Today in the USA is “The Day of Truth“. You’ll see the little advert on the right-hand side of the page. Essentially, the idea of the Day of Truth is to follow the “Day of Silence” (a day when students in US schools go around saying nothing as a protest against homophobia – quite valid a thing to do in some places I think) with a day where “the truth” is shared. The truth of course in this case being the “real” truth behind homosexuality, that it’s not a fixed thing, that people can change their orientation and move from gay to straight.
I’m broadly in agreement with that viewpoint. I do think that sexual orientation isn’t a fixed thing, that one’s sexual and emotional life isn’t dictated by genes, chromosomes or biology or even one’s current affections. But the canny amongst you will have noticed that unlike Exodus and it’s ilk I describe myself as post-gay and not ex-gay. Why is that?
I think the main problem with ex-gay is that it is an ontological statement. It presents, intentionally or not, the one who calls himself as ex-gay as one who’s sexual orientation has changed from gay to straight. He/she is claiming to have gone from one state of being (gay) to another (straight). And while that is the case for many who are ex-gay, for others it isn’t so clear. For some their sexual desires move more towards those of the opposite sex but not to a point where they are exclusively heterosexual in their attractions. That then raises more questions of an ontological nature – are they really “bisexual” (though one wants to ask where the bisexual/heterosexual continuum switches – 95% hetero, 96%, 98.64738%?) and not gay? Are they therefore lying?
I think “ex-gay” also presents a pastoral issue for some who undertake that journey. If the ex-gay ministries promise change to heterosexuality and that change doesn’t occur, does that mean that the ex-gay model is fallacious? While there is a pretty impressive “success rate” for those who go through ex-gay ministries, there is also an equally large number of people who drop-out or reject it. While some of that drop-out is embittered and angered other parts of it are intelligent and articulate and raise a number of important issues that need to addressed.
So this is my problem with “ex-gay”. It seems to suggest a bi-polar, ontological model of sexual attraction – gay to straight. In doing so it unfortunately sets itself up for a fall with those for whose experience that bi-polar model doesn’t seem to fit. So what is the alternative model for those of us who want to affirm the redemption of same-sex attraction and broken sexuality?
The alternative is “post-gay”. Post-gay isn’t an ontological statement, it’s a vectorial statement. For those uninitiated in the deeper arcane magicks of mathematics, a vector is simply a description of a direction and magnitude. It describes a movement, not a position (which is ontology). Post-gay then is less about being straight or gay and rather about a choice of a journey.
Perhaps a personal example to clarify. I’m post-gay because I chose to leave “gay” behind. I chose to no longer accept “gay” as an explanation of who I was and instead to begin a journey away from it. I chose to do so because I was convinced from the Scriptures that “gay” wasn’t a suitable way to describe myself, that it wasn’t a valid way for a Christian to establish identity. I was compelled not just by reading the normal passages on the subject but also from the story in John 8:1-11 of the woman caught in adultery. In particular Jesus’ last words to her are “Go now and leave your life of sin”.
He doesn’t magically transform the women from a harlot to a saint (and contrary to common belief, there’s nothing to associate this woman with Mary Magdalene) but rather simply gives her an instruction of direction – leave this place you’re at (adultery) and move on from it. His command is vectorial, not ontological. It is the call of discipleship – it says “follow me to wherever I take you – I don’t promise you riches or immediate perfection, but I do promise you hope”.
This is why post-gay is a far better description for those who have left homosexuality behind. It describes a journey away from a false identity constructed around one’s emotions and a true one constructed in following Jesus. For some of us that journey involves changes in our sexual orientation, perhaps marriage and kids. For others they see no change in their sexual attractions, but they have left behind the place of false-identity, of seeing themselves as “gay” and that as a defining a unchangeable aspect of their being.
Some aspects of that journey have been clearly marked for us. A dispassionate reading of the Scriptures shows very clearly that God didn’t intend for us to have sex outside of the marriage of male and female. So I could see very clearly that that life option (same-sex activity) and those things that celebrated it (“gay”) were not the direction God wanted me to take. But other parts of the journey only become apparent as we set out to walk the road God has called us onto.
What’s interesting in my case is that I only walked the first of those two possibilities above (change and celibacy) after having reconciled myself to the second. I remember on my post-gay journey reaching a point where I was seeing no change in my attractions and was getting angry with God about it. Wasn’t this ex-gay choice meant to work? Shouldn’t God be doing something about it? God challenged me over the course of a few days with a clear message – “If I want you to stay like this for my purposes, why can’t I do that? Will you follow me wherever I take you, not just only to the places you want to go?” That night I surrendered my sexuality and future to God, reconciled to a life of celibacy but not a life of “gay”. It was only in the surrender to God’s path for me that I then later saw him taking me on the journey to where I am now happily married.
Now the one challenge you might still make to me from an ontological perspective is whether I still have same-sex attraction. Am I 100% heterosexual or not? But as if that matters on the journey. The idea of gay/bisexual/straight is an attempt to ontologically categorise men and women and normally continues into trying to define morality as dependent on ontology. It sees “homosexual” as a statement of one’s being and therefore prescriptive of the “normative” behaviour that derives from that being. Post-gay rejects that way of thinking about sexuality.
A friend of mine is an alcoholic. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in over 20 years, he runs a successful rehab centre, but he would still freely call himself an alcoholic when each week he attends his 12 steps meeting. Why? He knows that he could always return to drinking alcohol to solve emotional and relational issues in his life – it worked in the past and it could work again. In the same way, I’m happy to be described as a homosexual. I know that when I’m down or tired or feeling inadequate I could seek catharsis in the embrace of somebody of the same sex in an attempt to shore my own masculinity. But I’ve also, like my friend who realises that he’s an alcoholic, discovered that that behaviour is counter-productive in the long run because it is simply catharsis and not actually redemptive.
So post-gay is quite happy to admit to a myriad of sexual attractions, but it refuses to be defined by them, not least because the Bible never refers to men and women as homosexual or heterosexual. Rather it is defined by a direction, a journey, a path towards God and his will for our lives.
On the way back from a wedding on Saturday evening I was listening with my wife to Judge Jules on Radio One and a fantastic remix of a Jimmy Somerville / Bronski Beat track was played – You and Me by Blue Ray. Absolutely loved it and the words are still as powerful as they were over 20 years ago. “You and me together, fighting for our love”. While that might in the past have been a call for gay pride, now for me it’s a rallying cry for my post-gay journey and the journey of others. We want to love in the way, reading Scripture and listening to Him, we understand God made us to. We’ll step out on the journey away from polar definitions of sexual identity, whether gay or straight, and instead we’ll simply go where God calls us, trusting for now what’s he already given as sign-posts and waiting upon him for the rest. Our mark of success will not be defined by reaching a certain goal (“straight” or whatever) but rather by still being on the right road, despite whatever comes at us before Glory.
As usual, these are just splattered thoughts and I appreciate yours. Click play below, listen to Blue Ray and then add your comments below.
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Tags: Advert, Affections, Biology, Continuum, Day Of Silence, Day Of Truth, Emotional Life, Exodus, Gay Ministries, Gay Model, Genes Chromosomes, Homosexuality, Ilk, Impressive Success, Real Truth, Saying Nothing, Sexual Desires, Sexual Orientation, Success Rate, Viewpoint
April 19th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Peter -
this post is the most helpful, lucid, scriptural etc. etc. (I’ll try not to go TOO overboard!!) thing that I have read about this whole subject in a very, very long time (and I read a lot of stuff about sexuality). I’m not saying that I can now rest easy with the whole subject – but after reading this post, I am a whole lot closer to it.
Thanks for this – and for your honesty!
Love and blessings from Northern Ireland
Simon
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:45 am
This is “food for thought”, however, I think that’s ALL it is. Too many people go around saying things like “You TOO can be an ex-gay!” So here we have a new term, post gay. What is that!? It looks to me like a gay person who has chosen to be celibate. Does that make one “straight” or “okay with God”? Not hardly. being gay or straight is not defined by our actions or whatever road we choose to drag it down. We do not possess the ability to change the very nature of ourselves, no matter what label we choose to put on it or what mask we try to cover it with. I am gay, but I am also a Christian. I don’t think it matters who one is, but what they do with it. After all, God is a God of the heart anyway, not the flesh. However, that’s not an excuse for blatant sin.
I have known (and do know) many people who have spent years and literally thousands to become an “ex-gay” to no end but misery, loneliness and frustration. I also know many gay people who are celibate, but still count themselves as gay. And guess what, they too are lonely and miserable, for the most part. Because they have been told by people like you that this is what it takes to get to heaven. No one possesses the ability to make that judgement, especially, and like I said before, since God is a God of the heart, not the orientation, sex, nationality, color, etc. Someone needs to get a clue.
September 2nd, 2007 at 7:56 am
Ric,
When you say “It looks to me like a gay person who has chosen to be celibate” you are assuming again this static bi-polar model of sexuality, that “gay” is fixed and innate. What I’m saying to you is that that basis for thinking about the subject is flawed because some people DO see their sexual attractions change remarkably.
I was happily celibate/chaste for a number of years before I met my wife. To get to that point I first had to die to the fantasy that marriage / sexual union would make me a happier person. That process of purgation was painful but in the long run placed me in a much better place. That’s goes for plenty of people I know who are celibate by choice – one could hardly think of them as lonely or miserable.
It all comes down to whether you think that being in a relationship is somehow a human right, or whether you believe that God is sovereign over your life and that he will do all things for the best of those whom he loves? Once you realise that you have no right to a relationship and that God can and will bless you in singleness that is actively chosen, your perspective changes. By embracing singleness, yes I felt lonely at times, but I never felt that God was being unfair or that I would never have a life of love. Heavenly perspectives realise that the marriage/ sexual relationships of this world will pass and that one’s relationship with God is the most important thing in the world.
And then, when I met my wife and fell in love, I was not entering marriage out of a cathartic need to love and be loved. Up until my wedding day I could have walked away from my wife and still been happy (if not a little heart-broken). Indeed, before we got engaged I seriously wrestled with God as to whether I would be more useful for him single. He said “no”.
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I believe your “post-gay” self-identifying label and description of those who do experience a meaning and purpose of life orientation change from one rivetedly focused on their sexual affections, to a much more broader, even transcendent point of reference, can be much more helpful and appreciated by those today not only leaving a gay lifestyle, but also those who do experience same sex attractions but never have expressed them via embracing one! The “ex-gay” self-identifying label appeared to work the best decades ago, although with much remaining dissatisfaction, even among those in Exodus who readily used the term, apparently because the term “gay” did not connote the broader meaning that it has today, that of predominant sexual inclinations as well. At that time, to be “gay” meant one had chosen, and most likely publically so, to be actively involved in a lifestyle centered around their homoerotic conduct. Those who did not choose such a lifestyle but experienced predominant homoerotic inclinations for the most part self-identified as, and were called, “homosexual”, and/or the popular old NARTH term “non-gay homosexual”. It appears that these terms are becoming, if not already are, to this generation anachronistic in nature. Therefore, the “post-gay” self-identifying label does indeed make more sense.
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Thanks Thomas. Glad some others are on the same wave-length!!!
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Oh, by the way, Peter, I believe that this self-identifying label “post-gay” may be less construed today by others as one claiming to being a follower and product of “poof” theology, as the term “ex-gay” seems to; although not completely, as in the case of brother Ric who posted in just before me.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Peter,
I realize I may sound as if I’m being argumentative just for the sake of it, and I also realize I have hardly arrived at the perfect knowledge. But I have gone over and over with this kind of thing in my head and heart for the past 25 years, being practically born in church. I have also gone to Bible school and was actually in the ministry with creditials before my church ousted me, even after giving up the gay “lifestyle”. I’m not going to give excuses for gay relationships or gay marriage or whatever, but I have often wondered just who it is I am supposed to be. I have had wonderful personal experiences with God, which would take a book to write here, yet I remain gay.
After many years of prayer, soul searching and contemplation, I can only come to the conclusion that what matters to God more than anything, is the conditon of one’s heart and personal relationship with our Lord God. My “saving” scripture for that is Galatians 3:28. After all, whether right or wrong, we do what we know to do and live under the grace of Jesus Christ and His shed blood. I don’t know just how or what you believe nor can I hardly judge your heart. But I am hardly a rainbow flag waving, street marching, limp wristed, promiscuious wierdo (not that anyone has called me that).
With all that said, I just find it strange that people actually have to name or label an act, state of mind or emotion, in order to prove something to the rest of the world or turn it into a physiological thing of sorts. I just don’t think God cares what we call ourselves. I may be what the world can call “gay”, but in my heart, I’m a new creation in Christ- and I honestly believe that’s ALL He sees. I believe that’s what the Bible calls being IN the world, but not OF it.
Many people believe they were born gay, while others think they acquired it through upbringing (nature vs. nurture). Personally, I really don’t care why I’m “gay” or how it came to be, or even if the world calls me that- as long as I know the real deal in my own heart and relationship with God. Does that make sense? It may be true that many people have been “healed” or “cured” or whatever you want to call it, from homosexuality. But it makes me wonder if any or all of these people were ever really homosexual to begin with. Or maybe it just wasn’t “rooted” all that deep- who really knows? But I do know that I begged, pleaded and cried until my lungs hurt to be healed of it myself, to no avail. So I have to ask myself, why would God give me so many blessings and wonderful experiences, yet not “take away” this homosexuality? Maybe it’s just a thorn or my cross to bear. One thing I know, I have a relationship with God above and beyond man, woman or child, and whatever I am on the outside with whatever the world wants to call me, I know who lives in my heart.
September 6th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Ric,
I think you make some useful points. In all honesty though, I have to say that for myself, thinking of myself as “gay” was a bar to moving forward. Only when I started deliberately describing myself a “male” and refusing to label myself “gay” (and that of course didn’t mean that I didn’t still have same-sex attractions) did my self-identity begin to move. I refused to let me feelings dictate how I would identify and be identified.
Curiously, having seen considerable change in my sexual attractions since then, I’m actually more comfortable now when people accuse me of still being gay and faking it. Before, if someone would have called me gay then it would have brought up all kinds of shame and negative emotions as it reinforced the negative image of myself. These days “gay” isn’t vaguely an adequate description of my feelings and identity, though I’m much more willing to admit occasional desires in all kinds of sexual directions. The crucial thing though is that I don’t let me identity be in any sense shaped by them.
So post-gay is far more then just being “no longer gay”. Rather it’s a statement of simply not letting “gay” be part of the identifier of my life. I’m beyond that and it has no (or at least very, very little) social or emotional power over me. It does not stir anything inside me any more to see gay things on TV or the film screen. I’m past that. I’m post gay.
September 7th, 2007 at 1:24 am
I congratulate you on achieving something which was/is obviously very important to you, and I wish you and your wife well and happy. I do not, however, believe that your path is accessible to all (nor do you, I realize). The difference is that I do not believe God asks this of us. We may ask it of ourselves because of the ingrained guilt from misguided authorities in our upbringing, and if we can successfully achieve it (probably more often than not because the individual falls more to the center of the homo-bi-hetero continuum), there is certainly nothing wrong with it.
The problem is the hideous damage wreaked upon those who suffer years and decades of despair, loneliness, isolation, rejection, all for no good purpose, simply to appease religious authorities who tell them they are not acceptable to God as the sexual beings God created them to be. The other problem is the hideous damage wreaked upon unsuspecting or naive spouses married by those who believe themselves “cured” of their homosexuality or who believe that having a heterosexual relationship is part of that “cure,” not to mention the hideous damage wreaked upon the children who spring from this ill-thought-out unions only to find themselves the victims of their parents’ inevitable divorces.
God asks that we be responsible with our sexuality, that we love others as God loves us, that we commit ourselves to the bond we form with the one God sends to us. Jesus was far more concerned about the faithfulness of one spouse to the other than about the respective genders of those spouses.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Lorian,
Nail right on the head there:
The difference is that I do not believe God asks this of us
That’s the core of it. I think reading the Scriptures he very clearly does and that it’s crucially important that we hear and obey.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
If you are happy with the path that you have taken, then I’m very happy for you. I don’t accept your right to say that God demands it of anyone else.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
William,
Thanks for your comment.
You need to address the issue as to whether what God did for me he is capable of doing for others? If so, why do you not think he wants it for others? If not, what makes me special?
September 9th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
It’s not for me to decide what God is capable of doing; no doubt he can do anything he wants that is not intrinsically self-contradictory. Nor is it for me to know what he wants for you or what makes you special. By the same token, you can’t say what he wants for me or for others. I see no more reason to believe that God wants homosexuals in general to become either heterosexuals or “post-gays” than to believe that he wants tenors to become basses or “post-tenors”.
Just another couple of things.
With regard to the question of whether being in a realtionship is or isn’t a human right, I would say that at any rate a gay relationship certainly isn’t any less of a human right, for those who are gay, than a heterosexual relationship is for others.
You say: “… I started deliberately describing myself a ‘male’ and refusing to label myself ‘gay’…” Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you, and if I am then I apologise, but it sounds as though you are making an antithesis here between “male” and “gay”. If so, then the antithesis is a false one. If anyone does wish to apply labels to himself, and I would defend anyone’s right to do so, then “male” and “gay” are every bit as compatible as “male” and “straight” – and indeed, I would say, nicely complementary; I’m more than happy with both labels for myself. Two of the things – among many others – for which I regularly thank God are making me male and making me gay.
September 10th, 2007 at 8:06 am
William,
If you read my piece again you’ll see that I reject the static bi-polar model of sexuality that so many in our western culture seem to embrace. That had a profound effect upon me.
When you say you thank God for making you gay, do you mean by natural or nurturing processes? What evidence do you have to back up that claim?
September 10th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Peter,
I believe that God made me gay by natural processes. I can’t prove that, any more than I can prove the contrary, but I experience my sexual orientation as a blessing, and, as a Christian, I attribute all blessings to God.
By the way, it strikes me that the word “label” is increasingly being used as an emotionally-toned synonym for “description”. I can think of all sorts of “labels” – if you like to call them that – that I can apply to myself, but they are merely descriptions; they are not definitions of who I am.
September 10th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
We are who we are and owe no apology or explanation to anyone who would seek to impose their view of human sexuality on people of whose personal circumstances they know absolutely nothing. Speak only for yourself, Peter Ould, but do not presume to speak or prescribe for me. If you want to lead your life by the readings of an ancient book, that’s up to you but it has no consequence for anyone else nor should it.
September 11th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Tell me Tom – is homosexuality caused by nature or nurture? The reason I ask is that the moment you make a pronouncement on the subject you immediately make a claim to affect someone else’s life. By telling me to not press the issue you are avoiding the discussion.
Let me give an example using your words changed slightly:
We are who we are and owe no apology or explanation to anyone who would seek to impose their view of alcoholism on people of whose personal circumstances they know absolutely nothing.
Now, if you went to any health professional and said that you’d probably get a response that you were in denial and avoiding the issues. The response to you would be “let’s talk about the personal circumstances”.
As for me trying to prescribe for you, well you need to get use to that if you’re going to live within any form of society. We are surrounded every day by people prescribing for us – politicians, advertisers, health professionals, educators etc. Why does one man’s blog on the subject of sexuality raise so much antipathy from you when these other sources of prescription don’t?
September 11th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Peter, it is the same question as whether heterosexuality is caused by nurture of by nature. The truth is probably somewhere between for both conditions, an interplay of genetic, hormonal and environmental factors. The problem with any kind of study of the aetiology of sexual attraction is that it is beset by opinions and agendas – on both sides and not all very scientific, as I am sure you would be the first to recognise.
Your choice of alcoholism as a comparison with homosexual orientation is an interesting one. Even if I were to grant you for one moment (I don’t) that the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the vast number of professional bodies in the US and in UK and Europe that subsequently followed suit in de-listing homosexuality as an illness got it wrong, it is when an alcoholic at last owns that he has the condition and ‘comes out’ and faces the issue that he is on the road to recovery. Similarly with gay people who begin to own the sexuality that nature (and maybe to some extent nurture) dealt them and ‘come out’, they are also on the road to recovery from internalised homophobia and low self-opinion. It is the royal road to health, quite unlike the ‘cures’ that Mr Nicolosi and NARTH offer to unfortunate people who are so unhappy with the hand that nature dealt them that, in their desperation, will turn to anything. In that respect they are not unlike the unfortunate people who feel so strongly that they were born the wrong sex and have to undergo sex change. Who are we to say they shouldn’t? In either case if someone is very unhappy that the only hope is to try a NARTH cure who am I to say he shouldn’t? But the evidence is that it is only partially successful in very few cases. The vast majority aren’t. The damage a failure might cause a vulnerable person could be incalculable. To offer it as a universal cure-all to every person who is disgruntled with his lot (when his unhappiness is being blamed too easily on his sexuality) is disingenuous and dangerous. Unfortunately because Christian folk think they find it written in their Bible that God doesn’t like homosexuals, they are too ready to jump on a bandwagon and I wonder if they advocate Exodus’s activities to make the homosexual or themselves feel better because they find, taken at face value, the Bible’s apparent condemnation of same sex love a cruel paradox if God made us all in his image. This is where the Vatican’s statement that a gay child has “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder” is actually an unforgivable attack on innocent people, responsible for much religiously inspired homophobia – and not so religious gay-bashing.
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:52 am
Very good Peter. You are 100% right. I am not married (I hope to be–although not as madly as many ex-gays who feel marriage is a COMMANDMENT for ALL MEN).
I will attest to the fact that one must surrender and resolve to obey Jesus no matter what–come celibacy (cue: Jaws music) or high water.
I prefer to be descriptive (e.g. “I have same-sex attractions. I do not feel attracted to women”); but I have no problem with labels.
I find that most people who have a problem with labels (eg. who feel the need to call themselves “no longer gay” in contradiction to the dictionary) are often mentally unable to grasp moderately difficult subjects.
God will lead me where he leads me. Hopefully I can marry (I want plenty children).
He will give me the strength to obey.
By the way, thank you for saying that a relationship is NOT a human right. It is not.
October 19th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Sorry, but I think you’ve just been brainwashed by the Religious Right. It’s pretty obvious you’ve been sucked into guilt and chain theology. Even your tastes in art and literature seem to reflect this.
The last guy I knew in to this kind of rubbish theology and who I had thought of so highly, and who held me and many others in awe of his ‘Godliness’ and ‘Holiness’ turned out to be a repressed homosexual who used a very sexual flagellation on his own penitents and caused some serious psychological damage.
I think you have nothing very useful to add to the debate other than ..well, yes, of course it is possible for gays to be married to members of the opposite sex. It just isn’t very honest or desirable.
October 19th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Carla,
I think your refusal to accept that people can see a change in their orientation is revealing in itself. How many people would it take to stand up and share their stories of change before you accept that it does happen?
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Peter,
It may be true that many, many truly gay people, such as your self, act against their natural orientation, in a perhaps sincere effort to do as they believe God wants of them. I am only using your own admission that you are still gay but have chosen to live a ‘post-gay’ life. It’s rather confusing, isn’t it? You have said yourself that your orientation has not changed in various other parts of your writing. The rest seems very much to obsfucate that, which is why I don’t believe that this is a very real nor honest path you have chosen. And even if you, it has been…or for those many, many gays, (ex, post or otherwise), it does not automatically follow that this is a path which all gays should choose for themselves. IOW, it is neither her nor there for me that some gays denounce being gay as a sign that you are ‘right’ above those who do not denounce being gay and loving contentedly and happily as gay.
I will retract what I said about having being brainwashed by the religious right. But you do seem to come very much from the same arguments used by such. And it is terribly tiresome.
While it is quite possible for a gay person to find a meaningful and loving relationship with a member of the opposite sex, and ok, if you have found that, bravo. But I get the feeling you use this as a kind of tool, a weapon even, against those gays who are simply not interested in doing as you have chosen to do.
I just think it’s pretty offensive. And destructive to decide that anything that falls outside of man + woman =God ordained and permissable love as hateful to God. And I can not stand the way this is pushed and pushed and pushed to the point where those who are also tired of it are demonised when they fight back.
Choose what is right for yourself and leave them alone. Or pray for them. But stop hounding them. And while you’re at, stop hounding people in the church who simply disagree with you. We are entitled to our own conscience and our own working through what is wrong and what is right with God.
I am fiesty about this. Yes. That’s all that is ‘revealed’ to you.
I know and love people in the church who are openly gay and quite effectively used by God as part of his redeeming love in the world. And I am not going to deny the truth of that for the sake of appeasing a whole lot of people who just can not accept this can be so.
Best.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Carla,
If you are categorising me as “still gay but choosing to live a ‘post-gay’ lifestyle” then it’s very obvious you haven’t really read what I’ve written in the post above.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
I have really read what you have written. You said ..that your orientation had not changed though you are ‘happily married’ now.
And I am saying, that’s nice for you. Please leave others alone who do not perceive that loving as homosexuals is sinful and who have also had the experience of God’s redemption in their lives.
You are not a paragon for how God may choose to redeem homosexuality in people who identify as so. You are simply one for whom God chose this path for you.
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Carla,
Where did I write that my sexual orientation hasn’t changed? Please give the exact quote.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:52 am
What does
“I’m happy to be described as a homosexual.” mean if it does not mean that your orientation has not changed, Peter?
I can see what you’re trying to say in the above article. You are trying to say that instead of using any kind of sexual label to define your meaning, you have chosen to define your meaning in being a son of Christ and to follow his will for your life.
You go on to say:
“I know that when I’m down or tired or feeling inadequate I could seek catharsis in the embrace of somebody of the same sex in an attempt to shore my own masculinity. But I’ve also, like my friend who realises that he’s an alcoholic, discovered that that behaviour is counter-productive in the long run because it is simply catharsis and not actually redemptive.”
You have not stopped being homosexual. You have simply stopped practicing the orientation which it seems you were born to. You compare it to ‘alcoholism’, a disease, an addiction. This is an obviously inadequate and poor comparison to make. Alcoholism kills people, it hurts them, it poisons livers, destroys braincells and so on. A person who is unable to control drinking alcohol sets themselves up for a life of misery and it is obvious why they need to stop. That is not the case for being gay, necessarily. Being gay does not necessarily lead to a broken life of loveless, meaningless sexual encounters, a Godless life, a debauched lifestyle, and an anti-social, selfish existence, though it can (just as this can occur with heterosexuality).
And believe it or not, not everyone who identifies as gay and who loves God and follows his will for their lives experiences conviction that they must choose either a life of celibacy or heterosexual marriage.
It seems completely reasonable to me that God leads some to this, and others, elsewhere. But still leads along redemptive paths. Perhaps people like yourself need to exist for the sake of those who are gay who feel they can never marry and have children but would actually like to. Perhaps you were lead to where you are because God simply needed to let those who feel hopeless or trapped in their sexuality that ‘with God, all things are possible’. But I reject the idea that God lead you to where you are and therefore God wants to lead all gays along the same path (that or celibacy).
Not every homosexual views being homosexual as having a ‘broken’ sexuality, as an ‘addiction’, as a pathology.
And again, I say, it is possible for a gay person to be married quite happily, anyway. Being gay does not mean one is incapable of learning to love and care for a member of the opposite sex. Goodness. In THAT way, I would agree with you that such an idea of what ‘gay’ is (or bi or anything which deviates from completely heterosexual) can be extremely limiting. Like those who appreciate ideals of women’s rights on certain issues not needing to be man-hating, militant feminists to do so.
I think it is preferable to encourage people to trust God to take them by the hand to where it is HE wishes to lead them, rather than you telling them, with your theological understanding and your theological convictions, what they ought to believe and ought to do with an implicit message that to do anything else will lead them to hell and/or outside of God’s power to redeem.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:20 am
And this assumption demonstrates why you are not engaging with what I’m saying.
So – a little challenge for you Carla. Please produce a link to any academic paper that proves your statement (that people are born gay) together with the peer review that confirms the research.
While you’re doing that, let me clarify the alcoholic analogy as you don’t seem to have got it. An alcoholic is an alcoholic whether he drinks or not because it is the catharsis produced by the behaviour that makes one an alcoholic. But does my friend spend every day thinking about having a drink? Far from it – he can go weeks or months without contemplating it.
So is his alcoholism some kind of defining ontology that dictates who he is and what he should do? Not at all – it’s simply one coping mechanism that he no longer practices. Is he still an alcoholic? Yes?
So, am I still a homosexual? Yes. Does that mean I am constantly thinking emotionally and sexually oriented towards those of my own sex? Not even vaguely, but I know, like the alcoholic I could always return to that behaviour if I chose to. It just so happens I don’t want to and actually wouldn’t want to.
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Peter, I think Carla is simply stating what a huge number of gay people say about themselves. They discover they are gay at some point in their growing self awareness. At this stage I think Carla could point to some twin studies or Hamer’s studies that might point to an indication that perhaps genetic mechanisms are involved but as a propensity rather than something determined. On the other hand there are studies of the hormonal environment in the womb which also has to be further investigated. Nothing is conclusive but that doesn’t mean the opposite: that the behaviour is all learned, or even chosen. We should all be careful, especially the churches, lest suddenly the evidence is sudden;y forthcoming and we find ourselves backing the wrong side. But I am amazed at your reaction to remove Carla’s postings if she cannot produce a single study which ‘proves’ what you call outlandish and unscientific. Take a step back and you will find a huge number of gay people honestly think that homosexuality chose them, not they it. They think they were born that way. Since they are the ones who find they have to live the condition surely their opinion should count as much as a theologian who has no experience of it but finds the possibility that God makes people that way immensely threatening to his view of the world.
Your final paragraph is confusing. What are you arguing about? You seem to accept that you have changed from behaviour to which you could return, so you liken that to alcoholism. Indeed, I agree so far that so far a gene has not been discovered that ‘makes’ people alcoholics. But I think you do not rule out that there may be some heritable characterstics that predisposition some people to substance addiction. I think applying that model to sexuality is straining it somewhat since alcoholics have to take a drink first before thay become alcoholics. Gay children on the other hand find themselves drawn to someone of their own sex long before they experience sex. In fact they may never experience it and keep themselves virgins for life. I do not think a person who has never had a drink could ever know that he craved one.
I know that this is your site but you do invite people to engage. Carla has not been abusive. She has made a strong statement that you don’t agree with. You have challenged her to produce the evidence. So far so good. But once you threaten to expunge her posts for such a reason you reveal yourself intolerant and authoritarian. How can anyone think you are interested in debate? Your mind is made up and you are only interested in telling the rest of us who are also gay that we don’t know how it is but you do. Carla’s view of the aetiology of sexual orientation may be subject to scientific verication, but so is the churches’ behaviourist view that it is chosen or learned.
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Tom,
You have quite rightly pulled me up on being too intolerant by threatening to expunge Carla’s posts. I withdraw the threat, apologise to Carla and I’ll delete it from my reply when I’ve finished posting this reply to you.
As I’m sure you know, the Hamer Gene Study (looking at Xq28 if I remember rightly) was never duplicated in repeat studies. To this day NO scientific research has proved a genetic causation of homosexuality. If I’m incorrect then please give me a URL to the relevant paper. As for twin studies, unless they have the perfect level of concordance they actually prove that there is a developmental element to the behaviour / trait that is being assessed.
So you’re absolutely right – I do take a “bit of nature / bit of nurture” view. What frustates me then is that people start claiming that I haven’t changed because homosexuality is a fixed thing, but they do this without any evidence of total biological determination and refuse to present such evidence.
If we are being truly open about the subject then let’s all be honest that the belief that homosexuality is “something that you are born with” and that it is static is simply that – a belief. There is no definitive proof that it is so and plenty of evidence, researched and self-reporting, that it is more fluid then some will allow it to be.
Ultimately, my arguments against homosexual practice are theological not biological, so the discovery of a gay gene or the like would not worry me (though I think it would disturb many conservative Christians who seem to fixate on specific bizarre and minority sexual practices as “unnatural” in order to denigrate homosexuals – hey, what if we found a gene for rimming?) as I’m coming to this from a different position (as it were). But the societal assumption that sexuality is inbuilt and fixed, that I will always challenge because it is a huge unproven assumption that has gripped our culture today.
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Thank you Peter for being gracious. A good summary of the recent research and the conclusions that could be drawn so far is Born Gay?: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation by Glenn Wilson and Qazi Rahman. I like your idea of a gene for rimming – the only thing is that it would be evenly distributed across the homo and heterosexual populations as likely as not. One of the things conservative Christians never take on board is that all, without exception, of the repertory of gay sex acts, “unnatural” or not, is practised by straight couples all the time. They only have to read the sex advice columns or listen to the web casts of Dan Savage available on iTunes to find out. I read recently that Jews don’t exclude anal sex with their wives – only with men
which reveals that it is not the act of penetration itself but rather the act of male submission that is objectionable. I found that mighty interesting.
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Peter, I understand that you took what I said as some sort of fatalistic judement upon you regardless of what decisions you have made in your life and how you have acted upon them. In fact, I used the qualifying verb ’seems’ in response to your own implied reasoning that you are essentially homosexual(If you were not, you would not be ‘happy to be described as homosexual’ and you would not, except in ‘moments of tiredness or feelings of inadequacy’ behave homosexually. I would hazard a guess you probably wouldn’t do so now anyway. Still, the implication that you were ‘naturally’ homosexual or ‘born homosexual’ was how I interpreted what you yourself have said.)
Anyway, that aside, being one who also reacts strongly to perceived attack and has trouble getting over myself when shown to be reactive rather than responsive, I can appreciate how much strength and humility of spirit it took for you to apologise and admit to ‘too much intolerance’ (That little bit gets a bit of a wry smile from me, hope you don’t mind)
Jesus took the donkey, not the high-horse. People seem to be more receptive to that. You can share your story, but attempting to enforce your views will more likely invite slingshots to take you down to a place where you learn to listen…not only to what people are saying, but what they’re not saying, and what they’re trying to say.
That’s about it from me.
Peace.
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Tom,
Amen. Without being too lude, God made the prostate for every single man, not just the ones who listen to Barbara Streisand.
Carla,
Thanks for your kind words. I’m afraid you got some of the anger that was actually directed at someone who had been far more personally rude to me. Not that you were rude of course. I was. Once again, my apologies.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:30 am
I think I like the concept of postgay a lot better than exgay. Even in sound. Exgay, to me, just always has an undertone of sounding like you’re against gays. But postgay just doesn’t really have that. It’s like you said, it suggests that you’ve simply moved beyond indentifying yourself as gay.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Thanks for your comments Brandon. Yes, post-gay doesn’t make ontological claims and therefore is a more comfortable place (IMHO).
April 14th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
As a man who has only acknowledged to myself same sex attractions within the last couple of years I find this blog very interesting reading. Having read many arguments for and against same sex relationships and, while sometimes I would have liked to convince myself that a loving sexual relationship with a man could be scripturally supportable, it is clear to me that God intended sex as an expression of oneness in committed heterosexual relationships. The truth of Gods word is greater than the truth of our experience. As far as the physical expression of my sexuality is concerned I am convinced that this should be within heterosexual marriage or not at all. As some one who has never identified myself as gay, I can’t really call myself ex-gay or post-gay however I think I understand the heart of what you are saying. I have not fully worked out my position yet as regards change i.e. whether change is something to reach for or accepting that I may always have to live with SSA, but am gravitating towards the former as it seems to me that sexuality is not so static ( I would appreciate some direction to literature/research on this subject) and it would make sense to me that if heterosexual marriage is Gods’ plan then change (at least significant change) towards heterosexual attractions should be possible, however that might occur.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Thanks for your comments Martin.
If you get back to me via the “Contact Peter” page I can give you a list of resources and perhaps also find someone local to you who you can sit down with and chat these things over with.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
Peter
I have read this page with great interest.
I wonder if you have a view on the Karolinska Institute research and the research that has come out of St Mary’s recently – the former suggests that there may be significant differentiation between the brain sizes of gay and straight men (gay men’s correlating with those of straight women and those of straight men correlating with those of gay women). The St Mary’s study on the amygdala was important because of its role in “orientating”, or directing, the rest of the brain in response to an emotional stimulus – be it during the “fight or flight” response, or the presence of a potential mate.
In other words, the brain network which determines what sexual orientation actually ‘orients’ towards is similar between gay men and straight women, and between gay women and straight men. Dr Rahman of St Mary’s said “As far as I’m concerned there is no argument any more – if you are gay, you are born gay”.
I know orientation is not entirely fixed, and is somewhat malleable – but only somewhat. I understand your choice to be post gay, and reading some of what you write is very moving and rather poignant. I wish you well. My own path is that I have only just arrived at the point of finding my own gayness after years of refusing to countenance it, at least in part because I so strongly believed that it was not what God wanted. Now I know that some manage this for ever, and believe that they are being faithful in so doing. For me it nearly wrecked my health – and it meant I lived a huge internal lie. But in the end coming out to myself was analagous to being converted ( by which I mean I know what both experiences feel like – that is not a reported comment). It sort of completed what conversion had started – I stopped feeling ashamed of myself and began to feel like the real me at last. I certainly don’t live with a sense that by being a gay man, with the potentiality for gay relationships, that I am estranged from God – indeed coming out was and remains a profoundly spiritual experience.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 am
Hi Jeremy,
Let me take your last point first. Coming out is a *hugely* important experience, whether you choose to remain celibate or become sexually active. Coming out is about being real with what you are feeling and your emotional / sexual drives. A huge problem with the conservative church is that we do make people feel ashamed and embarrassed about their sexuality, when in reality the Scriptures place no moral condemnation whatsoever on this kind of sexual desire. The moral condemnation in the Bible is to do with sexual acts, not sexual orientation.
As for the Karolinska Institute study, let me tell you that in my opinion as a statistician (I had a day job before this God stuff took over) the research is far from conclusive. Here are the main problems with the study:
This leads us to the conclusion that the quote from Dr Rahmen is, to put it politely, utterly overstated and highly un-scientific. The evidence, even from this study, does not support his conclusion.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Well – time will tell if the Karolinska/St Mary’s material will lead us towards the answer to the question why homosexuality.
I am a bit foxed by the orientation/acts distinction. I don’t think I accept it. If I am gay then I am also open to living life fully as a gay man – and that means that I am affectively open to same sex attractions. Indeed allowing myself to feel this, and I am not wanting to specify too much how or what that means (not for coyness sake, but because I don’t think it is the point), is part of accepting what I have found to be a blessing and a given that i have refused for far too long.
I am also wondering about what it means to have a God who gives so generously this capacity to a fairly small minority of people. I don’t accept all the scare-mongering and slippery-slopeism from conservatives, that to accept gay relationships threatens family and society. Of course there are sides of gay culture that are not good or helpful to anyone much, but that is true of heterosexual culture too. I don’t know of any heterosexual people who find their marriage and family life threatened by my homosexuality. If there are such it suggests that there may be something of a pathology in that marriage. Nothing in normal life is going to make hetero people fancy their own gender – they just don’t. So what we have is a relatively small (you as a statistician will know that estimating percentages is nigh on impossible in this field – no one tells the truth about sex full stop!), and relatively persistent minority, who “just happen” to be sexually attracted to members of their own gender. We are, if you like, God’s wrinkle on the face of human sexuality. As we know from our anthropology, societies tend to cope badly with difference – and this minority have been supressed, repressed, banned, punished and excoriated for generations. These days we are learning that difference doesn’t automatically mean bad or threat. So what is bad about gay relationships? From a reasonable point of view I think the answer is nothing INTRINSIC. Of course there can be bad gay relationships as there can be bad straight ones. But I fail to see structurally why this should be seen as a bad thing per se any more (indeed our society is moving away from doing that – the astonishing thing is that once it was led by the church in so doing – after all it was a report of the C of E that prefigured the Wolfenden Report – O tempora, o mores!).
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:08 am
Jeremy,
The activity/orientation distinction is made by myself and others because its a clear understanding of what the Scriptures are saying on this front. The Bible speaks very clearly against any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman. It doesn’t address orientation.
Let me put this another way. Say you were sexually attracted to children. Would your sexual attraction automatically make any sexual contact with a minor valid, or would you make a distinction between the morality of desire and activity in this instance? What if you could find a 14 year old who wanted a sexual relationship with you, so it was entirely consensual?
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Jeremy,
The distinction between orientation and activity, to which Peter draws attention, is certainly a valid and reasonable one, and the examples which he gives, viz. sexual attraction to children and a “consensual” sexual relationship with a 14 year old, show clearly how the existence of a sexual attraction doesn’t mean that the physical, sexual expression of that attraction is morally permissible.
(I put the word “consensual” in inverted commas because the law in most civilized countries wisely doesn’t regard a 14 year old as competent to give free and meaningful consent to a sexual relationship with an adult, just as it doesn’t regard a 14 year old as competent to do quite a few other things, e.g. to make a will.)
All other things being equal, does the fact that the attraction is to someone of the same sex make the physical expression of that attraction wrong? Some people would say yes: I would say no.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I don’t regard the law of a land as any arbiter of morality whatsoever. If you argue against under-age sex on the basis that the law forbids it, you open yourself up to having to support it were the law to change (i.e. to permit sex between a 12 yo and an adult).
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 pm
It isn’t a matter of the law of the land being the arbiter of morality; in fact it’s the other way round. It’s that the law of the land in this case is based on a moral consideration, viz. that it has a moral duty to protect the young against those who would take unfair advantage of them. It won’t allow a 14 year old to make a legally valid will because it doesn’t regard someone of that age as fully competent to dispose of his or her property free of the undue influence of adults. I remember asking my parents about this years ago when I was a child. They explained to me that it was to prevent children from being pressured or tricked into signing away all their inheritances; it can’t be assumed that they would fully understand what they were being told to do, and so the law protects them in this way. It is on the same moral basis that the law doesn’t regard anyone under 16 as being able to give meaningful consent to sex with an adult and won’t allow anyone under 16 to contract a marriage. It was for this same moral reason that the age of consent for girls was raised from 12 to 16 some time during Queen Victoria’s reign; it was the Salvation Army, I believe, that first started agitating for the change. Until that time it was said that a girl of 12 was “mistress of her person”. All ages of consent or competence are, of course, to some extent arbitrary, but the age has to be fixed somewhere.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:43 am
You’re ducking the issue William. The argument I was making that if you rest any sense of morality (as you did above) in the law then you open yourself up to having to support a change in that law. Your comment above is revealing because you talk about consent and differing legal positions in this country, but you never once turn to Scripture to be used as an arbiter for correct sexual conduct.
July 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am
No, Peter, I’m not ducking the issue at all. I pointed out that the law does not regard a 14 year old as capable of giving free, meaningful consent to sex with an adult, and that was why I had put the word “consensual” in inverted commas. I wasn’t implying that the law was the arbiter of morality – although the law in this instance is based on moral considerations – but I can see why you thought that I was implying that, so no doubt I expressed myself too hastily and clumsily. My subsequent explanation should have cleared up the misunderstanding.
Although it is now generally recognised that it is not the business of the law to enforce private morality (and this was one of the principal factors in de-criminalizing homosexual behaviour between adults in the U.K. during the second half of the last century), that doesn’t mean that moral criteria are irrelevant to the law. The case for abolishing capital punishment, for example, was that capital punishment was grossly immoral and that therefore no civilized country had the right to inflict it under any circumstances. (Whether or not one agrees that capital punishment is immoral is another matter.) This obviously doesn’t mean that abolitionists based their idea of what was immoral on the law, since the law at the time permitted and enforced capital punishment. To say that, if the age of consent for girls were changed back to 12, I would have to give moral support to the change is simply nonsense. If, God forbid, that ever happened, then I would be among those campaigning to reverse the change. I still would not regard a 12 year old girl as being capable of giving meaningful consent to sex with an adult, and I would believe that the state had abrogated its moral duty to protect young girls.
Concerning the age at which someone can be deemed either legally or morally capable of consenting to sex, Scripture gives us no guidance whatever, so it would be useless to turn for Scripture for information which it doesn’t contain. As to correct sexual conduct generally, if you’re looking for a unified sexual ethic in Scripture it’s not there; it has to be read into Scripture. http://www.pflagsanjose.org/ad....._Bible.pdf
July 4th, 2008 at 10:45 am
You’re incorrect in your last paragraph William. The Scriptures teach us plainly that sex should happen inside marriage and only inside marriage, so we have a very clear model for consent. The fact that you reject this Biblical moral is the problem.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Even if you’re right about that, Peter, I still don’t think that it gives us “a very clear model for consent”. I know of no age limit specified in the Bible. Can you quote me one, giving chapter and verse?
July 4th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Genesis 2:20-25
July 4th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I can find no age of consent specified here. I know not a single word of Hebrew (it’s all Greek to me); do the Hebrew words represented by “woman” and “wife” indicate females over a certain age? If so, what is the age?
Note that this passage wasn’t interpreted by the ancient Hebrews as prohibiting polygamy, as a reading of the rest of Genesis and the following books of the Old Testament demonstrate.
I’d just add that the rule that sex should only take place within marriage, which by your definition is heterosexual – and I’m inclined to agree with the definition – doesn’t offer any helpful guidance to those who are homosexual (and any argument about whether homosexual “defines” them is of no practical relevance here one way or the other). That’s not surprising, since there’s no reason to suppose that the biblical authors had any real understanding of homosexuality. Peter Akinola still hasn’t. And even if it is admitted that some homosexual people change and become heterosexual (and vice versa), it is still the fact that the vast majority don’t and won’t. Some people win the National Lottery jackpot: “It could be you.” Yes, it could, but it won’t. (I remember the sceptical magazine Scienza e Paranormale reporting a few years ago that a surprisingly large number of Italians interviewed really were convinced that, if they kept on doing the lottery regularly, they were bound to win it some time during their lifetime. I’m not applying this analogy in any other respect, by the way: winning the lottery is far more useful than changing your sexual orientation.)
The crux of the matter is how you view homosexuality. You have made the perfectly valid distinction between orientation and activity, and you illustrated this with the example of a paedophile. The sexual attraction to children is not itself sinful because it has presumably manifested itself unbidden, but acting on it is. I think that you would agree, however, that the attraction itself is a bad thing in the sense that it’s a problem, in other words that it is, to quote the title of a book which I’ve seen around in religious bookshops, “not the way it’s supposed to be”.
I think that the language of the Vatican letter Homosexualitatis Problema sums it up well here:
“Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”
If this statement had referred to “the paedophile” or to “the man who feels a strong impulse to rape women” instead of to “the homosexual person”, I would have agreed with it. As it stands, I do not. You presumably would. That is where we differ. Since I do not regard sexual attraction to another adult of the same sex as disordered morally, psychologically, spiritually or in any other way, I believe that “gays can express their sexuality in a manner that is consonant with Christ’s teaching.”
July 4th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
As regards the age of consent, the age of consent is marriage. That’s the clear biblical picture and the call is for chastity for all. Sex is not a right and it’s not a human necessity. Discipleship involves dying ot self not indulging in desires.
You can continue to insist that the New Testament writers didn’t understand homosexuality, but such a view is an utterly destructive view of Scripture, for the New Testament writers were inspired by God. When you claim that Paul was ignorant what you are actually claiming is that we have a completely stupid and incompetent God who wasn’t capable of looking forward 2000 years in the future when modern enlightened people would finally have “worked it out” as regards sexuality. I don’t believe in such a pathetic and decrepit God for a second, even if you do. It’s a bankrupt theology that rejects the bits of the Bible that don’t suit one’s personal desires.
July 4th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
“As regards the age of consent, the age of consent is marriage.”
I don’t know quite what to make of that, Peter. Taken simply word for word, it seems to me a proposition to which it is difficult to attach any precise meaning. But are you perhaps trying to say that, as long as sex takes place within marriage, an age of consent doesn’t signify? If so, is child marriage O.K.? When an aged Indian judge came into his drawing-room leading a girl of 10 by the hand, Madame Blavatsky assumed that she was his granddaughter. When he revealed that the little girl was his new wife, Madame Blavatsky exclaimed, “You old beast! You ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself!” Was she wrong? Not in my view.
“Discipleship involves dying [to] self not indulging in desires.”
If that’s what you say about all gay relationships, why not apply it to straight relationships too, including marriage? Many of the early Church “Fathers” did. St Jerome, for instance, thought that the married laity were living “like cattle” with each other and that the only good thing about marriage was that it produced virgins. St Augustine had plenty of equally disparaging things to say about marriage, even while recognising its inevitability and necessity. In fact Fr Marc Oraison, a French priest and doctor, wrote in 1975 that it was still possible to find old handbooks of moral theology which stated that sex is “a sin permitted in marriage for the purpose of having children.”
“It’s a bankrupt theology that rejects the bits of the Bible that don’t suit one’s personal desires.”
The phoney division of the Levitical laws into ceremonial, civil and moral – which, to be fair, I don’t know that you have used, but which I have frequently heard and read used by many self-styled exponents of a “biblical” view of homosexuality who quote Lev. 18:22, though they seem rather more chary nowadays of quoting Lev. 20:13 – is a way of doing precisely that while pretending not to be doing it, which is a piece of arrant intellectual dishonesty. Even though I’m not a theologian or a biblical scholar, I can see that for myself.
Clearly you and I have different views of the Bible. I don’t believe in an infallible book – or, for that matter, in an infallible church, pope, council or synod.
“The Bible is not a revelation but the history of a Divine Revelation, ever advancing from even pagan beliefs and practices to others of the highest spiritual character. The end of this Revelation awaits fulfilment in later worlds. Furthermore there is no such thing as an infallible system of doctrine.” – Ven. R.H. CHARLES, Late Archdeacon of Westminster
Interestingly, the more the infallibility of the Bible is insisted on, the more schisms and sub-schisms the notion seems to give rise to.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Whats your views on shellfish and mixed fabrics?
July 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I’m a particular fan of mussels and I go for hard wearing polycotton blends for day to day wear. While we’re on the subject, the best prices for slaves are currently in the Sudan. Any other bits of Leviticus you’d like to throw at me or should we start to discuss how Jesus fulfils the Law and the Prophets?
July 10th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Your going to have to indulge me slightly more I am afraid Peter. As a novice I’m not really sure on how you interpet the Bible and why some bits of Leviticus appear at least to me to be more relevant to you then other chapters or verses.
On a related matter how widely is the idea of PostGay as opposed to Ex Gay used and is there a particular grouping of say evangelicals or anglo catholics that accept one as more to God’s message then the other?
July 15th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I would not like my sister to marry a post-gay, would you? Actually, I think it is not healthy… there is so much psychological research done on this, why are we afraid of diversity?
I say, sex is a wonderful thing, what it matters is how you live your sexuality.
The same tenants apply to straight and gay relationships… Two men or two women can build a Christian family together… I have seen that with my own eyes.
So… this post-gay thing seems a waste of time, effort and money.
kind regards,
Angelo
September 13th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Angelo,
You said this:
“The same tenants apply to straight and gay relationships… Two men or two women can build a Christian family together… I have seen that with my own eyes.”‘
————————-
My reply:
Eve also saw the fruit with her own two eyes and “saw that it was good for food”–it probably tasted good too.
Indeed, the Bible talks about a time when there was no king in Israel, and everybody did what was right in their own eyes. It was a sad state of affairs.
It really comes down to the fundamental issue will we say before the judgement:
“Lord, thy will be done”
Or will God say to us at the jusdgement:
“Thy will be done.”
What a brave new world!
Calvin needs a resurrection. Total depravity has fallen by the wayside. It is now God who needs to repent and be baptized for the remission of His sins.
After all, how an Jesus save me if there is nothing wrong with me in the first place?
(It has now been one year,and the debate is still going.)
September 13th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
John: if I remember correctly, in fact there was always a king in Israel – the LORD. When the Israelites finally got around to asking for an earthly king God was considerably miffed and said they were rebelling against him in doing so, that he would nevertheless give them a king, but they would regret it mightily. As for things being a sad state without kings, they got considerably worse under the kings, who are (with a minority of honourable exceptions) mostly described as leading Israel into sin.
September 13th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
As for the Eve thing: that’s not exactly the same thing. Eve did what seemed attractive to her in her OWN eyes, whereas Angelo is standing as a witness (whether mistakenly or not) for what someone else is doing. Jesus himself points out that the latter is a legally valid procedure, whereas bearing witness on one’s own behalf is not.
September 14th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I’m sorry if my last remarks, particularly the first, seemed a bit tetchy (it was partly because I was in a hurry at the time). My real point was that the biblical picture of the period of the Judges is more complicated than that, and I felt some qualification needed adding, especially if the passage in question was to be used as ammunition to fire at people. The comment at the end of the book of Judges, about there being no king so everyone did what was right in his own eyes, is probably meant mainly as a comment about the political situation where everyone had to govern their own affairs, since that is the most obvious result of having no central authority, and since that is what changed when kings did come along (unlike Israel’s tendency to stray in religious matters, which certainly existed before the kings but did not improve noticeably under them). Also the context is not for once religious infidelity but the disastrous attempt by the Israelites to punish a crime, which very nearly ended up with the wiping out of a whole tribe, which seems more of a political problem than a religious one insofar as one can make the distinction for ancient Israel. I would suggest it would be dangerous to read much if any condemnation into the remark given I Sam. 8, which presents the move to having earthly kings in a very bad light. The main point of it seems more likely to be explanatory: the intended original audience was presumably expected to take the kingship for granted.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
FANTASTIC site! Very interesting debates here. Great job, Peter. Way to stand firm on both science and Scripture; I enjoy your sound reasoning. Unlike certain others on here, you do not allow your emotions to overrun your reason.
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Peter, are you aware that the term “post-gay” is already a well-known one in queer studies and in contemporary philosophies of sexuality? Also in certain kinds of experimental science fiction, like in works by Ursula le Guin.
In this context it means something very different to the way you seem to be using it. What it means is that sexual orientation is no longer seen as important to psychological self-definition, because the equality and legitimacy of same-sex and opposite-sex intimacies, physical and emotional, have become so taken for granted that sexual orientation is not even worth noticing anymore.
The key point is here is that until you let go of heterosexism (not just homophobia), you can try as hard as you like to be “post-gay” but you won’t succeed. Let’s say, for example, same-sex attraction is a temptation to sin, whereas an opposite-sex attraction is not a temptation to sin when it occurs in the context of heterosexual marriage. From this it follows there is no way same-sex desire can be equally valuable to a human being as opposite-sex desire. Let’s be real here: one can be channeled into God’s form of expression, while the other cannot; one may help you fulfil God’s will, the other will never do so, at least not in the same straightforward way.
Now let’s draw on another useful concept from Aristotle, who said character is desire. Know a person’s desires, claims Aristotle, and you know his/her character. It is not possible to devalue a desire associated with a class of people without also devaluing their character in relation to another class of people with “better” desires. You are left with two kinds of people in the world, those with substantual temptation to a particular kind of sin, and those without: in other words a world where straight is better than the alternatives.
Thus, however hard you may try to not notice sexual orientation, the reality of diverse patterns of sexual desire in the world–patterns noticed as far back as Plato in his Symposium–will pull your attention back to it. Sorry, but you are not “post-gay” in the slightest. To the extent it’s important to you to react differently to same-sex and opposite-sex attractions, you are in fact deeply, fundamentally, unavoidably focused on gayness vs. straightness. You are right in the middle of the thing you want to move beyond!
I could yack away for hours about the interesting academic research focusing on sexual identity and how it’s constructed. You might want to look at John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, which argues that until the twelfth century the Christian tradition was indeed “pre-gay”, as you claim, but not in the sense you seem to imagine: in fact the early church was unbothered by same-sex intimacies, physical or otherwise, and even sanctified same-sex, marriage-like unions. To them, this wasn’t in any way important to the Christian message. I assume you are also familiar with the large and (to me) overwhelming persuasive body of Biblical scholarship suggesting the condemnations of “homosexuality” are generally no such things. I wouldn’t exactly call Biblical sexual morality “post-gay”–”pre-modern” is more like it–but I actually think it’s closer to my definition of post-gay, where the sex/gender of one’s partner is ethically irrelevant–than it is to your idea that we should all be moving “beyond” same-sex attractions. I don’t think Jesus cared about moving beyond same-sex attractions a single iota!
In the meantime, how about picking a term that more accurately describes your philosophical position, like “anti-gay”?
February 4th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Hi Glen,
I do understand the alternative usage of “post-gay” in some aspects of the academic debate. However, 99% of the readers of this blog don’t, and I believe that it is a suitable expression for helping them understand where I (and many others) are at.
I tell you what. If you can convince the whole of the USA to call football “football” and not “soccer”, I’ll stop using post-gay in the sense that a small academic fringe use it. Have we got a deal?
:-)
February 4th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Hey, I’m South African, and so as far as I’m concerned the correct term is “soccer.” Ask any Kaizer Chief, Bafana Bafana, or Orlando Pirate. ;-)
Let’s see: I present you with a detailed argument for why your use of the term “post-gay” is misleading and inaccurate. I wasn’t trying to pull authority and say academics have the right to define this term. I was trying to explain why this term is in fact false and misleading. You respond by refusing to address the substance of the argument, and dismissing my view as that of a “fringe group”?
In my high school debate class the teacher would have deducted points for an “ad hominem attack,” where you dismiss or insult the person making the logical argument rather than actually address the arguments!
February 4th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
P.S. On second thoughts, Peter, I’m not sure we really need to be debating this–my above comment about “ad hominem” arguments notwithstanding. (Maybe I should have rather used a metaphor from soccer, er, football? And talked about yellow-carding ;-)). Really, probably both you and I are strongly invested in each becoming “post-gay” in our own ways, and maybe it’s unfair of me to try to persuade you that my understanding of the term is more accurate and helpful, while yours is futile and contradictory (even though I actually believe this, and worry about young lives you could be damaging with these notions grounded ultimately in self-hatred). As a parting statement, though, I genuinely would like your readers to understand that can be real joy, peace, love, and happiness in becoming “post-gay” in the way I describe. I can fully humanize myself, because I can accept my romantic and physical attractions just the way a straight person would. Just like a straight person, my romantic and physical attractions can be a doorway to joy, intimacy, and companionship, something I am privileged enough to experience right now with a special guy. I can leave behind internal struggles and pain: I have really become tremendously at peace with myself. Deep in my heart I feel nestled in the love of God and the love of humanity. And yes, for the most part my life is “post-gay.” Because I happily accept myself, including my sexual desires, almost everyone I meet happily accepts me and my relationships. They do so instinctively, because my joy is palpable. My gayness therefore becomes irrelevant to almost everyone. I wish to leave your readers with the following quote from Robert Louis Stevenson: “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world… A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill, and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted.” Maybe your readers be such candles in the world, Peter.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Glen,
I’m not engaging in ad-hominem. I perfectly understand that there is another use of the phrase “post-gay” and I have read some of the literature around that. I can think of plenty of leading GLB people in this country (UK) who are in that definition very definitely “postgay”, for example Iain Dale the political blogger and Conservative activist.
However, most of the people who read this blog, even those who are GLB won’t have ever engaged with that specific discussion about post-modern identity. Equally, large numbers of my GLB friends or readers of this blog don’t even know or care about the basics of Queer theory – names like Foucalt or de Lauretis are just not in their vocabulary. In that context, appropriating the term “postgay” isn’t in the slightest bit problematic because for a huge number of my readership there is no alternative understanding of the expression. In the context of those who engage here, and more importantly a large proportion of those in this country at least who identify as GLB in some way, these theorist *are* a fringe group. That’s not ad hominem. I’m not dismissing their arguments on the basis of an attack on their person, I’m simply pointing out that the “postgay” discourse of the 90s is for many people utterly peripheral to their day to day lives.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:19 am
This blog post was brilliantly insightful. Thank you.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Peter – I just wanted to comment on a statement you made earlier:
You can continue to insist that the New Testament writers didn’t understand homosexuality, but such a view is an utterly destructive view of Scripture, for the New Testament writers were inspired by God. When you claim that Paul was ignorant what you are actually claiming is that we have a completely stupid and incompetent God who wasn’t capable of looking forward 2000 years in the future when modern enlightened people would finally have “worked it out” as regards sexuality.
If this is the case, how do you reconcile this statement with the fact that Paul clearly does not in any way condemn slavery. In fact, he (repeatedly) tells slaves to obey their masters.
He also does not tell Masters to free their slaves – there is no indication in either the OT or NT that slavery is fundamentally unacceptable to God.
So – do we have a ’stupid and incompetent God’? Or do we have a God who was speaking through people in a give cultural context, addressing that given cultural context in ways that were relevant to the people at the time?
God isn’t ’stupid and incompetent’ at all. He gives us the over-arching principle by which to order our lives and make decisions about the proper course of action in our own cultural context (which obviously differs from that of the 1st century!):
Romans 13: 9-10
The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
Love does no harm to its neighbour. That’s a pretty clear – and radically divine! – understanding of the new law Jesus established.
We can see in this new law that slavery is completely and utterly incompatible with God’s love and ‘doing no harm’ (while at the same time understanding that Paul could in no way start advocating the overthrow of slavery without bringing down the wrath of the Roman empire on the fledgling religion).
In the same way, we can see that God’s new law is also incompatible with the marginalisation and exclusion of gay and lesbian individuals – with refusing them the family and sense of belonging that heterosexuals are encouraged to find. While at the same time understanding that the homosexuality Paul knew about in his day (based on pederasty, abuses of power and always with a wronged wife in the background) was also incompatible with God’s law of love – so of course it was condemned.
But what Paul (and God) clearly condemn in the Bible has no relationship at all with committed, loving, supportive homosexual relationships.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I think you’ll find that Paul is very much for freeing slaves – Philemon 12-18 might give you a little clue towards that. In fact, you’ll find that whenever Paul addresses Christian owners of slaves, he takes a similar view. Of course, that doesn’t stop him telling all of us to live in humility, and that includes slaves whose masters have no intention of freeing them.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
That’s reaching. On the basis of that passage, Paul appears to prefer that ownership be transfered from Philemon’s owner to Paul. Nothing about freeing slaves or slavery being bad there.
Paul always (in keeping with Jesus’ commands to love others) admonishes slave owners to treat their slaves kindly.
But even with Christian slave owners, he doesn’t ever suggest that they actually free their slaves (which one would expect, if God was inspiring Paul in such a way that Paul’s words could be read literally, and without reference to cultural context/cultural knowledge by every succeeding generation).
Slave owners in the American South used verses dealing with slavery from the Bible to support their position.
It was the abolitionists (surprise, surprise) who argued from the governing principle of God’s love.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I think that we also need to face the fact that for centuries the Church declined to declare that slavery was evil, so obviously the Bible can’t be too clear on the matter.
St Augustine wrote that the state of slavery was justly imposed on sinners as a penalty for their own benefit.
St Thomas Aquinas acknowledged that slavery was contrary to the first intention of nature in the state of original innocence, but said that it was in conformity with the second intention of nature corrupted by sin.
Catholics who wrote suggesting that slavery was intrinsically wrong usually saw their writings placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, and it was not until 1965 that the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican II officially condemned slavery.
During those centuries Protestants who regarded slavery as a legitimate institution declared that the Bible supported them. Needless to say, they cited St Paul’s epistles and St Peter’s first epistle in justification of their position. The Protestants who opposed slavery were regarded as the innovators.
It was in 1995 that the Southern Baptist Convention formally apologised for its support of slavery, and it was in 2006 that the Church of England formally apologised for the part that it had played in the slave trade.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I think there’s another reason William:
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend it-self against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
Kierkegaard, “Provocations”
May 28th, 2009 at 11:39 am
But if slaves and slaveowners had taken the words, “slaves obey your masters” and said , “the matter is simple, the bible is very easy to understand…take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly” – then – er- we would still have slavery..
Peter , forgive me, but how is your above post in any way a rational or reasoned response to the points raised by Carolyn or William?
May 28th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
…and in fact, the above post is actually an attempt to avoid answering and engaging with the issues in your own right. As I’ve suggested above, it could as easily be used to support slavery as it could to condemn same sex unions, so, when applied to the specific issies discussed, it gets us no further.
Peter, why can’t you admit that, when it comes to the issues of divorce and slavery, you are prepared to interpret scripture in context and in the light of ideas about what is just and compassionate. When it comes to homosexual relationships, you apply a very narrow interpretation and insist it is the only valid one?
May 28th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Not at all.
I’m not proposing that we create an entire theology of slavery based around one verse in Ephesians 5 (and neither am I proposing the same for 1 Corinthians 6 for sexuality). It’s more than abundantly clear that in Philemon, Paul tells Philemon in no uncertain terms that he should treat Onesimus as a free man. You can’t read it that way and then read Eph 5 as a argument for slavery – that would be contradictory. You can however read Eph 5 as an argument in favour of being Christlike in your position of servitude, and that then harmonises with Philemon.
The same goes with my approach to same-sex activity. I read all the Bible passages that address it and I come to a considered theology that doesn’t abuse any of them (unlike the revisionist perspective which has to either ignore passages or introduce extra-Biblical material to support its corner).
May 28th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
St Augustine wrote that the state of slavery was justly imposed on sinners as a penalty for their own benefit.
That’s a very warped view of what Augustine actually wrote (can you even quote chapter and verse in City of God for that?). Augustine’s position is that slavery is immoral, however it exists because human beings are sinful and therefore believe that they can own another human being. Only when this fundamental point is accepted (that slavery is ultimately sinful) does Augustine then move on to argue that God uses this sinful act of man for his own purposes, but this itself works within Augustine’s larger framework of the absolute sovereignty of God in all things.
There is an examination of the nature of “Christian slavery” in Augustine here, and it’s well worth a read.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Well, I’m suggesting that we should not create an entire theology of condemnation of committed, loving same sex relationships when there is not one verse of scripture that condemns homosexual activity as an expression of such loving commitment.
By the way, the verse in Ephesians may only be “one verse” but, if you take scripture as seriously as you claim to, then surely one verse should be as binding as two, or thre or four?
May 28th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Come on Sue, there is not one single Bible verse that even condones the kind of same-sex relationship you are advocating. Every single time the Bible addresses the issue of same-sex activity it does so in the negative.
But just to show how silly your argument is, there are equally no Bible verses that condemn loving paedophilic relationships. Are you seriously suggesting that since the Scriptures do not explicitly condemn them they are therefore valid?
Your second point seems to have missed what I have written. I laid out that a coherent Biblical theology takes into account the entirety of the Scriptural witness on a particular topic and then interprets them all in a manner that doesn’t do abuse to any of them.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I would argue that St Paul did not have the concept of a true homosexual but only of a heterosexual who engages in an act of deliberate perversion. As for sexual acts between an adult and child, these are not “loving” but abusive, can never, by definition constitute a life long commitment and are not an equitable “relationship” as one party, even if they seem compliant, is not in a position to understand what they are entering in to.
I am sure those who defended the practice of slavery using the bible also believed they had a “coherent Biblical theology.” We all bring to our interpretation of scripture our own perspectives, beliefs, knowledge and prejudices and interpret it in the light of these.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
“The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow – that which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every variety of offence.”
ST AUGUSTINE, The City of God, 19:15
But never mind whose understanding of St Augustine is the correct one; the fact remains that the Church declined for centuries to condemn slavery and was less than tolerant towards those who did condemn it.
As for the Bible really being quite easy to understand, what need then for the Augsburg Confession, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, the Westminster Confession or the Thirty-nine Articles?
“It has happened that all the answers which I have seen to the former part of “The Age of Reason” have been written by priests; and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle and understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not.”
THOMAS PAINE, The Age of Reason, Part Second (1795)
June 1st, 2009 at 8:33 pm
But Peter, every time the Bible addresses the issue of lending money at interest it does so in the negative, to my knowledge… so this isn’t a knockdown argument and leaves the question of how to interpret the texts now…
in friendship, Blair
June 18th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Peter,
Why can’t you love God enough to love yourself the way He made you?
Holy matrimony is a recognition that the physical act of love between two people should be sacred; a sacrament. God made some of us to love members of our own sex. For a man whose entire God-given desire is for another man to enter into marriage with a woman is a perversion of nature and nature’s God. I don’t know if one could stop short of regarding such a union as a sinful rejection of God’s will; caring more about the clamor of The World and what The World is selling us, than about the call of God to live and love as he intends us to.
It is never too late to find one’s way back to Christ’s love.
-Tim
June 18th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Tim,
You wrote “Holy matrimony is a recognition that the physical act of love between two people should be sacred; a sacrament. God made some of us to love members of our own sex.”
I’m afraid I simply disagree. The Bible shows very clearly that I wasn’t created to be sexually active with another man and that rather, I was created to love a woman. I decided to believe that was true and in doing so I discovered that God was faithful to his Word.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Hi Tim,
I’m going to play “devil’s advocate” here ( probably not the most tactful term though…) and stick up for Peter and his marriage. I do agree that it is most inadvisable for a man who is wholly same sex attracted to enter into a marriage. However, I understand things are more complex in Peter’s case, that he fell in love with and found himself attracted to his wife at a sufficient level for him to feel he could marry ( hope I have that right.)
No one should have to hear their marriage , to someone that they do after all love very deeply (and with whom they are bringing up a child) , described as , ” a perversion of nature” or ” a sinful rejection of God’s will.”
June 19th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I am using that common argument, often used by neo-Platonist, the Catholic Church and other diverse fans of Saint Thomas Aquinas, “The Law of Nature”, which states that anything which stands opposed to nature, as created by a purposeful God, is sinful. This traditional argument has been used throughout history to condemn homosexual acts as being against God’s plan for human procreation. If one begins to regards homosexuality not as another’s “normal” sexuality perverted, or turned to sin, or diseased… but rather as one’s own healthy and appropriate nature… the embracing of an “un-natural” sexuality SHOULD be regarded as a willing rejection of The Law of Nature and God’s will FOR THAT INDIVIDUAL.
I understand Sue’s compassionate concern that Peter’s marriage should not be regarded as “sinful” or a “perversion of nature”, especially as he and his wife are raising a child. My concern also extends to gay men and lesbians who have been told by the Pope and Christianity that their sexuality is “…a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an inherent moral evil”; that gay men and women are “objectively disordered” that gay marriage is “a new ideology of evil”; and that gay parents “do violence” to their children by their very existence. Perhaps I am more of a Thomist than even Ol’ Eggs Bennedict himself. Let us tolderol for Nature, and Nature’s God, embracing the sexuality which He, in his unknowable wisdom, has seen fit to bless us.
As a gay man, I love and cherish a great many women in my life. They are wonderful friends, mentors… enrichers of my life. I never felt, however, any compulsion to disregard God’s will while ruining my life and theirs by a proposal of marriage.
-Tim
June 20th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Hi Tim,
My concern also extends to gay men and women whose relationships are described as “perverted” or “objectively disordered.” I am appalled that gay parents are told they “do violence to their children” by their very existence. It is prejudiced,disrespectful and unchristian. However, people in mixed orientation marriages also face great prejudice and disrespectful blanket assumptions.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Dear Sue,
With the advent of gay liberation, and the freedom to enter into loving relationships with the person to whom one is also sexually attracted, the idea of a gay man or lesbian woman marrying a member of the opposite sex to secure the approbation of society, goverment, church, the law courts, family, and Big Ol’ God should be behind us. There have been mixed orientation marriages for as long as homosexuality was been regarded as a sin, perversion, or crime. As one begins to understand that God loves us as he created us and has a plan for us to be happy, we should seek that happiness which was intended for us personally. We are blessed, in many places today, to live in an age where gay men and women are no longer regarded as sick or sinful. I don’t understand the mindset of folks who want to make the box as small and confining as possible. The “word of God” argument is not based on logic or common sense, much less human reason. When the findings of Western Humanism, Philosophy, Psychology, and my own God-given reason stand squared off against the “Good News” of the Bronze-Age bi-polar Jewish sky-god… I’ll follow Reason.
“Technology versus Religion? Oh, Technology definitely… Given a choice between air-conditioning and the Pope… I’ll take air-conditioning.”
-Woody Allen
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28484
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Hi Tim,
I agree that gay people entering into heterosexual union for any reasons should be “behind us”. If anyone told me they were gay , or post gay/ ex gay and about to marry, I’d do my utmost to disuade them on all sorts of grounds, not least the potential harm they were likely to inflict on spouse and possible offspring.
However, there are people who married when attitudes were less enlightened and who did so under pressure from a conservative or evangelical mindset or who were persuaded they were “healed” ( no – I don’t think homosexuality is an affliction to be healed from…) I do support the right of these people to honour their marriage vows without prejudice from others, if that is their wish. I also support their right to leave those marriages if they feel that is the right thing.
The situation is also more complex. Some people feel no sexual or romantic attraction to someone of the opposite sex. For others their sexuality is more fluid. Some recent studies have suggested for example that for many women their sexuality is more fluid and that ( some) people may settle with a partner who is not their predominant gender preference ( say they are a 2 on the Kinsey scale – but meet and fall for a same sex partner because they fall in love with them or happen to have a strong sexual/ emotional chemistry with that particular person.)I have by the way met one woman in a same sex relationship who describes herself as “heterosexual” but “fell in love with” a woman. Also, what about political lesbians who choose a same sex relationship on feminist / ideological grounds although they may not be same sex attracted? OK – I think that is a bit weird, but then it’s not my life, is it?
Some gay people genuinely believe same sex behaviour is out of the question due to religious convictions. If you like, they are “ideological heterosexuals”, although their ideology is religious, not feminist as in the case of political lesbians. I personally feel they are “brainwashed” – but then some people might argue that political lesbians are “brainwashed” by feminist ideology ( I did say i was playing devil’s advocate!)
As to my own beliefs, I think it is so important to be true to who you are. I wish I could convince all gay people that a same sex relationship is holy in God’s sight, a natural thing for a gay person and a source of benefit to the individual and society. However, once someone with different convictions enters into an opposite sex relationship, I reserve / suspend judgement. I remember that the situation MAY be less “cut and dried” than it seems and above all, I wish them well.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
When the findings of Western Humanism, Philosophy, Psychology, and my own God-given reason stand squared off against the “Good News” of the Bronze-Age bi-polar Jewish sky-god… I’ll follow Reason.
———————————
This has surely served us well in the 18th, 19th and 20th Century no?
The Soviet Union was a “reason-based” society and look at what it spawned all over the world (although it appears nobody likes to talk about it because it is embarrassing to the cause of secularists).
All this “reason” and we still have the same human problems to deal with…
June 24th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
The former Soviet Union was “reason based.”?
Surely Communism is an ideology, and the Soviet Union the very embodiment of rule by idealogues. The dictates of the Supreme Soviet were as absolute and demanded, ‘faith based’ acceptance as surely as any Pope speaking ex-cathedra, or any fundamentalist Christian speaking of the dictates of “the word of God”.
Someone, I forget who, once said: “Christianity is the chief heresy of Judiaism, just as Communism is the chief heresy of Christianity.” I believe even C.S. Lewis once remarked, that reading the “word of God” one would come away one moment feeling that Jesus was a conservative monarchist, while at other times a raving Socialist; or something to that effect.
Prof. Colin Rowe, the briliant theorist and writer, although also an architect, once said in my presence: “The chief monument to the Eighteenth Century and the Age of Reason is… The United States and its Constitution.” If you’d like to see a goverment based as closely on the dictates of Reason look to the work of Jefferson, Adam, Monroe, Madison… good secularists, one and all.
-Tim
August 11th, 2009 at 2:22 am
I submit the following as merely food for thought, not to judge or condemn anyone.
Just a thought, If we (created by God) are wiser than God than we may correct God. If the Word of God is to be challenged, stricken or modified who holds that authority? However please keep in mind that God is THE SAME yesterday today and tomorrow. we have not caused God to “elevate” due to creating “new” forms of sin, but quite the opposite. We have allowed sin to dictate to us what should and should not be tolerated by God. Thus, we are prideful and know no shame which comes before the fall. I am a sinner by nature but changed by grace and filled with the Holy Spirit and free to judge NO ONE. But I am instructed to meditate on His word day and night. Sexual immorality is not just inclusive of the gay community but instead for ANYONE partaking of sexual activity outside of marriage. Christ shed His blood to grant us the power of victory over sin and Christianity is the belief of this truth. If not so then we proclaim that what Christ has done is not only unnecessary but inadequate. My life is changed…not perfect but changed. HE IS ABLE!!!
Love,
Janyce (heterosexual without judgment)
AND THE QUOTE IS Romans 1:18-32
PS NOT MY WORDS SO DON’T BASH ME
September 27th, 2009 at 12:59 am
‘there are equally no Bible verses that condemn loving paedophilic relationships.’
Which would undermine your presupposition that Scripture is an accurate reflection of the eternal will of the Father for all of human time? Surely no God would willingly allow one human being to exercise their sex-drive on another? I’m sorry if I’m being sarcastic – it’s late – but I assume you’ll agree that heterosexual power politics was, in much of the Old Testament radically unbalanced. I’m hugely frustrated that someone who can obviously square up to queer theory, biblical criticism and some hermeneutics can just refuse to see the implications of taking all three of them together. This, despite your admirable and continually courteous tone, and your claim to speak to the wider and less well read public, is disappointing.
I don’t want to undermine your decision to engage in a permanent, faithful and sacramental relationship with another human being but why are you determined to do this to me and to others? Indeed do more; contributing to an atmosphere of pseudo-sophisticated prejudice which results in physical, mental (and critically) spiritual harm to huge numbers of people.
The Spirit is to lead us into all truth; scary but true, just as scary and true today as it was for the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, in the Upper Room, etc. We as Christians are not called upon to rationalise the whole of Scripture (Jesus simply reminds us he’s not abolishing the Law); we are called upon to witness to the life, teaching and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
So, either we do so in a way which remains authentic to the original understanding of the Church (depending on whether we are Jews or Greeks) or we can move to do so in a way which takes account of the Spirit leading us into all truth. This will involve moving out of sterile 19th century taxonomies.
What perpetually mystifies me and (in my view) causes the Angels to weep is the way in which evangelism (the good news) is constantly presented as a story which requires the entry of the hearer not into the mind of God but to the minds of men and their world. Simply put, sex post-Freud is no longer what it was. Now lets get on with talking about giving thanks for this, and being witnesses of the Resurrection in the bodies we inhabit not the attitudes we imagine inhabited the minds of the original disciples.
January 19th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
I am bisexual, but it’s not my primary identity. I am also a woman, a web developer, a Unitarian, a Wiccan, a poet, a friend, a lover, and many other things.
I agree with you that some people’s sexual preferences are fluid and can change over time, and that there is a spectrum of human sexuality from 100% gay to 100% straight. Many LGBT people would agree that the stereotypical “gay lifestyle” is a bit shallow – but that’s why they are building deeper and more meaningful alternatives.
I don’t agree that the Bible commands only heterosexual (one man plus one woman) marriage. Some interpretations of the Bible conclude that that is the case; others do not. There’s a re-examination of the so-called “clobber passages” here: http://epistle.us/hbarticles/clobber1.html
I am glad that you reject ex-gay ministries.
I am concerned for the women who marry “ex-gay” & “post-gay” men (and for men who marry “ex-lesbians” and “post-lesbians”). I very much doubt that this will work in the majority of cases.
As the Metropolitan Community Church points out, “The miracle is not whom we love – the miracle is that we love”. God is Love, therefore She wouldn’t reject her LGBT children.
January 19th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Janyce wrote: Sexual immorality is not just inclusive of the gay community but instead for ANYONE partaking of sexual activity outside of marriage.
So let LGBT people marry, and then they won’t be immoral…!
January 19th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for commenting Yew Tree.
I’m not sure I reject ex-gay ministries, I’m just cautious as to claiming that reparative therapy and other approaches will necessarily always result in orientation change.
As for the “Clobber Passages”, you might want to read an ongoing series I’m writing which begins here.
January 19th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Thanks for your response Peter. We are coming from two very different places. I utterly rejected Christianity in my teens because I believed that the clobber passages condemned gay relationships, and because I was aware of several loving gay relationships and loving & altruistic gay individuals.
I only became interested in Christianity again (and its messages of radical love & hospitality & transformation of the the social order) when I realised that the clobber passages did not in fact condemn gay relationships, and in any case there’s no need to view the Bible as the literal word of God. But I cannot accept penal substitution (vicarious atonement) theology, or the exclusivist doctrines that Christianity is the only path to the Divine. That’s why I’m a Unitarian.
I had a quick look at your series on the clobber passages, and I agree with what Carolyn said.