What else is there to say?
www.freetobeme.com
www.pureintimacy.org
There's even a whole webring on this stuff!
http://pub44.bravenet.com/sitering/show.php?usernum=3709574186
And mixed feelings about this one: www.bridges-across.org
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1 comment:
I'm very impressed with with the second website, pureintimacy.org. (Not that I'm unimpressed with the others; it's the only one I looked at.) The first thing I looked at was the section "How Might Homosexuality Develop?" which contained some parts that very much reflected my own thinking on the subject and other parts that I found more questionable.
I should disclose up front that I've personally never had any sexual attraction to persons of my own sex, so I don't have any direct authority to speak on this subject. But even though I've never seriously doubted my heterosexuality, I have nonetheless experienced a complex and ambiguous set of feelings with respect to the two sexes, and of course I've had homosexual friends, so I do feel as though I can at least imagine what it must be like to develop homosexual feelings.
What the article says about how homosexuality develops seems quite plausible: there are some genetic and hormonal predispositions, but these are not enough in themselves to cause this condition; environment is crucial. But no matter what the genetic or developmental cause, what seems abundantly clear is that homosexuality is not a choice. If I learned anything from my homosexual friends, it is that they did not choose their sexuality.
What I find somewhat dubious in the article is the discussion of attempts to "cure" homosexuals, to turn them into heterosexuals. Whenever the idea of curing homosexuals is presented to me, I think of the short story "Flowers for Algeron", in which a mentally impaired man is transformed into a supergenius by means of an advanced medical treatment. The treatment works, but the retarded man, who was once sweet and well-tempered, becomes cruel and arrogant as he gains intelligence. Eventually, the treatment wears off, and he becomes the same good man that he was before. What this story suggests to me is that psychological characteristics like cognitive ability or sexual orientation are too deeply ingrained in our personalities to be changed without having profound and unpredictable consequences, and we ought to be very skeptical of any attempts to "cure" these conditions.
I have an enormous amount of compassion for homosexuals, and I think that they must be treated with dignity and respect. Nevertheless, I am not in favor of transforming marriage to include homosexual couples. Let me be clear: I do not think that homosexuals are evil, nor do I think that the love that they feel for each other is evil; love is never evil. But I do think that their sexuality is impaired or distorted in much the same way that a mentally retarded person's cognitive abilities are impaired. Nevertheless, I don't think that homosexuals' should suppress their feelings altogether, anymore than I think that a mentally impaired person should suppress what cognitive abilities they have. I'm very happy for homosexual couples who find lifelong, intimate partners of the same sex, just as I am happy for mentally impaired persons who find productive and fulfilling work that suits their mental abilities. But I'm not in favor of homosexual "marriage" any more than I am in favor of setting aside endowed professorships for the mentally impaired in the name of "equality." Promoting the mentally impaired to professorships would make a mockery of the mentally impaired and the professorship and would make professorships less meaningful to the truly qualified people who earn them. Similarly, I think that "marrying" homosexual couples mocks the homosexuals every bit as much as it mocks marriage, and it diminishes its meaning for married heterosexuals—not that heterosexuals themselves haven't done enough to devalue marriage in the last half-century. I would like to see homosexuals rejoice in the partnerships that they find for themselves, even though they can never be married, and rejoice for heterosexual couples who are truly capable of marriage. Homosexual couples are justified in asking for some of the privileges traditionally reserved to married couples, such as visitation rights in hospitals, but I don't think that they should be upset about being denied certain benefits designed to support heterosexual families, such as tax credits. The family is an institution that benefits society as a whole in a way that no other institution can, and homosexuals should recognize and respect the distinction.
Finally, to fully clarify my position on the issue, I note that I lean—though with some uncertainty—toward the position that homosexuals are probably better off not gratifying each other physically, and this accords with my position on autoeroticism as well. I won't go into any detail on this, except to say that my thinking on this particular question is informed more by Plato than by Leviticus.
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