What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuals Who Were Born That Way?
Image via WikipediaApologists for homosexual behavior often attempt to distinguish between “born” homosexuals and people who engage in homosexual behavior for other reasons. This distinction is usually combined with the claim that approximately 10 percent of the population is exclusively homosexual. Both of these claims are false. Further, they are misleading because they provide a rationalization for “normalizing” harmful behavior.
Science has not yet discovered any genetically dictated behavior in humans. So far, genetically dictated behaviors of the one-gene-one-trait variety have been found only in very simple organisms. . . . But if many genes are involved in a behavior, then changes in that behavior will tend to take place very slowly and steadily (say, changes of a few percent each generation over many generations, perhaps thirty). That being so, homosexuality could not appear and disappear suddenly in family trees the way it does. (Whitehead, Genes, 209, quoted in The Bible and Homosexual Practice)
Desires and inclinations don’t constitute identity. We all have desires and inclinations we must choose to resist. Certainly, while there is overwhelming evidence that genetic predisposition alone is not sufficient to produce a homosexual identity, the biology and early childhood experiences of some individuals strongly combine to give the impression of being “born” homosexual. Such people should never be condemned for such feelings, but viewing such feelings as “identity” would be a serious mistake. Authors Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse explain why in their book, Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate.
Science has not eliminated responsibility for sexual behavior. . . . The church’s moral concern is with what an individual does with his or her experiences of same-sex attraction. Only in the case of extreme biological determination at the level of individual acts would moral culpability be seen as obliterated. Homosexual persons are not subhuman robots whose acts are predetermined. They are moral agents who inherit tendencies from biology and environment, and who share in shaping their character by the response they make to their life situations. Like all persons, they must ask, “This is what I want to do, but is it what I should do?” The existence of inclinations or predispositions does not erase the need for moral evaluation of those inclinations (pp. 89-90).
Would it be helpful to view some people who have committed murder as “born killers” whose behavior is genetically “caused”? Would it serve any good to hold forth the possibility that some people have no choice but to identify themselves as “killers” who have no other choice but to live out their violent identity? A government report on the origins of violence states:
[Violent behavior is caused by] interactions among individuals’ psychosocial development, neurological and hormonal differences, and social processes. . . . These studies suggest at most a weak role for genetic processes in influencing potentials for violent behavior. . . . If genetic predispositions to violence are discovered, they are likely to involve many genes and substantial environmental interaction rather than any simple genetic marker.1
A realistic perspective views both violent passion and sexual desire (both homosexual and heterosexual) as inclinations that can either be misused or kept within proper bounds.
Further, the idea that there is a difference between “genuine” homosexuals and people who engage in homosexuality for other reasons is countered by the evidence. Most of those who refer to themselves as “exclusively” homosexual have on some occasion(s) been sexuality intimate with the opposite sex.2 In terms of common sense and practical judgment, how could one objectively distinguish between a “genuine” homosexual who has nevertheless experienced sex with a member of the opposite sex, and a person who is “not genuinely homosexual”? For that matter, can one differentiate in any ultimate sense between the passions that aroused ancient Assyrian soldiers to rape their defeated enemies and the passions that motivate prisoners in exclusively male prisons to engage in sodomy? Can we clearly distinguish between the desire of a married adult man for an attractive adolescent male (as was common among the Greeks) and the desperate longing of a lonely, unloved adolescent to be touched? How are these passions less “genuine” than those of people who believe they are “constitutionally gay”?
Sexual passion above all other kinds of passion is likely to generate rationalizations. This is why the Bible doesn’t base the morality of sexual behavior on subjective feelings.3 Many pedophiles insist that they genuinely love the children they abuse. Adulterers often claim that they never were genuinely in love with their wives, but have found true love in the arms of another woman. Some adulterers (both male and female) claim that their love is too great to share with merely one individual, and can only be expressed in an “open marriage” enhanced by other liaisons. There is nothing new about the subtlety of sexual temptation and the rationalization of sexual sin. Scripture takes an unequivocal stand against homosexual behavior because it is an inherent violation of human dignity and barrier to spiritual growth.
- The 1992 United States National Research Council Report on violence and genes, quoted by Whitehead, Genes, 215-216.Back To Article
- Alan P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 53-61, 286-94. Back To Article
- Finally, we want to briefly return to a matter raised earlier. We quoted McNeil, who stated “Only a sadistic God would create hundreds of thousands of humans to be inherently homosexual and then deny them the right to sexual intimacy.” To this we must respond, “Who made sexual intimacy a right?” Rather than a right, Scripture would seem to paint sexual chastity as an obligation for those who, for whatever reasons, do not find themselves married (whether those reasons are an unwanted divorce, lack of available partners, death of a spouse or because of a religious vow). Homosexual persons have the same capacities for all other sorts of intimacy, other than erotic sexual intimacy, that serve to sustain and nourish us. (Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate, p. 90)
