Jim Logan, this one’s for you.
Marty posted his own response to the excellent New Yorker Magazine article. The first comment, posted by Marty himself, is a commercial for his auditing services, but a little further down the page was something that caught my eye – this moving comment from Jim Logan about the death of his brother, a victim of AIDS. Reading it, one can understand how Scientology gives comfort to the bereaved; like many religions, Scientology says that death enables the spirit to be freed from the body’s infirmaries.
(A quick primer on death: Scientology believes in reincarnation – specifically that death occurs when spirit (“Thetan”) leaves the body, returns to an interstellar “implant station” for a new round of brainwashing, and then attaches to another body just before birth. Once you become an Operating Thetan, you can drop your old body and pick out a new one at will.)
Jim said that his brother asked if he would have to be gay in his next life, and that at his brother’s funeral, several family members asked about Scientology’s view on homosexuality.
“I told them, sincerely, my own understanding,” writes Jim, “that there is no stance on this in the subject other than any person obsessed, heterosexually, or any other sexually, and ill at ease on the area, is subject to the influence of things that can be understood and they can be happier in their lives if they find they aren’t.”
Got that? According to Jim, Scientology takes no stand on homosexuality, except that people will be happier if they aren’t obsessed with sex.
This shows that Scientologists (like any other humans) only see what they want to see.
So, Jim, if you’re reading, I’d like to show you what Scientology’s stance on homosexuality actually is.
To this day, Dianetics – the book that you, Jim, described to Paul Haggis as an owner’s manual to the mind – is very clear on the subject, saying that homosexuality is a perversion, and perversion is dangerous. Here’s Hubbard:
“The sexual pervert (and by this term Dianetics, to be brief, includes any and all forms of deviation in Dynamic Two such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc…) is actually quite ill physically… the pervert is always a very ill person… he is… far from normal and… extremely dangerous to society.” — LRH, DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH
Hubbard goes on to say that such perversion is the result of engrams (bad memories), and implies that, as such, it can be cured with Dianetics.
Some Hubbard apologists have dismissed this viewpoint on homosexuality as typical of the time Dianetics was written (1950), but the verbiage I quoted appears in my 2002 paperback printing of Dianetics (page 152) as well as the 2007 version available online in PDF form (page 125).
In the 2007 edition of Handbook for Preclears, LRH says:
“Homosexuality is about 1.1 on the Tone Scale.” — LRH
1.1 is Covert Hostility, about which LRH says:
“The person may claim to love others and to have the good of others as his foremost interest. Yet at the same moment, he works (unconsciously or otherwise) to injure or destroy the lives and reputations of people and to also destroy property.” — LRH, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL
Calling someone “1.1” is about the worst insult a Scientologist can hurl. Marty and his flock often accuse Church leader David Miscavige of being 1.1, and the Church-going Marty h8rs say the same thing about him and Mike Rinder.
You got that, Jim? Hubbard called your brother a 1.1. In print, no less.
One of the questions to be asked on the Johannesburg Security Check (HCO PL 7 April 1961) – and this is from the 1961 version of the policy written by Hubbard – is “Have you ever practiced Homosexuality?” To put that in context, the questions just before and immediately following ask if the subject has “raped anyone,” “committed adultery,” “had intercourse with a member of your family,” “been sexually unfaithful,” “consistently made a practice of sexual perversion,” “slept with a member of a race of another colour,” “bombed anything” and “murdered anyone”.
In HCO Bulletin 7 September 1971, PROGRAMMING CASES BACKWARDS, Hubbard cited some examples he allegedly saw of Scientology not being properly applied, with incorrect results that he liked to “a gardener digging holes with the lawn mower and cutting grass with a spade.” Among them:
“After 200 or more hours of no change in his personality graph (Oxford Capacity Analysis) the [subject] came up with the withhold that he was a homosexual and also that he did not know what ‘Scientology’ meant. About 2 years of auditing had been wasted.” — LRH
So, Jim, now you know some more of what Hubbard and Scientology say about homosexuality. I’d hardly call it “no stance.” But don’t take my word for it. What’s true for you is true, right? I’ve included the policy references so you can look them up yourself.
Are you willing to look, Jim?
Incidentally, I have several friends who are HIV positive, and all are living normal, healthy lives. It’s hard to believe that just 15 years ago, an AIDS diagnosis was pretty much a guaranteed death sentence. We have many people to thank for this, including dedicated members of the pharmaceutical industry – a group that Scientologists vehemently oppose.
For those who are willing to look, I recommend the Wikipedia article LGBT Topics and Scientology.
ML,
Caliwog
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