by Andrew Walden

As with everything else, gay activists have been desperately working to make the Dalai Lama their own.  At first they thought the might succeed.  The Dalai Lama, stated in an interview published in the Feb.-Mar. 1994 OUT magazine:

"If someone comes to me and asks whether [homosexuality] is okay or not, I will ask... 'What is your companion's opinion?' If you both agree, then I think I would say, if two males or two females voluntarily agree to have mutual satisfaction without further implication of harming others, then it is okay."

The interview is not available anywhere on line, so the context of the quote is not known.  Presumably, if the context were helpful to gay activists, they would have made it available. Nonetheless their effort soon collapsed in futility. 

(UPDATE:  Hawai'i Free Press has obtained a pdf of the entire interview.  Read it HERE and you will see why the gay activists have not been eager to put it online.)  

In a May 25, 1999 interview published in The Age, the Dalai Lama stated:

"They want me to condone homosexuality. But I am a Buddhist and, for a Buddhist, a relationship between two men is wrong. Some sexual conduct in marriage is also wrong" speaking regarding masturbation and oral sex. Also saying that "If an individual has no faith, that is a different matter... If two men really love each other and are not religious, then that is OK by me."

The Dalai Lama stated in his 1996 book Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses:  (pps 23, 46-47) 

"A sexual act is deemed proper when the couples use the organs intended for sexual intercourse [penis and vagina] and nothing else... Homosexuality, whether it is between men or between women, is not improper in itself. What is improper is the use of organs already defined as inappropriate [mouth, hand, anus] for sexual contact."

During a press conference June 10, 1997, the Dalai Lama commented:

"From a Buddhist point of view [lesbian and gay sexual activity]...is generally considered sexual misconduct."

Question: What is the stance of Tibetan Buddhism on homosexuality, and how does that fit in with Tibetan Buddhism?
Dalai Lama: Sexuality?
Interpreter: What was the question again?
Question: With homosexuality-- with men and men and women and women having sex together. Is that, is that, how is that treated by Tibetan Buddhism?

Dalai Lama: I think we have to make different categories. The first way is celibacy. In that [category], any form of sex is prohibited. That could be using one's own hand-- any way to...
Interpreter: ... ejaculate...
Dalai Lama: ... or to increase sexual desire. So that is...
Interpreter: ... prohibited, not allowed.
Dalai Lama: Then, if the practitioner is sexual, it is not prohibited. But sexual includes homosexual also, and...
Interpreter: ... oral sex...
Dalai Lama: ... and the other hole. These, you see, even with one's own wife, of both sex is considered sexual misconduct. Then another category, no believer, no believer. I think, basically, the purpose of sex is reproduction. So in order to fulfill that purpose, man to man, women to women cannot fulfill-- so a little bit...
Interpreter: ... could be considered unnatural.
Dalai Lama: But at the same time, there are people, among men, among women, see. Again, I think we discussed before, the sexual desire is generally related to the body, the physical body. So then, under those circumstances if you stop, or try to stop, it may create more violent consequences. Then at least sexual misconduct...

Question: So even as a Tibetan Buddhist lay person, not a monk, it's better to avoid these things?

Dalai Lama: Better. [speaks to interpreter]
Interpreter: He says that amongst the Tibetans perhaps it is unheard of that sex.

Dalai Lama: But I don't know. [laughs] I've heard... stories... practices. But one thing I feel that as a human, with this body...
Interpreter: The desire for sexual intercourse...
Dalai Lama: ... the more the nature sort of comes, I think that it should be OK, it should be OK. But if we deliberately...
Interpreter: ... deliberately try to enhance these sexual desires...
Dalai Lama: ... then I don't know. I think sometimes, some part of Western culture, or modern culture, deliberately promotes that sort of sex life, or sex feeling. Then it goes too much, then it goes extreme. So often people say "love and violence" or "love and hatred"...
Interpreter: ... often you hear about love and hatred accompanying one another.
Dalai Lama: So I think a more gentle or a more natural sort of love is less extreme.

Why is this news?  Because you have been led to assume the Dalai Lama supports the gay agenda.  In order to form such an assumption in your mind, the media simply stopped asking and stopped talking about it -- after they spent the years 1994-1999 quietly trying to get the Dalai Lama to overturn 2500 years of Buddhist teaching.

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2009: The Dalai Lama is Not Gay-Friendly

2004: The Dalai Lama Says Gay Sex is “Sexual Misconduct”