In the mid-1970s, America was introduced to “Stockholm Syndrome” when 19 year old Berkeley student and heiress Patty Hearst was transformed from kidnap victim to domestic terrorist by identifying with her captors. Stockholm Syndrome is trauma-induced mental enslavement to the person or group causing the trauma, and Hearst has ever since been its poster child. Her identity hijacked, she joined her Simbionese Liberation Army kidnappers and eventually went to jail for crimes she committed voluntarily in that false persona.
In the unfolding spectacle of the Milo Yiannopoulos pederasty scandal, America is being introduced to a far more potent and common form of this phenomenon: Sodom Syndrome. Like millions of boys through the centuries, 14-year old Milo was recruited into homosexuality by an adult homosexual predator. He then justified his molester, “Father Michael,” in his own mind and recently in unwise but candid media comments. Very typically of adult homosexual men who experienced similar recruitment, Milo portrayed Father Michael as a sort-of coming-of-age mentor, and his young teen self as a consensual partner, fully competent to make his own decisions. (Historically, most male leaders of the “gay” movement share this profile).
In response to the scandal, Milo has recast himself as a helpless victim. While this seems cynical, he actually IS a victim to a far greater extent than most people, and even he himself, realize. I believe what Milo experienced at 14 was Sodom Syndrome, and like Patty Hearst to the SLA, his identity was subsumed into the LGBT culture by psycho/sexual trauma, reinforced by associating sexual climax with his predator’s orientation. Its all about brain chemistry and subconscious coping mechanisms, not free choice – at least not at first.
Like Milo I had a bad relationship with my father, and ventured into the world at an early age. An alcoholic from age 12 and a pothead/drug addict from 14 I lived a vagabond/hitchhiker lifestyle that lasted over ten years and spanned the continent. As such I was a ripe target for recruitment by predators and was solicited by “gay” recruiters countless times. To be fair, only rarely did these men attempt force and fortunately none was successful. To be clear, I never experienced same-sex attraction and didn’t succumb to “gay” recruitment, though I don’t believe anyone is immune to Sodom Syndrome.
When I was about 14 or 15, I spent an afternoon smoking pot with a “gay” guy in his 20’s who explained that young people during puberty have a very fluid sexual identity and how easy it had been for him to turn young teen boys into sex partners. I was very non-judgmental in those days, and didn’t think twice about it, nor similar conversations I had with other homosexuals (though few were that forthright). A confirming study I later saw said 25% of young teens suffer same-sex confusion but most grow out of it naturally by the end of adolescence.
After I had surrendered my life to Christ, been delivered from my addictions and started a family of my own, I saw the world in a wholly different light. A nineteen-year old man, who had “come out” as “gay” after being molested seven or eight years earlier, himself molested a four-year-old boy. I was close to both families and watched that child change from sweet and loveable to hyperactive and rage-driven. He never became homosexual himself to my knowledge, but never really recovered either and now in his 40s lives a miserable life of addiction and crime.
Later as my compassion grew for homosexuals, we took in a repentant ex-“gay” who was dying of AIDS. Sonny lived with us for the last year of his life and I was with him when he died. He attributed his homosexuality to being raped at age seven in a YMCA men’s room by a friend of his father. Sonny’s form of Sodom Syndrome compelled him to seek “gay” sex in settings with the strong smell of urine. He never chose to be that way and expressed deep shame in it, but even in his last days in Christ, the pattern burned into his brain by the youthful trauma remained the identity of his flesh while his mind and spirit were freed only through sexual abstinence.
In the earliest days of my ministry I had the pleasure of making friends with Anthony Falzerano, a leader of the ex-“gay” movement. He said the most common denominator in boys who get recruited is a kind-of “father-hunger” due to troubled family relationships, and that this is easily recognized by predators on the prowl because they suffered it themselves. He and other ex-“gay” leaders showed me by example that the cure to homosexual dysfunction is restoration of male normalcy through long-term healthy relationships with fatherly mentors.
My ex-“gay” friend Richard of Portland, OR sought me out in this way after the predator who made him his houseboy at age 12 (his piano teacher) kicked him out and replaced him when he got too old. My fatherly help blessed Richard through some rough times and gave me personal experience in mentoring ex-“gays.” He never went back and is doing well today.
I’m frequently accused by pro-LGBT leftists of being a suppressed homosexual myself because my life’s work has been opposing their agenda. That’s not true of me, but I’m not insulted by the suggestion because I don’t despise homosexuals like they assume. I do this work because I am a Christian saved by grace, trained for and assigned to this work by my Savior. I do it because I recognize that the sin of Sodom is the most destructive force in human civilization, singularly unique in it’s condemnation in the Bible. I do it because I don’t want to see any more young people lose their innate heterosexual identity to the Sodom Syndrome. Make no mistake – the problem is growing like runaway cancer because we’ve allowed it to go mainstream.
Past criticisms notwithstanding, my heart grieves for Milo Yiannopoulos, because I see what I might myself have become under different circumstances and it is hard to watch anyone crash and burn so spectacularly. What Milo really needs is his Father in Heaven, of course, but he also needs a Dad to lead him out of the darkness of perversion back into the light of normalcy. I pray that this crisis will open his life and heart to both. I’m personally willing to help him in that, if he doesn’t have anyone else. I also pray that Milo’s suffering will not be in vain, but truly open America’s eyes to Sodom Syndrome and it’s own sin in pretending – as a way to avoid confronting hard truths and harsh push-back — they’re all just “born that way” and can’t be cured.
