De-clarification

A fruitful debate can only proceed

1. (a)if we know what (and who) we are talking about (the object of the debate), and
   

2. (b)if we can identify the theological understandings which would have to be brought to bear on the issue.
   

So, in this instance, what is the homosexuality debate in the Church about? How much do we know?

At this point, O'Donovan's essay seeks to (you might say) de-clarify the issue. It seeks to "muddy the waters" — or, rather to draw attention to how muddy some of the waters really are.

O'Donovan writes:

“Such a debate will not assume that we know precisely what homosexuality is. It will operate in an open theoretical field.”

and

“The debates pursued within the gay intellegensia — and especially the debate between the 'essentialist' and 'constructionist' accounts of homosexuality — are important for the Church to overhear, if it is to encompass the full width of the theoretical possibilities, free of pseudo-certainties which are invoked simply to settle questions quickly.”

and

“The point is not to banish all theories but to keep them in play, open to supplement and qualification, to doubt and to testing against experience.”

(For example: I noticed several years ago that (the late) Stanley J. Grenz's arguments in Welcoming But Not Affirming: An Evangelical Response to Homosexuality (1998) are indebted to David F. Greenberg's book The Construction of Homosexuality (1988) at several key points. Grenz says that he read Greenberg only after he had written his book Sexual Ethics (1997). His reading of Greenberg actually caused him to be cautious about the use of the term "sexual orientation." Here is an instance where a particular theory about same-gender attraction reshaped the argument.)

So, a first step in the "fruitful debate" that O'Donovan is proposing is to identify who & what we are talking about. The truth of the matter is that what we call "homosexuality" is a diverse phenomenon. We need to be open to the fact that there is diversity at the level of experience and theory.

Furthermore,

“And, we must bear in mind the fact — here, surely, the word 'fact' is in place — that the homosexual phenomenon is changing before our eyes. Whatever the truth about homosexuality was, we must now reckon also with a cultural movement that has acquired its own social reality. When a group of people with a common cause gains a sense of its own solidity, it develops as a cultural force, defining its aesthetic preferences, its critique of the hegemonic culture, its practices of association and communication, and, of course, its recruiting mechanisms. these, indeed, have given rise to some of the sharpest pastoral, indeed political difficulties, when they have been directed, as they naturally are, at the young.”

So, the fact of the matter is that the reality is changing before our very eyes. And, it seems to me, that for the young (I mean teenagers and pre-teens) the notion that same-gender & opposite-gender sex are equal in moral status is bound to favor the practice of same-gender sex. It simply doesn't have the same procreative consequences! We all know that some males practice same-gender sex while in prison, only to return to opposite-gender sex when released. Young people come to sexual maturity at an earlier and earlier age. Marriage — which Christians (like me) say is the place for sexual expression — comes later and later — after college, after the couple can support themselves financially. And, adolescence has always been a time for sexual experimentation. So, I think it simply must be true (though I have no statistics to back this up) that more and more teens and pre-teens are being introduced to same-gender sex than was true in previous generations in the USA, and in other parts of the world. And, there may be other cultural factors at work here too.

But, there is also diversity at the level of experience, as well.

“A good debate will need to be open not only to many theories but to many experiences.”

I really think this is a very old insight but it keeps getting lost in the Church's war of rhetoric. We simply cannot assume that what we call homosexuality is a monolithic thing. In fact, it is the diversity of experience which may well be fueling the diversity of theory. Some of the theories simply don't square with some people's experience.

In particular:

“In the first place there is a major difference to be noticed between women's and men's experience.”

“Then we must attend to the experience of those who have been in the gay culture and left it, while still thinking of themselves as homosexual; of those who have been homosexual and ceased to be; of those who have married and become homosexual subsequently, sometimes in middle life; those who identify with the gay culture aesthetically and morally, though only doubtfully homosexual; literary and cultural gays; educationally low-achieving gays of deprived backgrounds and so on. All of them demand distinct pastoral, as well as theoretical, recognition.”

So, (I think he's saying) sweeping moral judgments may not be adequate. Do they cover all situations? Have all situations been imagined? Does approving of same-gender marriage (for example) mean that one would approve in any and all cases? Probably not. And, for conservatives, the issue is: where do you draw the line. The more complex the phenomenon, the more problematic the line-drawing exercise becomes. This always happens as moral principles (things people feel are absolutely right or wrong) are applied to real life situations (which are often not absolutely right or wrong — but a little bit of both).

Oh, and then, there is another category, the bisexual:

“And here I must interject a word about another category, that of the so-called 'bisexual.' The early medical theorists attempted to describe what they called 'true' homosexuality, distinguishing it from various shadow manifestations such as that which occurs adolescence and in intense single-sex communities. This created a still-current style of psychotherapy which proposed to assist the patient by making an authoritative resolution of ambiguities, pronouncing decisively on whether he or she was a 'true' homosexual. Considering the criticism addressed to other psychotherapeutic techniques in this field, one can only be surprised at the complaisance with which this technique has been accepted. But if statistics do anything useful, they warn us of the dangers of this either-or categorization. A larger proportion of the human race, apparently, has the capacity to respond to sexual stimuli of both same-sex and other-sex types than responds only to same-sex types. What is needed is not to sweep this considerable number of moderately sensitive human beings into one or the other of two abstract categories, but to develop a less rigid view of how sexual stimulation affects the whole personality. Here, too, the problem is that we are theory-bound.”

Is this legitimately another category? Would moral analysis of the situation of a homosexual apply to the case of a bisexual? Is everybody a bisexual to some degree — that is, does everyone have some bisexual potential? Or not? Can definite moral judgments on particular cases be stated apart from certainty on these various issues?

As I said, all of the above actually seems at first to muddy the water. It raises the question of whether the debate participants know what they are talking about — and, to what extent it can be known. Can the debate be conducted in an atmosphere where much remains unknown? It is certainly much easier to form competing ideas and maintain them if the issues are clear and sharp.

And one more thing from O'Donovan:

“Besides listening to theories and experiences, a debate will attend to proposals from the gay culture, and will take them the more seriously the more they rise above the level of demand and recrimination and begin to articulate what the movement stands for, its vision and its critique of society.”

To all of the above I would hasten to add that consideration needs also to be given to the inter-sex and transgender phenomena of human experience. When this is added in as well, we've gone quite a long way in moving away from sweeping generalizations about human beings.

As they say: one size does not fit all. Nor can we divide all of humanity into two neat categories: hetero- and homo- sexuals.

While this may be fatal to a lot of the liberal vs. conservative rhetoric and cant, it will bring us much closer to understanding what we are really talking about.

Next Installment: Stepping Around the Quagmire.