God's good creation, sexually challenged?
By Christopher Rosik

As I have been reading Presbyweb and the pro and con arguments for Amendment 01-A, I have wondered if there is any way to move the discussion further along past the trading of invectives to a deeper understanding of differences. If evangelicals and progressives cannot agree on this issue, my hope is that we will work hard to clarify what separates us. It is in this spirit that I want to make the following observations with related
questions.

1) We should not treat gay men and lesbians as a monolithic group. In fact, a good body of research provides a convincing rationale for differentiating between lesbians and gay men in terms of erotic plasticity (Baumeister, 2000). Whisman (1996) found a higher percentage of lesbians (31%) than gay men (18%) described their sexual orientation as being a conscious, deliberate choice. Rosenbluth (1997) found that 58% of 90 lesbian couples reported choosing their current sexual orientation. This raises an interesting question. If equal access to positions of church leadership is predicated on homosexual orientation being created by God and not chosen, than what do we do with those (primarily) lesbians whose same-sex involvement is consciously chosen? To be consistent with the premise, these lesbians would need to be singled out for exclusion. If they are not, then the creation argument is given the appearance of being disingenuous.

2) How we treat bisexuality appears to disclose a great deal about the consistency of our position regarding homosexuality. Zinik (1985) defined the bisexual person as having a) the capacity for sexual arousal by members of both sexes, b) sexual activity or sexual desire for sexual contact with both men and women, and c) self-identification as being bisexual. This definition remains fairly well accepted today. Much emphasis is placed by progressives on affirming faithful (and I assume sexually monogamous) homosexual relationships since it is assumed God created the homosexual attraction. Bisexuality poses a serious challenge for adherents of this line of thinking, since bisexuals are typically considered to have by nature sexual inclinations toward both sexes that they can simultaneously choose between.

What would one do if a candidate for ordination indicated to the CPM that he or she was bisexual? Should they be required to limit themselves to having faithful sexual activity to only one person of the opposite (or same) sex? Would this not be a denial of their nature? In addition, if we mandate that bisexuals deny their nature in order to be ordained, then there would be precedent for those who request this of gay men and lesbians in light of traditional orthodox theology. Alternatively, perhaps bisexuals should be allowed to have "faithful" sexual relationships with both one man and one woman. This would appear to be consistent with the premise of bisexuality as God-given, but then it clearly violates the biblical mandate of sexual monogamy and suggests the ultimate lack of importance of sexual monogamy for homosexual and heterosexual relationships. It seems clear to me that any future writers to Presbyweb simply must indicate how they will resolve the problems posed by bisexuality whenever they refer to homosexuality, since the plight of bisexuals appears inextricably linked to that of gay men and lesbians within the sexual minority community.

3) The situation with transgendered individuals raises still further questions. Transgender is a term used to describe persons who have a persistent and distressing discomfort with their assigned gender. They are born anatomically as one biological sex, but live their lives to varying degrees as the opposite sex. The limited number of gender dysphoric persons who I have seen clinically (prior to any sex reassignment surgery) take it as a given that their condition is due to some neurobiological problem. The scientific literature generally supports this notion, at least for a group of "core" gender dysphoric people, although psychosocial factors probably play a greater or lesser role in any individual case. If we accept this conclusion, then clearly the origins of transgenderism are not part of God's creative intent.

If a transgendered person seeks ordination, it appears that the logical argument in support of ordination would be that the person was born with a biological defect for which they were not responsible and which sex reassignment surgery corrected. Again, this is very different than celebrating it as part of the intended rainbow of God's sexually diverse world. If we accept the premise of ordination because of defect, then does it really matter at all if the sexual behavior is God given or due to a neurobiological malfunction? In other words, the acceptance of ordination for gay men and lesbians based on their orientation as being designed by God appears to imply that transgendered persons should be denied this because they are not. How does one resolve this inconsistency without undermining the credibility of one group's rationale? Or is it all a smoke screen?

Again, I ask these questions in a sincere desire to understand the thinking of my progressive brethren in an area other than theology (which remains most important). I hope in so doing to bring clarity to our differences, which enables us to see one another as real human beings even when we strongly disagree. I want to close by quoting a recent article by psychologist and ordained minister H. Newton Malony (2001), who offers one intriguing way of trying to resolve these types of questions:

"Further, since the consensus is that exclusive homosexuality appears in less than five percent of the population among males and less than two percent among females, it is probably better to consider the condition a physiological exception to the rule rather than a normal variant. It is highly questionable, from a statistical point of view, whether homosexuality should be considered part of a "good" creation, else such a principle would need to be extend to every physical anomaly. It would be problematic to think of Down syndrome, PKU, endogenous depression, or hydrocephalus as good or normal. Pastoral counselors need to be very informed about how their tradition's theologies relate to scientific findings. They need to be very informed about current biological thinking and not presume that complex sexually diverse behavior is genetically determined. Such a view is very discounting of the power of the self...It may be best to consider most sexually diverse persons as 'sexually challenged,' as opposed to physiologically determined. This is the way most other exceptional individuals desire to be labeled today" (pp. 33-34, author's emphases).

I look forward to learning from the Presbyweb audience. May God grant us mercy and grace as we address these serious matters.