Editor's Desk: The Real Kinsey

By Michael F. Flach
HERALD Editor
(From the issue of 11/18/04)

The rift between Hollywood and mainstream American values was never more evident than during the recent presidential election. Actors and musicians heaped mounds of criticism upon President Bush and other political candidates who had the temerity to speak out against abortion, same-sex unions and fetal stem cell research. Voters who did not follow the Hollywood party line were labeled "religious fanatics" and "idiots" because they refused to condone a permissive sexual lifestyle.

Hollywood is attempting to canonize one of the "fathers" of the sexual revolution, researcher Alfred Kinsey, with the Nov. 19 national release of the movie "Kinsey." Kinsey’s pseudo-scientific studies about the supposed sexual habits of American men and women have been used to shape laws and school curriculums for generations.

The movie features a star-studded cast, including Academy Award-winning actor Liam Neeson, John Lithgow and Timothy Hutton. The movie’s supporters have called it "provocative," "erotic" and the "hottest script in town." The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting has classified it L (for a limited adult audience) "because it contains graphic sexual situations that even adults would find troubling."

The film portrays Kinsey as a dedicated scientist whose research was sound. The viewer is left with the impression that his data came from interviews with a cross section of Americans. In reality, Kinsey’s data about adult sexuality came from prisoners and pedophiles.

"The movie portrays the life and work of a man who was almost single-handedly responsible for dismantling many of the sexual mores that governed American culture for two centuries," said Matthew Pinto, one of the founders of the lay-run initiative, Catholic Outreach.

Pinto’s group has released a 96-page book written by Catholic journalist Susan Brinkman entitled The Kinsey Corruption: An Exposé on the Most Influential "Scientist" of Our Time. The book is based on 20 years of research by Dr. Judith Reisman, an Arlington resident and leading Kinsey critic. It points out the distortions and presents the truth that is left untold by the film and offers another view on the man who is lionized in the controversial movie.

Catholic Outreach says the film's writer and director leaves out critical facts about Kinsey's real life and portrays him as a visionary who helped free popular culture from its repressed sexuality. The truth is that Kinsey was instrumental in bringing about the widespread acceptance of perversity and immorality that exists today.

"Kinsey is an effort to rehabilitate a ‘father’ of the hellish sexual revolution who has been discredited because of his debauched lifestyle and the misinformation he spread about sex," said Morality in Media President Robert Peters, who recently previewed the film in New York.

"In Kinsey’s mind, religion and morality were the hated enemies that stand in the way of sexual freedom. Kinsey’s father is the predominant religious figure in the film, and with the exception of one scene, he is stereotypically portrayed as overly strict, mean spirited and anti-sex."

Peters said the film gives the impression that sexual deviations of all kinds, especially homosexuality, are widespread. "Kinsey thought that very few people were totally heterosexual; and in one scene, the film depicts Kinsey as saying that his own sexuality had changed from primarily heterosexual to bisexual. This undermines the lie that sexual orientation cannot be influenced by environment, an environment that includes endless promotions of homosexuality in the secular media."

To order copies of Brinkman’s book, call 1-888-488-6789 or visit www.CatholicOutreach.com.

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