Do We Need To Know Why People Are Gay?
August 18, 2008 / 3:08 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierSo, I’m reading this very good, thorough article by Neil Swidey of the Boston Globe about what makes a person gay. It cites the limited research that has been done (mostly on men, lesbianism is less studied) and concludes that no one knows for sure why, but it looks like genetics and uterine environment play a part in creating homosexuality.
This is a tricky subject. In fact, it pains me to even write about it. I have gay friends who I love very much. I don’t want them harassed or hurt. I remember two boys from High School who were clearly homosexual and they weren’t persecuted, thankfully. It was bad enough to see their relative social isolation. I have had friends who have made themselves sick by staying in the closet.
Conversely, I know men who have selfishly gotten married, because they wanted the legitimacy of heterosexual marriage and/or wanted children, and have given their wives STDs or left their women feeling like they were defected because of non-interest. These angry fellas eventually came out, but blazed a destructive path along the way.
It has been my experience that there is very little that can be done about who a person is attracted to. I know two very religious men who struggle with this whole deal. They feel the homosexual act is morally wrong, but I suspect that neither one is winning the war of the flesh. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know.
And yet, it seems that for the sake of society’s health, a line needs to be drawn around the ideal. By doing that though, some behavior is outside the lines. The ideal, for a healthy society, has been a monogamous heterosexual relationship where destructive things like alcohol, drug, and sex abuse, gambling, and other addictions don’t enter relationship. That would make homosexuality outside the lines.
Given that, does it matter why someone has a certain sexual orientation? There have always been, and always will be homosexual people. (Unless the hope of all this research is to find a genetic magic bullet to engineer non-gay children.) Some will resist homosexuality behaviorally for moral or social reasons. Some will enter the lifestyle because to not live that way feels unaligned with one’s true self. No matter, homosexuality is outside the ideal religiously, societally and even evolutionarily speaking.
To me, this is where tolerance enters. While certain behaviors might not be preferred, proscribing them would cause greater harm. In a free society, people have a right to self-determination. There should be a lot of latitude given to people to define what that means. The rest is between man and Maker.
2 Responses to “Do We Need To Know Why People Are Gay?”
August 25 2008 / 9:51 pm
Reply
But in the end it doesn’t matter to whom you are attracted. It matters what you do about it. And it’s wrong–and I do mean very wrong in the moral sense–for you to assume that someone you know is incapable of resisting temptation.
No one is suggesting that any behavior be legally proscribed. The problem is that no one is allowed to say that wrong behavior is wrong. Tolerance and approval are not the same thing, and we are no longer asked to tolerate homosexual behavior, but to approve of it. That’s immoral even if you do approve of homosexual behavior; it’s an abrogation of free speech, and an attempt to force your own beliefs on others. Yet that is the current situation in this country.
Genes do not create any behavior. The idea that they do is merely an excuse, such as the idea that my mother was an alcoholic because of her genes and not because she chose to drink alcohol. No genetic manipulation will stop homosexual behavior, because all behavior is a choice.
As to “feeling aligned with one’s true self”: human beings are created with sex chromosomes–XY in males, and XX in females. Homosexual behavior is living a lie.
And yes, I know some very nice, personable people who are engaged in homosexual behavior. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. But it’s better to hurt their feelings than to encourage them to continue to do what is wrong.