The Anti-Manichaeist

The NAE, like Ron Sider, frame their agenda for discerning a biblically-balanced political lobbying strategy as resting on the foundation of the Biblical normative framework and factual understandings of the issues. Yet, there approach to the politics of homosexuality does not, persay, evidence a thorough factual understanding of the issue.

I critique the NAE on this subject, as well as the politics of abortion, because I believe that the discernment of right political conduct requires making fallible judgements about what can and cannot be changed about the fallen world we live in. Specifically, I think there are good reasons to wish to counter the political activism of gay-activists to enthrone gay-rights as equivalent to civil rights by making gay-marriages legal. The main two reasons are the biological determinism and sexual libertarianism often promoted by gay-rights activists. Another reason would be how so many people associate with gay-marriage an affirmation of their side of the cultural wars and everything else associated with that. In other words, like the pro-choice and pro-life stale-mate, gay-marriages at this point have the potential of paralyzing our politics.

However, I belive the best way to take the political winds out of the sails of gay-rights political activist groups is to grant them gay civil unions that are geared to longer-term relationships. We don’t need to have this dragged out at the state-level as George Bush would prefer it.. I’m sure there are many economic conservatives in the republican party that want it dragged out so as to ensure them a plentiful way to buy social conservatives votes for cheap. I think the solution to preventing this situation is better education on the facts surrounding homosexuality.

The facts surrounding homosexuality are somewhat complicated, because there is a range of factors that lead people to commit homosexual acts. A good summary of recent scientific work in this area is found in this lengthy chapter, taken from Evolution’s Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden, a transgendered Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. The main flaw in the chapter is that it gives short shrift to Günter Dörner’s fetal endocrinological explanation of why some people have homosexual orientations, which is currently the best explanation for homosexual orientations. It is the best study in part because recent twin-studies have shown that genes do not play a determinative role in affecting sexual orientation.

Dörner’s idea is that sexual orientation is mediated by the hormonal balances formed in our brains while we are fetuses. This idea first arose when he found a higher incidence of homosexual orientations among Germans who were in the womb during the period when the Allies were bombing Germany. It seems that extreme stress during the fetal stage was able to increase the probability of someone later developing a homosexual orientation.

In article

Dörner, Günter; Poppe, Ingrid; Stahl, F.; Kölzsch, J.; Uebelhack, Ralf
Gene- and environment-dependent neuroendocrine etiogenesis of homosexuality and transsexualism
Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Humboldt University Medical School (Charite), Berlin, Germany.
Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology; 98(2):141-50

they find that

Sexual brain organization is dependent on sex hormone and neurotransmitter levels occurring during critical developmental periods. The higher the androgen levels during brain organization…the higher is the biological predisposition to bi- and homosexuality or even transsexualism in females and the lower it is in males.

The idea is that most males and females have different hormonal balances in our brains. Initially, while we are fetuses we all have female hormonal balances and then for most males there is a shifts to a male hormonal balance. But for some males their hormonal balance does not shift or it does not shift “completely” and for some females there is a hormonal shift. In these cases, the persons later in life develop an attraction to people of the same sex instead of or in addition to people of the opposite sex. This explains bisexuality and it explains how it is possible for identical twins to have different sexual orientations, as is measurable by the physiological impact of viewing same-sex pornography.

The long and short is that there is such a thing as people with homosexual orientations (as there are also people who choose to commit homosexual acts) and evidence shows that it is hard, though not impossible, to change one’s orientation later in life. As Christians, we are compelled by our commitment to truth to understand the difficulties of having a homosexual orientation. We also need to understand that the notion of a person having a homosexual orientation was not current at the time of the Bible. Back then in gentile pagan cultures, an ass was an ass was an ass… and if one had the power, there was pretty much De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum, no disputing over one’s tastes, or how one lorded over those beneath them(as I think is well illustrated by the Federico Fellini’s movie Satyricon). The apostle Paul likely did not consider the ethical situation of how to best minister to people with a homosexual orientation that is a persistent thorn in the flesh and who lack the gift of lifelong celibacy that he had. This is the ethical dilemma we must face today.

And so I find the unqualified treatment of homosexuality in the NAE to fall short of a comprehensive factual understanding of homosexuality. They seem to inadvertently conflate our modern understanding of homosexuality with the condemnation of those that committed the homosexual acts prevalent in the pagan, gentile world from when the Bible was written. I don’t see any good reason why we should deny civil unions to homosexual partners committed to a longterm relationship. I don’t see homosexuality as responsible for the decline of marriage. I myself believe the hedonistic consumerism of our cultural as propagated by the flagrant heterosexuality of Hollywood and the Entertainment Industry as more responsible for this. And I’d much rather do something about their ability to manipulate our lives with their advertisements and their oligopolistic control of the film industry than spend another thirty years trying to pass yet another amendment to the constitution. I’m a bit more concerned that our basic freedom of speech will be misinterpreted as meaning freedom of $peech and I don’t see that set out in the NAE’s “Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility”, which leads me to ask how come no provision has been made for further amendments?

dlw