There is an iconic scene in the movie A Few Good Men where Lt. Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise) is grilling Col. Nathan R. Jessup (played by Jack Nicholson) in a heated courtroom scene. Jessup yells, "You want the answers?!" Kaffee yells back, "I want the truth!" Jessup retorts, "You can't handle the truth!"
When the leaders of the religious right tell themselves and the world that homosexuality is a willfully chosen, sinful behavior that can be changed, cured or cancelled, they are not telling the truth. This meme is their never-ending, never-learning argument that they bring to legislative efforts to prevent full civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Here is the incontrovertible truth that the religious right denies: homosexuality is a gifted, unbidden, unchosen, innate state of being. It is not a behavior, nor is it sinful.
Belief that sexual orientation is a "choice" is a power myth that constitutes a primary, foundational linchpin of the dogma of the religious right and undergirds an integral part of their justification of antipathy toward LGBT people. Laws against LGBT rights are written and voted on by people who think that being LGBT is a willfully enacted, conscious choice and therefore (in their mind) deserving of punishment, curtailment or annihilation.
In my training as a sexologist, I learned that sexuality is wired into the brain. Our wiring is not chosen. The ways our hearts beat is not a choice. As humans, we come into an awareness of our orientation as we grow into young adulthood. Sexual orientations are deeply embedded themes in the orchestration of being human.
The overriding reality is that human beings do not choose their sexual orientation. A person's sexual orientation has already been determined by the time one can name it and claim it. What the leaders of the religious right fight against is people realizing that the state of being LGBT is a normal, morally neutral variation of human development. This simply means that someone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender has the capacity (if they are so blessed) to be in companionship in deep and profound ways with another person who may be of the same gender.
This is an eternal truth that the anti-gay religio-political complex has found does not serve them well. Our truth has more currency than their lies. Sexuality and sexual orientation are gifts from a Creator that allow humans to express the mysteries of their sacred, erotic core in ways that can lead to a fuller experience of one's humanity.
Laws, beliefs and anti-LGBT programs need to reflect the truth. Sexual orientation is a gift that should be celebrated, not berated or eliminated. And that's the truth.
Wayne Besen: Leading GOP Candidates Run Away From the Gay
"Love thy neighbor". Until you get that part down, you probably shouldn't be spending so much time focusing on what other people are doing in their bedrooms.
Now that I have acknowledged the truth of her clarification, let me propose another perspective which may someday also be accepted as truth.
Understanding the sexual orientation is the result of the composition of the brain does not necessarily mean that that format is correct. Sexual orientation as originally designed by God was intended to be between a male and a female.
But in the process of human gestation (development of the fetus), different chemical combinations occur which gives birth to alterations to the intended sexual orientation.
Let me reiterate this perspective another way.
There are many Alterations (such as Gay, BI, etc.) to the intended sexual orientation (Hetrosexual) of humans which are chemically produced within the brain. And because these alternates occur during fetus development, they become a permanent sexual orientation which the new born cannot be blamed for or condemned for.
Understanding that other sexual orientations are Alternates does not negate that the original sexual orientation is the intended preference.
If this premise can be accepted, while accepting the inherent development of Aternates, then a new structure of dialogue can be formulated about the true spiritual acceptance of sexual orientations.
An alternative truth needs to be developed about the spiritual identity and the spiritual reality, and eventually the spiritual truth about sexual orientations.
Then it was remarkably badly designed by someone who is supposedly incapable of making mistakes :-).
I can't imagine why it even needs to be considered. As the article states, this is the way people are born. No need to label it a mistake, or not God's intention, unless you need someone to feel superior to.
More of the same, self-proclaimed truth; some of it is, some of it isn't.
My two homosexual friends both chose it; one as a teenager and the other in his 60's. The younger chose it out of guilt, promising himself never to touch another girl after having done so. I helped him overcome his guilt whereupon he went right back to preferring women; but many years had elapsed. The other, well, his wife had died leaving him rather heartbroken, adrift and with a very large house. So, along comes what I consider to be sort of a leech, a much younger man, "marries" my friend, persuades to sell the house and, well, I think you get the idea.
On the other hand, I also know a few men that very likely come by their preferences quite naturally.
One size does not fit all and you most certainly do not have a monopoly on "truth".
That's for sure. I slept with 70 of them in boot camp and I didn't like it a bit. Each has his own rack but they are really close together. However, sexual intercourse feels good and some men are so progressive they have discovered four legs is as good as two for that sort of thing. A man marries a woman to have children. If you aren't going to have children then it doesn't have to be a woman.
"There is more than homosexualÂity and heterosexuÂality. "
Of course. Millions of things more. Over the years I expect we'll even talk about some of those things.
Got that right; hardly worth the effort!
"most of them are incapable of comprehendÂing ideas that don't agree with their personal dogmas."
That seems to be common to the left as well.
Now, I have heard some younger evangelicals try to hem and haw about it. "We love the sinner, but hate the sin." I've heard others go so far as to state that gays and lesbians are in fact among those "called to be eunuchs" (something that St. Paul said) and should therefore practice monkish celibacy. Eh, if they were indeed designed by God to be such, you'd think He'd have the courtesy to make them asexual, not homosexual.
To me, it seems disingenuous, at best. At worst it's outright dishonesty.
Religion has kept my cousin from telling his parents he is gay. I cannot believe they don't know. I think they just pretend that they don't know so they will not have to face the priest, or fear that their son is going to hell, or lose face among their peers. . .
In the meantime, he has been out of college for two years, but has been unable to find a job that pays enough to allow him to move out. So he lives every day this half life where he cannot be who he is--all so he doesn't hurt his parents and shake their erroneous beliefs about people like their very own son.
And how does it realte to anything I said?
You need to search your heart and figure out why you are so homophobic. Vitriol like that spewed out about strangers you will never meet "just ain't natural".
The truth is always clear, concise and simple? What is the truth of the present economic crisis in the United States? I think you will find truth is NOT usually clear, concise and simple.
4 billion year old earth... 200,000 year old species (man)... 4200 year old deity.
you do the math... who made who.
Too bad the intellectual elite, such as yourself, are outnumbered. ;-)
If "intellectual elite" means not dumb, color me intellectual elite.
Oh, yes, and the other thing they believe is that they want to write their religion into the laws of our country and anyone who disagrees with them are "sinners" who deserve eternal damnation.
No, Dr. Rhue, no. They will never accept the truth. Would that it could be so.
In hindsight, that's what so-called 'civil unions' are. "A separate category for freaks." (But not in the same way as Cranky McHomophobe believes.) Therefore, nothing short of full legal marriage, the same exact deal as what the straights get, tangible and not just symbolic, is acceptable. With that said, it might be a good idea to wait until the Supreme Court leans a little less rightward. Taking it to them now could backfire.
Whenever an anti-SSM person asks, "Why can't you just be happy with civil unions?," I know right off the bat it's because they prefer a separate category from which they are BROADLY distanced.
It's about hierarchy and an un-American caste system.
You nailed it.