Re-imaging Humanity – Part 2 Sexuality, Marriage and the Fall

For part 1 click Re-imaging Humanity – Sex, Sexuality, Gender and the Inhumanity of 21st Century Humanism – Part 1

We now begin to look at some of the ways the Fall has impacted Humanity and Sexuality 

Sexuality –

“heterosexual? Sexual? Who gives a sexuality”” Smirnoff advert 2015.

In answer to the age old question – Who am I? our children today are being taught that sexuality is a key part, if not the key part of our identity. Media, schools and the big corporations (see the Diageo £4.5 million campaign Here) are pushing this as a given. And yet the notion of sexuality as identity is a relatively new one stemming from the late 19th century and especially from the work of Freud.

In the arguments in the church about sexuality one has stood out as the most powerful. Its what I call the Lady Gaga theory – Born This Way

The initial reason for accepting the idea of an innate sexuality as normative came about because people argued – what could be wrong if God made me this way? But such a question betrays a shallowness in understanding, both of what humanity is, who God is and how the fall has affected us. In more recent years the notion of a fixed sexuality is now being challenged by those who once argued that it was the very basis for accepting gay rights. Rather than God made me this way we are now coming to a position where people get to choose their own sexuality. It becomes a question of self-identity. Fixed sexuality is becoming fluid sexuality. That’s why in Britain today although only around 1% of young people will claim to be homosexual, 2% will claim to be bisexual. By the way I was speaking at a school this week and asked the young people what percentage they thought of people in society were homosexual the estimates varied from 10% to 30%! Recent studies have demonstrated: (This is from New Atlantis)

• The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings—the idea that people are “born that way”—is not supported by scientific evidence.

• While there is evidence that biological factors such as genes and hormones are associated with sexual behaviors and attractions, there are no compelling causal biological explanations for human sexual orientation. While minor differences in the brain structures and brain activity between homosexual and heterosexual individuals have been identified by researchers, such neurobiological findings do not demonstrate whether these differences are innate or are the result of environmental and psychological factors.

• Longitudinal studies of adolescents suggest that sexual orientation may be quite fluid over the life course for some people, with one study estimating that as many as 80% of male adolescents who report same-sex attractions no longer do so as adults (although the extent to which this figure reflects actual changes in same-sex attractions and not just artifacts of the survey process has been contested by some researchers).

In this highly significant quote Peter Tatchell argues for the end of homosexuality and heterosexuality altogether.

“Overcoming homophobia will result in more people having gay sex but fewer people claiming gay identity.

The medieval Catholic Church, despite all its obscurantism and intolerance, got one thing right. Homosexuality is not, it suggested, the special sin of a unique class people but a temptation to which any mortal might succumb.

It now seems fairly certain, in the light of modern research, that most people are born with a sexual desire that is, to varying degrees, capable of both heterosexual and homosexual attraction. Once homophobia declines, we are bound to witness the emergence of a homosexuality that is quite different from the homosexuality we know today. With the strictures on queerness removed, and same-sex relationships normalised and accepted, more people will have gay sex but, paradoxically, less of them will identify as gay. This is because, in the absence of homophobia, the need to assert gayness becomes redundant. Gay identity is the product of anti-gay repression. When homosexuality is disparaged and victimised, gay people understandably feel they have to affirm their desires and lifestyle. However, if prejudice is vanquished, and if one sexuality is not privileged over another, defining oneself as gay (or straight) will cease to be necessary and have no social significance. The need to maintain sexual differences and boundaries disappears with the demise of straight supremacism. Homosexuality as a separate, exclusive clearly demarcated orientation and identity will then begin to fade (as will its mirror opposite, heterosexuality). Instead, the vast majority of people will be open to the possibility of both opposite-sex and same-sex relations They won’t feel the need to label themselves (or others) as gay or straight because, in a non-homophobic culture, no one will give a damn about who loves and lusts after who.”

Tatchell is winning the argument.  In a recent survey more than half of young people in Britain said they saw sexuality as fluid. The Daily Telegraph carried an article which stated that there were NO women in Britain who were exclusively hetrosexual. Yes – this is the mad world that we create when we seek to remake humanity in our own image rather than God’s!

One positive thing about this is the recognition that sexuality can actually change. Although our liberal elites are a little confused on this one. On the one hand they want to ban reparative therapy claiming that it is harmful because it goes against a person’s innate sexuality, on the other hand they are now teaching that we can choose our sexuality.   I think that from a Christian perspective we can recognise that our sexualities can be confused and messed up and that in a fallen world, genetic, environmental and historical factors can each play their own role. I remember discussing this with a gay activist who was furious at the idea of a ‘gay gene’. He argued that his sexuality was something he chose and he resented those who sought to portray it as some kind of genetic disfunction.

I am greatly impressed with those Christians who have come to terms with the fact that they are attracted to people of the same sex and yet refuse to self-define as homosexual. They prefer the more accurate term ‘same sex attracted’. The Living Out website is a superb resource. http://www.livingout.org/

What harm does it do?  The question is often asked – if its not doing any harm then whats the harm? The presupposition is that there is no harm but is that correct. I remember thinking that when listening to Patrick Harvie arguing for the special health needs of LGB. Why I wondered, if there are no health implications, do we need special health care? In reading Thomas Schmidt’s Straight and Narrow I was stunned by the health problems and harm portrayed in that book. Having read several other things since then – both pro and anti I think there is little doubt that, at the very least, homosexuality is more harmful than heterosexuality.

Compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse.

There’s numerous research that indicates that active homosexuals have a significantly shorter lifespan. People who engage in homosexual activity lose 25 to 40% of their lifespan. Factors include various sexually transmitted diseases, infectious hepatitis, anal cancer, amoebic and other infectious bowel diseases, herpes and other viral infections, and HIV/AIDS, among others. (Satinover, J. Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Baker, 1998. Pp. 51, 68-69.  Also that domestic violence is higher in same-sex relationships

Members of the non-heterosexual population are estimated to have about 1.5 times higher risk of experiencing anxiety disorders than members of the heterosexual population, as well as roughly double the risk of depression, 1.5 times the risk of substance abuse, and nearly 2.5 times the risk of suicide. Now of course life is more complex than the simple citation of figures – and the question of why these figures are so bad need answering first. But they certainly raise a red flag.

Marriage – for decades queer theory activists like Peter Tatchell have sought to destroy a marriage. Just over a decade ago he even wrote an article attacking homosexuals who wanted same-sex marriage, because he wanted to destroy marriage not embrace it. I debated Peter Tatchell on Revelation TV .

(Peter Tatchell v. David Robertson – Part 1)

(Peter Tatchell v. David Robertson – Part 2)

I pointed out that I don’t think his opinion has really changed. All that changed was the tactics. He knows that in order to destroy marriage all that had to happen was people like David Cameron, Obama and others agreeing to “redefine” marriage. I suspect that many of the politicians who voted for the redefinition of marriage did so because of the political pressure, because they had not thought about it too much and because they expected it to be the end. But the reality is that the redefinition of marriage is just part of a wider philosophy which seeks to redefine humanity and create a world in which we can choose our own sexuality and our own gender, because ultimately they do not matter. In the beginning God created them male and female, in the end ‘man’ created them trans- human.
(In part three next week we will look at the next stage in the re-imaging of humanity).

Part three Here