Posted on 03/03/2014 6:30:00 AM PST by sitetest
Alasdair MacIntyre once quipped that “facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a seventeenth-century invention.” Something similar can be said about sexual orientation: Heterosexuals, like typewriters and urinals (also, obviously, for gentlemen), were an invention of the 1860s. Contrary to our cultural preconceptions and the lies of what has come to be called “orientation essentialism,” “straight” and “gay” are not ageless absolutes. Sexual orientation is a conceptual scheme with a history, and a dark one at that. It is a history that began far more recently than most people know, and it is one that will likely end much sooner than most people think.
Over the course of several centuries, the West had progressively abandoned Christianity’s marital architecture for human sexuality. Then, about one hundred and fifty years ago, it began to replace that longstanding teleological tradition with a brand new creation: the absolutist but absurd taxonomy of sexual orientations. Heterosexuality was made to serve as this fanciful framework’s regulating ideal, preserving the social prohibitions against sodomy and other sexual debaucheries without requiring recourse to the procreative nature of human sexuality.
On this novel account, same-sex sex acts were wrong not because they spurn the rational-animal purpose of sex—namely the family—but rather because the desire for these actions allegedly arises from a distasteful psychological disorder. As queer theorist Hanne Blank recounts, “This new concept [of heterosexuality], gussied up in a mangled mix of impressive-sounding dead languages, gave old orthodoxies a new and vibrant lease on life by suggesting, in authoritative tones, that science had effectively pronounced them natural, inevitable, and innate.”
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
Still thinking this through....see the post I just did to myself....
As did Peter and Jude, not to mention that the OT gives the account of God’s judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah. We act as though this is myth, but they have found evidence of its existence.
I actually don't know enough about the gay-chaste-gifted group (the ones whom Austin Ruse engaged in conversation), to make any kind of overall judgment. I don't know quite that they're saying, or even if they're all saying the same thing.
My present guess, or hunch, is that they are confusing sexual orientation with temperament. And, as this author, Michael Hannan suggests, temperament may be a legitimate "Christian anthropological" category, but "sexual orientation" isn't.
Thanks again for pinging me.
The author does say that the Bible is silent on homosexuality as a class or category. While I am slightly aware of Paul’s many moral injunctions, I am not sure if he explicitly described (interpreted?) sinfulness in the context of a homosexual “class” or as “sodomy,” (for example)— a sinful act that present society most generally associates with that class, but which may be a act related to either class —homo/hetro— and sinful only to the extent of the circumstances under which it takes place ie. orgy, outside of marriage etc..
In any event, a very good read that has changed to some extent my views on this matter (and which probably receives way too much attention in the public square given the importance and urgency of other problems the nation faces).
I summarized it for my husband by saying, humans are male and female, designed for reproductive complementarity. Those are facts of nature. Our sex is part of our nature and essence. However, our various urges regarding the use of our bodies are NOT our nature and essence.
In analogy, our need for nutrition is part of our nature. However, our taste for waffles, or crickets is not our nature, merely “accidentals.” And eating disorders are also not our nature, but are distortions.
“...I will quibble with you in that Christ did say, But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
In Catholic terms, there is a clear distinction between fleeting temptations that enter the mind unbidden and deliberate ideation that mentally “acts” on those otherwise-fleeting temptations.
sitetest
This guy writes like a nasal-droning Eurodweeb advertising a luxury car.
This is because they trick us into focusing on "How do I feel? --- because how I feel is who I am") --- rather than on objective acts.
In terms of objective acts, consider the word "sodomy." This is a morally wrong ACT, not a "type of person." Biblically, the act of sodomy is condemned whether it's done by so called heterosexuals or so-called homosexuals, whether it's done with a male, a female, or the family pooch.
The author here is defending traditional Judeo-Christian moral norms and rejecting as a distraction the 19th century (not Biblical!) concept of "sexual orientation."
You're welcome. I thought it would be of interest to you.
I guess my view is that anyone who identifies as “gay” has embraced “sexual orientation” as a stable, inherent attribute of the personality. Which this author would reject.
To then attribute some sort of positive “giftness” to a “gay” orientation, then, is to miss the point altogether.
sitetest
[ Yes, homosexuality is a 19th century invention. And we’re stuck with it. ]
??? Didn’t the Romans and Greeks and Ancient Persians and a bunch of other ancient people who were/become corrupt have it as well...
Or is it just the Agenda Mongering these days as recent invention?
That's a great analysis!
However, I would add that the author is also saying that, for example, sodomy is sodomy, whether it's between two men or between a man and a woman.
sitetest
So basically the gist of this article is that we took the sin and the sinner and gave them a “Tribe” to live in because the Secularo naturalists demanded that in order to fit their cetergorical world view?
Adultery, pornography and contraceptives were once illegal, you know --- in criminal law --- and now they are ubiquitous. Playboy magazine's editors and lawyers and their pornographic allies slogged their way through the courts, from the 1950's until just fairly recently, when all restraint quietly fell away. You didn't notice it, perhaps, but there was a fight. You didn't notice it, but they won.
The victorious political movement that brought us the moral perversions of publically admired adultery, contraception, porn and masturbation has now moved on to the mainstreaming of the many forms of sodomy/onanism -- the overall Biblical word would be porneia --- which are now a bit outre, but soon to be mainstreamed as well.
[ For “heterosexuals” in particular, getting close to a friend of the same sex ends up seeming perverse, and being moved by his or her beauty feels queer. To avoid being mistaken for gay, these days many self-proclaimed straight people—men especially—settle for superficial associations with their comrades and reserve the sort of costly intimacy that once characterized such chaste same-sex relationships for their romantic partners alone. Their ostensibly normal sexual orientation cheats them out of an essential aspect of human flourishing: deep friendship. ]
I agree 1000% on this, It is hard for two same sex friends to be friends these days without other people thinking they are “Teh G’hey” even if there is no sex/sodomy involved at all.
I would agree with this charactization, which is why, as noted above, I always respond to the left by saying, "Gay is something you do not something you are."
Yes, true --- except I think the author goes further than that.
He points out that according to traditional Christian morality, sodomy with anyone (man, woman, married, unmarried) and for any reason (cold-hearted lust, disordered warm romantic affection, method of avoiding pregnancy, servile pederasty) was condemned as an objectively sinful act.
But now, because of this focus on sexual "orientation," we tend to focus not on the act but on the personal feelings. This tends to valorize mere heterosexuality per se, and thus excuse heterosexual sodomy, marital hetero porn (e.g. spouses watching porn together as an excitant), marital mutual masturbation, and various other forms of hetero sterile buggery.
The author said: “The Bible never called homosexuality an abomination. Nor could it have, for as we have seen, Leviticus predates any conception of sexual orientation by a couple of millennia at least. What the Scriptures condemn is sodomy, regardless of who commits it or why.
It strains credibility to read these verses as only condemning the sexual act itself. It seems clear that it is the participants (two males) and not the act who are the problem which Moses condemns.
Leviticus 18:22 - You shall not lie down with a male, as with a woman: this is an abomination.
Leviticus 20:13 - And a man who lies with a male as one would with a woman both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be PUT TO DEATH; their blood is upon themselves.
ConservativeDude wrote: The problem is that Paul does in fact state point blank that those committing the unnatural acts are in an identifiable place outside of God’s grace and under God’s wrath
Paul writes this as someone who knows what it is like to be outside of God's grace and under God's wrath. He was once there. If a hard case like Saul of Tarsus can be converted, then there is hope for even the hardest heart in the homosexual community. It should be pointed out that the pre-grace Paul was thoroughly trained and knowledgeable of the Hebrew Scriptures (including Leviticus) and he apparently saw no reason, post-grace, to abandon condemnation of homosexuality.
Again, I have not read the article, but from the comments I get the impression that the author is just trying to define away Scripture passages which teach something he doesn't want to hear. Maybe his argument is more sophisticated and detailed than most but still of the same ilk. Maybe the Hebrews of the time didn't know of the concept of sexual orientation but they were certainly aware of homosexuality. Anyway, even if the Hebrews didn't understand homosexuality or sexual orientation, the Lord who inspired Moses to write these passages did.
They had views on man-boy love but I don’t think the concept of homosexuality was ever acknowledged. But I’m no expert.
It’s what drives me crazy when people say Leonardo Da Vinci was “gay.”
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