Homosexuality Essay
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Homosexuality is being hotly debated today in church and society. When the case is made for the legitimacy of
same-sex love, critics rush in with three main defenses. (1) It is contrary to nature. (2) It is condemned in
Scripture. (3) Its acceptance would ruin society. The most interesting thing about these three arguments is that
they have been used in the past to defend what is now universally regarded as evil. In American history, slavery,
segregation, and the denial of the vote to women all illustrate the point. In each of these instances nature and
God were said to authorize a practice vital to the good of society.
When the slavery of African Americans was condemned, it was defended as essential to social order, harmony,
and the welfare of all. The authority of Aristotle was invoked to show that slavery was rooted in natural law. The
Bible was quoted to show that slavery was divinely ordained and approved.
When women sought the right to vote, the best interests of society were said to be in jeopardy. It was
confidently argued that political participation by women would mean "pretty girls button-holing strange men on
Election Day in behalf of the `handsome candidate'" and women locked in jury rooms with males, subjected to
tales of shocking behavior. To the threat of social disintegration was added the authoritative pronouncement
that the involvement of women in politics was prohibited by natural and divine law. Nature and Scripture were
called upon to show that woman's place was in the home and not in the voting booth. Regarding the desire of
women to vote, the Council of Congregationalist Ministers of Massachusetts had this to say:
The appropriate duties and influence of woman are stated in the New Testament. . . . The power of
woman is in her dependence, flowing from the consciousness of the weakness which God has given
her for her protection. . . . When she assumes the place and tone of man as a public reformer . . .
she yields the power which God has given her . . . and her character becomes unnatural.
When the legal segregation of the races was being undermined, prophets of doom predicted that catastrophe
would surely result if blacks and whites used the same public toilets or sat at lunch counters together. If little
white children sat in schoolrooms beside boys and girls with African ancestry, all sorts of mischief would follow.
Predictably, nature and the Bible were called upon to show that the separation of the races was both natural and
divine. Look at nature. Robins and mockingbirds don't mate and produce offspring, so people of different races
should follow that example and stay with their own kind. When integrationists noted that the Bible tells us that
God made all nations of one blood, segregationists pointed out that the same verse goes on to say that God has
set the bounds of their habitation (Acts 17:26 KJV).
As history teaches us, religion has often been the ally of natural law in defending tyranny and oppression. The
use of the Bible to justify subjugation is particularly distressing. Unfortunately, Scripture is like a mirror in
which interpreters, conservatives and liberals alike, can usually find support for whatever views they hold. It is
more difficult to let the Bible be a searchlight that exposes our error and leads to deeper truth. Let us
remember that those who used the Bible in the past to justify slavery, segregation, and the denial of the vote to
women were just as confident that they were in possession of God's own truth as are those who quote Scripture
today to condemn same-sex love. This recognition ought at least to create in all of us a sense of humility --
whatever our theological persuasion -- and perhaps a good laugh at the almost irrestible tendency we have to
identify our own views with those of the Holy One in whose presence our only hope is grace and mercy.
Nearly all Americans now recognize that slavery, racial segregation, and the denial of the ballot to women were
not good for society. They were not based on natural law. They were not ordained by God. No one who wishes to
be taken seriously quotes the Bible to justify slavery, segregation, or the exclusion of women from holding
public office. Now the time has come to say forthrightly that the condemnation of same-sex love is no more a
social necessity nor a mandate of nature and God than were these previous evils. Future generations will readily
see that the arguments now being set forth to condemn homosexuality are as groundless as the defense of
slavery by Bible-quoting preachers and Aristotle-quoting philosophers. After all, the slaveholders could point to
as many passages in the Bible in favor of their views as some do now to condemn same-sex love.
When the analogies of the present controversy over homosexuality with the past are called to mind, the
response is predictable. This issue is different. It is sad that General Colin Powell, himself a distinguished
African American of great ability, associated himself with the view that overcoming the segregation of the races
in the military was different from removing the ban against gays. Homosexuality is not the same as either of
these past issues. But what they all have in common is the element of oppression. The slavery and segregation
of African Americans, the subjugation of women, and the persecution of homosexuals are alike in that they all
deny dignity, equality, and the full rights and privileges of citizenship to human beings for reasons that have no
basis in fact or in sound moral reasoning. In time I believe that reasonable people will abandon the claim that
faithful, monogamous sexual relationships between persons of the same sex are either destructive of society or
obnoxious to nature and God.
To "the aristocracies of colour, race, and sex," that have moved from being matters of "social necessity . . . into
the ranks of a univerally stigmatized injustice and tyranny" must now be added the aristocracy of sexual
orientation.
REVISING THE SYMBOLIC CODE
Alfred North Whitehead wrote:
It is the first step in sociological wisdom, to recognize that the major advances in civilization are
processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur: -- like unto an arrow in the hand of
a child. The art of free society consists first in the maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly
in fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an
enlightened reason. Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with
freedom of revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a life
stifled by useless shadows.
To what Whitehead said about the processes that make for progress in society, we can add that the same thing
holds for advances in the churches. Most recently the ordaining of women and the move for gay liberation have
shaken the churches and "all but wrecked" them. Surely we can also say for the churches as well that they must
both maintain the wisdom embodied in the received tradition -- "the symbolic code" -- and practice
"fearlessness of revision, to secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason."
With respect to homosexuality, this is exactly what is called for in the present generation. For Christians this
means preserving the abiding truths of Scripture while revising tradition in the light of reason and experience.
Some elaboration of this will be helpful.
EXPERIENCE: We need to begin with what actually happens to us and in us. Experience refers to what actually
goes on in our lives, what we personally participate in or witness first-hand and what we feel inside.
2. REASON: When we reflect on our experience and try to make sense of it, we are using our reason. Reason is
the capacity to develop concepts, ideas, and theories that interpret the world around us and what happens to us
and in us. Two standards of right reasoning are useful: An idea or concept must account for the evidence we
gain from experience, and it must be logically consistent with...
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