to deport him, and Babeu’s claim that he was assaulted by a priest when he was a child. LaBarbera claimed that Babeu is gay because he was abused as a child and is “not a natural homosexual but a victim of a homosexual predator.” “The saddest thing of all when you see somebody who has been is a victim of a pedophile,” LaBarbera said, “is to then say that when you have these unnatural sexual attractions and feelings, to say that you’re ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ when you’re obviously just a victim of a predator, that is so tragic.”
Later in the interview, Finnegan argued that “the violence that caused this” type of abuse is being “aided” by the government by “allowing that lifestyle to be legitimized” when it legalizes same-sex marriage. LaBarbera added that the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal was because “the homosexuals got in the Catholic Church.”
LaBarbera also asked McCartney about churches that allow openly gay and lesbian parishioners to receive ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday, a practice which McCartney condemned:
LaBarbera and McCartney blamed the growing acceptance of gays and lesbians on aggressive protests which he claimed intimidated psychiatrists into dropping homosexuality as a mental health disorder, which LaBarbera described as “political terrorism.”
However, the American Psychiatric Association states:
All major professional mental health organizations have gone on record to affirm that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association’s Board of Trustees removed homosexuality from its official diagnostic manual, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Second Edition (DSM II). The action was taken following a review of the scientific literature and consultation with experts in the field. The experts found that homosexuality does not meet the criteria to be considered a mental illness.
