Gays "nature not nurture" says Schori

Katharine Schori has done an interview with Integrity for the winter-spring edition of the lgbt organisation's journal.

In it she says: "As a biologist I look at the natural world where same-sex behaviour is present in many, many species. Today we can look at sexual development happening very early in a person's life. As a person of faith I would look at that and say, it happens before the age of reason; it's a matter of creation, not a matter of choice." Her attendance at next month's Primates' meeting, and how that plays with the rest, will be crucial in determining the future of the Anglican Communion. So some other aspects of the interview, with John Gibson asking the questions and Robert Williams keeping a close eye on them both, are worth looking at as well.

Asked what she thought a Sunday without gays in the Episcopal Church would be like, she replied: "It would be very lonely. It would be very lonely. Very interesting. That whole image." She's right there. It would be even more lonely than it already is. And wouldn't it be fascinating to see who stayed away! (Pic by James Rosenthal for ACNS)

She also says it is not her job to interfere in the consent process for new bishops, and that if as likely, a partnered gay or lesbian bishop is elected during her presidency, "The Presiding Bishop's role is to preside at the consecration of new bishops wherever possible."

Schori tries hard not to get herself into trouble again. (Father Jake reports on the stir caused by another recent interview.) Gibson tries to pin her down, and finds it frustratingly difficult. He concludes that "the Presiding Bishop is still working through the boundaries between her personal and ecclesial commitments" and that her role "also appears to be to say as little to offend her diverse flock as possible."

She's a fast learner then. Anglican Mainstream has countered her statement by publishing an exchange of letters between ex-gay minister Mario Bergner and Archbishop Akinola. Thinking Anglicans has also traced another recent interview.

As John Chilton notes, she does also say in the Integrity piece:

'It’s really the church’s task to help all Christians to live holy lives. I think God created us, most of us, as sexual beings, and we’re meant to express that sexuality in healthy ways. Therefore, I believe it’s the church’s job to help us get that idea. And we haven’t really come there yet, in it fullness. The issue with Gene Robinson’s consents would have been far clearer if we as a church had gotten to a place of saying, well, here is a way for appropriate sexual expression for people of same sex orientation. We hadn’t done that yet. We still haven’t done that.'

She understands as much as any how much is a lot at stake here. Changing Attitude is reporting that its director in Nigeria has received a serious death threat. Others are discussing the way this whole debate is colouring public perceptions of Anglicans. It is worth listening to Lord MacKay of Clashfern's views as expressed in the SORs debate on a recent issue of the BBC's Today programme. As Geoff Arnold says, these are troubling times.

More later.

Comments

[AndrewCS]

What I am saying will probably be controversial.

With the the sexual orientation regulations (SOR), there are two basic tenets behind the thinking:

1. Homosexuals are born gay and therefore, their sexuality cannot change.

2. The principle of anti-discrimination usually revolve around aspects which we cannot change: racial, sexual, weight, disability, ethnic, height, and age.

3. Because of assumption #1, therefore assumption #2 needs to include homosexuals.

The problem I have with SOR is that Assumption #1 is not scientifically proven.

For me, I view homosexuality as a gender identity disorder, just like any other psychological disorder.

There are many scientifically documented cases of feral children raised by animals in the jungle (for more, see www.feralchildren.com). A girl raised by wolves will find her identity as an animal and will think she is part of the wolf pack. That does not make her a wolf - she has just lost her identity. Feral children are usually entirely unaware of the needs and desires and others. The concepts of morals, property and possessions are alien to them, and they can't show empathy with other people. If brought up by animals, they don't even identify themselves as human, but probably regard humans as "the enemy". This is an example of an identity disorder.

Take this experiment if you have friends who are homosexuals: Ask any gay man whether he felt close to, and can identify with his dad, uncles or grandad (or any male role models) in a NON-SEXUAL MANNER during his formative years. I would not be surprised that most of the answers would be negative. It is this lack of healty association with the male identity that leads boys to sexualize their (normal) need for male companionship - therefore turning this into a same-sex sexual orientation.

Some say that observations of homosexual animals mean that it is natural. Animals also have sex with their own offspring. Do we think that's natural?

If we start assuming that homosexuality is in-born, before we know it, we may as well label irrational phobias and (dare I say) paedophilia as normal or in-born. Would you?

[alistair mcbay]

Arden

The reference to reading the bible "as a whole" wasn't in the context of reading a page here or there, as you suggest. It was in the context of those who say the entire OT is not relevant to modern Christianity or dismiss it and say only the NT forms the basis for a Christian's life. Some believers have said this much in the past on here. Even the Catholic hierarchy said in October 2005 in a document they published entitled "The Gift of Scripture" that the bible contained neither scientific precision nor historical accuracy, and shouldn't be read literally. Ruth ran a thread on this at the time on the back of an article she had written up in the paper. The position taken by the Catholic cardinals in Britain was an interesting commentary on the perils of religious certainty. I see however that Cardinal O'Connor is taking some passages literally over the gay adoption issue. This seems to be a case of "we don't want you to take the bible literally, except the bits that we tell you to take literally".

Frank has succinctly answered the issue of your 'purity' of science question - the key word I think in Frank's excellent reply is "evidence"

[Frank Schnittger]

"Why is it that only science is pure and without pre-conceived ideas as to how the journey goes? arden

Because Science is open to refutation when new evidence emerges, and is continually being revised, sometimes in a revolutionary fashion.

How do you refute ideas held to be true because the Church or Tradition says they are true?

All you can do is walk away and go elsewhere - and that is what is happening to the Christian Churches in Europe.

[arden]

Alistair

If you don’t believe it is necessary to read the Bible as a whole, about science books? Can I read a page here and a paragraph there and get the whole story? What about the ax the author of the science book has to grind. Is Professor Dawkins without prejudice? Why is it that only science is pure and without pre-conceived ideas as to how the journey goes?

[Christopher]

Martin
proposition 1: "It has, but that is because the Church since Vatican II has been very bad at educating its people in the practice of the faith."

proposition 2: "No, but I just wanted to avoid your unsupportable statement being taken as fact."

Perhaps if you admit proposition 1 then proposition 2 may well not be quite so insupportable as you would like it to be.

It is my opinion that the laity make their minds up about what is sexual sin more than they used to; I think this is founded on reasonable conclusions given the current state of the church and the falling birth-rate in catholic families (surely that is a fact?). People are better educated, often to a higher level than their clergy since Vatican II, and they are less ostensibly infantilised by clerical attitudes. One sign of this would be the manner of taking communion in the hand instead of kneeling and letting the priest put the host in their mouths as if feeding an infant. This is one of many indications of increasing clerical respect for the laity, signifying the laity's coming of age. Another would be using their own conscience to judge moral issues without waiting to be told from the pulpit. The doctrine of the primacy of conscience was little known to catholics before Vatican II, but in handing it to the laity, the bishops were preparing the way for their authority on morals to be questioned. Then, of course, the hierarchy's attempts to hush up priestly sex scandals.....why should ordinary catholics believe these men have anything to teach them about sexual morals?

[Martin]

"Perhaps you are a priest who can speak from experience?"

No, but I just wanted to avoid your unsupportable statement being taken as fact.

"Do you deny that confession itself has fallen off even among otherwise practising catholics so people don't feel obliged to go to confession before receiving communion every time as they did when I used to do it?"

It has, but that is because the Church since Vatican II has been very bad at educating its people in the practice of the faith. If they understood that taking communion whilst not in a state of grace is itself a mortal sin, and that you are harming yourself and disrespecting the Blessed Sacrament by doing so, then their attitude towards it might change. The fact that they do not understand this is merely another of the many grounds on which the post-Vatican II reforms deserve excoriation - the so-called "renewal" has led to nothing but an abandonment in traditional devotional practices and a falling-off in the comprehension and practice of the faith.

In sum: the fact that people DO NOT go to confession as much as they used to does not mean that they OUGHT NOT to.

[david frame]

I come late, but this is my response.

Nature or nature? I don’t believe this is the right question, and I don’t believe this is the debate within the wider church. For a Christian, the question is: what does God think about it? Is homosexual behaviour right or wrong? Is it a sin?

Is it natural to sin? Of course it is! Is it possible to stop sinning? With God’s help it is.

I believe it was St Augustine who explained human time into four periods:
1. God creates the world and it is good: Possible [for man] to sin; 2. The fall of man: Impossible not to sin; 3. Christ’s death and resurrection: Possible not to sin; 4. New heaven and new earth: Impossible to sin.

I believe we are in that third period and that the Bible ultimately teaches us that homosexuality came into this world as one of many consequences of the fall of man [the Adam and Eve story] and that falling to those tendencies is against God’s original order.

Can a man or woman help be anything but what we are? In human terms, not really, though we can bring some of our sins under some sort of control, others are just impossible to control; we are slaves to our sin. Can God free people from their sin and transform people, yes he does! Transformation is thus possible with God’s help.

The question is then: is following one’s homosexual tendencies a sin or are those tendencies part of God’s plan? The answer to that is one’s interpretation of what the Bible says. I follow orthodoxy; the debate is one of biblical interpretation, whether the orthodox interpretation is right or wrong. In that context the debate on nature or nurture is of low value.

Whilst a Chrisitan cannot expect the wider world to agree, standards within the Christian family are higher and God has to rule.

[Christopher]

"This is a personal opinion only, without any evidence to back it up. "

And the following isn't, Martin?

"Many people probably do confess the sin of contraception, as indeed they do masturbation."

Perhaps you are a priest who can speak from experience? If so do tell if confessors get surveyed on the kinds of sins being confessed? I somehow doubt they keep records but let's see if I am wrong and someone comes forward with the figures.

Do you deny that confession itself has fallen off even among otherwise practising catholics so people don't feel obliged to go to confession before receiving communion every time as they did when I used to do it?

[alistair mcbay]

"Or do you do both and give the gospel writers the benefit of not assuming they were disingenuous liars"

I didn't accuse them of being disingenuous liars. But they were people with an agenda to fulfil, trying to mould later events to fit earlier prophecies, and indeed writing about events that happened decades earlier. Like whoever it was that doctored the work of Josephus to make it look like an independent (from the Bible) verification of the existence of jesus. Any theologian worth his salt knows the single passage concerned is a fake post-dating Josephus, yet some Christians still present Josephus as independent proof that Christ existed. As I say, these forgers had an agenda to fulfil. As you say, deception everywhere!

The agenda - deception debate is as pertinent today. The vile campaign of misinformation over the SORs highlighted in the full-page newspaper ads by ‘Coherent and Cohesive Voice’, in a national daily on 28 November, proved that. This carried four claims about the SORs that have been proved ina Parliamentary debate to be entirely worng.

An agenda to fulfil? Deception everywhere? Either these people were careless to the point of negligence, or they were simply trying to misinform and mislead.

[Simon]

Alistair

For example, either you believe the Matthew account of OT prophecies being fulfilled, or you look closely and see that the writer of Matthew is guilty of forcing the interpretation of an ancient scripture to fit his own particular theology and agenda. Read Matthew 1:22-23 and compare it to Isiah 7:14, and you will see how NT writers tried to squeeze the Jesus story into the OT 'prophecies'.

Or you do both and give the gospel writers the benefit of not assuming they disingenuous liars. After all, these people often went willingly to their deaths for what they believed was the truth. If you start with an Elaine-Pagels-esque view that the early Christian writers were motivated by political agendas, rather than recording the story and words of Jesus, then you see deception everywhere - its 'in the eye of the beholder' if you like.

Going back to the original thread, its interesting those in the Catholic Church tend to be well aware of the gulf between the Christian ideal the Church stands for - and each of our failings in living up to that ideal. So people (like me) who have sex outside of marriage are committing sins, people who have homosexual sex are committing sins. The idea that the Church should not only condone, but actively encourage things that are not part of the ideal of Christianity, is to make a category error. Hence my rather silly posts about sheep!

It would be interesting to know how Schori would respond to this thoughtful piece on the ordination of women.

[Martin]

"I think the laity came to realise that the official church had little to offer in the morality of marital sexual relations when Paul VI made the wrong decision about the use of artifical contraception against the recommendations of a special panel of experts, including experienced married practising catholics. From that moment I believe mature catholics began quietly to walk away from Vatican pronouncements on sex and to omit any reference to the sexual 'sin' of contraception in the confessional"

This is a personal opinion only, without any evidence to back it up. Many people probably do confess the sin of contraception, as indeed they do masturbation.

[alistair mcbay]

Margaret, you have reared that old nugget, the "context" argument!

Well, Christians are very good at pulling passages from the bible and basing a stance on them "out of context". But the context in which I quoted these passages to you was pertinent - you said there were behaviours found in the natural world that you found very problematic - incest, cannibalism, rape, infanticide, and genocide.

I merely pointed out to you that the Bible is full of incest, cannibalism, rape, infanticide, and genocide, and quoted some passages to show you. These passages were either inspired by your God, or reports of what God actually said. Immediately you retreat behind the context argument, and dodge the basic question - why do you abhor these things in the natural word, yet accept their biblical context apparently as "the story of God's progressive self-revelation"?

To argue as you do that the Bible must be read as a whole, and as the story of God's progressive self-revelation with the reading of the Old Testament done with the New Testament firmly in mind, needs to combine a large bucket of whitewash with stunning mental contortions. For example, either you believe the Matthew account of OT prophecies being fulfilled, or you look closely and see that the writer of Matthew is guilty of forcing the interpretation of an ancient scripture to fit his own particular theology and agenda. Read Matthew 1:22-23 and compare it to Isiah 7:14, and you will see how NT writers tried to squeeze the Jesus story into the OT 'prophecies'.

[Christopher]

Mike, I came across a reference to Courage, the website of Jeremy Marks, Director of Courage (www.courage.org.uk) the other day. I learned that Jeremy ran a 'reorientation' programme for 12 years, until he acknowledged that no one ever changed their orientation, contrary to what Peter claims. He now supports integration of 'whole' gay people into mainstream christianity as fully-functioning sexual beings. The website says this :

"Sexuality is a Gift of God
Whatever the origins of homosexual desire, which remain controversial, we see the need to acknowledge our sexual orientation as a gift from God. Just as some folk come to accept their disability as a gift, we accept our sexual orientation with dignity and seek to express our affections responsibly. To dismiss homosexuality as a result of the Fall - unholy in every regard - is an emotionally and spiritually crippling pronouncement! Scripture teaches us that God’s grace is sufficient for all who trust in Him; His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

We believe there is wisdom in preaching abstinence from sexual intimacy outside heterosexual marriage: to abstain from sexual intimacy in preparation for lifelong commitment to another surely reflects the biblical teaching for marriage. However, heterosexual marriage is rarely an appropriate option for gay people. If therefore, by mutual consent, an erotic dimension of love should develop as part of a committed gay relationship, we believe this to be a matter of personal conscience for those concerned. It is important, though, that for Christians this develops in the context of partners seeking God and acting together from a position of faith (Hebrews 11:6)."

I don't agree with everything Jeremy Marks says but surely his is a healthier and a more rational approach to gay people, christian or not. He no longer demands that to be 'christian' gay people first have to go through some not-only demeaning but often psychologically damaging processes to turn them into something they are not - all in the name of dogma or to make evangelicals feel less anxious about the unconscionable aspects of their christianist and heterosexist religiosity.

[Simon]

I can confirm that Schori is indeed a wise woman. My love of sheep is in my nature, and nothing to do with nurture. And having often seen dogs indulging in sexual relationships with the legs of humans, and even seen a rabbit trying to have sex with hairbrush, its clear that Schori has a deep understanding of the issues here.

Her arguments are so good in a Christian sense that they are right up to the same level of those homophobic baptist extremists. They even have me wondering how a spiritual God could have created a human gamete! Oh I give up - the universe must just have appeared out of nothing. Jesus had delusional issues of grandeur.

The only question I'm left with - is what is the job of this Schori woman ? Is she some kind of counsellor for confused people ?

[Deb]

'It’s really the church’s task to help all Christians to live holy lives. I think God created us, most of us, as sexual beings, and we’re meant to express that sexuality in healthy ways. Therefore, I believe it’s the church’s job to help us get that idea. And we haven’t really come there yet, in it fullness. The issue with Gene Robinson’s consents would have been far clearer if we as a church had gotten to a place of saying, well, here is a way for appropriate sexual expression for people of same sex orientation. We hadn’t done that yet. We still haven’t done that.'

by her very admission they made decisions before thinking any of this through. Is that want we want from leadership......! Also what people consent to as adults(and homosexuals can not claim morality on this after disregarding marriage as a norm) may be good for them but not family life,the community, society or future generations.
God made us sexual beings but doesnt say that to express our sexual preferences is a right.Homosexuals cant say I have that right but then judge others who then express their sexuality(bisexuality). Marriage and chastity make it fair and doesnt impose sexual rights on a society that is already suffering from it.

[Margaret G]

Ed (and also Alistair)
If the Bible is "just some old text" then no one on this earth would be having this argument. For Christians (and for Jews for the "old Testament" part of it) the Bible is the story of God's revelation.

Both of you seem to think that this a smorgisbord (sp?), where you can come and pick and choose the bits that you either like (in Ed's case) or dislike (in Alistair's case). This has never been the Jewish or Christian approach to the Bible, who both believe that it must be read as a whole, and as the story of God's progressive self-revelation. In the case of Christians, the fullest revelation of God is through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the reading of the Old Testament is done with this firmly in mind, which is why the Romans 1 passage and the other New Testament passages are so significant. (If you want to know more I recommend any basic book on Christian belief that teaches about the Bible.)

In response to Alistair then, I would say you have taken these passages out of context, and in particular out of the context of the full revelation of God through his Son. In response to Ed, I would say that the "inconclusive passages in the old text" view you state is not the way any serious Christian analysis of the Bible is carried out. Any serious analysis of homosexuality will start with God's purpose for mankind as revealed in Creation, and from there develop a complete view of sexuality which encompasses all aspects including marriage, adultery, homosexuality and sex before marriage. Among other reasons for this approach, this is the model that Jesus used when he was teaching about divorce (Mark 10:1-12 and parallels). This is where he explicitly linked the fact that "God made them male and female" to the definition of marriage -- a passage that is at least as significant as any of the Leviticus ones, and which seem to be overlooked by many who say that Jesus never spoke on the subject.

[dave vanderah]

Your final para. equals the American Indian inspired phrase: "Only if you have
walked in my moccasins, can you begin to understand me; or criticise me."

[Mike Homfray]

People can con themselves into believing anything.

Including that they have genuinely changed sexuality. But I don't believe them. I think they are lying, and I think there is so much evidence that this is so - the more honest 'ex-gay' groups are open about the fact that change in orientation is extremely unlikely or impossible

I've known a few people attached to these groups and I'm glad to say they are all with partners and free of the conservative church and its repulsive god - who, peter, is certainly no god of mine. You are welcome to it!

[Christopher]

David K, thank you for your post which gives a very balanced account of how gay people in the catholic church fare today. By and large the laity leads in the liberalisation of attitides to gay people (with some regressive exceptions like Patricia McKeever who runs a witchhunt against gay catholic priests out of Edinburgh). In his book The Puzzle of Sex Peter Vardy did a survey on some 3000 A-level students which showed that catholic young people were less judgmental about homosexuality than their counterparts in other christian denominations.

I think the laity came to realise that the official church had little to offer in the morality of marital sexual relations when Paul VI made the wrong decision about the use of artifical contraception against the recommendations of a special panel of experts, including experienced married practising catholics. From that moment I believe mature catholics began quietly to walk away from Vatican pronouncements on sex and to omit any reference to the sexual 'sin' of contraception in the confessional. And as Rowan Williams ably pointed out (in The Body's Grace I think), once the necessary link between every act of sexual intercourse and a potential fertilisation of the ovum is broken, prohibitions against consenting sex for its own sake, for bonding, for pleasure, sex between same-sex partners can no longer be made on those grounds, and in the case of the latter become a matter of human justice, about which the catholic church is also, rightly, very concerned. (And I guess that is why the church is so slow to give on the case for condoms.) The catholic church's case against same-sex relations is thus more consistent than the others who have broken the necessary link with the transmission of life. Given that these others have also removed the ban on the remarriage of divorcees in church, their continued ban on (and often hysterical reaction to) homosexuality is at best inconsistent and at worst hypocritical. The catholic church sees this consequence, I believe, but for the evangelicals, among whom divorce and remarriage is a commonplace, their only appeal, as edpennington points out, is an appeal to an ancient text, and even that is inconclusive in interpretation....and, oh, an appeal to what is 'natural' - an ever widening scientific category. (A doctor told me the only unnatural actions are ones the body can't perform, like putting your elbow in your ear.)

Evangelicals also search in the Genesis myth for a doctrine of complementarity. Not only does this not fit with the ideal of celibacy practised by catholic priests, bishops, nuns and monks, and by orthodox bishops, nuns and monks down the ages, marriage as a christian ideal was not preached by St Paul, or practiced by him or Jesus who both, as far as we know, remained unmarried; it is not necessarily the way the ancient rabbis interpreted in their midrashic commentaries the meaning of "male and female he made them" - this may have referred to the original adam, a hermaphroditic earthling which god eventually split into two, making the one into two, Adam and Eve. For more on this fascinating material see orthodox Rabbi Steven Greenberg's Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition

I am against reprogramming people because it is exploitative and demeaning to say to people "We believe your sexuality is broken". There are some people who are broken and sometimes they blame this on their homosexuality, but my experience is quite other than Peter O's. I wonder if he would welcome a group of happy, balanced, self-affirming, egosyntonic gay christian members from Quest, Changing Attitudes and LGCM to visit him to see one of his reparative sessions in action? I'd like to visit myself if an invitation was forthcoming (and it was not too far away).

[J Pearce]

David Kirwan,

I think the general tone of your post is wise, but can I point a few issues out? What gets me about Christians trying to justify Biblical teachings in the 21st century is the rather too convenient fact that, given human progress over the past 2000 years, Christians can now look at numerous passages in the Gospels and pass the following judgement - “Ah, obviously that couldn’t really happen, so obviously, it’s a metaphor and should be understood as such”.

But is it not a fact, that when the Gospel of Jesus was first being spread around the known world post AD, those people who were exposed to it and converted to Christianity, explicitly believed the fact that all stories of the Bible (e.g.Genesis, for want of a more obvious target), were a real and literal exposition of actual events? Is it not true that the word of God was sold on the fact that it was the literal truth?

So, in effect, if we are to accept some of your arguments, all those people who converted to Christianity in the first…ooh…1500 years post AD, have basically been sold a big, fat, lie? Does that not make Christianity the biggest con ever perpetrated?

And what I also don’t get is this – this God you worship, the omniscient, omnipotent creator of life, the universe and everything – how come he hasn’t thought to himself “hang on, that Bible I authored a few hundred years ago, it’s a bit out of date now, isn’t it? I mean, I can see its causing my chosen people all sorts of existential woes trying to apply it to a world that’s changed beyond recognition since I last posted a copy. Better get down there and make some revisions!”??

If this homosexual thing is such a problem, according to the first edition, why doesn’t the Big Man pop his head over the parapet and announce a brand, spanking new set of scriptures, which take care of all the complicated questions raised by this day and age?

Or would that be too obvious a question to ask?

[Dr Lisa Nolland]

I appreciated Ms Schori's willingness to raise this issue. And from the previous comments to this blog, many feel very strongly about it.

I would want to return to Christopher's raising of the Exodus International issue. In matter of fact, the video got some important facts wrong. Moreover, thousands of ex-gays - some whom I personally know - testify that change can indeed occur. They tell me they have found their true self, in fact,though it is an arduous and incredibly difficult process. Even within the ranks of the commitedly gay, such 'defections' are known and appear to be discouraged. Such is the antagonism towards those like Peter O who have the affrontery to 'come out' with their politically incorrect narrative that it would seem they are viewed as traitors to the gay cause.

In 05, 'Christianity Today' interviewed gay friendly Jewish atheist, Robert Spitzer. His study on ex-gays elicited outraged commentary by vocal representatives in the gay community. A review of it can be round at the CT.com - April 2005. Spitzer's study was published by the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behaviour, Oct 03. And his line is that if people want to seek change, they ought to have the right to do so, knowing what they are up against.

The truth is that, like many things in life, reparative and other forms of gender therapy and transformational ministry intervention such as Exodus and Mario Bergner's Redeemed Lives and Andy Comiskey's Living Waters etc. are able to help some people significantly, while others are not helped as much. But then such can be said of most churches, ministries, therapies etc. AA is great but people often fall off the wagon. Do we damn AA because of this? No, we encourage people to face their issues and do the best they can with the resources and help to hand.

Four other web resources which could prove helpful:

http://www.pathinfo.org/ -
positive alternatives to homosexuality

http://www.pfox.org/Testimonials.asp - parents and friends of ex-gays and gays

http://www.narth.com/docs/psychobiology.
html -
Born Gay: The Psychobiology Of Sex Orientation By G. Wilson and Q. Rahman
Peter Owen, London, 2005, 176pp. Reviewed by Neil E.Whitehead, Ph.D.

http://www.narth.com/docs/innate.html -
The Innate-Immutable Argument
Finds No Basis in Science
In Their Own Words: Gay Activists Speak
About Science, Morality, Philosophy
by A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D., MBA, MPH
Shirley E. Cox, DSW
Jeffrey W. Robinson, Ph.D.

[edpennington]

Murder, incest, rape and theft are all condemned as sins by Christians and it is very easy to see why such things should be classed as sins because of the pain and suffering they transmit, the chaos they cause, and the selfish and abusive nature of such actions in obtaining gratification at other's expense. (Except perhaps incest but that can cause disorder and suffering in any offspring.)

Homosexual activity between 2 consenting adults is wrong purely because it may be written to be so, in some inconclusive way, in an ancient text. No other general reason is evident.

I have never experienced any strong homosexual desires, nor difficulty in refraining from homosexual activity. I am not going to pass judgement on others who have as I am not qualified to do so. I am, after all, not God.

[David Kirwan]

Without addressing any of the individual personalities of the contributors to this blog, may I outline the perspective which I, as a Roman Catholic gay, have brought from my school-days? I assume, by the way, that Kathleen Schori's words as reported were shorthand for a statement that homosexuality is conditioned by a number of factors including genetic ones; that it is not a lifestyle choice (if it is a lifestyle choice for anyone then by definition I would say they are bisexual not homosexual); and consequently homosexuality should be viewed as part of one's basic nature, and therefore, if you believe in God, it is God-given.

A lot of what is written about the correct religious attitude to homosexuality, at least as evidenced by this blog, seems to be based on the notion that the Bible, with all its internal contradictions and (in the earlier parts) primitive tribal customs, is itself the Word of God. What my teachers, many years ago, taught me was that the Bible is inspired by God and expresses His truth but in words and symbols appropriate to the individual human authors in the times and cultural environment in which they lived. To take a non-sexual example: the opening chapter of Genesis describes the creation of the world in ways quite at odds with the findings of modern science; but since St Jerome in the fourth century the Church has been quite happy with the opinion that Genesis provides a poetic picture intended to teach that God is the author of all things without insisting on any particular mechanism of authorship.

In fact for the Catholic Christian there is only one Word of God: He who was with God from the beginning and was incarnated in Jesus Christ (see the opening of St John's gospel). Everything else is human expressions of what the Word means, and as such is open to re-evaluation in all ages. Of course there are limits: some exercises in 're-evaluation' deprive the teachings of Christianity of all content; but that is too big a question for a blog.

Catholics of course believe that the Church is the continuation of Christ's presence in the world, and so give special weight to the teachings of the Church above other teachers on matters which are its proper concern (faith and morals). But even there the Church has been known to change its mind as scientific progress increasingly clarifies what passages in the Bible are literal statements of fact and what are poetic imagery, extended metaphor, and so on, with a meaning that is not the literal meaning of the words.

Many Catholics (though not the official church) now believe that the Church's traditional condemnation of homosexuality sprang from the belief that it was a lifestyle choice. Serious scientific evidence that it is not so will hopefully lead to a revision of the Church's attitude. (Though I wouldn't hold my breath!) At least the Catholic Church does not approach the matter as one requiring that homosexuals can or should be 'reprogrammed' to turn them into happy - or even unhappy - heteros.

As in all discussions of sexuality one has to distinguish between the loving and the exploitative expressions. Both homosexual and heterosexual behaviours can be chillingly exploitative of others. But as this does not induce a wholesale condemnation of heterosexuality, nor should it of homosexuality. 'Abusus non tollit usum.'

[Peter O]

Christopher,

I think the problem is that you don't know the power of Jesus or of the Word. God (who happens to be your God, not just mine) is a God who is in the business of redeeming and healing. I haven't met a single person struggling with their sexual orientation, who, wanting to let God be in charge of their lives AND choosing to live a life that is in accordance with what God has revealed in Scripture (however much that is challenging) hasn't seen some change in their life. But I've also met plenty of people, almost every day actually in my pastoral work, who go to God with a tick-list of "If you're God then you have to fix this or else I won't trust you" stuff, and then leave bitterly disappointed when he doesn't do what they want. They decide how they want God to be and then they get the God they have created, not the God who reveals himself in his Word and through his Son (who also happens to be his Word).

[Emanuel Appel]

a letter from America

Dear J Pearce,

Some of my best friends are Cornish. I admire their natural sense of rhythm, their ability to sing and dance at the drop of hat, their ability to live for the here and now.

Dear A. McBay,

The biggest sin the Anglicans make is wearing that "cerise" front. It immediately calls your rigor
into question.

You're repeating the past mistake of citing sins in the history of Israel as found in the Hebrew Bible and calling it Christian. It's not. Early Christians may have adopted the book since they were Jews by nationality and did not want to break with their own people.

I really don't think that the majority of people consider loving your own sex as "normal". They pay the idea lip service because of media badgering.

Here's a thought - what did the various national religions ( pagans) hold re the practice? Were there gay Vikings or Vandals?

[Christopher]

Okay Peter O, I don't have a hotline to Bishop Schori but the questions you pose as a gay man (or should that be ex-gay?) are very interesting.

i) the question is very reductionist in the way you pose it. Though nobody has yet identified a single gene responsible or a combination of hormonal, genetic and/or clear environmental factors doesn't mean that some biological processes aren't at work. The experience of vast numbers of gay people who say they have always known ever since they felt desire that it was for the same sex must count for more than disapproving heterosexuals who couldn't possibly imagine it but are sure it should be otherwise.

For the small numbers like yourself who move to heterosexual functionality, bully for you, if that's what you are comfortable with, but I object to laying it on gay people who happen to be religious, as a requirement. That is just to make heterosexual people happy who want to square the realities of life with the fantasies of their worldview.

ii) I was relieved on second reading of your question that it was not your wife's bits you said you were fancying! That would have been more information than we needed. Nevertheless when you were gay it would be interesting to know if you really were a straight Kinsey 6 or somewhere nearer the middle - even bisexual. There is some evidence that the people who say they have changed probably were nearer the centre of the spectrum - or even not gay at all just anxious and confused.

But the question remains, and one that you may not wish to answer, and I fully understand if you don't, is whether there is any same-sex desire left in people who achieve heterosexual functionality. From the film One Nation Under God it became clear that for two of the founding members of Exodus International they didn't get rid of their homosexuality after all and it revisited them after marriage and children. This is true also of John Paulk who was discovered in a gay bar when he shouldn't have been.

I am perfectly prepared to admit that for some people desire may change in the course of their lives, but I doubt they have much control in directing it voluntarily otherwise the Herculean efforts of poor Ted Haggard, though having achieved heterosexual functionality with wife and 5 children, still found his desire for same sex an insurmountable urge.

Or maybe it is just that your god is very cruel - or more likely a complete joker.

[Brian]

Dear Alister,

You made some interesting points. Perhaps in another time you would have been a good religious affairs functionary at the Ministry of Propaganda in the Kremlin.

Too bad for you that atheistic "experiment" (as Uncle Joe labeled it) failed - not to mention Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, and the other enlightened scientific atheists who ruled their "paradises" without the need for God. Stalin killed more people on a slow afternoon than the whole of the Inquisition.

The question before the house is this: Should the Church be allowed to continue its opposition to homosexual activity or should it kowtow to the enlightened atheists of your country who are trying to coerce conformity of attitudes as in a totalitarian state?

Ms. Scarey is appealing to animals to butress her argument. Perish the thought that she should appeal to the Scriptures or the Fathers (oooppss...sorry for the faux pas). Animals are, well, animals (forgive me for engaging in "speciest" attitudes).

Well, I can appeal to the survival of the fittest model as well. If Britain continues to encourage homosexual unions, which are not known to reproduce much offspring, if she continues to deprecate the traditional family, and continues to commit infanticide through abortion, then it won't be long until the few left will be forced to say "Allah Akhbar" or have their heads chopped off.

Just because you Europeans are mentally exhausted after all the religious wars, empires, ideologies, WWI and WWII, etc. does not mean we all have to suffer.

Cheerio!

[Stuart]

Alistair, I appreciate that you have a case to make, but it does you no good to use your misunderstandings about religion to substantate it.

For example, why not try expressing the proof (or support) for your argument when you say ...

"Morality is and should be a human construct, shaped by our actions and the consequences they bring, and refined on the basis of human experience. It cannot be given to us by an alleged supernatural being for whose existence there is not the slightest evidence." .....

..... without using religion as a foil.

You might begin by explaining how you justify the use of the word 'should' - without appeal to some authority higher than mere human opinion.

As a utilitarian, what authority can you appeal to? majority opinion? opinion of the powerful? the latest opinion? the earliest opinion? None of these has any 'should' or 'ought' about it.

All the best.

[Julia Langdon]

When the Episcopal Church muddle started more than three years ago, the leaders were claiming that teachings had to change because "modern" thinking was able to contemplate homosexual relationships in utterly new ways and contexts. Of course, mentioning the ancient Greeks and how well they seemed to understand and accommodate homosexual relationships shut down that argument.

Now, Episcopal leadership is "fishing" about the "natural world" seeking examples in animals, as if human beings were no more complex than sheep and it's all just about the rutting anyway. If I was homosexual, I'd be insulted by these patronizing attempts to rationalize Episcopal decision-making. Why don't they simply admit that the engine is being run by homosexual clergy and that it has nothing to do with science or the Bible. The Episcopal Church seeks to be "hip" and politically correct, and it needs to be cut loose so it can do as it pleases.

[alistair mcbay]

"Its wrong because I think its wrong, because the Bible tells me so". Which is religious speak for "I am irrationally prejudiced".

Well, JPearce, remember that Suart above says of Schori that she 'overlooks the fact that the scientific method of study is merely a specialised way of examining certain aspects of the world ; and then to assume that it is the only way to understand the whole of the world."

So to some religion it seems is another perfectly valid way of understanding the world, and thus legitimises irrational prejudice, baically the argument of those demonstrating against the SORs. The proviso of course is that everyone shares your personal religious view of the world, which is the only rational one, as naturally any other religious view that conflicts with yours is wrong, irrational, etc.

Stuart, perhaps unwittingly, provides the perfect rationale for morality not being based on religious beliefs, and for rejecting the notion that there can be no universal moral law without a law-giver such as a supernatural god.

Morality is and should be a human construct, shaped by our actions and the consequences they bring, and refined on the basis of human experience. It cannot be given to us by an alleged supernatural being for whose existence there is not the slightest evidence.

For one thing, any basic study of ethics starts with distinguishing moral principles from religious beliefs, political dogma and legal principles. There are numerous religions with widely divergent positions on sexuality, marriage and birth control, to say nothing of slavery, torture and many other behaviours regarded as sinful in some, but not in others. This alone is sufficient to exclude them from any attempt to define universal moral absolutes.

Religion is basically a vertical relationship concerning the existence and nature of a god or gods and the interactions between such a concept and mankind. It is a matter of individual choice, or should be. Morality is developed along a horizontal plane of relationships, regulating how people relate to each other, other creatures and the environment. Its principles, in contrast to religious principles, are universal.

[Peter O]

David S,

My Grandfather, in 40s Austria (part of Nazi Germany) belonged to a curious small minority of people who actually believed that Jews were exactly the same as everybody else and should be treated as such. Obviously, being in a minority he was wrong.

I'd be interested in chatting with you if you actually wanted to handle the issues around whether homosexuality is nature or nurture driven, but if your attitude is simply to dismiss my perspective out of hand and marginalise me, without actually addressing any of the issues, then so be it.

[Stuart]

David S,

Your case seems to rest on the idea that to be modern is to be right. How do you justify this by both reason and experience?

Do you think that the atheistic/materialistic ideas that have become prominent in the last hundred years or so are the last words on moral knowledge? the ultimate truths? Or is it possible that they are the last desperate attempts, by a corrupt and dying civilisation, to justify its excesses?

Just suppose that our civilisation were to be succeeded by a more vigorous one - a Muslim civilisation, say. Would that mean that atheism, and its ad hoc morality, had become old-fashioned and therefore false? Or would the falsity of atheism be demonstrated by the fact that it had become a minority belief?

[Stuart]

I think you have hit the nail squarelyon the head, Margaret.

[David Smith]

Peter O, many posts on this blog have told us that these days almost every modern-thinking person in Britain, Europe, and even the world accepts that an orientation towards homosex is normal and 'God-given', and so to be fully accepted. To think otherwise just proves, they have said, how thoroughly backward Christians are.

Given this, I have two questions for you:

1. How DO YOU cope with being in such an apparently tiny minority?

and

2. (..and worse still!) with being so old-fashioned?

[J Pearce]

David Smith says:

"He made them, uniquely, 'in His image'. This means, inter alia, that they are capable of highly sophisticated moral thinking and action in a way that animals are not."

Really? I don't see much moral sophistication in the religious repression and victimisation handed out over the millenia by Christians to Jews, blacks, women and homosexuals.

The argument about the existence (or not) of a 'gay gene' is disingenuous. Homosexuality can be attributed to "emergent behaviour", a product of complex system interaction, in much the same way human consciousness is attributed to being an "emergent behaviour", as it is not attributable to any isolated biological determinant.

No one would seriously argue that human consciousness is morally wrong. Well, OK, given the evidence I've seen, maybe certain Christians would, if it suited whatever prejudice they happened to be peddling at the time...

The argument put forward by Margaret G is probably more effective, but I do not believe that homosexuality is qualitatively as damaging as the other behaviours she mentions (incest, infanticide etc). In and of itself, homosexual behaviour is not damaging to an individual, any more or less than heterosexual behaviour can be.

The bottom line is that any religious arguments against homosexuality are based on a house of cards, which can be reduced to one simple expression - "Its wrong because I think its wrong, because the Bible tells me so".

Which is religious speak for "I am irrationally prejudiced".

[alistair mcbay]

Er, incest, rape, cannibalism, infanticide and genocide are found in abundance in the bible, Margaret, either ordered by your Christian God or inspired by him. See Deuteronomy 28: 53-57 for a spot of cannibalism, and Leviticus 29: 27-33, where God says:

'If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.”

What a nice compassionate, tolerant sentiment! And don’t forget John 6:53-56

“Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”

As I understand it there are some Christians who actually believe bread and wine transform into flesh and blood at every valid celebration of the Eucharist. But I could just be mistaking all this for metaphor, of course…………

Do you find these behaviours problematic in the natural world (which presumably your God created) but not problematic in the context of the Bible?

David tells us the God of the bible made man “in his own image” and “capable of highly sophisticated moral thinking and action in a way that animals are not”. David presumably attests that God created the natural world as well, so how do we account for same-sex behaviour in animals – did God design that? Did god design animals to show this tendency but not humans? Did he get confused somewhere? And if god made man to have this higher moral position, why didn’t man resist all God’s demands to eat flesh, kill babies and slaughter entire peoples? And do the animals know that the Christian bible “teaches that developmental damage, to what God has already created (and resulting from the imperfect environment of this fallen world), can occur as early as the womb”, as David says?

And as for god making man in ‘his’ own image, whose image then did he use to make woman? Or is god some sort of hermaphrodite, in fact like Hermaphroditus, the son of the greek gods Hermes and Aphrodite? According to this story, believed as true of course by the Greeks of the time, “God” answered the prayer of the nymph Salmacis to merge her body into that of Hermaphroditus, who had rejected the nymph's playful and indeed sexual advances. “From that day they were no more two persons, nor was it possible to call them man and woman any longer, but being one they seemed neither, and yet both.

[J Pearce]

"Personally, I loathe the Cornish people. They are the most fascistic, tight fisted, ugly, xenophobic bigots I've ever read about."

He's right, you know - and I should know, as I'm one of them.

Inexplicably, Emanuel forgot to mention the fact that there is a Cornish terror organisation - "An Gof". Funnily enough, they have never been invited for "all party peace talks" chaired by world statesmen or visited by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Stuart]

You hit the nail squarely on the head, Margaret.

As a scientist, Schori studies those aspects of nature that are proper to science ; in other words, her work requires her to be a student of physical nature. It is sad to see her make the same mistake as so many other scientifically-minded people ; namely to overlook the fact that the scientific method of study is merely a specialised way of examining certain aspects of the world ; and then to assume that it is the only way to understand the whole of the world. On this view, anything 'natural' is morally legitimate because it is the only way that things can be. But this view is nothing more than a refined form of idolatry or paganism. But, refined or not, it is quite uncongenial to Christian doctrine on the nature of humanity.

[Jill]

KJS cannot have studied animal behaviours very carefully, as animals who live in herds have a hierarchical structure headed by an alpha male. Studies have shown that animals further down the pecking order can change their supposed 'orientation' if they get the chance to be the alpha male. Herds could not sustain all alpha males.

Here is one study on 'gay' rams.

http://www.mygenes.co.nz/rams.htm

[Margaret G]

Ruth

My problem with her argument that in "the natural world where same-sex behaviour is present in many, many species" is that there are also many other behaviours found in the natural world that I would find very problematic - for instance incest, cannibalism, rape, infanticide, and genocide. Is Katharine Schori suggesting that because these are also found in nature, that we should also be accepting them? I cannot see any reasoning in her argument above why she would not.

[Peter O]

So that only leaves me with two questions really...

i) Which gene, hormone, chromosome (or whatever KJS wants to pick really) has been shown to cause homosexuality? Would KJS be so kind as to let us know which academic paper published the evidence?

ii) Given that I went from exclusively homosexual to happily married to my wife (and fancying her to bits), how did my gene / hormone / chromosome (delete as applicable) change it's mind?

OK, that's technically three questions, but you take my point... Anybody got a hotline to KJS so we can get her reply?

[David Smith]

In your piece here, Ruth, you quote Bishop Schori as saying:

"As a biologist I look at the natural world where same-sex behaviour is present in many, many species. Today we can look at sexual development happening very early in a person's life. As a person of faith I would look at that and say, it happens before the age of reason; it's a matter of creation, not a matter of choice."

As one who claims to be a Christian, and especially in her position, she should also know that the God of the Bible sees humans as being quite distinct and different from animals. He made them, uniquely, 'in His image'. This means, inter alia, that they are capable of highly sophisticated moral thinking and action in a way that animals are not.

Furthermore, she does not seem to know that the Bible also teaches that developmental damage, to what God has already created (and resulting from the imperfect environment of this fallen world), can occur as early as the womb. So how early or forgotten experiences may be, or the way they may make us think or behave do not, per se, mean that God created us this way.

I have seen God heal and free many, many people from the effects of such long-forgotten experiences and of their 'unconscious' reactions to this hostile environment. He is far more concerned to do this (if we give Him our co-operation) than to condemn and blame us for our fallen and self-damaging reactions to such an environment.

An organisation like the Church of England, which has widely lost touch with Bible truth and God's power to change lives, and at the same time is over-concerned with preserving its own numbers, is bound to end up engaging in the kind of people-pleasing fudges that Bishop Schori is, as you say, becoming so adept at.

[Emanuel Appel]

a letter from America

Dear all,

When asked to provide info on the traditional Jewish religious view of homosexuality, I found that the standard view is that we must suppress the self to maintain society according to God's plan. It's in black and white according to the Hebrew Bible.

My private view is a libertarian one provided that both sides maintain a timid silence on the matter. I don't want to see guys in drag French kissing each other in front of children ( it's embarassing ) and I don't want to see religious mobs chanting for anyone's head.

Re the marketplace - Providers of goods and services ought to be able to discriminate. It gets tricky when you place a prominent sign on your door saying "no poofs, no Jews, no Negroes, no Anglicans, no Irish, no Cornish...." Is there a group I've missed?

Personally, I loathe the Cornish people. They are the most fascistic, tight fisted, ugly, xenophobic bigots I've ever read about. They have an annual meeting where they plan world conquest and domination. They give each other discounts while the rest of us pay the regular freight. Plus, they claim that God gave them their land. Isn't that cheeky?

However, there may be a Cornish man or woman that I'd let register in my hotel or feed in my restaurant if they behave themselves. It should be my call.