Homosexuality, Part II: Nature v. Nurture

Before turning one-by-one to the Scriptures that supposedly condemn homosexuality, I want to examine a few prejudices that are always hanging around in the mind of the conservative. One theme of the Christian war against homosexuality is that God created each individual either male or female, and thus anyone that is gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered is rebelling against their own nature. So it is by nature that they were created, and only by some poor choices or circumstances that their natures were corrupted.

A full account of the phenomenon of homosexuality is probably impossible. In any event, it is unnecessary to do here. Instead, I want to focus on one piece of evidence that shows that the conservative is clearly mistaken in his belief that homosexuality is always a matter of personal or social conditioning.

The motive behind the idea that God would not make anyone homosexual in nature or in disposition is motivated by the desire to “rescue” God from wrong-doing. That is, being gay is just so horrible as it seems to the conservative, that God could not possibly be guilty of creating someone with this disposition. It must be that the individual chose his or her own fate. But that just doesn’t square with the facts. We know that there are “intersex” individuals, sometimes called “hermaphrodites,” born with both sets of genitalia. By some counts, there are 50,000 of these individuals in the U.S alone. Even though we can admit that it is not the ideal of nature to be born with both sets of genitalia, we must also acknowledge that it just happens, and that it is clearly “natural.”

So we must let go of this notion that nature only produces males with a masculine nature and desires and females with a feminine nature and desires, for it is demonstrably untrue. I don’t want to get into the business of making judgments about something that I know almost nothing about, and saying how nature and nurture contribute differently to homosexuality. But I certainly do know that those individuals who are born with both male and female genitalia certainly did not choose the genitalia they received, and they could not have been given one, fixed nature that corresponded with their gender.

Homosexuality, Part I: Introduction

A couple of years ago, I did a blog series about homosexuality. I want to re-do that series, partly because I want a chance to re-write, re-think, re-order some of what I wrote, and partly because my blog audience (and those who read my blog on Facebook) has changed.

I am concerned that this single issue is fostering an unhealthy suspicion between the church and the world. Now, of course, we should desire that the church be different from the world. Jesus promised that the world would hate his followers, and he even went so far as to encourage us to rejoice when this hatred turned to persecution. But I think the divisions caused over the issue of homosexuality are quite different. Some divisions are healthy, but this is unhealthy.

I have heard the arguments against homosexuality, both ethical and Scriptural, and I have found them to be unconvincing. I just don’t think that passages such as Romans 1 say what Christians think they do. When I took the time to interpret ‘slam-dunk’ passages such a Romans 1 properly, it became quite embarrassing for me to think that for most of my life I read that passage as a condemnation of homosexuality.

Jesus said in the Sermon of Mount that we are blessed when we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. But that does not mean that we should desire to be persecuted for the sake of sloppy Bible interpretation. I’m going into a line of work (philosophy professor) where I will have many colleagues who will think that I’m a nice enough person but a little crazy and perhaps a bit close-minded to believe that the universe is being controlled by God, and that we can be reconciled with God through Jesus. And unless you work in a church or in Texas, you are probably in the same boat.

So look, you and I have a limited amount of ‘capital,’ and we’ve got to spend it wisely. If we want to have influence in this world, we need to be careful to disagree with others only about things that are actually in the Bible. I want to convince you that homosexuality is not. And then, my hope is that we can move past this issue and get the real business of sticking out like sore thumbs in our world for all the right reasons.

"Is It Wrong to Eat Meat?," Part V: The Ick Factor

I have been trying to prove that none of us has a logically rigorous reason for consuming what we consume. The only exception is the cannibal, who has decided to eat any living thing he chooses. But for those of us who find cannibalism immoral (that would be me and everyone I have ever met) draw a line in the sand: “I am comfortable eating X, but I am not comfortable eating Y.” And I have tried to show in the last blog that there is no logically rigorous way to discriminate between X and Y.

So let me end this blog series by stating my own conviction on the matter. I am a pescartarian (yes, that’s officially a word as of last year – apparently not yet in Microsoft Word, because my software underlines it!), which means that the only meat I eat is from fish. This suggests two questions: why I am uncomfortable eating mammals, and why am I comfortable eating seafood?

My reason for abstaining from mammals is straightforward: it seems to me as though cows, for instance, have at least one important in common with me. No, they don’t reason abstractly, but they can feel pain, and this is significant. I believe this because 1) they instinctively move away from the source of a pain, and 2) they make noises to show their dissatisfaction with the pain. So when I watch videos of a slaughter house, it is disturbing to see animals behave like I do in response to pain. That’s all there is to my reasoning there. Things are just the opposite in the case of fish and shrimp. I have seen shrimp and fish being caught and skinned, and they just don’t remind me of myself. Does this prove that ‘fish don’t have feelings?’ Of course not, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and that is where I have chosen. It doesn’t seem like fish feel pain, at least the way I do, but it does seem like cows feel pain exactly the way I do.

To the skeptic who believes that my reasoning here is absurd, let me say two things. First, I will remind you that your level of comfort (“I will eat X, but I will not eat Y”) is just as arbitrary as mine. The only exception is a cannibal – he has a logical consistent position: “I will eat anything that provides nourishment to me.” I will close with an analogy. Do you think that it is icky when two siblings get married? Yeah, me too. How about first cousins? Still pretty gross. Well, how about 16th cousins? That’s not so gross, is it? But where is the logical cut off point? Of course there isn’t one - we have to make one up. My personal statement is this: “I will eat fish, but I will not eat mammals.” My statement is not logically rigorous, but then again, neither is yours. The best we can do is to ask ourselves the tough questions, which is what I am trying to do.