Intrinsically Ordered to Love

Although I hope to continue to blog on this subject in the future, I wanted to finish for now the second of my entries on the two remaining misguided notions still invoked against LGBT people in churches and other religious organizations.

In Wednesday's entry I talked a little about the importance of interpreting the Bible in a responsible, informed manner. When approached in this way, it is clear that scripture actually has nothing at all to say against loving same-sex relationships. The second issue that still comes up sometimes is what some churches refer to as their long-standing tradition of not recognizing same-sex unions. Ironically, as John Boswell (Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe) and other scholars have shown, at least for Western Christianity, this is not at all the case. In fact, the historical record in the church is a mixture of some condemnation of same-sex unions along with periods of tacit if not explicit acceptance.

Accordingly, the 'tradition' to which some churches refer is actually a much more recent development--an attempt to portray LGBT people as 'intrinsically disordered' because of the purported normativity of heterosexuality. In actual fact, scientific and psychological research shows that human sexuality is much more of a continuum than the above perspective would acknowledge. Something like around 5-10% of the population experiences primary attraction to people of the same sex while the rest of the population varies. Very few people in fact conform to what some portray as the divinely ordered attractions all are supposed to feel.

For that reason, something more like the rainbow flag often used to symbolize the LGBT community is really what we're talking about here--a diverse spectrum of identities. Now, of course, none of this means that all of the ethical tradition and received wisdom around human sexuality should be discarded. On the contrary, the challenge of living in ethical, life-giving and meaningful ways is always before us. What is not acceptable, however, is to exclude a whole portion of the population from this ongoing search for meaningful use of the gift of sexuality. To do so is not only unfair but also destructive of the very gift that religious traditions claim to be God-given and beautiful in its essence.

May the God of compassion and love be with all of us as we continue to accept the gift of our sexuality and try our best to live it in ways that give glory to our creator. As one saint of the early church once said: "The glory of God is the human being fully alive."

Peace,
P. Chuck