Homosexual behaviour is regarded by the Scriptures as immoral because it is a distortion of God’s created order, a practice contrary to nature. The sanctity of marriage and the family is to be protected against all manner of immoral conduct (Exodus 22:16-17; Deuteronomy 22:23-28; Leviticus 20:10-16). The Scriptures speak explicitly against homosexual practice (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26,27, I Corinthians 6:9,10; I Timothy 1:8-10). Therefore, as Christians, we regard homosexual behaviour as contrary to God’s creation plan.

Persons with homosexual inclinations are accountable to God for their behaviour (Romans 14:12). For those who have fallen into the practice, the grace of God is available and completely adequate to forgive and deliver (I John 1:9; Hebrews 7:25; Luke 4:18; I Corinthians 6:9-11). Because the practice is a distortion of nature, therapy may be necessary for healing to take place.

The church has a corporate responsibility to be God’s agent of healing, ministering in love to homosexuals those involved in homosexual behaviour and giving them support as they learn to live a Christian life that is wholesome and pure (I Corinthians 2:7,8).

==============================

The Negative Health Effects of Homosexuality (Family Research Council)

http://www.frc.org/index.cfm?i=IS01B1

Summary:

Hollywood and the media relentlessly propagate the image of the fit, healthy, and well-adjusted homosexual. The reality is at polar opposites to this caricature: homosexual and lesbian relationships are typically characterized by instability, promiscuity, and unhealthy and risky sex practices, factors that greatly increase the incidence of serious and incurable sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including hepatitis, HPV, syphilis, gonorrhea, and AIDS.

Issue No.: 232

by: Tim Dailey, Ph. D.

Homosexual activists attempt to portray their lifestyle as normal and healthy, and insist that homosexual relationships are the equivalent in every way to their heterosexual counterparts. Hollywood and the media relentlessly propagate the image of the fit, healthy, and well-adjusted homosexual. The reality is quite opposite to this caricature which was recently conceded by the homosexual newspaper New York Blade News:

Reports at a national conference about sexually transmitted diseases indicate that gay men are in the highest risk group for several of the most serious diseases. . . . Scientists believe that the increased number of sexually tranmitted diseases (STD) cases is the result of an increase in risky sexual practices by a growing number of gay men who believe HIV is no longer a life-threatening illness.[1]

Instability and promiscuity typically characterize homosexual relationships. These two factors increase the incidence of serious and incurable stds. In addition, some homosexual behaviors put practitioners at higher risk for a variety of ailments, as catalogued by the following research data:

Risky Sexual Behavior on the Rise Among Homosexuals.

Despite two decades of intensive efforts to educate homosexuals against the dangers of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other stds, the incidence of unsafe sexual practices that often result in various diseases is on the rise.

· According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1994 to 1997 the proportion of homosexuals reporting having had anal sex increased from 57.6 percent to 61.2 percent, while the percentage of those reporting “always” using condoms declined from 69.6 percent to 60 percent.[2]

· The CDC reported that during the same period the proportion of men reporting having multiple sex partners and unprotected anal sex increased from 23.6 percent to 33.3 percent. The largest increase in this category (from 22 percent to 33.3 percent) was reported by homosexuals twenty-five years old or younger.[3]

Homosexuals Failing To Disclose Their HIV Status To Sex Partners

· A study presented July 13, 2000 at the XIII International aids Conference in Durban, South Africa disclosed that a significant number of homosexual and bisexual men with hiv “continue to engage in unprotected sex with people who have no idea they could be contracting HIV.”[4] Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco found that thirty-six percent of homosexuals engaging in unprotected oral, anal, or vaginal sex failed to disclose that they were HIV positive to casual sex partners.[5]

· A CDC report revealed that, in 1997, 45 percent of homosexuals reporting having had unprotected anal intercourse during the previous six months did not know the HIV serostatus of all their sex partners. Even more alarming, among those who reported having had unprotected anal intercourse and multiple partners, 68 percent did not know the HIV serostatus of their partners.[6]

Young Homosexuals are at Increased Risk.

Following in the footsteps of the generation of homosexuals decimated by AIDS, younger homosexuals are engaging in dangerous sexual practices at an alarming rate.

· A Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health study of three-hundred-sixty-one young men who have sex with men (MSM) aged fifteen to twenty-two found that around 40 percent of participants reported having had anal-insertive sex, and around 30 percent said they had had anal-receptive sex. Thirty-seven percent said they had not used a condom for anal sex during their last same-sex encounter. Twenty-one percent of the respondents reported using drugs or alcohol during their last same-sex encounter.[7]

· A five-year CDC study of 3,492 homosexual males aged fifteen to twenty-two found that one-quarter had unprotected sex with both men and women. Another cdc study of 1,942 homosexual and bisexual men with HIV found that 19 percent had at least one episode of unprotected anal sex--the riskiest sexual behavior--in 1998 and 1997, a 50 percent increase from the previous two years.[8]

Homosexual Promiscuity.

Studies indicate that the average male homosexual has hundreds of sex partners in his lifetime:

· A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, in their classic study of male and female homosexuality, found that 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, with 28 percent having 1,000 or more sex partners.[9]

· In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in Journal of Sex Research , Paul Van de Ven et al., found that only 2.7 percent claimed to have had sex with one partner only. The most common response, given by 21.6 percent of the respondents, was of having a hundred-one to five hundred lifetime sex partners.[10]

· A survey conducted by the homosexual magazine Genre found that 24 percent of the respondents said they had had more than a hundred sexual partners in their lifetime. The magazine noted that several respondents suggested including a category of those who had more than a thousand sexual partners.[11]

· In his study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times , M. Pollak found that “few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners.”[12]

Promiscuity among Homosexual Couples.

Even in those homosexual relationships in which the partners consider themselves to be in a committed relationship, the meaning of “committed” typically means something radically different from marriage.

· In The Male Couple , authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison reported that in a study of a hundred-fifty-six males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years,

Only seven couples have a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men all have been together for less than five years. Stated another way, all couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationships.[13]

· In Male and Female Homosexuality, M. Saghir and E. Robins found that the average male homosexual live-in relationship lasts between two and three years.[14]

Unhealthy Aspects of “Monogamous” Homosexual Relationships.

Even those homosexual relationships that are loosely termed “monogamous” do not necessarily result in healthier behavior.

· The journal AIDS reported that men involved in relationships engaged in anal intercourse and oral-anal intercourse with greater frequency than those without a steady partner.[15] Anal intercourse has been linked to a host of bacterial and parasitical sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

· The exclusivity of the relationship did not diminish the incidence of unhealthy sexual acts, which are commonplace among homosexuals. An English study published in the same issue of the journal AIDS concurred, finding that most “unsafe” sex acts among homosexuals occur in steady relationships.[16]

Human Papillomavirus (HPV).

HPV is a collection of more than seventy types of viruses that can cause warts, or papillomas, on various parts of the body. More than twenty types of HPV are incurable STDs that can infect the genital tract of both men and women. Most HPV infections are subclinical or asymptomatic, with only one in a hundred people experiencing genital warts.

· HPV is “almost universal” among homosexuals. According to the homosexual newspaper The Washington Blade : “A San Francisco study of Gay and bisexual men revealed that HPV infection was almost universal among HIV-positive men, and that 60 percent of HIV-negative men carried HPV.”[17]

· HPV can lead to anal cancer. At the recent Fourth International AIDS Malignancy Conference at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Andrew Grulich announced that “most instances of anal cancer are caused by a cancer-causing strain of HPV through receptive anal intercourse. HPV infects over 90 percent of HIV-positive gay men and 65 percent of HIV-negative gay men, according to a number of recent studies.”[18]

· The link between HPV and cervical cancer. Citing a presentation by Dr. Stephen Goldstone to the International Congress on Papillomavirus in Human Pathology in Paris, the Washington Blade reports that “HPV is believed to cause cervical cancer in women.”[19]

Hepatitis: A potentially fatal liver disease that increases the risk of liver cancer.

· Hepatitis A: The Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report published by the CDC reports: “Outbreaks of hepatitis A among men who have sex with men are a recurring problem in many large cities in the industrialized world.”[20]

· Hepatitis B: This is a serious disease caused by a virus that attacks the liver. The virus, which is called hepatitis B virus (HBV), can cause lifelong infection, cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and death. Each year in the United States, more than 200,000 people of all ages contract hepatitis B and close to 5,000 die of sickness caused by AIDS. The CDC reports that MSM are at increased risk for hepatitis B.[21]

· Hepatitis C is an inflammation of the liver that can cause cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer. The virus can lie dormant in the body for up to thirty years before flaring up. Although less so than with hepatitis A and B, MSM who engage in unsafe sexual practices remain at increased risk for contracting hepatitis C.[22]

Gonorrhea: An inflammatory disease of the genital tract. Gonorrhea traditionally occurs on the genitals, but has recently appeared in the rectal region and in the throat. Although easily treated by antibiotics, according to the cdc only “about 50 percent of men have some signs or symptoms, and “many women who are infected have no symptoms of infection.”[23] Untreated gonorrhea can have serious and permanent health consequences, including infertility damage to the prostate and urethra.

· A CDC report documents “significant increases during 1994 to 1997 in rectal gonorrhea . . . among MSM,” indicating that “safe sex” practices may not be taken as seriously as the aids epidemic begins to slow.[24] In 1999 the CDC released data showing that male rectal gonorrhea is increasing among homosexuals amidst an overall decline in national gonorrhea rates. The report attributed the increase to a larger percentage of homosexuals engaging in unsafe sexual behavior.[25]

· The incidence of throat Gonorrhea is strongly associated with homosexual behavior. The Canadian Medical Association Journal found that “gonorrhea was associated with urethral discharge . . . and homosexuality (3.7 times higher than the rate among heterosexuals).”[26] Similarly, a study in the Journal of Clinical Pathology found that homosexual men had a much higher prevalence of pharyngeal (throat) gonorrhea--15.2 percent compared with 4.1 percent for heterosexual men.[27]

Syphilis: A venereal disease that, if left untreated, can spread throughout the body over time, causing serious heart abnormalities, mental disorders, blindness, and death. The initial symptoms of syphilis are often mild and painless, leading some individuals to avoid seeking treatment. According to the National Institutes of Health, the disease may be mistaken for other common illnesses: “syphilis has sometimes been called ‘the great imitator’ because its early symptoms are similar to those of many other diseases.” Early symptoms include rashes, moist warts in the groin area, slimy white patches in the mouth, or pus-filled bumps resembling chicken pox.[28]

· According to the CDC, “transmission of the organism occurs during vaginal, anal, or oral sex.”[29] In addition, the Archives of Internal Medicine found that homosexuals acquired syphilis at a rate ten times that of heterosexuals.[30]

· The CDC reports that those who contract syphilis face potentially deadly health consequences: “It is now known that the genital sores caused by syphilis in adults also make it easier to transmit and acquire HIV infection sexually. There is a two to five fold increased risk of acquiring hiv infection when syphilis is present.”[31]

Gay Bowel Syndrome (GBS):[32] The Journal of the American Medical Association refers to GBS problems such as proctitis, proctocolitis, and enteritis as “sexually transmitted gastrointestinal syndromes.”[33] Many of the bacterial and protozoa pathogens that cause gbs are found in feces and transmitted to the digestive system: According to the pro-homosexual text Anal Pleasure and Health, “[s]exual activities provide many opportunities for tiny amounts of contaminated feces to find their way into the mouth of a sexual partner . . . The most direct route is oral-anal contact.”[34]

· Proctitis and Proctocolitis are inflammations of the rectum and colon that cause pain, bloody rectal discharge and rectal spasms. Proctitis is associated with STDs such as gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, and syphilis that are widespread among homosexuals.[35] The Sexually Transmitted Disease Information Center of the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that “[p]roctitis occurs predominantly among persons who participate in anal intercourse.”

· Enteritis is inflammation of the small intestine. According to the Sexually Transmitted Disease Information Center of the Journal of the American Medical Association, “enteritis occurs among those whose sexual practices include oral-fecal contact.”[36] Enteritis can cause abdominal pain, severe cramping, intense diarrhea, fever, malabsorption of nutrients, weight loss.[37] According to a report in The Health Implications of Homosexuality by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, some pathogens associated with enteritis and proctocolitis [see below] “appear only to be sexually transmitted among men who have sex with men.”[38]

HIV/AIDS Among Homosexuals.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is responsible for causing AIDS, for which there exists no cure.

· Homosexual men are the largest risk category. The CDC reports that homosexuals comprise the single largest exposure category of the more than 600,000 males with AIDS in the United States. As of December 1999, “men who have sex with men” and “men who have sex with men and inject drugs” together accounted for 64 percent of the cumulative total of male AIDS cases.[39]

· Women risk contracting HIV/AIDS through sexual relations with infected MSM. According to the CDC, “HIV infection among U.S. women has increased significantly over the last decade, especially in communities of color. cdc estimates that, in the United States, between 120,000 and 160,000 adult and adolescent females are living with HIV infection, including those with AIDS.” In 1999, for example, most of the women (40 percent) reported with AIDS were infected through heterosexual exposure to HIV.[40] That number is actually higher, as “historically, more than two-thirds of AIDS cases among women initially reported without identified risk were later reclassified as heterosexual transmission.”[41]

· Homosexuals with HIV are at increased risk for developing other life-threatening diseases. A paper delivered at the Fourth International AIDS Malignancy Conference at the National Institutes of Health reported that homosexual men with HIV have “a 37-fold increase in anal cancer, a 4-fold increase in Hodgkin’s disease (cancer of the lymph nodes), a 2.7-fold increase in cancer of the testicles, and a 2.5 fold increase in lip cancer.”[42]

Hiv/Aids Among Young People

· AIDS incidence is on the rise among teens and young adults. The CDC reports that, “even though AIDS incidence (the number of new cases diagnosed during a given time period, usually a year) is declining, there has not been a comparable decline in the number of newly diagnosed HIV cases among youth.[43]

· Young homosexual men are at particular risk. The CDC estimates that “at least half of all new HIV infections in the United States are among people under twenty-five, and the majority of young people are infected sexually.”[44] By the end of 1999, 29,629 young people aged thirteen to twenty-four were diagnosed with AIDS in the United States. MSM were the single largest risk category: in 1999, for example, 50 percent of all new AIDS cases were reported among young homosexuals.[45]

· Sexually active young women are also at risk. The CDC reports: “In 1999, among young women the same age, 47 percent of all AIDS cases reported were acquired heterosexually and 11 percent were acquired through injection drug use.”

Homosexuals with STDs Are at an Increased Risk for HIV Infection.

Studies of MSM treated in STD clinics show rates of infection as high as 36 percent in major cities.[46] A CDC study attributed the high infection rate to having high numbers of anonymous sex partners: “[S]yphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia apparently have been introduced into a population of MSM who have large numbers of anonymous partners, which can result in rapid and extensive transmission of STDs.”[47] The CDC report concluded: “Persons with STDs, including genital ulcer disease and nonulcerative STD, have a twofold to fivefold increased risk for HIV infection.”[48]

Anal Cancer: Homosexuals are at increased risk for this rare type of cancer, which is potentially fatal if the anal-rectal tumors metastasize to other bodily organs.

· Dr. Joel Palefsky, a leading expert in the field of anal cancer, reports that while the incidence of anal cancer in the United States is only 0.9/100,000, that number soars to 35/100,000 for homosexuals. That rate doubles again for those who are HIV positive, which, according to Dr. Palefsky, is “roughly ten times higher than the current rate of cervical cancer.”[49]

· At the Fourth International AIDS Malignancy Conference at the National Institutes of Health in May, 2000, Dr. Andrew Grulich announced that the incidence of anal cancer among homosexuals with HIV “was raised 37-fold compared with the general population.”[50]

Lesbians are at Risk through Sex with MSM

· Many Lesbians also have had sex with men. The homosexual newspaper The Washington Blade, citing a 1998 study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, reported that “the study’s data confirmed previous scientific observations that most women who have sex with women also have had sex with men.”[51] The study added that “sex with men in the prior year was common, as were sexual practices between female partners that possibly could transmit HPV.”[52]

· Lesbians have more male sex partners that their heterosexual counterparts. A study of sexually transmitted disease among lesbians reviewed in The Washington Blade notes: “Behavioral research also demonstrates that a woman’s sexual identity is not an accurate predictor of behavior, with a large proportion of ‘lesbian’ women reporting sex with (often high risk) men.”[53] The study found that “the median number of lifetime male sexual partners was significantly greater for WSW (women who have sex with women) than controls (twelve partners versus six). WSW were significantly more likely to report more than fifty lifetime male sexual partners.”[54]

· A study in the American Journal of Public Health concurs that bisexual women are at increased risk for contracting sexually transmitted diseases: “Our findings corroborate the finding that wsmw (women who have sex with men and women) are more likely than WSMO (women who have sex with men only) to engage in various high-risk behaviors” and also “to engage in a greater number of risk-related behaviors.”[55] The study suggested that the willingness to engage in risky sexual practices “could be tied to a pattern of sensation-seeking behavior.”[56]

· MSM spread HIV to women. A five-year study by the CDC of 3,492 homosexuals aged fifteen to twenty-two found that one in six also had sex with women. Of those having sex with women, one-quarter “said they recently had unprotected sex with both men and women.” Nearly 7 percent of the men in the study were HIV positive.”[57] “The study confirms that young bisexual men are a ‘bridge’ for HIV transmission to women,” said the CDC.[58]

“Exclusive” Lesbian Relationships Also at Risk.

The assumption that lesbians involved in exclusive sexual relationships are at reduced risk for sexual disease is false. The journal Sexually Transmitted Infections concludes: “The risk behavior profile of exclusive WSW was similar to all WSW.”[59] One reason for this is because lesbians “were significantly more likely to report past sexual contact with a homosexual or bisexual man and sexual contact with an IDU (intravenous drug user).”[60]

Cancer Risk Factors for Lesbians.

Citing a 1999 report released by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the homosexual newspaper The Washington Blade notes that “various studies on Lesbian health suggest that certain cancer risk factors occur with greater frequency in this population. These factors include higher rates of smoking, alcohol use, poor diet, and being overweight.”[61] Elsewhere the Blade also reports: “Some experts believe Lesbians might be more likely than women in general to develop breast or cervical cancer because a disproportionate number of them fall into high-risk categories.”[62]

Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among Lesbians

· In a study of the medical records of 1,408 lesbians, the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections found that women who have sexual relations with womenare at significantly higher risk for certain sexually transmitted diseases: “We demonstrated a higher prevalence of bv (bacterial vaginosis), hepatitis C, and HIV risk behaviors in WSW as compared with controls.”[63]

Compulsive Behavior among Lesbians.

A study published in Nursing Research found that lesbians are three times more likely to abuse alcohol and to suffer from other compulsive behaviors: “Like most problem drinkers, 32 (91 percent) of the participants had abused other drugs as well as alcohol, and many reported compulsive difficulties with food (34 percent), codependency (29 percent), sex (11 percent), and money (6 percent).” In addition, “Forty-six percent had been heavy drinkers with frequent drunkenness.”[64]

Alcohol Abuse Among Homosexuals And Lesbians

· The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychologists reports that lesbian women consume alcohol more frequently, and in larger amounts, than heterosexual women.[65] Lesbians were at significantly greater risk than heterosexual women for both binge drinking (19.4 percent compared to 11.7 percent), and for heavy drinking (7 percent compared to 2.7 percent).[66]

· Although the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychologists article found no significant connection between male homosexuals and alcohol abuse, a study in Family Planning Perspective concluded that male homosexuals were at greatly increased risk for alcoholism: “Among men, by far the most important risk group consisted of homosexual and bisexual men, who were more than nine times as likely as heterosexual men to have a history of problem drinking.”[67] The study noted that problem drinking may contribute to the “significantly higher STD rates among gay and bisexual men.”[68]

Violence in Lesbian and Homosexual Relationships.

· A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence examined conflict and violence in lesbian relationships. The researchers found that 90 percent of the lesbians surveyed had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study, with 31 percent reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse.[69]

· In a survey of 1,099 lesbians, the Journal of Social Service Research found that “slightly more than half of the [lesbians] reported that they had been abused by a female lover/partner. The most frequently indicated forms of abuse were verbal/emotional/psychological abuse and combined physical-psychological abuse.”[70]

· In their book Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence ,D. Island and P. Letellier report that “the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population.”[71]

Compare the Low Rate of Intimate Partner Violence within Marriage.

Homosexual and lesbian relationships are far more violent than are traditional married households:

· The Bureau of Justice Statistics (U.S. Department of Justice) reports that married women in traditional families experience the lowest rate of violence compared with women in other types of relationships.[72]

· A report by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health concurred,

It should be noted that most studies of family violence do not differentiate between married and unmarried partner status. Studies that do make these distinctions have found that marriage relationships tend to have the least intimate partner violence when compared to cohabiting or dating relationships.[73]

High Incidence of Mental Health Problems among Homosexuals and Lesbians.

A national survey of lesbians published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology found that 75 percent of the nearly 2,000 respondents had pursued psychological counseling of some kind, many for treatment of long-term depression or sadness:

Among the sample as a whole, there was a distressingly high prevalence of life events and behaviors related to mental health problems. Thirty-seven percent had been physically abused and 32 percent had been raped or sexually attacked. Nineteen percent had been involved in incestuous relationships while growing up. Almost one-third used tobacco on a daily basis and about 30 percent drank alcohol more than once a week; 6 percent drank daily. One in five smoked marijuana more than once a month. Twenty-one percent of the sample had thoughts about suicide sometimes or often and 18 percent had actually tried to kill themselves. . . . More than half had felt too nervous to accomplish ordinary activities at some time during the past year and over one-third had been depressed.[74]

Greater Risk for Suicide.

· A study of twins that examined the relationship between homosexuality and suicide, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry ,found that homosexuals with same-sex partners were at greater risk for overall mental health problems, and were 6.5 times more likely than their twins to have attempted suicide. The higher rate was not attributable to mental health or substance abuse disorders.[75]

· Another study published simultaneously in Archives of General Psychiatry followed 1,007 individuals from birth. Those classified as “gay,” lesbian, or bisexual were significantly more likely to have had mental health problems.[76] Significantly, in his comments on the studies in the same issue of the journal, D. Bailey cautioned against various speculative explanations of the results, such as the view that “widespread prejudice against homosexual people causes them to be unhappy or worse, mentally ill.”[77]

Reduced Life Span.

A study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology on the mortality rates of homosexualsconcluded that they have a significantly reduced life expectancy:

In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age twentyfor gay and bisexual men is eight to twenty years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged twenty years will not reach their sixty-fifth birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871.[78]

In 1995, long after the deadly effects of AIDS and other stds became widely known, homosexual author Urvashi Vaid expressed one of the goals of her fellow activists: “We have an agenda to create a society in which homosexuality is regarded as healthy, natural, and normal. To me that is the most important agenda item.”[79] Debilitating illness, chronic disease, psychological problems, and early death suffered by homosexuals is the legacy of this tragically misguided activism, which puts the furthering of an “agenda” above saving the lives of those whose interests they purport to represent.

Those who advocate full acceptance of homosexual behavior choose to downplay the growing and incontrovertible evidence regarding the serious, life-threatening health effects associated with the homosexual lifestyle. Homosexual advocacy groups have a moral duty to disseminate medical information that might dissuade individuals from entering or continuing in an inherently unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle. Education officials in particular have a duty to provide information regarding the negative health effects of homosexuality to students in their charge, whose very lives are put at risk by engaging in such behavior. Above all, civil society itself has an obligation to institute policies that promote the health and well-being of its citizens. –

End Notes

1. Bill Roundy, “STD Rates on the Rise,” New York Blade News, December 15, 2000, p. 1.

2. “Increases in Unsafe Sex and Rectal Gonorrhea among Men Who Have Sex with Men--San Francisco, California, 1994-1997,” Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), January 29, 1999, p. 45.

3. Ibid.

4. Ulysses Torassa, “Some With HIV Aren’t Disclosing Before Sex; UCSF Researcher’s 1,397-person Study Presented During aids Conference,” The San Francisco Examiner (July 15, 2000).

5. Jon Garbo, “Gay and Bi Men Less Likely to Disclose They Have HIV,” GayHealth News (July 18, 2000). Available at: www.gayhealth.com/templates/0/news?record=136.

6. Ibid.

7. Jon Garbo, “Risky Sex Common Among Gay Club and Bar Goers,” GayHealth News (January 3, 2001). Available at: www.gayhealth.com/templates/97863827496203.../ index.html?record=35.

8. “Bisexuals Serve as ‘Bridge’ Infecting Women With HIV,” Reuters News Service (July 30, 2000). Available at: www.mb.com/ph/scty/2000%2D07/sc073004.asp.

9. A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 9; see alsoBell, Weinberg and Hammersmith, Sexual Preference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).

10. Paul Van de Ven et al., “A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men,” Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 354. Dr. Paul Van de Ven reiterated these results in a private conversation with Dr. Robert Gagnon on September 7, 2000.

11. “Survey Finds 40 percent of Gay Men Have Had More Than 40 Sex Partners,” Lambda Report, January/February 1998, p. 20.

12. M. Pollak, “Male Homosexuality,” in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, edited by P. Aries and A. Bejin, pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991), pp. 124, 25.

13. David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1984), pp. 252, 3.

14. M. Saghir and E. Robins, Male and Female Homosexuality (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1973), p. 225; L.A. Peplau and H. Amaro, “Understanding Lesbian Relationships,” in Homosexuality: Social, Psychological, and Biological Issues, edited byJ. Weinrich and W. Paul (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).

15. A.P.M. Coxon et al., “Sex Role Separation in Diaries of Homosexual Men,” AIDS, July 1993, pp. 877-882.

16. G. J. Hart et al., “Risk Behaviour, Anti-HIV and Anti-Hepatitis B Core Prevalence in Clinic and Non-clinic Samples of Gay Men in England, 1991-1992,” AIDS, July 1993, pp. 863-869, cited in “Homosexual Marriage: The Next Demand,” Position Analysis paper by Colorado for Family Values, May 1994.

17. Bill Roundy, “STDs Up Among Gay Men: CDC Says Rise is Due to HIV Misperceptions,” The Washington Blade (December 8, 2000). Available at: www.washblade.com/health/a.

18. Richard A. Zmuda, “Rising Rates of Anal Cancer for Gay Men,” Cancer News (August 17, 2000). Available at: cancerlinksusa.com/cancernews_sm/Aug2000 /081700analcancer.

19. “Studies Point to Increased Risks of Anal Cancer,” The Washington Blade (June 2, 2000). Available at: www.washblade.com/health/000602hm.

20. Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) September 4, 1998, p. 708.

21. “Viral Hepatitus B--Frequently Asked Questions,” National Center for Infectious Diseases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)September 29, 2000. Available at: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/faqb.

22. “Hepatitus C: Epidemiology: Transmission Modes” Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) 1998.Available at: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis /c/edu/1/default.htm.

23. “Gonorrhea,” Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Centers For Disease Control and Prevention) September, 2000. Available at: www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/ Fact_Sheets/FactsGonorrhea.htm.

24. “Increases in Unsafe Sex and Rectal Gonorrhea.”

25. Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) January 29, 1999, p. 48.

26. J. Vincelette et al., “Predicators of Chlamydial Infection and Gonorrhea among Patients Seen by Private Practitioners,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 144 (1995): 713-721.

27. SPR Jebakumar et al., “Value of Screeningfor Oropharyngeal Chlamydia Trachomatis Infection,” Journal of Clinical Pathology 48 (1995): 658-661.

28. “Some Facts about Syphilis,” Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)October 1999. Available at: www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/ Fact_Sheets/Syphilis_Facts.

29. “Syphilis Elimination: History in the Making,” Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)October 1999. Available at: www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/Fact_Sheets/Syphilis_Facts.

30. C. M. Hutchinson et al., “Characteristics of Patients with Syphilis Attending Baltimore STD Clinics,” Archives of Internal Medicine 151 (1991): 511-516.

31. “Syphilis Elimination.”

32. Homosexual advocates object to the use of this term (Gay Bowel Syndrome), which they say unfairly stigmatizes homosexual behavior. Health Implications Associated with Homosexuality (Austin: The Medical Institute for Sexual Health, 1999), p. 55.

33. “STD Treatment Guidelines: Proctitis, Proctocolitis, and Enteritis,” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) 1993. Available at: /www.ama-assn.org/special/std /treatmnt/guide/stdg3470.htm.

34. Jack Morin, Anal Pleasure and Health: A Guide for Men and Women (San Francisco: Down There Press, 1998), p. 220.

35. Health Implications, p. 56.

36. “STD Treatment Guidelines.”

37. Health Implications; See Morin, Anal Pleasure and Health, p. 220, 1.

38. Health Implications.

39. “Table 9. Male Adult/Adolescent AIDS Cases by Exposure Category and Race/Ethnicity, Reported through December 1999, United States,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention: available at: www/cdc.gov/hiv/stats/hasr1102/table9.

40. “HIV/AIDS Among US Women: Minority and Young Women at Continuing Risk,” Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention (Centers for Disease Control)November 14, 2000. Available at: www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/facts/women.

41. Ibid.

42. “Studies Point to Increased Risks of Anal Cancer.”

43. “Young People at Risk: HIV/AIDS among America’s Youth,” Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention (Centers for Disease Control)November 14, 2000. Available at: www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/facts/youth.htm.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. “Need for Sustained HIV Prevention Among Men who Have Sex with Men,” Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention (Centers for Disease Control)November 14, 2000. Available at: www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/facts/msm.

47. “Resurgent Bacterial Sexually Transmitted Disease among Men Who Have Sex with Men--King County, Washington, 1997-1999,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Centers for Disease Control, September 10, 1999, pp. 773-777. Available at: www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ mm4835a1.

48. “Need for Sustained HIV Prevention.”

49. Bob Roehr, “Anal Cancer and You,” Between the Lines News (November 16, 2000). Available at: www.pridesource.com/cgi-bin/article?article=3835560.

50. “Studies Point to Increased Risks of Anal Cancer.”

51. Rhonda Smith, “HPV Can be Transmitted between Women,” The Washington Blade (December 4, 1998). Available at: www.washblade.com/health/9901011h.

52. Ibid.

53. Katherine Fethers et al., “Sexually Transmitted Infections and Risk Behaviors in Women Who Have Sex with Women,” Sexually Transmitted Infections 76 (2000):348.

54. Ibid., p. 347.

55. V. Gonzales, et al., “Sexual and Drug-Use Risk Factors for hiv and STDs: A Comparison of Women with and without Bisexual Experiences,” American Journal of Public Health 89 (December 1999): 1846.

56. Ibid.

57. “Bisexuals Serve as ‘Bridge’ Infecting Women with HIV,” Reuters News Service (July 30, 2000).

58. Ibid.

59. “Sexually Transmitted Infections,” p. 347.

60. Ibid.

61. Rhonda Smith, “Childbirth Linked with Smaller Breast Tumor Size,” The Washington Blade (December 17, 1999). Available at: www.washblade.com/health/000114lh.

62. “HPV can be Transmitted between Women.”

63. Katherine Fethers et al., “Sexually Transmitted Infections and Risk Behaviors in Women Who Have Sex with Women,” Sexually Transmitted Infections, July 2000, p. 345.

64. Joanne Hall, “Lesbians Recovering from Alcoholic Problems: An Ethnographic Study of Health Care Expectations,” Nursing Research 43 (1994): 238-244.

65. Peter Freiberg, “Study: Alcohol Use More Prevelent for Lesbians,” The Washington Blade, January 12, 2001, p. 21.

66. Ibid.

67. Karen Paige Erickson, Karen F. Trocki, “Sex, Alcohol and Sexually Transmitted Diseases: A National Survey,” Family Planning Perspectives 26 (December 1994): 261.

68. Ibid.

69. Lettie L. Lockhart et al., “Letting out the Secret: Violence in Lesbian Relationships,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 9 (December 1994): 469-492.

70. Gwat Yong Lie and Sabrina Gentlewarrier, “Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications,” Journal of Social Service Research 15 (1991): 41-59.

71. D. Island and P. Letellier, Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence (New York: Haworth Press, 1991), p. 14.

72. “Violence Between Intimates,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Selected Findings, November 1994, p. 2.

73. Health Implications, p. 79.

74. J. Bradford, et al., “National Lesbian Health Care Survey: Implications for Mental Health Care,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 62 (1994): 239, cited in Health Implications Associated with Homosexuality, p. 81.

75. R. Herrell, et al., “A Co-Twin Study in Adult Men,” Archives of General Psychiatry 56 (1999): 867-874.

76. D. Fergusson, et al., “Is Sexual Orientation Related to Mental Health Problems and Suicidality in Young People?” Archives of General Psychiatry 56 (October 1999), p. 876-884.

77. Ibid.

78. Robert S. Hogg et al., “Modeling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men,” International Journal of Epidemiology 26 (1997): 657.

79. Quoted in Gabriel Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 286.

==============================

Same-sex Marriage? (EFC, 021200)

Social “progress” and changes in Canada have challenged the traditional understanding of marriage

It would have been unthinkable two decades ago, but Canada is on the verge of giving legal approval to same-sex marriages.

Then again, a lot of things that were once unthinkable are also common now. Common-law marriages may not have been unthinkable two decades ago, but they certainly were not common. Today 1.8 million Canadians live in common-law relationships.

The law is racing to keep up with the changes. Not so long ago, any opposite-sex couple who had lived together for seven years was considered married and liable for all the financial and child-rearing obligations involved. Today it takes only a year of cohabitation to be considered married.

Canada is one of the most “progressive” nations on earth in these areas. If the appeal courts approve a July ruling by the Ontario Divisional Court, our nation could follow Holland’s lead and become the second in the world to legitimize same-sex marriages.

How did we get here? There is no simple answer.

One part of the answer is the 1982 inclusion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Canadian Constitution, which gives the courts the option of striking down laws in conflict with the Charter. Historians Robert Bothwell and Jack Granatstein say that was “arguably the most important change in Canadians’ political lives during the twentieth century. No longer was Parliament supreme. The House of Commons would propose, but the Supreme Court would ultimately decide on rights.”

There is no clear consensus on the legitimization of same-sex marriage, and Parliament would be unlikely to say yes to those pushing this issue. But the courts are likely to hasten social change, by upholding the Ontario court’s ruling that the prohibition of same-sex marriage infringes section 15 of the Charter, which guarantees equal rights to all.

Perhaps another factor in the social changes is the new Canadian ethos, also a legacy of Pierre Trudeau. We are indisputably a multicultural country, a nation tolerant of others. These are wonderful qualities, part of what makes me glad to be Canadian, but a side effect may well be tolerance not only of other cultures and religions, but also of same-sex marriages. Our neighbours, the Americans, are much less tolerant; only 14 states and the District of Columbia even recognize common-law marriages.

Some would say it was the widespread adoption of birth control that paved the way for many of these changes. Until 1930, no major Christian Church anywhere in the world accepted birth control. Then the Anglican bishops broke ranks and accepted birth control as morally licit for married couples.

Bishop Charles Gore warned at the time that this vote would open the door to homosexual sodomy, and when the U.S. Federal Council of Churches accepted the use of contraceptives a year later, the Washington Post warned that this “would sound the death knell of marriage as a holy institution.”

Today we find it hard to understand such warnings, but the Catholic Church still maintains that we deny our own God-given nature if we exclude the possibility of conception. If the only purpose of sex is pleasure, there is no longer any moral reason why unwed couples and homosexuals should not also share in such pleasures. And if life is mistakenly conceived, then why not abort the mistake? This is not just a “Catholic” argument. John Calvin, Martin Luther and John Wesley also opposed birth control.

Historically, marriage had three essential elements: unity, permanence and the production of offspring. Today many marriages lack all three, and although once it was sad to see a couple that “couldn’t” have children, now many prefer careers and freedom instead.

One of the reasons marriages should include children and permanence is that they are good for us. To care for children, we must deny ourselves. To keep our spouses, we must surrender some of our petty faults. Marriage and family teach us the deeper meaning of love.

Bob Harvey is the religion editor of the Ottawa Citizen and the happily married father of four.

==============================

Homosexuality and the Great Commandment (American Anglican Council, 021217)

The Very Rev. Dr. Peter C. Moore

December 17, 2002

An address given at the annual convention of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, November 1, 2002. Peter C. Moore is the Dean and President of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, by a vote of 526 to 70, declared that homosexuality was incompatible with Scripture. This summer, at the request of the Bishop of New York, nine theologians countered this decision with a document entitled “Let the reader understand...”. It is an explanation of why the Lambeth decision was wrong.

“Let the reader understand...” will probably be seen as a semi-official approach to the application of biblical texts to specific moral issues within the Episcopal Church. It will be used to justify local option regarding the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals and the blessing of same sex unions. Therefore, it is worth studying and pondering for what it says, as well as for what it does not say.

Different interpreters

The basic claim of these nine theologians is that those, like them, who argue for acceptance of homosexuality do not disregard the authority of Scripture. Rather, they accept Scripture’s authority, but interpret Scripture differently, and come to a different conclusion about homosexuality. It is the interpretation of Scripture, they say, not its authority, that is in question.

These nine theologians put forward thirteen principles of interpretation to support their approach. Each of these are backed up by references to the Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and Scripture. What is surprising is that these theologians think that their principles of interpretation are fundamentally different from those that have guided the Church through the ages.

For example, everyone believes that God did not dictate the biblical text. Everyone knows that it contains more than one kind of literature, that God’s saving work in Jesus Christ is the center of the Scriptural message, and that God’s rules are not coercive and deterministic. Every scholar I know believes that the New Testament interprets the Old, and that you cannot rip individual texts out of context and apply them directly.

Pretty much everyone believes that different parts of Scripture carry different weight and authority, even while the whole is still God’s Word. Everyone believes that the Law is fulfilled in the Great Commandment, and that the Church must always struggle to interpret Scripture aright, and that the Church sits under Scripture rather than over it.

Each of these thirteen principles is cited by these nine scholars with great gravity, as if they told us something new. These very principles have guided the mind of the Church for centuries — the same Church that concluded at Lambeth that homosexual acts are not in accord with God’s will.

It is in the implications they draw from these principles that the scholars who wrote “Let the reader understand...” begin to take us into new territory.

First, they say, rightly, that there is always a great danger of substituting fixed and lifeless rules, codes, laws, and morals for the dynamic presence of God in our midst. This is an old ploy and a gratuitous use of rhetoric. Are we saying that love never expresses itself in rules?

Second, they claim that God changes His mind as circumstances change. Well, there is development in Scripture, and revelation is progressive. But describing this development as “God changing His mind” is the equivalent of saying that God’s Word is self-contradictory.

Third, they note that our experience shapes how we understand Scripture. Of course that is true. But let us not think that our experience is self-authenticating. It too stands under the governing hand and judgment of Scripture.

Fourth, they claim that God adapts what He is saying to the relative maturity of those to whom He is speaking. This is true in a sense, for revelation itself is an accommodation to our limits. But do you detect the remarkable paternalism in this statement that I do? Now that we have come of age, God has to say something new to us.

Fifth, they note that part of God’s law has a temporary purpose, and has been set aside. Fair enough. Again true — but it is the ceremonial and civil law that was temporary, not the moral law.

Sixth, they note that some actions once permitted in the Bible (such as polygamy and levirate marriage) are now forbidden, while other acts once forbidden in the Bible (such as eating meat with the blood still in it) are now permitted. Again, each case is addressed specifically in Scripture. Nor was it always true that things permitted were in accord with God’s will. Some, like polygamy, were customary but seen to bring trouble, jealousies, and spiritual compromise. Jesus says that multiple wives were not part of God’s original intention (Mark 10:7).

Seventh, they argue that since slavery was permitted in both Testaments, and we’ve changed our understanding, why should we not change our understanding about sex and marriage? I will address this in a minute.

Their implication

The implication that these nine theologians draw from their basic principles — the same principles they share with the rest of us — is that you cannot settle the matter of homosexuality by referring to a handful of biblical texts. Instead, experience, our newfound maturity, a more nuanced approach to rules and regulations will cause us to hesitate to draw the conclusion that all homosexual relations are wrong.

The bishops at Lambeth erred in their 1998 decision (as church councils have in the past). They acted precipitously and did not arrive at their conclusions through the use of sound hermeneutical principles. The theologians imply that now, in the light of a more thoughtful approach to the Bible, the bishops ought to suspend the judgment they rendered.

Interestingly, there is no effort in “Let the reader understand...” to unpack the actual texts of Scripture that do refer to homosexuality. Nor is there any consideration of the whole tenor of Scripture in relation to sexuality, and the place of homosexuality within that larger framework. The paper simply relativizes any and all specific Scriptural texts by declaring that if they can be shown to our modern consciences not to be in concert with the Great Commandment to love God and to love one’s neighbor, they are no longer relevant. The paper thus invites the church to move beyond the most normal and likely meanings to be found in the text of Scripture, and to expect God to say something new and different to us because we have come of age.

“Let the reader understand...” is a variation of the position we have heard consistently in the homosexuality debate: there is development in the Bible, new situations require new duties, God appears to change his mind, what was once forbidden is now permitted, and so forth. There appears to be no embarrassment at the fact that, if these claims are true, we really have no clear access to the Divine will on these matters. Hence, if Scripture is revelatory at all, God must be seen as contradicting Himself.

But let’s take the point of development within Scripture. We all know that the civil and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament were set aside by Jesus Christ. We all know that Jesus modified certain commandments, or at least applied them differently than the Pharisees of his day. We all know that many Christians thought for centuries that slavery was OK, but discovered in the 19th century that it was immoral. We also all know that the Church forbade women in leadership for centuries, based on certain texts of Scripture, but in many places now permits women to be ordained. We all know that divorce was once held to the letter of the law, but now those Scriptures that speak of abandonment are interpreted more broadly than they were in the past.

Would any of this really surprise the bishops at Lambeth? Does any of this surprise those of us who, with those bishops, believe homosexual acts are still wrong today?

The idea that there is development, growth, change in the Bible, and that God does a new thing when it pleases Him, has been a fundamental principle of Scriptural interpretation from the earliest of times. No one thought, however, that that meant that God contradicted Himself. Clearly the Bible is a living document; and therefore we see development, movement and growth in the whole process of revelation.

The really important thing

But the really important thing is that when you come to the matter of homosexuality there is no development or change in the Bible.

Contrast the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality with its teaching on slavery. Slavery was tolerated in both Testaments; but never seen as a positive good. The Jews regulated slavery along humane lines. But the Bible’s overall message undermined slavery almost from the start. In the Old Testament, the motif for salvation was freedom from slavery. In the New Testament it was freedom from bondage — to sin. Paul urged slaves who could secure their freedom to seek it (I Corinthians 7:21). He sent Onesimus back to Philemon not just as his slave but as his “brother.” And he taught that in Christ there was neither slave nor free, but all are one (Galatians 3:28).

Contrast the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality and on the role of women. Women made great advances in the Bible from more primitive times. By restricting sex to marriage, as happened in the sexual revolution God instituted among the Jews, women’s status was dramatically lifted. In the New Testament women become objects of special attention by Jesus. In the earliest churches they are in responsible positions of leadership. Perhaps there was even a woman among the apostles (Romans 16:7)? Women are the first witness to the resurrection. Also, as Galatians 3:28 says, in Christ there is neither male nor female.

Contrast the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality and on the food laws, such as eating meat with blood in it. While it is true that the Jerusalem church sought to impose this on gentiles (out of charity towards weak Jewish consciences, we presume), this regulation does not seem to have been enforced. Furthermore, eating bloody meat could not compare in its potential for spiritual contamination with eating meat that had been offered to idols. But Paul sees no problem in eating meat offered to idols. Why the change? In Peter’s vision in Acts, we read that God declares all foods clean (Acts 10:15; Mark 7:19).

So there is a trajectory in Scripture in each of these areas. Even with divorce, while God “hates divorce” according to Malachi 2:16, there is the Mosaic permission, “for the hardness of your hearts” (Matthew 19:8), the Matthaean exception, “except for adultery” (Matthew 5:32), and the Pauline consent, “If the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so” (I Corinthians 7:15). These indicate that the modern church may not have gone against the will of God in adapting basic principles to new situations. The same might be said to be true in regard to lending money at interest. Old strictures yield to new situations.

However, there is no such trajectory in the Bible with regard to homosexuality. Homosexuality is considered a particular abomination in the Holiness Code of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Leviticus 18 & 20). The Sodom and Gibeon stories may have been primarily about rape (Genesis 19, Judges 19), but the horror in the text implies that the homosexual nature of the intended behavior was repugnant. When you turn to the New Testament, homosexual acts are also condemned. You see this in Romans 1, I Corinthians 6, I Timothy 1, and Jude. Furthermore, while the Old Testament doesn’t mention lesbianism, the New Testament explicitly expands its prohibition to include lesbianism.

When we come to Jesus, far from relaxing these Old Testament laws, he actually stiffens them — especially when it comes to sexual sin. He said it isn’t wrong just to commit fornication and adultery, it is even wrong to think about committing them in one’s heart. Even a lustful look is sinful. The Old Testament never says that. (Similarly, Paul expanded the punishment for incest. In Leviticus it was death, but Paul said “consign such a one to Satan...” [I Corinthians 5; 2 Corinthians 2:7] Which is worse?) At the same time, Jesus demonstrates a special concern for the sexually broken: Mary Magdalene, the Woman at the Well, the Woman taken in adultery, and the Prodigal Son. In each case his redeeming power leads to a break with former sinful patterns, and a new life of obedience and genuine love.

None of these prohibitions have ever been thought of as going against the Great Commandment, to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Quite the contrary, to truly love somebody is to help them walk in the way of Christ, whose service is perfect freedom.

Real love

I know this is very painful for most homosexuals to hear. Their pain is similar to an alcoholic who is told he must stop drinking. In the film, Leaving Las Vegas, based on a book by John O’Brien, Nicholas Cage decides to kill himself with drink, and he tells his live-in partner, played by Elizabeth Shue, “The one thing you mustn’t do is tell me not to drink.”

She agrees, and then she watches him die of alcohol. Was it loving for her not to try to persuade him to stop drinking? No. I don’t even think the author, John O’Brien, thought so. The whole story is a tale of desperation. In fact, O’Brien himself committed suicide two weeks after he sold the movie rights to his book.

After seeing the movie, I read the critics’ reviews. Did any of them think Shue should have told Cage to stop drinking? No, they all thought it was wonderful that she didn’t moralize. They all thought it was a wonderful love story, and that the real point of the film was the quality of the relationship between Cage and Shue.

Which raises the question of what is real love? Is it really loving to let another person continue in a pattern of behavior that has a high likelihood of causing great harm, and that one knows is wrong? Or does love demand a greater toughness, and a greater willingness to enter into the pain and brokenness of the other? How do we fulfill the Great Commandment when it comes to another’s behavior that is both wrong and destructive?

We are often told that the Church should bless homosexual relationships because they are, after all, loving. And it is not my point to question whether there is some love between homosexual and lesbian partners. There can be care, concern, and compassion in such a relationship. But just because there is love, is the Church called to bless it?

Here we go to the heart of what it is that the Church does when it blesses a marriage. The Church not only says that there is something good here, something loving. It says two other things: first, that what is being blessed reflects the kind of love the Creator has with the creation, and secondly, it reflects the kind of love our Redeemer has with the redeemed.

We bless marriages because, as the Prayer Book says, “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.” (BCP, 1979, p.423) In other words, marriage both reflects the created order, and images the reconciling work of Jesus Christ.

Homosexual relationships can do neither. Beyond the ordinary care humans should have for each other, homosexual relationships do not parallel heterosexual marriage — except in the fact that both involve sexual attraction, some sexual release, and sometimes a longing for permanence. But that’s it. What the Bible calls love between a husband and a wife is something quite different.

Biblical love

Take these hallmarks of the biblical understanding of love.

First, fidelity. Every married couple says they will “forsake all others.” At least that’s the intention. The Church does not unite couples who do not promise to limit their sexual behavior to their spouse. And even though divorce and promiscuity in America are rampant, the fact is that heterosexuals remain remarkably monogamous. 80% of heterosexual men and 90% of heterosexual women had only one sexual partner last year. Monogamy still appears to be the norm.

But homosexuals neither pledge fidelity nor really value it. At the two “Beyond Inclusion” conferences held for the Episcopal Church in Los Angeles and New York, advocates decried the attempt to limit gay sex to monogamy. Why? Because as is well known promiscuity among homosexual men is not just the majority experience, it is the only experience. The largest gay magazine in America, The Advocate, did a study in 1995 of 2,500 gay readers. They reported that over the life span of their average 38 year-old male only 2% had had sex with just one man. 57% had more than 30 male sex partners, and 35% had more than 100. In the past year alone, about 2/3 (63%) had more than one male sex partner and the large majority of these (over 60%) had five or more [1]. Almost 80% of close-coupled homosexuals reported at least one incidence of cruising in the previous year, contrasted with 10% among married heterosexuals, and 23% among co-habiting heterosexuals.

Real love, by contrast, will be characterized by fidelity — because it images God’s love for us. Real love will pledge fidelity, value it, and make serious efforts to keep it. But, even among homosexual relationships that seem relatively stable, fidelity is not widely valued, nor is it the actual norm. Frequently, it is depicted as an unrealistic expectation foisted on the gay community by heterosexuals.

Second, permanence. Virtually every married couple says that it is “till death do us part.” The Church doesn’t marry people unless they make that promise, even when it has been broken in the past. Marriage mirrors the permanence of God’s love for us. Its covenant status reflects God’s repeated declarations that God will be faithful, even when we are faithless. “Hesed”, God’s “steadfast love” illustrated so poignantly in Hosea and boldly declared in the Cross, is reflected in the pledge a couple makes before God and human witnesses. “To have and to hold from this day forward.” We see a reflection of the permanent love of the Good Shepherd for His flock. “Having loved them, He loved them to the end.”

But homosexual relationships make no such promise, and therefore cannot mirror the eternal commitment Christ has made to his Church. Even among “close-coupled” homosexual males in America, where you would expect to find permanence it doesn’t exist. Under 8% of homosexual relationships last as long as 4 years.[2] Lesbian relationships may last longer. However, only 1 in 7 lesbians had had only one female sex partner, and 23% had eleven or more, according to the study conducted by The Advocate cited above. According to an earlier study by Bell and Weinberg (1970), 75% of lesbians had more than 5 partners in their lifetime.

But what if our culture changed and supported homosexuals who wish to be monogamous? Wouldn’t that encourage more to be so? I question whether that would make a difference. After all, most homosexual relationships that attempt to be permanent take place within a subculture where already they are reinforced and encouraged.

Reconciliation of Mars and Venus

Third, reconciliation. We are all aware of the fact that “Men are from Mars, and women are from Venus.” The differences between men and women extend far wider than the obvious fact of our biological complementary. Psychologically boys and girls show marked differences from childhood on. We are socialized differently. We are strangers to one another.

When we fall in love, the erotic and psychological attraction we have for one another goes a long way towards bridging our differences — for a while. But the honeymoon comes to an end, and the task of building unity among two opposite creatures becomes a lifelong challenge. We are called to enter humbly into the mystery of the other gender in order to know union. This requires everyone’s support and encouragement, as our marriage service underscores.

Marriage is God’s way of reuniting two opposites. Two who once were one, but who have become alienated. We confront an “other” in the opposite gender, and we are reconciled to an “other” in marriage. Frequently this otherness is psychological. Lots of introverts marry extroverts, sports types marry stay-at-homes, strong leadership-oriented ones marry supportive ones, artists marry activists, and so on. Not always; but with remarkable frequency.

Opposites attract because we are meant to find completion in one another. The point of this is that real love requires reconciliation. That’s why it takes the grace of God active in our lives, weaving forgiveness into the fabric of our fallen selves, to enable us to build oneness instead of alienation.

Homosexuals say there is no moral significance in the male/female distinction. Biological differences have no moral connotations. Sex between a same and sex between opposites — there is no moral difference. But it is not just sex, it is the whole quality of love I am talking about. Homosexuals search for someone like themselves. In their search for a same, homosexuals demonstrate a need to fill a void deep within. Most males are searching for a never-affirmed masculinity — lesbians for a never affirmed femininity.

But God, in the gift of a partner at creation, did not just satisfy an urge. God gave man a task. By giving Adam no mirror-image companion, but a her, God was challenging Adam to discover the difference and live with the tension of that difference. Yes, Adam recognizes in Eve a common humanity; but she is different, she is female. In every way they are complementary. They are to find fulfillment in one another. They are to reunite what is separate. This is a challenge with moral and spiritual significance.

Health and sacrifice

Fourth, health and wholeness. Monogamous heterosexuals do not normally expose one another to health risks. St. Paul writes that “no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body.” He then relates this immediately to marriage, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” In this context he tells husband and wife to love each other as themselves (Ephesians 5:29-31,33). The obvious implication is that love implies the kind of mutual care one has for one’s own body. Indeed, the spouse is now part of one’s body, just as we are part of Christ.

Sadly, homosexual sex exposes the partner to serious health hazards. The lining of the rectum is not tough and capable of penetration like the lining of the vagina. It is easily perforated, permitting the intrusion of all sorts of diseases. Leaving AIDS aside, the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases among the homosexual population is epidemic. 75% of homosexual men have a history of one or more sexually transmitted disease, and in any given year 40% of them are sick. Despite the great talk of “safe sex” the use of condoms is not totally safe.

As Thomas Schmidt writes: “Sexual liberation has brought homosexuals out of the closet into a shadow of physical affliction where a score of diseases lurk. And as if this were not gloomy enough, the more deadly specter of HIV infection deepens the shadow, not only for the ever-growing number who die but also for those who are left behind to grieve and to wonder who will die next.”[3] Life expectancy for an active homosexual is approximately 20 years less than for the average male in North America.[4] It is hard to reconcile that with the loving care we are called to have for others. The homosexual community needs to face the fact that for the vast majority sexual behavior is obsessive, psychopathological and destructive to their own and other’s bodies.

Fifth, real love is sacrificial. The primary form this takes in marriage is the common burden of child-rearing. Couples sacrifice for the long-term goal of rearing children. Procreation is of course not the only reason for sex, nor is procreation always possible within marriage. But the willingness to bear children, if God allows, is built into the expectations of marriage. It is the natural result of sexual intercourse.

Homosexuals say that sex should be totally separated from procreation. That is why it is logically impossible for those who advocate homosexual sex to be against any form of mutual consensual sex: incest, polygamy, pornography, bestiality. That is why William Countryman, the outspoken Episcopal advocate of homosexuality, sees nothing wrong with a little incest, polygamy, pornography, or bestiality.

Judaism and Christianity brought erotic love, marriage and procreation together. It was revolutionary in the ancient world, just as it is today. But when you totally separate sex from procreation, or the possibility of procreation, it no longer exists for the sake of others. It no longer images the costly dimension of love that normally is expressed in parenthood. Married couples sacrifice time, money, sometimes careers, health, and many good things in life in order to provide for children. This sacrifice channels the sexual drive, especially the marauding male sexual drive, into long-term goals that benefit the species and fulfill the creation mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.”

Conclusion

As Christians we must approach the issue of homosexuality not with the secular criteria of rights, but with the Christian value of love. Of course we accept basic civil rights for homosexuals, as we do for all people. But that does not mean that they have a right in the Christian community to be accepted as they wish, despite their behavior. We do not define who we are to one another, or to God. God defines us, and we find our identity in God’s definition of us.

No rights are absolute. Many so-called rights are proscribed even by our government, as well as by the Church. We do not have the right to commit suicide, the right to assist a loved one to die, the right to engage in sex with a sister or brother, the right to have more than one wife, the right to have sex with animals, and so on. Individual rights are subservient to the kind of community we wish to have.

Love, however, is absolute. We are to love one another, absolutely. That is the point of the Great Commandment. But we cannot fulfill this commandment until we know how to love those whose sexual preference goes against both the created order, and God’s revealed will.

What we find is that true love forbids us to bless homosexual relationships. The church can never bless what God has not blessed. Rather our task is much more difficult and much more costly. We must labor alongside those with unruly emotions, who believe that sexual restraint and healing are impossible, and who put themselves and others at grave risk. We seek to do this with all the sensitivity of Our Lord himself; and we seek to do this by demonstrating, that it really is possible to live a new life in Christ.

For some homosexuals that will mean openness to healing and even marriage. For many others it will mean celibacy, either short term or long term. Those of us who desire to fulfill the Great Commandment will be active in trying to persuade our brothers and sisters, however much they may not want to be told it, that this is the way of real love, and true liberation.

Notes

[1] Janet Lever, Ph.D., “The 1994 Advocate Survey of Sexuality and Relationships: The Men: Sexual Relations,” The Advocate, (Aug. 23, 1994): 16-24, cited in The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Robert A. J. Gagnon, Abingdon, Nashville, 2001, p. 455.

[2] P. Blumstein and P. Schwartz, “Intimate Relationships and the Creation of Sexuality,” in Homosexuality/Heterosexuality: Concepts of Sexual Orientation, ed. D. P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders and J. M. Reinisch, Kinsey Institute Series 2, New York: Oxford, 1990, p.317, table 18.2. The exact number was 79%.

[3] Thomas Schmidt, Straight and Narrow? IVP, Downers Grove, 1995, p. 122.

[4] Paul Cameron, Kirk Cameron, and William L. Playfair, “Does Homosexual Activity Shorten Life?” Psychological Reports 83 (1998): 847-66.

Peter C. Moore is the Dean and President of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

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Definition of Marriage (Vancouver Sun, 030927)

Dr. Darrel Reid, President of Focus on the Family Canada.

Given the name-calling directed at those seeking to preserve the definition of marriage, one might be forgiven for thinking that they are simply out of touch with the rest of the world.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it is those trying to redefine this crucial institution who find themselves standing against everything human societies from the beginning of recorded history have learned, practised and cherished.

Perhaps this is why the world’s major religions are nearly unanimous in their support for heterosexual marriage. Perhaps this is why no society in world history has ever embraced homosexual marriages as a norm for social life. Even those countries that allow homosexuals to marry -- Belgium and the Netherlands -- treat those relationships differently than heterosexual ones. Surely this near-universal testimony of humanity affirms what our courts and gay rights advocates seem so eager to deny: Heterosexual marriage is the foundation on which stable societies are built. It is at the same time a private union and a public institution.

When marriages are strong and healthy, our communities, and especially our children, flourish. These assertions are not, as gay marriage advocates imply, evidence of bigotry and homophobia. They are built upon a mountain of scientific evidence and reinforced by every other social discipline one cares to name.

Here are just a few benefits of heterosexual marriage:

Married men are healthier, live longer, have a more positive outlook, report more satisfying sex lives and abuse drugs and alcohol less than their single, divorced or common-law counterparts.

Married women, in addition to all the benefits reported above, are less likely to be abused than their single, divorced or common-law counterparts.

Children born and raised in two-parent families benefit even more on virtually every measure of human well-being. And communities characterized by strong stable marriages also benefit from significantly lower crime rates.

Of course, gay marriage advocates quickly ask why homosexual couples shouldn’t have access to these benefits as well. The simple answer is that the benefits yielded by marriage are unique to stable, loving heterosexual relationships and are derived from the mysterious, yet very real, connection that takes place when a man and a woman commit to one another. There is simply no evidence that these benefits occur when two men or two women live together -- with or without children.

In fact, the little research that does exist on gay marriages -- done in the Netherlands by a British medical journal -- suggests that male homosexuals have a very difficult time honouring the ideal of marriage. There, male homosexual relationships last, on average, 1.5 years and gay men have an average of eight partners a year outside of their supposedly “committed” relationship.

Despite what some might say, men and women are profoundly different, and not just in physical appearance. We have different strengths, needs, desires and goals. Most of us understand this. Although it is not always easy, marriage bridges those differences and produces a family unit that is greater than its individual pieces.

Nowhere is this more profoundly evident than when it comes to raising children. Social science evidence and simple common sense make clear that men and woman bring different but complementary skills to the parenting challenge. Remove one gender from the equation and all sorts of difficulties ensue -- as many single parents will readily testify.

When it comes to parenting, common sense tells us that same-sex couples cannot, by definition, bring this essential gender mix to bear on their children. The most loving mother in the world cannot teach a little boy how to be a man. Likewise, the most loving man cannot teach a little girl how to be a woman. A gay man cannot teach his son how to love and care for a woman. Little boys and girls need the loving daily influence of both male and female parents to be what they are meant to be.

This view, it should be added, diverges drastically from the thinking of many gay rights activists, who argue that fathers or mothers are optional. New Democratic Party MP Svend Robinson summed up this view in a meeting of the House of Commons justice committee: “[W]hen I hear [someone], for example, saying, well you know, it takes a man to create a family, well, I say to [that person], with great respect, you’re wrong. A turkey baster will do just fine.”

Most Canadians, I would suggest, along with parents around the world and down through the ages, would strongly disagree -- and with good reason. Marriage, “the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others,” as Parliament has defined it until just recently, is the most precious and valuable social safety net humankind has ever seen. Let’s not do anything to undermine it now or in the future.

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Women, Homosexuality, and the Bible (American Anglican Council, 031001)

A common argument in favor of the ordination and blessing of sexually active gay men and lesbians goes something like this: Over the past several centuries the church has realized that it was wrong in its biblical interpretation about slavery, racial discrimination, and women’s equality. Accordingly, the church changed its teaching. Now it is time to realize that the church was wrong in its teaching about the blessing of committed same-sex relationships and the ordination of gay men and lesbians who are in committed same-sex relationships.

This argument has been presented as recently as September 28, 2003, in an article in the British newspaper The Telegraph. Bishop Richard Harries of Oxford is quoted as saying, “The Church has got it wrong in the past - there’s no doubt about it…. I think you can take the view that, just as the Church eventually abolished slavery, so they ended up in favor of votes for women, so they voted for the ordination of women, and this is just one more issue where the Church has got it wrong.”

I call this the “logical extension” argument. The “logical extension” of the abolition of slavery was the ordination of women. And, the “logical extension” of the ordination of women is the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of individuals in same-sex relationships.

Often this “logical extension” argument is rooted in a social justice approach to moral reasoning. The ordination and blessing of people in sexually active same-sex relationships is regarded as a matter of liberating gays and lesbians from oppressive social and ecclesiastical structures, just as the civil rights movement and the women’s ordination movement were focused on liberating those oppressed by ethnically and gender prejudiced structures.

As a woman who has been ordained to the priesthood since 1986, I have heard this argument for many years and now feel compelled to present an opposing view to this “logical extension” claim.

As for my understanding of the difference between the two issues, the bottom line is this: The Bible has a diversity of passages on the role of women in society, at home, and in the church – many affirming, and some seemingly not affirming. As one who upholds the authority of Scripture, the challenge is to reconcile the passages, for I do not believe that Scripture will ultimately contradict itself. So, if it appears contradictory, I am not at liberty to dismiss a passage simply because I don’t like it. Rather, it is incumbent upon me to dig deeper to understand how they can be reconciled. Having done this difficult exegetical work for myself and written about it elsewhere (Men and Women in Relationship at Home and in the Church, Alison L. Barfoot, 1995, and Letter to the Editor, Christianity Today, March 1991) I have come to support women’s ordination not as a matter of social justice, but as a matter of biblical conviction.

Homosexual behavior, however, is uniformly condemned in the Bible. Nowhere in Scripture is it spoken of in a positive way. There are no apparent contradictions in the Bible about this topic. Although our culture presents the approval of homosexual behavior as a social justice issue, Scripture and the more than 4,000-year-old community of faith have regarded it as a moral issue, i.e., as sin, and thus a matter of faith. In Scripture, social justice is understood to be counteracting injustices and their consequences that flow from the sin of disobedience to God’s Word, especially immorality and idolatry. It cannot, therefore, be claimed that reversing what the Bible considers immoral, e.g., homosexual behavior, is an act of social justice.

The ordination and consecration of a man in a sexually active homosexual relationship is a moral issue. The ordination of women, however, is not a moral issue; it is a matter of church order. To equate the two or to put them on the same continuum of logic is to engage in a category mistake. Succinctly put, it is not a sin to be a woman, but the Bible (which knows nothing of sexual orientation) does consider homosexual behavior (regardless of orientation) to be sinful.

For these and other reasons, I and many others in the church can approve of the ordination of women, but be opposed to the ordination and blessing of people involved in sexually active same-sex relationships

The Rev. Canon Alison L. Barfoot, D.Min. is Co-Rector, Christ Church, Overland Park, KS.

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Robert A. J. Gagnon Responds to Bishop Griswold Interview (American Anglican Council, 031001)

An Open Letter to the Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold

September 30, 2003

Dear Presiding Bishop Griswold,

The following remarks were attributed to you in an Associated Press interview published yesterday (“Episcopal Leader Defends Gay Bishop,” by Rachel Zoll, AP religion writer;):

He said that in biblical times there was no understanding that homosexuality was a natural orientation and not a choice. “Discreet acts of homosexuality” were condemned in the Bible because they were acts of lust instead of the “love, forgiveness, grace” of committed same-sex relationships, he said. “Homosexuality, as we understand it as an orientation, is not mentioned in the Bible,” he said.

With all due respect, if these remarks are correctly cited, you are in error on all counts.

First, there were many theories in the Greco-Roman world that posited something akin to modern sexual orientation theory. Philosophers, doctors, and moralists often attributed one or more forms of homosexual behavior, at least in part, to congenital factors. And some of the same persons could still refer to such forms as “contrary to nature”-that is, given by nature but not in conformity with embodied existence or nature’s well-working processes. Lifelong, exclusive participants in homosexual behavior were also widely known in the ancient world. Indeed, Paul’s reference to the malakoi (“soft men,” men who play the sexual role of females) in 1 Corinthians 6:9 is one such instance.

Second, you assume that the absence of “choice” regarding sexual impulses absolves one of moral responsibility for the behavior arising from such impulses. Numerous sinful desires, sexual and otherwise, are not “chosen” in the sense of being manufactured willfully. That doesn’t make them any less sinful-though it can and should inform our pastoral response. Who would choose to be a pedophile if it were a simple matter of choice? Some people find it extraordinarily difficult to be limited to a single sex partner; do they choose their sexual impulses? Some people grow up without an instinctive aversion to sex with close blood relations and then fall in love with one such relative; do they simply manufacture such feelings? Paul describes sin itself in Romans 7 as an innate impulse, passed on by an ancestor figure, running through the members of the human body, and never entirely within human control. The very nature of sin is that it generates biologically related impulses. Why do you think a biological connection disqualifies an impulse from being sinful? Such thinking is patently un-biblical.

Third, biblical writers were certainly not limiting their condemnation of same-sex intercourse to particularly exploitative forms. Non-exploitative forms were known in Paul’s day and had Paul wanted to limit his condemnation to exploitative forms he certainly could have done so. The wording in Romans 1:24-27 is quite clear as regards what Paul found objectionable about same-sex intercourse: its same-sexness, persons seeking sexual integration with a non-complementary sexual same, persons erotically attracted to what they intrinsically are as sexual beings. This is sexual narcissism and/or sexual self-deception: a desire either for what one is or for what one wishes to be but in fact already is. The intertextual echoes to Genesis 1:27 (“God made them male and female”) and Genesis 2:24 (“For this reason a man shall . . . be joined to his woman/wife and the two shall become one flesh”) in Romans 1:24-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9, respectively, confirm that Paul had in view the male-female prerequisite ordained by God at creation.(Incidentally, so did Jesus when he appealed to the same two texts from Genesis as normative and prescriptive texts for human sexual relations [Mark 10:6-8].) The beautiful image put forward in Genesis 2:18-24 is that of an original binary human split down the side into two sexually differentiated beings. If sexual relations are to be had, “one-flesh” sexual wholeness requires a re-merger of the two constituent parts produced by the splitting. By “nature” in Romans 1:24-27 Paul meant the complementary structure of males and females still transparent in material creation-a category of thinking that transcends issues of love and commitment. The description in Romans 1:27 of males mutually gratifying themselves with other males does not suggest exploitation. Nor does the mention of female-female intercourse point us in the direction of a particularly exploitative form of same-sex intercourse. The language in Romans 1:24-27 of being “given over” to preexisting desires and forsaking any heterosexual relations certainly suggests innate and exclusive passions for members of the same sex. Scripture is clearly condemning every form of same-sex intercourse. Biblical authors would no more have accepted a committed and loving homosexual union than they would have accepted a committed and loving adult incestuous union. Both types of unions are structurally incompatible: sex with sexual or familial sames.

Much more could be said about each of the points above but what I have written should suffice for now.

Even some pro-homosex biblical scholars such as Bernadette Brooten and William Schoedel recognize that “sexual orientation” and commitment would have made little difference to Paul’s indictment of same-sex intercourse. My book, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon) which has been out for a full two years, also makes this clear (see especially pp. 347-60, 380-95). See also now my more condensed discussion in Homosexuality and the Bible (Fortress), just released, and a forthcoming article in an edited volume entitled Christian Sexuality (Kirk House), which deals extensively with orientation theory in antiquity.

There really is no excuse any more for making the kinds of false statements about Scripture that you made in the AP interview. It is especially inexcusable for a presiding bishop-an office that has guarding the faith as a chief concern-to be making such inaccurate representations of the biblical witness. I urge you to read more widely, and more carefully, as regards recent work on the subject of the Bible and homosexual behavior.

Sincerely,

Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of New Testament

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

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Why I Walked (Christianity Today, 030103)

Sometimes loving a denomination requires you to fight.

by J. I. Packer | posted 01/03/2003

In June 2002, the synod of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster authorized its bishop to produce a service for blessing same-sex unions, to be used in any parish of the diocese that requests it. A number of synod members walked out to protest the decision. They declared themselves out of communion with the bishop and the synod, and they appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglican primates and bishops for help.

J. I. Packer, an executive editor of Christianity Today, was one of those who walked out. Many people have asked him why. Though one part of his answer applies specifically to Anglicans, his larger argument should give guidance to any Christians troubled by developments in their church or denomination.

Why did I walk out with the others? Because this decision, taken in its context, falsifies the gospel of Christ, abandons the authority of Scripture, jeopardizes the salvation of fellow human beings, and betrays the church in its God-appointed role as the bastion and bulwark of divine truth.

My primary authority is a Bible writer named Paul. For many decades now, I have asked myself at every turn of my theological road: Would Paul be with me in this? What would he say if he were in my shoes? I have never dared to offer a view on anything that I did not have good reason to think he would endorse.

In 1 Corinthians we find the following, addressed it seems to exponents of some kind of antinomian spirituality:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God (6:9–11, ESV).

To make sure we grasp what Paul is saying here, I pose some questions.

First: What is Paul talking about in this vice list? Answer: Lifestyles, regular behavior patterns, habits of mind and action. He has in view not single lapses followed by repentance, forgiveness, and greater watchfulness (with God’s help) against recurrence, but ways of life in which some of his readers were set, believing that for Christians there was no harm in them.

Second: What is Paul saying about these habits? Answer: They are ways of sin that, if not repented of and forsaken, will keep people out of God’s kingdom of salvation. Clearly, self-indulgence and self-service, free from self-discipline and self-denial, is the attitude they express, and a lack of moral discernment lies at their heart.

Third: What is Paul saying about homosexuality? Answer: Those who claim to be Christ’s should avoid the practice of same-sex physical connection for orgasm, on the model of heterosexual intercourse. Paul’s phrase, “men who practice homosexuality,” covers two Greek words for the parties involved in these acts. The first, arsenokoitai, means literally “male-bedders,” which seems clear enough. The second, malakoi, is used in many connections to mean “unmanly,” “womanish,” and “effeminate,” and here refers to males matching the woman’s part in physical sex.

In this context, in which Paul has used two terms for sexual misbehavior, there is really no room for doubt regarding what he has in mind. He must have known, as Christians today know, that some men are sexually drawn to men rather than women, but he is not speaking of inclinations, only of behavior, what has more recently been called acting out. His point is that Christians need to resist these urges, since acting them out cannot please God and will reveal lethal impenitence. Romans 1:26 shows that Paul would have spoken similarly about lesbian acting out if he had had reason to mention it here.

Fourth: What is Paul saying about the gospel? Answer: Those who, as lost sinners, cast themselves in genuine faith on Christ and so receive the Holy Spirit, as all Christians do (see Gal. 3:2), find transformation through the transaction. They gain cleansing of conscience (the washing of forgiveness), acceptance with God (justification), and strength to resist and not act out the particular temptations they experience (sanctification). As a preacher friend declared to his congregation, “I want you to know that I am a non-practicing adulterer.” Thus he testified to receiving strength from God.

With some of the Corinthian Christians, Paul was celebrating the moral empowering of the Holy Spirit in heterosexual terms; with others of the Corinthians, today’s homosexuals are called to prove, live out, and celebrate the moral empowering of the Holy Spirit in homosexual terms. Another friend, well known to me for 30 years, has lived with homosexual desires all his adult life, but remains a faithful husband and father, sexually chaste, through the power of the Holy Spirit, according to the gospel. He is a model in every way. We are all sexually tempted, one way or another, yet we may all tread the path of chastity through the Spirit’s enablement, and thereby please God.

Missing Paul’s point

As one who assumes the full seriousness and sincerity of all who take part in today’s debates among Christians regarding homosexuality, both in New Westminster and elsewhere, I now must ask: how can anyone miss the force of what Paul says here? There are, I think, two ways in which this happens.

One way, the easier one to deal with, is the way of special exegesis: I mean interpretations that, however possible, are artificial and not natural, but that allow one to say, “What Paul is condemning is not my sort of same-sex union.” Whether a line of interpretation is artificial, so constituting misinterpretation, is, I grant, a matter of personal judgment. I do not, however, know how any reasonable person could read Robert A. J. Gagnon’s 500-page book, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon, 2001), and not conclude that any exegesis evading the clear meaning of Paul is evasive indeed. Nor from now on can I regard anyone as qualified to debate homosexuality who has not come to terms with Gagnon’s encyclopedic examination of all the relevant passages and all the exegetical hypotheses concerning them. I have not always agreed with James Barr, but when on the dust jacket he describes Gagnon’s treatise as “indispensable even for those who disagree with the author,” I think he is absolutely right.

The second way, which is harder to engage, is to let experience judge the Bible. Some moderns, backed by propaganda from campaigners for homosexual equality, and with hearts possessed by the pseudo-Freudian myth that you can hardly be a healthy human without active sexual expression, feel entitled to say: “Our experience is—in other words, we feel—that gay unions are good, so the Bible’s prohibitions of gay behavior must be wrong.” The natural response is that the Bible is meant to judge our experience rather than the other way around, and that feelings of sexual arousal and attraction, generating a sense of huge significance and need for release in action as they do, cannot be trusted as either a path to wise living or a guide to biblical interpretation. Rhyming the point to make what in my youth was called a grook: the sweet bright fire / of sexual desire / is a dreadful liar. But more must be said than that.

Two views of the Bible

At issue here is a Grand Canyon–wide difference about the nature of the Bible and the way it conveys God’s message to modern readers. Two positions challenge each other.

One is the historic Christian belief that through the prophets, the incarnate Son, the apostles, and the writers of canonical Scripture as a body, God has used human language to tell us definitively and transculturally about his ways, his works, his will, and his worship. Furthermore, this revealed truth is grasped by letting the Bible interpret itself to us from within, in the knowledge that the way into God’s mind is through that of the writers. Through them, the Holy Spirit who inspired them teaches the church. Finally, one mark of sound biblical insights is that they do not run counter to anything else in the canon.

This is the position of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, and of evangelicals and other conservative Protestants. There are differences on the place of the church in the interpretive process, but all agree that the process itself is essentially as described. I call this the objectivist position.

The second view applies to Christianity the Enlightenment’s trust in human reason, along with the fashionable evolutionary assumption that the present is wiser than the past. It concludes that the world has the wisdom, and the church must play intellectual catch-up in each generation in order to survive. From this standpoint, everything in the Bible becomes relative to the church’s evolving insights, which themselves are relative to society’s continuing development (nothing stands still), and the Holy Spirit’s teaching ministry is to help the faithful see where Bible doctrine shows the cultural limitations of the ancient world and needs adjustment in light of latter-day experience (encounters, interactions, perplexities, states of mind and emotion, and so on). Same-sex unions are one example. This view is scarcely 50 years old, though its antecedents go back much further. I call it the subjectivist position.

In the New Westminster debate, subjectivists say that what is at issue is not the authority of Scripture, but its interpretation. I do not question the sincerity of those who say this, but I have my doubts about their clear-headedness. The subjectivist way of affirming the authority of Scripture, as the source of the teaching that now needs to be adjusted, is precisely a denying of Scripture’s authority from the objectivist point of view, and clarity requires us to say so. The relative authority of ancient religious expertise, now to be revamped in our post-Christian, multifaith, evolving Western world, is one view. The absolute authority of God’s unchanging utterances, set before us to be learned, believed, and obeyed as the mainstream church has always done, never mind what the world thinks, is the other.

What are represented as different “interpretations” are in fact reflections of what is definitive: in the one view, the doctrinal and moral teaching of Scripture is always final for Christian people; in the other view, it never is. What is definitive for the exponents of that view is not what the Bible says, as such, but what their own minds come up with as they seek to make Bible teaching match the wisdom of the world.

Each view of biblical authority sees the other as false and disastrous, and is sure that the long-term welfare of Christianity requires that the other view be given up and left behind as quickly as possible. The continuing conflict between them, which breaks surface in the disagreement about same-sex unions, is a fight to the death, in which both sides are sure that they have the church’s best interests at heart. It is most misleading, indeed crass, to call this disagreement simply a difference about interpretation, of the kind for which Anglican comprehensiveness has always sought to make room.

Spiritual dangers

In addition, major spiritual issues are involved. To bless same-sex unions liturgically is to ask God to bless them and to enrich those who join in them, as is done in marriage ceremonies. This assumes that the relationship, of which the physical bond is an integral part, is intrinsically good and thus, if I may coin a word, blessable, as procreative sexual intercourse within heterosexual marriage is. About this assumption there are three things to say.

First, it entails deviation from the biblical gospel and the historic Christian creed. It distorts the doctrines of creation and sin, claiming that homosexual orientation is good since gay people are made that way, and rejecting the idea that homosexual inclinations are a spiritual disorder, one more sign and fruit of original sin in some people’s moral system. It distorts the doctrines of regeneration and sanctification, calling same-sex union a Christian relationship and so affirming what the Bible would call salvation in sin rather than from it.

Second, it threatens destruction to my neighbor. The official proposal said that ministers who, like me, are unwilling to give this blessing should refer gay couples to a minister willing to give it. Would that be pastoral care? Should I not try to help gay people change their behavior, rather than to anchor them in it? Should I not try to help them to the practice of chastity, just as I try to help restless singles and divorcees to the practice of chastity? Do I not want to see them all in the kingdom of God?

Third, it involves the delusion of looking to God—actually asking him—to sanctify sin by blessing what he condemns. This is irresponsible, irreverent, indeed blasphemous, and utterly unacceptable as church policy. How could I do it?

Changing a historical tradition

Finally, a major change in Anglicanism is involved: Writing into a diocesan constitution something that Scripture, canonically interpreted, clearly and unambiguously rejects as sin. This has never been done before, and ought not to be done now.

All the written standards of post-Reformation Anglicanism have been intentionally biblical and catholic. They have been biblical in terms of the historic view of the nature and authority of Scripture. They have been catholic in terms of the historic consensus of the mainstream church.

Many individual eccentricities and variations may have been tolerated in practice. The relatively recent controversial permissions to remarry the divorced and make women presbyters arguably had biblical warrant, though minorities disputed this. In biblical and catholic terms, however, the New Westminster decision writes legitimation of sin into the diocese’s constitutional standards.

It categorizes the tolerated abstainers as the awkward squad of eccentrics rather than the mainstream Anglicans that they were before. It is thus a decision that can only be justified in terms of biblical relativism, the novel notion of biblical authority that to my mind is a cuckoo in the Anglican nest and a heresy in its own right. It is a watershed decision for world Anglicanism, for it changes the nature of Anglicanism itself. It has to be reversed.

Luther’s response at Worms when he was asked to recant all his writings echoes in my memory, as it has done for more than 50 years.

Unless you prove to me by Scripture and plain reason that I am wrong, I cannot and will not recant. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe [it endangers the soul]. Here I stand. There is nothing else I can do. God help me. Amen.

Conscience is that power of the mind over which we have no power, which binds us to believe what we see to be true and do what we see to be right. Captivity of conscience to the Word of God, that is, to the absolutes of God’s authoritative teaching in the Bible, is integral to authentic Christianity.

More words from Luther come to mind.

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point that the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages is where the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

Was the protest in order? Was “no” the right way to vote? Did faithfulness to Christ, and faithful confession of Christ, require it? It seems so. And if so, then our task is to stand fast, watch, pray, and fight for better things: for the true authority of the Bible, for the “true truth” of the gospel, and for the salvation of gay people for whom we care.

J. I. Packer is an executive editor of Christianity Today.

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A Holy Nuisance (Christianity Today, 030103)

J.I. Packer has strong words for those who don’t feel called to agitate for reform.

A dramatic moment in the history of British evangelicalism came on October 18, 1966. At the Evangelical Alliance’s National Assembly, free-church patriarch Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave the opening address. He proclaimed that the ecumenical movement had created a new situation for evangelicals in participating churches. Evangelicals could no longer be content as a wing of a national church that may have an orthodox confession, he said, but which tolerated and promoted liberalism.

Some took the speech to be a ringing call for Anglican evangelicals to leave their disordered (though never disorderly) church. John Stott, the assembly’s chairman, stood up to oppose Lloyd-Jones. “I believe history is against what Dr. Lloyd-Jones has said,” Stott averred. “Scripture is against him … I hope no one will act precipitately.”

J. I. Packer heard about the exchange that very evening. A woman who had been at the meeting telephoned and, without saying hello, began to speak: “Jim, is John Stott mad?”

The next day, Dr. Packer was at a committee meeting in London, and the chairman asked him, “Did you know that last night your friend Martyn Lloyd-Jones went off his rocker?”

Madness was the hermeneutical key of the day. However, ever since 1966, says Dr. Packer, interpreting Lloyd-Jones’s speech has been “elusive.” He urges those who really want to know what was said to consult the transcript of the talk found in Knowing the Times, a 400-page compilation of Lloyd-Jones speeches (Banner of Truth).

The question of evangelical participation in liberal and ecumenical denominations is a perennial one. On page 46, Dr. Packer explains why he and his friends recently walked out of an Anglican synod in British Columbia. (Simply put, the New Westminster Synod sanctified “sin by blessing what [God] condemns.”)

I recently asked Dr. Packer why he has stayed in the Anglican church for so long. He first explained his understanding of the church: “What we call denominations or national churches are ad hoc labels for groups of local churches whose real nature is that they are microcosmic expressions of the one body of Christ, which is invisible, but worldwide, sustained by Christ in every single case.”

He then added, “The pressing question for Anglicans who are in so disordered a church is whether they have elbow room for campaigning to change things for the better, campaigning for a closer return to the Scriptures, whether they are free to campaign for the gospel in the church where that gospel is being disregarded or denied.

“There is a bottom line to that,” he continued. “If through your active campaigning you get thrown out, well, you get thrown out. And that, actually, might happen here in New Westminster where we. … see it as our calling to make the biggest nuisance of ourselves in the diocese that we can.”

Dr. Packer has strong words for those who don’t feel called to agitate for reform, but who simply find solace and strength in going to church: “The people you describe seem to treat the church as an ice cream parlor where you can go to get what you feel you need, and you go out feeling better because you got it. That isn’t New Testament churchliness. That’s an egocentric use of the church.”

He sums up his passion for reform: “Because the glory of the Lord, the Head, is bound up with the condition of the body, the disordered church can only dishonor its Lord.”

==============================

Directive From The Pope (Vatican, 030603)

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS

TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION

TO UNIONS

BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS

INTRODUCTION

1. In recent years, various questions relating to homosexuality have been addressed with some frequency by Pope John Paul II and by the relevant Dicasteries of the Holy See.(1) Homosexuality is a troubling moral and social phenomenon, even in those countries where it does not present significant legal issues. It gives rise to greater concern in those countries that have granted or intend to grant – legal recognition to homosexual unions, which may include the possibility of adopting children. The present Considerations do not contain new doctrinal elements; they seek rather to reiterate the essential points on this question and provide arguments drawn from reason which could be used by Bishops in preparing more specific interventions, appropriate to the different situations throughout the world, aimed at protecting and promoting the dignity of marriage, the foundation of the family, and the stability of society, of which this institution is a constitutive element. The present Considerations are also intended to give direction to Catholic politicians by indicating the approaches to proposed legislation in this area which would be consistent with Christian conscience.(2) Since this question relates to the natural moral law, the arguments that follow are addressed not only to those who believe in Christ, but to all persons committed to promoting and defending the common good of society.

I. THE NATURE OF MARRIAGE

AND ITS INALIENABLE CHARACTERISTICS

2. The Church’s teaching on marriage and on the complementarity of the sexes reiterates a truth that is evident to right reason and recognized as such by all the major cultures of the world. Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It was established by the Creator with its own nature, essential properties and purpose.(3) No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman, who by mutual personal gift, proper and exclusive to themselves, tend toward the communion of their persons. In this way, they mutually perfect each other, in order to cooperate with God in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives.

3. The natural truth about marriage was confirmed by the Revelation contained in the biblical accounts of creation, an expression also of the original human wisdom, in which the voice of nature itself is heard. There are three fundamental elements of the Creator’s plan for marriage, as narrated in the Book of Genesis.

In the first place, man, the image of God, was created “male and female” (Gen 1:27). Men and women are equal as persons and complementary as male and female. Sexuality is something that pertains to the physical-biological realm and has also been raised to a new level – the personal level – where nature and spirit are united.

Marriage is instituted by the Creator as a form of life in which a communion of persons is realized involving the use of the sexual faculty. “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24).

Third, God has willed to give the union of man and woman a special participation in his work of creation. Thus, he blessed the man and the woman with the words “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Therefore, in the Creator’s plan, sexual complementarity and fruitfulness belong to the very nature of marriage.

Furthermore, the marital union of man and woman has been elevated by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament. The Church teaches that Christian marriage is an efficacious sign of the covenant between Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5:32). This Christian meaning of marriage, far from diminishing the profoundly human value of the marital union between man and woman, confirms and strengthens it (cf. Mt 19:3-12; Mk 10:6-9).

4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved”.(4)

Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts “as a serious depravity... (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”.(5) This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries(6) and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition.

Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided”.(7) They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity.(8) The homosexual inclination is however “objectively disordered”(9) and homosexual practices are “sins gravely contrary to chastity”.(10)

II. POSITIONS ON THE PROBLEM

OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS

5. Faced with the fact of homosexual unions, civil authorities adopt different positions. At times they simply tolerate the phenomenon; at other times they advocate legal recognition of such unions, under the pretext of avoiding, with regard to certain rights, discrimination against persons who live with someone of the same sex. In other cases, they favour giving homosexual unions legal equivalence to marriage properly so-called, along with the legal possibility of adopting children.

Where the government’s policy is de facto tolerance and there is no explicit legal recognition of homosexual unions, it is necessary to distinguish carefully the various aspects of the problem. Moral conscience requires that, in every occasion, Christians give witness to the whole moral truth, which is contradicted both by approval of homosexual acts and unjust discrimination against homosexual persons. Therefore, discreet and prudent actions can be effective; these might involve: unmasking the way in which such tolerance might be exploited or used in the service of ideology; stating clearly the immoral nature of these unions; reminding the government of the need to contain the phenomenon within certain limits so as to safeguard public morality and, above all, to avoid exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality and marriage that would deprive them of their necessary defences and contribute to the spread of the phenomenon. Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil.

In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.

III. ARGUMENTS FROM REASON AGAINST LEGAL

RECOGNITION OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS

6. To understand why it is necessary to oppose legal recognition of homosexual unions, ethical considerations of different orders need to be taken into consideration.

From the order of right reason

The scope of the civil law is certainly more limited than that of the moral law,(11) but civil law cannot contradict right reason without losing its binding force on conscience.(12) Every humanly-created law is legitimate insofar as it is consistent with the natural moral law, recognized by right reason, and insofar as it respects the inalienable rights of every person.(13) Laws in favour of homosexual unions are contrary to right reason because they confer legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to marriage, to unions between persons of the same sex. Given the values at stake in this question, the State could not grant legal standing to such unions without failing in its duty to promote and defend marriage as an institution essential to the common good.

It might be asked how a law can be contrary to the common good if it does not impose any particular kind of behaviour, but simply gives legal recognition to a de facto reality which does not seem to cause injustice to anyone. In this area, one needs first to reflect on the difference between homosexual behaviour as a private phenomenon and the same behaviour as a relationship in society, foreseen and approved by the law, to the point where it becomes one of the institutions in the legal structure. This second phenomenon is not only more serious, but also assumes a more wide-reaching and profound influence, and would result in changes to the entire organization of society, contrary to the common good. Civil laws are structuring principles of man’s life in society, for good or for ill. They “play a very important and sometimes decisive role in influencing patterns of thought and behaviour”.(14) Lifestyles and the underlying presuppositions these express not only externally shape the life of society, but also tend to modify the younger generation’s perception and evaluation of forms of behaviour. Legal recognition of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage.

From the biological and anthropological order

7. Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal recognition. Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the human race. The possibility of using recently discovered methods of artificial reproduction, beyond involv- ing a grave lack of respect for human dignity,(15) does nothing to alter this inadequacy.

Homosexual unions are also totally lacking in the conjugal dimension, which represents the human and ordered form of sexuality. Sexual relations are human when and insofar as they express and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes in marriage and are open to the transmission of new life.

As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.

From the social order

8. Society owes its continued survival to the family, founded on marriage. The inevitable consequence of legal recognition of homosexual unions would be the redefinition of marriage, which would become, in its legal status, an institution devoid of essential reference to factors linked to heterosexuality; for example, procreation and raising children. If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible form of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good. By putting homosexual unions on a legal plane analogous to that of marriage and the family, the State acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties.

The principles of respect and non-discrimination cannot be invoked to support legal recognition of homosexual unions. Differentiating between persons or refusing social recognition or benefits is unacceptable only when it is contrary to justice.(16) The denial of the social and legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice; on the contrary, justice requires it.

Nor can the principle of the proper autonomy of the individual be reasonably invoked. It is one thing to maintain that individual citizens may freely engage in those activities that interest them and that this falls within the common civil right to freedom; it is something quite different to hold that activities which do not represent a significant or positive contribution to the development of the human person in society can receive specific and categorical legal recognition by the State. Not even in a remote analogous sense do homosexual unions fulfil the purpose for which marriage and family deserve specific categorical recognition. On the contrary, there are good reasons for holding that such unions are harmful to the proper development of human society, especially if their impact on society were to increase.

From the legal order

9. Because married couples ensure the succession of generations and are therefore eminently within the public interest, civil law grants them institutional recognition. Homosexual unions, on the other hand, do not need specific attention from the legal standpoint since they do not exercise this function for the common good.

Nor is the argument valid according to which legal recognition of homosexual unions is necessary to avoid situations in which cohabiting homosexual persons, simply because they live together, might be deprived of real recognition of their rights as persons and citizens. In reality, they can always make use of the provisions of law – like all citizens from the standpoint of their private autonomy – to protect their rights in matters of common interest. It would be gravely unjust to sacrifice the common good and just laws on the family in order to protect personal goods that can and must be guaranteed in ways that do not harm the body of society.(17)

IV. POSITIONS OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS

WITH REGARD TO LEGISLATION IN FAVOUR

OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS

10. If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians. Faced with legislative proposals in favour of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to take account of the following ethical indications.

When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must oppose it in the ways that are possible for him and make his opposition known; it is his duty to witness to the truth. If it is not possible to repeal such a law completely, the Catholic politician, recalling the indications contained in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, “could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality”, on condition that his “absolute personal opposition” to such laws was clear and well known and that the danger of scandal was avoided.(18) This does not mean that a more restrictive law in this area could be considered just or even acceptable; rather, it is a question of the legitimate and dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment.

CONCLUSION

11. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.

The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, in the Audience of March 28, 2003, approved the present Considerations, adopted in the Ordinary Session of this Congregation, and ordered their publication.

Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 3, 2003, Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and his Companions, Martyrs.

Joseph Card. Ratzinger

Prefect

Angelo Amato, S.D.B.

Titular Archbishop of Sila

Secretary

NOTES

(1) Cf. John Paul II, Angelus Messages of February 20, 1994, and of June 19, 1994; Address to the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Council for the Family (March 24, 1999); Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2357-2359, 2396; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Persona humana (December 29, 1975), 8; Letter on the pastoral care of homosexual persons (October 1, 1986); Some considerations concerning the response to legislative proposals on the non-discrimination of homosexual persons (July 24, 1992); Pontifical Council for the Family, Letter to the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe on the resolution of the European Parliament regarding homosexual couples (March 25, 1994); Family, marriage and “de facto” unions (July 26, 2000), 23.

(2) Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life (November 24, 2002), 4.

(3) Cf. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, 48.

(4) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2357.

(5) Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Persona humana (December 29, 1975), 8.

(6) Cf., for example, St. Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians, V, 3; St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 27, 1-4; Athenagoras, Supplication for the Christians, 34.

(7) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2358; cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on the pastoral care of homosexual persons (October 1, 1986), 10.

(8) Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2359; cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on the pastoral care of homosexual persons (October 1, 1986), 12.

(9) Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2358.

(10) Ibid., No. 2396.

(11) Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae (March 25, 1995), 71.

(12) Cf. ibid., 72.

(13) Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 95, a. 2.

(14) John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae (March 25, 1995), 90.

(15) Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Donum vitae (February 22, 1987), II. A. 1-3.

(16) Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 63, a.1, c.

(17) It should not be forgotten that there is always “a danger that legislation which would make homosexuality a basis for entitlements could actually encourage a person with a homosexual orientation to declare his homosexuality or even to seek a partner in order to exploit the provisions of the law” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Some considerations concerning the response to legislative proposals on the non-discrimination of homosexual persons [July 24, 1992], 14).

(18) John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae (March 25, 1995), 73.

==============================

Commentary On “Homosexuality - Is It Wrong?” (Kwing Hung, 9211)

Note: “Homosexuality - is it wrong?” is a pamphlet that tries to justify homosexuality by arguing against Biblical passages.

“The Clarity of Scriptural Teaching” [Page 1]:

The argument tries to contradict two Biblical passages: Ex 20:13 and Lev 20:14. However, there is no contradiction. Ex 20:13 is a commandment for the individual while Lev 20:14 is a commandment for the state. Murder committed by an individual (which God prohibits) is vastly different from capital punishment performed by the state (which God permits). The authors simply confuses public and private duties.

Killing adversaries by church inquisitions in the Middle Ages was wrong because they did not apply the Bible correctly. Fighting a war (such as the crusades) is an entirely different ethical question; it is neither about murder nor about capital punishment.

It seems either the authors intend to confuse the main issue by raising various other issues of completely different nature or were ignorant of the distinction between different issues. However, the last statement that “the use of proof texts from the Bible in reaching ethical conclusions is not as straightforward a process as some think” is accurate and this is precisely the reason why the subject of Christian ethics is needed.

“The Biblical Framework” [Page 2]:

The statements that “Jesus actually changed some laws” and that the teaching of Jesus is “in apparent contradiction” show the authors’ lack of competence in Biblical exposition. Jesus showed here (Mt 12:1-8) that those laws are not absolute because: (1) extreme human need such as in the case of David overrules the regulation, (2) the law of Sabbath rest was not absolute as the priests were required by that very same law to work on the Sabbath, (3) God desires proper heart more than externals.

The question “Should the death sentence for same-sex behaviour hold firm, or will the law of love prevail?” is misleading because it tries to put the two options as mutually exclusive, that is, either “death sentence” or “law of love”. Homosexual persons are no longer executed because it is not serious enough to justify death penalty. The act is a sin, just like the sin of fornication. The society may accept it as normal behaviour but the church needs to regard it as sin and unacceptable behaviour.

“The church has reinterpreted before” [Page 3, Column 1]:

It is true that some Bible verses have been reinterpreted. Three examples are quoted here: (1) preaching by women, (2) obedience by slaves, and (3) remarriage of divorced persons.

Preaching of women should be allowed because there is no consistent teaching about this point in the Bible. Ac 21:9 and 1Co 11:5 describes prophecy by women and prophecy in NT context includes preaching and teaching (1Co 14:3). Thus Paul’s command is likely applicable only in the culture of the first century, or even only for the Corinthian or the Ephesian church.

Obedience by slaves is intended to be a command that preserves the social order since the authority of the government is from God. Paul never said that slavery is right. Slavery is recognized as wrong not because of reinterpretation but because of other Biblical principles about freedom.

As for remarriage of divorced persons, it is clear from the Bible that if the divorce is not a result of marital unfaithfulness or desertion by non﷓believing spouse, the divorcee will be committing adultery if he/she remarries. Thus the act of remarriage is an act of adultery; however, it is not a continuous act of adultery. Thus a proper way to treat those remarried persons is to discipline them (such as demanding a public or private confession and repentance) and afterwards accepting them. What should be done if a divorced person wants to remarry? He/she should be reminded that it is a sin but if not allowing him/her to remarry would result in fornication, he/she should be allowed to remarry but again done with some kind of discipline.

It should be pointed out that the above three cases do not involve anything inherently immoral so that reinterpretation in different cultures is possible. However, other things can be inherently immoral such as homosexuality. Since God is immutable or unchanged, what was offensive to God five thousand years ago is still offensive to God. Homosexuality, explained very clearly in the Bible, is offensive to God.

“The Bible counsels reinterpretation of itself” [Page 3, Column 2]:

As for the list of scriptural passages reinterpreted by the church, food laws and circumcision are OT laws and have been discussed in the Bible (the Word of God) as not applicable to NT believers. As for the others, including slavery, divorce, role of women, the same standard persists through church history, that is, applying the Bible.

There is no “breakdown of biblical moral codes” in the church today, only among those who did not follow the Bible.

“Tradition” [Page 4]:

“Can this evolving pluralism be a sign that the time has come to re﷓examine attitudes towards homosexuality?” No. Pluralism is accepted only within the confines of the Biblical moral standard. As described above, homosexuality is offensive to God from the beginning and is inherently immoral. No reinterpretation or re﷓examination should turn a sin into a non-sin.

“Reason & new knowledge” [Page 4]:

It is true that some biblical interpretations changed through time, but only in a minor way. There is no acceptable change in interpretation of the homosexuality passages.

The word “homosexuality” may be coined in the twentieth century (in a similar way, “trinity” is nowhere to be found in the Bible) but the prohibition of such behaviour is very clear in the Bible.

“Sodom and Gomorrah” [Page 5, Column 1]:

The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah may be more than just homosexuality but homosexuality is definitely practised by these people and is definitely the reason why Lot did not surrender the two angels. NIV is clear in this point; the Sodomites said, “Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” (Gen 19:5) The “unnatural lust” described in Jude 7 appears parallel to the “unnatural relations” in Ro 1:26. This is the majority view of Biblical scholars; yet, the report chooses to accept the position of “some” liberal scholars.

Male prostitution at the temple” [Page 5, Column 1]:

The report describes that “promiscuous sexual relations with both male and female prostitutes were part of the regular religious and fund-raising activities” is “a religious phenomena so alien to our current culture”. Have we not heard about the activities of the Satanic cult?

The report again chooses to accept the opinion of “some scholars” but not the majority view of Biblical scholars, and not the most obvious meaning. It should be reminded that the Bible was written for common people, not for “some scholars” who try to bend its meaning at every turn.

Homosexual perverts [Page 5, Column 2]:

In the second paragraph, the report apparently affirms the authority of the Bible by even analyzing the original language of the Bible. In the three paragraph, the report then contradicts its position by expressing doubt: “is condemnation of homosexuality the religion of Jesus, of Paul, or of later believers and their organizational structures?” If the authority of the Bible is to be discounted at the end, why bother to study the Greek terms?

Jesus did not speak about homosexuality possibly because everyone in the Jewish culture knew it was wrong and it was not a serious problem in that area.

“Gay Positive Passages” [Page 6, Column 1]:

I find this section most objectionable because it is blasphemy by suggesting that “even Jesus shared without shame” [Paragraph 3, last line] homosexual physical affection. Whoever wrote this, beware on the Judgment Day!

The Bible describes that John “laid his head on Jesus’ breast” is translated as “was reclining next to him” by NIV. The reason why John’s head was close to Jesus’ breast is simply because under Jewish custom at that time, people reclined on the ground around the table supported by one arm. In this position, the one locating next to Jesus (which happened to be John at that time) would have his head close to Jesus’ breast.

This section is written with the presumption that all same-sex affection can only be “homo-erotic” affection [Paragraph 1, Line 11], thus denying the existence of close friendship between people of the same sex. It is true that there is love between David and Jonathan, between Naomi and Ruth, and between Jesus and John. But nowhere in the Bible is any hint of homo-erotic physical affection.

The greatest harm this section can do to its readers is the deception of intertwining truth and falsehood so unsuspecting readers would first accept some true statements and unknowingly accept subsequent false reasoning. In the first paragraph, Bible verses (truth) are first quoted, followed by explaining the love between David and Jonathan as “homo-erotic affections” (falsehood). The second paragraph tries to set a trap by expanding “homosexuality” to include “friendship” (falsehood). In the third paragraph, Bible verses (truth) are again quoted, followed by attributing the love between Naomi and Ruth, and between Jesus and John as homosexual relationships (falsehood). The fourth paragraph starts out to affirm same-sex affection (truth), followed by extending physical lust as a natural component of this affection (falsehood). The use of the phrase “heart, body and mind” is an excellent example of this technique of deception. The three does not follow a logical sequence and slipping “body” in the middle probably intends to make the readers accept them without questioning.

“What is Natural?” [Page 6, Column 2]:

This section tries to explain away the passage in Romans 1:26-27 by: (1) questioning the meaning of “natural” [Paragraph 2], (2) discrediting opposition of homosexuality with unanswered questions [Paragraph 3], (3) using Plato as an authority to uphold the legitimacy of homosexuality [Paragraph 4], (4) providing incorrect explaining of Bible verses [Paragraph 5].

First, on the definition of “natural”, it is very clear from the Bible verses that “natural” means heterosexual relationship. The verse explicitly describes men as “unnatural” by “giving up natural intercourse with women”.

Second, on the answered questions, the authors deliberately attempt to create doubts in the reader’s mind by not answering them. By answering them, the effect will be lost as homosexuality is not “genetic”, and not caused by “hormonal difference”, although homosexual practice will alter physical aspects of the participants. It is not “contagious” and not “one of the givens in the mysterious origins of the personality”. Homosexuality can be a “response to certain family dynamics”, can be “taught by example”, and can be a “learned behaviour”. This last point is precisely why education is needed to teach children the sinful nature of homosexuality. Homosexuality, defined by God as a sin, is never a gift from God.

Thirdly, by quoting Plato, the authors give preference to the moral standard of this world over that of the Bible. [I would like to find out what Plato is talking about in Symposium; it may only be about friendship. - Kwing]

Fourthly, on the interpretation of Bible verses, the authors first attempt a poor explanation that the passage in Romans is not “a condemnation of same-sex love in itself” but they apparently (or deliberately) forget the same truth expressed in many other Bible passages. As for the other passages quoted, they are all misused. Romans 14:14 is about food, not behaviour; Titus 1:15 contrasts “the pure” with “the corrupted and the unbelieved” and a homosexual Christian is at the very least a corrupted believer; First Corinthians 7:24 is about the calling of God and homosexuality is never a calling of God. The NIV translation is clearer: “Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.”

This section ends again with three unanswered questions containing half truths -- a deceptive ploy to create doubts. Homosexuality may not be “exploitive, irresponsible, disrespectful, destructive” but more importantly, it is a sin in the eyes of God.

“The liturgy” [Page 7]:

The church, in being the bride of Jesus, is to be pure. No condolence of sin (in the form of homosexual marriages) is unacceptable.

Not being procreative and threatening the traditional family may be good reasons for rejecting homosexuality but it is not the main reason. Again, the main reason is that it is a sin in the eyes of God.

Homosexuality is a barrier to communication with God because it is a sin. There is no evidence that a practising homosexual can be a spiritually strong Christian.

“Social justice issues” [Page 8]:

Where is the statistical proof that “criminal abuse of children is committed mainly by heterosexual males”?

However, it is also incorrect to accept the stereotype of all homosexuals as being child molesters. We are not holding to such stereotyping.

“The gospel of love” [Page 8]:

Using a Bible verse (Hos 4:5), quoted out of context, to increase the legitimacy of the argument is wrong.

The verse on judgment (Mt 7:1) is again wrongly applied. The Bible does not prohibit us from judging, otherwise no Christian can be a court judge. The Bible encourages us to discern. The judgment against homosexuality is founded on the Word of God.

Homosexuality is more than “not conform to traditionally accepted norms”; it violates the moral rule of God.

It is true that the greatest commandment is love, not loving your neighbours alone, but more importantly, loving God. How do we put this into action? We are to love the homosexuals but we are to reject their continual sinning as homosexual acts (not homosexual tendencies) are sin in God’s eyes. Homosexuality, just like adultery or fornication, is one of the sins. If someone in the body of Christ sins (for example, committing adultery or committing homosexual acts), he/she is to be disciplined and to be encouraged to repent and not to sin anymore. It he/she continues to sin despite warnings, he/she cannot be accepted normally into the fellowship. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether his/her salvation is real as 1Jn 3:6 says: “No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him.”

Kwing Hung, Ph.D.

November 4, 1992

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AIDS And The Local Church (Free Methodist Position Paper)

The Church’s response to AIDS within our society and to those who are affected by it was an item of concern for the CSCOD. AIDS was also an agenda item for the North American SCOD. This latter group produced a paper, entitled “AIDS and the Local Church,” for presentation to the North American General Conference held in Anderson, Indiana, June 29-July 6, 1995. [It begins at the next paragraph of this chapter.] In its review of this paper, the C-SCOD determined it applicable within the Canadian context, and that there was little to be gained in producing its own statement. However, it was recognized that the paper was written for an American audience: there was need to clarify and to provide Canadian information sources. To this end the reader is reminded that the names of government departments and agencies are those of the government of the United States. Canadian sources are listed at the end of this chapter.

Persons living with AIDS are in need of the church’s love and care. Due to a variety of reasons, many Christians withdraw from these hurting people in their moment of greatest need. To help Free Methodists understand both the disease and our own response to it, SCOD presents the following document for use in the local church. It provides prudent guidelines for those working in ministry situations where some one may be infected. It further offers counsel on many social and theological issues involved with the AIDS epidemic.

Originally disseminated through the Department of Christian Education by the Social Action Council, the following document has been reviewed and modified by SCOD. It is designed, not as a definitive statement, but as a practical study for the local church. Those congregations wishing to do further study are given assistance in the select bibliography which follows.

5.1 AIDS and the Free Methodist Church

As Free Methodists, we care deeply about all people. This care for people has caused us to make a commitment to identifying persons in need and making special effort to minister to them. Persons with HIV and the AIDS complex are in need of such ministry. The Free Methodist Church of North America through its Social Action Council presents the following discussion to help provide that ministry. What follows is designed as a guide for pastors, official boards and individual members in understanding and meeting the unique challenges of this ministry. The discussion focuses on three main areas of concern: Biological Realities, Theological Understandings, and Ministry Implications. Following this discussion are some common questions and answers dealing with specific issues.

5.2 Biological Realities

The Department of Health and Human Services explains “AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, is a disease in which the body’s immune system breaks down. The immune system fights off infections and certain other diseases. Because the system fails, a person with AIDS develops a variety of life-threatening illnesses.

“AIDS is caused by the virus called the HIV, human immunodeficiency virus. A virus is a small germ that can cause disease. If HIV enters your bloodstream, you may become infected with HIV. A special blood test can detect HIV infection. A person who is infected can infect others, even if no symptoms are present. You cannot tell by looking at someone whether or not he or she is infected with HIV. An infected person can appear completely healthy.”

“You can become infected with HIV/AIDS in two main ways:

* Having sexual intercourse - vaginal, anal or perhaps oral - with an infected person;

* Sharing drug needles or syringes with an infected person.

“Some children have become infected from their HIV positive mothers, either during pregnancy or during breast feeding. Some people have become infected from blood transfusions or contact with the blood of an infected person.

“Anal intercourse with an infected person is one of the ways HIV has been most frequently transmitted.”

“The AIDS virus is fragile and does not live outside the body. Normal room temperatures, germicides and disinfectants like 10% household bleach will kill the virus within a few minutes. Only when the virus enters the blood stream and invades the helper T-cells can it survive.”

5.3 Theological Understandings

The question of disease and its theological meaning has been asked in a variety of ways, but its most basic form is: “Do people get sick as some form of punishment from God for sin in their lives?” A current form of the question runs, “Is HIV/AIDS a punishment from God?”

To answer this question requires a clear understanding both of God’s relationship to human beings and of human responsibility. The central message of the Bible is that God loves all human beings “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). Because of His love God provides all the resources of the Trinity to offer forgiveness, healing, restoration and adoption to all people who respond in repenting faith. It is not God’s desire that any one should perish, and he is actively seeking those who are lost. Although there are instances within Scripture in which disease is a direct action of God, such as in the life of Gehazi, the servant of Elisha (2 Kings 5:27), the teachings of Jesus make it clear that disease ordinarily is not something God directly uses to punish sin, as in the story of the healing of the man born blind (John 9:3).

So the first part of the equation is that God is love. Although sovereign and He could relate to us in any way He chooses, disease in the ordinary sense is a result of original sin and does not represent ‘punishment’ from God in the direct sense of that word.

But that is not the entire issue. The Bible also explains that human beings are responsible for the choices they make in life. These choices are real and carry real consequences, both in this life and in the life to come. Disease is often a consequence of choices people make. People, of course, do not choose to get sick. Choices leading to illness are often made long before when lifestyle decisions are made concerning the care and activities of the body. The Bible explains that there are certain activities which will tend to health and long life. There are also certain decisions which have immediate and long-term negative consequences.

One of these decisions has to do with sexual activity. The Bible explains that sex should be chosen for marriage only. When sexual activity is chosen outside of marriage, then the consequences of that decision are experienced at all levels of a person’s life. At the simple level of physical consequences, the act of sexual intercourse is so intimate that disease is given from body to body. At the levels of emotional bonding and spiritual union, sexual intercourse unites two people in even more profound ways. The powerful purpose of sexual intimacy is designed to share everything we are with another person. This dynamic does not change just because a person chooses to be promiscuous. Instead, it simply multiplies the sharing so that each person with whom someone is intimate shares any disease he or she may have with every other person with whom that person is intimate thereafter. As proverbs 6:32 states it, “A man who commits adultery lacks judgment; whoever does so destroys himself.” The punishment is not necessarily something God actively sends, but rather the consequences of sexual activity outside of marriage carries with it the destruction of communicable diseases.

The fact that AIDS is a weak virus, and takes the intimacy of sexual activities to keep it alive long enough to be passed from person to person, is simply a biological expression of a deeper spiritual principle. Sexual activity is meant to make two people one, at all levels of their lives. If the choice is made to be promiscuous, then the consequence of ‘catching’ what the others have occurs. God simply warns us and tells us to protect ourselves from this by waiting for and confining sexual activity to marriage. Sexual activity is meant to help make two people (husband and wife) one, at all levels of their lives.

The fact that AIDS is spread most often through the anal intercourse of homosexual males may or may not be God’s ‘punishment’ of homosexuality, but certainly is a consequence of the violation of the body that this unnatural activity involves. The promiscuity of homosexual males results in the same consequence as promiscuity of heterosexual persons.

The same understanding is helpful for the second most common way of contracting AIDS, that of intravenous drug use. The risky behaviour of drug use carries with it a host of consequences, none of which is God’s desire for human beings. AIDS is only one of those. As any loving father, our Heavenly Father’s loving heart is hurting when he sees any of his children suffering. It is not His desire that people suffer the consequences inherent within the drug use.

In a very small percentage of cases, HIV/AIDS is contracted through innocent means such as birth, transfusions, kissing. Theologically the understanding is the same as for any other case when an innocent person suffers due to the actions of others. The choices of people around us affect all of us, including the spread of fatal disease. Innocent people are often unfairly hurt by the choices of others, thus loving others is central to the Christian message.

Human choice is responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS. It is not God’s desire that any should perish. He wants every person to turn to Him and obey His ways so that it will go well with him/her, and they will live long in the land.

5.4 Ministry Implications

Ministry in the age of HIV/AIDS focuses on two areas. The first is prudent precautions that need to be instituted by nursery attendants, youth workers and church members; the second is ministry possibilities which this epidemic affords.

5.4.1 Prudent Precautions

The Center for Disease Control gives what they term “universal precautions” for handling spills of blood or bodily fluids to minimize the risk of spreading communicable diseases. Adapting these precautions to the church, the following guidelines would be prudent for each church to follow.

1. For all situations:

a. GLOVES: Disposable gloves should be worn for handling blood and blood-contaminated bodily fluids and for handling items or surfaces soiled with the same. Change the gloves after each contact. Remove gloves carefully by pulling them off inside out. Hands should be immediately washed after gloves are removed.

b. GERMICIDE: All surfaces which have been contaminated with blood should be cleansed with germicide and disposable paper towels.

c. HAND WASHING: Washing the hands is necessary after contact with urine, stool, vomitus, tears, nasal secretions, oral secretions, and diaper changes. Exposure to these non-blood contaminated fluids does not require gloves unless visible blood is present.

d. OPEN SORES: No person having an open or weeping skin sore should come into contact with any other person’s blood or bodily fluid. All wounds should be covered with medical dressing.

e. DISPOSAL: All cleanup materials should be disposed of in a trash can lined with a disposable liner and discarded safely.

2. Care of infants and children in the church nursery and child-care settings:

(The following are stated in a form which could be posted.)

a. Children with weeping sores or aggressive biting behaviours will be asked to remain with their parents or adult guardian.

b. Nursery attendants will wear disposable gloves when changing a child’s diaper or providing first-aid to bleeding wounds. Nursery attendants with weeping sores or cuts will cover these with medical dressings.

c. Changing tables will be disinfected after each use.

d. Nursery equipment (cribs, swings, walkers, play pens, etc.) will be disinfected weekly. Items which are intended for oral use by a child will not be shared.

e. A sign should be posted in the Nursery or child-care area stating: “ANYONE USING NURSERY FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT IS REQUIRED TO CLEAN USED EQUIPMENT WITH THE PROVIDED GERMICIDE.”

f. Nursery attendants are responsible to provide prudent protection of all children and take whatever additional precautions are deemed necessary.

3. Care of youth and adults at church events and camps:

a. Bleeding injuries should be treated with utmost care. Gloves should be worn during first-aid treatment and all contamination quickly disinfected. Open sores should be immediately covered with medical dressings.

b. During youth events and camps, guidelines should be given to discourage high-risk behaviours including sexual intercourse and prolonged open-mouth kissing.

c. Youth sponsors and adult coordinators are responsible to provide prudent instructions and program safeguards to lessen any risk of infection.

5.4.2 Ministry Possibilities

Ministry in this time of HIV/AIDS is vital and needs to be approached in two ways. First, helping non-infected persons deal with fear, judgmental attitudes and prejudice; and second, helping infected persons deal with the disease by providing love, dignity and accountability.

Providing Love:

What is most needed in every person’s life is the love of Jesus Christ and His people. When a person has a terminal illness and especially one with the social stigma of HIV/AIDS, this need is intensified. The opportunity to love is abundant and if current predictions hold true, the opportunity is going to expand in the future. The church can respond in a variety of ways and each congregation should choose those responses harmonious with its style of ministry.

The church can begin to pray for persons with AIDS. The church can reach out in purposeful ways. This reaching out might include a ministry to homes where AIDS patients are needing care for their terminal state. This ministry would involve a listening ear and constant prayer. There are as many possibilities as there are local churches. Each church is encouraged to take its place of ministry and share the love of Jesus.

Providing Dignity:

After love, the next most crucial need of persons is for dignity. When a person is stripped of his or her self-esteem, then the overwhelming physical realities destroy the soul as well as the body. Every person has the need to know that God loves them and they have value in our eyes because they have infinite value in God’s. This value provides a dignity which can overcome the physical, social and psychological ravaging of AIDS.

When the church has confessed and repented of its fear, judgmental attitudes and prejudice, the church is ready to provide dignity to HIV/AIDS persons by showing love, honour and respect for them as persons. This respectful guarding of each person’s dignity then sets the stage for the final ministry, that of accountability.

Providing Accountability:

Once a person has experienced the love and dignity of Jesus and His church, the foundation is laid for the offer of forgiveness of sin and the cleansing of all that is not right in the individual’s life. This simple truth is the greatest gift the church has to give any person. Although it is true that HIV/AIDS is not a sin but a disease, it is also true that there MAY be a need for confession, forgiveness and cleansing in the person’s life. The church does a great disservice when we do not address the deeper spiritual truth of the need of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. It is not appropriate for us to assume that the HIV/AIDS person, whether promiscuous, homosexual, or drug-user, will not be open to the good news of Jesus Christ, for this is the only true solution to their eternal need.

The opportunity for persons to receive forgiveness can come through a variety of ministries, including personal one-on-one conversation as well as reaching out to various groups of persons in their time of need. Let us not lose faith that many will respond in faith and find true, eternal healing and life.

Ministering to Fear:

“James Nelson, a Christian ethicist, has noted that AIDS combines two of the most anxiety-ridden dimensions of human life: sexuality and death. It seems that more fear is touched off by these aspects of life than any others.”

Although the research is continually supporting the fact that you cannot contract HIV/AIDS through casual contact such as shaking hands, hugging, sharing pews and toilet facilities, nevertheless, the fear is present any time a person knows an infected person. This fear, if not faced and understood, could lead to either a lack of ministry to these hurting persons, or even to a cruel exclusion of these persons from the vital love of the church.

The fear is not only present in the non-infected persons. The fear is overwhelming when the disease is contracted: fear of death, fear of pain, fear of being ostracized, fear of God, even fear of lie. Since the disease is not a specific illness, but is rather the lack of protection against all illnesses, the fear becomes an overwhelming presence in everything within the person’s life.

Ministering to the fear is a central purpose of the church. Clear discussion of the prudent precautions that need to be taken can begin to calm the fears of the non-infected persons. When these fears are overcome, then an understanding of the infected person’s fears and needs elicits the compassion that Jesus expressed for the diseased persons of his day. This compassion ministry could focus on such areas as: deliberated inclusion of persons with AIDS into church fellowship; providing support groups; reaching out to persons dying of AIDS in local hospitals and facilities.

Ministering to Judgmental Attitudes:

When behaviour choices result in pain and death, some people feel judgmental toward the persons in pain. This judgmental attitude may come from a sense of superiority and can lead to a callous feeling toward the person in pain. Since the behaviour choices which are most common in contacting HIV/AIDS are promiscuity, homosexuality and drug use, it is easy for persons in the church to embrace a judgmental attitude. This is not helpful to the ministry of Jesus Christ’s church.

Jesus teaches humility and compassion as the response toward persons in pain. Although we never excuse the sin, nor want to validate the promiscuity, homosexuality or drug use, the response of the church must be humbly to offer the compassionate forgiveness and healing of Jesus Christ. Creating the opportunity to face judgmental attitudes within the church is as vital a ministry as providing the opportunity for change in the behavioral choices of others.

This ministry can occur within a variety of means from formal sermons and classes looking at our own judgmental attitudes to the informal loving confrontations by which Christians help Christians recognize and ask forgiveness for judgmental comments and viewpoints.

This judgmental attitude also can be practiced by infected persons toward the church. Infected persons will undoubtedly experience some form of fearful rejection or judgmental attitudes by their church family. This experience can shift their own attention to the ‘sins’ of others, and tempt the infected person to then respond in a superior or judgmental way. Therefore, for the sake of everyone, humility, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance need to be taught in formal and informal settings.

Ministering to Prejudice:

Although prejudice is similar to having judgmental attitudes, there is a practical difference: a person’s judgmental attitudes are usually due to verifiable sinful behaviours, while prejudice is a reactionary response based on unverified and assumed beliefs. There are many prejudicial beliefs about HIV/AIDS, homosexual and drug-using persons as well as many prejudicial beliefs held by such persons about church people. These prejudices often cause both church and infected persons to respond in ways that lack understanding and depth.

To minister to the prejudice, the church can provide information and discussion-opportunities concerning the realities of HIV/AIDS. The use of this report can be a good start. There are also other resources which could be helpful including: THE AIDS PREVENTION GUIDE printed by the Center for Disease Control; The American Red Cross has some excellent brochures. (AIDS: The Facts; Children, Parents and AIDS; Drugs, Sex and AIDS; School Systems and AIDS: Information for Teachers and School Officials; Teenagers and AIDS; Women, Sex, and AIDS; Your Job and AIDS: Are There Risks?)

To minister to the prejudice of infected persons, the church can actively seek to include such persons in the life of the church. Such inclusion can be designed to bring people face to face with the love of God’s people and deepen the personal bond needed to minister in a time of such vital need.

5.5 Questions and Answers

1. What can I do to protect myself from getting AIDS?

The American Red Cross published three pamphlets which give excellent answers to this. Some of their counsel includes:

a. “Not having sex and not experimenting with drugs is the best protection against HIV/AIDS.”

b. “Avoiding sex before marriage ... and having sex only with the same person (being faithful) is the best protection against the sexual spread of the AIDS virus (HIV) as long as other risky behaviours have not occurred.”

2. What about SAFE SEX: is a condom effective in protecting me?

The Center for Disease Control is less than convinced, in fact they say, “Far from being foolproof, condoms may break during intercourse. You have to use them properly, and you have to use them every time you have sex - vaginal, anal, and oral. The only sure way to avoid infection through sex is to abstain from sexual intercourse, or engage in sexual intercourse only with someone who is not infected.”

So the answer is NO, research shows that condoms fail about 30% of the time.

3. Can I get HIV/AIDS from only one sexual experience with an infected person?

Yes. HIV/AIDS is a sexually transmitted virus. Any form of sexual contact in which bodily fluids are exchanged can infect you.

4. Doesn’t a person with HIV/AIDS look sick?

No, not necessarily. The incubation period is so long that a person can be a carrier for years before developing the AIDS complex.

5. Can I contract HIV/AIDS from hugging or cuddling?

Not as far as we know now. Although some questions have risen about kissing, the majority of the experts feel that closed-mouth kissing is safe since saliva kills the virus. Prolonged open-mouth kissing is more of a question since the danger is present when bodily fluids are exchanged and if there are sores or cuts in the gums or mouth. A warm embrace is not dangerous even with an infected person.

6. Can I contract HIV/AIDS from an infected person coughing or sneezing on me?

The AMERICAN RED CROSS assures us this has been researched and does not occur. In fact, they state that you also can NOT become infected from touching, spitting, drinking fountains, sweat or tears, mosquitoes and other insects, eating food prepared by someone infected, sharing toilets, or showers, forks, knives, spoons or cups. You also can NOT become infected from sharing clothes, chairs, pencils, desks, or swimming in public swimming pools.

7. Can I get HIV/AIDS from touching the blood of an infected person?

Perhaps. The danger occurs when the blood of the infected person gets into your body through a cut, sore or some other break in the skin. It is wise to not have contact with the blood of another person until you’ve taken common first aid procedures. If you come into contact with someone else’s blood, a thorough washing with soap and water is advised.

8. Do birth control pills protect you?

No. Birth control pills provide no protection against the HIV virus; neither do diaphragms or other forms of birth control.

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Homosexual Behaviour (Free Methodist Position Paper)

This statement on Homosexual Behavior was approved by the 2002 Canadian General Conference of The Free Methodist Church in Canada and is the official position of the FMCIC.

Homosexual behaviour is regarded by the Scriptures as immoral because it is a distortion of God’s created order, a practice contrary to nature. The sanctity of marriage and the family is to be protected against all manner of immoral conduct (Exodus 22:16-17; Deuteronomy 22:23-28; Leviticus 20:10-16). The Scriptures speak explicitly against homosexual practice (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26,27; I Corinthians 6:9,10; I Timothy 1:8-10). Therefore, as Christians, we regard homosexual behaviour as contrary to God’s creation plan.

The church has a corporate responsibility to be God’s agent of healing, ministering in love to those involved in homosexual behaviour and giving them support as they learn to live a Christian life that is wholesome and pure (I Corinthians 2:7,8).”

- The Manual of the Free Methodist Church in Canada

Resources for Responding in a Faithful Christian Fashion to Homosexuals and to the Issue of Homosexual Behaviour

Note: The following resources are samples of the many writers who see the biblical data pointing in the direction reflected in the statement above. However, we are not implying that Free Methodism in Canada would agree with every point or assertion in these good works. In all of them, there is fairness in argumentation, a serious attempt to discern the mind of the whole of the Bible, and a willingness to examine the many dimensions of a phenomenon that is far from simple.

Stanley J. Grenz, Welcoming But Not Affirming: An Evangelical Response to Homosexuality (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).

Grenz (Professor of Theology and Ethics at Carey/Regent College in Vancouver) makes the distinction between acceptance of the homosexual person and approval of homosexual behaviour with clarity and respect for both biblical authority and the complexity of the subject. Grenz takes pains to be fair to opposing views, and deals not only with the moral reasoning involved, but also with the church’s treatment of homosexuals.

James P. Hanigan, Homosexuality: The Test Case for Christian Sexual Ethics (Paulist Press, 1988).

Hanigan (Professor of Moral Theology at Duquesnes University in Pittsburg) examines with care data from both the human sciences and the biblical tradition. He is particularly strong in untangling the complexities of moral reasoning involved in the issue.

John R. W. Stott, “Homosexual Partnerships?” Involvement: Social and Sexual Relationships in the Modern World, Volume II (Revell, 1985), pp. 215-244.

Stott (rector for 25 years of All Souls Church in London) writes in a less technical fashion than the first two. Nonetheless he is effective in “unpacking” the issues involved.

Jerry Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Baker, 1996).

Satinover (an M.D.) deals extensively with what scientific research actually says about homosexuality. If you would like access to a summary of some of his research in a simple question and answer format, check his article at this URL on the internet: http://www.anotherway.com/issues/gene.html

Susan Brill, “Showing God’s Love In The Gay Community,” Discipleship Issue 99, p. 78.

In this brief article, Brill points out that the way Christians have sometimes treated homosexuals has given us a serious credibility problem with non-Christians. She suggests principles for showing God’s love to homosexuals and others who are often shunned.

Richard Hays, “Homosexuality,” The Moral Vision of the New Testament (Harper, 1996), pp. 379-406.

Hays (Professor of New Testament at Duke University) wrestles carefully with the texts, and with the larger teaching of the Bible in responding to views from the contemporary culture.

John White, “The World and the Homosexual,” Flirting With the World (Shaw, 1982), pp. 83-94.

White (trained as a medical doctor and psychiatrist, and prolific writer) argues that the church tends to be made up of people with the same three kinds of responses to this issue as in the non-Christian world: those who express scorn, contempt, and hostility toward homosexuality, those who are indifferent to the issue, and those who champion the rights of homosexuals to live according to their orientation. Instead he calls for the Christian community to deal with the issue in a merciful but godly manner. See also his “Two Halves Do Not Make a Whole,” Eros Defiled: The Christian and Sexual Sin (I.V.P., 1977), pp. 105-139 and his “Part II: Men, Women and Sex,” Eros Redeemed: Breaking the Stranglehold of Sexual Sin, (I.V.P., 1993) pp. 101-182.

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Resource - Pastoral Care and Homosexuals (Free Methodist Position Paper)

The Banner

Volume 137, Number 12 (July 8, 2002), p. 27 reported the results of a major study on providing pastoral care to homosexual people.

The following is shared with the permission of _ The Banner_, a publication of the Christian Reformed Church. The study paper can be found at http://www.crcna.org/cr/crrs/crrs_art/crrs_synod_pastoralcare2002.pdf

PROVIDING PASTORAL CARE TO HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE

The following are highlights from the synodical report by the Committee to Give Direction about and for Pastoral Care for Homosexual Members of the CRC:

1. All people, including homosexual people, should be encouraged to seek whatever healing God may provide for them. The report includes guidelines to help individuals and churches determine whether or not specific ministries to homosexual persons are effective.

2. Since how we label or identify people often defines them, Christians should beware of reducing people to some aspect of their identity, which can be dehumanizing. The church ought to enfold homosexual people with the hope of empowering them to live beyond their sexual identity.

3. Self-control is a gift of the Spirit, one of the fruits of the Spirit but also a command to be obeyed (see Titus 2:11-15, 2 Pet. 1:5-6). Homosexual people, like all other Christians, must exercise self control in order to live sexually chaste lives.

4. Christians should use language that describes the church community as the family of God. Because the church is a new community full of people from a variety of backgrounds, it needs to provide a haven for all members.

5. Christians should model and encourage intimate nonsexual relationships with people of the same gender and the opposite gender.

6. Churches should provide an environment for confession of sins and accountability to other Christians, both in small-group settings and public worship. Congregational prayers should include petitions for the health and well-being of single Christians’ relationships.

7. Sermons should refer to a wide variety of sexual sins and give examples of God’s grace and comfort to people who struggle with brokenness.

8. Churches should also offer pastoral care to the extended family of homosexual members.

9. The Christian community should insist on the political, civil, and social rights of all people, including homosexual people, in the larger context of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8).

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Homophobe bashing (National Post, 031130)

David Warren

Larry Spencer probably spoke for as many Canadians as elected the last Liberal government in Ottawa, when he blotted his copybook this week. Not, of course, the same people; just, I would estimate, about the same number of people. During an interview with the Vancouver Sun, the Alliance Party’s soon-to-be-former family issues critic called his own party’s bluff in the debate around “gay marriage”. He, who was formerly a Baptist pastor, gamely attacked the whole project of homosexual activism, dating back to the 1960s, earning himself the title of “dinosaur”.

You might not guess it from the media reports, but Mr. Spencer is clear in thought and articulate in expression -- rather more so than most Members of Parliament. Certainly intelligent enough to know what he is up against, and how comfortable it would be for him to keep his mouth shut. The speed with which he withdrew from his position, once the flames shot up, suggested a low pain threshhold, however.

To say that the “gay revolution” was “well-orchestrated”, and set in motion over time, is to pay a backhand compliment to its organizers. In my own experience, the lobbying and propagandizing for what its exponents call “gay rights” has been very impressive. It had to be, to succeed -- for when the activists claim that our society was formerly “homophobic”, they are telling the truth. It took a tremendous amount of clever manoeuvring to cover the political distance of the last forty years -- to move a huge chunk of society from an unthinking homophobia to an equally unthinking homophilia. To turn a moral objection into moral approval.

Needless to say, the movement is disinclined to take a bow. Its success, as the success of each other of our many overlapping social revolutions, is predicated on “victimhood”. Even now that the shoe is on the other foot, and it is far more dangerous to speak against homosexuality than it once was to speak in favour, and homophobe-bashing has become more socially acceptable than gay-bashing ever was, the idea of its own victimhood is sustained, by the victorious party.

And while it may not be politically correct to admit that there ever was such a thing as gay activism, or that the “evolution of society” was ever advanced by the conscious efforts of the evolutionists, there can be no dispute about the results of the process. For even a self-declared “conservative” newspaper, such as the National Post, felt obliged to put a front-page commentary under its news article about Mr. Spencer, suggesting that the suppression of him would be a test of Stephen Harper’s Alliance Party leadership, and crucial to its impending merger with the Progressive Conservatives. Mr. Harper then immediately did as instructed.

But let me return to my first proposition, that in his disapproval not merely of “gay marriage”, but of homosexuality itself, Mr. Spencer speaks for a substantial number of Canadians.

There are wheels within wheels, revolutions within revolutions as we advance down the road of our national apostasy. To take one example, we have now established as a matter of practical politics that criminal law may be written in this country with the approval of “50 per cent plus one” of whoever is voting (more likely a court than a legislature).

This overthrows what was previously believed in our bones about criminal law -- that an act becomes a crime only when an overwhelming majority believe it is a crime. Conversely, that special public privileges -- such as those attaching to traditional marriage -- can only be conferred with overwhelming public support.

This is why murder is a crime, and theft, and robbery, and the more remunerative forms of fraud, and why -- until less than two generations ago -- abortion was a serious crime in this country. It was so because an overwhelming majority of Canadians believed it to be so. And they believed that because, through many generations, most of them had been Christian. The law was made by the secular state, but the secular state reflected the people, and the people were not value-free.

Likewise, sodomy was a crime. The great majority of persons thought it so, and the state made it so. That law was not frequently enforced, chiefly because the practice was kept invisible. Yet one of the purposes of law in society is the conservative one, of discouraging people from committing acts simply because they know them to be crimes -- the criminal law thus tending to uphold the kind of public consensus that makes a civilized order of society possible.

When Pierre Trudeau shepherded (or, wolved) our old sodomy laws out of existence, he brilliantly declared that “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”. This was also a widely accepted proposition, long before the late prime minister uttered the words. It was why sodomy wasn’t prosecuted except in the most flagrant instances. Homosexuals were “in the closet”, and the laws against sodomy kept them there.

Trudeau would have been very foolish to announce, in 1969, that he was making sodomy legal because homosexuality is a good thing. Instead he went out of his way to make disapproving, homophobic noises -- as cover to get his bill passed without a revolt by the “God squad” on his own backbenches.

If he had said, “And some day, we will have gay marriage,” it would have been the end of his career. The trick was done one step at a time, and society “was evolved” towards successively more radical propositions, until today it “goes without saying”, among the self-described emancipated types, that homosexual acts are no better nor worse than heterosexual acts -- in a society where chastity is right out of the question.

But note -- a large minority, and from some angles even a majority (depending on how the poll questions are asked) haven’t gone along for the ride. And if the further evolution of public opinion on the abortion issue gives any indication, most of them won’t be going along. An overwhelming majority is needed to make an “evolutionary development” stick, and if you don’t have it, the thing will eventually come loose again.

All trends are reversible. The very de-Christianization of our society is a reversible trend. And while he may now look foolish and exposed, Mr. Spencer may prove, by his radical rejection of a radical reversal of our moral ideas, to have been a man ahead of his time.

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Conservative Confusions: Working on the next step (NRO, 031222)

In the weeks since the Massachusetts supreme court decided to impose gay marriage on the state, social conservatives have been losing the political debate over the issue. Already the language is changing. Democratic presidential candidates have even started referring to “non-same-sex marriage,” and columnists to “op-sex marriage” — by which they mean what we all used to describe, before November, simply as “marriage.”

Republicans have not decided how to respond to the court. Constitutional amendments to prohibit gay marriage have been introduced in both the House and the Senate. But proponents of the amendment have not decided how broadly it should be drawn. The White House has not said whether it would support an amendment. Some Republican leaders remain confused about the legal landscape. Speaker Denny Hastert, for example, has suggested that action can wait until a court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act. He might be waiting forever: The courts could impose gay marriage on all 50 states without touching that act.

Several prominent conservative commentators have declared their opposition to a constitutional amendment. Their arguments deserve to be taken seriously. But they are not, in our view, persuasive.

We assume that David Brooks, now a columnist for the New York Times, opposes the amendment for the most straightforward of reasons: He supports gay marriage. Conservatives, he argues, should not just “allow” gay marriage but “insist” on it. Social pressures should be brought to bear on homosexuals so that they will refrain from promiscuity and settle down to married life. If that is the conservative case for gay marriage, what would the utopian one be? Brooks writes that many conservatives “have latched on to biological determinism (men are savages who need women to tame them) as a convenient way to oppose gay marriage.” He continues, “But in fact we are not animals whose lives are bounded by our flesh and by our gender. We’re moral creatures with souls, endowed with the ability to make covenants, such as the one Ruth made with Naomi: ‘Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. . . .’”

One possible confusion should be cleared up at the outset: The Bible does not imply that Ruth and Naomi were anything but daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, as unwary readers of Brooks’s column may have inferred. Turning to Brooks’s argument: It is not true that conservatives came up with the idea that men and women are different and complementary in order to justify opposition to gay marriage. It is a longstanding and sincere belief. It is also one that happens to be true. People have souls, but our lives are also bounded by our flesh and by our gender. Marriage is not only a union of souls; it is two persons becoming “one flesh” (and, in the procreative act, not merely metaphorically). If biology is so easily transcended, by the way, shouldn’t homosexuals just turn heterosexual?

Jonah Goldberg and David Horowitz suggest that it would be wrong to enact a constitutional amendment that a large section of the population bitterly hates. Perhaps it would be wrong. It would also be impossible. It is very hard to amend the Constitution (at least if you’re not the Supreme Court). An amendment cannot pass without first achieving a social consensus that it is necessary. The process of enacting the amendment is the process of forming that consensus. The fact that the consensus does not currently exist is not an argument against trying to create it.

George Will offers two reasons for opposing the amendment. The first is that it would prevent us from getting “evidence” about whether gay marriage would strengthen or weaken marriage. This is a curious objection for Will to make, because in the very same column he explains quite well that the Massachusetts court’s view of marriage — the view that marriage is (only) a union of souls that bear reciprocal affections — makes it impossible in principle to object to polygamy. We need no social-science “evidence” to see that. We already have evidence from history about what polygamous societies look like, and about what sexual mores and family structures are most suitable to republican society.

What more “evidence” do we need? Do we need to find out whether gay marriages would be more likely to end in divorce than conventional marriages? Whether the children of gay couples would be more likely to have health problems than other children? Whether they would get sent to the principal’s office more often? Only an intellectual would believe that the desirability of gay marriage turns on such questions. The problem may be that Will begins by stating that the debate about gay marriage concerns whether same-sex couples should be “excluded” from marriage. But if marriage requires sexual complementarity, then such couples cannot be “included.” Gay marriage is a redefinition of marriage, not just an expansion of it.

Will’s second argument is that “[c]onstitutionalizing social policy is generally a misuse of fundamental law.” The key word here is “generally.” The Constitution should not decide substantive questions but rather allocate the responsibility for deciding them. In the absence of an amendment, however, the courts are very likely to insert a liberal resolution of the issue into the Constitution. Conservatives have for the most part avoided using the courts to advance their preferred social policies. Liberals have no such compunctions. Now we are told that conservatives should also refrain from asking the people to use the amendment process to pre-empt the courts from imposing liberal policies. Maybe conservatives should just quit American politics altogether.

Many conservatives have been tempted to do exactly that over the years. Political activism by evangelical Christians was, for decades, practically non-existent. If social conservatives are told that the issues that most concern them, notably abortion and gay marriage, are going to be settled by the courts; that they have no political recourse; and that the Republican party is not going to stir itself to do anything about the situation — well, then, it will be awfully hard to explain to them why they should show up at the voting booth, let alone lick envelopes and knock on doors through the fall, to help the party. As Republican politicians read the conservative columnists and try to figure out what to do about marriage, they have to think about considerations far weightier than mere electoral advantage. But the political stakes are not trivial. If the conservative coalition does not take effective action to fight judicial liberalism, the conservative coalition will not survive.

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The Left at the Altar (NR, 031208)

What has the high court of Massachusetts wrought? Don’t look to the Democratic presidential candidates for guidance. On the day that a bare majority of the court declared that marriage licenses must be given to same-sex couples, Howard Dean issued a statement so mealy-mouthed and evasive that it did not even include the word “marriage.” He suggested that the court had acted in the spirit of the Vermont supreme court, which in 1999 forced the state legislature to create civil unions for homosexual couples. “One way or another,” said the supposedly straight-shooting governor, “the state should afford same-sex couples equal treatment under law in areas such as health insurance, hospital visitation and inheritance rights.” Dean went on to warn that some people would “try to use the decision today to divide Americans.”

John Kerry’s statement also referred to hospital visitation rights and the like. Kerry continued, “While I continue to oppose gay marriage, I believe that today’s decision calls on the Massachusetts state legislature to take action to ensure equal protection for gay couples. These protections are long overdue.” Dick Gephardt said, “I do not support gay marriage, but I hope the Massachusetts State Legislature will act in a manner that is consistent with today’s Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling.” Joe Lieberman and John Edwards took no explicit position on the ruling, saying only that they oppose gay marriage but also oppose federal efforts to undo the ruling.

Opponents and supporters of gay marriage alike should be disgusted by these dodges. The court’s decision plainly imposes a regime of gay marriage on Massachusetts. The court has said that the state constitution requires this change. The court graciously grants the state legislature some time — 180 days — to alter state marriage law so that same-sex couples can get married. If the legislature does not make this alteration, however, the court will still order county clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Dean implies that the court merely wants gay couples to have various benefits, and Kerry says that it merely wants them to have “protections.” Actually, it wants them to have the right to marry. If the legislature is to “act in a manner that is consistent with” the ruling, as Gephardt urges, it will bless the very thing that he says he does not “support.” The Democratic hopefuls do not want the public to see them as supporters of gay marriage, but they do not want liberals to see them as opponents of the Massachusetts decision either. But no honest middle ground exists. If you oppose gay marriage, then you cannot support, or even be neutral toward, the Massachusetts decision. That decision holds that the equal dignity of citizens requires gay marriage. If you do not oppose the decision, you do not really oppose gay marriage.

Actually, the difficulty for those who would prefer to sit on the fence is even worse than that. If you agree with the Massachusetts ruling — if you think that it was rightly reasoned as well as rightly decided — you cannot even be a moderate supporter of gay marriage who believes that intelligent people of good will may disagree. Opponents of gay marriage are irrational bigots, equivalent to the people who opposed interracial marriage in bygone days. The court declares that there is no rational basis for defining marriage in a way that renders same-sex couples ineligible. Thus the traditional marriage law cannot survive even if the court subjects it to the lowest level of scrutiny it can apply. The court repeatedly likens its decision to the Supreme Court’s invalidation of bans on interracial marriage. It sees no difference between the cases.

The erosion of marriage in our law and culture helped carry the Massachusetts court to its conclusion. The court recognizes that we have severed many of the links among marriage, sex, and the raising of children. But it does not follow from that indisputable premise that our law and culture do not link these things at all, or that they should not link them. A court could just as easily conclude that to the extent that the courts themselves have broken these links, they should go back and re-create them. It could just as easily conclude that the people of Massachusetts have conflicting and sometimes inconsistent views about the nature of marriage, and that the law may reflect that muddle without needing judicial correction.

Instead the Massachusetts court chose to take sides in a culture war — complete with implicit insults toward one side. There is reason to think that other states will catch later trains to the same destination. A majority of the Supreme Court has twice invalidated laws that reflect a traditional understanding of sexual morality, judging them expressions of bigotry. Will it in a few years work a nationalization of what the Massachusetts court has done? Will 10, 20, 30 state judiciaries follow that court’s example? If the people of half the states chose to redefine marriage, the people of the other half would have no legitimate complaint (although they would have the right to argue for their side). We are all for federalism. But federalism is not the same thing as government by 50 state judiciaries.

In his initial response to the Massachusetts decision, President Bush said that the court had “violated” the principle that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. That comment alone contained more honesty than anything his Democratic rivals have said. It remains for him to acknowledge that the problem of judicial overreach is national in its scope, and can be met only by a constitutional amendment.

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Splitting Up: The politics of gay marriage (NRO, 031208)

For me, the first, last and most important question about gay marriage is: Will it help or hurt marriage as a social institution? Is it, in other words, a good idea? But for political elites a second question naturally comes close behind: What are the likely political consequences of making same-sex marriage a highly visible issue, through a federal marriage amendment, or some other means?

Conventional wisdom has it that this is a difficult issue for both Democrats and Republicans. This perception is probably fueled by the reality that GOP and Democratic elites live in the same zip codes and attend the same graduate schools — elite enclaves where (polls show) support for gay marriage is strongest. (The only education group where a majority of Americans supports gay marriage is people with graduate degrees). GOP pols are as affected as the rest of us by these personal social networks: What will the neighbors think? How will I explain it to my wife?

A recent New York Times headline, “What Partisans Embrace, Politicians Fear,” reflects this conventional political wisdom: “In one corner are social conservatives with their fists raised...In the other corner are gays, lesbians and their supporters, fists aimed at those who would press for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage...In the middle of the ring are President Bush and the Democratic candidates for president, caught ever more uncomfortably between the edges of their parties.”

Public-opinion polls, however, suggest quite the opposite conclusion: Gay marriage poses an enormous political problem for the Democratic party alone.

Look first at the broad outlines of the issue. The progressive myth is that history moves only in one direction: towards greater tolerance for whatever gay and lesbian activists advocate. But polls show that American opinion is trending in the opposite direction on the marriage issue. Last summer, after the Lawrence decision put a big media spotlight on gay marriage, American support for civil unions dropped 12 percentage points. A Pew poll released last month confirmed the same development: rising opposition to gay marriage (from 53 percent in July to 59 percent in October). Perhaps most strikingly, in Canada (a more liberal and less religious society than the U.S.), a just-released poll shows that only 31 percent of Canadians now support redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.

When it comes to intensity of opinion, the politics of gay marriage favors its opponents even more heavily. In an Associated Press poll this August, by a five-to-one margin, Americans who saw gay marriage as a voting issue were more likely to oppose it than favor it. Just 10 percent of Americans would be more inclined to vote for a candidate because of his or her support for gay marriage, compared to 49 percent of voters who would be less likely to vote for such a candidate.

But for the Democrats there is even worse news: The emergence of gay marriage splits the Democratic base. According to the October Pew poll, voters who say they are inclined to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate over Bush (the so-called “generic” presidential poll) split evenly over the gay-marriage issue, with 48 percent opposing and 46 percent favoring. When it comes to intensity, the gap is even wider: Just 14 percent of likely Democratic voters strongly favor same-sex marriage, while 25 percent are strongly opposed.

Meanwhile, at least 60 percent of African Americans oppose same-sex marriage. Many say they feel viscerally betrayed at the transfer of the civil-rights mantle to further this cause. The Times reported on August 8, 2003, that since 2000, African-American identification with the Democratic party plunged 11 percentage points (from 74 to 63 percent). Could the increasing identification of same-sex marriage by Democratic interest groups as the civil-rights issue of our day be a contributing cause?

Almost all Democratic presidential candidates say they oppose gay marriage. But most say they are against any effort to stop courts from imposing gay marriage as well. A strong, intelligent, bipartisan, multiracial effort to pass a Federal Marriage Amendment that focuses on the marriage issue itself?

For the Dem elites, it’s a nightmare. But for America, it could be an opportunity.

— Maggie Gallagher is president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which sponsors www.marriagedebate.com.

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Feeling AIDS (EFC, 031000)

Feeling AIDS

They were just two of 14 million orphans in Africa—but they were sitting in front of me

Before I left, I was afraid I’d feel nothing. It’s so easy to get desensitized to those repeated TV images of children with large eyes, their stomachs bloated by hunger. One click of the converter and they’re gone—out of sight and out of mind. So what if it’s AIDS that’s killing them, the instinct to click is just as fast.

But now I sat on a grass mat on the red dirt of Uganda, listening to “real” children—15-year-old Paul and his younger brother, who have lived alone in the bush for six years since both their parents died of AIDS. They are just two of 14 million orphans in Africa—but they were sitting in front of me.

They were first of many. I was part of a Christian leadership trip in February, organized by World Vision, to investigate the AIDS pandemic first-hand. In 10 days we visited their development projects in the poorest areas of Uganda and Tanzania, in the villages where the “slim” disease first crept, then clung to unsuspecting bodies, leaving them lethal to one another. We met with church leaders, community workers, widows and orphans, all of them affected by or infected with HIV/AIDS.

We were struck with the bravery of these people who, with so little help, were fighting an unseen killer that had ravaged their population. We heard from women, who had cared for and lost husbands to AIDS, and then continued in poverty to care for their children. Many of these women know that they too have AIDS and may soon leave their children helpless.

We talked to community workers who spend their days caring for the sick, educating their HIV-positive neighbours about hygiene and proper eating to keep them alive. (The drugs, which we take for granted in Canada, are unavailable or too expensive in Africa.) They are driven by their own losses. In one gathering of 45, the average number of personal family members lost to AIDS was five; the most was 28.

We listened to orphans like Paul, child-led families that struggle on their own to grow each other up. Their existence hangs tenuously under the threats of malaria, starvation, ignorance and fear. Without help they scavenge to eat, and spend dark nights unable, without candles and strength, to do schoolwork that is often the only light in their lives.

We prayed with pastors from interdenominational groups of Protestants and Catholics. All of them bowed down with years of performing funerals, ministering to the destitute, struggling with their own poverty and lack of resources to help.

We were challenged by their faith and their confidence in the love of Jesus Christ in the midst of such suffering.

We were encouraged by the help that mission organizations, like World Vision, really can provide to make a difference.

Perhaps that’s why, months after my return, the lump formed in my throat and it became difficult to see the picture on the envelope sent by World Vision. Two young orphans hugged each other and smiled out at me. I touched it gently, as if their skin would be warm to my fingers.

Gail Reid is managing editor of Faith Today and director of communications for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

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Fighting AIDS at Home and Worldwide (EFC, 031000)

Christians present the gospel through word and deed to AIDS sufferers in Canada and Africa

When a man named Philip Aziz walked into a small church in downtown Toronto in the 1980s, he was sick and desperate. Suffering from AIDS and aware he was going to die, he was searching for grace. In this church, he found a place where he felt loved and safe. When he disclosed his HIV status, the pastor didn’t judge him. The congregation walked with him, and the effect on him was profound. “At last I know that I have the love of my Creator,” he said. When he died in 1991, he left a small endowment so others could experience that same love.

Today the Philip Aziz Centre, a hospice that serves the physical and spiritual needs of those who are dying with AIDS, is a symbol of how one disease can affect so many different kinds of people in so many different kinds of ways. In Canada’s largest, most multicultural city, the clients who get help from the Philip Aziz Centre are just as likely to be women and children who have fled an AIDS-affected country in Africa as they are to be gay men.

The rate of HIV/AIDS is small in Canada. Here only 0.3 percent of people have the HIV-virus, compared to 20 or 30 percent in some African nations. But here the face of AIDS has also shifted: the rate of growth is now higher in girls and women than it is in men; First Nations people and federal inmates are several times more likely to have the virus than other Canadians; there are neighbourhoods, such as Vancouver’s downtown East Side, where a vastly disproportionate number of people are afflicted with HIV/AIDS, many of them sex-trade workers bound by poverty and drug addiction.

It was in North American cities like Vancouver and Toronto where, in the early 1980s, health professionals began shaking their heads in puzzlement over a mysterious disease that seemed to attack gay men and, to some extent, intravenous drug users. At first dubbed “GRIDS” (gay-related immune deficiency syndrome), the deadly disease’s name was changed to AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) when it became clear that a whole host of people—homosexuals, heterosexuals, mothers, fathers, babies, hemophiliacs and heart surgery patients—were at risk of contracting the virus. Not far away, Haiti is especially hard hit by AIDS.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the disease was nicknamed “Slim” because of its wasting effect on the body. There it swept through the continent like an angry and consuming fire, virtually wiping out a generation of adults in some places. It left millions of orphans to either look after themselves or to be cared for by their aging and grieving grandparents.

In the midst of this the Church, unprepared for such a frightening and devastating epidemic, began asking questions: Is this God’s judgment? What should our response be? In pockets across Canada, some Christians stopped asking and started doing.

The Philip Aziz Centre opened in 1995, and in the past eight years the hospice has taken care of 500 patients—most of them suffering from AIDS—plus their families. The 150 volunteers who help it run have been trained to serve in practical ways, helping people to live in their own homes as long as possible, or even to die at home. “How they got AIDS is irrelevant,” says Rauni Salminen, executive director and chaplain. The centre serves everybody, she explains, “regardless of who they are.”

In Winnipeg, the House of Hesed (hesed is Hebrew for “mercy”) was established several years ago as a place of transition for people with AIDS who had nowhere to go. When a close friend died of AIDS in 1991, Moe Feakes, now the director, discovered that many AIDS sufferers lived in squalor. “People I loved were dying in horrific rooming houses,” she remembers. House of Hesed has now been home to 33 residents. Some have died; others have gone on to live in their own apartments.

Like the Philip Aziz Centre, House of Hesed is indiscriminate in whom it serves. “We don’t ask” how they contracted AIDS, says Feakes. “Blood transfusions, needles—it doesn’t matter. When they come to us they require love.”

For both ministries there was some necessary bridge building with gay communities. Some Christians tiptoed around AIDS because they saw it as a “gay disease.” In turn, organizations with gay clientele were suspicious of Christians, whom they perceived to be judgmental. “We really had to prove ourselves” to the gay community, says Salminen. But barriers have broken down: parts of the gay community acknowledge the contribution of Christian ministries; and parts of the Christian community are learning to love and embrace those who have AIDS, regardless of where it came from.

Love, often in the form of “a washcloth and a basin,” as Salminen puts it, has made amazing inroads into the hearts of the sick and dying. The practical help—such as cooking a meal, shopping, cleaning, taking someone for a walk—paired with a willingness to pray with and listen to the one who is sick has opened up opportunities for ministry that wouldn’t be possible with a hard-line approach. “I’ve never seen anyone hated, shamed or guilted into the kingdom of God,” says Salminen.

Both Salminen and Feakes bubble over with stories of people who were changed by persistent love. One man was accustomed to phoning Salminen every time he was desperate and asking her to pray. Eventually she suggested that maybe God would like to hear from him directly. “You don’t need me to pray,” she told him. He was reluctant: he had never talked to God. He needed an introduction. So over the phone, Salminen introduced the two, and for the first time in his life, the man spoke to God. “It was absolutely beautiful,” says Salminen.

At the House of Hesed, one resident was so depressed he stayed in his room for a year. Gradually, as he experienced the consistent caring of the volunteers and staff, he came out of his shell. “Now that same person cooks all our evening meals and hosts luncheons. His heart is completely softened,” says Feakes. “He’s a changed person.”

AIDS changes more than just those who contract it. It has challenged the Church to acknowledge that AIDS is no longer a disease that happens somewhere else, to someone else. As primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Brazil in May, said in a statement: “HIV tears at the very fabric of our nations and homes. We admitted that the ‘body of Christ has AIDS.’ “

It was this recognition that led Herb and Erna Buller, benefactors and board members of the House of Hesed, to respond to the need. The Mennonite couple, who have since sold their Kitchen Craft business and now concentrate on the Buller Foundation, first sensed the urgency of AIDS in the 1990s when it appeared to them that the Christian community largely avoided the disease as if it were leprosy.

“We had this compelling feeling that we should get involved,” says Herb. “It was that [negative] attitude that prompted us to go against the stream,” adds Erna. The Bullers put a substantial amount of work and money into getting the House of Hesed going. Then they turned their attention to Africa. After attending a widows and orphans conference in New York in May 2002, they decided to support World Vision Canada’s AIDS programs. Last fall they hosted a banquet, drawing 500 people and raising $1 million, twice what they had hoped for. The money was designated for the “Manitoba-Nanoko” project, providing funds for a clinic in Zambia, as well as HIV/AIDS education, a clean water initiative and the training of workers to visit the sick.

“Many people came away [from the banquet] saying they had no idea how bad it was,” says Herb. As for the residents of Nanoko, Zambia, “they were really overwhelmed that people in a faraway country actually were concerned about them and cared about them,” says Erna. “That gave them a lot of hope, and they were touched by that.”

Stephen Lewis, a United Nations special envoy from Canada who speaks compellingly about Africa’s tragedy, was one of the guests at the Buller banquet. His outspoken call to arms in the battle against AIDS, and the work of Irish rock star Bono, who toured America last year preaching to evangelicals and politicians, has put AIDS on the map for many North Americans. But that outspoken passion is matched by the quiet compassion of those who work on the front lines and whose efforts make the difference for those who are suffering.

In the 1980s Ruth and Art Thiessen of Abbotsford, B.C., were working in Zambia with Mennonite Central Committee when their younger son’s best friend, named Amon, lost his father to AIDS. “In Amon’s family we saw the devastating effects of AIDS,” says Ruth Thiessen. Amon’s family, once well off, was reduced to poverty. The Thiessens’ house helper also had AIDS, as did his wife and children. “We saw it all around us.”

After the couple returned to Canada in 1988, Thiessen took on the new role of AIDS education coordinator for MCC British Columbia. “It’s as if AIDS came to me, rather than me to it,” she explains in an e-mail interview from Botswana, where she and her husband have worked since 1999. “The experiences in Zambia drew me to wanting to be involved in Canada.” Her exposure to a wide community of people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS “showed me the huge scope of involvement the Church could have, if it would.” When the Thiessens’ older son died of cancer in 1996 at the age of 23, their friends in the AIDS community were among their strongest supporters.

Christians should be concerned with AIDS, says Thiessen, because that’s what Jesus would do. “We can be Jesus’ hands and feet. We can bring the cup of cold water—here in Africa, often literally. We are the bearers of good news, if we let ourselves be—the news of life in Jesus. Jesus offered healing, comfort, forgiveness and sometimes the strong words: ‘Go and sin no more.’ “ Judgment is not on Thiessen’s agenda: “If we can bring comfort to the dying and their loved ones, we have fulfilled a great need.”

Nowhere is the need greater than in Africa. AIDS has spread there for many reasons. A major factor in Botswana, where the Thiessens work, has been a prolific sex trade, especially along lines of transport connecting the country with its neighbours. Botswana is a large desert country of only 1.6 million people, but it has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world: almost 39 percent of adults. In places like Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, civil war is a contributor: women and girls are raped by soldiers or rebels and then pass on the virus to their babies. Other contributors include ignorance about where the virus comes from; severe poverty that pushes women into prostitution; vestiges of polygamy; taboos about the discussion of sex and fidelity; and unsafe medical practices.

But always there is hope, even if it is only a small glimmer. Every September, for example, Botswana Christian AIDS Intervention Program (BOCAIP), which Thiessen works for, has a month of prayer for AIDS on the theme “Providing Hope Amid Despair.” Economic, social and political situations, not to mention civil wars, are difficult to turn around. But Thiessen, who has watched BOCAIP mushroom in its capacity and effectiveness, sees hope in even the small things, such as a young woman standing up in a condom distribution workshop to say, “We are not all sexually active. Some of us are abstinent and want to stay that way till we marry, and then be faithful to our spouse.”

Hope comes in larger measures, too. When BOCAIP was planning its first month of prayer in 1996, the government called upon Ugandan pastors for advice. Uganda, which in the 1980s was seen as one of the worst affected places on Earth, is now held up as a remarkable success story. Early on, the disease wiped out many of Uganda’s adults—parents, teachers, professionals and labourers alike—producing a million orphans. Determined to reverse the situation President Yoweri Museveni, supported by both Christian and Muslim leaders, launched a massive prevention campaign with a simple “ABC” message: Abstinence before marriage; Be faithful after marriage; and if you can’t manage those, use a Condom.

The result: the HIV infection prevalence has been reduced by 50 percent generally and has dropped by two-thirds in the 15-19 age group in the last decade. “Uganda is the only country in the world with a generalized epidemic that has been remarkably reduced,” says Dr. Allan Ronald, a Canadian infectious disease physician who is helping to set up an AIDS care resource in Kampala.

He cites behavioural change—including abstinence, fidelity and “fewer poor sexual choices”—as the main reason. “Condoms account for less than 10 percent of this result. They have not been the answer to the HIV pandemic in Africa.”

Ronald’s assessment is confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO). “Repeated cross-sectional behavioural surveys conducted in Uganda have indicated significant changes in sexual behaviour,” says the WHO’s report on Uganda.

Ronald, whose primary concern as a physician is in caring for those who have the disease including providing anti-retroviral drugs, sees the need for a holistic approach in both prevention and treatment. In addition to his medical and scientific work, the 64-year-old physician (who was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1994 for previous research) works with an organization that helps girls avoid the sex trade and with a parallel group that helps women get out of it. His wife, Myrna, is involved in two orphanages.

Beyond a more holistic approach, he also suggests African seminaries could assist by offering credit courses on biblical and cultural aspects of sexuality. Having worked in both Uganda and Kenya, he observes that most churches avoid talking about sex.

There are a few signs that the don’t-discuss-it attitude may be changing. Simeon Havyarimana is a Burundian who works for the International Bible Society in Kenya. In his keynote address at an international AIDS conference in Washington, D.C., he urged listeners to provide both compassion to those who are sick and to make available biblical teaching on sexuality.

The answer to AIDS has to be a comprehensive one because the problem is so complex, involving issues of morality, poverty, war, tradition, culture, development, economy and many other interconnected factors.

Many Canadian Christians are still bewildered and wondering what they should be doing two decades after the mysterious disease was first named. For those who have stopped wondering and started acting, the results are rewarding.

Amid the urgency of Botswana’s epidemic, Ruth Thiessen takes delight in the small things, like hearing a group of children sing “We are Marching in the Light of God”—in two languages—as a way of thanking UNICEF for a new vehicle for their orphan centre.

In Toronto, Rauni Salminen still marvels at the ministry that has grown up since Philip Aziz walked into a small church. “I always think of this ministry, which has served more than 500 individuals and their loved ones, as the result of one pastor crossing over from fear and prejudice to love and acceptance.”

And at the House of Hesed in Winnipeg, Moe Feakes is constantly awed by how God’s love brings healing to a broken life. “We try to give [residents] a sense of their value and their worth,” she says. “A lot of times they’ve never been told that.”

That is what can make all the difference.

Debra Fieguth is a Kingston freelance writer who has been following AIDS issues for 20 years.

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Too Little But Not Too Late: The Canadian Church and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic (EFC, 031000)

Years ago Karen and John Plater made a short-lived speaking tour around a handful of Canadian churches to discuss HIV/AIDS. It was an intensely personal mission because John was HIV-positive. When they got to the part of their story about how John contracted the disease, the couple could see tense shoulders relax in relief that it was from a tainted blood transfusion and not from homosexual activity. “Then people were okay with it,” remembers Karen. “We were innocent victims, so they wanted to help us.”

Ten years later Karen is resource and communications coordinator for Presbyterian World Service and Development in Canada. Today her husband is healthy, but she believes the church’s reaction to HIV/AIDS still belongs in the emergency room of a spiritual hospital.

“We [Canadian Christians] could have been a leader,” she says, in the struggle against the pandemic that has killed millions. “I don’t know why we allow other issues to supersede our compassion. But we do.”

Plater is not alone in her assessment that it is difficult to find a strong and steady pulse in the North American Church’s response to HIV/AIDS. Last year World Vision Canada advertised widely for a day-long seminar designed to help churches develop an effective ministering presence in the AIDS crisis. World Vision would take the seminar directly to the congregations. No one signed up.

“We tried to do some quiet probing why,” says Don Posterski, director of church relations for World Vision. “Anecdotally our suspicions were confirmed that this issue was not on the agenda of the church. And evangelical church attenders seem to be less open to respond to the needs than others, or even those who don’t attend church.”

Elsewhere, the evidence moves from anecdotal to statistical and sobering. A survey sponsored by World Vision, conducted in 2001 by California-based Barna Research Group, revealed that only three percent of evangelical Americans said they would “definitely” help children orphaned by AIDS.

Evangelicals were twice as likely as others to support disadvantaged children overseas, but less likely to support children orphaned by AIDS.

The survey also showed that evangelical Christians were significantly less likely than non-Christians to give money for AIDS education and prevention programs worldwide.

“The stereotypical reading of the HIV/AIDS crisis is that they have brought it on themselves,” says Posterski. “And of course the tragic reality is: that is not the global story.” When AIDS first crept into the consciousness of the Church in North America, it was not unheard of for a sense of condemnation and a belief that HIV/AIDS was God’s judgement on homosexual behaviour to creep into conversations between some Christians and even sermons from some well known preachers.

“We put sins of sexuality in a special category,” says Posterski. “Even though we taste temptation ourselves, we have the capacity to condemn with ease.”

The Church’s response to HIV/AIDS is complicated by the fact that it is often transmitted through sexual behaviour that the church may find unacceptable, agrees Andrew Ignatieff, director of the Anglican Church’s Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund.

“Addressing the issues of HIV/AIDS takes the Church into areas of thought and action, issues of sex and sexuality, where the Church has difficulty developing consistent policies and plans of action. I think it is a large and complex problem.”

Problems that are complex and uncomfortable are simply easier to ignore—especially when there are other ways to keep busy. “HIV/AIDS came to the church at a time when many churches are preoccupied with their survival as institutions and their financial viability,” says Ignatieff. Issues like declining attendance, residential school lawsuits or struggles to resolve doctrinal issues within denominations made it easier for the Canadian Church to look inwardly to tend to its own wounds instead of reaching out to those wounded by HIV/AIDS.

Jim Christie is a United Church minister in Ottawa, a leader in a denomination known for social justice activism. Even he can confess that reaching out to the wounded can make strong arms weary. “The kind of thing that is happening in Africa is staggering. We are bombarded by images of an unparalleled epidemic,” he says. “People have a kind of compassion fatigue.”

World Vision’s Don Posterski points out that Canadians also tend to look at the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa through the distorting lens of the North American experience of the disease. In Africa, AIDS hits women and children the hardest. And in cases when it is contracted through sexual promiscuity, that “promiscuity” usually involves a woman so poor that she sees selling her body as the only way left to her to feed her children. “It could be that in agencies like World Vision, maybe we haven’t figured out how to tell the story. But when you see it up close, compassion is generated, not condemnation.”

That realization, and the sense that the Canadian Church is not doing all it can do to fight this disease, prompted Posterski to recruit a handful of diverse Canadian church leaders and fly with them to Africa. They would cover two countries in seven days and return to Canada, hopefully moved to galvanize their churches and denominations to leap off the spiritual stretcher and get to work. He thinks it might have worked.

Jim Christie was on the plane. “This trip helped to conquer hopelessness,” he says. The man who will confess to sometimes being weary says, “Compassion fatigue and wringing one’s hands over Africa is a luxury we can’t afford because of our faith. We’re not entitled to compassion fatigue.”

Jeremy Bell’s voice bounces off the phone from his home in Vancouver when he talks about the Africa trip. He is excited about the possibilities for the Canadian Church, including the congregation he pastors in trendy Kitsilano, to be leaders in the fight against AIDS. “We should be ashamed at some level, but I’d rather just say, ‘Let’s get on with it,’ “ he explains. “The pandemic, for me, was brought down to bite-sized pieces. Christians in North America are the best reservoirs of transferable cash there is, and we can do that. The pandemic in Africa hasn’t been on our radar, but now it is.”

That is reason to be encouraged, says Sean Campbell, director of Samaritan’s Purse Canada. “Perhaps the Church hasn’t responded as it should. Is the Church willing? Absolutely. I think there is a huge educational process that needs to take place here. We expect people to know how to respond, but this is a very difficult issue for Christians to address. Maybe it is the Christian agencies that need to lead the way and show them how.”

The recently announced partnership between the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) and the World Evangelical Fellowship in a new AIDS initiative for Africa is one example of this emerging leadership. By connecting with already existing African church alliances as well as “a small but growing number of large churches in North America whom God is calling to work with churches in Africa” the EFC hopes to facilitate the relationships between donor agencies and North American and African churches, as well as mobilize individual Christians in both parts of the world to have an effective, biblical response to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

For some sectors of the Christian church an effective and biblical response has been a long time coming. But it is a welcome sight.

Karen Stiller is associate editor of Faith Today.

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Religious Beliefs Underpin Opposition to Homosexuality (PEW Research Center, 031118)

Republicans Unified, Democrats Split on Gay Marriage

Introduction and Summary

Opposition to gay marriage has increased since the summer and a narrow majority of Americans also oppose allowing gays and lesbians to enter legal agreements that fall short of marriage. Moreover, despite the overall rise in tolerance toward gays since the 1980s, many Americans remain highly critical of homosexuals and religious belief is a major factor in these attitudes.

A 55% majority believes it is a sin to engage in homosexual behavior, and that view is much more prevalent among those who have a high level of religious commitment (76%). About half of all Americans have an unfavorable opinion of gay men (50%) and lesbians (48%), but highly religious people are much more likely to hold negative views.

Religiosity is clearly a factor in the recent rise in opposition to gay marriage. Overall, nearly six-in-ten Americans (59%) oppose gay marriage, up from 53% in July. But those with a high level of religious commitment now oppose gay marriage by more than six-to-one (80%-12%), a significant shift since July (71%-21%). The public is somewhat more supportive of legal agreements for gays that provide many of the same benefits of marriage; still, a 51% majority also opposes this step.

A new national survey of 1,515 adults, conducted Oct. 15-19 by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life finds that homosexuality in general not merely the contentious issue of gay marriage is a major topic in churches and other houses of worship. In fact, clergy are nearly as likely to address homosexuality from the pulpit as they are to speak out about abortion or prayer in school, say people who attend church regularly.

The clergy in evangelical churches focus considerably more attention on homosexuality and address it far more negatively than do ministers and priests in other denominations. Two-thirds of evangelical Protestants who attend church services at least once a month say their ministers speak out on homosexual issues, compared with only about half of Catholics (49%) and just a third of mainline Protestants (33%). And compared with others who attend services where homosexuality is discussed, substantially more evangelicals (86%) say the message they are receiving is that homosexuality should be discouraged, not accepted.

The poll finds that people who hear clergy talk about homosexuality are more likely to have highly unfavorable views of gays and lesbians. This is especially the case in evangelical churches. Fully 55% of evangelicals who attend services where the issue of homosexuality is addressed have very unfavorable views of homosexuals. This compares with 28% of those who regularly attend services in non-evangelical Protestant and Catholic churches where clergy discuss homosexuality. Similarly, evangelicals who hear sermons on this issue are much more apt than others to believe that gays and lesbians can change their sexual orientation and to view homosexuality as a threat to the country.

The survey underscores how the debate over societal acceptance of homosexuality has shifted since the mid-1980s. The public has moved decisively in the direction of tolerance on many questions; in particular, discrimination against homosexuals is now widely opposed. This is seen in long-term trends in surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and by the Gallup Organization. And the current survey shows that a majority of Americans (54%) feel that gay and lesbian couples can be as good parents as heterosexual couples.

Yet as public attention has turned to questions of gay marriage and as homosexuals have become far more visible in society and the entertainment media there have been some signs of a backlash. Roughly three-in-ten Americans (31%) say greater acceptance of gays would be a bad thing for the country, up from 23% in a 2000 survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. And nearly half the public (48%) thinks the entertainment media present too many gay themes and characters, compared with 37% in the same 2000 survey.

In light of this changing climate of opinion, the importance of gay marriage in the 2004 elections remains unclear. But there is evidence that this issue could become problematic for the Democratic presidential nominee. Voters who support President Bush are largely of one mind on this issue: More than three-quarters (78%) of voters who favor the president’s reelection in 2004 oppose gay marriage; more than half (53%) strongly oppose the idea. But voters who prefer to see a Democrat elected in 2004 are divided 46% favor gay marriage, 48% oppose. A substantial minority of these Democratic-leaning voters strongly oppose gay marriage (25%).

The survey also shows that Americans remain deeply divided over the essential cause and nature of homosexuality. A 42% plurality believes that being a homosexual “is just the way that some people prefer to live,” no change from a Los Angeles Times survey conducted in 1985. But there has been a rise in the percentage who say homosexuality is “something that people are born with” from 20% in the Times survey to 30% currently. The public also is split on the question of whether a gay person’s sexual orientation can be changed 42% say it can, the same number disagrees.

Still, most Americans say they are comfortable interacting socially with homosexuals. Just one-in-five say they are uncomfortable around homosexuals, while 76% say they do not mind being around gays. Highly religious white evangelicals are more likely to say they are uncomfortable being around homosexuals a third express that view. Even so, six-in-ten in that group say it does not bother them to be around homosexuals.

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Part 1: Opinion of Homosexuals

Views of Gay Men, Lesbians

Roughly half of the public expresses an unfavorable opinion of gay men (50% unfavorable) and lesbians (48% unfavorable). Nearly one-in-three (29%) have a very unfavorable opinion of gay men, and 26% have a very unfavorable opinion of lesbians.

In general, young people have more favorable views of homosexuals than do older people. Half of those under age 25 have a favorable view of gay men (50% favorable to 44% unfavorable) and a majority have a favorable view of lesbians (57% favorable, 37% unfavorable). Women tend to express more favorable opinions of both gay men and lesbians, and this is especially true among very young people. Among men age 18-24, opinions about gay men are far more negative (52% unfavorable) than about lesbians (35% unfavorable).

Majorities of college graduates hold favorable views of both gay men and lesbians (54% each), while opinions of those with less education are considerably more negative. There also are regional differences in attitudes toward homosexuals, with people in the East and West expressing the most positive views of gay men and lesbians. And there is a significant difference between urban and rural areas of the country, with unfavorable views much more intense in the latter. Four-in-ten people living in rural areas say they have a very unfavorable opinion of gay men, twice as many as among residents of large cities.

Seculars’ Positive Opinions of Gays

In no major religious group does a majority express favorable views of gay men or lesbians. By comparison, six-in-ten seculars those who say they have no religious affiliation and rarely, if ever, attend religious services hold positive views of homosexuals. (The survey contained too few Jews for a reliable estimate).

Among white mainline Protestants and Catholics, opinion is divided: 43% of mainline Protestants and 46% of Catholics have a favorable opinion of gay men; their views of lesbians are comparable.

White evangelicals are much more negative, with 69% unfavorable (including 47% very unfavorable) and only 22% favorable. Black Protestants also hold generally unfavorable views (62% unfavorable, 27% favorable).

Messages From the Pulpit

A majority of churchgoers report hearing about homosexuality from their clergy: 55% of those who attend services at least once or twice a month say their clergy talk about issues related to homosexuality, and 41% say they discuss laws regarding homosexuals. The percentage hearing about laws related to homosexuals is up slightly from 1996, when 36% reported this topic mentioned by clergy.

Among subjects addressed by clergy, homosexuality is about as common as prayer in the schools (58%) and the situation in Iraq (53%), and somewhat less common than abortion (63%). It is a more commonly mentioned topic than either the death penalty (28%) or candidates and elections (26%). And 40% of churchgoers say they have heard about the recent controversy over the Ten Commandments monument in Alabama.

The subject of homosexuality is heard in church much more commonly by white evangelicals than by white mainline Protestants or Catholics. Two-thirds (66%) of white evangelicals say their clergy talk about issues related to homosexuality. This is considerably higher than the incidence in mainline Protestant (36%) or Catholic (44%) churches. Black churchgoers also are much less likely than white evangelicals (42%) to say their clergy discuss the issue.

The vast majority of regular churchgoers who hear about homosexuality in church say the message is a negative rather than a neutral or positive one: overall, 76% say their clergy discourage homosexuality, while 4% say clergy favor acceptance of it; only 16% say their clergy take no position when they speak about the issue. Neutral or positive messages about homosexuality are much more common in mainline Protestant than in evangelical churches.

Is Homosexuality a Sin?

Most Americans (55%) believe that homosexual behavior is a sin, while 33% disagree. Strongly religious people are far more likely to see homosexual behavior as sinful than are the less religious. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) highly committed white evangelicals say homosexual behavior is sinful, and 64% of committed white Catholics agree. Nearly three-quarters of black Protestants (74%) see homosexual conduct as sinful. But just 18% of secular respondents feel this way.

But most of those who view it as sinful do not think it is any more sinful than adultery; 44% overall (80% of those who think it is a sin) say homosexual behavior and adultery are equally sinful. Even among committed white evangelicals, fewer than one-in-ten (7%) rate homosexual behavior as more sinful than adultery.

No Agreement on Why Some Are Gay

Asked why some people are homosexual, 42% say it is “just the way that some people prefer to live,” compared with 30% who think homosexuality is something people are born with and 14% who believe it develops because of the way people are brought up. The view that homosexuality is innate is more prevalent now than in 1985, when 20% believed that homosexuality is something people are born with.

The public divides evenly 42% to 42% on the question of whether a gay or lesbian person’s sexual orientation can be changed or not; 16% have no opinion. Together, nearly one-quarter (24%) believe that people are born homosexual and that they cannot change their orientation. The same percentage (24%) believe that homosexuality is a way that some people prefer to live and that sexual orientation can be changed. The rest of the public holds some mix of these views.

In general, better-educated people are more likely than those with less education to see homosexuality as innate and unchangeable rather than a lifestyle choice, though even among college graduates there is considerable division of opinion. And politically, twice as many liberals as conservatives (46% versus 22%) say people are born homosexual.

But the biggest differences on this question are seen among religious groups. More than half of highly committed white evangelicals (53%) and 60% of black Protestants say that homosexuality is just a way that some people prefer to live, and just 14% say it is something that people are born with. Similarly, 73% of committed white evangelicals think homosexuals can change their sexual orientation; 61% of black Protestants agree. By comparison, 54% of white Catholics and half of white mainline Protestants think homosexuals cannot change their orientation, a view shared by two-thirds (66%) of seculars.

Belief that homosexuality is immutable is strongly associated with positive opinions about gays and lesbians even more strongly than education, personal acquaintance with a homosexual, or general ideological beliefs. For example, about two-thirds of people who think homosexuality can be changed (68%) have an unfavorable opinion of gay men. By contrast, nearly six-in-ten (59%) of those who think homosexuality cannot be changed have a favorable opinion. This pattern holds even among groups of people who are similar in religious beliefs, partisan affiliation, and other factors.

Gays and Lesbians in Society

Most people do not think that greater societal acceptance of gays and lesbians would be a bad thing for the country, but neither do they believe it would be a good thing. A 42% plurality says that greater acceptance of gays would not make much difference, while 31% say it would be bad for the country; that is a modest increase from a Kaiser Family Foundation survey in 2000 (23%). Fewer than a quarter (23%) think greater acceptance of gays would be good for the country, down from 29% in 2000.

Nearly half of the public (48%) expresses the view that the entertainment media are including too many gay themes and characters these days compared with 40% who believe the media are providing the right amount of gay-themed content. These views are strongly related to religious tradition and practice, and to partisanship and ideology. Fully 72% of conservative Republicans think there are too many gay themes and characters in the media; only one-quarter of liberal Democrats agree.

Most Have a Gay Acquaintance or Relative

Six-in-ten Americans say they have a homosexual friend, colleague, or family member. Women are more likely than men to say they have a gay acquaintance or relative (67% vs. 53%). And more highly educated people than those with less education say they know or are related to someone who is gay: Nearly three-quarters of college graduates (73%) say they have a friend or relative who is gay compared with 52% of those with a high school education.

Democrats and Republicans differ very little on this question, but liberals (71%) are far more likely to have contact with homosexuals than are conservatives (54%). There are relatively small differences between religious groups in the likelihood of having a homosexual friend, family member, or colleague. But among seculars, 72% say they know someone who is homosexual.

When asked to name the first homosexual to come to mind, 74% responded, with about equal numbers naming either someone they knew a friend, relative, or associate or a public figure. About twice as many males as females were named, yet a female comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres was by far the most commonly mentioned public figure.

Half of those interviewed mentioned a male, including 23% who mentioned a friend, co-worker, or neighbor. About the same number 21% mentioned a male public figure or entertainer. Only 6% mentioned a male relative. By contrast, less than one-quarter (23%) mentioned a female, with more mentioning public figures (14%) than individuals the respondent actually knew (7% mentioned a friend, co-worker, or neighbor, and 2% mentioned a relative). One percent volunteered that they or their partner were the first homosexual that came to mind.

People who named someone they knew personally generally had more favorable attitudes toward gay men and lesbians than did people who mentioned public figures. People who could not name any homosexual had the most negative opinions.

Few Concerned By Being Around Gays

A large majority of those interviewed say it does not make them uncomfortable to be around homosexuals. Overall 76% say they are not uncomfortable; 20% say they are. Discomfort is greater among older respondents (29% of people age 65 and older), those living in rural areas (29%), conservative Republicans (30%), and highly committed white evangelicals (34% uncomfortable around gays and lesbians).

Perceptions and Stereotypes

Despite the fact that more Americans have negative than positive views of gays and lesbians, majorities do not see homosexuals as less happy than other people or less likely to form stable, long-term relationships. Nearly six-in-ten (57%) reject the idea that homosexuals are not as happy as heterosexuals, while a smaller majority (52%) believes gays are as likely as other people to have stable relationships.

People who have homosexual friends, family members, or colleagues are more likely to express opinions about these issues, and they generally view gays in a more positive light compared with those who do not have gay acquaintances and relatives.

For the most part, Americans do not subscribe to the stereotypical view that gay men have a better sense of style than heterosexual men. People who have gay friends or relatives are more likely than those who don’t to feel that gay men have a better sense of style, though opinion among this group is divided.

There is a gender gap in opinions on whether gay men have a better sense of style than heterosexual men. Four-in-ten women (41%) think that they do, compared with 26% of men. Differences over this perception are especially pronounced among younger people. Half of women under age 50 think that gay men have a superior sense of style compared with about a third of men under 50 (32%).

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Part 2: Gay Marriage

Gay Marriage Opposed

By nearly two-to-one, more Americans oppose (59%) than favor (32%) legalizing gay marriage. This reflects something of a backlash from polls conducted earlier in the year, before the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that struck down state laws against sodomy. In a July survey shortly after that decision, the public opposed gay marriage by a smaller margin (53%-38%).

Strong opposition to the idea of gay marriage is the plurality position. Among those who oppose the idea, nearly six-in-ten say they feel strongly about it (35% of the total population express this view.) Among those who favor gay marriage, fewer than three-in-ten say they strongly support the proposal (9% of the total.)

The survey also finds that most who are opposed to gay marriage believe that it would be enough to prohibit it by law, and that a constitutional amendment is not necessary. While 59% oppose gay marriage, just 10% say the Constitution should “be amended to ban gay marriage” in a follow-up question. Instead, 42% say it is “enough to prohibit gay marriage by law without changing the Constitution.”

This is notably different from a number of recent surveys which have found majorities supporting such an amendment when no alternative of a legal prohibition is offered. For example, a July CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey found 50% favoring, and 45% opposing, “a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman, thus barring marriages between gay or lesbian couples.”

Young People More Supportive of Gay Marriage

A closer look at the opinions of various demographic groups on this issue shows that young people, especially those in their late teens and twenties, are more supportive of gay marriage than are older Americans. Even this youngest group of Americans do not, on balance, favor this idea; rather, they are divided. But that is in stark contrast to people in their forties and fifties, where twice as many oppose gay marriage as favor it. Among those in their sixties and seventies, opposition outnumbers support by as much as four-to-one.

People in their early thirties today have a relatively favorable view of gay marriage and their views are similar to those of younger generations. But those in their late thirties are much more opposed; in fact, opposition is as widespread in this group as among people in their forties and fifties.

Education a Key Among Older Americans

Overall, Americans with college degrees are divided almost evenly over the issue of gay marriage (49% oppose, 44% favor) while those without oppose the idea by well over two-to-one (63% to 27%). Education is a particularly important factor among older generations.

College graduates age 65 and older are more than three times as likely to favor gay marriage than are seniors with less education (33% to 9%). Among those age 50-64, college grads are twice as likely to favor gay marriage as their less educated counterparts (43% to 21%). By comparison, education makes relatively little difference among those under age 30, where support for gay marriage runs highest. Since younger generations are more likely to have college degrees than older, this education gap contributes to the overall size of the generation gap on gay marriage.

While majorities of both genders are opposed to the idea of gay marriage, men express somewhat more opposition than women. This gender gap exists across all age ranges, with men consistently four-to-eight percent more likely to oppose gay marriage than women.

Not surprisingly, the most religious Americans are the least likely to favor gay marriage. Nearly half of Americans with relatively low religious commitment approve of allowing homosexual couples the right to marry, compared with just 17% of those who are more religious. This gap along religious lines exists across all age groups.

The issue of gay marriage has a clear political component. Both Democrats and independents (39% each) are twice as likely as Republicans (18%) to approve of gay marriage. This political gap between Democrats and Republicans exists across all age levels.

Attitudes about gay marriage are closely linked to where a person lives with opposition significantly higher in the South, and in rural areas of the country. But there is little racial divide over gay marriage. Both whites and blacks oppose gay marriage by roughly two-to-one most Hispanics also oppose the idea, but by a smaller margin (51% to 36%).

Perceptions of homosexuality are closely related to views about gay marriage. In particular, people who believe homosexuality is a choice, as opposed to a trait people are born with, are far more opposed to gay marriage, as are people who believe homosexuals can change.

Overall, most people (55%) who think homosexuality is something people are born with favor gay marriage, compared with just 21% of those who think it is just the way that some people prefer to live. Similarly, 49% of those who think homosexuality cannot be changed favor gay marriage, compared with 19% of those who think it can.

Personal contact with homosexuality is also a key factor in shaping people’s views on this policy issue. Americans who have a friend, colleague or family member who is gay are roughly twice as likely to favor gay marriage as those who do not (39% to 21%). This gap exists across all age groups, but does not override the importance of age in shaping peoples’ views. Among both the youngest and oldest cohorts, those who know someone who is gay are about twice as likely to favor gay marriage as those who do not. Among those under age 30, about half (49%) of those who know a gay person are supportive of gay marriage compared with 27% of those who do not have a gay acquaintance or relative. But among those age 65 and older, just 20% of those who know a homosexual favor gay marriage, compared with 10% who are not acquainted with a gay person.

Moral Objections Cited Most

The most common reasons given for objecting to gay and lesbian marriage are moral and religious. Asked in an open-ended format their main reason for opposing gay marriage, more than a quarter of opponents (28%) explicitly cite the view that homosexuality is immoral, a sin, or inconsistent with biblical teaching, and another 17% say the idea simply is in conflict with their religious beliefs. One-in-five who oppose gay marriage explain their position in less moral, and more literal terms, saying that the definition of marriage involves a man and a woman (16%), or that the purpose of marriage is reproduction (4%).

Other issues that frequently come up in the debate over gay marriage are not the primary factors in the public’s mind. Just 1% say they oppose gay marriage on the grounds that it undermines traditional families, and just 1% refer to possible legal or governmental problems, or the possibility of people taking advantage of such laws to get economic benefits.

Impact on Families a Concern

Although few people volunteer the impact gay marriage might have on the traditional family structure as the main reason they oppose such unions, these concerns do resonate with the public. More than half of Americans (56%) believe that allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry would undermine the traditional American family, and four-in-ten say they completely agree with this argument. Fully 76% of those who oppose gay marriage believe it would undermine the traditional American family, and 61% feel strongly about it.

A somewhat greater percentage say that gay marriage would go against their religious beliefs (62%). More than eight-in-ten opponents of gay marriage (82%) say it runs counter to their religious beliefs, with 73% completely agreeing with that sentiment. While concerns about religion and family are widespread, only a minority classify gay parents as unfit, and very few believe that the society has the right to regulate sexual behavior. By a 54% to 37% margin, most agree that gay and lesbian couples can be as good parents as heterosexual couples, and by 80% to 13% the vast majority say that society should not put any restrictions on sex between consenting adults in the privacy of their own home.

Overall, an analysis of the beliefs, perceptions and values that shape support and opposition to gay marriage finds that while religion is very important, other views about diversity, parenting, and the nature of homosexuality itself have a strong impact on opinions about gay marriage as well. This balance is also reflected in the fact that 45% of those opposed to gay marriage mentioned religious reasons while about the same number gave other justifications.

Seniors’ Objections to Gay Marriage: A Closer Look

While opposition to gay marriage is most widespread among older generations, this does not necessarily reflect greater moral concerns among older people, or that they see the issue of homosexuality through a predominantly religious lens. People over age 65 are no more likely to say that gay marriage “goes against my religious beliefs” than are younger respondents, and they express no greater concern about gay marriage undermining the traditional American family.

Rather, the biggest generational differences in views about homosexuality have to do with more practical, and less moralistic, concerns. A plurality of seniors worry that gays and lesbians cannot be as good parents as other couples (by a 47% to 37% margin). By comparison, people under age 30 believe gay couples can parent just as well by a 69% to 29% margin.

Older Americans also are more likely than young people to harbor doubts about how happy gay people are. And while people under age 30 say greater acceptance of homosexuality would be good for the country, not bad (by a 30% to 19% margin), older Americans tend to disagree, with 41% saying it would be bad for the country, and just 9% saying it would be good.

To a large extent, these differences reflect the fact that older Americans particularly those over age 65 have had far less contact with homosexual people, and have far less firmly rooted beliefs and perceptions about homosexuality. Fully half of seniors could not think of the name of a single homosexual person, either in their own lives or a celebrity. This compares with only 19% of those under age 50 and 27% of those age 50 to 64. And older Americans are far less likely to say they have a friend, relative or colleague who is gay. When asked their perceptions of and views on homosexuality, people over age 65 are much more likely to say they have no opinion.

The greater opposition to gay marriage among older Americans reflects this greater uncertainty and lack of familiarity more than it does any moral or religious opposition to the idea. In fact, people over age 65 are no more likely to cite moral or religious reasons than are younger respondents when asked to explain why they oppose gay marriage. Instead, older generations tend to explain their position either in reference to the definition of marriage being between a man and a woman or for the purposes of having children, or with vague references to homosexuality just being wrong or not normal.

Civil Unions Also Opposed

Granting some legal rights to gay couples is somewhat more acceptable than gay marriage, though most Americans (51%) oppose that idea. Public views on giving legal rights to gay and lesbian couples depend a good deal on the context in which the question is asked. On the survey, half of respondents were asked their views on civil unions after being asked about gay marriage, and half were asked the questions in the reverse order. When respondents have already had the opportunity to express their opposition to gay marriage on the survey, more feel comfortable with allowing some legal rights as an alternative. But when respondents are asked about legal rights without this context, they draw a firmer line.

This context difference has little effect on core support and opposition to gay marriage itself, which is opposed by nearly two-to-one regardless of how the questions are sequenced. But opponents of gay marriage are much more willing to accept the idea of some legal rights after they have had the opportunity to express their opposition to gay marriage. The percent favoring legal rights rises to 45% in this context, while just 37% favor the idea alone. Put in other words, opponents of gay marriage are much more likely to accept allowing some legal rights when they have already had the opportunity to express their opposition to gay marriage itself.

Those who oppose gay marriage but favor allowing legal rights to gay and lesbian couples offer different explanations for their opposition to gay marriage than those who oppose both ideas. People who oppose both gay marriage and the option of civil unions are much more likely to explain their position in terms of homosexuality being morally wrong, a sin, or simply unnatural. People who oppose gay marriage but favor the idea of giving gay and lesbian couples legal rights outside of marriage say they oppose gay marriage because the definition of marriage is a union between a man and a woman, that the purpose of marriage is to have children or that allowing gay marriage might undermine the traditional family structure.

While allowing legal rights is acceptable to a greater number of Americans than marriage itself, there is no evidence that this distinction has particular relevance to specific groups. While overall levels of support vary dramatically by age, religion and religiosity, region, and political party, the gap between support for gay marriage and legal rights varies little.

Long-Term Trend: Growing Tolerance

Numerous survey organizations have tracked public attitudes toward homosexuality in a variety of ways, and virtually all measures show the same pattern. While many Americans harbor concerns about legalizing gay marriage, the public is a much more tolerant toward homosexuals than it was twenty years ago.

In 1987, the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press found Americans divided over whether school boards should (51%) or should not (42%) be allowed to fire teachers based on their sexual preference. Today, Americans reject this idea by nearly two-to-one (62% to 33%). While significant differences remain across partisan, religious, and generational lines, all segments of American society have become less willing to allow this kind of explicit job discrimination, even in schools.

Since 1973, the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, has been tracking whether Americans believe sexual relations between adults of the same sex are always wrong, almost always wrong, sometimes wrong, or not wrong at all. The most recent wave of the GSS in 2002 found a slight majority (53%) saying that homosexual relations are always wrong, down from 74% as recently as 1987. The proportion saying homosexual relations are not wrong at all has nearly tripled, from 12% to 32%, over the same time span.

Throughout the nearly thirty years in which the GSS has been tracking public attitudes, very few Americans see shades of gray on the issue of homosexuality. At no point has more than 15% of the public said that sexual relations are “almost always” or “sometimes” wrong. In every survey, more than eight-in-ten Americans have said homosexuality is either always or never wrong.

The Gallup Organization has tracked two general items about homosexuality for more than twenty years, and both also show increasing acceptance of homosexuals and homosexuality. In May 2003, Gallup found 88% saying that homosexual men and women should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities, up from 71% in 1989 and 56% in 1977. Asked whether homosexuality should be considered an acceptable lifestyle or not, 54% said “yes” in May of this year, up from 34% in 1982. However, Gallup measured some backlash on this item following the Supreme Court decision in June regarding state sodomy laws. The percent saying homosexuality should be considered an acceptable lifestyle in Gallup’s July survey fell to 46%.

Global Views on Homosexuality

While Americans have become more accepting toward homosexuality over the past few decades, Americans are significantly less tolerant than citizens of most other advanced democracies in Europe and North America. In 2002, the Pew Global Attitudes Project surveyed public attitudes across a wide range of social and political issues in 44 nations, and found that the question of homosexuality highlights a stark global divide over social values.

Openness toward homosexuality is most widespread in the Western European nations of France, Britain, Italy and Germany, where more say homosexuality should be accepted by society than not by well over three-to-one. Residents of Canada, as well as the Czech and Slovak Republics also take an overwhelmingly accepting position on the issue of homosexuality.

Americans, by comparison, are split on this issue. A bare majority of Americans (51%) believe homosexuality should be accepted, while 42% disagree. In this regard, American attitudes have less in common with Western Europe or Canada than with Latin America, where opinion is also largely divided.

Across Africa, and in most predominantly Muslim nations such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, lopsided majorities believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society. There is similar opposition to social acceptance in India, Vietnam and South Korea.

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>> The sociological ramifications of same-sex ‘marriage’ (Christian Coalition International, 031213)

Tod Lindberg (“The case against same-sex ‘marriage,’”) correctly notes that the most coherent argument against homosexual “marriage” is the belief that homosexuality is wrong. But he dismisses the sociological case too quickly.

The most compelling arguments are rarely heard, such as well-documented evidence that children fare best in intact families with married parents and that homosexuality carries enormous physical and mental health risks.

The journal AIDS reported that in the Netherlands, where homosexual “marriage” was legalized in 2001, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are soaring among homosexual men - even those who are “married.” “Partnered” homosexuals have fewer outside lovers than the “unpartnered,” but they still contract HIV at alarming rates. This is progress?

The moral argument for marriage is easy to make to those who acknowledge self-evident truth. But even if marriage were not created by God Himself as the fountainhead of human life, a powerful sociological case can be made for the real thing.

Homosexual “marriage” would, among other things:

* Further weaken the family, the first defense against an ever-encroaching government.

* Encourage children to experiment with homosexuality. This would ensure that more teens contract HIV; hepatitis A, B and C; “gay bowel syndrome,” human papillomavirus (HPV), syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases.

* Put more adopted children at risk, as agencies stop favoring married couples and put children in motherless or fatherless households.

* Encourage more people to remain trapped in homosexuality rather than seek counseling to rechannel their sexual desires.

* Pit the law against the beliefs of tens of millions of people who believe homosexuality is wrong, thus creating grounds for more attacks on the freedoms of speech, religion and association.

In California, employers must subsidize homosexual relationships or lose state contracts. Employers also must promote transsexuality or risk a $150,000 fine. Foster care parents have been ordered to affirm children’s sexual “identities,” including that of “cross-dresser.” If you’re a Californian who believes in traditional morality, your government regards you as an enemy of the state. If homosexual “marriage” becomes legal nationally, all Americans will be subject to the tender mercies of pro-homosexual bureaucrats.

Mr. Lindberg notes that many people think homosexuality is wrong but are embarrassed to say so. It’s not because of the “weakness of this argument,” however, but rather because of the media campaign to portray traditionalists as “bigots.” During the Vietnam War, liberals invoked former Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s ghost to silence anti-communist opinion. Today, sexual libertines similarly suppress honest discussion.

When the Rev. Earle Fox was given three minutes for dissent at the recent consecration of homosexual Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson, he began listing typical practices of homosexual behavior. “I wanted them to know what they were blessing in God’s name,” he said. The chairman cut him off.

Until the realities of homosexuality are examined publicly, Mr. Lindberg may be right that only moral arguments will carry any weight.

ROBERT H. KNIGHT, Director, Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America

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What About the 'Gay Gene'? An Honest Look at the Evidence (Christian News, 041111)

"What we have here is a scientific controversy," explained Michael Bailey, a Northwestern University scientist and proponent of the "gay gene" theory. For the past fifteen years, homosexual activists have staked their political strategy on claims that homosexuality is an inherited trait, like left-handedness, for a significant minority of human beings.

Homosexuality, they have argued, is thus a "natural" condition and is not morally significant. This argument appears regularly in political discourse and public debate, and many people just assume that the claim has solid scientific evidence behind it. Not hardly. With the issue of homosexuality front and center in our national debate, an honest assessment of the scientific research is in order.

A report published in the April 23, 1999 edition of Science refuted earlier claims by scientists who have discovered the so-called "gay gene." That's right--these claims were put to rest over five years ago. Why do so many influential people still contend that we now "know" that homosexuality is caused by genes?

Back in 1999, clinical neurologists George Rice and George Ebers of Canada's University of Western Ontario reported that they had failed to find a link between male homosexuality and chromosomal region Xq28, a link which had been claimed by other researchers. The Canadian results were supported by work at the University of Chicago which, according to Science, "does not provide strong support for a linkage." Rice stated that the cumulative evidence "would suggest that if there is a linkage it's so weak that it's not important."

Two of the most significant scientists pressing this case are Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute and Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist formerly with the Salk Institute. Among those arguing for a biological basis of homosexuality, Hamer is the establishment expert. LeVay is the passionate evangelist. In fact, LeVay has left the task of scientific research to others, and now works as a homosexual activist. He sees the biological case as essential to overcoming claims that homosexual behavior is sinful. "A genetic component in sexual orientation says 'This is not a fault, and this is not your fault.'"

The case for a biological cause gained credibility in 1991 through research by Michael Bailey which studied patterns of male homosexuality among identical twins. The case was strengthened in 1993 when Hamer and colleagues claimed to have identified a specific genetic link to male homosexuality, and to have isolated the link to the X chromosome. Both studies received international media attention and coverage. Rice and Ebers undertook their study to see if these claims could be confirmed. To the contrary, they found no link in the Xq28 region which could function with any significant influence. Ebers stated that "there is no hint or direction of the initial observation." Hamer defended his research, but conceded that the new studies do indicate that at least some cases of homosexuality are not linked to the X-chromosome. He called for yet more research involving hundreds of homosexual twins.

Hamer knows that the research can be a two-edged sword. In 1997 he warned, "The trick will be to make sure that sexual orientation is included on a list of 'normal' traits rather than on a list of diseases and disorders." He acknowledged that deciding "which list sexual orientation belongs to is a social judgment, not a scientific one." Homosexual activists downplayed the research study but appeared to retreat from any claim of a biological basis for homosexuality.

David M. Smith, speaking for the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual-rights political organization, told The Washington Post that, "In the final analysis it should not matter whether there is a biological basis or there is not." This is quite a shift from the group's established strategy. Responses to the study are predictable. The argument that homosexuality is matter of biology rather than morality is too useful for the homosexual community to abandon it altogether. Some remain convinced that research will eventually prove this case. Conservatives will welcome the research as "proof" that homosexuality is freely chosen and that biology plays no significant part in the homosexual condition. Both sides had better be careful lest the scientific evidence should eventually build against their case.

Conservative Christians believe that homosexual behavior is sinful, not because of scientific evidence or the absence of a biological basis, but because the Bible is so clear in its condemnation of all homosexual acts, and even of homosexual desire (Romans 1: 27). The Rice and Ebers study does reveal the weakness of the biological argument put forward by homosexual activists, but evangelicals must be cautious in denying the possibility of any biological factors related to homosexuality.

Both serious and ludicrous arguments are now put forth claiming a genetic basis for, among other things, alcoholism, gambling addictions, violent behavior, and even excessive television watching. All of these represent efforts to remove social stigma and to classify sinful behaviors as normal, or at least understandable. Dean Hamer has moved on to argue that belief in God is linked to a "God gene."

The flight from moral responsibility is a hallmark of the modern age. We hope for modern science to heal our diseases and excuse our sins. The Bible will not allow this evasion. Our sinful behavior, rooted in biology or not, is a matter for which we are fully accountable. After all, as the Psalmist confessed: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5).

The doctrine of total depravity reminds us that no part of ourselves is free from sin and its injury. That certainly includes our genetic code as well. As the church father Ambrose of Milan (340-397) stated, "Before we are born we are infected with the contagion, and before we see the light of day we experience the injury of our origin." In the end, the scientific evidence is not morally important, though it may be medically useful.

The church's witness to the biblical condemnation of homosexuality as sin is a crucial test of faithfulness, no matter where the biological research may lead. In the end, the church must take its stand on the Word of God--not on the latest genetic analysis.

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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Homosexuality in Theological Perspective, Part One (Christian Post, 051004)

In every age the Church in confronted with cultural and ethical challenges which test both the conviction and the compassion of the Body of Christ. Since World War II, American Christians have struggled with issues of racism, war, abortion, and sexuality in successive and overlapping waves of moral confrontation. In the end, the issues of abortion and homosexuality are likely to prove the two most divisive issues Americans have faced since the Civil War.

The issue of homosexuality is currently the most heated front on the so-called culture-war. Homosexual activists groups are pressing for identification of homosexual men and lesbians as a class offered special protections under civil rights legislation and homosexual-orientated literature is now a commonplace in public libraries--and even in some public schools. The wider secular academy has largely capitulated to the Homosexual Movement, and “Gay-studies” programs are now a growth industry in the academic culture.

The mainstream media now portray homosexuality in a positive light. Openly homosexual characters on prime-time television are joined by overt homoerotic images in broad-based advertising. More distressing, most of the historic denominations of the older Protestant “mainline” are currently debating homosexuality, with the issue currently focused on the ordination of practicing homosexuals to the ministry.

How did this happen? The origins of the Homosexual Movement as a major cultural force must be traced to the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. Known within the homosexual community as the “Stonewall Rebellion,” the riot took place as New York City policy raided a homosexual bar. The patrons fought back in what would become the inaugural symbol of the “gay liberation” movement. As the Village Voice reported on July 3, 1960: “Gay power erected its brazen head and spat out a fairy tale the likes of which the area has never seen….Watch out. The liberation is underway.”

What has followed has been a measured and strategic effort to win the legitimization of homosexuality, to promote homosexual themes in the media, to receive special entitlements as a legally protected class. Furthermore, the Movement has pushed for specific policy goals, such as the removal of all anti-sodomy laws, the recognition of homosexual partnerships on par with heterosexual marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and the removal of all barriers to homosexuals in the military, the academy, business, and the churches.

In order to pursue these goals, the Homosexual Movement has organized itself as a liberation movement based on an ideology of liberation from oppression drawn upon Marxist foundations. Thus, the intention has been to identify with other liberation movements, including the civil rights movement and the feminist agenda. But the goal is not mere legitimization of homosexual activity or even the recognition of homosexual relationships. Rather, it is the creation of a public homosexual culture within the American mainstream.

This movement is a stark challenge to all sectors of American society. It has become the driving engine of a social revolution, which will influence or transform every institution of American life, from the family to mediating institutions and the state.

Beyond this, an evangelical perspective must recognize that such a revolution is an attack upon the foundations of gender, family, sexuality, and morality which are central issues of the Christian worldview based on the Word of God revealed in Holy Scripture. Thus, this is a challenge evangelicals cannot fail to meet with both grace and honesty.

The Homosexual Movement did not spring from a vacuum. Indeed the challenge has emerged from within the context of the seismic culture-shift which has transformed western societies during the twentieth century. The concept of a culture-shift draws attention to the patter of fundamental changes which have shaped every level of social and cultural life. The culture-shift is nothing less than a fundamental re-ordering of society in terms of structures, ideologies, worldviews, morality, and patterns of knowledge.

The culture-shift from modernity to postmodernity has affected all communities of meaning, to use the category favored by sociologists. From the Christian perspective, the more important category is truth, and the culture-shift has radically re-ordered how Americans view the issue of truth.

The last half of the twentieth century has proven that the left wing of the Enlightenment has finally won the day. Whereas most pre-Enlightenment persons understood truth to be an objective reality to which they must submit when it is made known, modern Americans view truth as a private commodity to be shaped, accepted, or rejected as accords personal preference or taste. Americans are now a nation of over 250-million moral relativists. Indeed, a majority of American adults now reject the very notion of absolute truth.

All matters of faith and morality are now considered by a majority of Americans to be issues of mere private preference. All truth is interior and privatized. This embrace of undiluted individualism underlies our current cultural confusion. The successive and progressive shift in the locus of truth and authority from the Christian worldview to the state to the isolated individual leaves the American public unarmed for authentic moral discourse. All that remains is utter subjectivity and the inevitable power struggles which will occur when ideologies and political agendas clash in the public square.

Clearly, many who consider themselves believing Christians have succumbed to the lure of relativistic worldviews. Yet, Christians must face squarely the truth that the faith once for all delivered to the saints is fundamentally incompatible with a rejection of absolute truth. The Gospel itself is a direct claim to universal and absolute truth, and the Bible (which is incomprehensible apart from its claim to absolute truth as revealed by God Himself) makes a claim to truth which applies to all persons everywhere and in all times. If there is no absolute truth, there is no Christian faith, and there is no salvation through Jesus Christ, who makes an absolute and universal claim when He declared himself, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Hence we see the culture war which now marks the common life of the American republic. The issues of sexuality and abortion--and the entire controversy of “political correctness”--are but fronts and battle-lines within the culture war. Christians must be re-armed for this conflict, and this will be possible only by means of a recovery of biblical faith and convictional courage.

One of the most formative shifts in the nation’s public consciousness is the reduction of moral argumentation to what Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon terms “rights talks.” All moral debates, whether about divorce, sex, abortion, or smoking tobacco are now reduced to debates over individual rights, couched now in the language of a “right to choose,” a “right to sexual preference,” or a “right to integrity or personhood,” however determined. Our collective moral imagination is now transformed from matters of right and wrong to mere contests for your rights, my rights, and their rights.

Here we see the corrosive effects of the acids of modernity. One of the most important aspects of this corrosion is the process of secularization which has pervasively denuded the public square of all Christian truth-claims, including and especially those related to moral truths. Beyond the public square, however, we must admit the impact of secularization within the Church as well. Secularization is not something that has merely “happened” to the Church. In very real ways, the Church has aided and abetted that process of denying Biblical truth and its claims to all dimensions of life.

The rise and tactical success of the Homosexual Movement could only be made possible by the radical decline of the Christian worldview within western culture. The Christian gospel makes a comprehensive claim to all areas of life and thought. Biblical truth is to be applied to all areas of life and all issues of individual and communal meaning. Moral relativism and rights talk have filled the vacuum left by the evacuation of the Christian worldview.

___________________________________________________

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Homosexuality in Theological Perspective, Part Two (Christian Post, 051004)

The issue of homosexuality is a “first-order” theological issue as it presents itself in the current cultural debate. Fundamental truths essential to the Christian faith are at stake in this confrontation. These truths range from basic issues of theism to biblical authority, the nature of human beings, God’s purpose and prerogatives in creation, sin, salvation, sanctification, and, by extension, the entire body of evangelical divinity.

Put bluntly, if the claims put forward by the Homosexual Movement are true, the entire system of the Christian faith is compromised, and some essential truths will fall.

Lest this be seen as an overstatement, consider the issue of biblical authority and inspiration. If the claims of revisionist exegetes are valid, then the very notions of verbal inspiration and biblical inerrancy are invalidated. But the challenge is yet deeper, for if, as the revisionist interpreters claim, Holy Scripture can be so wrong and misdirected on this issue (to which it speaks so unambiguously), the evangelical paradigm of biblical authority cannot stand.

As is the case with most ideological campaigns directed to the Church, the Homosexual Movement comes complete with a well-defined hermeneutic. In fact, politico-ideological crusades which aspire for influence within the churches must develop and articulate what I will term a hermeneutic of legitimation, designed to provide at least the appearance of biblical sanction. Thus, biblical interpretation becomes contested territory between rival worldviews.

The Homosexual Movement has employed a well-documented hermeneutic suspicion toward biblical texts which address homosexuality. Their efforts have been to prove that the actions proscribed in biblical passages (notably Genesis 19 and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) do not refer to consensual homosexual acts, but to homosexual rape and prostitution. Or, when this effort is crushed on the shores of reality, to suggest that though the passages do not speak of homosexual acts, they reveal a patriarchal and oppressive bias that must be rejected by the contemporary Church. Furthermore, it is commonly argued, Paul did not know of the reality of homosexual orientation, and thus Romans 1:26-27 must be read as if it referred to homosexual acts on the part of otherwise heterosexual persons.

The net result of this hermeneutic of legitimation has been confusion in the churches. It has become the standard and politically-correct perspective assumed in most sectors of the academy, and it is increasingly prevalent among members of the mainline Protestant denominations. Disappointingly, a number of evangelicals have been taken in as well.

An early attempt at revising the Church’s view of homosexuality was undertaken by D. Sherwin Bailey in Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, but the most influential work came twenty-five years later with the publication of Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality by John Boswell, a professor of history at Yale University. Similar proposals have come from figures such as John J. McNeill, a former Jesuit expelled from the order for his views on homosexuality. The most significant recent contribution to this debate is L. William Countryman’s Dirt, Sex, and Greed.

The revisionist hermeneutic, as applied to Romans 1:26-27, has been employed to argue that the text means something quite different from the Church’s traditional interpretation. By employing circumventions, circumlocutions, and contortions, the text’s meaning is revised so as to negate its judgment upon homosexuality.

The critical issue used as a hermeneutical device by the revisionists is the concept of sexual orientation. The modern “discovery” of sexual orientation is used to deny the truth claim clearly and inescapably made within the biblical text. For example, in regard to the Romans text, Janet Fishburn of Drew University Theological School argues: “Yet, some biblical scholars point out that this passage can only refer to the homosexual acts of heterosexual persons. This is because the writers of the Bible did not distinguish between homosexual orientation and same-gender sexual acts. If this distinction is accepted, the condemnation of homosexuality in Romans does not apply to the sexual acts of homosexual persons.”

Similarly, New Testament professor Victor Paul Furnish argued that since Paul was unaware of the modern concept of homosexual orientation, his rejection of homosexuality must itself be rejected: “Not only the terms, but the concepts of ‘homosexual,’ and ‘homosexuality’ were unknown in Paul’s day. These terms like ‘heterosexual,’ ‘heterosexuality,’ ‘bisexual’ and ‘bisexuality,’ presuppose an understanding of human sexuality that was possible only with the advent of modern psychology and sociological analysis. The ancient writers were operating without the vaguest idea of what we have learned to call ‘sexual orientation.’”

Just how far some are willing to go in an effort to contort the biblical text is made clear by Countryman. Again, the issue is the construct of sexual orientation: “Homosexual orientation has been increasingly recognized in our time as a given of human sexuality. While most people feel some attraction to members of both the same and the opposite sex and, in the majority of these, attraction to the opposite sex dominates, there is a sizable minority for whom sexual attraction to persons of the same sex is a decisive shaping factor of their sexual lives. . . . To deny an entire class of human beings the right peaceably and without harming others to pursue the kind of sexuality that corresponds to their nature is a perversion of the gospel.”

These statements indicate the general approach taken by revisionist scholarship and the ever-widening scope of the revisionist sweep. The hermeneutic of legitimation has been stunningly effective in forming a culture which accepts homosexual behavior and denies binding authority to clear biblical injunctions. But this trend is not limited to mainline Protestantism and liberal Roman Catholicism. Some who claim evangelical identity also share the same revisionist methodology and conclusions. In an article published in the evangelical journal, TSF Bulletin, Kathleen E. Corley and Karen J. Torjesen argue that: “It would appear then that in Paul issues of sexuality are theologically related to hierarchy, and therefore the issues of biblical feminism and lesbianism are irrefutably intertwined. . . . In the end, it would seem that if the church is going to deal with the issues of sexuality it is also going to have to deal with hierarchy. We need to grapple with the possibility that our conflicts over the appropriate use of human sexuality may rather be conflicts rooted in a need to legitimate and traditional social structure which assigns men and women specific and unequal positions. Could it be that the continued affirmation of the primacy of heterosexual marriage is possibly also the affirmation of the necessity for the sexes to remain in hierarchically structured relationships? Is the threat to marriage really a threat to hierarch? Is that what makes same-sex relationships so threatening, so frightening?”

The arguments appeal to modern therapeutic constructs such as the hypothetical sexual orientation and use these to call into judgment the meaning of the biblical text. The essence of the complex revisionist arguments comes down to this: either the biblical texts do not proscribe homosexuality, but have been misconstrued by an oppressive heterosexist and patriarchal Church to deny homosexuals their rights; or, the biblical texts do proscribe homosexuality, but are oppressive, heterosexists, and patriarchal in themselves, and thus must be rejected or radically re-interpreted in order to remove the scandal of oppression.

What must be transparently clear by now is that these revisionist methodologies and hermeneutics of legitimation deny the truth status of Holy Scripture. The passages are not merely re-interpreted in light of clear historical-grammatical exegesis--they are subverted and denied by implication and direct assault. But few revisionists are as direct in their assault as William M. Kent, a member of the United Methodist Committee to Study Homosexuality. Kent asserted that, “. . . the scriptural texts in the Old and New testaments condemning homosexual practice are neither inspired by God nor otherwise of enduring Christian value. Considered in the light of the best biblical, theological, scientific, and social knowledge, the biblical condemnation of homosexual practice is better understood as representing time and place bound cultural prejudice.”

But Kent is not alone. From the theological academy, Robin Scoggs puts his position plainly: “Quite clearly . . . I cannot in conscience accept the view that makes biblical injunctions into necessarily eternal ethical truths, independent of the historical and cultural context.” Strikingly, Gary David Comstock, university Protestant chaplain at Wesleyan University argues: “Not to recognize, critique, and condemn Paul’s equation of godlessness with homosexuality is dangerous. To remain within our respective Christian traditions and not challenge those passages that degrade and destroy us is to contribute to our own oppression. . . . Those passages will be brought up and used against us again and again until Christians demand their removal from the biblical canon or, at the very least, formally discredit their authority to prescribe behavior.”

Evangelicals must lay bare the nature of this assault on the integrity and authority of the biblical text. Christianity stands or falls upon the validity and integrity of the revelation-claim made by Holy Scripture. This challenge must be met directly and publicly, and evangelicals must call the exegetical bluff put forward by the revisionists. The foundational assault must be addressed. The confessing Church must not be intimidated, coerced, or compromised by the revisionists.

As theologian Elizabeth Achtemeier asserted: “The clearest teaching of Scripture is that God intended sexual intercourse to be limited to the marriage relationship of one man and one woman.” A clear reminder of what is at stake comes, interestingly enough, from Robin Lane Fox, a secular historian: “As for homosexuality, Paul and the other apostles agreed with the accepted Jewish view that it was deadly sin which provoked God’s wrath. It led to earthquakes and natural disasters, which were evident in the fate of Sodom. The absence of Gospel teaching on the topic did not amount to tacit approval. All orthodox Christians knew that homosexuals went to Hell until a modern minority tried to make them forget it.”

Of course, “all orthodox Christians” knew that all unrepentant and unredeemed sinners go to Hell, and unrepentant homosexuals were in a very large company. But only in modern times have revisionists tried to suggest with seriousness that the Bible is unclear on the issue of homosexuality and that the Church must forfeit its traditional--and exegetically inescapable--understanding of the relevant biblical texts. The “modern minority” identified by Fox has been, nonetheless, stunningly successful in confusing the Church.

____________________________________________________

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Homosexuality in Theological Perspective, Part Three (Christian Post, 051005)

Few modern concepts have been as influential as the psychosocial construct of sexual orientation. The concept is now firmly rooted in the national consciousness, and many Americans consider the concept to be thoroughly based in credible scientific research.

The concept of sexual orientation was an intentional--and quite successful--attempt to redefine the debate over homosexuality from same-gender sexual acts to homosexual identity. That is, from what homosexuals do to who homosexuals are.

Yet, this concept is actually of quite recent vintage. In fact, even within the past decade, the more common concept employed by the Homosexual Movement was sexual preference. The reason for the shift was clear. The use of the term “preference” implied a voluntary choice. The clinical category of orientation was more useful in public arguments.

The very notion of homosexuals as a category of persons constituted by sexual identity is a recent invention. The biblical revisionists cited [in yesterday’s commentary] were correct when they asserted that the Apostle Paul knew nothing of the category of sexual orientation. The concept is rooted in late nineteenth-century efforts to apply psychological categories to sexual behavior. As Marjorie Rosenberg writes: “From antiquity until perhaps a century ago, choice was presumed to govern sexual behavior. But in the late 19th century, with burgeoning medical science as midwife, a new kind of creature was born--’the homosexual’--his entire identity based upon his sexual preference.”

The argument would now be that homosexuals exist as a special class or category--a “third sex” alongside heterosexual men and women. As Maggie Gallagher notes: “We have not always been so woefully dependent upon the sexual act itself. Two hundred years ago, for example, homosexuality did not exist. There was sodomy, of course, and buggery, and fornication and adultery and other sexual sins, but none of these forbidden acts fundamentally altered the sexual landscape. A man who committed sodomy may have lost his soul, but he did not lose his gender. He did not become a homosexual, a third sex. That was the invention of the nineteenth-century imagination.”

The new notion of sexual identity, later sexual preference, now sexual orientation, has pervasively shaped the current cultural debate. This was the ideological wedge used to force the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders in 1973. It is still the most effective tactical concept employed in the debate.

The politically useful concept of orientation is thus a trophy of the “triumph of the therapeutic,” which has seen psychosocial arguments seize the popular consciousness.

Evangelicals must not allow this category to frame the debate. The construct of orientation has no sound basis in science, and even its most vociferous proponents are divided along multiple lines of pseudo-scientific reasoning. If the idea of orientation is based in reality, then what is the causation? Biological destiny? Genetic factors? Cultural conditioning? Parental influence? Environmental factors?

No adequate scientific data exists to prove any one of these--or any combination thereof--as the source of homosexual orientation. It is important to note that the hypothesis preceded any scientific “proof,” and yet is has been accepted as virtually self-evident. Evangelicals must reject the category as a therapeutic construct employed for ideological and political ends.

While it is not necessary for evangelicals to resist all scientific research, science is often enslaved to ideological agendas, as has been evident in some scientists’ recent claims to have established a genetic basis for homosexuality. Evangelicals tend to overreact to such reports, some accepting the claims at face value and others running scared as if science could overthrow the moral structure by genetic research. Neither response is proper. Evangelicals should look critically at such research, and “debunk” its unsubstantiated claims.

Yet we must avoid the overreaction which implies that such research--even if verified to the satisfaction of all--would subvert God’s command. The Christian understanding of sexual morality is not based on scientific grounds, and it is not open to scientific interrogation or investigation. Scientists cannot discover anything which can call into question the authority of God’s command.

A genetic basis--unlikely in the extreme--would, if objectively established, not carry great theological import. A genetic link may be established for any number of behaviors and patterns, but this does not diminish the moral significance of those acts nor the responsibility of the individual. Genetic links have been claimed for everything from diabetes and alcoholism to patterns of watching television.

But something more is needed. Evangelicals must reject the therapeutic construct, and yet point to a biblical model. I believe that the lack of a mature biblical model for understanding homosexuality has diminished our ability to sustain a consistent moral argument in an adversary culture. We must continue to bear faithful witness to the clear biblical injunctions concerning homosexual acts--that such acts are not only inherently sinful, but also an abomination before the Lord.

But the evangelical approach must be far more comprehensive, for the Bible is itself more comprehensive in approach. Scripture does not address mere homosexual acts; it also provides a basis for understanding the implications of homosexuality for the family, society, and the Church.

First, as Romans 1 makes absolutely clear, homosexuality is an act of unbelief. As Paul writes, the wrath of God is revealed against all those “who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” God has implanted all humanity with the knowledge of the Creator, and all are without excuse. As Paul continued: “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions; for the women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” [Romans 1:22-27]

The broader context of Paul’s rejection of homosexuality is clear: Homosexuality is a rebellion against God’s sovereign intention in creation, a gross perversion of God’s good and perfect plan for His created order. What Paul makes clear is that homosexuality is a dramatic sign of rebellion against God and His intention. Those about whom Paul writes have worshipped the creature rather than the Creator. Thus, men and women have forfeited the natural complementarity of God’s intention for heterosexual marriage and have turned to members of their own sex, burning with a desire which in itself is degrading and dishonorable.

The logical progression in Romans 1 is undeniable. Paul shifts immediately from his description of rebellion against God as Creator to an identification of homosexuality--among both men and women--as the first and most evident sign of a society upon which God has turned His judgment.

Essential to understanding this reality in theological perspective is a recognition of homosexuality as an assault upon the integrity of creation and God’s intention in creating human beings in two distinct and complementary genders.

Here the confessing Church runs counter to the spirits of the age. Even to raise the issue of gender is to offend those who wish to eradicate any gender distinctions, arguing that these are merely “socially constructed realities,” vestiges of patriarchal past.

Scripture will not allow this attempt to deny the structures of creation. Romans 1 must be read in light of Genesis 1 and 2. As Genesis 1:27 makes apparent, God intended from the beginning to create human beings in two genders--”male and female He created them.” Both man and woman were created in the image of God. They were distinct, and yet inseparably linked by God’s design. The genders were different, and the distinction transcended mere physical differences, but the man recognized in the woman “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” [Genesis 2:23].

The bond between man and woman was marriage. Immediately following the creation of man and woman come the instructive words: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” [Genesis 2:24-25].

The text does not stop with the mere creation of woman. Rather, God’s creative intention is further revealed in the cleaving of man to the woman (“his wife”) and their new identity as “one flesh.” This biblical assertion, which no revisionist exegesis can deconstruct, clearly places marriage and sexual relations within God’s creative act and design.

Few theologians have given this critical issue its due attention. Indeed, throughout the history of the church, this pattern was seen as axiomatic and unquestioned. Only in the modern period, when social experimentation and radical protest movements have sought to push a wide-scale rejection of this pattern, has the issue come to light.

Significantly, it is Karl Barth who has most seriously addressed this biblical pattern of gender complementarity. Writing in 1928, Barth asserted: “What do we really know about the male and female except that the male could not be a man without the female nor the female without the male, that the male cannot belong to himself without also belonging to the female and vice-versa?”

The male and female only have meaning in relation to the other. Barth refers to Genesis 2:25, and suggests that the man and the woman saw each other naked and were not ashamed, “Because the maleness of the male and the femaleness of the female rightly become an object of shame . . . only when the male and female in their maleness and femaleness seek to belong to themselves and not to each other.”

Horribly confused, Barth asserted, the sexes turn inward to an “ideal of a masculinity free from woman and a femininity free from man.” This false ideal, which is a rejection of the Creator and His command, culminates in “the corrupt emotional and finally physical desire in which--in a sexual union which is not and cannot be genuine--man thinks that he must seek and can find in man, and woman in woman, a substitute for the despised partner.”

Barth, writing in the first decades of the twentieth century, saw the coming challenge. His response remains prophetic, but it was unfinished. Carl F. H. Henry, perhaps the most significant figure in the development of evangelical theology in the last half-century, rightly rejected Barth’s extra-biblical theorizing and “fanciful exegesis” of the relation between sexual issues and the imago dei. Nonetheless, he agreed on this essential point: “The plurality of human existence is not optional; man cannot properly be man without speaking of male and female.”

The revolt against this divinely established order is one of the most important developments of this century, and it looms as one of the defining issues of the cultural revolution. Evangelicals must lay bare this assault upon creation, and yet do so in a way which is tied inextricably to biblical foundations, and not to cultural assumptions, however comfortable they may seem to secular society.

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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Homosexuality in Theological Perspective, Part Four (Christian Post, 051006)

How will evangelicals respond to the challenge of the Homosexual Movement? And how will the evangelical Church respond to those persons struggling with homosexuality? These are critical questions that, when answered, will indicate the larger direction of the evangelical movement.

First, evangelicals must establish our understanding of homosexuality on the Bible and rest upon an undiluted affirmation of biblical authority. The Bible is unambiguous on the issue of homosexuality, and only a repudiation of biblical truth can allow evangelicals to join the moral revisionists.

Our only authority for addressing this issue is that of God as revealed in Holy Scripture. We can speak only because we are confident that the one sovereign God and Lord has revealed Himself and His will in an errant and authoritative Scripture. On the basis of that revelation, we cannot fail to speak and to confront the spirits of the age.

We do so with confidence that the Christian claim to truth in the incarnation of the Son and the inscripturation of divine revelation is superior to any other claim to authority. Christians must neither cringe nor cavil in the face of secularism and its ideological manifestations. We must deconstruct the deconstructionists, turn the hermeneutic of suspicion upon the revisionists, and bear undiluted witness to the gospel and the Christian worldview.

Therefore, we speak about homosexuality because we speak on the basis of divinely-revealed truth. Our own ideas and conceptions of homosexuality are not authoritative--our duty is to understand the mind and intention of God.

At this point we must address another evangelical temptation. A growing number of evangelicals are shifting the debate over homosexuality and attempt to base their arguments on natural law. Their motive is clear--the assumption is that natural law reasoning will carry greater and broader cultural influence than arguments based explicitly upon divine revelation.

The problem must be admitted. Explicitly theological arguments are increasingly declared “off limits” fur cultural and political discourse. The dominant media culture and legislative processes seem impervious to moral discourse rooted in the Christian worldview. Perhaps, it is argued, natural law will provide a via media, a middle way between secularism and theism.

Evangelicals must, of course, affirm both general revelation and existence of natural law. God has most certainly revealed Himself in intelligible ways through the created order and the human conscience. But as Paul made so clear in Romans 1, the knowledge imparted by this authentic natural revelation is sufficient to damn, but not to save. Christianity bases its claim upon special revelation in both Holy Scriptures and the Incarnate Son, Jesus the Christ.

The moral order God has implanted in His creation is tangible, evident, and undeniable. Yet in contemporary America, as in Paul’s discussion in Romans, human beings reject that knowledge and suffer the consequences.

My warning on this issue is two-fold. First is the matter of theological principle. To revert to natural law reasoning is to retreat from the high ground of the Christian truth claim. In order to meet secular demands, the Church would shift its argument from the unassailable ground of Holy Scripture to the contested terrain of nature and the cosmos.

This is what, in another context, F. A. Hayek termed “a fatal conceit.” From such an abdication there is no recovery. Though evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics will find themselves compatriots in the cultural struggle, it is not possible for evangelicals to adopt natural law reasoning as a basis for moral argumentation and remain authentically evangelical. Natural law reasoning may provide a point of conversation and serve as a means of introducing the revealed law, but it cannot stand as a mode of evangelical moral discourse and reasoning.

But for some, it may seem that a step back from the special revelation of the positive law (as compared to natural law) is explained as a means to a greater end. Once a consensus or point of contact with the secular culture has been established, it is claimed, the discussion can be shifted to positive law and the Christian worldview. This raises the pragmatic warning: This strategy does not work.

The cultural elites and generations raised in the aftermath of the sexual revolution are no more moved by natural law arguments than by explicitly Christian assertions. Natural law reasoning is no more welcome in Congress or among the media than a recitation of the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, there is no common understanding in elite circles as to what the natural law would require. A reflection on the congressional hearings for the confirmations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas should make this reality abundantly clear. Natural law arguments are not culturally compelling.

Evangelicals should not hesitate to illustrate arguments from Scripture with allusions to nature and the natural order. But the order of ethical reasoning is critical: Evangelicals can turn to nature as illustration after basing the moral argument on Scripture. At its best, the evangelical temptation to turn to natural law reasoning is an attempt in a difficult cultural context to establish a moral consensus. But this strategy will not succeed. At its worst, this temptation represents a repudiation of the Gospel and an abdication of evangelical faith.

Our trust must be in the Sovereign God who is the Creator and Sustainer of all. He and He alone holds the prerogative to define and limit sexuality. It is one of His good gifts to His creatures, who in their rebellion have contorted and degraded His gift. Evangelicals must affirm that God has defined sexuality, and that our duty is to follow His command.

This means that evangelical Christians must with increased effectiveness uphold the biblical model of sexuality. We must affirm its goodness without embarrassment, give thanks for the gift and its enjoyment, acknowledge without hesitation that God intended sexual relations for pleasure as well as for procreation, and never retreat from the clear biblical teaching that sex is intended only for the context of committed and monogamous heterosexual marriage.

The model of sexual wholeness, lived daily in the lives of millions of families and couples, will bear eloquent testimony before the world--even when it is ridiculed.

We must learn to address the issue of homosexuality--and other difficult sexual issues--with candor, directness, and unembarrassed honesty. This is not an hour for prudish denial. To fail at the task of speaking clearly and directly to this issue is to fail to speak where God has spoken.

We must also acknowledge that the only inhibiting force in the world which limits the range and extent of sexual perversion is common grace. But for the continuing presence of common grace, the world would slide into even more degraded darkness. For that grace we must be thankful.

But the issue of homosexuality affords a unique opportunity for the confessing Church to bear witness to particular grace as well--to give witness to the Gospel as the only means of salvation and of Jesus Christ as the sole and sufficient Savior. Salvation and repentance must be preached to homosexuals--and to heterosexuals as well. East of Eden, not one of us has come before God as sexually pure and whole, even if we have never committed an illicit sexual act, much less a homosexual act.

Our ministry to homosexuals is not as the sinless ministering to sinners, but as fellow sinners who bear testimony to the reality of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

The gospel always comes as both judgment and grace. But the last word must always be grace. Our duty is to tell the truth about homosexuality--to name it as Scripture names it. But our responsibility hardly ends there, for our next task is to speak the word of grace, and to present the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ as our substitute, by whose blood we have been bought with a price.

To the homosexual, as to all others, we must speak in love, never in hatred. But the first task of love is to tell the truth, and the sign of true hatred is the telling of a lie. Those who genuinely love homosexuals are not those who would revolutionize morality to meet their wishes, but those who will tell them the truth, and point them to the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Gay Culture and the Riddle of Andrew Sullivan (Christian Post, 051027)

Andrew Sullivan is a man of ideas. In recent years, Sullivan has emerged as one of the most influential intellectuals in American public life. Furthermore, he has been identified with some of the most controversial issues of our times--a fact that is hardly surprising given his libertarian view of morality, conservative views of politics, Roman Catholic views of Christianity, and the fact that he is a prominent homosexual advocate.

Sullivan came to national and international attention as editor of The New Republic from 1991 to 1996. He came to this post after earning degrees at Oxford University (B.A.) and Harvard University (Ph.D.). Under his editorship, The New Republic became known as one of the nation’s most lively, informative, and controversial journals of opinion. The courage and imagination demonstrated in Sullivan’s editorship is the most likely explanation for the controversy that brought his downfall as editor. Nevertheless, Sullivan continues to contribute to the magazine as a senior editor.

In the October 24, 2005 issue of The New Republic, Sullivan writes about “The End of Gay Culture.” Of course, Sullivan’s perspective on homosexuality and gay culture is deeply rooted in his own homosexuality and his ardent embrace of his own homosexual lifestyle. He is anything but a dispassionate observer.

In his new article, Sullivan describes the massive transformation of American culture we are all now observing, at least in terms of the rapid normalization of homosexuality in public culture. Sullivan sees this as a two-edged sword for homosexuals.

On the one hand, the assimilation of homosexuals and homosexuality into the larger culture means that homosexuals are no longer outsiders. On the other hand, Sullivan sees the demise of a gay subculture as a significant loss, at least for the homosexuals who remember the experience of defining themselves by “transgressing” cultural norms.

As evidence of this transformation, Sullivan points to his experience of almost two decades as a summer resident of Provincetown on Cape Cod. Over the last quarter-century, Provincetown has become a mecca for gay men and lesbians, “a place where a separate identity essentially defines a separate place.” As Sullivan describes the Provincetown perspective: “No one bats an eye if two men walk down the street holding hands, or if a lesbian couple pecks each other on the cheek, or if a drag queen dressed as Cher careens down the main strip on a motor scooter.”

Nevertheless, that vision of Provincetown doesn’t exist anymore, Sullivan explains. “As gay America has changed, so, too, has Provincetown. In a microcosm of what is happening across this country, its culture is changing.”

The changes indicate that homosexuals in America no longer feel the need for a separate identity, a separate place, and a separate lifestyle. A real-estate boom has turned Provincetown into a resort for wealthy homosexuals where class is now more important than sexuality. Furthermore, the domesticization of homosexual culture has also changed the picture: “The number of children of gay couples has soared, and, some weeks, strollers clog the sidewalks. Bar life is not nearly as central to socializing as it once was.” Beyond this, “week after week this summer, couple after couple got married--well over a thousand in the year and a half since gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts.”

As he sees it, America is no longer marked by a “single gay identity.” Instead, a proliferation of niche sexual identities and cultures has replaced the dominant gay ethos that emerged in the 1970s.

“Slowly but unmistakably, gay culture is ending,” Sullivan observes. “In fact, it is beginning to dawn on many that the very concept of gay culture may one day disappear altogether. By that, I do not mean that homosexual men and lesbians will not exist--or that they won’t create a community of sorts and a culture that sets them in some ways apart--I mean simply that what encompasses gay culture itself will expand into such a diverse set of subcultures that ‘gayness’ alone will cease to tell you very much about any individual.”

This is the world homosexuals have long dreamed of, Sullivan admits. Nevertheless, “it is a threat in the way that all loss is a threat. For many of us who grew up fighting a world of now-inconceivable silence and shame, distinctive gayness became an integral part of who we are. It helped define us not only to the world but also to ourselves. Letting that go is as hard as it is liberating, as saddening as it is invigorating.”

Sullivan points to one central factor that explains the rapid transformation of American culture and its assimilation of homosexuals and homosexuality--the HIV epidemic. “The history of gay America as an openly gay culture is not only extremely short--a mere 30 years or so--but also engulfed and defined by a plague that struck almost poignantly at the headiest moment of liberation. The entire structure of emergent gay culture--sexual, radical, subversive--met a virus that killed almost everyone it touched. Virtually the entire generation that pioneered gay culture was wiped out--quickly.

The HIV epidemic established homosexuality as a central cultural concern and, quite unexpectedly, served to normalize homosexuality within the culture. The HIV plague “established homosexuality as a legitimate topic more swiftly than any political manifesto could possibly have done,” Sullivan asserts. “The images of gay male lives were recorded on quilts and in countless obituaries; men whose homosexuality might have been euphemized into nonexistence were immediately identifiable and gone.”

As he reviews the impact of the HIV crisis, Sullivan points to some patterns that emerged in its aftermath--patterns that would likely be missed by those outside the gay subculture. The emergence of lesbians as leaders of the major gay rights organizations was, Sullivan suggests, largely due to the fact that the gay male leaders were largely dead. “Most of the older male generation was dead or exhausted,” Sullivan notes, “and so it was only natural, perhaps, that the next generation of leaders tended to be lesbian--running the major gay political groups and magazines. Lesbians also pioneered a new baby boom, with more lesbian couples adopting or having children.”

What Sullivan hints at, but does not openly suggest, is that the lesbians were also successful in pushing a more domestic picture of homosexuality. The radical sexual promiscuity so common to many homosexual men was replaced, in the public eye, with the more settled picture of lesbian couples, often with children.

Meanwhile, a whole new generation was emerging--younger homosexuals who grew to maturity (or were even born) after the HIV epidemic. “For the first time,” Sullivan observes, “a cohort of gay children and teens grew up in a world where homosexuality was no longer a taboo subject and where gay figures were regularly featured in the press.” The younger generation seems to want homosexuality to be seen as normal--not exceptional. This is verified by the research published by Ritch C. Savin-Williams in his book, The New Gay Teenager. Sullivan’s generation, on the other hand, fears the loss of the more radical homosexual culture that emerged after events such as New York’s Stonewall Rebellion and the re-branding of San Francisco’s Castro district as a gay haven.

Sullivan’s point is clear--the transition of homosexual culture represents the substitution of Ellen DeGeneres for the “bull-dykes” and “lipstick lesbians” of the past. Likewise, well-known homosexual male celebrities define homosexuality in the public culture, rather than “hyper-masculine bikers and muscle men.”

Sullivan admits (or celebrates) the fact that “these sub-sub-cultures still exist.” Yet, “the polarities in the larger gay population are far less pronounced than they once were; the edges have softened.”

In this article, Sullivan is returning to ground he has covered before. His 1995 book, Virtually Normal, described the struggle between “prohibitionists,” “liberationists,” “conservatives,” and “liberals,” in the homosexual community. During this period, Sullivan emerged as a major (and, at least at first, quite lonely) proponent of same-sex marriage.

“Gay marriage is not a radical step,” Sullivan insisted. “It is a profoundly humanizing, traditionalizing step. It is the first step in any resolution of the homosexual question--more important than any other institution, since it is the most central institution to the nature of the problem, which is to say, the emotional and sexual bond between one human being and another. If nothing else were done at all, and gay marriage were legalized, ninety percent of the political work necessary to achieve gay and lesbian equality would have been achieved. It is ultimately the only reform that truly matters.”

But, even as Sullivan argued for the acceptance and legalization of same-sex marriage, more radical homosexual theorists were dismissing marriage altogether. As Sullivan explained, “Marriage of all institutions is to liberationists a form of imprisonment; it reeks of a discourse that has bought and sold property, that has denigrated and subjected women, that has constructed human relationships into a crude and suffocating form. Why on earth should it be supported for homosexuals?”

Sullivan’s 1995 book, and his most recent article, must be read in light of his 1998 testimonial, Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival. This book was written after Sullivan had been diagnosed as HIV-positive. As he recalled: “I contracted the disease in full knowledge of how it is transmitted, and without any illusions about how debilitating and terrifying a diagnosis it could be. I have witnessed first-hand a man dying of AIDS; I have seen the ravages of its impact and the harrowing humiliation it meant. I had written about it, volunteered to combat it, and tried to understand it. But I still risked getting it, and the memories of that risk and the ramifications of it for myself, my family, and my friends still forced me into questions I would rather not confront, and have expended a great deal of effort avoiding.”

When a high school friend asked Sullivan how he had contracted the virus, Sullivan informed him that he had no idea which sex partner had been the source of the viral transmission. “How many people did you sleep with, for God’s sake?,” his friend asked. Note Sullivan’s answer carefully: “Too many, God knows. Too many for meaning and dignity to be given to every one; too many for love to be present at each; too many for sex to be very often more than a temporary but powerful release from debilitating fear and loneliness.”

In other words, the public Andrew Sullivan emerged as a major proponent of responsibility, stability, and self-control, while the private Andrew Sullivan was deeply involved in homosexual promiscuity.

All this broke into public view in 2001, when a homosexual columnist discovered that Sullivan had been posting advertisements for unprotected homosexual sex at internet web sites. The ensuing controversy within the gay community was vitriolic, even as it was revealing.

“The End of Gay Culture” is an eye-opening essay. As an exercise in cultural analysis, it demonstrates genuine insight and an insider’s perspective. More than anything else, Sullivan’s article should awaken thinking Christians to the fact that homosexuality is being normalized in the larger culture. This surely represents a matter of urgent missiological concern, for the normalization of sin represents a progressive hardening of the nation’s heart against the Gospel.

At a more personal level, this article reminds me to pray for Andrew Sullivan. I say this even as I realize that he may be more offended by my prayer than by anything else. In most of his writings, Mr. Sullivan demonstrates a consistent and ardent determination to celebrate homosexuality as central to his own self-discovery and personhood. Yet, he also reveals significant doubts. When he explains that he “never publicly defended promiscuity” nor publicly attacked it because “I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold,” I detect a glimmer of doubt. I have faced Mr. Sullivan in public debate on issues related to homosexuality. I consider him to be among the most gifted, thoughtful, and unpredictable intellectuals on the current scene. More than anything else, I want Mr. Sullivan to find his self-identity and deepest passions in the transforming power of Christ--the power to see all things made new. Without apology, I pray that one day he will see all that he has written in defense of homosexuality, and all that he has known in terms of his homosexual identity, as loss, and to find in Christ the only resolution of our sexuality and the only solution to the problem we all share--the problem of sin.

Andrew Sullivan has been a focus of my prayer since I first learned of his HIV-positive status. I do pray that God will give him strengthened health and the gift of time. After all, our Christian concern should be focused not only on the challenge of homosexuality in the culture, but the challenge of reaching homosexuals with the love of Christ and the truth of the Gospel.

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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Did Jesus Bless Homosexuality? (Christian Post, 051030)

Many gay religionists insist that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality and thus could not have opposed it. Often conservatives counter that He taught against any form of sexual expression other than heterosexual marriage, so He did not need to specify every sexual act outside of marriage for condemnation. What is the correct position?

Certainly, Jesus did address the topic of sexual ethics and marriage. In Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus said: “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Jesus’ disciples were nervous at this teaching. In fact, since Jesus made divorce much more difficult to attain than Moses did, they wondered aloud if marriage was such a good thing after all (“If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” Matt 19:10). Like many people today, the disciples thought the fidelity and permanence taught by Jesus might be too difficult for anyone to follow.

To the skepticism of the disciples, Jesus responded, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”(Matthew 19:11-12).

For years, I did not give much thought to who Jesus might have been referencing here by the use of the term eunuchs. I assumed that all eunuchs were males who were castrated or otherwise physically incapable to have sexual relations. Recently, however, I have begun to wonder if the Greek word eunouchoi (eunuchs) might also include someone without natural attraction to the opposite sex.

Could Jesus be referring here to male homosexuals as being among those who experience no other sex attraction, and if so, does this passage signal the blessing of Jesus on homosexuality?

A recent paper by a Norwegian theologian, Raghnild Schanke, asserts that Jesus was indeed referring to several categories of people including asexual persons and those who would fit the modern concept of homosexuality. She notes that many eunuchs in antiquity were capable of sexual relations but did not seem to have natural desire for women. She amasses an impressive array of ancient references to some eunuchs being disinterested in the opposite sex even though physically capable.

To address these questions, I turned to one of the top biblical scholars in the world regarding sexuality, Dr. Robert Gagnon, of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Author of the encyclopedic, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Dr. Gagnon commented, “I think that the phrase “eunuchs who were born so from the womb of mother” (Matt 19:12) is probably an inclusive group consisting of any man who lacks sexual interest in women. This group would include both men who have genital abnormalities that result in impotence and men whose genitals are still capable of begetting children. It would also include both asexual persons and persons who, in time, develop exclusive same-sex attractions.”

Regarding Jesus’ phrase “eunuchs because they were born that way,” Dr. Gagnon said, “The saying does suggest a recognition on the part of Jesus and early Christianity that some men are born in such a way that they do not develop, as adolescents and adults, other-sex attractions, for whatever reason.” Such men are not born gay, but rather, without responsiveness to the opposite sex. Attractions to the same sex may or may not develop during the formative years via a combination of biological and environmental factors.

There is a modern-day, experiential validity to this interpretation. I have counseled individuals who from their earliest recollections have little or no attraction to the opposite sex. Also, the opposite-sex desire of some is hindered due to traumatic circumstances in life, whether physical injury or emotional trauma (“eunuchs made that way by men”). And still others choose celibacy for “the kingdom of heaven.” Note that Jesus does not condemn such persons for their situation.

So do homosexual relationships have the endorsement of Jesus? Not so, says Dr. Gagnon: “The implication of Jesus’ saying is that all such ‘born eunuchs’ have no option for engaging in sexual activity outside of a man-woman bond.” Furthermore, fidelity to this teaching “does not require that one become exclusively heterosexually responsive with no homosexual temptation. However, it does require abstinence from homosexual bonds.”

For classical Christianity, the union of male and female is much more than a sociological convenience but provides imagery for some of its central teachings (e.g., Christ as the bridegroom and the church as his bride). The teachings of Jesus in Matthew 19 deepen this commitment to male-female unions by very specifically considering people who either are unable or choose not to form such sexual relationships.

Thus, if one supports same-sex relations or unions as sound ecclesiastical policy, one must do it with some other philosophical base than can be found in these teachings of Jesus.

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Warren Throckmorton, PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Fellow for Psychology and Public Policy in the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City (PA) College.

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The Challenge of Homosexuality—How Important Is It? (Mohler, 060105)

In every generation, the church is faced with a certain test-case, a certain issue which is the clearest barometer of the conviction and biblical commitment of the people of God. The church in Germany, for example, faced this sort of question with the rise of Hitler in the 1930s. Today, the church in America faces a secular regime of unrestrained moral revisionism, especially on the issue of homosexuality.

In 1997, the historian Paul Berman made an interesting argument in A Tale of Two Utopias. Looking back at what he called “the gay awakening,” he said this: “We seem to be hearing: ‘There are no marshals today—not on the question of heterosexuality versus homosexuality. On that most crucial and personal of questions, you, each and every one of you, are responsible for yourselves.’ We are hearing: ‘Concerning homosexuality, it is forbidden anymore to forbid.’” Then as now, the general moral principle regarding the issue of homosexuality that rules in the larger culture is this—It is forbidden to forbid. Today, that principle can be applied to almost every dimension of life. It is forbidden to forbid—except in the areas ruled by political correctness. For it is not forbidden to forbid when it comes to the sex codes adopted by so many colleges and universities. That aside, it is forbidden to forbid that which the historic Christian faith has opposed.

The issue of homosexuality is currently the most heated front in the culture war. Homosexual activist groups are pressing for the identification of homosexual men and lesbians as a special class which is granted protections under civil rights legislation. Moreover, it is now commonplace to find homosexual and homoerotic literature in public libraries, and even now in some public schools. The normalization of homosexuality is becoming a social fact.

The larger secular academy has for the most part capitulated to the homosexual movement. Gay studies programs are now a growth industry in academic culture. The mainstream media portray homosexuality in a positive light, and the GLAAD organization (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) publishes an annual roster of how many homosexual characters are presented in primetime television. That used to be a very short list, but it has grown to be a very long one as network television has pushed the envelope further and further.

Even the older Protestant mainline denominations are currently debating homosexuality, with attention currently focused on the ordination of practicing homosexuals to the ministry and the equivalence of homosexual unions with heterosexual covenantal marriage.

How did this happen? The origins of the homosexual movement as a major cultural force can be traced to the 1969 Stonewall Riots in Manhattan. It was there that the civil rights impetus of the 1960s and the moral radicalism of the far Left coalesced in the identification of homosexuals as a people group denied legal rights and thus deserving of particular protections. The patrons of the Stonewall Bar launched a movement that would become the inaugural symbol of the gay liberation struggle.

What followed has been a measured and strategic effort to win the legitimization of homosexuality, to promote homosexual themes in the media, and to receive special entitlements as a legally protected class. Furthermore, the movement has pressed for specific public policy goals such as the removal of all anti-sodomy laws, the recognition of homosexual partnership as being on par with heterosexual marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and the removal of all barriers to homosexuals in the military, the academy, business, and the churches.

In order to pursue these goals, the homosexual movement has organized itself as a liberation struggle. Based on an ideology of liberation from oppression drawn from Marxism, the intention has been to identify with other liberation movements, including the Civil Rights movement, the feminist agenda, and others. But the goal is not the mere legitimatization of homosexual activity, or even the mere recognition of homosexual relationships. Rather, their goal is the creation of a public homosexual culture within the American mainstream. This movement is a stark challenge to all sectors of the society. It is the driving engine of a social revolution which is now well underway in American life and which affects everything from the family to the state itself.

An evangelical perspective must recognize that such a revolution is itself a direct challenge to the foundations of gender, family, sexuality, and morality, which are some of the central issues of a Christian worldview lived out in the world. Thus, this is a challenge evangelicals cannot fail to meet with both courage and grace.

The homosexual movement did not spring from a vacuum. Indeed, this challenge has emerged from within the context of a culture shift which has transformed Western societies during the twentieth century. The term “culture shift” points to a pattern of fundamental changes which shapes every level of social and cultural life. A culture shift is nothing less than a fundamental re-ordering of the entire society from top to bottom—ideologies, worldviews, morality, and patterns of knowledge. The culture shift from modernity to postmodernity has affected every community’s understanding of meaning. More importantly, it has radically reordered how Americans consider the issue of truth itself.

If nothing else, the last half of the twentieth century has demonstrated that the left wing of the Enlightenment has finally won the day. Whereas most pre-Enlightenment persons understood truth to be an objective reality to which they must submit, modern Americans view truth as a private commodity to be shaped, accepted, or rejected in accord with personal preference, taste, or communal decision. Americans are now a nation of over 250 million moral relativists. The vast majority reject the very notion of absolute truth and consider all matters of faith and morality to be no more than expressions of private preference. It is not that we believe something to be true, but that we believe something to be true for us.

This all-embracing, undiluted individualism underlies our current cultural confusion. The progressive shift in the locus of truth and the locus of authority from the Christian worldview to the state, to the mass market and eventually to the isolated individual, leaves the American public unarmed for authentic moral discourse.

An opening came for the homosexual movement in a shift which Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School calls the transfer to “rights talk.” At some point in the last thirty or forty years, the American civic discourse changed from a matter of debate over right and wrong to a debate over rights—my rights, our rights, your rights, and their rights. According to this perspective, it is not only the right, but fundamentally the responsibility of every self-defined interest group to claim its rights and to exercise those rights in the public square.

“Rights talk” is a fundamental shift in the way a society envisions its own order, its own priorities, and what issues are genuinely at stake. As a result we really can not talk anymore about ordering a society in terms of a category like “righteousness,” a word the nation’s Founders used rather naturally.

As the church confronts moral issues, it must quickly determine the relative importance of these issues as each relates to biblical revelation and the core truths of the Christian faith. One of the problems is that the church often does not know the difference between saying that something is unimportant and saying that it is of less importance. Our moral debate is very often clouded by such confusions, and when the world listens to us from the outside it often seems as if we believe every issue is of the same moral weight.

In traditional Christian moral theory there has been an understanding that there is a hierarchy of goods and a hierarchy of issues. The closer one gets to the most basic issues of life, as revealed in Scripture, the more important the moral issue of debate. That of course raises the question, “Where in a hierarchy of goods does the issue of homosexuality fall?”

There is no moral issue more fundamental than our sexual ordering, our gendered identity—the role of men and women and the institution marriage. Thus, the issue of homosexuality is a first order theological issue. Unfortunately, even that is a matter of debate among moral theologians. Some simply do not accept that it is a first order issue, but it most certainly is, because fundamental truths, essential to the Christian faith, are at stake in this confrontation. These truths range from basic issues of theism to biblical authority, the nature of human beings, God’s purpose in creation, sin, salvation, sanctification and, by extension, the entire body of divinity. To put this case bluntly, if the claims advanced by the homosexual movement are true and valid, the entire system of Christian faith is compromised, and some essential doctrines will fall.

Lest this be seen as an overstatement, consider the issue of biblical authority and inspiration. If the claims of the revisionist interpreters are valid, then the very basis of biblical inspiration is invalidated. But the challenge is yet deeper, for if, as the revisionist interpreters claim, Holy Scripture can be so wrong and so misdirected on this issue to which it speaks so unambiguously, then the entire evangelical paradigm of biblical authority will not stand.

The church is called to confront the challenge of homosexuality with both compassion and truth. Even as Christians confront this task, maturity and moral seriousness will require that we understand the fundamental importance of this question. The challenge of homosexuality is not merely a matter of cultural and political debate—it is a matter of urgent theological significance.

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The Cultural Momentum of the Homosexual Movement—And the Church’s Response (Mohler, 060106)

Over the past thirty years, the homosexual movement has coalesced into a powerful force for cultural change. In fact, momentum for the normalization of homosexual behavior and relationships is now recognized in large segments of the society as a legitimate interest group. Though the identification of homosexuals as an organized political group was born in 1969 with the Stonewall riots in New York City, it really did not gain any kind of cultural momentum until the 1990s.

As evidence of this, look at the acceptance and promotion of homosexuality and homoeroticism in the mainstream media. Magazines, television programming, and Hollywood movies now feature positive representations of homosexuality and homosexual relationships. Without doubt, homosexual behavior did not begin in 1969. Nevertheless, until recent years, there has been no celebration of homosexuality and no attempt to bring it into the cultural mainstream. Even in the 1990s, it was only in the last years of that decade that the acceleration really arrived in force.

Columnist Maggie Gallagher has noted, “We have not always been so woefully dependent upon the sexual act itself. Two hundred years ago, for example, homosexuality did not exist. There was sodomy, of course, and buggery and fornication and adultery, and other sexual sins, but none of these forbidden acts fundamentally altered the sexual landscape. A man who committed sodomy may have lost his soul but he did not lose his gender. He did not become a homosexual—a third sex. That was the invention of the nineteenth century imagination.”

This argument is debatable, but it is also very interesting—and it comes from both the right and the left. On the right are observers like Maggie Gallagher, who bases her argument on the natural law; while on the left one finds theorists like the late Michel Foucault, the French postmodernist philosopher. Both of these argued that, while there were men who committed homosexual acts and women who committed homosexual acts, there was no third species of “a homosexual” until Victorian times. Even in the twentieth century, homosexuality still was not well-accepted as an interest group until the late 1990s, when it became a part of popular culture. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders only in 1973, and that was the result of political pressure rather than any kind of scientific or medical evidence. It took from 1973 to the late 1990s for this change to enter the popular consciousness.

Our engagement with the issue of homosexuality is no longer merely at the theological or theoretical level. It is being lived out in popular culture, where the homosexual agenda now has as one of its central aims to make homoerotic images, literature, language, and relationships as acceptable as heterosexual relationships. And this is not just a matter of Ellen DeGeneres, Brokeback Mountain, and other developments on television and the movie screen.

During the 1990s, the work of photographer Bruce Weber, whose images have been a staple of homosexual pornography for many years, became a major turning point in the mainstreaming of homosexuality and homoeroticism. Weber’s work came into great prominence in a series of advertisements he did for clothing designer Calvin Klein. Placed prominently in New York’s Times Square, at bus stops and on billboards all over the city, these were the first advertisements to use the male physique in explicitly sexual images for the purpose of commercial gain. Rather than shocking the nation, the controversial pictures actually proved to be commercially productive.

Today, this kind of imagery is being targeted at younger and younger audiences. Eventually Abercrombie and Fitch, a major retailer to teenagers and young adults, hired Weber as its photographer, and his homoerotic images began decorating shopping malls across the country. In essence, the photographs were hardly short of pornographic. What has changed so fundamentally is this: Less than twenty years ago, most young men would have run from such images of barely clothed males in erotic poses. Now they have become so mainstream—and even so commercially successful—that homoerotic imagery has come to be recognized as one of the most effective advertising means of reaching young people.

It is hard to fathom what an enormous moral and cultural reversal this really is. The world today’s children inhabit is a world fundamentally different from the world their parents knew. By the time these children reach elementary school age, they are likely to be confronted with books like Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate and others. Moreover, homosexuality is being presented on popular television and in other media as an acceptable lifestyle.

All this raises the question, Does gender matter any more? It is a question which cuts right to the very structure of creation and the fact that we are embodied and gendered in God’s created order as male and female. Admittedly, that is a rather restrictive categorization. It runs against modern physiological and therapeutic theory. According to the prevailing academic opinion, there is a continuum running from male to female and from heterosexuality to homosexuality. So we end up with newly invented categories such as the transgendered and transsexuals. The fact is, when a culture gives itself over to something this fundamentally in rejection of the created order, what results is an entirely new order which brings mass disorder. That is exactly where we find ourselves in today’s culture. We see it pervasively in the images which constitute mass media.

The question is how the church will respond to this challenge. Our failure thus far to engage this issue with significant energy and conviction has left the evangelical movement largely in a state of reaction. If we are to give a positive response to the homosexual challenge, we must first establish our own understanding of human sexuality. At the same time, we must be very clear and candid about what Scripture reveals concerning homosexuality, not only in terms of genital acts, but in terms of spiritual rejection. We do so with confidence that the incarnation of the Son and the divine revelation of Scripture is superior to any other claim of authority. We must neither cringe nor surrender in the face of secularism, nor in the face of all the arguments given in defense of homosexuality.

With this in mind, Christians ought to use in this argument the tools that have been given to us by our Creator and not tools of our own invention. In other words, evangelicals do not argue from the standpoint of psychology, sociology, medicine and other fields. To do so is to surrender the one authority we are given from God—biblical authority. It may seem awkward to take the argument of Romans 1 into a culture like ours, but the truth is, it was just as awkward for Paul to write it in the first century.

The most urgent need is for the church to take up this challenge—and to present a clear and cogent defense of human sexuality as defined by the Creator. Our main concern must be the positive presentation of God’s perfect purpose in creating us male and female and as sexual beings. Nevertheless, we must also confront the confusions and distortions of our age, knowing that the rejection of God’s pattern and order for our sexuality leads inevitably to human misery and to God’s judgment. In a very real sense, we now find ourselves in a position much like that of the Christians in the first century. We are called to confront our culture with the revolutionary message of Christian truth applied to every dimension of life.

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