Homosexuality
Coleman Glenn | Friday, July 1, 2011 This is the opening essay in our series on homosexuality. Here Coleman elaborates on his position that homosexual attraction is disorderly. By voicing that conclusion, he feels he can offer people who experience same sex attraction the opportunity to disconnect from that inclination with integrity and pursue a higher path. -Editor
“Growing up I thought homosexuality was kind of gross, and I just kind of accepted the church’s teaching that it was wrong, although even then I guess I had doubts about it. Then as I got older and went to high school, and then to college, I made friends with a lot of gay people. And I realized they were real people. And not only real people: real good, loving, warm, funny people. I realized that the ones who were in relationships truly loved their partner and were committed to the relationship. And so, yeah, I think the General Church’s stance on homosexuality is wrong. God cannot possibly disapprove of a loving relationship between two people. Love can’t be a sin.”
That quote isn’t from any one person, but it’s a sentiment that I’ve heard expressed again and again by my peers. If you did a poll of people raised in the General Church in my generation, I think you would find that the vast majority of them think that homosexuality is not evil, and that many homosexual relationships are positive and healthy.
The Swedenborgian Church of North America (formerly known as the General Convention of the New Church) has embraced this viewpoint, and performs homosexual weddings and ordains homosexual men and women. But the General Church – the branch of the church that I belong to – continues to teach that homosexuality is wrong, and I continue to believe the same.
There are many reasons for this, and I will touch on a few of them later. But first I want to talk about the sentiment expressed in the quote above. Because the reason people think that homosexuality is a healthy and viable lifestyle is not usually that they see the Writings endorsing it; it’s that they see it that way in the people they know.
But I don’t think the fact that gay people are kind and loving, or even the fact that they can form committed relationships, proves that the sexuality in those relationships is right. I believe that there can be good, kind, loving people, who form sexual relationships in which the sexuality is out of place and harmful. And I want to show that it really is possible to believe that acting on same-sex sexual attraction is unhealthy while still loving the person who has that attraction.
I’m about to make a comparison that will probably offend some readers. I realize that we’re talking about two very different things. But I want to look at the tendency toward pedophilia and compare that to same-sex attraction. Now, pedophilia and homosexuality are two very different things. The enormous difference lies in the fact that in the latter, there can be true consent; in the former, there never is. But there are similarities – pointed out by the leading researchers on the subject, not invented by me – that help show how it is possible to consider an attraction to be unhealthy and still love the person who feels that attraction.
The first thing to emphasize is that when I write about “pedophilia,” I am using that term in its clinical sense of a person being sexually attracted to children – not necessarily to someone who acts on that attraction and abuses children, although this is the way that term is commonly used today. My primary resource for this is Pedophilia and Sexual Offending Against Children: Theory, Assessment, and Intervention by Michael Seto, published in 2007 by the American Psychological Association (APA). The book is a comprehensive overview of the research that had been done up to that point in the area of pedophilia.
In the preface to that book, Seto states that in many ways, pedophilia acts just like a sexual orientation. According to the book, pedophilia in many cases seems to be something that “manifests early in life and directs a person’s sexuality.” It’s a “stable sexual preference”: a person who is primarily attracted to children rather than adults is unlikely to change that orientation, although it may be possible. According to Seto, it can be thought of as an orientation.
In writing the book, Seto lists one of his goals as a hope that people who struggle with these attractions not be thought of as monsters or inhuman, but seen for what they actually are – our neighbors, our friends, our relatives. They tend to be perfectly normal people. At the same time, he wants to make clear that he does not support acting on pedophilia in any form.
I think we have a tendency to create an image of anyone who is attracted to something taboo as somehow “other” than us. Especially when it comes to sexuality, and especially in adolescent years, there is a fear – “what if I could become that?” And so we build up images in our mind of sexual “deviants” as inhuman monsters, as something so removed from our normal experience that we could never become them.
When we actually meet them, though, we discover that they are normal people. We tend to experience cognitive dissonance: here is this normal, friendly, loving person, who I know is attracted to those things that I consider horrendous. There are two immediate knee-jerk reactions that present themselves. One option is to hold the person in even more revulsion than before – here they are wearing this mask of normalcy and underneath there’s a monster crawling! The other option is to cast aside – or bring into serious doubt – all our assumptions about their behavior. Maybe it’s not so bad after all. If this person I love is into that, maybe I’ve misjudged it. Maybe it’s only when it involves coercion that it’s bad.
It can seem like these are the only two options. But there is at least one other option, and I think it’s often a more realistic one: to embrace the person as a whole, but still disagree with this aspect of their lifestyle, even if they see it as good or even as an integral part of who they are. It’s clear to see this as an option in the case of something like pedophilia that is almost universally (at least in modern western culture) regarded as a disorder. A person can struggle with an unhealthy attraction and still be a kind, good person. They may even believe there’s nothing wrong with it. But even if we have compassion for their condition, and see that their heart seems to be in the right place, we do not have to condone their actions, if they do act on those impulses. Those actions are evil.
Again, I’m not saying homosexuality and pedophilia are equal. But I am saying that the fact that someone is a loving, kind, “normal” person does not mean they cannot have unhealthy sexual attractions. This says nothing about whether homosexuality is right or wrong – only that the fact that people we love and care about feel attracted to people of the same sex does not mean that that attraction is healthy.
Nor is this to say that the friendship and love between two people of the same sex is not real. There can be deep and abiding love between two people of the same sex, and there should be. The problem is that for whatever reason – whether it be genes or life experiences or some combination of factors – a relationship that is not supposed to be sexual is sexualized.
Most of us do acknowledge that there are loving relationships where sexuality is completely out of place, and where acting on sexual attraction would be unhealthy. In a blog post from several years ago, I compared homosexuality to brother-sister incest. There are brother-sister couples in the world who declare that they are in love, and have sexual relationships with each other. Now, I would not deny that these brothers and sisters love each other. I would not hate them for feeling sexually attracted to each other. But I would think that their sexuality was misguided and out of place, and that acting on it would be harmful for them, psychologically and spiritually.
The relationship between a brother and sister is not “supposed to be” sexual. We don’t like saying “supposed to” in terms of other people’s personal preferences, but I think in this case we get it – somehow a person has confused sibling intimacy with sexual intimacy. But to acknowledge that there is ever a “supposed to be” in terms of sexuality is to acknowledge that there is some kind of purpose to sexuality. And this is where we can get into disagreements. This is where I believe the New Church comes into it.
The Writings for the New Church teach that sexuality exists for the sake of conjugial love. They also teach that this kind of love can only exist between one man and one woman: Conjugial Love says, “For the conjugial union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion” (Conjugial Love 457). They emphasize that a man is completely a man and a woman completely a woman (Conjugial Love 46) – and that even friendships between two men or two women are of a different nature than friendships between a man and a woman (Conjugial Love 55:6). Within marriage, the purpose of sex is creation: either the procreation of children in the world, or the creation of “spiritual children,” the birth of new love and wisdom within the couple. And any sex outside the confines of marriage is evil.
“Evil” isn’t a popular word here. Why label it like that? What’s the point? Doesn’t it just stigmatize the people who are engaged in it? It can – but that’s not the point of it. There are plenty of things that the Lord has labelled evil, and I’m grateful for it. The use is that it gives a person the strength to fight through the justifications that come with any temptation. If a person is drawn to pornography, the Lord’s words are his allies: “Whoever looks at a woman in order to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). “Fornication is an evil” (Conjugial Love 452) even though it is not the evil of adultery. A person can hold onto these words as weapons against impulses toward evil and all the justifications that come with them.
I know of people in the New Church who have felt same-sex attraction, and were able to fight against those attractions because they felt they could label homosexuality as evil. That is the use in using that word for it. You might disagree that sex outside of marriage is wrong; you might disagree that truly conjugial love cannot exist between two people of the same sex; but for those who do embrace those beliefs, labelling those attractions as harmful and even evil provides strength to hold out for a marriage between themselves and one person of the opposite sex.
But is this holding out a false hope? Many would say it is: you are stuck with the sexual orientation you were born with. There’s a widely-held belief that orientation is genetic, in the same way that skin color is. Studies have shown some connection between sharing genes and same-sex attraction – but even the twin studies cited as favoring this show at highest a 50% chance that the identical twin of a homosexual person will be homosexual as well. These are people who share identical genes – 100% of them share the same skin colour. Homosexuality cannot be entirely genetic.
There are others who say that even if it is not genetic, orientation is inborn, determined by events in the womb. The truth is, no one really knows at this point. There are studies that show that people who identify as bi-sexual or homosexual are significantly more likely to have been sexually abused as children – but correlation does not prove causation, and someone could say they were abused because they had already started exhibiting stereotypical homosexual behavior. The APA itself does not declare orientation to be inborn:
There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation. (http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/sorientation.pdf)
It does seem to be true that once it has been established, orientation is difficult to change. Programs that guarantee success are misleading people, and there are reports that people have been harmed by orientation-change efforts. But there are other reports that it has been helpful. There is evidence that some people – although it is a minority – are able to move from a homosexual orientation to a heterosexual one. There are others who are able to shift away from a homosexual orientation and abstain from sex altogether. As researcher Mark Yarhouse puts it in this article, it is misleading both to offer extreme optimism or extreme pessimism.
The American Psychological Association itself encourages therapists not to enter therapy with an agenda either of having their client embrace a homosexual identity or rejecting that identity, as reported in a 2009 review of the research on orientation-change efforts. While the authors of that report are skeptical of attempts to change orientation itself – mostly because there has been inadequate peer-reviewed study in the area – they do endorse the idea that a person can change how they identify themselves – that just because they experience same-sex attraction does not mean they have to identify themselves as homosexual. To pressure someone to “embrace their homosexuality” simply because they feel attracted to people of the same sex, if they sincerely believe this is wrong, is as bad as to try to convince someone to commit adultery because they find themselves attracted to someone other than their spouse.
We could get into a wider debate here about religion. It may seem empathetic of me to encourage people who are struggling with homosexuality to get help, some might say, but all I’m really doing is continuing to repress them with my religious dogma. And it’s certainly true that there are people who will refrain from acting on homosexual tendencies because they’re afraid of rejection or condemnation by “the church,” meaning people within the church and especially church leaders. But there are other people who have embraced the teachings for themselves, who sincerely believe that their same-sex attractions are harmful, and want to live in integrity with their beliefs. Some people will argue that everyone who lives by a religious belief is really doing so out of a fear of reprisal, either temporal or eternal. And I admit, both of those factors do come into play in my decisions about my religious life – but they are far from the only thing that motivates me religiously. There’s a world of difference between being compelled by someone else and compelling myself, and my primary religious compulsion is self-compulsion.
I haven’t gone into much about what the Writings say directly about homosexuality. Other people have done that extensively (see this collection from the New Church Thought blog, which includes a number of different perspectives). The teachings about the differences between men and women – and the differences between same-sex relationships and opposite-sex relationships – are more than enough to convince me that same-sex attraction is disorderly, and that acting on it is evil. I don’t expect to convince many who aren’t already convinced. So what is the point of this article? That’s something I’ve asked myself a lot over the past few weeks as I thought about writing it. I guess it’s primarily three things: first, to demonstrate that it really is possible to love and care about people who identify as homosexual and still consider acting on it to be immoral. Second, to encourage those who would jump to either immediate conclusion – dehumanization or complete acceptance – to rethink their reactions.
The third reason I write it is to offer support to those who do struggle with same-sex attraction, and who sincerely believe it to be wrong, and to point to resources that are available. New Church ministers and friends can provide religious and emotional support, and professional counsellors can provide psychological support. The APA’s guidelines ask therapists not to push their clients to identify with one orientation or another, but to let them know the reality of the difficulties they will face, and help them come to terms with an identity that allows them to feel whole. Those who are in this position can look around for a therapist who will not try to get them to change their religious convictions. There are resources available, and there are other people in your position. For more information, I recommend this website (which is a therapy structure approved of by the APA): http://sitframework.com/, and the book Ex-Gays? by Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse1 (summarized here).
In any case, I want the discussion to change. I do not want those in favor of homosexuality to brand all those opposed to it as bigots or hateful. I do not want those opposed to homosexuality to express hatred for homosexuals, or to view them as inhuman. I want us to be able to talk to each other with respect, even though we see things very differently.
Edit: I posted a follow-up to this article on my blog addressing those who ask why I made the comparisons between homosexuality and pedophilia, even though I acknowledged that they were two different things, and even though I knew it would offend some people. That post is here.
Footnotes
1It should be noted that the APA report on orientation-change efforts listed a few problems with Ex-gays?, most notably that it did not study a control group to see if people would have changed without the efforts of Exodus International, and that its researchers were biased. However, neither of these negates the clear evidence that some people can change orientation, even if it’s a minority. Moreover, Yarhouse is a well-respected researcher who has conducted several other studies which have been approved and published in peer-reviewed journals.
Coleman Glenn
Coleman Glenn is a minister in the Dawson Creek New Church. He blogs at patheos.com.Wondering about the inspiration for this article? Look up the New Church, which is based on the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Reader Comments (29)
Brian,
Thanks for the personal reply. Yesterday I almost replied to the general discussion with a couple of thoughts about the scientific method, but decided against it since my thoughts were only tangentially related to the topic at hand. Point number 3 at the end of your comment also works for me. I have great respect for many people who's opinions about certain topics I happen to disagree with.
I don't have a lot of time right now to write a long comment now, but I did want to reply on the topic of evil. I agree that we are shaped hugely by our culture. One of the most indelible memories I have from visiting Normandy in Niger is of men walking down the street holding hands with one another. Homosexuality is not a topic for conversation over there as it is still taboo, it was entirely a friendship gesture to stroll as they did, yet I found it drew my eye constantly. I give that as an example of a culturally specific action that has implications in one culture, and totally different implications in another and to demonstrate that it is very, very difficult to step outside one's own culture and see it for what it is (this pertains to everyone, I am not trying to veil some disparagement). Basically, I'm trying to agree with you on the preacher line...
As for evil and love. I believe loving is wanting what is good for another, putting others' needs, wants, desires above oneself. In the examples you gave of narcissism, prostitution, pornography etc. the self is still elevated above all else. I've met gay people who I judge to be loving because they put their partner's desires above their own. So yes, I think homosexual relationships pass the short-hand test of "what does no harm to another", and I also think they (can) pass the deeper test of putting someone else first.
That's all for now. Edmund
Wow - a lot to respond to. I'll try to get to everyone, but I'm moving this weekend and all of next week, so it might not happen right away.
For now I'll just try to explain why I included the references to pedophilia, even though I knew that would offend people. As I tried to make clear, and as Brian pointed out, I wasn't trying to say that homosexuality and pedophilia are the same thing. But there are some parallels that I wanted to look at.
As Brian mentioned, my primary motivation was to demonstrate that people we like and admire and love can have tendencies that we don't condone. But there are lots of other examples that I could have used to illustrate the same thing. The reason I used pedophilia specifically is that it is a response to an argument that I've heard a lot before: God would not create people who were exclusively attracted to members of the same sex if there were anything wrong with it. I think the fact that there ARE a number of people who are exclusively attracted to children - apparently through no decision or fault of their own - proves that this argument does not hold up. There are people with exclusive orientations toward an unhealthy sexuality. Did God create them that way? We get into harder theological issues here. I believe God created everyone with the capacity to be conjoined in marriage with the opposite sex, but there are numerous factors - biological, psychological, spiritual - that direct that sexuality in an unhealthy direction. I wish there were an example other than attraction to children to demonstrate this, but I don't know of anything else that acts clearly as a sometimes-exclusive orientation toward a group of people, and that is widely regarded as unhealthy.
I'll try to find time to answer some of the more theological questions in the next few days. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses so far.
I am worried that the younger generation in the General Church of New Jerusalem is becoming more and more accepting of the sexual deviation of homosexuality. I am 52 years old and my adult children, while being heterosexual, are supporters of the so-called "gay marriage". If the General Church of New Jerusalem (Academy) goes the way of the Swedenborgian Church of North America (Convention), then Bryn Athyn will cease being a Mecca for conservative Swedenborgians. I hope we will not eventually die out and be replaced by a generation of sodomy-enablers.
I do recommend treating homosexuals with civility and fairness, while not condoning their perversion (regardless of whether they are responsible for it or not).
Roger Noah
I’d like to add some thoughts to the discussion here because I appreciate the tone and spirit in which it is being undertaken (aside from a few commenters ) I think the General Church has really failed to helpfully address this topic in the past because the commentary on the whole has embraced ridiculously negative generalizations and poorly researched social science to back up the doctrinal discussion.
The result was alienation, separation, depression, suicide, suppression – rather than engagement, discussion, encouragement, exploration. We can all agree that this is a difficult topic made more difficult by the extremely personal nature of it. We can’t move forward in mending relationships and allowing space for people to heal in an atmosphere of demonizing.
This is why I agree that Coleman made a questionable choice is using incest and pedophila as analogies, no matter how strongly he emphasizes they are not the same. Too many still believe they are strongly linked. I do however appreciate the acknowledgement that only a minority (I believe a very small one at that) can successfully “change” their sexual orientation.
What can we say about those who are, in their core being, oriented to be in love with someone of their own gender? Where does this fit in the world?
Men and women in relationship are able to produce offspring, without which the human race does not continue. Men and women in relationship have a rich opportunity for a complex partnership. Does either of these necessitate that there is no value in a same-gender relationship? Gay, as well as single folks, as well as childless straight couples, have their own rich relationships, and all do tremendous work in the world, nurturing others in general, as well as nurturing their own children or adopted or foster children.
Several people have opined that homosexual relationships are spiritually and psychologically harmful. I don’t think it’s that simple, whether from a doctrinal or a psychological perspective. Love and even gender are highly nuanced, influenced by body, mind and spirit.
If I can rephrase another point in the comments - that the Lord provides for people in many different situations to attain to good in whatever way best accommodates their geography, heredity, family, culture, religion, etc. What I see the Gen. Church doing is sacrificing the good in search of the perfect. If you teach “ideals” in a way that allows for one and only one way of being, that crushes & paralyzes people with guilt when they fail to attain it, you lose many good people in the struggle.
I understand the principal that Brian said – that you need to try to perceive the truth and fit your beliefs to revealed truth vs. coming in with a bias and finding statements to confirm it. Applying this depends on a shared understanding of the truth – easier said than done. People also do great harm to themselves and others by taking what they perceive to be the truth and trying to force every situation to conform to that. The New Church proposes to have the clearest version of the truth, but it still falls to human filters – someone is doing the interpreting no matter what.
So an individual human being, preferably with the aid of counsel from people wise in spiritual and psychological principles, has to do the best they can to find out what makes them spiritually/psychologically whole and what makes them spiritually/psychologically broken.
I am interested in whether two people in a relationship respect each other, care for each other, and work together to better the common good.
I’m not saying we can look at the experience of one person or a dozen and derive truth from that, but we have to look at ourselves – and our life experience and perceive what makes us our best self. A person of faith and sincerity has the ability to tell if A)they are bending the truth to justify their unwholesome desires or B) changing their beliefs when they find that those beliefs are counter to their deeply considered understanding of Reality.
Let me offer one example that carries some power because of his integrity and intelligence: please read Rev. Mel White’s autobiography “Stranger at the Gate” about being a gay Christian. There are also General Church ministers who agree with what I’m saying, but they can’t really step forward and say so in the climate of the church.
For me as someone who is striving to live a good life of service to others, and believing in the power of the Lord to lift us all up, of course I also struggled with the realization of being gay. I spent the better part of three years in conversation, prayer, questioning and counseling before I determined that just maybe it was within God’s grace to be gay. And that was just the beginning – later I spend five years in weekly therapy dealing with my ability to forgive myself and others and all that that means. I would propose that by virtue of the challenges I faced, I considered my relationship with the maturity and self-awareness of my 28 -30 year old self with a great deal of self-examination, questioning, and counsel. To come to the conclusion I did was an exhaustive process.
I’d like to be given the respect whether you agree or not, that I have some clue of how my life circumstances interplay with my spiritual growth and freedom. If we don’t have all the answers, it’s OK. If we do the best we know how, it will all get sorted out in the afterlife by Someone wiser than we.
Let me try my own analogy – don’t know if it will prove any better than the poker analogy : ) We each are born with different constitutions and tastes in regards to the food we like to eat and what “agrees with us.” Science, our parents, and others give input on what we “should” eat for optimal health. Sometimes we learn to like food that previously we did not appreciate. Sometimes we have allergic reactions, sometimes even life-threatening. You may guess where I’m going with this – food choices are very individual, and there is a great variety in what people can consume and still function in a reasonable healthy manner. When they question those who have lived to a great age, the health and eating habits alone do not correlate and strongly as you might think. More important seems to be was the person happy, with strong relationships. You can learn to like some foods, you can decide you ought to eat certain things for your health. But no one would wish on someone a life where they don’t get to eat anything that they really love nor eat only what is unappetizing.
In the end it’s not my goal to change the General Church’s position on anything. There will always be differences of opinion on these things. But I would like people to consider that a more open discussion is all to the good.
And really, it’s truly silly to think that being more understanding of and comfortable around gay folks will lead to more folks being gay. For example, most gay parents have straight children. It’s just the math. Is anyone in this discussion feeling more likely to be gay on account of having an open mind toward gay people? Are my brother and sister edging towards gaydom because they support me? Even if there was a toaster in for them? I don’t think so.
I appreciate the opportunity to join in the discussion, and the spirit and intention (if not always the tone and word choice) of all of the participants.
Thank you
Marcia
Friends, I appreciate this conversation, especially the people on all sides who go out of their way to speak respectfully and compassionately about the subject.
I have some experience dealing with sexual compulsions. Most of my earlier sexual experiences were with members of my own sex. It involved an irresistible urge to experience mutual pleasure, though this may have been more a matter of opportunity and youth than of permanent preference. It was not something that I saw as very sinister or harmful, though I definitely was hiding it. One of the first books by Swedenborg that I read was Conjugial Love. It had a big impact on my sexual life. It was about the same time that I had my first experiences with the opposite sex, and I felt much guiltier about that than about my earlier (same sex) experiences, perhaps because I was learning more about true love and seeing my actions differently. I was doing something that I felt and knew was wrong, and I found it impossible to resist the urges I was feeling. That is, I would resist for a while and then give in, resist for a while and then give in. Moving geographically away from the person I was using for my pleasure gave me a break from overt sexual activity and I retreated into fantasy, which still left me feeling guilty, because I knew it was lust. I then at least felt some consolation that I wasn't actually abusing other people the way I was fantasizing.
For me it did not have a whole lot to do with gender. Mostly skin feels like skin, and I feel a similar arousal from my own hand, or the hand of someone else of either gender. I have not identified myself as homosexual or bisexual, though I have certainly felt urges in those directions.
I find it strange how sexual urges come unbidden. Was the urge to masturbate a choice, or something I was born with? What about the addiction to porn? I went through a period of cross-dressing. I don't know why I felt such a strong urge to do something that family and friends would find disturbing or ridiculous if I had not hidden it. Not to mention some other kinky interests and truly dangerous urges that are embarrassing to talk about even anonymously.
Reading Swedenborg, and continuing to struggle with a variety of urges, I eventually came to realize that the process of change is gradual. At first I thought my duty was to keep my thoughts pure, and there was a lot of cognitive dissonance between what I thought I should be thinking and what I actually was thinking. Eventually I accepted that part of me really wanted the ideal, and part of me wanted lots of other things, and the best I could do was to keep saying after each indulgence, "That wasn't good. I have to ask the Lord to help me resist this in the future."
Over the course of many years, many of those urges have waned, though it has been like forty years of wandering in the wilderness. I see the change as a gift from the Lord. I asked him for help, and it seemed pretty slow in coming. I could never resist any of those urges, but as I kept trying and failing, I became gradually a little less satisfied with my unhealthy sexual behavior. It seems to me that the ability to stop some of those behaviors has been linked to the recognition that I am totally unable to stop on my own. This seems to me to be one of the great paradoxes of spiritual life. Swedenborg talks about how we struggle in temptation till we reach the point of dispair, and then things gradually get better, if we remember that the Lord is the one who is struggling on our behalf.
On the one hand, I feel as if my truce with hell is fragile. I have not struggled with alcohol or drugs, though SA has been helpful to me, and I definitely have had the experience of just letting go a little bit and then being right back in the grip of the addiction. Have I been "cured" of my unwanted sexual urges? I would rather think that I am in recovery, and that a complete cure will involve letting go of this physical body and experiencing a spiritual body that responds only to my deepest desires, not my purely physical ones.
At the same time, I am happy to be in the process of trying to change myself and let the Lord change me. I am happy to be married to someone who, though not understanding my cravings, is nevertheless very accepting and non-judgmental. I am more than ever content to look at myself and see some urge that is not aligned with my most heavenly desires and ask the Lord to give me the strength to let go of something that I can't change in myself. I feel that I have changed, and those cravings do not have the same hold over me that they did, though I see more clearly than ever, "there but for the grace of God go I."
I am not a naturally compassionate person, but I feel that through this process I have grown in compassion, and I have grown in my sense that the Lord is close and working in me, because I have experienced trying to change myself and I know for certain that I can't do it, but the Lord can. It really feels like unconditional love that the Lord helps me when I am so pitifully unable to help myself.
Someone asked where all the people who have been cured of homosexuality are. I don't claim to be one of those people, but I do know that the option of simply accepting the urges I was born with would leave me without so much inner turmoil, and also without the greatest blessings in my life. I have been told that I am wrong to fight who I am, and I should just accept my nature, and that argument scares me because it appeals to me, but I know it is my lower nature that finds it appealing. I don't want to step into a public debate and tell other people they should change their sexual urges when I can't do that for myself. I imagine if I were a recovering alcoholic I would not want to go to a bar to talk about whether I or someone else should be having a drink. Just getting into the debate could break my fragile truce.
I have also learned that continued recovery for me depends on my willingness to reach out to others who are struggling with unwanted sexual urges. I am grateful for the few people I have been able to share these struggles with, who have listened without judgment, and without moralizing that should be able to change myself, and without suggesting that I shouldn't bother trying. And I am grateful for the people who have been willing to share their struggles with me. It can be a very lonely process.
Thank you for this forum, and for your patience in reading what I have written. It is helpful to share.
Marcia, Still Struggling -- thank you for sharing. In some ways, these conversations are a waste of time without your voices.
Thanks to everyone for the continued discussion. And thanks especially to Marcia and Still Struggling for sharing your stories - as Kristin says, without your voices these conversations are almost pointless.
I do still hope to respond to individual points people have made, but on my own blog I've elaborated again a little more on why I made the comparisons I did, since that seems to be the primary sticking point with the article. Click here for that blog post. Feel free to make comments on my blog or here in these comments; if you are going to respond to that post in these comments here, be sure to provide a quote, since not everyone will have read my blog. Thanks!
Coleman
I think it has become very clear in this discussion that, like any "inclination to evil of every kind", it is the evil to be shuned, not the person. While the definition of evil will continue to be debated, we each must make our own determinations, and act accordingly, and charitably. I love reading the experiences of those living this struggle. It brings the discussion from lofty ideals to real world application, I thank you deeply.
I too have thought of this disorder in comparison to alcoholism, not correctable by any medical or psychological/behavior/talk therapy program, only spiritual. It is useful,even necessary, to define certain things as Evil. It is easy for those with the inclination defined as evil to feel attacked, argue that it is not. Similarly someone who believes in his life circumstances that murder is not evil would feel judged. It seems that here, every effort is being made to hold those in what is seen by the majority in this discussion as a disorder, as human beings desserving of His Love and Redemption. Just as anyone else who has inclinations to evils (that is, everybody!) does.
This is such a deeply presonal intimate and private issue: personal struggles with Evils. Whether it is shoplifting or same-sex relationships. Imagine a public discussion of your personal evils by name. Any disussion of this sort must be handled with as delicate care.
XOX
I don't know if anyone's reading these comments anymore, but I wanted to respond to a few points that Robin brought up in her comment:
First of all, about citing studies with problems: if you read the 2009 APA report that I linked to, you'll see that the paper's primary conclusion is that there simply aren't ANY adequate studies on the effectiveness of orientation change efforts. If you were to try to find studies that show that orientation-efforts are harmful or ineffective, you'd run into exactly the same problem. There simply haven't been any really high quality studies of these efforts - the studies they look at were either a.) done in the sixties and included many subjects who had been court-ordered to undergo orientation change or b.) were done by groups with agendas in more recent years. The study I cited, Ex-Gays, for all its problems, is as far as I can tell the most reliable study to date of orientation-change efforts.
As to calling homosexual sex evil - I was not saying that it is evil because it's useful to call it evil. I was trying to say it was evil because, according to my reading of the Writings, a.) men and women are inherently different, and a man is completely a man and a woman completely a woman, b.) marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, and c.) any sex outside of marriage is evil. Therefore, d.) sex between people of the same sex can only happen outside of marriage, and is therefore an evil. Roger Noah mentioned the teachings on pellicacy as an exception, but even that is an evil - CL 452 says "fornication is an evil," then goes on to say it is a lighter evil to the extent that a person looks to conjugial love and prefers it. (We could get more into all those teachings, but that would be a whole nother article - which maybe I'll write some day.) My point about the use in calling it evil was this: it is useful to call it for what it is (evil, at least according to my reading), because that helps us to fight against it. That's the same use in calling ANYTHING evil. It's useful to call lying "evil" because it leaves me less wiggle room - but that's not to say lying isn't evil, or that the reason it's evil is that it's useful to call it that.