Nonsense. 2000 years ago the Apostle Paul declared that homosexuality was unnatural and thus by inference declared hetrosexuality normal and natural. All of which is pretty self evident.
The author isn't arguing that homosexual acts are not sinful. He's not even arguing that there aren't some folks who are more tempted to these sins than others. He's arguing that the reification of “sexual orientation” is a false, pseudo-scientific notion.
What he's saying is that there are certainly folks who commit sins of homosexual acts, but calling them “homosexuals,” and proclaiming them to have a stable identity as such is false. An analogy is someone who commits, say, adultery. Someone who often steps out on his spouse, while he is engaged in those activities, is justly called an adulterer, a philanderer. But suppose a man, at some point, decided that such behavior was unbecoming, and he ceased his immoral activities. And five years hence, he had not repeated his prior sins. And 10 years later, he had not.
Would you still call that man an adulterer?
Or someone whose weakness is alcohol, and for many years, often winds up drunk. You might, while he actively pursues the bottle, rightly call him a drunkard. But then, he gives up the bottle, or manages to learn to drink in moderation. Ten years later, when you see him sip a single glass of wine at dinner, would you be just to call him a drunkard?
But, as the author points out, the current model includes a supposedly scientifically-backed notion that sexual orientation is a permanent, stable feature of the personality, rather than saying, some folks are tempted toward this sin, others toward that one.
Try to read the article from that perspective.
sitetest
I think, perhaps, we need to read Paul more closely. I think what he does do is use categories of natural and unnatural, and then he says that those engaging in practices in the latter category have been turned over to their depraved mind and are (using my own terminology here) in very serious trouble.
I’m not sure that Paul would affirm the existence of the social constructs that we have today, of the “gay” person and the “straight” person.
I think he does affirm that there is again a healthy, natural sexual practice between men and women who are married and committed to children. Then there’s everything else, which is not part of the Kingdom of God....and part of that other basket of everything else there is also something very unnatural and especially depraved and that is what we know as (and Paul knew as) sex acts between people of the same sex.
Again, I’m not sure Paul would buy into the recent category that the left insisted that we adopt, that of the “gay” person.
Thoughts?
I’d like to hear your reply as I am generally sympathetic to the thrust of argument in this article...and I love it when we turn the left back on itself. But I am primarily committed to what Scripture says above all else, and I’m not entirely sure that the article does that testimony enough justice.
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.
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).
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."