When it comes to homosexuality, those who support gay rights don't often find themselves agreeing with evangelicals*. But after giving the issue considerable thought I believe I've found a point on which both groups should agree: the biological basis for the homosexual orientation is ultimately irrelevant; sexual activity is freely chosen behavior.
Naturally, this is the very idea that gay rights activists have been working against for several decades. They've often been the biggest proponents of finding a 'gay gene” or some type of neurological explanation for sexual orientation. By finding a genetic cause, it's often believed, it will remove any doubt that individuals have no choice in the matter. They are simply "born that way."
Ironically, if such an explanation is found it could have just the opposite effect of what is hoped for. As Francis Fukuyama speculates in Our Posthuman Future:
Assume that in the twenty years we come to understand the genetics of homosexuality well and devise a way for parents to sharply reduce the likelihood that they will give birth to a gay child. This does not have to presuppose the existence of genetic engineering; it could simply be a pill that provided sufficient levels of testosterone in utero to masculine the brain of the developing fetus. Suppose the treatment is cheap, effective, produces no side effects, and can be prescribed in the privacy of the obstetrician's office. Assume further that social norms have become totally accepting of homosexuality. How many expecting mothers would opt to take this pill?
Fukuyama believes that most parents would choose to take such a pill. I think that he's right. Even if a homosexual orientation were considered a benign trait such as baldness or left-handedness, the majority of parents would opt to have a "straight" child ('What if we want grandchildren?”). Anyone who disagrees is overestimating the level of acceptance that even 'tolerant” people have toward the homosexual orientation. Likewise, anyone who thinks this scenario is unlikely hasn't being keeping up with advances in biotechnology. The only thing far-fetched about this picture is the idea that it'll be twenty years before it becomes a reality.
The question then is what will happen to gays and lesbians when homosexuality becomes 'preventable?” My guess it that it won't be long before "being gay" is once again classified under the 'disease model” of behavior and is considered a 'treatable” condition. We shouldn't forget that it was only recently that psychiatry let go of its hold on this "disorder." Until 1987, 'ego-dystonic homosexuality” was still classified as a pathology in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II).
The fact that the vast majority of gay people will not feel a corresponding desire to be 'treated” will be deemed irrelevant. When alcoholism became a 'disease” the onus was put on the individual to 'get help” whether it was desired or not. If an alcoholic says that she can live and function just fine with her 'condition”, she is considered in denial. If she won't seek help for herself, the family and friends are encouraged to participate in an 'intervention” to persuade her.
It might surprise you to know that most evangelicals would be equally appalled by the idea that homosexuality should be considered a 'mental illness.” But orthodox Christianity holds a high regard for human dignity. By classifying such behavior as a sickness it removes the moral responsibility for the behavior from the individual. The value of human dignity is denigrated when free will and responsibility are replaced by biological determinism.
From the evangelical viewpoint, homoerotic desire might very well have a biological basis. It is not the desire, however, but the activity that is considered immoral. Desire may be determined by genetics but acting upon that desire in the form of sexual activity requires a freely chosen decision. We also see no difference in the desires of homosexuals and those of the heterosexual. An adolescent heterosexual male, for example, is certainly driven to distraction by his hormonal urge to reproduce. The desire is natural and outside of the young man's control. He would not be justified, however, in satisfying that desire in any way that he pleases. While the desire is natural, it can lead to promiscuity, which is an immoral and self-destructive behavior.
So if we believe that science will eventually remove the biological basis for homosexuality then why should evangelicals even care? Because we believe in Truth. As Christians we have a duty to uphold the truth even when it might be more advantageous to 'keep quiet and let the problem go away on it's own.” That's not an option that is open to us. If we believe that humans are morally culpable for sexual behavior then we must uphold that view.
Also, it will help us get over the cognitive dissonance we evangelicals often have when it comes to this issue. We claim to 'love the sinner but hate the sin”, yet we tend to buy into the idea that homosexuals are not just participating in immoral behavior but that they're somehow biologically dissimilar from us "normal" people. This allows us to classify gays and lesbians in the category of 'Other” rather than as 'Neighbor.”
History is replete with examples (i.e., Jews, black Americans) where evangelical Christians have failed in our duty to God and our neighbor because we've believed biological differences separate us. By believing that we are genetically different we allow ourselves to feel superior, as if the sins of homosexuals were somehow more heinous than those of heterosexuals.
Though our gay and lesbian neighbors wouldn't agree, we evangelicals should never forget that the reason God forbids this activity is because it is ultimately harmful to them. We have a duty, therefore, to speak out when our fellow humans are causing harm to themselves. When the issue is framed as one of biology rather than behavior, though, we appear to be patronizing busybodies rather than concerned citizens attempting to uphold the worth and dignity of these individuals. This is unfortunate and should be rectified.
As I've said, we evangelicals have a duty to the truth. One of the most obvious "truths" is that heterosexual promiscuity, adultery, and divorce cause far more harm to society than anything gay rights activists could do. We are disgusted by the immoral 'sodomite” and yet look at our own behavior as 'youthful indiscretions.” We must remove the log from our own eye before we attempt to remove the speck from the eye of our gay and lesbian neighbors.
For better or for worse, science will ultimately eradicate any biological basis for homosexuality. What won't be eradicated, however, is homosexual behavior. From the soldier's camps of ancient Rome to our present-day prisons, sodomy has remained a sexual practice among heterosexuals. The behavior won't go away just because the "orientation" does.
Which puts gays and lesbians in a peculiar position. If they base their position that the orientation is "natural" because it has a basis in nature, what happens when they foundation is removed? If they truly believe there is nothing unnatural about such behavior they will have to argue their case based on non-biological factors. Otherwise, when the 'cure” is found they will find they're no longer a 'special interest group” but a 'pathology” to be treated.
In order to prevent this issue from being determined by psychiatrists, homosexuals and evangelicals should agree that while we might not be responsible for our sexual urges we are accountable for our sexual behavior. This probably won't lead to an agreement about whether such behavior is benign or immoral. But at least we will be able to discuss the issue with our human dignity intact.
*I purposely use the term evangelicals rather than "Christians." Most liberal Protestants do not find anything immoral about homosexuality so the wouldn't agree with my contention. And while Catholics may agree, I can't presume to speak for them (I tried to get the Church's agreement on this issue but the Vatican wouldn't return my calls). I probably shouldn't try to speak for all evangelicals either, should I? Okay, whenever you see the term "evangelical" in this post let's just say it means "Joe."
Update: Stangely enough, the gay and lesbian magazine The Advocate has an article that basically argues the same thing that I do:
But what do we lose by insisting that being gay is not a choice? What do we lose by placing our identities out of our own control? What does it do to us to remove ourselves from our identity, to render ourselves powerless in our own selves?
...
Gay pride has always confused me a little, even from atop a float dancing down Fifth Avenue. Proud of what? What did I do to be proud of? If being gay is just a biological fact about me, no different from my height or natural hair color, why does being gay warrant a parade?
1
Nicely done Joe, and i can't say i disagree with anything you've said here (in fact, i keep hearing an echo :)
But i wouldn't expect this to win you any freinds in the gay community. They know they're stuck in a catch-22, on one hand not wanting be be responsible for thier behavior, and on the other, not quite ready to be called a "biological error" (hat tip Dr.Laura).
They know it, but hate to be reminded of it. It just gets in the way of the agenda...
posted on 02.17.2004 6:58 PM2
I am curious for those reading. Have any of you heard someone in the gay community comment that a person is kidding themselves about being gay? That they are hiding their true heterosexual feelings? Less interested in anecdotal (my neighbor is gay and he said...) and more interested in some leader, publisher..whatever.
In other words, I have many MANY times heard from gay activists that all the homosexual practicing individuals who have come to Christ and been born again and now are living heterosexual lives are simply deluding themselves...that they are brainwashed by the church, not being true etc.
I have likewise heard this about non-Christian folks like Anne Heche..straight, lesbian, now straight again
same with Melissa Ethredige's "lover" (one of them) who left a husband and children to pursue her true lesbian self only to tire of it and go back to heterosexuality. I recall being advised this woman too was not being true to herself.
These examples are always of interest to me since they do show behavior choice.
So I am curious if the flipside happens. I have never heard of it myself. Do gay activists ever accuse practicing gays of not being REAL homosexuals and encourage them to go back to heterosexuality?
posted on 02.17.2004 7:47 PM3
Gays say that no one would choose to live the life of a homosexual. But of course sexual orientation is a matter of choice. The best example is bi-sexuals. Everytime a bi-sexual has either a heterosexual relationship or a homosexual relationship, he/she has made a choice. There really is nothing left to argue about with regard to choice of sexual orientation.
posted on 02.17.2004 8:08 PM4
"We are disgusted by the immoral 'sodomite' and yet look at our own behavior as 'youthful indiscretions.'"
Bull. This is an accusation that is tossed around a lot, and its completely wrong. Evangelicals (including Joe, I hope) have been battling promiscuity, "no-fault" divorce, and all the other sex-related problems in modern America with tireless efforts. Examples: the Covenant Marriage movement, groups such as Family Life and Focus on the Family, the spearheading of abstinence-only 'sex' ed, abortion alternative programs, and the constant emphasis on the wrongness of premarital and extra-marital sex. Few (if any) Evangelicals I am aware of have looked at their own failings as "youthful indiscretions". As a matter of fact, I can't recall one person of an Evangelical bent who just shrugged off their sexual sins that way. Most Evangelicals are measuring gays with the same measure they use for their own behavior, and most I am aware of have sympathy for gays while condemning the choices they make.
Evangelical Christians are constantly being lampooned as "sexually repressed" and "anti-sex" by the media, and now everyone is trying to say that we have been "absent" on the issue of sexual promiscuity and divorce. The record says otherwise.
posted on 02.17.2004 8:33 PM5
A little twist on the biology argument. An article recently ran in NY Times Magazine on the existence of homosexual acts among wild animals. Naturally, the leaning of the article infered that if animals perform sexual acts that are non-procreative, and we are animals, then we also have the tendency to exercise non-procreative acts because "it's natural." Now, of course, several vices that are socially unacceptable are "natural". These include the desire to have multiple sex partners, to cheat for personal gain, to rule other men, to give only when reciprocity exists, etc. Yet, our government attempts to thwarts these efforts all the time. Why? Seems to me it's because an ordered civilization could not function if unfettered individual liberties existed. The burden is on those who try to differentiate sexual liberation from the equation. The myth of victimless sexual license is becoming more apparent every day.
posted on 02.17.2004 9:11 PM6
This may not be a popular viewpoint, especially coming from an Evangelical Christian, but I believe there are two "types" of homosexuals:
1. True homosexuals, who are that way for truly biological reasons, and...2
2. Homosexuals who are that way because it is a chosen lifestyle.
Now let me explain.
When a child is subjected to chemicals before birth, or grows up abused or neglected, their brains do not develop correctly. This is a scientific fact. Therefore, while I DON'T believe people are BORN gay, I do believe they can be "altered" to be that way from very, very early on.
On the other hand, some people -often also as a result of abuse or neglect - choose that lifestyle, because they have finally found something to identify with, a place to fit in.
At the root of the homosexual lifestyle, it seems there is hurt. Too many of us heap more pain onto the homosexual by our condemnation of them.
We're supposed to love THEM, and hate what they're DOING.
7
The nature/nurture debate has been going on in the gay community for decades, for just the reasons you describe. Back in the 70s, many gays felt the attempt to posit a "gay gene" was oppressive, because it seemed to define homosexuality as a "condition," and because it raised the prospect of eliminating it through genetic engineering. As the religious right became more of a threat than were repressive laws against "sodomy," the debate seemed to shift poles, and many now argue that homosexuality is immutable. Plus ce change . . .
As for eradicating homosexuality (assuming it were possible), that is less likely than you think. Many "normal" people are shocked to discover the value that "abnormals" put on what makes them who they are, but in fact the "obvious," intuitive reactions to many genetic conditions, felt by people who don't have those conditions, are often not shared by those who do. Examples abound: many "little people" do not seek children who are of normal height; there is a vociferous debate in the "Deaf community" over whether it is preferable to have deaf children (many very strongly want their children to be deaf), and whether to seek to "cure" deafness (many strongly oppose it); parents of children with Down syndrome often say they would not seek a treatment or prevention for it. Gays would very likely not choose to eliminate "gay genes," nor, I'm sure, would many straights. The gene would be likely to persist for quite some time.
Add to this the practical issues involved and the degree of change that could be effected across society is not likely to be all that great. (Fukuyama's fantasy is wildly unrealistic; in practicality, embryonic gene therapy, like most other fertility technologies, would undoubtedly be available only to the privileged few at great cost.) And, in a few decades or perhaps a few generations, all this gay hysteria will have died out and society will look back aghast at Fukuyama and his religious-right fellow-travelers. The gay gene is not likely to be wiped out for generations, even assuming we had the ability to do so - and by that time, we will no longer have the desire.
Regarding the "choice" of sexual orientation, I don't see that there needs to be any debate, not because the debate has been definitively resolved but rather because it seems so obviously unnecessary to me. It seems obvious to me that the "cause" of homosexuality is the same as (though obviously different in effect from) the "cause" of heterosexuality. (Yes, one is linked directly to procreation and one is not, but the underlying desires are similar.) Whatever complicated set of environmental and genetic factors contributes, it is the same set of factors in both cases (playing out in infinitely many finely-graded distinctions of outcome in individual cases). Nobody ever asks straights when they "became" straight, or what "made" them do it. And, for most straights, being straight is not a conscious choice, but a desire that grows in them without their direct intervention. So it is, as far as I have ever heard, with gays also.
What this leaves us with is a complex inborn desire that is more or less strongly (or, rarely, not at all strongly) pointed in one direction or another. For many, it is strongly enough polarized that "switch hitting" is not a voluntary option; for others it is not so. No one consciously chooses the outcome of this developmental path, and no one dictates their own desires. Many or most people have the option to act against their strongest desires if they want to badly enough (the prevalance of heterosexual experience among gays, and of gay sexual experience among male prisoners, attests to that), but relatively few do so as a matter of preference. So what? It's just what we would expect, given a complex, inborn human capacity that plays out through complicated conscious social interactions.
From this perspective, the existence of "ex-gays" means nothing, either. As above, most people can force themselves to act against their strongest desires if they choose - "ex-gays" are just people who found the social pressure of their bigot neighbors a stronger motivation than their pre-existing desire for same-sex experiences. Of course there would be such people; that they make the choices that they do says nothing about what choice is best for anyone else, or whether it is reasonable to try to force people to make those choices in the first place. (You can force yourself to learn to write with your non-dominant hand, but that hardly makes it "natural" or "better" - and it hardly proves that there is no such thing as "handedness".)
In the end, the "cause" of gay sexuality has been important only because anti-gay bigots have been so eager to find reasons to discriminate against gays. When that finally runs its silly - but so very vicious - course, we will look back on the fooferaw over the "cause" of gayness in the same way we view the "cause" of breast fetishes, facial hair fads, or a preference for chocolate or vanilla ice cream.
posted on 02.18.2004 12:10 AM8
"ex-gays" are just people who found the social pressure of their bigot neighbors a stronger motivation than their pre-existing desire for same-sex experiences
posted on 02.18.2004 12:52 AM