t's a brave new world at your

local Big Brothers-Big Sisters office. As of this month, the Big Brothers-Big

Sisters of America (BBBSA) will require that all 500 of its local affiliates

include active homosexuals as volunteers and mentors to children.

Many parents who support Big

Brothers-Big Sisters may be surprised to learn that their child could

soon be paired with a gay or lesbian mentor. In fact, parents whose children

are enrolled in the organization's school-based programs will not even

be told when their son or daughter is matched with a gay man or a lesbian

woman.

Children who are involved in

BBBSA programs are primarily from single-parent homes. Many of these kids

are emotionally fragile and desperate for attention and affirmation from

an adult of their own gender. Yet the national board of directors of BBBSA

(at the urging of local agencies in New York and New Jersey) has determined

that these boys and girls should be paired with homosexual mentors.

In light of the ongoing sex

scandal involving Catholic priests, the new policy of "inclusion"

the priests charged with sexually abusing children and adolescents have

admitted they are homosexuals. They used their position of authority to

sexually violate those who trusted them the most. BBBSA's decision to

match fatherless boys, starving for male attention, with gay men is a

recipe for disaster.

While gay activists insist

that there is no connection between homosexuality and the sexual abuse

of children, the evidence indicates that a substantial number of gay men

seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.

A study in "Archives of

Sexual Behavior" found that homosexual men are attracted to young

males, including those as young as age 15. Gay researchers Karla Jay and

Allen Young once reported that 73 percent of the gay men they surveyed

had engaged in sex with boys 16 to 19 years of age or younger. It is also

important to note that many pedophiles consider themselves to be homosexual.

A study of 229 convicted child molesters found that 86 percent of offenders

who molested boys described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.

Themes of adult-child sex are

common in gay publications. The nation's largest gay publisher, Alyson

Publications, which distributes "Daddy's Roommate" and other

books that promote homosexuality to children, publishes books advocating

man-boy sex, including: "Paedophilia: The Radical Case," which

contains detailed information on how to engage in sexual relations with

young boys, and "The Age Taboo," which claims "Boy-lovers

are not child molesters. The child abusers are parents who force their

staid morality onto the young people in their custody."

Certainly not all homosexuals

are pedophiles. However, perhaps Big Brothers-Big Sisters should pay heed

to the words of gay activist Michael Swift. Writing in the Gay Community

News, Swift states:

"We shall sodomize your

sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar

lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your

gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries,

in your youth groups, in your movie theatre bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses,

in your truck stops, in your all-male clubs, in your houses of Congress,

wherever men are men together. Your sons will become our minions and do

our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave

and adore us."

Hopefully, those who share

Swift's philosophy haven't applied to become Big Brothers.

Apart from concerns about pedophilia,

is a child from a single-parent home best served by a gay or lesbian mentor?

During early adolescence, many

children experience a period of sexual-identity confusion when they can

easily be influenced in either direction. A study in the journal "Pediatrics"

surveyed 34,707 Minnesota teenagers and found that fully 25.9 percent

of 12-year-olds were uncertain if they were gay or straight. Will young

teens in the midst of forming their personal and sexual identities receive

appropriate guidance and direction from homosexual mentors?

Fatherless boys and motherless

girls served by Big Brothers-Big Sisters are in desperate need of same-sex

role models. Can a girl without a mom learn what it means to be a wife

and a mother from a lesbian? Can a gay man teach a boy without a dad the

skills he needs to be an effective husband and father?

Why has Big Brothers-Big Sisters

of America chosen to implement such an ill-advised new policy? Can it

truly be in the best interests of children? It seems more likely that

the organization is bowing to pressure from the same homosexual activists

who have attacked the Boy Scouts. Perhaps BBBSA is fearful that if it

refuses to embrace homosexual volunteers it will suffer the same criticism

and cuts in funding.

Whatever the reason, BBBSA

has obviously decided that the "rights" of homosexuals are more

important than the safety and well being of the children it serves.

[William J. Maier, Psy.D.,

is a child and family psychologist and serves as psychologist in residence

at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo.]