Goood boy, Cranky. Now I really must go....

Well done Bill Muehlenberg. Your article correctly exposes not just the falacy or great lie of Kinseys report, but aspects of it that should fill us with revulsion.

If DavidJS and Kenny are prepared to accept Kinsey's means as justifying the ends of the sexual revolution, they are reflecting a very dangerous philiosphy that has continually failed humanity.

It is certainly about time that we set the record straight in our treatment of this research, particualrly to our young. Enough lives have already been ruined by this and other false research of that period, aimed at nothing less than misinforming public debate.

Two Bob

Dear Grace,
Mr Kenny is simply having a rant and wouldn’t have a clue as to what ordinary orthodox evangelical Christians who sit in the pews from one Sunday to the next think and do, be they Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians or Pentecostals. I belong to such a Church – we have taken Sudanese refugees into our membership, we are involved in all kinds of ministries of help to the disadvantaged and yes we seek to win fellow Australians to faith in Jesus Christ. And without apology we do oppose all those life destroying life denying activities such as abortion, homosexual activity and euthanasia that you apparently approve of. Why, because we love life.

As for the Anglican church tearing itself apart over the ordination of women and the role of homosexuals, what nonsense. Those parts of the Anglican Church that have accepted these propositions are in slow genteel decline whereas Sydney and other likeminded Dioceses go from strength to strength, planting and growing new churches.

AS for evangelical and catholic complicity in colonialism, please explain why the Christian Church is growing so rapidly in China (80 million, 100 million, 200 million) and why the strongest and most numerous Anglican Churches are found in Nigeria, Uganda and other former British colonies.

Get real, wake up, take the blinkers off, forget the bile, life’s too short, love life.

I would like to first of all congratulate Bill, not for anything he specifically wrote, but for being brave enough to stick his head above the parapet and actually express his opinion and view, knowing full well the hateful and appalling slander he would receive in return.

My concern is not so much as to whether or not Kinsey carried out the experiments himself, or whether he asked others to or whether he simply got some very precise information from some very disgusting people, the point is that no matter how you attempt to justify his reasoning or how great you may think he was, it is still wrong.

And even in a world that doesn’t like to hear the word ‘wrong’, these acts still are. What I want to know is what sort of damage these ‘studies’ did to their subjects. With all of these accusations of bigotry and hatred going around, the core of the data presented by Kinsey was still gained from the horrific child abuses that were inflicted. I can’t help but wonder what psychological, physical and emotional trauma must have been inflicted and still suffered by the subjects of this experiment. No matter what he may have learnt or not learnt from the studies, biological data is not worth the damage that I suspect, and common sense and modern psychology would infer, was suffered by these children. In an age where we won’t allow children to be physically punished because of the possible psychological damage that it supposedly causes, it’s amazing what people are willing to justify if they see that it supports their lifestyle.

I for one, now knowing what sort of research he did, will not be supporting this film with my money. Well done Bill, you deserve our gratitude.

If morality and ethics are individually and/or culturally determined then Kinsey may do whatever he likes, and so may you and I. So are there unchanging, universal behavioural imperatives? Just ask yourself, were the terrorists who slaughtered the school children of Beslan justified? Is rape ever OK? Should drink-driving be encouraged? So with just a moment's reflection we see that (at least) some things are right and some things are wrong. Moral absolutes do exist. There is an innate appreciation of justice that is built into our make-up as human beings which makes morality not simply a matter of personal choice. So the question now becomes, how did we get that natural sense of justice, and what evidence is there for and against the idea that everything we think and do (even sexual behaviour) is governed by moral absolutes?

Remarkably the response by the Kinsey Institute to the Reisman allegations has been overlooked. It is available at http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/about/cont-95frc.html and most relevantly:

"The Kinsey Institute has never carried out sexual experiments on children, either during Alfred Kinsey's time as director or since. As stated clearly in the first Kinsey volume...the information about children's sexuality responses was obtained from older subjects recalling their own childhoods, parents observing their children, and a small number of adult men who had engaged in sexual contacts with children and who were interviewed by Dr. Kinsey and his staff. The Kinsey Institute did not employ or train these men, or pay them for this information. The large majority of such information, including all that was reported in Table 34, was gathered by one individual, between 1917 and 1948, and documented by him. He died before Kinsey. No knowledge of the identities of the children involved or their parents has ever been available to The Kinsey Institute.

...

Allegations against Kinsey concerning this information about children's sexual responses were first made in 1981 by Judith A. Reisman. She subsequently enlarged on these ideas in a book written jointly with Edward Eichel and published in 1990 [Kinsey, Sex, and Fraud]. When The Kinsey Institute responded, Reisman filed suit in 1991 against The Kinsey Institute, then director June Reinisch, and Indiana University, alleging defamation of character and slander. In September 1993, Reisman's lawyer withdrew from the case, and in June 1994 the court dismissed Reisman's case with prejudice [which means that Reisman is prohibited from refiling the suit].

...

Dr. Kinsey believed that the evaluation of human behavior could not be based on scientific inquiry alone, but that evidence of how people actually behaved should be taken into account. He strove for objectivity in his inquiries by insuring his informants of anonymity and by avoiding any value judgments of their behavior. Dr. Kinsey's pioneering work has contributed to more open discussion of sexual issues. In several respects his original conclusions have needed to be revised, but his commitment to a more honest appraisal of the sexual aspects of the human condition remains."