Comment

Comment by Grinning Cat on February 25, 2013 at 4:21pm

The types of Christianity that virulently oppose the very existence of LGBT people -- and who present themselves as the only true "Christians" -- have more in common with similar fundamentalist Islam or Judaism or others, than with the accepting, more liberal branches of the "same religion"!

Comment by Grinning Cat on February 25, 2013 at 4:13pm

That book was written in an age of very different foundational assumptions:

1. "Be fruitful and multiply", in a seemingly limitless earth, was a good strategy for your tribe and your religion to gain market share. An obvious corollary: sex "should" be procreative;
2. The patriarchal society expected husbands and fathers to make decisions as "CEO"s of their families. Individual freedom and fulfillment for other people wasn't so valued...
3. They didn't have modern, effective birth control;
4. "Impurity" in the family line was an "abomination" that could arouse visceral disgust; another reason it was crucial to know who a kid's father was. The bible defines adultery as a man having sex with a woman who's married or betrothed to someone else. No accident that our word comes from "adulterate", to mix with inferior materials, to defile, to taint, to make impure.

(Some of this is remembered from the book Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today.)

Now that we recognize those (and other) ancient axioms for the shit they are, time to flush them away!

Comment by Loren Miller on February 25, 2013 at 3:04pm

Nurture is unlikely, Ed.  To this day, I remember a 60 Minutes piece where Lesley Stahl interviewed two sets of identical twins, one pair aged around 9-10, the other in their late teens to early 20's.  In both cases, one twin was straight, the other gay!  It was mentioned in the piece (which you can find on YouTube) that hormonal gradients in the womb might account at least in part for the differences between the twins.

The interview with the parents of the younger twins was very telling in that there was NO DIFFERENCE in how the two were raised, and yet the opening shot of their bedrooms is striking in the differences there.

Comment by Grinning Cat on February 25, 2013 at 1:41pm

For some of those straight people, having gay babies happens despite their best efforts!

If there were a prenatal test for sexual orientation, I can unfortunately imagine some couples choosing not to bring a gay baby into the world. (Such a test wouldn't be trivial, if it were possible: genetics isn't the only determining factor. Identical twins are more likely to share a sexual orientation, but there are many pairs where they don't. Prenatal environment plays a role, too. Boys carried by mothers who were previously pregnant with their brothers are somewhat more likely to be gay.)

Then again, LGBT rights don't/shouldn't depend on being "born this way". Even if being gay or bi or straight (or finding that some other label is better, or none is) were a "choice", it would be as morally neutral as, say, choosing to become a Buddhist or a tuba player.

Comment by Mark Winter on July 31, 2011 at 10:43am

Right. Very good point and well presented!