The University of Kentucky was criticized recently by two state senators for including a special session on lesbian health issues at a women’s health conference sponsored by the University.  The complaints set off a firestorm of indignation from at least one of the state’s major newspapers and several other state legislators known for their advocacy of gay rights.

State Senators Charlie Borders and Dick Roeding both expressed their concerns that UK’s inclusion of the special session was in conflict with the views of many of their constituents—constituents who fund, through their tax dollars, the University of Kentucky.  State Sen. Ernesto Scorsone and State Rep. Cathy Stein, expressed outrage, not that Borders and Roeding had said anything incorrect, but that they had said anything at all.

For legislators such as Scorsone and Stein—and a few people in the media, who chimed in later with the same message—it is simply not acceptable to question these kinds of events at all.  Disagreeing with the gay rights movement, they seem to suggest, is reason to be read out of civilized society.

What is interesting about all this is that these are the very people who have been telling the rest of us how important tolerance is in our society.  Yet when they come into contact with people who disagree with them, their own ability to practice tolerance fades into the background, replaced by its opposite.

And that isn’t the only inconsistency this little controversy has highlighted.

For years, critics of the gay rights movement have argued that there were significant health consequences associated with the gay lifestyle.  All the while, gay rights groups and their promoters in the media have done their best to deny this, downplaying, for example, the percentage of AIDS cases attributable to homosexual behavior, and criticizing those who made an issue of the affect of the gay lifestyle on the health of those who engaged in it.

Part of the reason for this, of course, is that one of the chief goals of gay rights groups has been to convince society at large that they are basically just like everyone else, and that their sexual practices are just as normal as those of heterosexuals.

But after years of telling us that there are no significant health consequences for their behavior, we are now told that our public universities need to devote special attention to gays because there ARE health consequences for their behavior.

Why is there a need for a special session on Lesbian health issues unless there are health ramifications for lesbianism?

Are gays now saying there are bad health consequences to what they do?

If this is so, then there is a much bigger story here than just a special session at a health conference. 

Martin Cothran is senior policy analyst with The Family Foundation of Kentucky, a nonprofit educational organization dealing with public policy issues that affect families.