What follows is the first in a series of articles confronting three major arguments used to promote the acceptance of gay marriage in American society. The three major arguments take various shapes, but they can be reduced to these forms without misrepresentation:
I also intend to show that conservatives have been given a clear advantage over their liberal neighbors vis-á-vis their relationships with America’s African-American community. Typically members of the Democratic Party, African-Americans will be drawn closer to conservatism the moment they understand the politics behind the “I was born gay” argument. The only missing link is that there needs to be conservatives who will share the ideas presented herein with the black community; and the black community needs to hear what is being presented. You will find that what follows proves there is a vulnerability in the relationship between liberals and the black community that can be exploited not for political gain, but for the social and moral health of all of America.
Lastly, this series comes at this time because of a recent debate (if one can call it that) I participated in at a liberal New Hampshire blog. In that blog it was asserted that all arguments against gay marriage are irrational; and that pro-gay marriage arguments are black-and-white, clear-cut, and thoroughly rational. Obviously, that was an assertion I had to challenge.
A HAPPY SOCIETY
Few would deny the blunt assertion that a happy society is an orderly society. By "orderly" one does not necessarily mean a regulated society, but a reasonable one. Obviously a regulated society need not always be rational, nor need it be happy: A prison is an incredibly regulated society, yet it is that very regulation that makes prison society so miserable.
A reasonable society simply means that things have to make sense. A red traffic light that simultaneously means both Stop! and Don’t stop! would be rather confusing, resulting in many unhappy moments. An ambulance siren that means both Clear the way! and Block the way! might be exciting for a short time, but such excitement, one thinks, would quickly become painfully annoying. Pressing the button for the 5th floor in the elevator of a 60-floor high-rise makes one happy if the lift stops at the 5th floor, but happiness leaps to its death if “5th floor” means the barren roof. A reasonable society, then, is a happy one: the language of a happy society must make sense.
Moreover, the happy society is a reasonable society only if reason itself remains stable. If we accept that the meaning of a red traffic light can some days “change” or that it can be interpreted differently by different people, or that it should mean something else to assist the color-blind, happiness instantly departs the happy society. If 1+1 does not necessarily equal 2 in all possible worlds; if people can seriously proclaim that 1+1 can equal whatever any person chooses it to equal, the reasonable and happy society is essentially decapitated.
THE UBIQUITY OF THE “I WAS BORN GAY” ARGUMENT
Not long ago, at a popular annual forum in New Hampshire, guest speaker V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop, was asked this question: “What about ‘hating the sin but loving the sinner?’” The question was asked in regard to the ostensibly Christian view that homosexuality is a sin that Christians should hate and homosexuals are sinners Christians must love. Hidden in this apparently orthodox Christian statement is this premise: Opposition to homosexuality is not hate but loving dissent.
Mr. Robinson replied to the question, saying, “All I know is that I didn’t choose to be this way.”
Mr. Robinson’s reply echoes an omnipresent argument: homosexuals are born, not made. Homosexuality is not a choice; it is not something one can turn on and off, any more than a person can turn off being tall, right-handed, or blue-eyed. Hence, homosexuality as a pre-determined condition is not a sin. It is a gift. It is lived, not chosen. To the homosexual, homosexuality just is. And since it is a gift, a genetically-inherited and God-created condition or state of being, homosexuals need not and cannot “change.”
This argument is hardly unique to churchmen. During the 2007 Human Rights Campaign/Logo Democratic Presidential Forum, lesbian co-moderator Melissa Etheridge asked presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson if he believed “a homosexual is born that way, or do you think that around seventh grade we go, ‘Ooh, I want to be gay’?” Recently John Stewart asked Governor Mike Huckabee the same sort of question, all to the cheers and chuckles of those attending “The Daily Show.” The argument is nearly universal, and in it hides one unquestioned absolute: Since homosexuality is not a choice, homosexuals cannot change.
But the argument against change is rather unconvincing, in part because gays and lesbians expect change of all kinds. They surely expect heterosexuals who oppose homosexuality to change, despite the fact a reasonable case can be made that aversion to homosexuality is not a choice but the result of evolution’s conditioning. Moreover, the alliance between homosexuals and the “transgendered” manifests a striking contradiction. Once, while attending a panel discussion on gay marriage in a Unitarian Church where a gay panelist said he need not change because “God does not make mistakes,” I witnessed a trans-sexual “woman” announce to the audience that “she” had indeed changed; that this “woman trapped in a man’s body” had to change and was now fixed. In other words, I witnessed gay marriage advocates cheer God for not making mistakes, and then I watched as they cheered Him for equipping humanity with the necessary skills to fix the obvious mistakes He makes.
But there is much more that is irrational and confusing in the “I am born gay” argument. In fact, let me prove to you that the “I am born gay” argument is not only homophobic at its very roots, it is rejected by homosexuals everywhere.
THE HOMOSEXUAL NATURE FALLACY: The argument’s irrationality
A month before Gene Robinson would be consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in Christendom, he and I settled into a corner table at a trendy café in Peterborough, NH. I had twice called then bishop-elect Robinson to discuss the controversy surrounding his imminent consecration; as junior warden of All Saints’, arguably New Hampshire’s most beautiful parish, I sought Mr. Robinson’s counsel regarding the defection of several prominent parish members, including my wife, over his open and unabashed homosexuality. Mr. Robinson promptly returned my calls, and was kind enough to set 90 minutes aside for me. More than five years later, despite my own defection, I still describe our conversation as an “elegant dispute.”
During our time together, Mr. Robinson permitted me to challenge some of the arguments I had heard coming from the state diocesan office. I did not discuss the alleged inerrancy of Holy Scripture or the infallibility of its authors. My challenge was strictly about sacraments. In fact, I argued -- in a manner too academic to reprise here -- that homosexual relations could never be sacramental in the orthodox sense, and that such relations actually damaged the very nature of the sacraments themselves. No doubt my argument was more Roman Catholic than Protestant, but it did prompt Robinson to confess, "I do not know anyone arguing that way.”
But most of our time was consumed by Robinson’s own defense. He maintained that early Christian writers never possessed a concept of a homosexual human nature; thinking homosexuality a sinful choice, the Church Fathers were constrained by the limits of rather primitive thinking, and could not have known homosexuality was a gift from a loving God. Robinson’s exegesis of perhaps the New Testament’s most damning passages regarding homosexuality, found in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, echoed John Boswell’s influential claims, namely that God only condemns homosexual acts performed by those who do not possess an authentic homosexual nature. When a straight man acts like a gay man, he is acting against his nature, and is therefore under God’s judgment. This, Mr. Robinson averred, is in keeping with Scripture.
In all honesty, I found Mr. Robinson’s argument dumbfounding.
People who support gay marriage have often said to me that I can’t possibly believe homosexuality is a choice. “Surely you don’t believe anyone would choose that?” asked one man who founded a local PFLAG† group after his gay son came out of the closet. I have sometimes responded to such comments by pointing out that it is the supporters and not the detractors of gay rights who have put the “Ick!-factor” into homosexuality: Homosexuality is so unpleasant no one would choose it who was not born "that way."
But what is it about homosexuality that is so intrinsically unpleasant that only those “born” a certain way can participate in it? Robinson, as far as I know, has never said. Those who support traditional heterosexual marriage have never asserted that a person must first be born a certain way before he or she can be heterosexually active; heterosexuality has always been wildly inclusive, while homosexuality is notably exclusive, limiting participation to those with a “homosexual nature” or “gay gene.” Odd, though, that one never hears complaints about a gay bishop lifting up the bed sheets of his parishioners in an effort to discern who truly possesses a “homosexual nature.” One would expect Bishop Robinson to rebuke from the pulpit those who are not “really” gay for behaving as if they were, but we hear no such rebukes.
The moment one notices that homophobia is actually rooted in pro-gay arguments or that Gene Robinson is awfully silent about the morality of straights “choosing” gay relations, one also notices that the “I-was-born gay” argument has vanished. No pro-gay advocate really believes that homosexual acts are only moral if performed by those who have no choice in the matter. No pro-gay advocate believes that homosexuality is so icky one mustn’t choose it. (Can anyone name a single morally acceptable act that must not be done by people who have not been born a certain way?)
Hence, the “I was born gay” argument is something of a ruse. The argument merely distracts and confuses. Besides, we all know sexual behavior is volitional. A National Mall packed with celebrants proves to even the most obdurate heart that thousands and thousands of people choose not to be sexual at any given moment. I can even descry with something approaching certitude that readers of this article have chosen not to have sex right now. People do not have sex during church; football fans and even the players have made a choice to do something else than be sexual during the Super Bowl. Choice is very much part of sexuality, and we all know it.
Besides, I do remember making a choice, even a series of choices, about sexuality, even sexual propensity. I had two childhood friends who flirted with homosexuality during adolescence; both would later announce they were indeed gay. At the same time, I was friends with “straight boys,” some of whom had, as pre-teens, participated in homosexual acts (and yet would become happy and healthy heterosexual married men). But I do remember choosing to reject participating in that sort of behavior, choosing instead to affirm that girls, for me, were definitely the best thing in the world (despite the fact that they scared me to no end). I have often been confronted by “choices” in my sexual "orientation," of how I would think, act, and choose regarding my sexuality. Who hasn’t?
In the final analysis then, since no gay rights proponent is willing to proclaim that “choosing homosexuality is immoral,” the “I-was-born gay” argument is destroyed. It means nothing. It is, at best, an antique irrelevancy.
THE POLITICAL ROOTS OF THE “I WAS BORN GAY” ARGUMENT
Why would pro-gay rights activists use such a feckless and even phobic argument to defend gay rights?
First, this argument has been trundled out to invoke sympathy: Being born gay is hard enough without having to deal with the bigotry directed at something gays can’t resist or change. But let it be noted that appeals to sympathy are irrational, being examples of the fallacy argumentum ad misericordiam, or the appeal to pity: the fallacy attempts to justify a position with feelings rather than with reason. In other words, the appeal to pity has no place in the orderly, rational society.
The second and most important reason the “homosexual nature” argument is presented is to equate homosexuality with something people REALLY can’t change: the color of their skin. This argument steals something from the plight of African-Americans; it steals what is clearly genetic and pre-determined and applies it to gays and lesbians in order to gain the same sort of political leverage blacks had in the Civil Rights Movement. But since the “I was born gay” argument has been rejected, this identification with the struggle of blacks is also to be rejected, and not merely because it is irrational. It is to be rejected because it is offensive. Again, since there is not a gay activist who would assert that “choosing homosexuality is intrinsically immoral,” it is incredible that anyone would identify the “struggle” of homosexuals with the struggle for equal rights for black Americans. Gay rights activists “reject” the idea that it would be immoral to choose homosexuality; in practical, real life terms, gay activists have no problem with people choosing homosexuality even though they claim that homosexuality is in-born. But every thinking person would consider absurd the statement that there is no problem with people choosing blackness; this proves that the political identification of the gay "struggle" for equal rights with the black struggle for such rights is ultimately meaningless. Hence, the argument that homosexuality is in-born is to be rejected as immoral and offensive precisely because it seeks to benefit from the systematic sufferings of those African-Americans who truly had no choice.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE CONSERVATIVES?
All this leaves conservatives in a very interesting place.
First, removing the “I am born gay” argument completely changes the debate. If it is not immoral to choose homosexuality, then homosexuality can be a choice, which is actually what conservative thinkers have asserted for decades. And if it is a choice, then not only can it be resisted, those who made the choice can change.
When gay activists mock conservative positions with taunts like “Are you so stupid that you think gays are going to ‘recruit’ straights?” and “You straights are under the dopey impression that gay marriage will result in an increase in 'gayness,'” conservatives note the irony that gays are apparently blind to their own arguments: if it is not immoral to “choose” to be gay, then it is not immoral to recruit others to participate in something thoroughly moral, nor is it immoral to even hope that “gayness” will increase. For if homosexuality is an undeniable good, even a good that is a gift from God, then it would be immoral not to recruit and expand something so wonderful. Spread the goodness. Make the world a more lovely and moral place. Alas, it is quite clear that gay activists must concede this point. And if they don’t, they have to return to the assertion that “choosing homosexuality” is morally repugnant for reasons they will not reveal.
Second, we find that allegedly "white" conservatism has a powerful union with blacks across America. Recall that the vast majority of American blacks voted in last year’s referendums to ban gay marriage. Why? Partly because blacks do not see the struggle for gay rights as a moral and social equivalent to the black struggle for equality. 95% of American blacks voted with the gay community, also mostly Democrats, for Barack Obama, and yet most of those same blacks voted against extending marriage rights to gays. Why? (I will explore this more fully soon.) Because blacks are conservative when it comes to marriage and sexual behavior. (By the way: Do gay activists call blacks who oppose gay marriage, bigots? If so, does that mean that bigots elected Barack Obama? And what to do with Mr. Obama's own apparent opposition to gay marriage?)
But this ultimately leaves conservatives in a position of great strength. However, they must exercise that strength immediately because the time is fast approaching when homosexuality will be treated with moral indifference, with an “everybody-can-do-it” insouciance. But as long as gays continue to defend themselves with the “We are born gay" argument, conservatives have the rational upper hand in the debate. Of course, once gay activists abandon that argument for the more nefarious “any sexual choice is moral” argument, the debate will shift again. But at least conservatives will control the debate when that shift comes.
Remember, a happy society is a reasonable one. And so far we can conclude that the ubiquitous “reason” of a “homosexual nature” offered in defense of gay marriage is not at all rational.
Peace through dissent.
©Bill Gnade/2009. All Rights Reserved.
By the way, pass it on.
†PFLAG: Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. A support group.
- “I did not choose to be gay. Did you choose to be heterosexual? When?”
- “How does the marriage of your two gay neighbors harm your heterosexual marriage? Is your marriage so weak, so threatened, that two gay men in committed love to each other places your marriage in jeopardy?”
- “Gays are humans, and all humans are created equal. This country is founded on the principle that all men and women have a right ‘to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ Who are you to deny anyone the right to happiness?”
I also intend to show that conservatives have been given a clear advantage over their liberal neighbors vis-á-vis their relationships with America’s African-American community. Typically members of the Democratic Party, African-Americans will be drawn closer to conservatism the moment they understand the politics behind the “I was born gay” argument. The only missing link is that there needs to be conservatives who will share the ideas presented herein with the black community; and the black community needs to hear what is being presented. You will find that what follows proves there is a vulnerability in the relationship between liberals and the black community that can be exploited not for political gain, but for the social and moral health of all of America.
Lastly, this series comes at this time because of a recent debate (if one can call it that) I participated in at a liberal New Hampshire blog. In that blog it was asserted that all arguments against gay marriage are irrational; and that pro-gay marriage arguments are black-and-white, clear-cut, and thoroughly rational. Obviously, that was an assertion I had to challenge.
A HAPPY SOCIETY
Few would deny the blunt assertion that a happy society is an orderly society. By "orderly" one does not necessarily mean a regulated society, but a reasonable one. Obviously a regulated society need not always be rational, nor need it be happy: A prison is an incredibly regulated society, yet it is that very regulation that makes prison society so miserable.
A reasonable society simply means that things have to make sense. A red traffic light that simultaneously means both Stop! and Don’t stop! would be rather confusing, resulting in many unhappy moments. An ambulance siren that means both Clear the way! and Block the way! might be exciting for a short time, but such excitement, one thinks, would quickly become painfully annoying. Pressing the button for the 5th floor in the elevator of a 60-floor high-rise makes one happy if the lift stops at the 5th floor, but happiness leaps to its death if “5th floor” means the barren roof. A reasonable society, then, is a happy one: the language of a happy society must make sense.
Moreover, the happy society is a reasonable society only if reason itself remains stable. If we accept that the meaning of a red traffic light can some days “change” or that it can be interpreted differently by different people, or that it should mean something else to assist the color-blind, happiness instantly departs the happy society. If 1+1 does not necessarily equal 2 in all possible worlds; if people can seriously proclaim that 1+1 can equal whatever any person chooses it to equal, the reasonable and happy society is essentially decapitated.
THE UBIQUITY OF THE “I WAS BORN GAY” ARGUMENT
Not long ago, at a popular annual forum in New Hampshire, guest speaker V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop, was asked this question: “What about ‘hating the sin but loving the sinner?’” The question was asked in regard to the ostensibly Christian view that homosexuality is a sin that Christians should hate and homosexuals are sinners Christians must love. Hidden in this apparently orthodox Christian statement is this premise: Opposition to homosexuality is not hate but loving dissent.
Mr. Robinson replied to the question, saying, “All I know is that I didn’t choose to be this way.”
Mr. Robinson’s reply echoes an omnipresent argument: homosexuals are born, not made. Homosexuality is not a choice; it is not something one can turn on and off, any more than a person can turn off being tall, right-handed, or blue-eyed. Hence, homosexuality as a pre-determined condition is not a sin. It is a gift. It is lived, not chosen. To the homosexual, homosexuality just is. And since it is a gift, a genetically-inherited and God-created condition or state of being, homosexuals need not and cannot “change.”
This argument is hardly unique to churchmen. During the 2007 Human Rights Campaign/Logo Democratic Presidential Forum, lesbian co-moderator Melissa Etheridge asked presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson if he believed “a homosexual is born that way, or do you think that around seventh grade we go, ‘Ooh, I want to be gay’?” Recently John Stewart asked Governor Mike Huckabee the same sort of question, all to the cheers and chuckles of those attending “The Daily Show.” The argument is nearly universal, and in it hides one unquestioned absolute: Since homosexuality is not a choice, homosexuals cannot change.
But the argument against change is rather unconvincing, in part because gays and lesbians expect change of all kinds. They surely expect heterosexuals who oppose homosexuality to change, despite the fact a reasonable case can be made that aversion to homosexuality is not a choice but the result of evolution’s conditioning. Moreover, the alliance between homosexuals and the “transgendered” manifests a striking contradiction. Once, while attending a panel discussion on gay marriage in a Unitarian Church where a gay panelist said he need not change because “God does not make mistakes,” I witnessed a trans-sexual “woman” announce to the audience that “she” had indeed changed; that this “woman trapped in a man’s body” had to change and was now fixed. In other words, I witnessed gay marriage advocates cheer God for not making mistakes, and then I watched as they cheered Him for equipping humanity with the necessary skills to fix the obvious mistakes He makes.
But there is much more that is irrational and confusing in the “I am born gay” argument. In fact, let me prove to you that the “I am born gay” argument is not only homophobic at its very roots, it is rejected by homosexuals everywhere.
THE HOMOSEXUAL NATURE FALLACY: The argument’s irrationality
A month before Gene Robinson would be consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in Christendom, he and I settled into a corner table at a trendy café in Peterborough, NH. I had twice called then bishop-elect Robinson to discuss the controversy surrounding his imminent consecration; as junior warden of All Saints’, arguably New Hampshire’s most beautiful parish, I sought Mr. Robinson’s counsel regarding the defection of several prominent parish members, including my wife, over his open and unabashed homosexuality. Mr. Robinson promptly returned my calls, and was kind enough to set 90 minutes aside for me. More than five years later, despite my own defection, I still describe our conversation as an “elegant dispute.”
During our time together, Mr. Robinson permitted me to challenge some of the arguments I had heard coming from the state diocesan office. I did not discuss the alleged inerrancy of Holy Scripture or the infallibility of its authors. My challenge was strictly about sacraments. In fact, I argued -- in a manner too academic to reprise here -- that homosexual relations could never be sacramental in the orthodox sense, and that such relations actually damaged the very nature of the sacraments themselves. No doubt my argument was more Roman Catholic than Protestant, but it did prompt Robinson to confess, "I do not know anyone arguing that way.”
But most of our time was consumed by Robinson’s own defense. He maintained that early Christian writers never possessed a concept of a homosexual human nature; thinking homosexuality a sinful choice, the Church Fathers were constrained by the limits of rather primitive thinking, and could not have known homosexuality was a gift from a loving God. Robinson’s exegesis of perhaps the New Testament’s most damning passages regarding homosexuality, found in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, echoed John Boswell’s influential claims, namely that God only condemns homosexual acts performed by those who do not possess an authentic homosexual nature. When a straight man acts like a gay man, he is acting against his nature, and is therefore under God’s judgment. This, Mr. Robinson averred, is in keeping with Scripture.
In all honesty, I found Mr. Robinson’s argument dumbfounding.
People who support gay marriage have often said to me that I can’t possibly believe homosexuality is a choice. “Surely you don’t believe anyone would choose that?” asked one man who founded a local PFLAG† group after his gay son came out of the closet. I have sometimes responded to such comments by pointing out that it is the supporters and not the detractors of gay rights who have put the “Ick!-factor” into homosexuality: Homosexuality is so unpleasant no one would choose it who was not born "that way."
But what is it about homosexuality that is so intrinsically unpleasant that only those “born” a certain way can participate in it? Robinson, as far as I know, has never said. Those who support traditional heterosexual marriage have never asserted that a person must first be born a certain way before he or she can be heterosexually active; heterosexuality has always been wildly inclusive, while homosexuality is notably exclusive, limiting participation to those with a “homosexual nature” or “gay gene.” Odd, though, that one never hears complaints about a gay bishop lifting up the bed sheets of his parishioners in an effort to discern who truly possesses a “homosexual nature.” One would expect Bishop Robinson to rebuke from the pulpit those who are not “really” gay for behaving as if they were, but we hear no such rebukes.
The moment one notices that homophobia is actually rooted in pro-gay arguments or that Gene Robinson is awfully silent about the morality of straights “choosing” gay relations, one also notices that the “I-was-born gay” argument has vanished. No pro-gay advocate really believes that homosexual acts are only moral if performed by those who have no choice in the matter. No pro-gay advocate believes that homosexuality is so icky one mustn’t choose it. (Can anyone name a single morally acceptable act that must not be done by people who have not been born a certain way?)
Hence, the “I was born gay” argument is something of a ruse. The argument merely distracts and confuses. Besides, we all know sexual behavior is volitional. A National Mall packed with celebrants proves to even the most obdurate heart that thousands and thousands of people choose not to be sexual at any given moment. I can even descry with something approaching certitude that readers of this article have chosen not to have sex right now. People do not have sex during church; football fans and even the players have made a choice to do something else than be sexual during the Super Bowl. Choice is very much part of sexuality, and we all know it.
Besides, I do remember making a choice, even a series of choices, about sexuality, even sexual propensity. I had two childhood friends who flirted with homosexuality during adolescence; both would later announce they were indeed gay. At the same time, I was friends with “straight boys,” some of whom had, as pre-teens, participated in homosexual acts (and yet would become happy and healthy heterosexual married men). But I do remember choosing to reject participating in that sort of behavior, choosing instead to affirm that girls, for me, were definitely the best thing in the world (despite the fact that they scared me to no end). I have often been confronted by “choices” in my sexual "orientation," of how I would think, act, and choose regarding my sexuality. Who hasn’t?
In the final analysis then, since no gay rights proponent is willing to proclaim that “choosing homosexuality is immoral,” the “I-was-born gay” argument is destroyed. It means nothing. It is, at best, an antique irrelevancy.
THE POLITICAL ROOTS OF THE “I WAS BORN GAY” ARGUMENT
Why would pro-gay rights activists use such a feckless and even phobic argument to defend gay rights?
First, this argument has been trundled out to invoke sympathy: Being born gay is hard enough without having to deal with the bigotry directed at something gays can’t resist or change. But let it be noted that appeals to sympathy are irrational, being examples of the fallacy argumentum ad misericordiam, or the appeal to pity: the fallacy attempts to justify a position with feelings rather than with reason. In other words, the appeal to pity has no place in the orderly, rational society.
The second and most important reason the “homosexual nature” argument is presented is to equate homosexuality with something people REALLY can’t change: the color of their skin. This argument steals something from the plight of African-Americans; it steals what is clearly genetic and pre-determined and applies it to gays and lesbians in order to gain the same sort of political leverage blacks had in the Civil Rights Movement. But since the “I was born gay” argument has been rejected, this identification with the struggle of blacks is also to be rejected, and not merely because it is irrational. It is to be rejected because it is offensive. Again, since there is not a gay activist who would assert that “choosing homosexuality is intrinsically immoral,” it is incredible that anyone would identify the “struggle” of homosexuals with the struggle for equal rights for black Americans. Gay rights activists “reject” the idea that it would be immoral to choose homosexuality; in practical, real life terms, gay activists have no problem with people choosing homosexuality even though they claim that homosexuality is in-born. But every thinking person would consider absurd the statement that there is no problem with people choosing blackness; this proves that the political identification of the gay "struggle" for equal rights with the black struggle for such rights is ultimately meaningless. Hence, the argument that homosexuality is in-born is to be rejected as immoral and offensive precisely because it seeks to benefit from the systematic sufferings of those African-Americans who truly had no choice.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE CONSERVATIVES?
All this leaves conservatives in a very interesting place.
First, removing the “I am born gay” argument completely changes the debate. If it is not immoral to choose homosexuality, then homosexuality can be a choice, which is actually what conservative thinkers have asserted for decades. And if it is a choice, then not only can it be resisted, those who made the choice can change.
When gay activists mock conservative positions with taunts like “Are you so stupid that you think gays are going to ‘recruit’ straights?” and “You straights are under the dopey impression that gay marriage will result in an increase in 'gayness,'” conservatives note the irony that gays are apparently blind to their own arguments: if it is not immoral to “choose” to be gay, then it is not immoral to recruit others to participate in something thoroughly moral, nor is it immoral to even hope that “gayness” will increase. For if homosexuality is an undeniable good, even a good that is a gift from God, then it would be immoral not to recruit and expand something so wonderful. Spread the goodness. Make the world a more lovely and moral place. Alas, it is quite clear that gay activists must concede this point. And if they don’t, they have to return to the assertion that “choosing homosexuality” is morally repugnant for reasons they will not reveal.
Second, we find that allegedly "white" conservatism has a powerful union with blacks across America. Recall that the vast majority of American blacks voted in last year’s referendums to ban gay marriage. Why? Partly because blacks do not see the struggle for gay rights as a moral and social equivalent to the black struggle for equality. 95% of American blacks voted with the gay community, also mostly Democrats, for Barack Obama, and yet most of those same blacks voted against extending marriage rights to gays. Why? (I will explore this more fully soon.) Because blacks are conservative when it comes to marriage and sexual behavior. (By the way: Do gay activists call blacks who oppose gay marriage, bigots? If so, does that mean that bigots elected Barack Obama? And what to do with Mr. Obama's own apparent opposition to gay marriage?)
But this ultimately leaves conservatives in a position of great strength. However, they must exercise that strength immediately because the time is fast approaching when homosexuality will be treated with moral indifference, with an “everybody-can-do-it” insouciance. But as long as gays continue to defend themselves with the “We are born gay" argument, conservatives have the rational upper hand in the debate. Of course, once gay activists abandon that argument for the more nefarious “any sexual choice is moral” argument, the debate will shift again. But at least conservatives will control the debate when that shift comes.
Remember, a happy society is a reasonable one. And so far we can conclude that the ubiquitous “reason” of a “homosexual nature” offered in defense of gay marriage is not at all rational.
Peace through dissent.
©Bill Gnade/2009. All Rights Reserved.
By the way, pass it on.
†PFLAG: Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. A support group.
13 comments:
But most of our time was consumed by Robinson’s own defense. He maintained that early Christian writers never possessed a concept of a homosexual human nature; thinking homosexuality a sinful choice, the Church Fathers were constrained by the limits of rather primitive thinking, and could not have known homosexuality was a gift from a loving God. Robinson’s exegesis of perhaps the New Testament’s most damning passages regarding homosexuality, found in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, echoed John Boswell’s influential claims, namely that God only condemns homosexual acts performed by those who do not possess an authentic homosexual nature. When a straight man acts like a gay man, he is acting against his nature, and is therefore under God’s judgment. This, Mr. Robinson averred, is in keeping with Scripture.
Query: If it is only sin, causing us to stand under God's judgment, when one acts against one's true nature, then was Bishop Robinson sinning when he was ostensibly "happily" married to his wife and fathering children? After all, one cannot have it both ways.
I find the "born that way" argument disingenuous for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that it implies a biological basis, i.e. genetic, for the behavior. If that's true, then the gene involved must either be a mutation or, at best, recessive.
If it's a mutation, then by definition it's harmful, inasmuch as I can think of no other individual mutations which benefit the species. If it is caused by a recessive gene, then it would have been eliminated from the species long before there was any social stigma associated with the behavior, because, again by definition, it would not pass itself on to subsequent generations.
Finally, I really don't think gay people themselves believe the argument, because I've yet to hear it offered in defense of other "sexual orientations" of which society disapproves, i.e. incest or pedophilia.
Aside: Some years ago, I received a copy of Tammy Bruce's first book. In an excerpt about her work with the NOW chapter in L.A. and with various gay and lesbian organizations, she described an encounter with a group of women who wanted more exposure as GLBT events, because they were into very involved BDSM and viewed their "lifestyle" as equally valid to the others represented. I don't remember the exact quote from Bruce, but she commented that while run of the mill gay and lesbian relations were acceptable, "some things are just sick." I laughed out loud at the fact that the irony of the remark seemed to have escaped Ms. Bruce.
Cheers.
Bill, you are a valiant defender of the faith! Though, I’m not sure that appeals to logic and politics can ever be a winning strategy in this day and age of moral corruption. But I celebrate your willingness to try. Your arguments are presuppositional, but excellent food for thought nonetheless. Thank you for taking the time to dive into this very controversial topic.
Homosexuals would maintain, if they would permit me to phrase their argument, that irrespective of what volitional acts they engage in, homosexuality lies at the core of their nature. I would argue that in the absence of an appeal to authoritarian scripture, which most would deny in any case, no compelling scientific argument can be made to refute this claim.
Secular homosexuals might excuse themselves from your presuppositions, but religious homosexuals such as the good Bishop, are presented with a conundrum. Notwithstanding the strong language of Paul in Romans, Jesus said at Matthew 5:28 that we have sinned in our heart if we even look at another wo(man) covetously. In a narrow sense, this goes to your argument about choice and indeed places the Bishop in an uncomfortable predicament. You made the point that homosexuality is a choice, as is heterosexuality, because all sex is volitional. The choice that conservatives allude to in their arguments appears to be merely a reference to the volitional act, not what is in the person’s heart or brain chemistry. Homosexuals maintain that they are homosexual whether they engage in sex or not. And it appears, at least scripturally, that this identity, irrespective of their “choice” of whether to act or not act, condemns them.
My thinking isn’t completely clear on this but it appears to be a question of nature vs identity. And I believe the homosexual community confuses these terms. The bible claims that these matters are not of our nature but of mankind’s willingness to turn his back on God with homosexuality being a result of this volitional intransigence. The bible claims that in God’s perfection, the nature of a person is not in question; it’s the “identity” of the person, something they voluntarily adopt, that needs to be adjusted.
Science of course makes no such hard claims. But science has a funny way of conforming to the politics of the day.
Peace,
Chris
Besides the biological argument, isn't there a core argument of moral relativism and secular humanism going up against religious "moralism" or the notion of a source for morality?
Dear Randall,
Very interesting comments.
Let us assume that this is all about "evolving." OK, fine. But when we look at evolution, even if a species or sub-species gains an advantage via mutation, there remains this simple question: What is the advantage? In regard to homosexuality, the advantage is not at all apparent: What is gained by humanity if homosexuality and the tolerance of it are deemed the result of evolution? How does this all make humanity stronger, better, more elastic? How does it benefit survival? I dare say that nothing is gained in a biological sense; there is no strength gained that protects the species from destruction.
As you note, though not necessarily in these words, homosexuality, in a very real biological and genetic sense, is self-canceling.
Peace to you,
BG
Dear Chris,
Despite the grotesquely partisan and absurd reviews of the following title by some guests at Amazon, a book you will find incredibly interesting is "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D. He is extremely well-qualified to write on the matter; I guarantee you will find the book wildly interesting. Seriously, it is a must read.
(For fun: Here's Satinover's resumé from his Wikipedia page:
Satinover won a National Merit Scholarship to M.I.T, where he obtained a B.S. in 1971. He subsequently obtained his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an Ed.M. in Clinical Psychology and Public Practice from Harvard University, and his M.D. at the University of Texas and later an M.S. in physics at Yale University. He completed psychoanalytic training at the C. G. Jung Institute of Zürich, their youngest-ever graduate. In 2008 he completed a Ph.D. in physics (summa cum laude) at the University of Nice, France.
Satinover is a former state flight surgeon having served in the 1/169th combat-support helicopter battalion of the Connecticut Army National Guard, and Army Reserve Psychiatrist (rank of major). He practiced clinical psychiatry between 1986 and 2003, and psychoanalysis between 1976 and 2003, early in his career as a Jungian analyst, having trained at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich.
He is a past-President of the C. G. Jung Foundation of New York. He is a former fellow (resident) in psychiatry and child Psychiatry at Yale where he was twice awarded the department of psychiatry’s Seymour Lustman Residency Research Prize (2nd place). After twenty-five years in the medical and psychotherapeutic arena, he returned to school.)
In other words, this dude has got the creds. Check out that he just completed his Ph.D in physics last year. (I corresponded with him last year via email, and I have started to read his mind-bending book, "The Quantum Brain.")
Anyhow, just thought you'd like to have ANOTHER book on your list.
Peace, and thanks for the great (and encouraging) comments,
BG
Dear Underground,
Yes, absolutely. I alluded to the relativism argument at the beginning of my essay (the mutability of absolutes like "Stop", for example).
Robinson's exegesis of Paul's words in Romans also points to this: Paul was "right" back then (the chronological fallacy), but he'd be "wrong" now, unless, of course, he submitted to Robinson's catechism and accepted homosexuality as normal. But there remains the problem of the Absolute, for Robinson does not mean that if science discovers Friday that there is NO SUCH THING as a "homosexual nature" we would be justified in returning to Paul's words as authoritative on Saturday. In other words, Robinson's relativism brooks no flexibility: homosexuality is ALWAYS and forever morally acceptable; it is ALWAYS absolutely morally fine and Paul is ALWAYS absolutely morally wrong.
I hope you see the double standard. Perhaps I have not spelled it out all that well. Forgive me.
Peace.
Gnade
In keeping with the evolutionary role of homosexuality, could it be one of nature's mechanisms to slow population growth? If this is the case we might expect a rise in homosexual behavior as populations grow (due to prosperity), cities get more crowded, people have more leisure time for sensual pleasures, etc...
So, a background "noise" of homosexuality would rise and fall over the ages but never go extinct.
Just floating a thought for you and R.
Dear Underground,
I have considered your thesis before; it merits some discussion.
First, it has been my impression that evolution is more about accident than response; things evolve by fluke, not by intent. The idea you float presumes, I think, that there is an over-arching scheme or willfulness to evolution, that evolution "sees" something and seeks to correct it, namely rapid population growth. But it would seem to me that infertility and not homosexuality would have a more immediate effect on things; if evolution is paying attention, then surely infertility is a better mechanism for controlling reproduction. (I have more to say on this, but I'll leave it aside for now.)
However, my overall sense is that natural selection, as I've said, is built on the idea that adaptation is rather accidental and haphazard. Thus, it seems unlikely that homosexuality as "normal" is really a long-lived, evolution-driven adaptation.
Second, I believe it was Margaret Sanger who actually proposed that health organizations encourage and promote homosexuality as a means of birth control. Of course, as already noted, this is a rather self-canceling proposition. Besides, it seems essentially misanthropic.
Peace,
Gnade
Perhaps while homosexuality is indeed a biological cul-de-sac, the social Darwinists may argue that they serve the useful function of preventing the injurious over-population of this ever lessening green place we call home.
Forgive the redundancy. I didn't see the previous discussion thread.
Bill, I agree with your comment about infertility being the preferred means of correction.
Same sex marriage being made equal with traditional heterosexual marriage is the epitome of the dishonest scale. Any scale rendering the union of a same sex couple and the union of a male and female to be of equal value in a society is dishonest. Just as when the constitution rendered an African to be worth 3/5 of a person was a dishonest scale. When lending institutions were forced to declare uncreditworthy people as equal to the creditworthy the result is a dishonest scale.
A dishonest scale hurts everyone. The financial dishonest scales have threatened this country's financial stability. A dishonest moral scale will continue to threaten the foundations of this country.
Dear James,
You have posted a very powerful comment.
I note that you mention that American slaves were considered 3/5 of a person. Did you know that it was the anti-slavery, pro-emancipation activists who devised that? They did so because the southern states wanted to count slaves as full citizens (but only numerically), thus giving the South a larger population and hence giving the South larger representation in Congress (in order to control legislation). The compromise, I believe, was to give the slaves only 3/5 personhood; in doing so, those who were working to free slaves made their legislative opposition smaller.
So, at least in this one example, I am not sure your "dishonest scale" applies. I am not arguing with your thesis; I am merely pointing out that in the "3/5 of a person" argument, one actually finds something of an "honest scale."
Peace to you,
Gnade
Additional fuel for the fire: Note the reference in this post (Scroll Down):
Quoted from a far left feminist web blog:
The theory that women have a natural urge to have babies is one that’s got a long and ignoble sexist history, [...]
None of that is to say that the urge to have children that some (but far from all) women experience isn’t real, and that’s my other giant problem with the ongoing preoccupation with evo psych theories to explain things that are cultural constructs. That something is a cultural construct doesn’t make it less real, it just means that it’s more changeable. This seems like a small distinction, but it’s an important one. I am routinely accused by evo psych fans of denying that men and women are different. I do think there are major culturally constructed differences, and I think most of them exist to demean and oppress women and should be changed in the culture. That’s not to say that they aren’t real, but just that they’re changeable.
The poster's response:
Interestingly, no where would she state something so positively about homosexuality or transgenderism … no, those aren’t subject to change at all, no social construct there. Heh.
Cheers.
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