Let me set ground rules first, before this thread turns into another trainwreck.[ul]
[li]This is not intended to be a referendum on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality. I think most of you know my position on it by now. Instead, it’s a “Given A, what is B?” thread. A, for the purposes of this thread only, is not negotiable, even if it does not necessarily reflect the views of the original poster. [/li][li]This is intended to examine the consequences of an assumption. [/li][li]Please try to keep this civil. That should go without saying here in GD, but I realize I’m opening a can of worms here and I’d rather keep the things from squirming all over the place.[/ul][/li]
I’m also running on two assumptions here:
People who believe homosexuality will continue to exist, at least for the next several days.
A homosexual cannot simply “choose not to be homosexual.”
On to the question: If we take it as given that homosexuality is wrong, how should someone who is homosexual live his or her life? Specifically, should he live a completely celibate life? Can she live a celibate life but still love someone of the same sex? Should he repent? If so, how often, annually, monthly, daily or on some other schedule? Should she dedicate her life to God? If so, how? The Episcopal and Catholic churches still have monasteries and convents so I’m particulary interested in answers from those who belong to denominations without them. Should he give up any claim to Christianity? If so, how do you reconcile that with the idea that Christianity is the only true religion?
I acknowledge that there are people on this board who believe homosexuality is wrong. I am straight, but I can’t for the life of me, figure out what these people want homosexuals to be or do. I know what it’s like to consider myself so worthless and unacceptable that suicide seems like the only answer, but I can’t believe that’s what such people want. Besides, there are also many Christians who consider suicide a sin, including, I think, the Catholic church.
I’m trying to walk lightly here because I know this is a controversial issue which a great many people feel strongly about. As I’ve said before, I ask in the interest of lessening my own ignorance.
I think assumption #2 is what’s going to cause this thread to either trainwreck or simply sink like a stone off of first page. It does seem, based on limited anecdotal observation, that the more strongly someone feels that homosexuality is wrong, the more likely they are to also believe that it’s a choice–and thus, the answer to the titular question is indeed to simply “choose not to be homosexual.” (This sort of thing also seems to go hand-in-hand with, for instance, believing atheists really do believe in God deep down–in much the same way that everyone is really “born straight”–but deny it, apparently out of sheer bloody-mindedness.)
If a homosexual should simply stop being homosexual, how exactly should he or she go about this? Please keep in mind that I’m a logic geek who’s trying to figure out how she’d deal with the idea “I am X. X is wrong. Now what do I do?” In other words, please be as specific as possible.
I’m going to try and answer your question, CJ, as best as I can, with God’s help. I don’t have all the answers. But, it’s my belief that a person who is a homosexual and considers themselves a Christian should live a celibate lifestyle just as I believe a single Christian person should live a celibate lifestyle. Now please bear with me, I have more to say. I do believe that people have feelings of love for the same sex, I’m not saying this can’t happen. I know people don’t believe me but I really feel for those caught up in these feelings yet they want to do what’s right. I’m sure it’s a very agonizing struggle. And yet, I’m in a quandary before God as to what to think or say to people about this. On the one hand I care about gays, but on the other I believe God to say that this is wrong. So I can’t say “it’s okay, what you’re doing is not wrong or God will understand”. I realize that to some this may sound uncaring, uncompasionate, or unloving to expect a person to live a celibate lifestyle. Yet God’s word says this is the best thing, if we are able, so we can concentrate totally on serving Him. Please read 1 Corinthians 7:1-5. Of course, all of us know how hard it is to be celibate and God’s provides a way by letting every man have his own wife and every woman having her own husband. It also talks about in 1 Cor 7, if a man can’t keep his virgin, and she is of menstrual age, let them marry. Anyway, I’m trying to give my view in as gentle a way as possible. There are gays who have come out of this lifestyle and have married and had families and yet I know there are those who still have these strong feelings. As I said, I don’t have the answers to everything, some things are a deep struggle. And yet, I believe this to be wrong so the only thing I am able to say that the homosexual should do is what I’ve stated above. I know this may sound harsh, and I’m truly sorry, but my conscience before God won’t allow me to say anything else. I’ve tried to share my opinion gently here as the Lord wants me to tell the truth in love. Lying to people isn’t right, even it’s what they want to hear. Of course, I also realize that there are arguments as to the validity of the Scriptures and the translations. I don’t want to get into a debate on that. I accept that others may not believe the same about the Bible as I do. Anyway, CJ, I’ve done my best here to answer your question in a gentle manner. Forgive me if I could have said it a better way. I want to be caring yet, without compromising before God what I believe to be true. God bless you.
One example: a fellow by name of Alan Turing (cast a rather large shadow over the computer field) was convicted of being homosexual (yes, convicted: being gay was a crime in Britain at the time, which I would think only makes sense if one believes that it’s wrong) in the early 50’s. He was sentenced to hormonal treatment with estrogen for it; he developed breasts, became suicidally depressed, and killed himself in '54.
That seems a little bit…excessive…to me. But I do have to concede that, after he killed himself, he was no longer gay. So it was effective in that light.
This phenomenon is called “ego-dystonic homosexuality” in some circles. It’s a name for people who are very very unhappy with their same-sex orientation. Many treatments have been tried, many have claimed success, but none have withstood either the test of time or rigourous analysis to have successfully converted significant proportions of these people into “heterosexuals”. Many went on to live heterosexual lives, get married, have kids, but long-term follow-up of these people seemed to imply that the great majority still considered themselves homosexual, and a higher than average percent of them had quite dysfunctional lives and family relationships.
This is not to say that changing orientation is not an option. It’s just not a real successful one, despite claims by organizations that push such programs. It’s failure rate should be considered when entering such treatment.
It’s quite a controversial area, and concrete data is still difficult to come by.
I dunno if this was meant in jest or not, but it’s pretty accurate, from what I’ve heard. The Catholic church preaches that if you’re gay, the proper thing to do is to be celibate. Gay Catholics figure that if they become priests, hey, that’ll make it easier, right? Apparently not.
Maybe the Catholic church should add, “And by the way, don’t become a priest.”
Well, there are also a lot of straight priests out there. Is a bad thing for one to become a priest-if that is what one truly feels called to do?
(Note-I’m not saying someone should become a priest because they’re gay and they feel somehow that it’s wrong and they have to make up for it or whatever).
I don’t think I can give a serious reply because the topic of this thread is depressing me in the extreme. I’m just tired of people making me feel like such a loathsome creature because of who I love.
I do think the question deserves some reflection from the other side–that is, if the church members truly believe homosexuality to be wrong, they’d be obligated to offer support and encourage to the person. As cj described it, they’ve probably understood themselves for awhile to be “X.” If the community understands that “Y” is to be proper, there’s going to have to be support if the homosexual wants to switch sides or stay celibate.
Damn, that sounds weird, even to me (an orthodox Catholic).
An answer, then (more importantly) a comment about the point of this thread follow:
Assuming #2 in the OP…
I asked a fundie Protestant evangelical friend about this once. Basically, this was his take: remain celibate, or have sex with women. You could be homosexual in orientation and still have sex with women, in the same way that one could be heterosexual and still have sex with men. The acts do not define the orientation, nor need the orientation define the acts. My friend asserted that people who are absolutely not attracted to women and never could be no matter how much they wanted to (I had to make it a hypothetical because he simply could not envision such a thing in his limited concept of this) could nonetheless marry them and live that way. It doesn’t take much to arouse a man sexually, so I suppose that could work. Alternately, of course, he proposes celibacy.
So that, in a nutshell, is the expanded version of H4E’s answer. That’s the answer you were looking for with the OP, the one you expected to get and were waiting on so you smash it for being unfair. Right? You had to know that would be the answer. I knew it would be the answer when I asked my friend. It’s the only answer they can give. The only point of asking it to someone is to get that very answer from them, hoping they realize how unfair it is in the process of giving it, hoping that will make them change their mind about the issue.
Hate to disappoint you, it won’t. I’ve done this game with a few friends of mine, they always backtrack after giving the H4E answer to attack assumption #2. They can live with the H4E answer, but they’d prefer to avoid being forced into that conclusion by attacking the verocity of the assumptions behind the question.
Oh, and BTW, Drastic’s disturbing tale about Alan Turing…yuck, dude. Now I’m going to have that icky sequence of events in my mind every time I think about AI, Turing Tests, and Chinese Rooms. Of course, that discussion is so 50-years-ago, and Searle said he wanted people to shut up about it, so perhaps I shall henceforth.
