Brain Sex

I hesitated to add to the debate about sexual orientation. It didn’t last long. Two recent things lead me to express some feeling about it. The first is a recent personal experience and the second news of the invitations to the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops.

I need to go back a bit. It had never occurred to me that being homosexual was a ‘bad’ thing. I can recall that, even as a teen, I knew the difference between ‘hetro’ and ‘homo’ as well as between pedophilia and homosexuality. The school yard jokes were as ripe about that as the other sexual jokes of my teen years.

My theological training came through a religious community. During those years I experienced students and brethren developing and sustaining homosexual relationships. Although not part of my orientation, it seemed neither a ‘bad’ thing, nor an aberration. In a scientific sense it was ‘deviant’, but that had no moral overtones for me. It just meant that most folk I knew were 'hetro'! There was no moral judgment involved.

Later, as a priest involved in counseling in the UK, a number of opportunities came about to begin to understand the issues faced by men who were beginning to be able to explore more openly their orientation as homosexual men. It was very new to me this close up to their struggles. I do not remember who first suggested I read a particular book to help in my education, but I will ever be thankful to them.

The book was Brain Sex by Anne Moir Ph.D., and David Jessel. Anne was a PhD in genetics. Both had worked for the BBC. The book is still available at Amazon. I checked!

The purpose of the book was to explore what was then known in science about the development of sexual orientation as a function of the brain. The issue is complex and does not allow of brief treatment in a blog. It is a complex process involving chromosomal genetic inheritance and hormones or androgens, the main one being testosterone. One of the most interesting discoveries is that the embryo is genetically of female structure until the radical intervention of male testosterone brings about a male pattern. This is literally a mind altering process.

So any talk about homosexuality being “a lifestyle choice” is simply nonsense. It is as much nonsense as me ‘choosing’ to be heterosexual. I recognize that some folk do have issues about the physical expression of homosexual passion. I also recognize that, where so called “family values” are at their most tenuous, the clamor gets ever louder. Any lifestyle that needs defending at the expense of another is not worth defending in the first place.

I have recently been involved with a community in which prejudice against a person of homosexual orientation led to being locked out of a building. It was probably the most outrageous behavior I have come across in many years. In the process of trying to help those folk understand the issues, I was challenged with an appeal to Scriptural condemnation. In response I regurgitated research I had done some years ago demonstrating that in fact Scripture has nothing whatever to say on the subject, unless you chose deliberately to translate some passages using sexually loaded, but inaccurate, translation. (Anyone who wants to read that just needs to leave me a message with an e-mail address. All communications come to me before being published, so I can protect your privacy if you wish).

The second issue that got me riled up was reading today that Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, was not to receive a “full invitation” to attend the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican Bishops. The reason that he is not to receive such an invitation is that he is an openly gay man in a long term relationship. Some other Bishops have indicated that if he were to receive such an invitation they would absent themselves.

The behavior of the Archbishop and the dissenting Bishops is as outrageous as that of the community I refer to above. Such prejudice is unacceptable in a community that claims to be following the teachings of Jesus.