Homosexuality
There has been a lot of clamor and ranting in the public square: in the court rooms, policy making board rooms as well as the bedrooms, people seem to be familiarizing themselves with the third gender – the homosexual.
On homosexuality, The April 1976, ‘psychiatric annals’ reported, “One prominent psychiatrist said it was the first time in psychiatric history that a scientific society ignored scientific evidence and yielded to the demands of a militant group.” The homosexual movement proceeded regardless of research, science and dialog using intimidation as one of its weapons to achieve its aims!
Any counter perspective on this subject is met with suspicion and anger. Yet we must engage with it. So how do we approach homosexuality?
The family
Since the beginning of human society family has been understood as: father, mother and children. No child has ever been born of a homosexual union. It is the ‘natural teleology of the body’ it takes a man and a woman to procreate. Even if children are not the result – it takes two to tango – it takes a man and a woman to have sex! Any experience outside of this is mere stimulation and artificial substitution. It is no different from thinking that masturbation is sex! Though certain societies, only for the sake of illegitimate pleasure, practiced homosexuality it was never a norm nor understood as a permanent state of being. It is noticeable that even liberal ancient societies never understood homosexuality as a state of being/nature. If homosexuality is good it must help society. A society full of homosexuals would not thrive; it would self-destruct. When the family breaks down society breaks down, when society breaks down the individual is broken, and, in this case it would be slow yet sure!
Why the ‘animals also do it’ argument is not going to help?
If we believe that we have all evolved by a Godless blind chance process then, not only homosexuality, but everything would be permitted: murder, rape, incest and injustice. Animals do a whole lot of things that humans don’t do and are not expected to do. A cat might eat part of its litter. A dog might mate with its siblings. Animals don’t feel guilty after harming or eating an innocent being. We have been set apart from every other species by the way we understand morality and by our longing for justice and love. God descended upon us, breathed His image into us and set us apart from every other species. It is only to the human species that he said, ‘let us create them in our image’ and He created them male and female!
What about the ‘gay gene’?
All of us know that a homosexual is not a eunuch. A eunuch (by birth) is no case study for homosexuality. A eunuch is an “asexual” person and not a homosexual. What if homosexuality can be established as genetically determined then is it fine? A lot of studies are underway to prove the ‘gay gene’. So far there is no conclusive proof of the ‘gay gene’. Even if there were a ‘gay gene’ it would not justify homosexuality. There are genes that make up the body and there are genes that influence our desires and predispositions.
Jones and Yarhouse write in their book, Homosexuality: the use of scientific research in the Church’s moral debate, “We are used to thinking of genes as causing us to have things like brown eyes or wavy hair, and choice has little to do with such characteristics. But behavioral genetics has produced abundant evidence of genetic influences that clearly do not render human choice irrelevant.”
So even if someone were to say that his genetic disposition is to steal, we would not excuse him of his behavior. He has to make attempts to reform himself. As C.S. Lewis put it, just because we have an impulse to do something “we cannot … derive the practical principle, ‘I ought to obey this impulse…’ Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people’. People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war.”
Are happiness, pleasure and freedom the only criteria?
If happiness happens to be the chief end of man, then shouldn’t the route be justified? If a man is happy only when he eats and if he believes eating humans will alone make him happy, is that justified? What if two consenting adults a mother and her child or a brother and a sister decide to get married, is that justified? One must according to Peter Kreeft,
- Do the right thing
- Have the right motives
- And in the right circumstance
A homosexual might have the right motives and may even truly love his partner but he is not doing the right thing. We might truly love a friend and find it hard to see her struggling with cancer but to kill her is not the right thing to do. We might truly love our dog but to mate with a dog is a wrong action. Even if two consenting adults agreed to eat each other it is still a wrong action.
The route to happiness must be good and fair. And how do we know what is good and fair? For something to be good and fair it must be true? And how do we know what is true? We don’t look into ourselves – then cannibalism and rape could be true – rather we look out into God.
What next? What does the Christian do?
Contrary to what some might think the bible is clear about homosexuality being unnatural and impure. But it is important for us to realize that homosexuality is no different from the list of sins that Paul quotes in Romans 1. Jesus asks us to love God and our neighbor. We love the sinner and hate the sin. Loving sinners, like us, is necessarily dependant on hating sin. God loves us but hates the sin in us so much that he came and died for us. We don’t hate the cancer patient but we hate the cancer in him enough to take him to a chemotherapist. However, it is easy for us to say that chemotherapy is good treatment for cancer but only a cancer patient knows the pain of it. Only a homosexual will know what it takes to come out of the closest and into the arms of a loving, patient and forgiving God.
Peter Kreeft says, “We don’t tolerate good things we tolerate bad things for the sake of good things. And (Christians) believe that homosexuals are good and homosexual acts are bad. So we accept homosexual persons but we don’t accept homosexual acts. We tolerate homosexual acts but we don’t tolerate homosexual persons – we love them!”
– Bobby Thejus
bobbythejus said,
May 25, 2010 at 12:52
Hey Abhilash,
I think the answer to the question you have asked is in the fourth point (the one you think the agnostich might be dismissive of) I was wondering if you could help me understand why they might be dismissive of that?
Another question why is it wrong to resort to God, Morality, Society and Human Nature?
Thanks for checking the blog and writing in.
Bobby.