Oh My God, Does That Mean I´m Gay?
Dave Muskera, M.A.
November 26, 2007
This is the second article in what may become a short series. The series started with my article about the term "gay lifestyle" and how it´s used by the fundamentalist religious right to bash homosexuals. Unfortunately this is not the only term or concept in their bucket of snakes that is taken out to scare people or to grossly misrepresent homosexuality.
As always, it´s they who have the agenda. That agenda is totally controlled by their erroneous belief and insistence that sexual orientation (except, of course, that of straight people) is chosen. That homosexuality, as a chosen behavior, is against the biblical moral code and a sin against god. I won´t tarry for long with these issues for now. Suffice to say, it´s rarely stated which of the more than fifty versions of the bible they refer to. Nor do they make much effort to understand the words and ideas of a culture from 2,000 years ago as they might apply in today´s world. I may get to these ideas in a later installment and deal with the cherry picking of bible verse for which fundamentalists are so famous.
What I do want to take on here is the continuing - and I believe deliberate - confusion that fundamentalists and some others perpetuate in regard to the concepts of homosexual behavior and a homosexual orientation.
This confusion is expressed in the blending of these two terms (behavior and orientation) as if they were one and the same. As if the terms are interchangeable. Again, this tactic is no accident. It is not the product of lack of education. It is not naiveté. It is not stupidity, as much as I might want to toss that in as a possibility. What it is, pure and simple, is yet another way of reinforcing the concept of "choice" - much as is done with the idea of a "gay lifestyle." The idea of choice is so basic to all of the anti-gay movement that if it falls, then, like a house of cards, the rest tumbles down. And believe me, the anti-gay movement is more about money than it is about saving souls. If you doubt this, then please explain why we do not see churches sponsoring ex-adulterer´s camps and ministries. According to the statistic I´ve seen, there are far more adulterers in the population than gay people. Well, whatever….So the anti-gay groups, which have found gold mines of donation and other dollars…all tax free of course, are more than reluctant to give up the golden calf no matter what Moses had to say.
So how is it that blending the two ideas…behavior and orientation…into one is such a big deal? Well, for one thing - and you can probably get this statement from any mentally competent person - they simply are not. "Doing" a behavior does not make you into that behavior. Behavior is, by definition, an external event. It´s something you do. Duh. You might piss on the neighbor´s shrubs while sleep-walking but this does not make you into a shrubpisser. You might give in to Big Mac attacks on a regular basis but this does not make you into a hamburger. In this sense, all these things are simply behaviors performed by a human being. What those behaviors represent and mean may be something different. Something not at all apparent.
Human sexual behavior is a complicated dance of factors. Why this is so, I´m going to leave to the biological and social experts. But you don´t have to be an expert to know and understand that sexual behavior is expressed in many different ways and towards multiple objects and persons. It´s been long known, for example, that essentially heterosexual men will engage in homosexual sex (at least to some degree) if there are no females available. This does not make these men homosexual anymore than some self-deluded gay person becomes "straight" just because they marry and have children. Kids growing up experiment sexually as everyone, except the Pope, knows. If their experimentation involves same-sex activity, again that does not generally indicate the kid will grow up to be homosexual. If fact, statistics are against that probability.
I feel almost silly detailing all this information. It seems so obvious. Yet, at the same time, such information is so ignored not only by fundamentalists but by the "keep-it-simple-stupid" mainstream media. How many times and in how many ways must obvious facts be pointed out? A behavior is a behavior. Behaviors are outside of a person´s heart and soul. They are most often caused by harder to know internal mental and emotional motives. We all have engaged in behaviors we´re not proud of and which, thankfully, do not define who we are. So, one more time. Repeat after me. Having homosexual sex does not make you a homosexual/gay person and having straight sex does not make you a heterosexual. There´s a bunch more to it.
So what then about the other side of this homosexual terminology coin – the phrase sexual orientation? Well, in discussing who goes to bed with whom, the term orientation is taken by most rational people to imply a more-or-less unconscious (that is to say - NOT CHOSEN) inclination (drive, interest, etc.) towards whichever sex is used to further describe the term. Remember, being heterosexual is also an orientation, bisexuality is an orientation and so forth. In any case, as one lesbian writer some years ago put it, "Love (sexual orientation) is a matter of hearts, not parts".
Well, even if I´ve bored you to death to this point (please wake up!) or unless you are terminally dense, you can see where I´m going. Fundamentalists are desperate to distance themselves in any anti-gay debate from ideas that give validity to the notion that homosexuality (being gay) is a "not-chosen" phenomenon. To admit to this would severely compromise their obsessive sexual house of "gay" cards. To make an accurate distinction between what a person does (sexually) and what´s in their heart and mind (even if they deny it) is simply too damn risky for them.
The sad thing about all of this is (again) that the fundamentalist far right has been very successful at perpetuating this confusion of terms and concepts. Particularly in the presentation and press about their Ex-Gay movement. Over and over, we have witnessed the parade of tormented souls - desperate for approval and acceptance – brought onto the ex-gay stage - walking hand-in-hand with their opposite sex new spouse and proclaiming its been at least ten days since they even had a same sex thought. Then, the ex-gay ministries (and don´t you just love that term) proclaim in their banner ads and in news story interviews that just about as soon as the person engages in opposite sex behavior they are "healed" of their homosexual orientation and have become whole and healthy as re-born heterosexuals. What a bunch of hooey. What a slap in the face to all the gay people who accept themselves and wish to be no other way than the way they are.
Mark Twain is quoted as having said that a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. It´s a sad reality that has been long recognized. Lies are quick and simple. The truth tends to be complicated and requires a bit more critical thinking. The far right counts on the human tendency towards mental laziness. They hope their believers never read articles such as this one or, if they do, they will not think things through.
Like myself and the majority of the gay people I know or have known, most are pretty content with who they are. In large part, we like ourselves. With the possible exceptions of a here-and-there tendency to eat all the wrong things and fall in love with all the wrong types, we would not be otherwise. Certainly, young gay folks often have a hard time learning sexual self acceptance, especially in a world dead set on making them invisible and eliminating their existence. But compared to growing up in the 40s and 50s, coming to terms with a homosexual orientation today can be a piece of cake.
So keep in mind the old saying, "One swallow does not a summer make." So too, one bit of behavior is nothing more than one bit of behavior. A single instance of any particular behavior or even several does not encompass or define the "all" of who a person is. Sexual orientation, on the other hand, is a complex of desires, drives, interests and (usually) a person´s typical sexual behavior.
One thing remains to be written here: If tomorrow a pill was invented that could change a person´s "sexual orientation" from gay to straight, I´d like to believe that most gay folks would know just what to do with it.
Is that a toilet I hear flushing?
As always, it´s they who have the agenda. That agenda is totally controlled by their erroneous belief and insistence that sexual orientation (except, of course, that of straight people) is chosen. That homosexuality, as a chosen behavior, is against the biblical moral code and a sin against god. I won´t tarry for long with these issues for now. Suffice to say, it´s rarely stated which of the more than fifty versions of the bible they refer to. Nor do they make much effort to understand the words and ideas of a culture from 2,000 years ago as they might apply in today´s world. I may get to these ideas in a later installment and deal with the cherry picking of bible verse for which fundamentalists are so famous.
What I do want to take on here is the continuing - and I believe deliberate - confusion that fundamentalists and some others perpetuate in regard to the concepts of homosexual behavior and a homosexual orientation.
This confusion is expressed in the blending of these two terms (behavior and orientation) as if they were one and the same. As if the terms are interchangeable. Again, this tactic is no accident. It is not the product of lack of education. It is not naiveté. It is not stupidity, as much as I might want to toss that in as a possibility. What it is, pure and simple, is yet another way of reinforcing the concept of "choice" - much as is done with the idea of a "gay lifestyle." The idea of choice is so basic to all of the anti-gay movement that if it falls, then, like a house of cards, the rest tumbles down. And believe me, the anti-gay movement is more about money than it is about saving souls. If you doubt this, then please explain why we do not see churches sponsoring ex-adulterer´s camps and ministries. According to the statistic I´ve seen, there are far more adulterers in the population than gay people. Well, whatever….So the anti-gay groups, which have found gold mines of donation and other dollars…all tax free of course, are more than reluctant to give up the golden calf no matter what Moses had to say.
So how is it that blending the two ideas…behavior and orientation…into one is such a big deal? Well, for one thing - and you can probably get this statement from any mentally competent person - they simply are not. "Doing" a behavior does not make you into that behavior. Behavior is, by definition, an external event. It´s something you do. Duh. You might piss on the neighbor´s shrubs while sleep-walking but this does not make you into a shrubpisser. You might give in to Big Mac attacks on a regular basis but this does not make you into a hamburger. In this sense, all these things are simply behaviors performed by a human being. What those behaviors represent and mean may be something different. Something not at all apparent.
Human sexual behavior is a complicated dance of factors. Why this is so, I´m going to leave to the biological and social experts. But you don´t have to be an expert to know and understand that sexual behavior is expressed in many different ways and towards multiple objects and persons. It´s been long known, for example, that essentially heterosexual men will engage in homosexual sex (at least to some degree) if there are no females available. This does not make these men homosexual anymore than some self-deluded gay person becomes "straight" just because they marry and have children. Kids growing up experiment sexually as everyone, except the Pope, knows. If their experimentation involves same-sex activity, again that does not generally indicate the kid will grow up to be homosexual. If fact, statistics are against that probability.
I feel almost silly detailing all this information. It seems so obvious. Yet, at the same time, such information is so ignored not only by fundamentalists but by the "keep-it-simple-stupid" mainstream media. How many times and in how many ways must obvious facts be pointed out? A behavior is a behavior. Behaviors are outside of a person´s heart and soul. They are most often caused by harder to know internal mental and emotional motives. We all have engaged in behaviors we´re not proud of and which, thankfully, do not define who we are. So, one more time. Repeat after me. Having homosexual sex does not make you a homosexual/gay person and having straight sex does not make you a heterosexual. There´s a bunch more to it.
So what then about the other side of this homosexual terminology coin – the phrase sexual orientation? Well, in discussing who goes to bed with whom, the term orientation is taken by most rational people to imply a more-or-less unconscious (that is to say - NOT CHOSEN) inclination (drive, interest, etc.) towards whichever sex is used to further describe the term. Remember, being heterosexual is also an orientation, bisexuality is an orientation and so forth. In any case, as one lesbian writer some years ago put it, "Love (sexual orientation) is a matter of hearts, not parts".
Well, even if I´ve bored you to death to this point (please wake up!) or unless you are terminally dense, you can see where I´m going. Fundamentalists are desperate to distance themselves in any anti-gay debate from ideas that give validity to the notion that homosexuality (being gay) is a "not-chosen" phenomenon. To admit to this would severely compromise their obsessive sexual house of "gay" cards. To make an accurate distinction between what a person does (sexually) and what´s in their heart and mind (even if they deny it) is simply too damn risky for them.
The sad thing about all of this is (again) that the fundamentalist far right has been very successful at perpetuating this confusion of terms and concepts. Particularly in the presentation and press about their Ex-Gay movement. Over and over, we have witnessed the parade of tormented souls - desperate for approval and acceptance – brought onto the ex-gay stage - walking hand-in-hand with their opposite sex new spouse and proclaiming its been at least ten days since they even had a same sex thought. Then, the ex-gay ministries (and don´t you just love that term) proclaim in their banner ads and in news story interviews that just about as soon as the person engages in opposite sex behavior they are "healed" of their homosexual orientation and have become whole and healthy as re-born heterosexuals. What a bunch of hooey. What a slap in the face to all the gay people who accept themselves and wish to be no other way than the way they are.
Mark Twain is quoted as having said that a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. It´s a sad reality that has been long recognized. Lies are quick and simple. The truth tends to be complicated and requires a bit more critical thinking. The far right counts on the human tendency towards mental laziness. They hope their believers never read articles such as this one or, if they do, they will not think things through.
Like myself and the majority of the gay people I know or have known, most are pretty content with who they are. In large part, we like ourselves. With the possible exceptions of a here-and-there tendency to eat all the wrong things and fall in love with all the wrong types, we would not be otherwise. Certainly, young gay folks often have a hard time learning sexual self acceptance, especially in a world dead set on making them invisible and eliminating their existence. But compared to growing up in the 40s and 50s, coming to terms with a homosexual orientation today can be a piece of cake.
So keep in mind the old saying, "One swallow does not a summer make." So too, one bit of behavior is nothing more than one bit of behavior. A single instance of any particular behavior or even several does not encompass or define the "all" of who a person is. Sexual orientation, on the other hand, is a complex of desires, drives, interests and (usually) a person´s typical sexual behavior.
One thing remains to be written here: If tomorrow a pill was invented that could change a person´s "sexual orientation" from gay to straight, I´d like to believe that most gay folks would know just what to do with it.
Is that a toilet I hear flushing?