HOMOSEXUALITY:
Beliefs about homosexuality;
Studies of sexual orientation
Quotations:
"There could be hundreds
of millions of straight men walking around with this gay allele [variety
of a gene] but who are straight simply because it didn't penetrate"
Chandler Burr, "A
Separate Creation" 1
"As a mother, I know that
homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must
recruit our children." Anita Bryant, 1977 2
"There is no scientific
data that substantiates a genetic or biologic basis for same-sex
attraction. Anybody can change."
Richard Cohen, at the year 2000 PFOX convention, 2000-MAY-19. 3
Beliefs about the nature of
homosexuality
The two most extreme belief
systems about homosexuality are explained below. It is important to
realize that many -- perhaps most -- North Americans hold beliefs that
are intermediate between these two viewpoints. There is a strong
variation of belief with age. Many youth and young adults follow the
liberal view; most middle aged and elderly persons hold strongly
conservative views:
|
Item |
The most
conservative view,
typically promoted by the conservative religious groups, Christian,
Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, etc. |
The most
liberal view,
Typically followed by religious liberals, gays, lesbians, mental
health professionals and human sexuality researchers. |
|
What it
is |
Something that one does; a chosen lifestyle. |
Something that one is; an unchosen orientation. |
|
What causes it? |
Multiple causes including: poor parenting, sexual molestation during
childhood, perhaps demon possession. Addiction traps them in the
lifestyle. |
Genetically predetermined plus some unknown environmental factor in
early childhood which "turns on" the gene or genes. |
|
At what
age does it become obvious in an individual? |
Teenage
years, after puberty, when it is chosen. |
Homosexual orientation can be detected in pre-school children. |
|
Is it
sinful? |
Yes. It
is more serious than many other sins. It endangers the family and
thus social stability. |
It is
not inherently sinful. It is free of sin if it is safe, consensual
and within a committed relationship. |
|
Is it
natural and normal? |
It is
an unnatural, abnormal deviant behavior. |
It is
normal and natural, for a minority of humans. |
|
What
should a homosexual do? |
Choose
to remain celibate, or attempt to change their orientation. |
Choose
either celibacy or monogamy with a same-sex partner. Changing sexual
orientation is not an option. |
|
God's
attitude |
He
loves the sinner, but hates homosexuality, which is always sinful. |
Loves
the person; approves of the relationship if it is based on love and
commitment. |
|
Is it
changeable? |
Yes,
through counseling and prayer. But it requires effort because it is
so addictive. |
No.
Sexual orientation is always or almost always fixed. |
|
Is
reparative therapy effective? |
Yes; it
is an effective method to changing homosexuals into heterosexuals. |
It is a
useless, ineffective, and potentially dangerous therapy that can
lead to suicide. |
|
Are
anti-discrimination laws beneficial? |
No. It
would grant them special privileges, and encourage more youth to
choose homosexuality. |
Yes.
They are a heavily discriminated-against minority in need of
protection. |
|
What
happens to children of gays and lesbians? |
A large
percentage will become homosexuals. Those who don't will be
disturbed by the presence of homosexuality in the home. |
The
vast majority of their children will be heterosexual -- apparently
more accepting and less judgmental than average. |
|
Should
churches recognize committed same-sex relationships? |
No. Gay
relationships are an abomination, hated by God. |
Perhaps. All loving, committed adult relationships should be
recognized and supported by religious groups. |
|
Should
same-sex couples given benefits now given to opposite-sex married
couples? |
No.
Same-sex marriages or civil unions threaten regular families and
thus the stability of society. |
Yes.
Official recognition of their relationship and government benefits
are a fundamental civil right. |
|
Should
gays be eligible for ordination |
No. It
would be a major lowering of standards. It would condone major
sinful behavior. |
Yes.
One's orientation has no bearing on the ability to be a priest,
minister or pastor. |
Some additional beliefs by religious conservatives are:
|
|
Some
conservative Christians believe that a homosexual's feelings of
attraction to members of the same sex will dissipate once they trust
Jesus as Lord and Savior and are
saved. They base this on a Biblical passage: 1 Corinthians
6:11. One interpretation of that verse is that some of the
recipients of his letter to the church at Corinth were homosexuals
before they became Christians, but were converted to heterosexuality
after becoming saved. |
|
|
Some
religious conservatives believe that homosexual behavior is an
addiction similar to drugs and alcohol. |
|
|
All
efforts to treat homosexuality as a normal and natural practice must
be resisted. Otherwise, more youth will experiment with it and get
trapped in the lifestyle. |
|
|
Some
religious conservatives believe that the institution of
marriage was created by God thousands of years ago. They
interpret the Bible as saying that marriages must only be between
one man and one woman, and that any sexual behavior outside of
marriage is forbidden. Thus, since gays and lesbians cannot marry
each other, (except for Massachusetts, Ontario, Quebec, British
Columbia, etc.) they feel that all same-sex sexual activity is a
sin. They conclude that homosexuals must remain celibate.
|
Studies of sexual
orientation:
One's sexual orientation is
defined by sexual attraction to men and/or women, by
self-identification, and by one's sexual fantasies. Some people believe
that there are only two sexual orientations:
|
|
Heterosexual - a person who is sexually attracted only to
members of the opposite gender, or |
|
|
Homosexual - a person who is sexually attracted only to
members of the same gender. |
This is not a useful model,
because it ignores two minorities:
|
|
Asexuals - people who have feelings of sexual attraction to
neither gender |
|
|
Bisexuals - people who are attracted (usually to different degrees)
to both genders |
Most researchers into human
sexuality look upon sexual orientation as a continuum:
|
|
Those
with solely heterosexual feelings form one extreme. They are free to
select celibacy, or to seek sexual activity with members of the
opposite sex. |
|
|
Those
with solely homosexual feelings form the other extreme. They are
free to enter into relationships with members of their own sex; some
can choose to remain celibate. |
|
|
In the
middle are bisexuals. Being sexually attracted to both genders they
can choose:
|
|
Only heterosexual relationships |
|
|
Only homosexual relationships |
|
|
Relationships with both men and women |
|
|
Celibacy |
|
Most human sexuality
researchers believe that one's orientation is fixed and unchangeable.
Exceptions are those specialists in human sexuality who are also
religious conservatives. Many of the latter are members of
NARTH, a small professional organization that promotes conservative
religious beliefs about homosexuality.
A number of techniques have
been used to try to suppress homosexual feelings and/or create
heterosexual feelings in gays and lesbians: 1
|
|
Lesbians had their breasts amputated. |
|
|
Lesbians had their perfectly healthy uteri removed. |
|
|
Male
gays were given aversion therapy; e.g. clients were shown pictures
of naked men and simultaneously shocked with electricity. |
Other "treatments" included:
|
|
brain
surgery in the form of frontal lobotomies. |
|
|
castration. |
|
|
counseling and psychotherapy. |
|
|
drug
therapy: e.g. animal-organ extracts, cocaine, estrogen,
testosterone. |
|
|
positive therapy: e.g. men were asked to masturbate and then were
shown pictures of women just before orgasm. |
|
|
prayer
and spiritual counseling. |
|
|
therapy
by tedium: men were shown homoerotic pictures until they became
totally bored. |
|
|
During
the Nazi regime in Germany, Himmler attempted to "cure" gays by
requiring them to visit the camp brothel at Flossenburg. "Ten
Ravensbruck women provided the services with little success. The
women [were later]...shipped to Auschwitz" for execution. |
|
|
During
the recent apartheid regime in South Africa, gays and lesbians were
considered deviants. They were sent to a special ward of a military
hospital to be "rehabilitated." This involved electric shock
treatments and chemical castration. Those who could not be "cured"
were given sex-change operations. A number of "patients"
died. |
The
success rate of these therapies in actually changing clients' sexual
orientation appears to have been between 0% and something less than
0.1%. The success rate at changing clients' sexual behavior is much
greater. Some of these techniques can persuade homosexuals to be
celibate, either through terror, guilt, or persuasion that God considers
same-sex behavior to be an abomination. They can persuade bisexuals to
confine their sexual activities to members of the opposite sex. They may
even be able to train gays to successfully have sex with a woman, while
fantasize about making love to another man. But therapies do not seem to
be capable of changing one's feelings -- one's sexual orientation -- in
the vast majority of people. 4
When in life is a person's
sexual orientation determined?
There appears to be no
agreement between the beliefs of conservative Christians and results of
scientific studies:
|
|
Religious conservative belief:
A common theme running
through literature from the larger Fundamentalist and other
Evangelical Christian organizations is that homosexual behavior is
unnatural, abnormal, and despised by God as an abomination. This is
echoed by many Jewish and Muslim writers. They derive this from
their interpretation of some key
biblical passages. They also believe that a person chooses their
sexual orientation after puberty. Some individuals then experiment
with homosexual behavior, and quickly become addicted to it. Because
of this belief, many conservative Christians are opposed to positive
representations of lesbian and gay characters on TV. (Ellen,
Friends, Will & Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy....). They
feel that any move towards accepting homosexual orientation and
behavior as normal and natural will cause more youth to experiment
with same-sex relationships. Religious conservatives also frequently
oppose educational programs about homosexuality, high-school support
groups for gay and lesbian youth, etc. because they tend to also
promote homosexuality as normal and natural for a minority of
persons. |
|
|
Scientific studies:
|
|
Detection of homosexual propensity in children:
Richard Green, a psychiatrist from UCLA has compared effeminate
with "masculine" boys. 5 Children
who grow up to become homosexuals often engage in "gender
inappropriate play" in early childhood. 6
"'Feminine' boys played about four times as much with the
doll...a third as much with the truck." By interviewing
their child subjects later in life when they were in their teens
and early twenties, the researchers found that 75% of the
effeminate boys had become gay adult males. It is obvious that
these boys were not taught this behavior. They did not copy
their behavior from other children in the family; they were
often under harsh and severe pressure from their parents to
change. One reasonable conclusion is that that they are driven
to this type of behavior by an innate trait which is outside of
their control and consciousness. |
|
|
Cross-cultural study:
Whitham and Mathy studied 375 homosexual men in Brazil,
Guatemala, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand and the United
States. 7 They consistently found
that 25% of homosexual men display highly gender atypical
behavior, while 50% showed marked gender atypical behavior as
young children. They played with what are normally considered
girls' toys and were regarded as sissies. These studies also
find the same effect among adult lesbians; however, the
percentages are much lower. |
|
These types of studies indicate
that the
factor or factors which determine sexual orientation often effect
very early in a child's life (perhaps before birth). 5,8
References:
- Chandler
Burr, "A Separate Creation: The search for the biological origins
of sexual orientation", DIANE Publishing, (1996),
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- "Quotations,"
at:
http://www.goldenvoid.com and many other places on the
Internet.
- "Best
of the Federalist," at:
http://www.msu.edu/
- Paul
Kirk, "Apartheid army forced gay soldiers into sex change
operations," q-online, 2000-JUL-28, at:
http://www.q.co.za/news/2000/07
- Richard
Green, "The 'Sissy Boy Syndrome' and the development of
homosexuality", Yale University Press, New Haven CT (1987)
- Op Cit,
Chandler Burr, Page 116-7.
-
Frederick Whitam & Robin Mathy, "Male Homosexuality in Four
Societies: Brazil, Guatemala, the Philippines and the United States,"
Praeger, New York NY (1986)
- Bruce
Bagemihl, "Biological Exuberance: Animal homosexuality and natural
diversity," St. Martins Press, (1999)
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