Warren Jeffress - Lying to try to demonize

Making false claims about groups has been used across history to try to gin up hatred, fear, and eventually harmful action against targeted groups.  We've see it used against Jews, against blacks, and now increasingly we are seeing it used as a tactic against gays and Muslims.  NONE of the claims are truthful; they are only hateful and ignorant and bigoted.
Per Rightwingwatch, now we have Warren Jeffress doing the same thing.

His Pathway to Victory radio ministry also replayed one of his an anti-gay sermons on Friday, where he warned that homosexuals, since they are “perverse,” could begin to molest children since “if a person will sink that low” then “there is no telling to whatever sins he will commit as well.”

Jeffress: Amazingly, some gay activists don’t even try to hide the link between homosexuality and pedophilia. There are some who are right now are actively involved in trying to legalize sex between adults and children by lowering the age of consent or removing it altogether. In all fairness, it would be wrong to suggest that all homosexuals to pedophiles, it would be wrong to even suggest that a majority of homosexuals are pedophiles, but the truth nevertheless is there. There are a disproportionate amount of assaults against children by homosexuals than by heterosexuals, you can’t deny that, and the reason is very clear: homosexuality is perverse, it represents a degradation of a person’s mind and if a person will sink that low and there are no restraints from God’s law, then there is no telling to whatever sins he will commit as well.

There are no homosexuals trying to lower the age of consent, or to eliminate it. It is NOT factually accurate that there are more homosexual pedophiles than heterosexual pedophiles.  Jeffress just makes that shit up.  It is simply not true.  There are NO credible studies, reports, data or statistics that support that claim.  It is a boldfaced, blatant LIE.

What is the result? Right wing crimes of violence based on the ignorance and hatred, including the lies from people like Jeffress.  Back in 2009, there were an average of 14 hate crimes a day against LGBT individuals; in 2011 the number of murders of gays for gender and sexual orientation bias reached an all time high.  Real, active harm, including violent crime is the result of false statements like Jeffress's.  Those violent crimes come from the fearful, homophobic right, including because of claims like this from the religious right,.
From U.C. Davis website, Facts about Homosexuality and Child Molestation:

Members of disliked minority groups are often stereotyped as representing a danger to the majority's most vulnerable members. For example, Jews in the Middle Ages were accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices. Black men in the United States were often lynched after being falsely accused of raping White women.
In a similar fashion, gay people have often been portrayed as a threat to children. Back in 1977, when Anita Bryant campaigned successfully to repeal a Dade County (FL) ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination, she named her organization "Save Our Children," and warned that "a particularly deviant-minded [gay] teacher could sexually molest children" (Bryant, 1977, p. 114). [Bibliographic references are on a different web page]
In recent years, antigay activists have routinely asserted that gay people are child molesters. This argument was often made in debates about the Boy Scouts of America's policy to exclude gay scouts and scoutmasters. More recently, in the wake of Rep. Mark Foley's resignation from the US House of Representatives in 2006, antigay activists and their supporters seized on the scandal to revive this canard.
It has also been raised in connection with scandals about the Catholic church's attempts to cover up the abuse of young males by priests. Indeed, the Vatican's early response to the 2002 revelations of widespread Church cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests was to declare that gay men should not be ordained.

If you listen to Warren Jeffress about homosexuality and pedophilia, you might as well make the false connection that being male or Christian is a causation of pedophilia as well - which is offensive, ludicrous and bigoted. It would be as inaccurate as claiming that sports like football cause or correlate to pedophilia after the Sandusky convictions, and the many other reports of sport-related child predators that made the news. Jeffress statements reflect his hatred, but it is no more factual than claiming the earth is flat; both are statements that rely on false observations and wrong conclusions.

We need MORE people who are knowledgable about factual information regarding human and animal natural sexuality, not right wing fanatics who promote ignorance.  We need a better, accurately informed understanding of all forms of sexual predatory behavior, not misinformation
The overwhelming majority of pedophiles are heterosexual, and male.  That doesn't mean that either being male or heterosexual has a causal relationship to pedophilia.

The tragedy of hateful ignorance like Jeffress is that it misdirects practical efforts to counteract pedophilia, while at the same time falsely accusing people born with same sex attractions of terrible sexual acts without any foundation for their accusations.  It promotes suspicion, hatred, fear.......and doesn't help children, doesn't raise awareness of REAL sexual predators at all.

Here is more factual information about pedophilia:
Pedophilia is ... a psychosexual disorder in which the fantasy or actual act of engaging in sexual activity with prepubertal children is the preferred or exclusive means of achieving sexual excitement and gratification. It may be directed toward children of the same sex or children of the other sex. Some pedophiles are attracted to both boys and girls. Some are attracted only to children, while others are attracted to adults as well as to children.

The sexual behaviors involved in pedophilia cover a range of activities and may or may not involve the use of force. Some pedophiles limit their behaviors to exposing themselves or masturbating in front of the child, or fondling or undressing the child, but without genital contact. Others, however, compel the child to participate in oral sex or full genital intercourse.
  
The most common overt aspect of pedophilia is an intense interest in children. There is no typical pedophile. Pedophiles may be young or old, male or female, although the great majority are males. Unfortunately, some pedophiles are professionals who are entrusted with educating or maintaining the health and well-being of young persons, while others are entrusted with children to whom they are related by blood or marriage.      

Causes

A variety of different theories exist as to the causes of pedophilia. A few researchers attribute pedophilia along with the other paraphilias to biology. They hold that testosterone, one of the male sex hormones, predisposes men to develop deviant sexual behaviors. As far as genetic factors are concerned, as of 2002 no researchers have claimed to have discovered or mapped a gene for pedophilia.
  
Most experts regard pedophilia as resulting from psychosocial factors rather than biological characteristics. Some think that pedophilia is the result of having been sexually abused as a child. Still others think that it derives from the person's interactions with parents during their early years of life. Some researchers attribute pedophilia to arrested emotional development; that is, the pedophile is attracted to children because he or she has never matured psychologically. Some regard pedophilia as the result of a distorted need to dominate a sexual partner. Since children are smaller and usually weaker than adults, they may be regarded as nonthreatening potential partners. This drive for domination is sometimes thought to explain why most pedophiles are males.

and the UC Davis has an extensive web site that clarifies the fallacies of Jeffress:

<>The Mainstream View<><> Reflecting the results of these and other studies, the mainstream view among researchers and professionals who work in the area of child sexual abuse is that homosexual and bisexual men do not pose any special threat to children. For example, in one review of the scientific literature, noted authority Dr. A. Nicholas Groth wrote: Are homosexual adults in general sexually attracted to children and are preadolescent children at greater risk of molestation from homosexual adults than from heterosexual adults? There is no reason to believe so. The research to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. There appears to be practically no reportage of sexual molestation of girls by lesbian adults, and the adult male who sexually molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual (Groth & Gary, 1982, p. 147). In a more recent literature review, Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy (1998) similarly cautioned against confusing homosexuality with pedophilia. He noted, "The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in older men or in women" (p. 259). This well known lack of a linkage between homosexuality and child molestation accounts for why relatively little research has directly addressed the issue. Proving something we already know simply isn't a priority. Indeed, a commentary that accompanied publication of the 1994 study by Jenny et al. in Pediatrics noted that debates about gay people as molesters "have little to do with everyday child abuse" and lamented that they distract lawmakers and the public from dealing with the real problem of children's sexual mistreatment (Krugman, 1994).