Given the Bibles clear opposition to homosexual conduct, there remains the question of what these texts mean for the church today. In a case like this, where the Scriptures are clear, the question of hermeneutics centers on whether any contemporary considerations preclude the direct application of the Bible's message to the modern debate. In assessing the Bible's hermeneutical relevance it is helpful to keep in mind some basic principles for guiding application.
1. Is the issue a matter of significant concern in the Bible?
(a) Is there a consistent perspective in the Bible?
How often is the issue addressed?
If infrequently addressed, does infrequency imply insignificance or universal agreement?
Is it likely that any biblical writers might have held a different position?
Is there continuity between the Testaments?
(b) Is it a serious moral issue for biblical writers?
Does violation lead to exclusion from God's people?
Do any biblical writers regard the issue as a matter of indifference?
Do biblical writers prioritize it as one of the core values of the faith?
2. Does the biblical witness remain valid in a contemporary setting?
(a) Is the situation to which the Bible responds comparable to the contemporary situation?
(b) Are the arguments made by biblical writers still convincing?
(c) Do new socio-scientiflc insights or cultural changes invalidate the biblical witness?
Do these new insights directly engage the arguments marshalled by the biblical authors?
How certain are these new insights?
Are the writers of Scripture limited or blinded by their cultural horizon?
Were there other perspectives or options available in the author's own time?
(d) Has the church adopted a consistent and strong witness on the issue over the centuries?
(e) Does a new work of the Holy Spirit in the church justify changing the biblical position?
Does the biblical position run counter to the "weightier matters" of love/justice?
Does this alleged "new work" promote God's kingdom?
Does the change involve a total reversal of the biblical position or only a modification?
This chapter will treat the main objections to applying the biblical texts that reject homosexual practice to the contemporary context. These objections tie in with the principles enumerated above.1
The objection that homosexuality is not a matter of significant concern in the Bible (question 1) has to some extent already been treated, particularly for the authors who explicitly proscribe it, but also for Jesus and early Judaism in general. In section V below we will broaden the discussion to the whole canon.
Question 2—whether the biblical witness remains valid in a contemporary setting— occupies most of the attention of this chapter. The argument that the biblical writers had in mind exploitative, pederastic models of homosexuality is used to suggest that homosexuality then and now are two very different phenomena (2a). I address this in section I.
The contention that the biblical writers mistakenly construed homosexual urges to be a manifestation of inordinate heterosexual desire aims to prove that the rationale for the Bible's rejection of homosexuality is flawed (2b) and at variance with the contemporary understanding of homosexual orientation (2c). I take this up in section III.
Some allege that modern science has demonstrated that homosexuality is a genetically based condition whereas the biblical writers perceived it to be a matter of free choice (2c). I discuss this in section IV.
The view that the Bible's condemnation of homosexual behavior was primarily motivated by a desire to maintain male dominance seeks to expose the Bible's own need for reform based on the core values of love and justice (2e). I explore this in II.
Two arguments frequently employed do not respond so much to the specific questions given above as call into question broader presuppositions. The observation that the church has made an about-face on other biblical positions (e.g., women in ministry) is designed to call into question fundamentalist convictions concerning biblical inerrancy. I address this in section VI. The point that the church is comprised of sinners saved by grace is aimed at demonstrating that the church's judgmental attitudes toward homosexuals are hypocritical when the church singles out this sin for special attention. I address this in section VII.
The issue of church tradition in the last two millennia (2d) is not treated here largely because it is well known that, until the last few decades, the church has maintained a consistent stance against homosexual behavior as sin.2
Because no interpreter of the Bible can pretend to be completely unbiased, it may be helpful for me to lay out my own premises for a readership that is likely to cover a broad theological spectrum. My basic assumption is that the Christian Scriptures are the most significant authority and guide for church decisions. At the same time, the Bible consists of writings compiled over a millennium, from diverse locations, and by many different writers. Because of this, the Scriptures contain significant internal tensions at points.
I believe the gospel at its core is a message of liberation. By liberation, I mean something more noble than tolerance or permissiveness. I am convinced that the gospel offers us true freedom, a freedom based in God's will—not in human passions. There is reason to question whether the gospel's liberating message has filtered through in equal measure to every position espoused by every biblical writer.
Further, scientific and historical-critical methodology has advanced considerably over the last two thousand years, though it would be an error to equate science and morality or to assume that "new" is always "improved." For example, there are some pre-scientific cosmogonic and cosmological details that contemporary believers are not bound to embrace.3 In addition, with regard to questions of historical accuracy, the picture of Jesus found in the Gospels cannot simply be equated with the "historical Jesus." The Gospels are portraits of Jesus pieced together to serve particular theological ends.
On the whole I find Paul's exposition of the gospel to be compelling and an authoritative lens from which to interpret and inform my experience. Nevertheless, even though I generally agree with the ultimate point that Paul wants to make on issues of critical significance for Paul, I sometimes have reservations about the way that Paul gets there. For example, I sometimes find Paul's exegesis of the Old Testament to be less than compelling. Paul is still "my apostle," but he does not (and did not in the first century) have to be inerrant in every matter.
Finally, I believe that criticism of Scripture and of the contemporary worldview is a two-way street. I cannot be a biblical literalist or fundamentalist and still retain intellectual integrity. However, I do not thinkthat Scripture and the prevailing cultural sentiment are equal in value. Along with most Christians, I have come to the conviction that the gospel message exists in its purest form in the Bible (particularly in the Gospels and the authentic Paul), for all its warts and problems. For me the Bible is the normative "playing field" for grappling with matters of faith and practice. Experience is also important, but no experience is self-interpreting or self-validating. I know of no better interpretive lens than the gospel as proclaimed in the New Testament. My own view is that the burden of proof is on those who would reject a biblical position, particularly a strong and consistently held New Testament position on a moral issue with strong support from the Old Testament and subsequent church tradition. I believe this to be the case with respect to homosexuality.
To overturn such a clear biblical mandate requires strong and unambiguous counter-arguments. Furthermore, one must demonstrate that the new information being brought to bear addresses directly the reasons for the Bible's position. For example, it is not enough to prove that the primary expression of homosexuality in antiquity was an inherently exploitative form (pederasty) or that modern science has demonstrated that homosexuality is primarily a genetic phenomenon (two dubious claims, as we shall see). One must also prove that the Bible condemned homosexuality primarily on the grounds of the exploitative mismatch created by pederasty or on the grounds that homosexuality was a willfully chosen rejection of God's design for sexuality. Otherwise, even if one's point were valid it would still have little relevance for ascertaining the deficiencies in the Bible's reasons for condemning homosexual behavior.
In addition, a strong case for homosexual conduct needs to be made, one that goes beyond misleading platitudes such as "God loves all people" or "Jesus embraced everyone" or "God made me this way." God loves all people and Jesus did embrace outcasts but both call people to repentance and a transformed life. Many, if not most, innate feelings (including a plethora of sexual desires) stand in direct opposition to God's will for redeemed humanity and are to be brought under the control of the Spirit's power.
In the following presentation, headings in boldface summarize the main arguments against hermeneutical appropriation of the Bible's stance on homosexuality. Each heading is followed by an elaboration of the argument, then by a detailed response.
Robin Scroggs, followed by others,4argues that since the dominant expression of same-sex love in the Greco-Roman world was pederasty (sex between an adult male and an adolescent boy), Jewish and Christian writers could only have had this in mind, and indeed usually thought of the most exploitative forms of pederasty: sex with "callboys"5 or household slave boys. Because contemporary expressions of homosexuality can be mutual, non-exploitative, and caring, no one can predict what the Bible would have said about homosexuality had this been the prevailing model in antiquity. In response, I offer two different criticisms.
(1) The biblical texts theinselves nowhere limit their rejection of homosexual conduct to exploitative forms.
(a) The prohibitions in Lev 18:22; 20:13 are unqualified: any man who lies with another male in the manner that men lie with women (i.e., engaging in sexual intercourse) has committed an abomination. There are no exceptions. One finds no specifications regarding age of either participant. Neither is there any mention of the exploitative character of the relationship. If homosexual actions were wrong primarily because they were exploitative, why would Lev 20:13 specify a penalty of death for both participants, the exploited as well as the exploiter?
The prohibitions against homosexual intercourse are as absolute as the injunctions against incest and adultery. It simply does not matter how well homosexual conduct is done; what matters is that it is done at all. Arguing that non-exploitative forms of homosexuality might have been accepted is like contending that the Holiness Code was only opposed to exploitative forms of incest. Although Lev 18:22 and 20:13 do not directly specify why homosexual conduct is an "abomination," the most likely reasons are that homosexual conduct entails a confusion of genders through violation of the anatomical and procreative complementarity of male and female, that it constitutes a rejection of the pattern laid down in the traditional material in Genesis 1-3, and that it serves to destabilize the integrity of the family and the ordered survival of the species.
(b) Romans 1:26-27 is equally absolute in its wording: "their females exchanged the natural use" (i.e., of the male as regards sexual intercourse) and "the males... were consumed with passion for one another, males with males." The reference to lesbianism in 1:26 casts a wider net than abusive, male, pederastic relationships, inasmuch as lesbianism in the ancient Mediterranean world was not confined to pederastic models or rigid active versus passive roles.6 The fact that Paul segues from lesbianism in 1:26 to male homosexual behavior in 1:27 with the words "and likewise also" (homoios te kai) suggests that he rejects both forms of homosexual behavior for the same reasons; that is, on grounds other than their exploitative or oppressive character.
Moreover, the contrast in 1:27 is clearly not between exploitative homosexual relationships and loving homosexual relationships but between heterosexual and homosexual conduct: "the males, leaving behind the natural use of the female (as regards sexual intercourse). . . . " From Paul's perspective the fundamental problem with male homosexual conduct is not that it is exploitative of young people but that it is sexual gratification aimed at other males rather than at females. The blurring of the sexes, doing with the same sex what should be done with the opposite sex alone, is the problem for Paul. Indeed, Paul emphasizes the mutuality of affections: "the males . . . were inflamed in their desire for one another." He is not presuming a situation in which only an allegedly active older partner in the relationship is sexually gratified. But mutuality does not imply moral goodness to Paul.
Additionally, as in Lev 20:13, Paul states that both parties involved are under divine judgment, not just the so-called exploitative active partner: "males engaging in indecency with males, receiving back in themselves the recompense which was required of their straying." In Paul's view the divine "recompense" or "wrath" (1:18) was already manifesting itself in the "mutual degrading of their bodies" (1:24) that arises when people distort God's intended design for their sexuality by doing what their bodies were not created to do. Just as idolaters degrade their own humanity by choosing to worship an image of another creature rather than the Creator, so too the one engaged in homosexual conduct is degraded by ignoring the obvious design for sexuality in basic human anatomy and physiology.
First Corinthians 6:9 also pronounces judgment both on effeminate males who play the role of females in male homosexual intercourse (malakoi) and on active male partners who take the former to bed (arsenokoitai). I refer the reader to pp. 310-12, 325-30 for reasons why the combination of these two terms is correctly understood in our contemporary context when applied to every conceivable type of same-sex intercourse.
In short, Paul does not present a picture where one party is being degraded and exploited, but rather portrays both partners as seeking to gratify their urges with one another and together reaping the divine recompense for their mutually degrading conduct. Had Paul wanted to limit his remarks to pederasty he could have used Greek words that refer specifically to such activity. Even if Paul were thinking in the first instance of pederasty while employing the more inclusive language of Leviticus ("men lying with males"), he shows no apparent interest here in the matter of one-sided exploitation. The phrase contrary to nature is not a reference to having sex with a youth or exploiting someone. Like most ancient Jews, Paul viewed the creation story in Genesis 1-3 as endorsing only heterosexual unions. Contrary to nature is a reference to erasing the stamp of gender placed on male and female by the Creator.7 The problem that same-sex intercourse posed for Paul was that it was same-sex, not that it was inherently exploitative. Pederasty was one of the most acceptable forms of same-sex intercourse in antiquity. Undoubtedly Paul would have viewed an adult male who willingly presented his body for penetration by another man (a cinaedus) with greater, not lesser, scorn.
(2) It is misleading to argue as if Jewish Christian writers had nothing but negative images from which to base their judgment of homosexuality.
Even on the surface of it, the notion that mutually caring same-sex relationships first originated in modern times sounds absurd. Are we to believe that nobody with homosexual or lesbian urges in all of antiquity was able to provide a healthy example of same-sex love? In fact, moving statements about the compassionate and beautiful character of same-sex love can be found in Greco-Roman literature. Among the examples8 are the speeches in Plato's Symposium. In it is narrated a series of discourses on Love (Eros) by various celebrants (including Socrates), during the time of light drinking after a banquet that occurred in 416 B.E.9
Phaedrus, the first speaker, states: "I at least am not able to say immediately what it is that is any greater good for someone who is young than a useful lover (erastes, the older and active homosexual partner) and for a lover a darling boy (paidika; or: favorite, the younger or boyish passive homosexual partner)" (178C). He argues that "an army of lovers and darling boys" would be the best possible army since each soldier would be inspired by his partner to great heights of valor so as not to be disgraced in the eyes of that partner (178D-179B). He also tells the story of how Achilles ("still beardless, since he was much younger") was honored by the gods with a place in the Isles of the Blest because of his deep devotion to his lover Patroclus (expressed in avenging Patrocluss death and in seeking to join him in death; 179E-180B).
The next speaker, Pausanias, was a "lover" of the host Agathon. Their relationship had started over twelve years earlier when Agathon was eighteen (cf. Plato, Prot. 315D-E). Agathon was no longer a youth. Now about thirty-one years old, Agathon had just won a prize for his plays at a dramatic festival and owned the home at which this symposium took place. Pausanias distinguishes between two types of love (eros): the heavenly and the popular. Popular Aphrodite is the (love) which the common (phauloi; or: bad, inferior) sort of men fall in love with (erosin). And such men first of all fall in love with women not less than boys, then as regards those with whom they fall in love, (sc. they fall in love) with the bodies more than the souls; then whenever possible (sc. they fall in love) with the most mindless ones. . . . But the (sc. other love is) related to the heavenly (sc. Aphrodite) who first of all does not partake of the female but only of the male; [and this is the love of boys;] then, (sc. this Aphrodite) is elder, without an allotment of wantonness (hybris; or: insolence); for which reason those who are inspired by this love turn their attention to the male, being fond of (agapontes) what is more vigorous by nature and has more mind.... For they fall in love with boys only at the point when they begin to have in their possession a mind; and this moment approximates the time when they begin to get a beard. For, I think, those who begin from that moment to fall in love with them are prepared to love in the expectation that they will be with them all their life and will share their lives in common; but not (sc. prepared)—after having used deception, taken advantage of their lack of prudence as youth, and laughed at them—to go off and run away to another. (181 B-D)
Pausanias acknowledges that pederasty is justly criticized when the lover has only the body in view and not also the soul. "For at the same time with the bloom of the body ceasing, (the body) which he used to love, 'he has taken flight and gone off [Homer, Il. 2.71], having dishonored many speeches and promises. But the lover of the moral character that is good remains throughout life, as if having been fused into a single entity with that which abides (viz., the soul of the beloved)" (183E). A "darling boy" should not capitulate to sex too quickly, nor do so for money or status. Yet "one way is left in our law if a darling boy is going to grant favors to a lover rightly"; namely, to do so "in the cause of virtue" (184C). The darling boy should act "in the belief that he will be granting favors to a good man and that he himself will be made better because of the affectionate regard (philia) of his lover" (185A). The lover, in turn, is obliged to attend to the education of his favorite and to make his growth in wisdom and goodness the top priority (184D).
Pausanias is not uncritical towards all forms of pederasty; he is able to make distinctions between exploitative forms (which should be condemned) and non-exploitative forms (which should be commended). Moreover, he stresses that the bonds created between lover and loved ought to be lifelong, a conception which, while not involving agematched couples, nevertheless takes the phenomenon beyond pederasty. This was certainly true of Pausanias's relationship with Agathon.10 The ideal of young male beauty and the misogynist exaltation of the masculine mind can be criticized from a contemporary standpoint (as can the prevailing heterosexual model of female subordination in antiquity), but the relationship between lover and loved commended by Pausanias is not exploitative of the younger passive partner.
In the fourth speech (189C-193D), the great comic poet Aristophanes (who was earlier prevented from speaking by a hiccup arising from "a surfeit [plesmones] or some other cause," now cured) constructs a myth about human origins in which humans were once binary beings, one type consisting of a man-man, another of a femalefemale, and a third kind of a male-female. When they attempted to extend their power to the heavens, Zeus sliced each in two and closed up the wounds. Ever since then all humans long for their other half.
All of the women who are a cut-off part (tmema; or: section, piece) of a woman (viz., the female-female) do not exactly turn their attention to men, but rather are inclined toward women, and from this race come into being the female sexual companions of females (hai hetairistriai). And all who are a cut-off part of a male (viz., the male-male) pursue male things, and so long as they may be boys and inasmuch as they are little slices of the male(-male), they regard with affection (philousi) men and rejoice when they lie down with and are locked together with men (viz., in sexual embrace; sumpeplegmenoi). And these are the best of the boys and lads, inasmuch as they are by nature (physei) the most manly. But some at this point say that they are shameless, falsely; for they do not act this way impelled by shamelessness but by courage and manliness and manly look, fondly welcoming (aspazomenoi) that which is similar to them. Now the proof of this is great: for in fact when they reach perfected adulthood only such persons turn out to be men fit for civic activities. And when they reach manhood, they become lovers of boys and are not inclined by nature (physei) toward marriage and the procreation of children, yet are compelled to do so by the law or custom (nomos). Yet it suffices for them to live their lives out with one another unmarried. So such a person cannot help but become (pantos men . . . gignetai) both a lover of boys (paiderastes) and someone who has affectionate regard for his lover (philerastes), always fondly welcoming that which is of the same kind. So of course when he also happens upon that very person who is his half, whether the lover of boys or any other (sc. lover?), then they are wonderfully struck with affectionate regard (philia) and a sense of kinship (oikeiotes) and love (eros), almost not wanting to be divided even for a short time. And these are they who continue with one another throughout life. . . . [each] desiring to join together and to be fused into a single entity with his beloved (eromenos) and to become one person from two.... our race would become happy in the following way, if we would bring love to fulfillment and each would happen upon his own darling boy, going back to his ancient nature (physin). (191E-192C, 192E, 193C)
The speech is preceded by banter between Aristophanes and Eryximachus in which Eryximachus cautions Aristophanes not to spin absurdities but rather to "speak as though intending to give a reasonable argument" (lege hos doson logon), while Aristophanes states that he is "afraid not that I may say something amusing, for that would be gain and native to my (or: our) Muse, but that (sc. I may say something) absurd" (189B). After the speech, Aristophanes charges Eryximachus to not treat what he has said as though he said it "after the manner of comedies" (193D).
Regardless of the degree of seriousness or lack thereof of Aristophanes's presentation, however, the speech even as satire reflects or plays off of the positive view of same-sex eroticism expressed by Phaedrus and Pausanias and current among some in antiquity: a view that applauds the naturalness, beauty, and longevity of same-sex love ("who continue together throughout life"), even conjecturing a genetic basis for such love between women on the one hand and between a younger male and an older male on the other. The final lines also suggest that even though homoerotic relationships were often characterized as gratification of the older male by the younger male, with the latter giving sexual favors in return for the formers instruction, the younger partner too could be "wonderfully struck with affectionate regard and a sense of kinship and love."11
A lengthy defense of the love of boys also appears in the much later work, the Pseudo-Lucianic Affairs of the Heart (ca. 300 C.E.).12 In it Lycinus recounts a debate between two men over whether love of women or love of boys is superior. The case for the latter was made by Callicratidas (30-49), whom Lycinus describes as a man who hated women and who kept plenty of male slave-boys and servants around his household but only "until the first signs of down on their chins appeared" (10). However, the speech of Callicratidas also enshrines some nobler values. According to Callicratidas, "only the male love (viz., love of males) is an activity that pleasure and virtue share in common. . . . For marriage has been devised as a remedy to ensure the necessary succession (sc. of the human race) but only the male love is a noble injunction of a wisdom-loving (philosophos) soul"; the latter is "artistically formed with beauty in view," not out of some necessity (31, 33). He grants that love for women is the older of the two practices but argues that its antiquity only proves its primitiveness, for only with the advance of civilization and culture could love for boys come about: "we should deem the old customs among our pursuits (epitedeumata) as necessary, but the ones which life devised when it had leisure for reasoning should be honored (timeteon; or: valued) as better than those" (35).
Likewise, for Callicratidas, an appeal to the heterosexual practices of animals proves only that love of boys requires the exercise of reason (which animals lack), while love of women is mere brute animal passion. "Lions do not so love because they are also not philosophers. . . . But for men practical wisdom coupled with scientific knowledge, from experimenting many times, having chosen what is most noble, deemed the most steadfast (bebaiotatoi; or: most secure, durable, sure) of loves to be the male ones (viz., the love between males)" (36). Although "love" (eros) goes by one name, there are really two: the love for women which is "unbridled pleasure (akolastos hedone)" and love of boys which is "goodwill that is temperate (he sophronouse eunoia)" (37).
Callicratidas goes on to contrast "the evils associated with women" with "the manly life of a boy" (38-45), ending with a moving tribute to the selfless and self-sacrificing love of the older partner.
Who would not be a lover of such a young man (ephebos, age eighteen and over)? And who could have eye beams so blind, and have reasoning faculties so maimed? And how could one not love a Hermes in the wrestling schools, and an Apollos with the lyre, and a horseman like Castor, and one who pursues divine virtues by means of a mortal body? But as for me, O divine powers of heaven, may my life be continuously this: to sit right opposite my dear friend and to hear him speaking pleasantly nearby, and to go out with him when he goes out and to have joint involvement (koinonia) in every activity. So any lover might well pray that the one of whom he is fond should travel through life without stumbling and without swerving unsteadily, reaching old age without sorrow, after having experienced from no Fate malicious abuse. But if indeed, because of the law of human nature, a disease should lightly touch him, I shall be sick with him when he is ill and I shall sail with him when he sets out through stormy sea. And if a violent tyrant should fasten chains around him, I shall put iron fetters that are equal on myself. Everyone who hates him will be my enemy, and I will have affectionate regard for those who are kindly toward him. But if I should behold robbers or hostile men rushing headlong toward him, I would arm myself even beyond my strength. And if he dies, I shall not put up with living. And I will lay final commands on those of whom I am fond next most after him, to heap up a common grave for both of us, and after having mixed up together my bones with his bones, not even to separate our mute ashes from one another. (46)
When the boy reaches maturity, it becomes difficult to distinguish between "lover" and "beloved":
When the earnest love bred in us from childhood reaches manhood upon the age that now enables reasoning, what for a long time was a recipient of affectionate regard gives back reciprocal expressions of love, and it is difficult to perceive which of the two is a lover of which, as though from a mirror, when an image resembling the goodwill of the one who (sc. first) had affectionate regard fell onto the beloved. Why then do you reproach it (viz., this love of males) as a strange indulgence (tryphe; or: softness, daintiness, luxury, wantonness) of the world we live in (tou kath' hemas biou; or: of our life) when it was ordained by divine laws and has come down to us from succession? And having received it gladly, we cherish it with a pure thoughts as though caretakers of its temple. (48)13
Mark Smith cites a series of examples of homoeroticism in antiquity that broaden the standard model of love between a man and a boy: those between young adult males, between adult males of unequal age, between adult males of roughly equal age, between adult males who alternate in the roles of "lover" and "beloved," and between bisexuals and members of the same and opposite sex, with many of these relationships characterized as stable and even as lifelong "marriages." "In sum, the extant sources for Greco-Roman homosexual practices demonstrate many exceptions to pederasty and a decline in the prominence of pederasty in the last three centuries immediately preceding Paul."14 After citing the evidence for female homosexuality in antiquity (often "relationships of mutual consent without reference to active/passive distinctions or age differentiation or exploitation"), Smith concludes that:
Paul probably did know of at least several different types of homosexual practices among both men and women. He used general language in Rom. 1, because he intended his proscription to apply in a general way to all homosexual behavior, as he understood it. In context, then, homosexual activity, in all its manifestations (as understood by Paul), is evidence of God's judgment on human sinfulness.15
Indeed, one might expect to see in the homosexual community a negative reaction against stereotyping all expressions of homoerotic behavior in antiquity as sordid, since such a stereotype would deprive the homosexual community of ancient precedents for healthy homoerotic relationships. Indeed, this was already the case made in Boswell's book, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, published three years before Scroggs's book.16 To be sure, one partner usually retained the higher status but, for that matter, the same could be said for heterosexual relationships in antiquity. There were certainly instances of exploitative homosexual relationships in antiquity and pederasty was the most common form of homoerotic expression. Yet that is a far cry from making the case that homosexuality in Greco-Roman society was inherently exploitative or that it was so prone to exploitation that Jews and Christians could not make the distinction between exploitative and non-exploitative forms. Victimization simply did not factor significantly in the arguments that Jews and Christians made in the ancient world. All forms of homosexual and lesbian conduct were wrong simply because of what it was not: natural sexual intercourse with the opposite sex.17
Scroggs claims that the biblical texts are without hermeneutical relevance for the contemporary debate because "the context which called the biblical statements into existence" does not "bear a reasonable similarity" to the contemporary context; homosexuality then and now are two fundamentally different phenomena.18 On the contrary, there is "reasonable similarity" between the two cultural contexts because the fundamental aspect of homosexuality and lesbianism that accounts for their rejection remains the same: the lack of gender complementarity in same-sex couples. Two thousand years of history have not changed that basic fact of human existence.
Bernadette Brooten has argued in her recent, well-documented book on early Christian responses to female homoeroticism that the primary reason why early Christian leaders condemned female homoeroticism was because it constituted "gender role transgression."19 In other words, female (and male) homoeroticism threatened to undermine the prevailing cultural pattern of male dominance and female subordination. Sexual intercourse between males and females was conceived in antiquity as a role-play between an active male exercising his dominance over a woman through mounting and phallic penetration, with the woman playing the passive role of being mounted and receiving the man's "seed." Lesbians who played the active role were often conceived in masculine terms, and, thereby, guilty of confusing the gender-stratified social order. Similarly, many ancient moralists criticized the passive male in homosexual relationships for taking on a weak and submissive role appropriate only for women. In sum, the passive, subordinate role of women in sexual intercourse and the active, dominant role of men were in keeping with the respective "natures" or inherent character traits of women and men (for example, a woman's disposition toward domestic life and submission to a man, a man's disposition toward public, military, political, and philosophical roles).20 According to Brooten, Paul and the early Church Fathers absorbed these cultural values. "Paul's condemnation of homoeroticism, particularly female homoeroticism, reflects and helps to maintain a gender asymmetry based on female subordination. I hope that churches today, being apprised of the history that I have presented, teach Rom l:26f as authoritative."21
Martti Nissinen takes a similar approach. "In expresses a fundamental cultural rule or a conventional, inborn character or appearance, or the true being of a rather than 'nature' in a genetic-biological sense, as a would perceive it." Nissinen includes in his contrast not only "conventional" but also "inborn." innate traits encompass genetic traits and biological traits innate and genetic traits, the contrast is somewhat is that the ancients classified some things as natural likewise attribute to nature, and some things as would regard as conventional or cultural. Each case has individually to determine whether the terms natural any given author are being correctly applied from perspective. Nissinen, in any case, views the usage of letters, particularly in 1 Cor 11:14-15, as proof that natural "the common order of things," "conventional unnatural "something that goes beyond the ordinary22 "Paul's understanding of the naturalness of men's gender roles is not a matter of genital formation and purpose, which today is considered the main criterion23 "It was women's active sexual role that was 'contrary to nature.'. . . The patriarchal role structure also by the female role assumed by the passive partner relationship of two men."24 The biblical authors, including Paul, were locked into an "ideology of hierarchical polarization." Their visceral response to homosexual behavior stems from their outrage at men adopting the passive, penetrated role of socially inferior women and women attempting to take on the active role of socially superior men.25
Ancient sources, including Jewish sources, do indeed indicate that gender stratification was an element in the critiqueof homoeroticism. However, this was not the only argument employed in antiquity against male and female homoeroticism (procreation and heterosexual intercourse among animals are two others). Indeed, behind the various arguments was the simple recognition of a "fittedness" of the sex organs, male to female. This fittedness, the ancients observed, included not only the compatible physical dimensions of the penis and vagina but also the complementarity of these organs in terms of sexual pleasure and procreative capacity.
Homoeroticism may have appeared as a threat to the genderstratified societies of the first-century Mediterranean basin but the degree of revulsion against same-sex eroticism held by many in antiquity was not limited to this when they spoke of the passive male homosexual partner as effeminate and the active lesbian partner as masculine. A male who allowed himself to be penetrated was acting like a female quite apart from issues of dominance and submission: the appropriate receptacle was absent from the male sex. The receptive male was trying to receive something that only females were made to receive. A female who attempted to have sex with another female could not penetrate a woman's vagina without a prosthesis substituting for the male organ. This is simply a basic biological difference that was as obvious in antiquity as it is today. Males have a sex organ suited for penetration and no orifice appropriate for sexual receptivity. Females have genital organs suited for receiving male penetration and no penetrating organ of their own. Sexual intercourse is complementary for males and females, not males with males or females with females.
In the contemporary context, one hears repeatedly the objection that not all sexual activity involves penetration by a phallus, even in heterosexual relationships. Why, then, should the absence of such penetration in homoerotic relationships (particularly lesbian) deny their legitimacy? Yet that misses the point. The point is not that sexual intimacy must always and only involve phallic penetration (as if all kissing, caressing, and other forms of sexual contact would have to cease) but rather that the fittedness of the penis and vagina provide clues as to how God desires sexual pairing to be organized by gender. The anatomical clues point to God's intention that human sexuality involves opposite-sex pairing as opposed to same-sex pairing.
When Epictetus (a first-century C.E. Stoic philosopher) criticized a young student of rhetoric for plucking the hairs out of his legs, he did not focus his argument on the obscuring of male dominance. Instead he argues that the student was taking extraordinary pains to erase the masculine stamp given to him by nature:
Woman is born smooth and dainty by nature, and if she is very hairy she is a prodigy, and is exhibited in Rome.... But for a man not to be hairy is the same thing, and if by nature he has no hair he is a prodigy, but if he . . . plucks it out of himself, what shall we make of him?. . . . "I will show you," we say to the audience, "a man who wishes to be a woman rather than a man." What a dreadful spectacle! . . . Man, what reason have you to complain against your nature? Because it brought you into the world as a man? . . . Make a clean sweep of the whole matter; eradicate . . . the cause of your hairiness; make yourself a woman all over, so as not to deceive us, not half-man and half-woman. Whom do you wish to please? Frail womankind? Please them as a man. "Yes, but they like smooth men." Oh, go hang! And if they like sexual perverts, would you have become such a pervert? . . . Leave the man a man. . . . How treat your paltry body, then? As its nature is. . . . What then? Does the body have to be left unclean?—God forbid! but the man that you are and were born to be, keep that man clean, a man to be clean as a man, a woman as a woman. . . . No, but let's pluck out also the lion's mane . . . and the cock's comb, for he too ought to be "cleaned up"! Clean? Yes, but clean as a cock, and the other clean as a lion . . . ! (Diatr. 3.1.27-45 [Oldfather, LCL])26
The same principle ultimately lies behind the critique of homeroticism: It denies the sexual, bodily gender differences of male and female and attempts a merger that nature never intended, that is, for which complementary sex organs were not provided. It amounts to a complaint against the "gendered body" that God/nature gave.
To be sure (as Brooten points out), Paul's discussion of veils in 1 Cor 11:3-16 maintains a distinction in gender dressing for the sexes on the grounds that God has ordained man to be the "head" of the woman. Paul understands men as the image and glory of God while women are only the glory of man, and that woman was made from and created for man. The problematic v. 10 ("the woman ought to have authority on/over her head") possibly means that the women prophets ought to wear the appropriate head covering as a sign that they are under the authority of men; more likely, though, that they ought to have or take authority over their own head by wearing the appropriate covering.27 In any case, it would not be surprising, given some of the arguments he employs in 1 Cor 11:1-16, if gender hierarchy were one of Paul's concerns in his discussion of homosexuality in Rom 1:26-27. Nevertheless, there are good reasons for thinking that for Paul in Rom 1:26-27 the blurring of gender stratification, if a factor at all, was secondary to the blurring of gender itself.
First, not even in 1 Cor 11:3-16 is total male dominance the overriding consideration. Paul is careful to qualify his argument for male headship with the point that neither male nor female exists without the other and that men are born from women (11:11-12). Paul is not trying to take away the right of women to prophesy but only to have them prophesy with sensitivity to gender distinctions. Elsewhere in his letters Paul undermines conventional, subordinate roles for women. In Romans 16, for instance, he mentions numerous female co-workers. In 1 Cor 7:3-4, he insists on the mutuality of conjugal rights. Finally, he pronounces that in the community of the baptized there is "neither male and female" (Gal 3:28). Scholars have long recognized a distinction between the more liberating perspective of the genuine Pauline epistles and the less liberating stance toward women in the deuteropauline letters (especially the Pastorals).
Second, given the previous point and the significantly more severe responses that Paul takes toward homoeroticism in Rom 1:26-27 and 1 Cor 6:9, it seems unlikely that Paul's main concern with homosexual practice is that it threatens male dominance.28 A more credible interpretation is that for Paul homoeroticism constitutes an extreme expression of human revolt against the divinely ordained natural order and not just a subversion of customary gender roles. In fact, Paul regards homosexual intercourse as such an obvious violation of the natural order that gentiles who do not know Scripture are without excuse when they engage in such behavior. Something even more basic than gender stratification is at stake: nothing less than gender differentiation itself. The case is similar to that of incest, which Paul treats in 1 Corinthians 5 and for which he recommends expulsion from the community. Even the "pagans/gentiles" in general recognize this to be sexual immorality. The issue is not primarily about hierarchy and dominance (or about abusive relationships or procreation, for that matter), though social organization is involved. It has to do with mixing two things that were never intended by God to be mixed—in the words of Lev 18:17, they are the same "flesh" (even if, as here, a man and his stepmother are involved). More than likely Paul was also opposed to bestiality so the same could be said here: the issue went deeper than the matter of dominance.
Third, if one wants to argue that Paul's primary reason for rejecting homosexual behavior was his concern that male social superiority over females not be undermined, then one has to explain why it is that Paul's position toward homosexual behavior (and the position of all biblical writers, and no doubt of Jesus himself) was more uncompromising than that of the prevailing Greco-Roman culture. The Greeks and Romans approved of certain forms of homosexual behavior, particularly in cases where the passive or penetrated partners were social inferiors. In a system where social hierarchy is the primary concern, such concessions are quite understandable. The fact that biblical authors made no such concessions suggests that their concern was broader than status differentiation. Brooten, Nissinen, and others have to argue, in effect, that Paul and Jesus were simply more misogynistic than their Greek and Roman contemporaries. Surely, such an argument has little merit. It is more plausible to argue that the biblical writers had in view another concern: gender differentiation, viewed not as a tool for holding women down as social inferiors but as a structural design divinely imbedded in creation for the health and vitality of the human race.
Fourth, on lexical grounds there is little basis for claiming that Paul's references to "nature" refer to contingent cultural norms. Outside of Rom 1:26 Paul uses physis in six texts. In four of these the dative physei ("by nature") is used (Gal 2:15; 4:8; Rom 2:14; 2:27). The fifth (Rom 11:21, 24) contains three occurrences of kata physin and one occurrence of para physin.
(1) Gal 4:7-9: "You (gentiles) are (now) children of God. . . . However, at one time, not knowing God, you were enslaved to things (or: beings) which by nature (physei) are not gods; but now, knowing God—or rather, having been known by God—how can you turn back again to the weak and wretched elements (stoicheia) which again, once more, you want to serve as slaves? You are observing days and months and set times and years!"29
The specific, contextual sense of physei in Gal 4:8 hinges on the meaning of the referent for "things which by nature are not gods": the "elements." The key to the latter' s meaning lies in Wis 13:1-9, a text that we have already seen to be the closest parallel to Rom 1:18-23. Gentiles who were foolishly "unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists . . . supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of the heaven were the gods that rule the world" (13:1-2 NRSV). Ancient Greek sophists centuries earlier had already distinguished between gods that were so "by nature" (physei, though "in reality" astral bodies) and gods that were so only "by human convention" (thesei; cf. Plato, Laws 889E, 904A). Nature here for Paul, as a Jew, is that which something truly is by virtue of its creation. The things that the gentiles once foolishly worshiped as "gods" were in reality the good "works" or "created things" that God made (Wis 13:1, 5). "By nature" in Gal 4:8 thus means "in their created essence, their natural essence as established by the Creator," as opposed to popular opinion and convention.30
(2) Gal 2:14-16: "If you (Cephas), being a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the gentiles to 'Judaize' (= live like Jews)? We, by nature (physei) Jews and not sinners from gentile peoples,. . . even we believed in Christ Jesus, in order that we might be justified from the faith in/of Christ and not from works of the law."
Here Paul points out the irony of Peter, a Jew who lives like a gentile, compelling gentiles to live like Jews (2:14). Even though Peter and Paul were "Jews by nature" and not gentiles, they nevertheless proved themselves to be no better off then gentiles, both alike seeking justification through faith in Christ. Here "by nature" means something like "by physical or biological descent," "by ethnic lineage," or (as in most English translations) "by birth."31 It thus refers to what one physically is through birth inheritance, not one what one feels or desires, much less to conventional ways of doing things.
(3) Rom 2:14-15: "For when gentiles who do not have the law by nature (physei)32 do the things required by the law, these (gentiles), not having the law, are a law to themselves; who demonstrate the work required by the law (to be) written in their hearts, their conscience bearing them joint witness. . . . "
The meaning of "by nature" in Rom 2:14 appears to be something like "through a natural, inborn capacity" (Moo), "by instinct" or "instinctively" (Sanday and Headlam, MOFFATT, NRSV, NLT), "through their own innate sense" (NJB).33 The reference, however, is not to any innate desire (excluding, for example, those produced by sin operating in the flesh since birth, the "law of sin" in Rom 7:23) but to a capacity for moral discernment implanted by God in humans at creation, a capacity which some gentiles are still able to follow some of the time (but without any greater prospect of justification than Jews). A good paraphrase would be: "by the natural faculty of reason implanted by the Creator in human bodies."
(4) Rom 2:27: "And the person who by nature (physei) is uncircumcised (lit., the uncircumcision by nature) will, by fulfilling the law, judge you who (even) through (the medium of the) letter (of the law) and circumcision (are) a transgressor of the law."
The probable meaning of "by nature" in Rom 2:27 is one that approximates its sense in Gal 2:15: "by birth or 'natural' origin" (Moo), "by virtue of his birth" (Cranfield), "owing to his Gentile birth" (Sanday and Headlam), "as a result of his natural, gentile ethnicity," "because of biological descent" (cf. Barrett: "by race"; not, as Byrne translates, "by upbringing"); that is, gentiles who are uncircumcised because they are biologically descended from people groups other than the Jews (the biological descendants of Abraham). Possible but less likely is the meaning "physically" (NRSV, NAB, NIV, REB, RSV, NASB, PHILLIPS, MOFFATT, Käsemann), not just in the sense "by physical descent" but perhaps in the sense "bodily." In favor of this reading is the context: the person who is uncircumcised "in body" but who, by virtue of keeping the law, shows himself to be circumcised in heart (2:26, 29) will judge the Jew who is circumcised in body only. However, the context does not demand this interpretation. Had Paul intended this sense one might have expected the phrase en sarki ("in the flesh," 2:28) rather than physei. Yet, regardless of which of the two senses one chooses, the meaning of "nature" in Rom 2:27 goes beyond mere social convention.34
(5) Rom 11:21, 24: "For if God did not spare the natural (kata physsin) branches, (do not become high-minded [11:20]) lest somehow35 he spares not even you.... And even those (branches; unbelieving Jews), if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted i n . . . . For if you were cut off from the wild olive tree (to which you belonged) by nature (kata physin) and were grafted, beyond nature (para physin), into a cultivated olive tree, how much more can these natural (kata physin) (branches, the Jews) be grafted into their own olive tree."
Here nature clearly has to do not with innate desires or social convention but with the organic unity of branches to the tree from which they originally sprouted. What is "beyond" or "contrary to" nature is the circumvention of natural processes of growth with artificial, human intervention. In this particular case, however, such a circumvention of nature is not treated as a negative act because olive trees do grow branches; while supplementing or aiding nature, one is not trying to fit together two discordant entities. The same could not be said for sexual intercourse between two males, in the view of Paul, Philo, Josephus, and many Greco-Roman moral philosophers, since no two males possess complementary sex organs. To attempt to join two members of the same sex is to act contrary to nature's bodily and physiological provision for human sexuality.36
In all of these instances, "nature" corresponds to the essential material, inherent, biological, or organic constitution of things as created and set in motion by God. Neither in Paul's thinking nor in our own do any of these uses pertain merely to personal preferences or prejudices, custom, a culturally conditioned sense of what is normal, or social convention. "Nature" in these verses goes beyond what one feels and thinks to what simply "is" by divine design. The elements earth, water, fire, air, and the celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars) are what they are by virtue of the way God shaped them (Gal 4:8). Branches grow from trees without any say in the matter (Rom 11:21, 24). In general Jews are biological descendants of Abraham (Gal 2:15) and gentiles are biological descendants of other ancestors (Rom 2:27), irrespective of what they feel.37 Even Jews must admit that gentiles, although often acting like animals, from time to time exhibit an instinctive, rational capacity for moral discernment that bears some resemblance to the written law (Rom 2:14). To whatever extent their consciences have not been seared, gentiles owe this faculty to God's handiwork in creation. Moreover, in none of these instances does Paul use "nature" to refer to conditions that are innate but due to sin operating in human flesh since the fall of Adam.38
One final usage of physis occurs in Paul that deserves special attention. Unlike the other occurrences of physis in Paul, 1 Cor 11:14-15 appears at first to demonstrate that Paul's use of the concept nature does at times conflate with cultural customs.39 The text reads: Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man lets the hair on his head grow long (koma) it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman lets the hair on her head grow long (koma) it is a glorious thing for her? For the hair of the/her head (he kome) has been given to her40 for a covering. (1 Cor 11:14-15)
Even here, there appears to be an element in Paul's reasoning that we would ascribe to nature in the proper sense—and Paul himself clearly distinguishes this argument from the next one based on church "custom" in 11:16. The interpretive confusion surrounding this text stems from the assumption that Paul thinks that nature proves that women can grow longer hair than men. Yet the explanatory clause ("for") in 11:15 establishes that for Paul long hair on women was an inference that could be drawn from direct observation of nature, that women have hair on their head for a covering, not that nature itself directly granted long hair only to women. 41
Nature in the proper sense (not custom) has indeed given to a woman the hair on her head. It might then be a reasonable conclusion to say with Paul that nature gives us a clue that head coverings (including veils) are appropriate for women: "for the hair on her head has been given to her for a covering" (11:15b). The logic of Paul's argument goes something like this:
(1) Nature has given women hair on their heads, and this hair serves as a covering.
(2) This should teach us that long hair is appropriate for women, not for men.
(3) This should in turn teach us that a head covering, such as a veil, is appropriate for women and not for men.
As readers, we might say, "Why not attribute the same to men since nature also gives men hair for a covering?"
Perhaps Paul allows his judgment to be blinded by cultural convention but the inconsistency in the argument appears so obvious that one has to wonder whether Paul does not have some other basis from nature itself for drawing his conclusion. In my view the most likely explanation, and one that is consistent with the Stoic rationale of the time, is that Paul is thinking of the tendency for many men (including himself?) to develop baldness.
There are, of course, also some women who go bald, but the notion of baldness as a condition generally associated with men still remains. Just as the phenomenon of the "bearded lady" would not undermine Epictetus's point that chin hairs are one of nature's ways of differentiating men from women, so bald women do not destroy the general truth that baldness is a characteristically male trait. Around 400 C.E., the Neoplatonist philosopher Synesius of Cyrene argued that "hair of the head" (he kome) is more "fitting" for women than men, a fact
doubtlessly determined by both custom (or: convention, law: nomos) and nature; by custom, since the hair of the head is good (or: beautiful: kalos) neither for all males, nor everywhere, nor at all times for the same men. . . . but for women it is always and for all women and everywhere a good (or: beautiful) thing to give serious attention to the treatment of her hair. Yet nature also agrees with the law. . . . If any shedding of hair occurs, (you will say) that this woman suffers from some kind of disease or illness, and by the least bit of attention it returns to what it is by nature (i.e., a full head of hair). But of men who are also worthy to be called men it is not easy to say who has not first arrived at this condition (of hair loss as a result) of nature. In fact, because of this very thing, it (i.e., baldness) seems also to be the ultimate goal (telos) of nature, even though it does not befall all men. And just as the children of farmers, understanding from the impulse of healthy plants how they want by nature to grow straight up, support as many of them as do not have strength from themselves to do this with poles and stakes, so since all those whose nature is best appear to be in a condition (of baldness) approaching my own, we must set straight with a razor those who do not share our condition and be of assistance to nature. (Baldness 14)42
The significant loss of head hair on a woman immediately occasions speculation that she is afflicted by some illness or disease; it is "unnatural." The reaction to baldness in a man is altogether different, for people recognize that baldness is a natural course of affairs for men. Nature, by depriving many men of some or all of the hair on their head (particularly with advancing age) and making that phenomenon much rarer among women, provides a clue for us all. In other words, men who allow the hair on their head to grow long are debasing their masculine stamp, while women who maintain short hair are debasing their feminine stamp.
The perspective of Musonius Rufus, cited above, is pertinent: "nature plainly keeps a more careful guard against deficiency than against excess." In other words, not the excess of hair on the heads of some men but the deficiency that many men experience in contrast to women is the best clue regarding nature's design. Hence, the fact that women have greater success in retaining head hair than do men is, in Paul's view, nature's way of teaching us that long hair is appropriate for women and inappropriate for men. Women must have a covering for their head; for men it is at best only an option. It is thus consistent with nature's teaching that women wear an additional covering on their heads when worshiping (11:5). The "glory" of men, however, evidently does not consist in having a covering for their heads; otherwise nature would not promote hair loss for men. Therefore, it would be dishonorable for men to go out of their way to supply an additional head covering (11:4).43
Even if we grant that this is what Paul is thinking, however, it does not make the overall argument credible. Few Christians today follow Paul in arguing that Christian women should wear hats when attending church. Paul himself seems to have recognized that his point was hardly self-evident. He adds this argument from nature only after making several other pleas, including the cryptic "because of the angels." He also immediately adds another appeal to ecclesiastical "custom"44 since he suspects the Corinthians will not find his logic convincing (contrast the argument from nature in Rom 1:26-27 which is the only argument Paul needs inasmuch as the complementarity of male and female sex organs is obvious and convincing). My only point here is that, for Paul, physis means "nature" in the strict sense, although the inferences Paul draws from nature have to be evaluated on a case-bycase basis.
What is clear from these texts is that Brooten and Nissinen have ignored or downplayed the importance of the anatomical (and procreative) complementarity of male and female for Paul's negative assessment of same-sex intercourse. For Paul, same-sex intercourse was not just a dishonoring of gender dispositions, much less of cultural conventions, but a dishonoring of gendered "bodies" (Rom 1:24) through a blatant and foolhardy disregard of the visible physical (and functional) differences of men and women. Further, same-sex intercourse is comparable to idolatry in its deliberate suppression of the visible evidence in creation for the attributes of the true Creator (Rom 1:18-23).
Boswell's approach to the meaning of nature shares some similarities with that of Brooten. According to Boswell:
The concept of "natural law" was not fully developed until more than a millennium after Paul's death, and it is anachronistic to read it into his words. For Paul, "nature" was not a question of universal law or truth but, rather, a matter of the character of some person or group of persons, a character which was largely ethnic and entirely human: Jews are Jews "by nature," just as Gentiles are Gentiles "by nature." "Nature" is not a moral force for Paul: men may be evil or good "by nature," depending on their own disposition. A possessive is always understood with "nature" in Pauline writings: it is not "nature" in the abstract but someone's "nature," the Jews' "nature" or the Gentiles' "nature" or even the pagan gods' "nature".... "Nature" in Romans 1:26, then, should be understood as the personal nature of the pagans in question. . . . Romans 1 did not condemn homosexual behavior as "against nature" in the sense of the violation of "natural law." No clear idea of "natural law" existed in Paul's time or for many centuries thereafter.45
Like Brooten, Boswell refers to nature as a personal disposition or trait. Unlike her, he does not think that Paul operated with a concept of "natural law" or gave his argument from nature any inherent moral force. For Boswell, "nature" in Rom 1:26-27 has more to do with the natural predisposition of men and women to be attracted to one another than with predispositions that justify gender stratification in sexual roles. Boswell's argument will be dealt with more fully in section III below, but some of the issues he raises are similar enough to Brooten's to warrant preliminary discussion here.
The dichotomy that Boswell poses between natural law on the one hand and someone's personal character or disposition is helpful, but only to a point. Natural law often pertains not just to those principles from nature that are equally applicable to all creatures and things but also to principles germane only to specific classes (for example, humans, birds, fish, or stars). Moreover, for this description of Paul's use of the word nature to be accurate, the words character or disposition would have to be taken in their broadest sense and by no means limited to personality traits or inclinations, inborn or otherwise. Being a Jew (Gal 2:15) or a gentile (Rom 2:27) and possessing the faculty of reason and of conscience (Rom 2:14) are not, strictly speaking, personality traits. Character is an even less applicable designation for the essence of stars as created things (Gal 4:8) or the organic unity of a tree and its branches (Rom 11:21, 24). These so-called dispositions are qualities bestowed through the medium of nature. The meaning of personal disposition or essential character of a person or thing does not apply at all to those instances where physis is something other than a dative of respect (Rom 1:26; 11:21, 24; 1 Cor 11:14).
The distinction that Boswell raises is perhaps better stated as a distinction not between natural law and personal character but between nature as a teacher of moral principles and nature as what simply is (without reference to morality). It is true that, in general, when Paul uses physis as a dative of respect ("by nature") he primarily has the latter sense in mind (Gal 2:15; 4:8; Rom 2:14, 27; cf. Eph 2:3), though even that admission would have to be qualified since every one of the instances cited above has a positive didactic quality. Yet it is apparent that nature is serving as a moral teacher for Paul in Rom 1:26-27 (as in the parallel argument against idolatry in 1:18-23).
Furthermore, the claim that "no clear idea of'natural law' existed in Paul's time or for many centuries thereafter" is false. We have already seen that both Philo and (to a lesser extent) Josephus, drawing on Greco-Roman popular philosophy, could make appeals to the way things are constituted in nature and creation as a basis for moral instruction concerning God's design for human sexuality. Philo, indeed, uses the expression "law[s] of nature," as well as comparable phrases such as "unwritten [law of] nature."46 Particularly in connection with issues of sexuality and gender distinction it was commonplace in antiquity to draw conclusions about proper behavior based on the visible, bodily differences between male and female in nature. We saw this to be the case both in Epictetus's argument against men shaving their body hair for purposes of beautification and in Paul's argument for why women should have a head covering when praying or prophesying.
Given the context for Rom 1:26-27, where Paul has just critiqued idolatry on the grounds of what can be clearly seen in material creation, there is every reason to conclude that by "nature" Paul means the clear anatomical and procreative compatibility of male and female sex organs. From this observable complementarity Paul (like other Jews) argued that gentiles should be able to draw the conclusion that God did not intend sexual intercourse to be conducted among members of the same sex. This, and not the desire to maintain male dominance in human society, is what Paul primarily had in mind when he spoke of same-sex intercourse as "contrary to nature."
Dale Martin and Victor Furnish, among others, have argued that since ancient moralists regarded homosexuality as a manifestation of an insatiable heterosexual lust and we do not, their opposition to homosexuality (including Paul's) must be disregarded in our own society.47 The main text they cite is from Dio Chrysostom, Disc. 7:151-152: The man whose (sexual) appetite is insatiate in such things (viz., referring to ready access to female prostitutes through brothels)... will have contempt for the easy conquest and scorn for a woman's love, as a thing too readily given . . . and will turn his assault against male quarters . . . believing t h a t . . . he will find a pleasure difficult and hard to procure. Other texts they cite are from: Seneca, Ep. 46, "On Master and Slave," 7 (a male slave is exploited sexually by his "master's drunkenness and his lust"); Philo, Abr. 135 (the men of Sodom, "unable to bear the satiety [viz., great wealth due to high crop yields], . . . shake off the yoke of the law of nature from their necks, chasing after . . . unlawful forms of copulation. . . . although being men they began mounting males. . . . they were conquered by a more forcible lust"); and John Chrysostom, Horn. Rom. 4 ("all such desire stems from a greed which will not remain within its usual bounds").48
A related view to that of Martin and Furnish has been expressed by John Boswell:
[T]he persons Paul condemns are manifestly not homosexual: what he derogates are homosexual acts committed by apparently heterosexual persons. The whole point of Romans 1, in fact, is to stigmatize persons who have rejected their calling, gotten off the true path they were once on. It would completely undermine the thrust of the argument if the persons in question were not "naturally" inclined to the opposite sex in the same way they were "naturally" inclined to monotheism. . . . Paul believed that the Gentiles knew of the truth of God but rejected it and likewise rejected their true "nature" as regarded their sexual appetites, going beyond what was "natural" for them and what was approved for the Jews. It cannot be inferred from this that Paul considered mere homoerotic attraction or practice morally reprehensible, since [Rom 1:26-27] strongly implies that he was not discussing persons who were by inclination gay and since he carefully observed, in regard to both the women and the men, that they charged or abandoned the "natural use" to engage in homosexual activities.49
It would be a caricature of Boswell's position to say that he is arguing that Paul is explicitly distinguishing between natural homosexuals who experience only desires for the same sex and unnatural homosexuals who are really overstimulated heterosexuals and then to accuse Boswell of a gross anachronism.50 Boswell's point is that Paul thought all people who desired and engaged in same-sex intercourse were "naturally" heterosexual inasmuch as they were capable of satisfying their desires through intercourse with the opposite sex. Therefore, Paul's argument that same-sex intercourse was para physin would be "completely undermined" by the notion of "permanent sexual preference." Both Boswell and Martin also contend that para (plus accusative) in the phrase para physin in Rom 1:26 should be translated "beyond," "more than," or "in excess of nature (owing to an excess of passion) instead of (Boswell) or, more precisely than (Martin), "contrary to" or "against."51
There are five problems with this position. First, whether all moralists viewed all homoerotic passion as an overflow of heterosexual desire is doubtful. In fact, there is considerable testimony in ancient sources to the belief that same-sex passions, at least in some cases, are congenital. The myth of human origins expounded in Plato's Symposium (189C-193D) seems to presuppose such a view (even as satire, it builds on pro-homosexual arguments in the culture for the innateness of homoerotic passion). In the same work Pausanias extolled love for males as springing not from the common, vulgar love associated with heterosexual desires but from "the Heavenly goddess" (181B). Aristotelian thought speculated that some males who desired to be penetrated by other males ("the effeminate") were so disposed "by nature" (i.e., because of a rectum that discreted small quantities of semen), and others "from habit" (i.e., because they were molested in childhood by men). Yet even the effeminate "by nature" are "constituted contrary to nature (para physin)," a mistake or "defect" in nature.52 Philostratus (early third century C.E.) complained that a youth who failed to respond to his advances was "opposing the commands of nature" (Ep. 64). Achilles Tatius (end of the third century C.E.) declared that a boy's kisses were "of nature" (Leuc. Clit. 2.38). Callicratidas in Pseudo-Lucian's Affairs of the Heart made the case that pederasty was "an ordinance enacted by divine laws" (48).53 Brooten notes that some ancient medical writers concluded that homoerotic orientation originated in an inherited disease of the mind or (for women) in the anatomical deformity of an overly large clitoris, while astrologers attributed it to the configuration of the stars at birth.54
Such views are inconsistent with the notion that all homosexual activity occurs as a result of overstimulation or boredom from too much sex with women. Even the texts cited above from Dio Chrysostom, Seneca, and Philo do not state that all homosexual behavior can be attributed to this single cause. Bisexual individuals, perhaps, could be so described (heterosexuals exploring homoeroticism) but not all forms of homoerotic expression in antiquity were bisexual.55 At the very least, it is likely that Paul (like Philo who made explicit reference to the creation myth propounded by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium) was familiar with one or more of these theories. Moreover, he could not have been unaware of the existence of men whose sexual desire was oriented exclusively toward other males (the kinaidoi, for example).
Second, claiming that ancient moralists opposed homosexual expression precisely for the reason that homoerotic passion was excessive heterosexual lust is, so to speak, putting the cart before the horse. Philo, for example, thought that gluttonous eating by people could stimulate passions "even for brute beasts" (Spec. Laws 3.43) but who would seriously argue that Philo opposed bestiality primarily for the reason that it amounted to excess passion? The description of excess passion was a way of demeaning a desire that on other grounds had already been evaluated as abominable; otherwise, how would the author know to characterize the passion as excess? In other words, the characterization of homosexual desire as excessive lust is incidental or supplementary to a prior revulsion toward such conduct.56
Third, Martins contention that in antiquity "homosexual desire is not itself 'contrary to nature'" is false.57 To make such a claim Martin has to draw too great a divide between homoerotic desire and homoerotic action. He contends that the "'unnaturalness' of the desire has nothing to do with one man's erotic interest in another, but with the 'unnaturalness' of a man desiring to demean himself by enthusiastically assuming the despised, lower position appropriate for women."58 Yet Philo could describe heterosexual desire as "passions [which] pay tribute to the laws of nature," as opposed to the passions "of men for males" {Contempt Life 59). Moreover, Martins claim that Paul would just as easily have applied the expression "dishonorable passions" to sexual passion for one's wife (because all passions for Paul were inherently dishonorable) is untenable.59 It is likely that the expression "dishonoring of their bodies among themselves" in 1:24 does not, and could never for Paul, refer to married heterosexual unions. First Corinthians 7:2-5, 9 presupposes the satisfaction of sexual passion in marriage so that such passion will not "burn" to the point of exceeding divinely ordained boundaries and lead to adultery. One function of sex within a marriage is to prevent passions from boiling over into "dishonorable" passions, not to preclude passion altogether.60
Similarly and more recently, David E. Fredrickson has made a special point of arguing that the word "use" (chresis) in Rom 1:26-27 is indeterminate with respect to gender: "neither the gender of the subject nor that of the object is material to the concept of use." 61 He then combines this observation with another; namely, the association some Greco-Roman moralists made between "natural use" and the avoidance of excess passion or even of passion altogether.62 From these two points he concludes that the issue for Paul in Rom 1:26-27 is not so much the choice of a same-sex sexual partner as the unrestrained pursuit of desire and the loss of sexual self-control.63 "Sexual activity between males is not portrayed as the violation of a male-female norm given with creation but as an example of passion into which God has handed over persons who have dishonored him. The immediate problem is passion, not the gender of the persons having sex."64 There are numerous problems with Fredrickson's reasoning. His first point, that in different contexts "use" can be applied to both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, is largely irrelevant to how it is applied in the specific context of Rom 1:26-27. Here, clearly, the sex of the partner does make all the difference in defining the "use" of another in sexual intercourse as unnatural: sex with a member of the opposite sex, defined here as natural, is exchanged for sex with a member of the same sex, defined here as unnatural. The gender of the persons having sex, not sexual desire per se, is the immediate problem. Following from this, and answering to Fredrickson's second point, same-sex intercourse (like all other forms of sexual immorality) can be defined as excess passion only after and on the basis of some prior understanding of why same-sex passion is unacceptable. Greek and Roman moralists who did not see anything inherently wrong with one or more forms of same-sex intercourse would not have agreed with the blanket assessment of Paul and all other Second Temple Jewish authors that samesex intercourse was inherently unnatural or excess passion. Excess passion, therefore, is technically not an independent, self-standing argument for why a given behavior is assessed as wrong. As to Fredrickson's conclusion, the intertextual echoes to Gen 1-2 in Rom 1:18-32 and in other discussions of sexual issues in Paul (see pp. 289-93) make an appeal by Paul to the male-female norm in creation obvious. Fredrickson does not explain why Paul singles out same-sex intercourse for special treatment in Rom 1:18-32. The special revulsion felt for same-sex intercourse by all the Jewish authors surveyed in ch. 2, a revulsion that exceeded the revulsion felt for instances of heterosexual immorality, points manifestly to a special problem with samesex intercourse: its same-sexness, that is, its violation of male-female complementarity embedded in creation and its functional signification of a member of the same sex as if a member of the opposite sex.
Fourth, whether Paul held all homoerotic desire to stem from oversexed heterosexuals can hardly be established with certainty from Rom 1:27 ("males . . . were inflamed in their yearning for one another"). The language makes clear that the element of "overheating" is present in Paul's thinking, but that does not tell us much about his view of the development of homoeroticism. Paul (like most in antiquity) probably viewed any infraction of God-ordained boundaries of any sort (including sexual) to be an overheating of desire simply because transgression of God's will invariably entailed a victory of the passions of the flesh over the rational mind or Spirit (cf. 7:13-25). If one craved anything that God had forbidden or nature had shown to be unacceptable, and acted on that craving, then logically one was mastered by one's passion, thereby proving that the intensity of passion had been too great to be resisted.
Whether for Paul the source of homoerotic disinterest with the opposite sex was primarily gluttonous eating or luxury that fueled passions to fever pitch, boredom after too much sex with women, some special innate condition, or an unmet need in childhood is difficult to say and, in any case, would surely have been incidental to Paul's opposition. The reference to females who "exchanged" sexual intercourse with men for intercourse with other females and to men who "left (behind)" or "abandoned" sex with women for sex with other men (Rom 1:27) does not necessarily mean that Paul thought every single individual who engaged in same-sex intercourse also experienced heterosexual desire at one time. Paul is speaking in corporate terms of the sweep of history, not the experience of each and every individual practitioner of same-sex intercourse.65 The text also clearly implies that the "degrading passions" to which God "hands over" are pre-existing; and the "leaving (behind)" intimates awareness of some men who were (or had become) exclusively oriented to other males. Regardless, since it is likely that Paul did not oppose homoeroticism because it constituted excessive heterosexual passion but at most interpreted homoeroticism as excessive passion in view of his prior opposition to such behavior, the whole objection that we no longer perceive of homoeroticism as due to excessive passion is largely irrelevant to the hermeneutical debate.66
Fifth, the translations "beyond nature" and "contrary to nature" for para physin cannot be played off against each other and, moreover, "nature" here has little to do with innate desires. The meaning "beyond" (the more common and general meaning of para with the accusative) and "contrary to, against, in opposition to" (a specific sense of this general meaning) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Same sex intercourse is "beyond" or "in excess of" nature in the sense that it transgresses the boundaries for sexuality both established by God and transparent in nature even to gentiles. Only a woman possesses the complementary opening for insertion by the male member, a point confirmed by the procreative capacity of male "seed" when it enters through the vagina into the female womb. That is what nature refers to when para physin is used in connection with discussions of same-sex intercourse. That is the means by which one should be able to discern in the creation that same-sex passion is excess (i.e., transgressing) passion. Thus the principal point is that same-sex intercourse is "in transgression or violation of" natural boundaries/"law(s),"67 perceptible in the way males and females are made, not that the passion for same-sex intercourse is "too much sex" (Martin) or urges experienced only by "constitutional" heterosexuals.68 In the same way, idolatry is implicitly "contrary to nature," not because people are "constitutional monotheists," but because simple observation of the cosmos should make clear that, as great as the vast and glorious cosmos is, greater still must be the Artisan who fashioned it, greater certainly than a carved block of wood or stone shaped in the image of one of God's creations (1:19-23).
Not the innateness of one's passions, which in Paul's understanding were perverted by the fall, shows us how to behave, but rather the material creation around human beings and the bodily design of humans themselves, guiding us into the truth about the nature of God and the nature of human sexuality respectively. Otherwise, many (if not all) of the vices in 1:29-31 would be kata physin, "in accordance with nature, natural."69 To suppose that Paul was condemning only the participation in homosexual acts by those who are "naturally" attracted to the opposite sex "is equivalent to saying that scriptural condemnations of adultery refer only to such relationships among those who are 'naturally' monogamous."70
Nature is material creation, visible to the naked eye, to the extent that it is not distorted or corrupted by the fall. Obviously, from Paul's perspective, the design and complementarity of male and female sex organs was not part of the fall because the command to procreate (Gen 1:27) had been given before the fall. Furthermore, the emphasis in Rom 1:26-27 is on exchanging (metallassein) the natural sexual use (chresis) of persons of the opposite sex for an unnatural use of persons of the same sex, not on the overflow of passions. In the first instance it is the actions of same-sex intercourse, the use and not the passions, that are para physin. The passions are para physin only to the extent that they yeam to "do" something beyond—and contrary to—what the natural (anatomical and procreative) male-female complementarity dictates as appropriate.
Hence, even innate or genetic homoerotic passions would have been contrary to nature for Paul (as is the "natural" desire by some men to be penetrated, according to Pseudo-Aristotle, Problemata 4:26, cited above)—that is, if for argument's sake one granted that the contemporary supposition of a genetic and exclusive attraction to members of the opposite sex were true. However, as the following discussion will argue, the scientific evidence indicates that genetic influence is at best only a relatively small (though not irrelevant) and indirect contributing factor.
William R. Schoedel's recent erudite article on the influence that ancient causation theories regarding homosexual practice may have had on early Jewish and Christian thinking provides excellent background information for the contemporary reader but ultimately fails to carry through the logic of the very texts that Schoedel adduces.71 Many of Schoedel's views are compatible with my own:
(1) His own analysis of Plato's argument in Laws leads him to conclude that Plato's critique of same-sex eros goes beyond his criticism of non-procreative heterosexual eros as excess passion, charging same-sex eros with something far worse: turning the male passive partner into a female, contrary to nature. "Plato provides abundant resources for those who . . . [emphasize] the perversity of same-sex eros as such."72
(2) Based on the speech of Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium and other texts, he finds "problematic the common view that sexual orientation was not recognized in the ancient world."73 Those who claim that something akin to the modem category of an exclusive, innate homosexual proclivity did not exist in antiquity are wrong.
(3) He recognizes the importance of anatomical complementarity (without using the precise phrase) as a prime reason for the rejection of same-sex intercourse by ancient moralists: ancient writers "who appeal to nature against same-sex eros find it convenient to concentrate on the more or less obvious uses of the orifices of the body to suggest the proper channel for the more diffused sexual impulses of the body."74
(4) He rightly sees that Philo's rejection of same-sex intercourse was based on grounds that distinguished it from his rejection of excessive (i.e., non-procreative) heterosexual sex. For Philo, "when the two sexes madly pursue each other for pleasure, their behavior is morally wrong yet within the bounds of 'the laws of nature' ([Contempl. Life] 59). That of course cannot be said for the love between two males," where Philo's primary concern was "the feminization of the youth."75 By inference, the question of how homosexual impulses arise would appear to play only a secondary role in Philo's assessment of homosexual behavior since Philo stresses effects rather than cause.
(5) He entertains briefly the "suggestion that Paul is speaking [in Rom 1:26-27] only of same-sex acts performed by those who are by nature heterosexual" as finding "some support" in Philo, Abr. 135. Then he dismisses the suggestion: "But such a phenomenon does not excuse some other form of same-sex eros in the mind of a person like Philo. Moreover, we would expect Paul to make that form of the argument more explicit if he intended it. . . . Paul's wholesale attack on Greco-Roman culture makes better sense if, like Josephus and Philo, he lumps all forms of same-sex eros together as a mark of Gentile decadence."76
One could be excused for surmising on the basis of such statements that Schoedel would see little value to the argument that Paul rejected homosexual behavior primarily on the grounds that it constituted an excess of sex by naturally inclined heterosexuals. However, the dominant line of Schoedel's reasoning appears to draw the opposite conclusion. Repeatedly he attributes early Jewish and Christian opposition to same-sex intercourse to a characterization of same-sex intercourse as "excessive search for pleasure" and an irrational and unmotivated fear of impurity.77 He refers to material from Soranus's De morbis chronicis (4.9.131-37) in which Soranus diagnoses same-sex desire as a disease of the mind or spirit (akin to Philo's reference to "the disease of effeminacy in their souls," Contempt Life 60), rather than as a disease of the body, and thus as a condition subject to human control.78 He concludes from all this that in the time of Philo and Paul theories of homosexual causation were undergoing a "shift in emphasis from physical abnormality to psychological disorder" and that this shift in turn made it easier to take a severe stance against all forms of same-sex intercourse.79
At this point Schoedel is once more his own best critic. He himself notes that in the same treatise Soranus expresses an openness to the views of "many leaders of the medical school" that ascribe adult homosexual prostitution to an "inherited disease" (yet, Soranus adds, still against nature's best instruction), a biologically rooted condition that societal values could play a part in reinforcing or making "milder" (4.9. 134-37).80 Moreover, as Schoedel notes, a strict distinction between diseases of the mind and biological inheritance runs counter to the views expressed in Plato's Timaeus (86B-87B) where diseases of the mind, though distinguished from diseases of the body, may be traced either "to bad upbringing or a defective inherited constitution of the body."81 Schoedel acknowledges that "a similar conception of a psychological disorder socially engendered or reinforced and genetically transmitted may be presupposed" for Philo.82 This view of things sounds remarkably like the current scientific consensus on homosexual orientation (contra Schoedel who seems to assume throughout that modern science has concluded that homosexuality is a fixed genetic state).
Hence, Schoedel's study, far from having the intended effect of proving that the edifice of Paul's stance toward homosexuality rests on an outmoded theory of causation, actually dictates the opposite conclusion: current theories of homosexual causation are, at least in terms of broad strokes, compatible with ancient theories that may have underlain Paul's views. Indeed, Paul's own views on homosexuality did not depend on any one particular theory of causation but rather on the male-female complementarity embedded in creation and accessible to all through either Scripture or nature.
In "III" we examined whether Paul believed that homosexual intercourse was always an act undertaken by over-sexed heterosexuals. Here we need to explore whether or to what extent it may be taken as a scientific given that homosexuality is an unchangeable and static sexual orientation that is relatively immune from environmental factors. The popular view being promoted by homosexual-activist groups and their supporters is that people are either "born gay" or not. All the supporters of proposition "III" above argue that if the writers of Scripture had only known that homosexuality is not a chosen behavior but a genetically determined orientation, they may very well have looked at homosexuality in a different light.
We will explore the current scientific data in the following order: the questions of whether there are distinct homosexual brains and distinct homosexual genes; evidence from identical twin studies; the question of intrauterine hormonal influences on homosexual development; the impact that parents, siblings, and peers have on childhood sexual development generally and childhood gender nonconformity in particular; the contribution of cross-cultural studies for understanding environmental influence on homosexual behavior; the impact of urban life and education on homosexuality in contemporary American society; evidence for movement along the heterosexual-homosexual Kinsey ratings; and the efficacy of attempts by mental health professionals and lay counselors to "change" homosexuals.83 Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of how this data relates to Paul's understanding of homosexuality.
Some scientists have tried to find differences in homosexual and heterosexual brains to confirm the hypothesis that homosexual orientation is at least partly determined by intrauterine hormonal influences on fetal brain development. Are the brains of male homosexuals closer to female brains than male heterosexual brains? Three studies in the early 1990s suggested a difference.
The one which has received by far the most media attention is the 1991 study done by Simon LeVay, a homosexual neurobiologist who in 1992 left the Salk Institute to found the Institute of Gay and Lesbian Education. LeVay studied an area of the hypothalamus85 known as INAH386 in 19 homosexual males,87 16 heterosexual males, and 6 females. He concluded that INAH3 was two times larger in the heterosexual males (.12) than in the females (.056) and homosexual males (.051).88 The media immediately trumpeted LeVay's results as proving that homosexuality is caused by immutable brain differences that distinguish homosexuals from heterosexuals.
Such a conclusion is irresponsible, for two reasons. First, there were six problems with LeVay's study. (1) It was a single-author study. Measurements were not made by more than one investigator. (2) His sample size was so small that it is impossible to conclude that the group constituted a representative sample of the larger population. Animal research will not be able to confirm LeVay's results because there is no homolog to a hypothalamic nucleus governing sexual orientation in animals. (3) LeVay may have misjudged the sexual orientation of some of the individuals. The fact that over a third of the allegedly heterosexual males died of AIDS raises suspicions that they were not heterosexual after all. LeVay made his determination on the basis of medical charts. If the medical chart for a given individual did not specifically state a homosexual orientation, LeVay simply assumed that the individual was heterosexual.89 If all six of the AIDS "heterosexuals" had in fact engaged in homosexual activity, then the distinction between the two groups would not be significant. (4) LeVay's study also did not confirm that all homosexuals had a smaller INAH3. Three of the nineteen homosexuals had a larger INAH3 than the average heterosexual male INAH3. Three of the "heterosexual" males had an INAH3 smaller than that of the average homosexual male. Minimally, this means that the size of the INAH3 is not a direct or sole determinant of homosexual orientation. (5) A more careful (blind) study by William Byne did not find a difference between male homosexual and male heterosexual INAH3S.90 (6) Furthermore, there is no proof that INAH3 has any bearing on sexual behavior, to say nothing of sexual orientation. It is simply a hunch on LeVay's part.
Second, there is no proof that the size differential (if one exists) is largely attributable to prenatal development of the brain. Even if LeVay's small sample were representative of the larger population and his findings could be replicated, and even if he correctly identified the sexual orientation of each individual, a different size of the INAH3 for heterosexual and homosexual males (on average but not in all cases) could be due to any of a number of other post-natal factors typical of each of these population groups: for example, early childhood trauma, patterns of sexual behavior in adolescent or adult life (such as the sex of one's partner, degree of promiscuity, or contact with fecal matter), involvement in sports, intravenous drug use, stress, diet, or general emotional health. Both the AIDS virus and some AIDS drugs are associated with lower testosterone levels which, in turn, may have affected the size of INAH3 at the time of death. Within limits, plastic structures in the brain can be altered through nutrition, disease, exercise, traumatic experiences, learning, pleasure stimuli, interpersonal dynamics, repetitious behavior, and adolescent and adult hormonal changes. Experiments on monkeys have shown that exercise of three fingers can increase the area of the brain associated with that function and decrease other regions proportionately. A similar phenomenon has been documented among violinists.91 An NIH study discovered that people who had become blind and taken up Braille increased the size of the area of the brain controlling the reading finger. Baby monkeys repeatedly subjected to traumatic separation from their mothers experience significant changes in brain function.92 One recent article argues from research on rats that sexual behavior can effect changes in both the brain and nervous system.93 Commenting on LeVay's research, the editor of Nature stated: "Plastic structures in the hypothalamus [might] allow . . . the consequences of early sexual arousal to be made permanent."94 LeVay himself admitted in his study that "the results do not allow one to decide if the size of the INAH3 in an individual is the cause or consequence of that individual's orientation."
In 1993, scientist Dean Hamer found what the media immediately hailed as the discovery of the "gay gene."95 What did Hamer and his colleagues really claim to find? They recruited forty pairs of homosexual brothers who also had a high incidence of homosexual relatives on the maternal side of the family (20% of the maternal uncles and male cousins). Since women have two X and no Y chromosomes and men have one X and one Y chromosome, any genetic factor for homosexuality in this group would have to show up on the X chromosome passed on by the mother. In the case of thirty-three of these pairs (83%), the scientists claimed to have discovered a particular genetic sequence in the region of the X chromosome known as Xq28. Just by random chance, one would expect 50% of the brothers to share the same variation since the mother has two X chromosomes. Hamer's team concluded that "one form of male homosexuality is preferentially transmitted through the maternal side and is genetically linked to chromosomal region Xq28."
Almost immediately the alleged finding was greeted with considerable criticism from the scientific community, a fact which the media conveniently failed to report. Hamer was criticized for failing to check his results against a heterosexual control group and inflating the statistical significance of his findings. One of his young researchers accused him of neglecting to report findings that would have undermined the significance of his results. That researcher was fired.
Hamer and colleagues then conducted a second study that was published in 1995.96 This time the results were less dramatic: Twenty-two out of thirty-two brothers (67%) shared the same genetic sequence in Xq28, albeit a 34% increase over the random 50% figure. Unlike the previous study, this study checked for the same genetic sequence among the test group's heterosexual brothers, who were found to be less likely to carry the variation in Xq28. Homosexuals who had bisexual brothers showed no linkage (i.e., only a 50% match occurred). Lesbian sisters from other families were also checked, but none carried the chromosomal marker in Xq28.
For the sake of argument, let us suppose the 67% figure is correct. What has Hamer proved? Hamer himself has acknowledged that "We have not found the gen.e—which we don't think exists—for sexual orientation." "There will never be a test that will say for certain whether a child will be gay. We know that for certain."97 Hamer's team did not locate a chromosomal marker for lesbians or bisexuals. Moreover, Hamer's alleged discovery applies only to a relatively small segment of the exclusively homosexual population: those who have both a homosexual brother and homosexual maternal relatives. Even within that relatively narrow band of the homosexual population, a significant percentage of the test group of homosexuals did not carry the Xq28 variation, while many of the heterosexual brothers of the test group did bear the marker in the X chromosome. As a commentator for the New Scientist noted, Hamer's marker was neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of homosexual orientation for this very limited segment of the homosexual population. Finally, there is no proof that the marker provides any direct bearing on sexual orientation. It is possible that the marker codes for some other trait that may increase the chances of becoming homosexual; for example, traits that may contribute to a child's gender nonconformity or a penchant for the exotic and novel.
Yet the discussion above presumes that Hamer's 67% figure is correct. Even that result may be false. In the last decade or so, claims of genetic linkage for manic depression, schizophrenia, and alcoholism have been made by researchers. Subsequent research, however, has not been able to replicate these findings. Hamer's claims may suffer the same fate. In a 1999 issue of Science, a group of Canadian researchers failed to replicate Hamer's findings. Although they used a larger sample size (fifty-two pairs of homosexual brothers), no significant connection between Xq28 and homosexual orientation was detected.98
A theory of genetically determined behavior does not coincide with scientific assessments of the role of genes. As Neil and Briar Whitehead put it:
Science has not yet discovered any genetically dictated behavior in humans. So far, genetically dictated behaviors of the one-gene-one-trait variety have been found only in very simple organisms. . . . But if many genes are involved in a behavior, then changes in that behavior will tend to take place very slowly and steadily (say, changes of a few percent each generation over many generations, perhaps thirty). That being so, homosexuality could not appear and disappear suddenly in family trees the way it does.99
In short, genetic influence on homosexuality is, if existent at all, relatively weak in comparison with family, societal, and other environmental influences. The 1992 United States National Research Council Report on violence and genes provides an example of a healthier, depoliticized conclusion about the relationship of genes to behavior. According to the report, violence can be attributed to interactions among individuals' psychosocial development, neurological and hormonal differences, and social processes. . . . These studies suggest at most a weak role for genetic processes in influencing potentials for violent behavior. . . . If genetic predispositions to violence are discovered they are likely to involve many genes and substantial environmental interaction rather than any simple genetic marker.100
A standard textbook on psychiatry reaches a similar conclusion:
Studies demonstrating a genetic factor in criminality have also acknowledged cultural/environmental influences shaping the behavior.... what is inherited may not be a mechanism specific to a behavior but rather something related to qualities of that person that render him or her more vulnerable to social influences. . . . That genes have a role in behavior can be demonstrated; that behaviors are influenced by other forces is also certain, particularly learning through models, instructions, and rewards from the sociocultural environment.101
If only the popular understanding of the relationship of genes to homosexuality would be so sober-minded. Few people would want to argue that violent behavior is so genetically predetermined that humans who engage in it should be absolved of responsibility. Yet this and more is precisely the conclusion that the homosexual lobby wants the general public to draw about homosexual behavior.
Identical twins are monozygotic; that is, they are produced from "one egg" and one sperm. In terms of genetic makeup, identical twins are truly 100% identical. Non-identical or fraternal twins, however, are dizygotic; that is, they are formed from "two eggs" and two sperm. Fraternal twins share no greater genetic resemblance to one another than do non-twin siblings (on average, a 50% overlap). Because identical twins are a perfect genetic match, a genetic basis for homosexuality would have to show up in higher "concordance rates" for identical twins in which at least one twin is homosexual. If homosexuality were determined completely by the genes, we would expect the concordance rate in such cases to be 100%. In other words, the identical twin of a homosexual would always be homosexual, much as eye color and sex in identical twins match 100% of the time.
In the early 1990s four major studies were published on the concordance rates for homosexuality in identical twins.102 In their 1991 study of 110 identical and non-identical male twins containing at least one homosexual member each, Bailey and Pillard reported a concordance rate of 52% for identical twin pairs (i.e., in 52% of the identical twin pairs studied the co-twin was also homosexual) but less than half that (22%) for non-identical twins. In their 1993 study of 71 identical and 37 non-identical female twins with at least one lesbian or bisexual member each, the same researchers reported a concordance rate of 48% and 16% for identical and non-identical twins respectively. A 1993 study published by F. Whitam and others found a concordance rate of 65% for 34 identical twin pairs and 30% for 23 non-identical twin pairs.103 These three studies received great fanfare in the media and led many to the false conclusion that homosexual behavior arose from a genetic contribution of 50% or greater. Less widely reported was a smaller, 1992 British study by King and McDonald. They announced concordance rates only half those of Bailey and Pillard: 25% for male and female identical twins (only 10% if bisexual co-twins were not counted), 12% for non-identical twins.104
A major criticism of these studies was that the samples were not randomly obtained. Volunteers were recruited through advertisements in gay publications, making it likely that the test groups would have an artificially high number of homosexual twins whose co-twins were also homosexual. This sample bias has been corrected in a more recent study by Bailey himself, with dramatically lower concordance rates. Utilizing the Australian Twia Register, Bailey sent out surveys to 9,112 of Australia's roughly 25,000 twins and tabulated the responses from 4,901 completed questionnaires. Of 27 pairs of male identical twins in which at least one twin of each pair was non-heterosexual, only 3 pairs consisted of two non-heterosexuals (11%). Of 22 pairs of female identical twins in which at least one twin of each pair was non-heterosexual, only 3 pairs were concordant for non-heterosexuality (13.6%). For same-sex male non-identical twins, none of the 16 pairs were concordant (0%); for same-sex female non-identical twins only 1 out of 18 pairs was concordant (5.6%); for opposite-sex non-identical twins, 2 pairs out of 28 (7%) were concordant. Bailey himself now admits that "concordances from prior studies were inflated due to concordance dependent ascertainment bias."105
Can we then say with some confidence that the genetic contribution to homosexual behavior is probably somewhere between 10 and 15%? No, even that figure would have to be reduced considerably. Some portion could be due to a common prenatal intrauterine environment rather than to genes. More important, common nurture or environment is likely to be a significant factor accounting for concordance rates. All of the twin studies cited above involve twins raised in the same households. So when one subtracts influences arising from being raised in the same family environment and the same larger cultural environment, who knows what smaller figure one might be left with:
Environmental influences are evident in the 1991 study of male twins by Bailey and Pillard. There Bailey reported that the concordance rate for non-identical twins was 22%, for non-twin brothers 9.2%, and for non-twin adoptive brothers 11%. Since non-identical twins have no greater genetic similarity than non-twin brothers, the fact that the former have a concordance rate for homosexuality that is over twice as high as the latter can only be explained from factors other than genes. Equally striking is that non-twin, biologically related brothers had a slightly lower concordance rate than non-twin, biologically unrelated adoptive brothers. Only being raised in a similar environment can explain such parity in concordance rates for the two groups, and explain why adoptive brothers of homosexuals would be four times more likely than the general population to be homosexual.106
Twins, and especially identical twins, have additional non-genetic influences on them that could artificially elevate concordance rates. King and McDonald reported in their twin study that same-sex twins, particularly in identical twin sets, had an abnormally high incidence of sexual relations (hence, homosexual relations) with each other. They usually have the same peer group. Parents, siblings, and peers often treat twins as mirror images of the same person. Research on twins has amply documented high behavioral imitation rates. On average, twins also experience significantly higher rates of child abuse and same-sex peer ridicule. In their early years the average twin has to play catchup in physical development and in the acquisition of social skills. Twins may be twice as likely to remain unmarried. Any of these factors may contribute to the development of a homosexual orientation. Indeed, there is evidence that identical twins may be four times more likely to become homosexuals than the general population.107 Thus a significant factor in the higher concordance rates for identical twins than for nonidentical twins may be the distinctive socialization of identical twins.
The best way to rule out the environmental factor in identical twin studies is to assess concordance rates among identical twins raised in different households. Unfortunately, the difficulty in locating such twins where at least one is homosexual has made it virtually impossible to study this phenomenon. However, a 1986 study of very small sample size examined four sets of female identical twins raised in different households, where at least one twin in each set self-identified as lesbian. In none of the four pairs of twins was the co-twin also lesbian.108
Intrauterine hormonal influences should be distinguished from genetic influences, even if the two are innate and possibly interdependent. We know that a testosterone surge in the embryo produces male genitals and other typically male characteristics; without that surge, the embryo develops female characteristics. Genetically coded female embryos exposed to male hormones develop large clitorises, and as adults excessive hairiness, and deep voices (the condition is called adrenogenital syndrome). Could it be, then, that male embryos that receive inadequate doses of testosterone, and female embryos that receive too much develop a homosexual orientation? Lab research has shown that rats injected in the womb with abnormally high doses of hormones have an increased incidence of homosexual mating behaviors (though the same effect does not occur with primates). An East German researcher in the late 1940s concluded that stress experienced by German mothers during World War II led to a delayed testosterone surge, which in turn brought about a very high incidence of bisexuality and homosexuality. However, more recent studies on humans in highstress conditions have not been able to confirm these results.109 A 1995 study indicates that females born to mothers who took an estrogen drug during pregnancy were more likely to identify themselves as bisexual. However, the increase in exclusive lesbian orientation was tiny and many of the females exhibited no homosexual proclivity.110 Other studies, including one in 1992, showed no difference in sexual orientation when pregnant mothers were given artificial female sex hormones.111 Even if extraordinarily high prenatal estrogen levels created by human drugs exert a moderate effect on bisexuality, that would still not prove that homosexual behavior under normal circumstances is traceable to intrauterine hormonal influences. Moreover, there is general agreement that significant hormonal differences between adult homosexual and heterosexual men do not exist. Adult male homosexuals given male hormones developed a higher sex drive but did not become heterosexual. To say that homosexual behavior is caused by abnormal hormone levels during pregnancy is to go beyond the current data, though some indirect influence may be possible.
The life stories of many (though not all) homosexuals include early childhood memories of feeling out of place with respect to members of the same sex. There is a consensus in scientific literature that children who exhibit a high degree of gender nonconformity have an increased likelihood of developing a homosexual identity as an adult.112 Such gender nonconformity might include interest in toys, games, activities, or clothing associated with the opposite sex; primary association with members of the opposite sex; and feelings of not "fitting in" with or being accepted by peers of one's own sex. The "sissy" boy and "tomboy" girl are classic types of gender nonconformity. There is no consensus, though, over the causes of early gender nonconformity. It is consistent with the hypothesis of some type of genetic or intrauterine causation, which at best is likely to exert only an indirect influence (e.g., in bestowing physical or personality traits that are culturally identified as compromising traditional gender identity). But it is also plausible that gender nonconformity is a precipitating cause for some forms of developing homosexuality rather than an effect of a latent homosexual orientation.
According to one psychoanalytic theory,113 children learn to behave in ways appropriate to their gender through their interaction with their same-sex parent and, later, with same-sex peers. When a proper relationship with the same-sex parent or with same-sex peers is disrupted, the formation of a secure sexual identity in the child is likewise disrupted. Gender nonconformity in the child and attendant feelings of being different from others of the same sex can be created or significantly exacerbated by such experiences.
At an early period in the child's life, if the child perceives the samesex parent to be distant, rejecting, or unappealing (whether correctly or not), the child may find it hard to identify fully with the image of sexuality conveyed by the same-sex parent. For boys identification with the same-sex parent is particularly susceptible to complications because, unlike girls, boys must make the difficult crossover from a prior primary identification with mother. If gender identification with the same-sex parent cannot be completed, the child may defensively detach from the same-sex parent. However, such detachment subsequently only heightens the child's anxiety regarding acceptance from members of the same sex. Not all homosexuals experience poor relationships with their same-sex parent and not all children who experience such impaired parental relationships become homosexual. Nevertheless, some studies have indicated that poor emotional bonding with the same-sex parent characterizes a significantly higher percentage of homosexuals than heterosexuals.
Some psychiatrists also give a secondary role to the opposite-sex parent in predisposing a child to homosexual behavior as an adult. For example, a close-binding or demanding mother may impair her son's attachment to his father or same-sex peers by criticism of the father or of males in general. Or she may smother the son's attempts to assert himself and break out of her primary influence. For girls, the loss of a father through death or divorce, or mistrust of males exacerbated by an alcoholic, angry, or abusive father, may have a bearing on later lesbian development. Again, we are dealing here primarily with a child's perceptions, perceptions which may not conform to reality or to a parent's intent.
While interaction with parents is an important factor in many, possibly most, cases of homosexual development, it is not a factor in every single case and even where it is a factor it may or may not be the most important factor. Often just as, or more, important is the relationship between a child and same-sex peers or siblings. A child may possess physical traits that make the child feel awkward, inadequate, or out of place in the presence of same-sex peers. Indirect genetic or intrauterine influences and/or unusual features to the early socialization of a child may dispose the child toward interests which stand outside the norm for one's gender. Same-sex peers may isolate the child for ridicule as much because of the way the child responds to teasing as because of any gender nonconformity. Both the child and same-sex peers can exaggerate initially small differences in an effort to resolve uncomfortable tensions and reduce the potential for conflict in overlapping interests. Because childhood and adolescent relationships with same-sex peers play a critical role in shaping sexual identity, persecution or isolation from same-sex peers may pervert the child's normal need to be wanted and desired by members of the same sex into an eroticization of same-sex love. For example, a boy who is bad at sports because of slight build or poor eye-to-hand coordination may develop a weak masculine identity due to trauma inflicted by male peers. When such a boy transitions from the phase of male "chum" bonding to the phase of erotic attraction, the healthy and normal needs for same-sex affirmation may become confused with impulses for erotic gratification. The high incidence of "other-destructive" behavior in homosexual circles (unsafe sex, sadomasochism, "fisting," high rates of non-disclosure of HIV/AIDS status to partners) may be attributable in part to buried anger arising out of the pain of rejection and taunting from boyhood same-sex peers. In the case of females, an aversion to the opposite sex may arise out of failed or abusive romantic relationships. Alternatively, the sheer loneliness that comes from waiting for males to take a sexual interest in them may push some females by default into exploring homosexual behavior.
Daryl Bern, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, has made a case for an "exotic becomes erotic" theory of homosexual development; namely, "the proposition that individuals become erotically or romantically attracted to those who were dissimilar or unfamiliar to them in childhood." Contrary to the heterosexual norm, those whose behavior is characterized by gender nonconformity regard members of the same sex as more "exotic."114
Bern's theory may be of value as a complementary explanation, rejecting as it does the theory that gender non-conformity arises out of a prior homosexual identity. Its weakness, as psychologist Joseph Nicolosi points out, is that it "gives no consideration to the boy's authentic needs for acceptance, affection and approval from members of the same sex." Nicolosi cites a memory of a 35-year-old homosexual client that well illustrates the point:
"I recall the exact moment I knew I was gay. I was twelve years old and we were taking a shortcut to class. We were walking across the gym and through the locker room, and an older guy was coming out of the shower. He was wet and naked and I thought, Wow!"
I asked the client to again tell me exactly what his experience was. He became very pensive. Then he answered,
"The feeling was, 'Wow, I wish I was him." 115
If this dynamic is reflective of homosexual experience it points to an important difference between heterosexual and homosexual attraction—the difference between wanting to have a member of the opposite sex as a complementary other and wishing to be someone else of the same sex as a replacement of one's sexual self. When children regard members of their own sex as more "exotic" than members of the opposite sex, then something is clearly wrong, as the very expressions "same sex" and "opposite sex" imply. Such children may be reacting to an insecure gender identity by becoming sexually attracted to what they would like to see in themselves. This is not a healthy reaching-out to a sexual "other," but rather an unhealthy, narcissistic attraction to one's own sex and a symptom of an unmet need for sexual self-acceptance.
Homosexual relationships, especially for males, may also serve for many as a refuge from the anxiety associated with societal expectations around heterosexual courtship and intimacy. Consistent with this explanation is the fact that promiscuous, casual sex and "open," shortterm relationships are hallmarks of male homosexual activity. It also fits with the much higher rates of substance abuse reported among homosexuals, inasmuch as the adoption of one self-soothing response to internal distress is usually accompanied by other methods of selfsoothing.116
There is also evidence that self-identified homosexuals and bisexuals are three to nine times more likely to have experienced sex as a child (usually with an adolescent or adult male) than their heterosexual counterparts.117 The higher correlation suggests that sexual abuse may be at least a causative factor in predisposing some people to adult homosexual behavior. An early association of sexual arousal with an adult or adolescent of the same sex (particularly in the case of boys), or an association of heterosexual sex with trauma (particularly in the case of girls), may incline the child in the direction of homosexual relationships.
It is probably not possible to pinpoint any one socializing factor that leads a person to develop a homosexual orientation. Nevertheless, environmental factors and reactive psychological development (where choice in some limited sense may be included) appear to be key ingredients. This point is perhaps most strikingly demonstrated by the following observation. Roughly 90% of children born with ambiguous genitalia choose as adolescents or adults to retain the gender identification bestowed on them in their upbringing, even if their gendered upbringing is subsequently discovered to be at odds with the child's genetically determined sex. In such cases, gender socialization clearly has a greater impact than genes.118
From previous discussion in this book, it is evident that a comparison of ancient Greek culture and ancient Israelite culture provide two very different examples of how cultural reactions to homosexual behavior can affect its social expression or whether it is expressed at all. In the case of the former, pederasty pervaded male society to a point where it achieved conventional status, at least among the upper classes. In the case of the latter, all forms of homosexual behavior were virtually non-existent.
David Greenberg has written the most comprehensive account of the social construction of homosexuality from earliest times to present day. He categorizes the historical and social manifestation of homosexuality according to four ideal types: (1) transgenerational (the partners are from different generations); (2) transgenderal (one of the partners takes on the gender identity of the opposite sex); (3) class-structured (partners belong to different social classes, for example, the dominant partner as a free adult citizen, the subordinate partner as a slave or prostitute); and (4) egalitarian (the partners are social equals).
As an example of transgenerational homosexuality, he focuses on New Guinea. In 10% to 20% of New Guinea cultures, an institutionalized form of pederasty exists, though the specifics vary from tribe to tribe. For example, in the case of the Etoro tribe, a boy around the age of ten enters into a homosexual relationship with his brother-in-law, which continues until he develops a full beard (roughly fifteen years). He then serves as the older partner for his wife's younger brother. When he reaches the age of forty, he discontinues homosexual relationships altogether, except at collective initiation ceremonies or if he takes a second wife. In the case of the Sambia tribe, homosexual relationships begin when the boy is seven. He regularly fellates an adolescent boy until he reaches puberty; then he is regularly fellated by a pre-pubescent boy until he marries, at which time he gives up all homosexual relations. All males must participate in these activities at the appropriate stages of their life. The mode of homosexual intercourse is different for different tribes: oral in some (e.g., Etoro, Sambia), anal in others, and smearing semen over the younger partner in one or two cases. The rationale for these practices is that semen from an adult male implants virility in the boy. In other tribes of New Guinea homosexual behavior was practiced by only a tiny minority of men, and in still others it was non-existent or virtually so.
One of Greenberg's examples of transgenderal homosexual relations occurs in connection with some North American Indian tribes. Indian men known to French explorers and settlers as "berdaches" dressed up in female clothes and adopted a feminine manner. They were conceptualized as a third sex of "not-men" with whom other men could have sex. Female berdaches who adopted male social roles and had sex with other women were also known to exist.
As an example of egalitarian homosexual behavior he mentions, among others, the Akan women of the Gold Coast (Ghana) who until marriage (and sometimes even after marriage) almost universally participated in lesbian affairs. "Whenever possible, the women purchased extralarge beds to accommodate group sex sessions involving perhaps half-a-dozen women."119
Greenberg also cites "quite a few societies in which all forms of homosexuality are reported to be extremely rare," and in some cases apparently non-existent. Sometimes this occurs in societies that explicitly proscribe homosexual behavior but at other times in societies lacking such prohibitions.120
Even though Greenberg is thoroughly supportive of gay rights, he regards as indefensible the position of "essentialists" who view homosexuality as an immutable, genetic condition.
The years some homosexuals spend trying without success to conform to conventional expectations regarding gender and sexual orientation tell against the most extreme claims of sexual plasticity. However, in the absence of any evidence linking the peculiar sexual practices of Melanesia with genetic difference, it is reasonable to suppose that if a bunch of Melanesian infants were to be transported in infancy to the United States and adopted, few would seek out the pederastic relationships into which they are inducted in New Guinea, or take younger homosexual partners when they reached maturity. Similarly, American children raised in New Guinea would accommodate themselves to the Melanesian practices. Where social definitions of appropriate and inappropriate behavior are clear and consistent, with positive sanctions for conformity and negative ones for nonconformity, virtually everyone will conform irrespective of genetic inheritance and, to a considerable extent, irrespective of personal psychodynamics.121
All of this suggests that cultural norms, not some form of genetic determinism, play the dominant role in manipulating how and whether homosexuality will come to expression. Cultures that become increasingly accepting of one or more forms of homosexuality can expect to see over a period of time marked increases in the incidence of homosexual behavior in the population.
In the United States today, the odds of a given child becoming homosexual increase dramatically depending on the social environment. We will focus on two cultural markers, though others could be noted (e.g., religion or income): urban/rural differences and the level of education. Data from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) conducted by Edward Laumann, Robert T. Michael, Stuart Michaels (all of the University of Chicago) and John Gagnon (State University of New York), combined with data from the 1988 General Social Survey, confirm the conventional wisdom about homosexuality being primarily an urban phenomenon:122 9.2% of men in the central cities of the twelve largest urban areas identified themselves as homosexual compared with a mere 1.3% in rural areas and 2.8% generally; hence, a 708% increase from rural to urban, 329% increase from general to urban. Lesbianism and female bisexuality is much less of an urban phenomenon, though significant increases still appear: 2.6% compared to 1.4% generally (a 186% increase) and less than 1% rural. The authors write that a relatively uniform distribution of homosexuality in different social groups "would fit with certain analogies to genetically or biologically based traits such as left-handedness or intelligence. However, that is exactly what we do not find. Homosexuality . . . is clearly distributed differentially within categories of . . . social and demographic variables."123 Migration may account for some of this, but cannot explain all, especially since the differences also show up for those aged fourteen and sixteen. Thus, "an environment that provides increased opportunities for and fewer negative sanctions against samegender sexuality may both allow and even elicit expression of samegender interest and sexual behavior."124
As regards education, 125 among those whose level of education does not extend beyond high school only 1.8% of men and .4% of women identified themselves as homosexual/bisexual. Among college graduates the rates are 3.3% of men and 3.6% of women, a 183% and a 900% increase respectively. Women who are college graduates are thus nine times more likely to identify themselves as lesbian or bisexual than women who only graduated from high school. One might argue that education opens up women to their "true" sexuality, or that women's studies programs on many college campuses indoctrinate women with ideologies supportive of lesbianism. Laumann and others attribute the dramatic rise in rates of female homosexuality either to "greater social and sexual liberalism . . . and . . . greater sexual experimentation" that coincides with higher education or to "a higher level of personal resources (human capital)" that can allow women to please themselves rather than men. As regards education,126 The fact that the incidence of homosexual selfidentification in men is affected far more by urban location than educational attainment, whereas for women it is just the opposite, suggests that the two sexes respond differently to different types of cultural stimuli. Male homosexuality appears to be governed more by pure libido, whereas female homosexuality is more cognitive and relational.
However one explains the increases, it seems clear that consistent exposure to a smorgasbord of variant sexual behaviors and the intense questioning of a heterosexual norm in educational settings can result in sevenfold to ninefold increases in the numbers of people identifying themselves as homosexual or bisexual. Given the fact that there still are major cultural reservations about homosexual behavior in the United States,127 there is every reason to believe that the further erosion of such reservations could lead to significantly higher increases of homosexuality in the population. Possibly with time the current 2-3% rates of self-identifying homosexuals and bisexuals could "max out" in the population at 15-25%. This suggests that it is possible for aggressive homophile instruction in the schools to recruit some additional children into a homosexual lifestyle who otherwise would have gone through life as self-identifying heterosexuals.
Advocates of homosexual behavior usually dismiss the notion that increased public support for homosexuality will lead to increased numbers of homosexuals. They do so on the assumptions that homosexuality is an immutable condition; that people who identify themselves as homosexual are locked into a lifelong condition; and, consequently, that clear lines separate homosexuals from bisexuals and bisexuals from heterosexuals.
The evidence to date, however, points to considerable fluidity in a spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual. People who at one time or another experience homosexual impulses do so at different levels of intensity, at different times of life, and for periods of different duration. Many exclusive homosexuals come to a "realization" about their "true" sexual identity relatively late in life. Many who identify themselves as exclusively homosexual early in life subsequently become predominantly or exclusively heterosexual later in life. None of this corresponds to a doctrine of biological determinism.
According to the 1992 NHSLS study,128 of the 1.4% of females who identified themselves as lesbians or bisexuals, a third (.5%) identified themselves as bisexuals. Of the remaining .9%, only one third of these, a miniscule .3%, said that they were exclusively attracted to females at the time of the survey (let alone ever). Of the 2.8% of males who identified themselves as homosexuals or bisexuals, .8% were bisexual and the remaining 2% stated that they were attracted exclusively to other males. Of those who reported any same-sex behavior since turning eighteen or any same-sex desire at the time of the survey, or identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual at the time of the survey,129 roughly 8 out of every 10 (74% of men, 85% of women) did not meet all three criteria. Greater than 9 out of every 10 Americans (90.7% of all men and 94.9% of women) who have had any same-gender sex since puberty have also had opposite-gender sex. Presumably, many, if not most, of these experienced some amount of sexual arousal with a member of the opposite sex.
A nationwide random survey of 4,340 adults in five U.S. cities, conducted in 1983 by the Family Research Institute, reported that more than three quarters of all homosexuals (73% of men and 88% of women) had been sexually aroused at one time or another by the opposite sex, while one in ten heterosexuals (12% of men, 7.8% of women) had been homosexually aroused. Sixty-six percent of all homosexual men and 82% of homosexual women said that they had been in love with someone of the opposite sex. Sixty-seven percent of homosexual women and 54% of homosexual men reported current sexual attraction to the opposite sex. Over half of all people who had ever been homosexually aroused (59% of women and 51% of men) were currently heterosexual.130
The earlier (1970) study by Bell and Weinberg had arrived at similar figures.131 More than three-quarters of all homosexuals (74% of men and 80% of women) had at one time or another been sexually aroused by the opposite sex; 33% of heterosexual men and 6% of heterosexual women had been aroused by people of the same sex. Even among those who identified themselves as exclusively homosexual (category 6) in terms of feelings, two-thirds stated that they had experienced heterosexual arousal at least once in their lives. Sixty-three percent of all homosexual men and 58% of all homosexual women reached orgasm at least once in their lives with an opposite-sex partner. Half of all "exclusive" homosexuals had at one time or another experienced orgasm while having heterosexual sex. Nine out of ten homosexuals (97% of women, 84% of men) and one out of every five heterosexuals (15% of women, 29% of men) shifted along the Kinsey categories of sexual orientation at least once during their lives. A second shift was reported by 60% of homosexual males, 81% of homosexual females, 10% of heterosexual males, and 2% of heterosexual females. A third of homosexual males (32%) and half of homosexual females (52%) had a third shift. According to Bell, Weinberg, and Hammerstein (1981), 2% of the heterosexual population said that they had once been exclusively homosexual (compare to an estimated 4% homosexual population).132
Given such fluidity across the Kinsey spectrum, it seems far-fetched to think that exclusive homosexuals have a gene that does not permit them to become heterosexually aroused under any cultural parameters or individual life experiences, while another group of homosexuals has a gene that permits them to be predominantly homosexual, and a third group of homosexuals has a gene that permits them to be mostly homosexual, and so on.
Given the lifetime fluctuation of large numbers of homosexuals across the Kinsey spectrum and the experience of heterosexual arousal (and often orgasm) even among the overwhelming majority of selfidentified exclusive homosexuals, the initial and obvious answer to the question "Can homosexuals change?" is yes. Of course, change can take different forms: a reduction or elimination of homosexual behavior, a reduction in the intensity and frequency of homosexual impulses, the experience of heterosexual arousal and marriage, or reorientation from exclusive or predominant homosexuality to exclusive or predominant heterosexuality.
For over half a century, psychoanalysts and other therapists have been reporting beneficial results for homosexuals who have sought such change. Jones and Yarhouse provide tables which list the results of treating homosexual patients from 14 individual therapists (1950s-1990s) and from group treatments (1950s-1970s). Tallying up the numbers, "positive outcomes" (defined as considerable to complete change) were reported for 623 of 2161 patients (28.8%). "Most psychotherapists will allow that in the treatment of any condition, a 30% success rate may be anticipated."134 Alcoholics Anonymous has a success rate of somewhere between 25-30%.
In 1997 NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) surveyed 882 clients who, it was thought, had experienced some amount of change in sexual orientation. The pre- and post-therapy self-ratings of the clients is given below:
| Kinsey Rating | BEFORE | AFTER |
| 0 - exclusively heterosexual | 0% | 15% |
| 1 - almost entirely heterosexual | 0% | 18% |
| 2 - more heterosexual than homosexual | 0% | 20% |
| 3 - equally heterosexual and homosexual | 9% | 11% |
| 4 - more homosexual than heterosexual | 22% | 23% |
| 5 - almost entirely homosexual | 31% | 8% |
| 6 - exclusively homosexual | 36% | 5% |
In the group of clients who identified themselves pre-treatment as exclusively homosexual, post-therapy 18% rated themselves as exclusively heterosexual, 17% as almost entirely heterosexual, 12% as more heterosexual than homosexual. Those surveyed also reported significant decreases of homosexual thoughts. Although critics of change sometimes charge that reorientation therapies do harm to clients, the survey indicated substantial improvements in clients' self-esteem and emotional stability.135
Unfortunately, most of the significant research was done prior to the "big chill" brought on by militant gay-rights activism in the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association beginning in the early 1970s.136 Despite such obstacles to fair inquiry, the results achieved to date indicate sober hope with respect to change of homosexuals, even the change of those who identify themselves as exclusively homosexual. Certainly the notion of genetic immutability cannot stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, significant shifts in sexual orientation often occur apart from any therapeutic treatment, on both ends of the Kinsey spectrum.137 Not surprisingly, therapists have found that homosexuals are most likely to achieve significant movement in the direction of heterosexuality when clients have had some history of heterosexual arousal, did not engage in homosexual activity early in life, and begin treatment highly motivated to change. Long-term success depends on the existence of a strong support network for their move out of the gay community, including the development of close but nonerotic same-sex relationships. Forgiveness of the same-sex parent, overcoming the anxiety associated with living up to heterosexual stereotypes, overcoming fear of heterosexual courtship customs, assertiveness training, and healing of sexual abuse may constitute important elements in the restoration process for many homosexuals.
In addition to the secular treatment of homosexuality, there are also numerous faith-based ministries which seek to assist homosexuals in the process of change. Among the most prominent are Exodus International (actually an umbrella organization for about a hundred faith-based ministries)138 and Homosexuals Anonymous (which has about fifty chapters throughout North America and is modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous). Denominational ministries include Courage (Roman Catholic; headquartered in New York City), OneByOne (Presbyterian [PCUSA]; Rochester, New York), and Regeneration (Episcopal; Baltimore).139 Thousands have experienced significant help from such groups in managing, and significantly decreasing or eliminating, homosexual impulses.
Much of the results that have been obtained to date have been criticized as having insufficient scientific controls to measure change.140 At the same time, studies in other areas have employed similar measures and standards without receiving the same kind of scathing criticism and scrutiny.
Critics have attempted to explain away reports of change in sexual orientation in one of two ways. (1) So-called homosexuals who have changed to heterosexuals were really not true homosexuals to begin with, but at most only bisexuals. (2) True homosexuals who think they have changed are kidding themselves, for they have only momentarily suppressed homosexual urges through "internalized homophobia." Homosexuals re-classified as heterosexuals may have discontinued homosexual behavior but they continue to feel homosexual impulses and will some day relapse.
There are three main problems with these arguments: First, they exhibit circular reasoning and blatant dogmatism; second, they apply standards for cure that are stricter than those required for other conditions; and, third, they develop an impractical, unworkable standard. Let us take each point in order.
With regard to the first problem, there is no need for such critics to examine the evidence for change because they have ruled change out of bounds on a priori grounds. Their reasoning is dogmatic, based primarily on ideological conviction rather than evidence. The greatest fear of the homosexual lobby is that some "true" homosexuals somewhere, somehow, might change in sexual orientation. Intellectually, such a change cannot be permitted because that would discredit the fundamental premise of many activists; namely, that homosexual orientation is immutable. If you press them for how they know homosexuality is an immutable condition they will say that it is obvious that homosexuals are "born that way," implying some sort of genetic or hormonal determinism. In effect, such critics must completely reject environmental influences, even though the consensus in the scientific community—even among homosexual researchers such as Hamer and LeVay—is that environmental and psychological factors still play a significant role in the development of homosexuality. They must ignore the identical twin studies which have conclusively demonstrated that genetic influence is at best small and, in any case, certainly not immutable. They must ignore cross-cultural comparisons which show incredible malleability in rates and forms of homosexuality, not to mention intra-cultural comparisons such as the effect of urban settings, education, income, and religion on the incidence of homosexuality. They must discount the capacity of rearing to override the genetic gender of people born with ambiguous genitalia. Indeed, they must reject out of hand all the psychological and psychoanalytic data we have about the enormous effect that parental upbringing and peer socialization has on sexual development of children generally (not just homosexual development). They must toss countless studies on behavior modification. They must overlook the fact that sexual orientation shows remarkable elasticity, including the fact that even the overwhelming majority of people who classify themselves as exclusively homosexual (not bisexual) have, at one time or another, experienced heterosexual arousal. They must pretend that, even though a category 5 (predominant) homosexual can make shifts along the Kinsey spectrum in the direction of heterosexuality, a category 6 (exclusive) homosexual never can. They must further pretend that a person who is exclusively homosexual in orientation from the ages of fourteen to eighteen can never, no matter what experiences she or he encounters in the next sixty years of life, develop heterosexual passions. They must not only deny that homosexuals can become heterosexuals but also—if they want to be consistent—deny that any heterosexual can ever become homosexual. Here they must even ignore the testimony of countless "midlife" gays and lesbians who claim to have experienced some level of heterosexual arousal and orgasm for the first part of their post-pubertal life.141 And, of course, they have to explain away all the testimonies from ex-homosexuals, many of whom claim to have changed from exclusive homosexual attraction to exclusive heterosexual attraction. Sooner or later, those who make dogmatic claims about the inherent immutability of "true" homosexuality have to acknowledge that "the emperor has no clothes."
The second problem with such a claim is that it applies a stricter definition of change to sexual orientation than would be applied to various other conditions which have a partial genetic, hormonal, or biological component. It is surely unrealistic to demand that a person who comes out of a homosexual lifestyle and into a heterosexual one never again, under even the most stressful circumstances, experience homosexual urges if she or he is to claim a sexual-orientation change. An acceptable standard of "cure" in other conditions is not the removal of every last vestige of temptation but rather the ability to successfully manage such temptations. Many happily married exhomosexuals testify that, although homosexual impulses may arise in moments of high stress, they are more a slight nuisance than an intractable problem. Is it fair to say that such persons have not changed their sexual orientation or to call conversion therapy in such cases a failure? At the very least, to refer to them as homosexuals or even bisexuals is misleading, particularly if the homosexual urges are neither intense nor acted upon.
That changes in sexual orientation usually do not come about easily should occasion no surprise. Many pleasurable forms of behavior, particularly sexual behavior, tend toward compulsion and addiction. They cannot be turned on and off like a light switch. A close friend of mine, who has worked for over a decade counseling sex offenders in prisons, has shared with me the pessimism that prison mental health staff have about effecting permanent change. Despite the best effort of clinicians, the recidivism rate for rapists and child molesters is extremely high. The reason why is clear: there is a biological or physiological component to their peculiar experience of sexual arousal. Yet few would claim that change is impossible for such offenders. If society believed that, there would be no point to providing prison counseling services. If once incarcerated sex offenders learn to manage and control their aberrant sexual impulses, it is appropriate to say that satisfactory change has occurred. Why not be able to say the same about once homosexually oriented people who are able to effectively manage such impulses? One can also make comparisons with non-criminal forms of immoral or inappropriate sexual behavior (e.g., sadomasochism, bestiality, addiction to pornography, and intense dissatisfaction with single-partner monogamous relationships) or with non-sexual compulsions, addictions, and disorders which have a genetic or biological aspect (e.g., alcoholism, smoking addictions, eating disorders, depression, pathological gambling, aggression, and criminal behavior). We have no difficulty acknowledging significant change in a "recovering alcoholic" who generally stays away from the bottle but from time-totime struggles with an internal, physiologically connected desire to drink. Nor do we accuse Alcoholics Anonymous of being a failure because they have only a 25-30% success rate, where "success" is not defined as the complete abolition of temptation.
It is more than a little ironic that the very same gay activists who criticize the success rate of sexual reorientation programs have themselves made it far more difficult for homosexuals to change. The Whiteheads correctly point out that
when governments begin granting political protections, and homosexuality begins getting official ecclesiastical endorsement, support from medical and caring professions, "scientific" backing, and media affirmation, change is not something a self-identified gay person needs to give much thought to—especially if there are rewarding patterns of sexual gratification to give up.142
Imagine a society that endorsed pedophilia—how much more difficult would it be to induce pedophiles to change their behavior? In the current political climate, not only do ex-homosexuals not receive societal congratulations, they also are villified by homosexual-activist groups. Change of any behavior requires strong personal motivation to change. When society and even the church states that change is both impossible and wrong (homophobic), very few will be inclined to change.
A third problem with the contention that changing "true" homosexuals is impossible is that the position is completely impractical. Even if there were such a category as a "true" homosexual, someone who not only exhibits exclusive homosexual behavior and feelings at any given period of time but also can never change under any circumstances, how would society be able to distinguish a true homosexual from a bisexual or heterosexual who is acting just like a true homosexual? The answer is clear: society could not make the distinction, at least not apart from active attempts at changing homosexuals into heterosexuals. As Warren Throckmorton, past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, puts it:
If there is no research [on the longitudinal stability of sexual orientation over the adult life span], how can professional associations be certain that sexual orientation cannot change? . . . Even if one accepts the presumption that sexual orientation cannot be changed, how does one know when a client's sexual orientation is settled? Without a more certain way to objectively determine sexual orientation, perhaps we should place considerable weight on the self-assessment of clients. Clients who want to change cannot reliably be told that they cannot change, since we cannot say with certainty that they have settled on a fixed trait.143
So long as people who identify themselves as homosexuals continue to exhibit shifts and even apparent changes in sexual orientation, the functional value of critics' arguments against homosexual change is nil.
We have argued strongly up till now that homosexuals can change; or, more precisely, that at least some homosexuals, including some who claim to have been exclusively homosexual in orientation, are capable of change. Of course, empirically not all homosexuals will change, if by change we mean make a major adjustment in sexual orientation. Christian faith entails a strong belief in the power of the Spirit of God to change the lives of those who submit themselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Based on testimony of many ex-homosexuals, even secular treatment can sometimes achieve radical changes in sexual orientation; how much more possible, then, is it for homosexuals who turn to Christ to develop heterosexual desires? We have a "cloud of witnesses," thousands of ex-homosexuals in Christian communities across the nation and countless thousands more throughout the world who testify to the power of God's Spirit to transform their lives and give them sexual fulfilment in heterosexual marriages. At the same time, we have Christians who appear on the surface at least to have made sincere efforts to change, and yet have been unable to move from a homosexual to a heterosexual orientation. Patterns of sexual arousal embedded in the brain are not easily removed. When the apostle Paul referred to warfare between the flesh and Spirit in the Christian life, he spoke optimistically of the Christian's ability to "walk" or behave in accordance with the wishes of the indwelling Spirit. Yet even that victory presupposes an ongoing struggle with sinful desires. Christians are not guaranteed that they will be freed from such desires altogether, but rather that their identity is not defined by such desires. It is fair to say that Christians who no longer participate in the homosexual behavior of their pre-Christian life are ex-homosexuals. "These things some of you were" (1 Cor 6:11). No longer obeying homosexual impulses but now obeying the will of God for their lives, they have been transformed into the adopted children of God. In the same way, heterosexuals who continue to experience temptations to lust after members of the opposite sex other than their spouse, yet resist such temptations and refuse to act on them, are ex-fornicators and ex-adulterers. Christians are not promised an end to sexual temptation in its various forms. They are given the anchored hope that those who endure to the end will be saved.
The best hope for change in the sexual orientation of homosexuals comes not in attempts to treat homosexuals after years and years of homosexual behavior but rather in limiting the options that young people have in terms of sexual experimentation. Some people will experiment under any cultural conditions. Nevertheless, cross-cultural studies prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that strong cultural disapproval of homosexual behavior can significantly curtail the incidence of such behavior. So perhaps a better question to ask than "Can homosexuals change?" is "Can the numbers of self-identifying homosexuals in the population be affected by cultural attitudes toward homosexual behavior?" The answer to that question, I would contend, is "Yes, significantly so."
It is evident, then, that the genetic or intrauterine component of homosexual orientation is indirect and not dominant. Indeed, the latest scientific research on homosexuality simply reinforces what Scripture and common sense already told us: human behavior results from a complex mixture of biologically related desires (genetic, intrauterine, post-natal brain development), familial and environmental influences, human psychology, and repeated choices. Whatever predisposition to homosexuality may exist is a far cry from predestination or determinism and easy to harmonize with Paul's understanding of homosexuality. It is often stated by scholars supportive of the homosexual lifestyle that Paul believed that homosexual behavior was something freely chosen, based on the threefold use of "they exchanged" (metellaxan) in Rom 1:23, 25, 26. The use of the word exchange may indeed suggest that Paul assumed an element of choice was involved, though for the phenomenon globally conceived and not necessarily for each individual. Certainly, the larger context in which these verses are found indicates a willing suppression of the truth about God and God's design for the created order (1:18). And indeed who would debate the point that homosexual behavior is void of all choice? Even a predisposition does not compel behavior.
Romans 1-8 indicates as well that Paul considered the sinful passions that buffet humanity to be innate and controlling. Corresponding to the threefold "they exchanged" is the threefold "God gave them over" (paredoken autous ho theos) in 1:24, 26, 28. Rather than exert a restraining influence, God steps aside and allows human beings to be controlled by preexisting desires.144 Paul paints a picture of humanity subjugated and ruled by its own passions; a humanity not in control but controlled. The irony that results from turning away from God is not more human independence but less. Based on a reading of Rom 5:12-21 and 7:7-23, it is clear that Paul conceived of sin as "innate" (a category available in antiquity which is close enough for our purposes to the concept of genetic). Paul viewed sin as a power operating in the "flesh" and in human "members," experienced since birth as a result of being descendants of Adam. The transmission of Adam's sin to all his descendants was in Paul's view not simply a legal sleight of hand, a judicial verdict that all are sinners because Adam sinned. Rather, Adam transmitted sin, conceived as an impulse, a power, or congenital defect or disease, through the reproduction of human flesh. For Paul, all sin was in a certain sense innate in that human beings do not ask to feel sexual desire, or anger, or fear, or selfishness—they just do, despite whether they want to experience such impulses or not. If Paul could be transported into our time and told that homosexual impulses were at least partly present at birth, he would probably say, "I could have told you that" or at least "I can work that into my system of thought."
The experience of homosexual urges is part of a larger phenomenon of various sinful impulses that all humans experience, though in different proportions for different kinds of sin. According to Rom 8:1-7, the power of sin, that internal "law" or regulating force which thwarts that other internal "law" of the mind (i.e., the mind's recognition of and desire to do the right enshrined in the external law of Moses), can now be mastered by a third internal "law," the Spirit, which indwells those who believe in Christ. Sinful impulses remain, even among those who have been saved, but for believers it is now possible to live Spirit-led lives, at least in the main.
Advocates of homosexual behavior regard it as cruel to forbid persons who have homosexual impulses from ever acting on their sexual urges. However, there are other cases where people are required to repress their sinful sexual urges. Pedophiles who are only stimulated by sexual encounters with children are required by the church (not to mention civil law) to abstain from carrying out those urges even if it means remaining celibate for the rest of their lives. Heterosexuals who grow tired of being restricted to one sexual partner and/or lose all sexual interest in their spouse do not—from the church's perspective— have the option of committing adultery (nor is this sufficient grounds for divorce from a biblical perspective). Millions of single heterosexuals hold no certain prospect that they will one day be married; yet, from a biblical perspective, premarital sex is not an option. In fact, the 1992 NHSLS study by Laumann and others found that there are twice as many people in the population who have had no sex partners since the age of eighteen (2.9%) than people who classify themselves as (non-bisexual) homosexuals (1.5%). Moreover, as we have noted above, telling male and female homosexuals that they cannot act on same-sex urges is not the same as consigning them to a life without hope.
The bottom line is that no biblical writer regarded individual "selfrealization," "self-fulfillment," or "self-gratification" as a good that allows one to disregard clear norms for sexual behavior. Carrying out the will of God and concern for the other (the two great commandments according to Jesus), not the freedom to gratify one's sexual urges, stand at the center of Jewish and Christian self-identity. As Richard Hays puts it, the Bible promotes a "demythologizing of sex": "The Bible undercuts our cultural obsession with sexual fulfillment. Scripture (along with many subsequent generations of faithful Christians) bears witness that lives of freedom, joy, and service are possible without sexual relations."145 In the current cultural climate, where freedom of sexual expression is often touted as a God-given right, such a claim may sound shocking and offensive, but it constitutes a healthy critique of a new form of idolatry. Scripture presents only two choices for obtaining sexual intercourse: become involved in a lifelong monogamous heterosexual relationship or remain celibate.
The number of texts that speak directly to the issue of homosexuality is relatively small, though not as small as some have alleged: Gen 9:20-27; 19:4-11; Judg 19:22-25; Lev 18:22; 20:13; Ezek 16:50 (possibly too 18:12 and 33:26); Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10; and probably also Jude 7 and 2 Pet 2:7. As we argued in ch. 1, texts referring to homosexual cult prostitution should be added to these (Deut 23:17-18; 1 Kgs 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kgs 23:7; Job 36:14; and Rev 21:8; 22:15). Some conclude from the limited number of biblical references that homosexual practice is a marginal issue in the Bible. The church, they say, should use its precious time and resources to address issues other than this. Of course, many of those who argue that homosexuality is a minor issue in the Bible devote considerable time and resources to normalizing homosexual practice in the church. Yet apart from this inconsistency, are their claims for the Bible accurate?
There are at least three problems with this way of thinking. First, such an argument confuses frequency with degree of importance. There are other forbidden forms of sexual conduct that receive little negative documentation in the Bible (bestiality, prostitution) but are not for that reason insignificant sins. The Bible is essentially a series of ad hoc documents. That is to say, the authors of the Bible often only treated issues which were problems in the communities of faith being addressed. That homosexuality appears so infrequently as an issue in the Bible is an accident of history, not a sign of its lack of importance. The writers of Scripture generally did not encounter among their readers public displays of homosexual conduct. They also considered the egregious sinfulness of same-sex intercourse as axiomatic and thus requiring little if any instruction. If homosexuality had arisen among members of the communities being addressed, there doubtless would have been more explicit discussion of the matter.146
Paul's treatment of incest is illustrative. Only once in all his letters does he address the issue: 1 Corinthians 5. Incest does not even appear explicitly in any of the vice lists. It only appears in 1 Cor 5 because one of the Corinthian believers was sleeping with his stepmother. Had this never happened in Corinth, there would not be a single text forbidding incest in the entire New Testament. Does that mean that the New Testament writers probably waffled on the issue of incest? Obviously not. Paul's exhortation to the community to expel the incestuous man from their midst was as strong a denunciation as could be given.
That leads to the second point. The idea of determining the importance of an issue by counting up the number of texts that speak directly to it is a rather constricted and ahistorical way of viewing Scripture.147 Behind every text stands an author(s) who wrote it and a community(-ies) of faith to whom the text was addressed. To say that homosexuality was a marginal issue for Paul because he addressed it only two or three times in his letters is to think of his letters as systematic, selfcontained works wholly disconnected from his life as a historical person. The fact that Paul cited the issue twice, once as a prime example for establishing the extreme depths of depravity to which gentiles without Christ have sunk and once among a series of vices that exclude even believers from inheriting the kingdom of God,148 is more than enough evidence to establish that Paul regarded homosexual conduct as an extremely serious offense in which Christians should not be engaged. That means that one of the most important authors of New Testament texts (if not the most important) was unequivocally opposed. Moreover, the authors of the deuteropauline corpus, the Catholic Epistles,149 and the book of Revelation were even more conservative than Paul in upholding traditional ethical values.150 If Paul was opposed to homosexual conduct, the likelihood of these writers adopting a more liberal stance toward homosexuality is not even "slim to none"—it is just "none."
Although the author of Luke-Acts does not speak directly about same-sex intercourse, his opposition can be easily surmised. According to the "Apostolic Decree" cited in Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25, gentiles did not have to be circumcised but they still had to abstain from porneia. That porneia would have included same-sex intercourse is evident from the fact that the prohibitions of the "Apostolic Decree" derive from the laws of Leviticus 17-18, among the few laws in the Hebrew Bible expressly enjoined even on resident aliens (Lev 17:8-10, 12-13, 15; 18:26).151 This approach was consistent with the development of so-called "Noahide laws" in early Judaism, commandments regarded as binding on all the descendants of Noah and constituting minimum standards for "righteous Gentiles." Noahide laws always included a prohibition of sexual immorality, which for Jews in antiquity would have included same-sex intercourse.152 There is also every reason to believe that the use of porneia in Mark 7:21 (par. Matt 15:19) should be taken in this broadest possible sense to include homosexual behavior.
In addition, the author of the Gospel of Matthew, given his stress on doing the Law, fulfilling the commands, and having a righteousness higher than the Pharisees also makes him a likely candidate for agreeing with Paul on this issue. Nothing in the Gospel of John, the most sectarian of all the Gospels, suggests a more "enlightened" position (cf. 4:17-18). Finally, as I have attempted to show in the case of Jesus, Jesus' silence on the issue points overwhelmingly in the direction not of neutrality, let alone support for homosexual relationships, but instead of definite disapproval.
In short, the odds of any major positive figure connected with earliest Christianity having either no opinion or a positive opinion about homosexual conduct in any form is extremely remote. To assert otherwise is to lose all touch with the historical personalities behind the texts and to foster an arbitrary, gnostic exegesis. The burden of proof is decidedly on anyone who would want to argue that Jesus or any New Testament writer would have been open to same-sex intercourse. Textual silence cannot be equated with neutrality or openness, let alone support, without grossly distorting history.
Third, although there are a limited number of texts that speak directly to the issue, these texts are part of a much larger biblical worldview that consistently portrays only one model for sexual relations, that between a man and a woman in lifelong partnership.153 This is true of Genesis 1 (where male and female are created to procreate) and Genesis 2-3 (where the only "cleaving" that is said to result in "one flesh" is the sexual bond between male and female, 2:24, and this before the fall). Taken together with the stories of Ham's crime in Gen 9:20-27 and of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, and the Levitical prohibitions in 18:22; 20:13, the Yahwist's (J's), Priestly Writers (P's), and Holiness Code's (H's) strongly negative stance in the Tetrateuch toward homosexual intercourse is evident. The Deuteronomic prohibitions against cross-dressing (22:5) and against homosexual cult prostitutes ("dogs," 23:17-18) leaves little doubt regarding the position of the editors of the Deuteronomic law on homosexual intercourse. The same can be said for the Deuteronomistic Historian's considerable antipathy toward homosexual cult prostitutes.
On a descriptive level, throughout the Bible there is not a single hero of the faith that engages in homosexual conduct: no patriarch, no matriarch, no prophet, no priest, no king (certainly not David), no apostle, no disciple. The Song of Solomon is devoted to singing the praises of committed heterosexual love. On a prescriptive level, every regulation that affirms the sexual bond affirms it between a man and a woman—without exception. In addition, every proverb or wisdom saying refers to heterosexual—not homosexual—relationships as fitting for the lives of the faithful. There is an abundance of Old Testament laws and proverbs regulating and establishing proper boundaries for sexual intercourse between male and female (e.g., regarding virginity, mate selection, engagement, marital fidelity). Byway of contrast, there are no laws distinguishing proper homosexual conduct from improper homosexual conduct, because in every law code homosexual conduct is presumed to be forbidden in toto. This includes the Ten Commandments. The fifth commandment stipulates "honor your father and your mother." The seventh commandment says "you shall not commit adultery."154 The tenth commandment requires that "you shall not covet... your neighbor's wife." These only make sense where heterosexual couplings alone are sanctioned. Likewise, every discussion in the New Testament about marriage or sexual unions always and only seeks to regulate heterosexual unions because there is no conception of proper homosexual union.155 There was no need to talk about fidelity and loving concern in same-sex unions because it was universally understood that homosexual unions were abominable. The relationship between Yahweh and Israel and between Christ and the church is imaged as a marriage between a husband and a wife.156 It would have been absolutely unthinkable for any prophet or New Testament author to conceive of this relationship in homosexual terms.
In short, the universal silence in the Bible regarding an acceptable same-sex union, when combined with the explicit prohibitions, speaks volumes for a consensus disapproval of homosexual conduct. To say that there are only a few texts in the Bible that do not condone homosexual conduct is a monumental understatement of the facts. The reverse is a more accurate statement: there is not a single shred of evidence anywhere in the Bible that would even remotely suggest that same-sex unions are any more acceptable than extramarital or premarital intercourse, incest, or bestiality.
Gerald Sheppard, an Old Testament scholar and former student of Brevard Childs, plays off authorial intent and "canonical context," arguing that the particular position of a text within the larger context of other texts "as often as not, invites a reading against an authors original intent." "It is not the voice of the 'genuine' Paul any more than that of the 'historical Jesus' which is normative for the church." He refers also to "a larger theological claim" of the word of God (presumably, "the demands of the Gospel in terms of love and justice") upon all the words of Scripture and the relevance of both "advances in human knowledge" and the witness of people's lives.157 There are elements in all of these statements that I find acceptable. Nevertheless, Sheppard draws too great a divide between authorial intent and authority.
The various "voices" of Scripture cannot be heard and compared with one another apart from discerning original authorial meaning, to the extent that such meaning is recoverable (and in many cases, contrary to the claims of post-modernist interpretation, such meaning is recoverable). Otherwise, one is consigned to a sophisticated form of allegory, reading into the text whatever one wants it to say with no controls coming from the text itself. If the recovery of original authorial meaning is not always secure, discerning how the shape of the canonical context impacts a particular text is even less predictable.
Sheppard can appeal to no text anywhere in the canon of Scripture that unambiguously counters the texts explicitly rejecting same-sex intercourse. Indeed, as pointed out above, all the inferential or indirect evidence suggests complete concordance with these explicit texts. The best Sheppard can do is appeal to the later presentation of Paul in 1 Tim 4:1-5 (do not heed those who "forbid marriage. . . . For everything created by God is good") as a corrective to Paul's allegedly limited frame of reference for sexual ethics.158 Yet the author of 1 Timothy clearly viewed same-sex intercourse as sin (1 Tim 1:10) and thus not a part of God's good creation. Innate impulses cannot be simply equated with creation.
For someone who downplays the original intent of biblical authors, it is surprising to see Sheppard referring frequently to the allegedly antiquated motives of the framers of Levitical law and of Paul159 as a basis for dismissing the authority of anti-homosexuality texts. Should one not rather say, if one is primarily concerned with the final form of the text and not with the original reasoning of the authors, that since the canonical text lays little explicit stress on the reasons for rejecting same-sex intercourse the reader should take the cue that same-sex intercourse is always wrong, no matter what rationale is given for engaging in it?
Ultimately, although Sheppard on the surface appeals to canonical context, it seems to me that in reality he abandons scriptural guidance altogether. Instead he assumes on the basis of anecdotal evidence (i.e., his own limited observations of same-sex relationships, not the statistical data regarding the extraordinary promiscuity and health risks typically associated with such relationships) that same-sex intercourse has the capacity to "build up . . . the hope of each person's humanity" and therefore must be right.160 In this particular instance the basis for his decision making (notwithstanding his protests to the contrary) is not Scripture, or even scriptural principles, but some watered-down, generic application of love that bears little resemblance to the applications one finds among any biblical writers (not to mention the "historical Jesus," whom Sheppard finds irrelevant).
In addition, Sheppard does not explain what he means by "building up a persons humanity" beyond contending that "same-sex love [is] capable of establishing a covenant of trust and love between human beings."161 This appears to me to be a rather constricted test of morality. A marriage between more than two people (say, three men and two women) could develop into a "covenant of trust and love," as could a marriage between a boy and a woman, or between two siblings, and so on. Presumably, Sheppard would not condone these but he fails to explain what distinguishes these relationships from one involving only two members of the same sex. Two or more people sharing the same distorted view of sexuality could easily form relationships of mutual trust and pleasure, but that does not justify the union.
There are indeed a host of injunctions in the Bible that the church today does not heed; so why be such a stickler for this one? There are Old Testament prohibitions (not all ritual or civil) that Christians no longer follow. Few would require women to wear veils during worship as Paul does in 1 Cor 11:1-16. A host of texts in the Old and New Testaments that would seem to be an impediment to women's ordination have been swept aside or thought to be less a word of God than texts affirming women's equality and involvement in ministry. The church now takes a "kinder and gentler" approach to divorce, despite Jesus' strict prohibition of it. Slavery, which is tolerated in many biblical texts, would be vehemently opposed today. David Bartlett and Gerald Sheppard make a particular point of the analogy from slavery.162
The problem with this line of reasoning is that, in cases where the church deviates in its moral practices from portions of the Bible, one can usually find a trajectory within the Bible itself that justifies a critique or moderation of such texts. For example, on the question of divorce, there are New Testament authors that moderate Jesus' stance. Jesus' words were so radical that both Matthew and Paul found ways to qualify them. Matthew allowed for the exception of "sexual immorality" (Matt 5:32; 19:9; agreeing with the school of Shammai), while Paul permitted divorce for believers married to unbelievers who wanted to leave (1 Cor 7:12-16). Of course, one could also point to the availability of the option in the Old Testament (Deut 24:1-4). These kinds of qualifications at least provide a basis for further exploration of the issue. Some divorce is permissible for some biblical texts so that one cannot say that the Bible has achieved a unanimous position on the subject. Alternatively, one could argue that the church has become too lenient on the issue in recent years and needs to do what Jesus did: stand against rather than with the culture.163 There are other factors that make divorce a very different issue than that of homosexual intercourse. First, few in the church today would argue that divorce is to be "celebrated" as a positive good. The most that can be said for divorce is that in certain cases it may be the lesser of two evils. Second, unlike the kind of same-sex intercourse attracting the church's attention, divorce is not normally a recurring or repetitive action. For the situation to be comparable to a self-affirming, practicing homosexual a person would have to be engaged in self-avowed serial divorce actions. Third, some people are divorced against their will or initiate divorce for justifiable cause against a philandering or violent spouse. Such people should be distinguished from those who divorce a spouse in order to have love affairs with others or to achieve "self-fulfillment." Distinctions between victims and victimizers within a homosexual relationship cannot be used to justify homosexual intercourse. The same can be said for Sabbath observance, since Paul in Romans 14 states that no one day is more sacred than another. As for women's roles in the church and in the home, the contemporary church does take, on the whole, a more enlightened perspective than can generally be found in the Bible. However, there are so many positive examples of women in leadership positions in the Old Testament (e.g., Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Esther), of women involved in the ministry of Jesus, and of women serving as co-workers with Paul in the proclamation of the gospel (Romans 16 among other texts), that the Bible contains within its own canonical context the seeds for liberating women from oppressive male structures (cf. Gal 3:28: "there is no male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus"). On this point the Bible is often its own critic and inspiration for change.164
Slavery is not a good parallel for the homosexuality debate because the New Testament nowhere affirms slavery as an institution; the best that can be said is that it tolerates slavery and regulates it even in Christian households.
Antecedents for a critical view of slavery appear in the Old Testament. Although people from other nations could be enslaved by Jews for life, early law dictated that Hebrew slaves had to be released after six years of service (unless the slave declared his desire to remain a slave out of love for his master) and supplied with food and flock (Exod 21:1-11; Deut 15:12-18).166 Deuteronomic law even forbade the return of runaway slaves (23:15-16). Levitical law required that all Hebrews held as slaves be released every Jubilee (fiftieth) year; yet it also stipulated that Hebrews should not be made to serve as slaves (i.e., be treated with harshness) but rather as "hired laborers" and that the kin of someone who sold himself to a resident alien should have the right to buy him back at any time (Lev 25:39-55). Both the Deuteronomic and Levitical law codes justified their aversion to enslaving fellow Hebrews on theological grounds: Yahweh had redeemed the Hebrews from enslavement in Egypt (Deut 15:15; Lev 25:42, 55; cf. Exod 22:21; 23:9). On the whole, slave law in Israel was more enlightened than in the rest of the ancient Near East. Moreover, Israel did not have a slave economy.167
Consistent with his Jewish heritage, Paul showed discomfort with the notion of Christians keeping Christian slaves. The letter to Philemon, and 1 Cor 7:21 should be read as Paul's attempts to support freedom from slavery as at least a penultimate good. For Paul, the ultimate good was freedom from captivity to sinful passions for a life of service to God. In the letter to Philemon, Paul writes to an affluent Christian, probably converted by Paul, who had opened up his home in Colossae as a meeting place for believers and in many other ways "refreshed" their hearts. Paul addresses a situation in which Onesimus (a slave of Philemon) had come into contact with Paul while Paul was in prison, possibly in the hopes of having Paul intercede on his behalf for some wrong he had committed against Philemon (v. 18). Paul converted Onesimus to the Christian faith (v. 10) and, now, in a letter of intercession carried by Onesimus requests that Philemon do three things: explicitly, (1) to welcome Onesimus back as if he were Paul himself (v. 17, meaning, minimally, not to punish Onesimus); and, implicitly, (2) to manumit Onesimus (". . . have him back, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother, . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord," i.e., in the sphere of human society and not just the church; vv. 15-16) and (3) to send Onesimus back to Paul so that Onesimus "might be of service to me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel" (vv. 13-14).168
Paul did not directly command Philemon to free Onesimus, living as he did in an empire where slavery was a normal part of human existence and sometimes the only alternative to starvation.169 Paul's authority to command Philemon to make the significant personal and financial sacrifice of releasing Onesimus was also limited (vv. 17-20). Paul, further, indicates that he desired that Philemon voluntarily "do the right thing" as a spur to the growth of his own faith and as an example to his house church (vv. 6,8-9,13-14,22). Finally, Paul was confident of Philemon's good character and of his capacity to do the right thing without command (vv. 4-7, 21).
Yet, in this masterful display of rhetorical skill, Paul does everything possible short of an outright command to free Onesimus. He points to his own acts of self-sacrifice such as his imprisonment for the gospel (vv. 1, 9, 10, 13, 23) and his return of Onesimus to Philemon (vv. 13-14). He also notes his abandonment of authoritarian ways toward Philemon (vv. 8-9, 19) as a model for Philemon to emulate in his dealings with Onesimus (vv. 1, 12-13). He turns Philemon's private matter into an event with public ramifications for his house church by addressing the letter not only to Philemon but also to "the church in your house" and alluding to a future visit (vv. 2, 22). He appeals to Philemon's goodwill and character (vv. 4-9). He highlights the fact that Onesimus is an entirely new person in Christ (note the repeated relative clauses in vv. 10-13). He points to Onesimus's previous departure as an act of divine providence that would ultimately benefit Philemon. 170 He makes clear that whatever Philemon now did to his "client" Onesimus he would also be doing to his spiritual "partner"—indeed, patron—Paul, since Onesimus had become Paul's "heart" (splanchna, "guts"; vv. 7,12,17,19-20). Finally, he even offers to compensate Philemon for any loss he might have incurred from Onesimus's "wrong," despite the fact that Philemon himself owed Paul his very life (vv. 18-19).
That Paul was seeking the manumission of Onesimus is also evident from the general treatment of slavery in 1 Cor 7:21-23. In formulating policy regarding marriage and singleness in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul was guided by the basic principle that believers should remain in whatever condition they were in when called in Christ. However, each policy statement is followed by exception clauses which permitted a different course of action under certain circumstances (normally introduced by "but," "but if," or "but if indeed," 7:2, 7b, 9, 11, 15, 28, 36, 39). In 7:17-24, Paul draws on analogies from circumcision (7:18-19) and slavery (7:21-23) to reinforce his general principle. With regard to the latter, he began with the general policy: "you were a slave when called; don't let it trouble you" (7:21a). Significantly, Paul does not say, as he does in all other general positions, that it is better or necessary to remain in this condition. Like the Stoics, Paul regarded true freedom as ultimately an inner condition that transcended the harsh realities of first-century life and enabled one to remain at peace when conditions could not be changed. Moreover, freedom and slavery were relative terms. "For the slave who was called in the Lord is the Lord's freedman; likewise, the one called as a free person is a slave of Christ" (7:22; cf. Rom 6:16-23). Here, as well, Paul supplies an exception clause to the general rule: "but even if (or: but if indeed) you can become free, make use of (it, i.e., your freedom) more (or: rather)" (all' ei kai dynasai eleutheros genesthai, mallon chresai). In other words, if believers can become free, they should take advantage of that freedom to redouble their efforts to be slaves of Christ. 171 Like unmarried persons who can give more undivided devotion to the Lord, freed slaves should not do whatever they want, but dedicate themselves to God's service. Both Christian slaves and Christian free(d) persons have an obligation to serve Christ. Just as the Deuteronomic and Levitical law codes referred to the paradigmatic event of deliverance in Israelite history (the Exodus) as a warrant for socio-political freedom for God's people, so too Paul could appeal to the Christ event: "you were bought with a price: stop becoming slaves of human beings" (7:23). While in 7:23 Paul is primarily, though not exclusively, referring to spiritual transcendence of any bondage that humans might impose, his encouragement of slaves to accept civil freedom is real.
From both the letter to Philemon and 1 Cor 7:21 it can be seen that Paul preferred that Christian masters free Christian slaves for three reasons. First, for Paul, the status of slave was incompatible with the status of brother. Second, the status of slave was in tension with the liberating, redemptive event of Christ's death. Third, freedom gave believers greater latitude for unhindered devotion to Christ. This is not to say that Paul's perspective corresponds to the Enlightenment critique of slavery as an institution fundamentally in conflict with natural human rights. Paul nowhere advocates freedom for unbelievers, though, in his defense, neither he nor anyone else in the Mediterranean basin of the first century C.E. had any power to effect such. Nonetheless, Paul's stance is a long way off from affirming the institution of slavery. To be sure, in the deuteropauline corpus and General Epistles, there developed (as in most other matters) greater accommodation to prevailing cultural values, including the encouragement of Christian slaves to remain slaves of Christian masters (Col 3:22-25; Eph 6:5-9; 1 Tim 6:1-2; Tit 2:9-10; 1 Pet 2:13-20). However, even this was not an endorsement of slavery, much less a proscription to Christian slave masters not to release slaves. Thus there is very little that commends the use of changing Christian views on slavery as an analogous basis for disregarding what Scripture has to say about homosexuality.
While mentioning the slavery analogy, Walter Wink concentrates on the Bible's changing views on "sexual mores." He acknowledges that Christians are right to continue rejecting incest, rape, adultery, and bestiality. But, he argues, Christians disagree with the Bibles stance on sixteen other sexual mores, both those that the Bible "condemned or discouraged" (intercourse during menstruation, celibacy, exogamy, naming sexual organs, nudity, masturbation, birth control; also the belief that semen and menstrual blood render unclean) and those that the Bible permitted but we do not (prostitution, polygamy, levirate marriage, sex with slaves, concubinage, treating women as property, early marriage for girls; also divorce which Jesus rejected but his scripture permitted). Given this state of affairs, he concludes, Christians are free to reevaluate the Bibles stance against homosexuality.172 Wink's analysis has all the theological sophistication of a math test or football game: sixteen sexual policies in the Bible we no longer heed versus just four that we do. One may half wonder why Wink does not take his logic full circle and disregard the other four "mores," particularly incest and bestiality.173
Quite apart from the fact that Wink misreads some of the biblical data and/or the contemporary stance of the church on many of the sixteen sexual mores (e.g., the Bible nowhere approves of prostitution, nowhere requires celibacy), what Wink fails to do is to weigh truly comparable sexual issues from a biblical perspective. What makes the biblical mandate concerning homosexuality so hard for Christians to ignore or downplay are seven considerations.
First, it is proscribed behavior, which as a minimalist approach to ethics is less demanding than a positive prescription and therefore more doable (or, better, "non-doable") and fundamental—a sin of commission rather than omission. For example, a command not to harm another is a minimalist expectation in relation to the Golden Rule and thus its violation constitutes a more severe infraction.
Second, it is proscribed behavior, not proscribed thoughts, theories, or worldviews. As such, the ethic is again more "bottom-line," more doable, and more basic for human social interaction.
Third, it is behavior proscribed by both Testaments. The change of salvation-historical dispensations sometimes results in shifting assessments of what is expected of God's people, especially as regards ritual requirements or civil law for a state theocracy; hence, the preeminence of the New Testament. Yet the Old Testament, because of its sheer size and unique experiences of God, can also balance out or fill in gaps in the New Testament. When the two Testaments are in complete agreement that a given action is morally wrong, the biblical witness is hard to circumvent.
Fourth, it is behavior proscribed pervasively within each Testament. There are no dissenting voices anywhere in either Testament. All the inferential evidence that we have for authors who do not speak explicitly to the issue confirms the supposition of pervasive opposition. The best that Wink and others can do is attempt to appeal to the "big picture" of the Bible, by which they mean some general statements about love and tolerance—none of which any of the biblical writers, or Jesus, found to be in conflict with opposition to homosexual conduct. The "big picture" consists not of this misunderstood application of love but rather of the heterosexual model for sexual intercourse provided in Gen 1-2, consistently affirmed throughout the history of Israel and the church.
Fifth, it is severely proscribed behavior. The revulsion expressed for homosexual intercourse, across both Testaments, is as strong as it could possibly be, given the different parameters for each Testament: grounds for the death penalty in the Old Testament and grounds for exclusion from the kingdom of God in the New Testament. In Rom 1:24-27, it epitomizes the height of gentile depravity and folly in the ethical sphere.
Sixth, the proscribed behavior is proscribed absolutely; that is, the proscription encompasses every and any form of homosexual behavior. The proscription is not limited, for example, only to select types of exploitative homosexuality.
Seventh, it is proscribed behavior that makes sense. The complementarity of male and female is a clear indication in the natural order of God's will for sexuality—much clearer than the urges homosexuals experience. Contrary to Wink's view, such urges or "orientation" can never be natural in the sense Paul uses the term since they (a) manifestly contradict God's creation design of male and female; (b) arise at best from only a partial and indirect genetic influence; and (c) have no more validity than orientations toward bestiality, incest, multiple partners, sadomasochism, or any of the sinful orientations cited in the vice lists of Rom 1:29-31.
When these seven tests are applied to the lists of sexual mores collated by Wink, the first four mores he mentions—those which believers still adhere to—provide much closer analogues than the allegedly sixteen others that differ from contemporary Christian standards.
Human passions are notoriously unreliable indicators of God's will. "I feel this, therefore I should be allowed to do it" would not pass muster on any viable reading of biblical ethics. "I would be living a lie to deny who I am." A believers identity does not consist of the satisfaction of sexual urges. The issue is not "who I am"—self-avowed homosexuals sometimes justify their behavior by claiming that this is who they are, they cannot deny their "true selves"—but "who does God intend me to be." The life lived in a lie is the life that refuses to conform to the truth of God: "who exchanged the truth of God for a lie. . . . exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature" (Rom 1:25-26). God, not ourselves, is the standard of truth. Any other position is idolatry. "But it will be painful for me to have to deny these urges constantly." The New Testament does not assure believers that the process of being transformed into the image of Christ or of having Christ formed in us is always painless.174 God is the great plastic surgeon, only here the transformation is not cosmetic but aimed at conforming believers into the image of Christ. Often one has no recourse but to "take up one's cross and deny oneself (Mark 8:34), to die to oneself and self-interest in the hope that Christ may rule in a life lived for God (Rom 6:1-14; Gal 2:19-20). The good news is that even in our sufferings we have the opportunity to confirm to ourselves our election by obedient endurance, helped by the Spirit who translates our inner groans into the things we truly need, awaiting all the more eagerly the transformation of our earthly bodies into glory, and consoled by the certainty that nothing outside of ourselves can separate us from the love of God who loved us when we were enemies (Rom 5:1-11; 8:18-39). "You are consigning me to loneliness for the rest of my life?" No, the intimate fellowship of other believers (the communion of the saints) remains; only same-sex intercourse is forbidden. With the help of fellowship, counseling, prayer, and the Holy Spirit, God may even restore the homosexual to a fulfilling sexual life in lifelong union with a member of the opposite sex. If that does not happen, the church must inwardly groan together with all the sexually broken and offer support.
Many will still argue that homosexuality must be something good because it is able to foster mutually loving relationships. There are two problems with this view.
First, the fact that homosexual unions are sometimes formed in an atmosphere of mutual love says nothing one way or the other about the legitimacy of homosexual intercourse. It merely confirms that caring bonds can and should be established between members of the same sex. There is an appropriate category for such bonds: friendship. Sexual intercourse is not a vital component for establishing a healthy bond between members of the same sex—at least not from a biblical perspective. To maintain that a sexual bond must be sanctified by God if it develops in the context of a mutually caring relationship is a strange form of logic. No one thinks that because pedophiles can express care and love for children that their sexual relations with children are legitimate (even if the children express approval). Few would argue that a consensual incestuous relationship between adult siblings or a consensual sexual relationship between more than two adults must be sanctified by God, no matter how nice such people may otherwise be. Pedophiles and even wife-beaters can be nice people in other areas of their life. A friend of mine who counseled sex offenders in prisons for many years often remarked how indistinguishable these people would be from nice neighbors if the prison garb were removed. My point here is not to compare homosexuality in all its features with pedophilia or spousal abuse but rather simply to assert the comparison at one level: positive moral conduct in many areas of one's life does not establish the legitimacy of all of one's conduct. Homosexuals do not turn into werewolves simply because they commit same-sex intercourse. Nor should we commend them for engaging in such conduct when they do so within a larger context of being decent people. Quite simply, there is no way to demonstrate that homosexual intercourse, in and of itself, is a good thing.
Second, all the data for homosexual conduct indicates that it has a very poor track record so far as enduring monogamous relationships are concerned. A non-random study of nearly 1,000 homosexuals in the San Francisco Bay Area was conducted by Bell and Weinberg in 1970.175 It reported that 84% of white homosexual males (= WHMs) and 77% of black homosexual males (= BHMs) had 50 or more homosexual partners in their lifetime. Within this group of 50+ partners, 28% of WHMs and 19% of BHMs had over 1,000. Only 3% of WHMs and 6% of BHMs had fewer than 10 homosexual partners during their lifetime. The statistics for lesbians were significantly less shocking, though still high. About a quarter of homosexual females had fewer than 5 homosexual partners in their lifetime; an additional 30% had 5 to 9 partners. Only 7% of white homosexual females (= WHFs) and 12% of black homosexual females (= BHFs) had 50 or more partners. As for the number of homosexual partners in the year previous to the study, 66% of homosexual males and 6% of homosexual females had more than 10. Only 10% to 11% of homosexual males had fewer than 3 partners in a year, compared to 71% of WHFs and 59% of BHFs. Since the information was gathered exclusively in an urban area of the pre-AIDS period, the statistics undoubtedly reflect higher numbers than one would expect of a cross-section of society today. Nevertheless, the enormous disparity between male and female homosexual activity is significant, since both sexes lived under similar cultural conditions. Furthermore, since the survey was undertaken in San Francisco, it is hard to attribute the high rates of sexual promiscuity primarily to society's homophobia.
The 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS; Laumann et al.) focused on the sexual habits of all Americans, surveying 1,749 women and 1,410 men. The number of homosexuals/bisexuals included in the survey was small (39 males, 24 females) so the statistics have to be used with some caution. Even so, the figures suggest that homosexual/bisexual men have two to six times more sex partners than heterosexual men, while women who have same-gender partners have three to four times more sex partners than women who have no same-gender partners. Lesbians/bisexuals may have a slighter higher number of sex partners than heterosexual men but still significantly fewer partners than homosexual men.176
One of the largest studies to date of the sexual habits of homosexual men (nearly 5,000) was the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (published in 1987). It found that "a significant majority of these men . . . (69% to 83%) reported having fifty or more lifetime sexual partners."177 By contrast, the NHSLS study cited above reported that at least 83.4% of mostly heterosexual males have had fewer than twentyone sex partners since the age of eighteen, nearly half had four or fewer, and nearly one-quarter had one or none.178
A 1997 study of 2,583 homosexually active men in Australia found that, of those over forty-nine years old, one-quarter (26.6%) had more than 10 male partners in the past six months alone, half (44.9%) had between 2 and 10, and a quarter had just one (28.5%). In the course of their lifetime to date, only 2.7% of the older men (and just 2.9% of those under 50 years of age) reported having had just one male partner. The percentages for the other response categories are astounding: 2-10 male sex partners, 10.2%; 11-20, 14.1%; 21-50, 12.9%; 51-100, 11.8%; 101-500, 21.6%; 501-1,000, 11%; 1,000 or more, 15.7%. Thus, nearly 9 out of every 10 of those over 49 years old had lifetime more than 10 male sex partners, and of these the majority had over 100.179
In 1994, the largest gay magazine in America, The Advocate, published the results of questionnaires returned by 2,500 of its adult male homosexual readers. In the course of the relatively short average lifespan of the respondents (thirty-eight years old), only 2% had had sex with just one man. Fifty-seven percent had more than 30 male sex partners, and 35% had more than 100. In the past year alone, about two-thirds (63%) had more than one male sex partner and the large majority of these (over 60%) had five or more; only 28% had just one partner. About half (48%) said they had engaged in three-way sex in the last five years, 24% group sex (four or more).180 The 1995 Advocate survey of 2,500 of its lesbian readers indicated far fewer sexual partners for lesbians on average: 2% had never had sex with a woman; 1 in 7 had only one female sex partner; 23% had eleven or more female sex partners (compare the 8% figure for American women generally who had more than eleven male sex partners, NHSLS); but only 1% had more than one hundred lifetime same-sex partners (compare to homosexual men in the Advocate survey where 1% reported having more than one hundred sex partners in a single year). On average they had ten sex partners during their lifetimes as of the time of the survey.181
Even within the context of a relationship, homosexual males rarely exhibit serial monogamy, let alone lifelong monogamy. A Dutch study of the sexual habits of one hundred fifty-six male homosexual couples published in 1994 reported that, on average, each partner had seven other sex partners in just the one year preceding the survey.182 Nearly two-thirds (62%) of these "close-coupled" gays were non-monogamous in that same one-year period. The number of outside partners in the first year of the relationship averaged 2.5; by the sixth year of the relationship the number increased to eleven. Another study in the late 1980s discovered that 79% of close-coupled gays had sex with one or more persons other than their primary partner, compared to 19% of close-coupled lesbians, 10% of married heterosexuals, and 23% of unmarried cohabiting heterosexuals.183 Other surveys indicate that the percentage of male homosexuals living in monogamous relationships for just the preceding year is very low: somewhere between 10% and 25%.184 The rates for the American adult population as a whole are the mirror opposites: 80% of all men and 90% of all women had only one sexual partner or none in the preceding year;185 75% of all men and 85% of all women have never had an extramarital affair.186
In 1984 a homosexual couple, one a psychiatrist and the other a psychologist, published a book that focused on the sexual habits of the most "stable" gay couples. Of one hundred fifty-six couples, only seven had remained monogamous, and not one of the seven relationships had yet reached the six-year mark. The consensus among the couples interviewed was that the heterosexual model of monogamy did not work for gay relationships.187 Another book published in 1984, reporting on the sexual habits of several hundred male couples in Chicago, found only slightly better results: a mere 9% of male homosexual couples who lived together more than five years did so in an "exclusive" partnership.188
In short, the rule of monogamy for heterosexual relationships is the exception for male homosexual relationships. Indeed, male homosexuals themselves often argue that the stifling model of heterosexual monogamy should not be foisted on homosexuals.189 The vast majority of male homosexual relationships do not last beyond a few years.190 Although their record of success at serial monogamy is significantly worse than heterosexual females, homosexual females do significantly better than homosexual males. However, limited data suggests that lesbian relationships on average are actually of shorter duration than male homosexual relationships.191
One could argue that the inability of male homosexuals in particular to form enduring monogamous unions is due to society's ongoing disapproval of homosexual relationships and to the denial of a right to civil marriage. Undoubtedly, some portion of the imbalance can be attributed to such things. Yet the ratios are so disproportionate that two other significant factors must be involved. One is the obvious fact that homosexual unions do not produce children (though adoption is increasingly becoming an option) and children (especially one's own biological children) can be a stabilizing factor in a relationship. However, this factor, like society's disapproval, does not explain why lesbians have far fewer sexual partners on average than homosexual men (though still higher than their heterosexual female counterparts). The most important factor probably has to do with the nature of male sexuality. As a general rule, men who are left to their own devices have great difficulty forming enduring monogamous relationships. Men need to be "civilized" and "domesticated" into such unions by women. In general, because men are for the most part sexually stimulated by sight (rather than by a caring relationship, as with women), men are more easily aroused, more often aroused, and hence more likely to succumb to that arousal.192 For the same reason, men are more likely to cheat on their wives than the reverse. In short, to put two males together in an erotic relationship is not exactly a recipe for long-term fidelity. Exceptions to the rule will always exist but the consistent pattern confirms the divine wisdom of prohibiting homosexual intercourse.193
One other analogy from the Bible has sometimes been used to discount the Bible's rejection of same-sex intercourse: the inclusion of gentiles into the church. Its primary proponent is Jeffrey Siker, though others such as Luke Timothy Johnson have argued similarly.194 Siker contends that, like homosexuals today, gentiles were treated by many among the first generation of Jewish Christians with revulsion as "by definition sinful and unclean in the eyes of God," who could not be granted membership in the people of God "as Gentiles" but only as converts to Judaism.
According to Acts 10-11, Peter and the church at Jerusalem were led to embrace gentile inclusion without circumcision only after observing the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. In the same way, Siker claims, the testimony given by the holy lives of some homosexual Christians should force the contemporary church to rethink its opposition to same-sex intercourse.
The analogy breaks down at four points. First, being a gentile is not like being a homosexual. We have already noted that homosexuality arises from a complex array of factors, including nurture, environment, and choice. If genetics alone accounted for homosexual orientation, then one would never find an instance where identical twins had different sexual orientations. As it is, in most cases where one identical twin has a homosexual orientation the other does not—and this in cases where identical twins are even raised in the same household and thus come under similar influences from nurture and environment. Gentile ethnicity is a different ball of wax: it has to do with ancestry, not desire. At birth, all the offspring of gentile parents are gentile, even if later in life there are fictive, legal (covenantal) mechanisms for grafting such a person into the descendants of Abraham (see Rom 11:17-24).
Second, in the case of same-sex intercourse, the Bible is primarily condemning an activity or form of behavior, not a state of being. Like any desire for what God has forbidden, the desire for same-sex intercourse can also be a sin but only if consciously nurtured and "fed." The mere inclination or the experience of temptation is not sin. The issue is whether one is mastered by the desire. Being gentile, on the other hand, is not in itself a behavior or desire. Though first-century Jews spoke of typically gentile behavior and often made sweeping generalizations (as in Rom 1:18-32), they were also capable of making distinctions among individual gentiles. For example, some gentiles were embraced under the category of "God-fearer" or "righteous gentile" and welcomed into synagogues. Paul himself is an example of a Jew who could make negative generalizations about gentiles (1 Thess 4:5; Gal 2:15) and yet vigorously defend the inclusion of many of them in the kingdom of God. The problem with gentiles, in Paul's view, was not that they were gentiles—gentile Christians could and did live holy lives before God—but that they typically did not know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The link between passion for intercourse with a member of the same sex and the commission of such an act is direct. The link between gentile ancestry and being controlled by sinful passions is at most indirect, the controlling desire arising directly out of the absence of a relationship of God, which in turn is only a typical (not inherent) form of "gentile behavior." Because there is no "inherently gentile" form of behavior, a gentile potentially could lead as moral a life as any Jew (minus, of course, the specifically "Jewish" commandments). Yet gratifying a desire for same-sex intercourse is always inherently immoral because the biblical prohibitions are against same-sex intercourse per se. The existence of "righteous gentiles" might have been a rare or unusual phenomenon in the eyes of the first generation of Jewish Christians, but the concept of a righteous participant in same-sex intercourse would not only have been rare or unusual, it would have been a complete oxymoron to all first-century Jews.
There were various levels of Jewish acceptance of and association with gentiles, and various levels of gentile adherence to Jewish faith and attachment to Jewish institutions, but it was not a sin per se for gentiles to remain uncircumcised. The debate about requiring circumcision for gentiles in first-century Judaism was first and foremost a debate about the degree of participation in the community life of the Jewish people, not primarily or everywhere a debate about sin and salvation. The failure to fulfill a positive ritual command, even the command to circumcise, cannot be equated with the commission of an egregious sexual offense unambiguously proscribed by the Law.
Third, unlike the Bibles stance on same-sex intercourse, the Hebrew Bible or Greek Septuagint is not unequivocally and univocally opposed to gentiles. Christians could find legitimization for the inclusion of gentiles in Scripture itself, whereas no such legitimization could be given for same-sex intercourse. Richard Hays puts it aptly when he writes:
Experience must be treated as a hermeneutical lens for reading the New Testament rather than as an independent, counterbalancing authority. This is the point at which the analogy to the early church's acceptance of Gentiles fails decisively. The church did not simply observe the experience of Cornelius and his household and decide that Scripture must be wrong after all. On the contrary, the experience of uncircumcised Gentiles responding in faith to the gospel message led the church back to a new reading of Scripture. This new reading discovered in the texts a clear message of God's intent, from the covenant with Abraham forward to bless all nations and to bring Gentiles (qua Gentiles) to worship Israel's God. . . . Only because the new experience of Gentile converts proved hermeneutically illuminating of Scripture was the church, over time, able to accept the decision to embrace Gentiles within the fellowship of God's people. This is precisely the step that has not—or at least not yet—been taken by the advocates of homosexuality in the church. . . . it is difficult to imagine how such an argument could be made.195
In short, the experience of the Spirits presence in the lives of gentiles opened the eyes of Jewish Christians to see precedents in Scripture that they had previously overlooked. They did not have to override pointed proscriptions such as would have been the case had they attempted to affirm same-sex intercourse.
Certainly there are significant elements of ancient Israelite tradition that spoke pejoratively of gentiles and advocated only very limited association between Jews and gentiles (this is particularly true in the period of Restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah). However, more often than not the reason for aversion to gentiles was not gentile ethnicity or uncircumcised status but gentile worship of foreign gods, the typically immoral conduct of gentiles, and/or the oppression of Israel by various nations. Alongside such aversion one finds ample evidence of a positive outlook toward at least some gentiles.196
In addition to the promise to Abraham that "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,"197 Ruth (a Moabite) stands out as a model proselyte. Jesus is said by Luke to have referred to the widow at Zarephath in Sidon (1 Kings 17) and Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5) as two righteous gentiles that put Israel to shame (Luke 4:26-27). Second Isaiah could refer to Cyrus the Persian as God's "Shepherd" and "Anointed" (Isa 44:28; 45:1) and interpret Israel's new role in the postexilic period as a "light to the nations" (Isa 42:6; 49:6; 51:4; cf. 60:3). The book of Jonah too is a monument to strands in post-exilic Judaism that rejected xenophobia and thought in terms of God's concern for the welfare of all creatures of God's creation (4:10-11). The Ninevites showed evidence of their genuine repentance not by being circumcised but by fasting and turning "from their evil ways" (3:5-10). Many of the prophets predicted a future time of salvation for at least some nations, with Jerusalem as the focal point for disseminating the revelation of Yahweh to the nations.198 No explicit mention is made in any of these texts of circumcision as an entry requirement. Even the Levitical Holiness Code, so insistent on Israel maintaining holiness in distinction to the abominable practices of the nations, required love of the resident alien "as yourself (Lev 19:33-34). Thus there were plenty of texts in the Scriptures of Jewish Christians that would lend support to a gentile mission.199
Fourth, in complete contrast to the issue of same-sex intercourse, the attitude toward gentiles taken by all the authors of texts that subsequently made it into the New Testament canon was one of affirmation of gentile entry into the people of God without requiring circumcision. The premier exponent of a gospel to gentiles, the apostle Paul, for all his emphasis on the freedom of the believer took a radically different approach when it came to matters involving violations of sexual standards. These he regarded as transparently sinful even for gentiles. The Torah, that contingent expression of God's will for a particular people and at a particular time of salvation history, had been abrogated for Paul by the death and resurrection of Christ, which meant for him an end to the distinctively "Jewish" requirements expressed therein. Yet for Paul—as also for Lukes "Apostolic Decree" (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25) and the "Noahide laws" in early Judaism—there was nothing contingent or especially "Jewish" about certain fundamental sexual norms like the prohibitions against same-sex intercourse, incest, adultery, fornication, and (presumably) bestiality. Thus the canonical case for affirming same-sex intercourse is a long way off from the canonical case for the inclusion of gentiles.
I readily grant that there may exist today, as there did in antiquity, a statistically small percentage of homosexuals who are not sexually promiscuous and are able to form long-term monogamous sexual unions and do not engage in medically dangerous sexual practices (particularly anal intercourse or sadomasochistic acts) and appear to be involved in mutually affirming relationships. The same, of course, could be said for a small percentage of those who participate in incestuous relationships, or who participate in polygamous relationships, or who engage in sexual intercourse with "mature" minors, and so forth. For some strange reason, in the case of these other forms of aberrant sexual behavior, those who affirm same-sex intercourse have no trouble identifying the problems with legitimizing a generally destructive form of sexual behavior for the sake of a tiny minority that seems to "do it right." Furthermore, "doing it right" does not mean "it" is good but rather that "it" is done in the best way that "it" can conceivably be done. Yet clearly not every sexual act that is engaged in with noble intent is good or right in the truest sense. Some couples who engage in sadomasochistic sex insist that it helps their relationship to thrive. Should this too be condoned as a good? The clearest clue that God gives for appropriate expressions of sexuality, the anatomical and procreative complementarity of male and female, suggests that something greater is at stake than even sexual fidelity and physical health.
The Hebrew Bible does not undertake a systematic discussion of requirements for gentile conversion to Judaism, because being a Jew was primarily a matter of ethnic birthright rather than religious choice. Reflection on gentile inclusion accelerated only in the post-exilic period and even then without complete consensus. Circumcision is presented in Gen 17 (P) as "a sign of the covenant" between God and Abraham's descendants (including foreign slaves in their care). Jacobs sons insisted that only a circumcised man could marry their sister Dinah (Gen 34:13-24). According to Exod 12:48-49 (P), "if an alien who resides with you wants to celebrate the passover to Yahweh, all his males shall be circumcised; then he may draw near to celebrate it; he shall be regarded as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it; there shall be one law for the native and for the alien who resides among you" (i.e., the law does not make an exception for the resident alien; cf. Num 9:14). The resident alien was held culpable for violating Israelite law and allowed participation in the cult only when in compliance with the rules prescribed for Israelites, but at the same time accorded protection by the law from arbitrary mistreatment.200 Yet there appears to have been little expectation of, or even zeal for, full integration of resident aliens into Israelite tribal society. The "conversion" of Naaman the Syrian, who was not a resident alien, followed immersion in the Jordan River for the healing of his leprosy, a self-initiated acknowledgment that "there is no God in all the earth except in Israel," and a commitment to sacrificing only to Yahweh (2 Kgs 5:14-19); circumcision was not an issue. A more proactive approach to converts was taken by Second Isaiah, who assured "the foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh [through circumcision or merely a declaration to sacrifice to Yahweh alone? ] . . . , all who keep the sabbath . . . and hold fast to my covenant" that their offerings and prayers would be welcome in the rebuilt Temple (Isa 56:6-8; cf. Isa 14:1).
In the late Second Temple period, circumcision was the usual requirement for male entry into Judaism, particularly in Israel. The book of Judith (ca. 160 B.E.) refers to a gentiles (Achior's) admission "to the community of Israel" after "he believed in God completely" and was circumcised (14:10). Josephus viewed circumcision as an entry requirement, as did the Jewish-Christian Judaizers who attempted to thwart the Pauline mission. Talmudic sources state that a proselyte in the Second Temple period not only had to be circumcised but also had to undergo baptism and make an offering to the Sanctuary (Sipre on Num. 15:14; b. Yebam. 46a; b. Ker. 9a; cf. m. Ker. 2:1; m. Pesah 8:8; m. cEd. 5:2). However, uncircumcised gentiles were certainly not excluded by all Jews everywhere from all participation in Jewish religious life, nor were all consigned by all Jews everywhere to destruction. Obviously gentile women converts could not be circumcised. This simple reality alone would have undermined attempts to make circumcision a sine qua non of Jewish identity, particularly since most gentile converts to Judaism were women.201 In Joseph and Aseneth (first century C.E.?) Aseneth's conversion to Judaism was marked not by any standard ritual, not even by baptism, but by repenting of sin and throwing away her idols.
John J. Collins concludes, after sampling the requirements placed on gentiles by some Diaspora literature (Sib. Or. 3 and 5, the Letter of Aristeas, and Pseudo-Phocylides), that: "What these Jews asked of Gentiles was primarily that they worship the one true God. This was usually thought to entail a rejection of idolatry. They also insisted on an ethical code with special emphasis on avoiding adultery and homosexuality. The lack of reference to circumcision is impressive. . . . [These works] show little interest in proselytizing . . . . Salvation is seldom restricted to membership of the Jewish people."202 Although Philo did not think Jews in Alexandria should interpret the command to circumcision in a purely allegorical fashion, he shows an awareness of some Jews who questioned whether literal circumcision was an essential mark of Jewish identity (Migr. 89-94). Philo himself could say: "in reality the proselyte is one who circumcises not his uncircumcision but his desires and sensual pleasures and other passions of the soul. For in Egypt the Hebrew nation was not circumcised" (QE 2.2). In the conversion of the royal house of Adiabene (ca. 40 C.E.) a Jewish merchant assured the king that "he could worship God even without circumcision"—though it is not clear whether this assurance was a special exemption owing to the particular circumstances of the king (a subsequent visit by a Galilean Jew convinced the king to be circumcised; Josephus, Ant. 20.35-49).
Scot McKnight argues that even though circumcision "by and large . . . was seen as a requirement... in light of the debates over the matter, it is probable that circumcision as a requirement had not yet become established custom or tradition prior to the first century A.D."203 Regardless of whether "Godfearer" was everywhere a technical term for semi-proselytes or not, Jewish, Christian, and pagan literature attests to attendance at synagogues by uncircumcised gentiles, intermarriage, charitable contributions by uncircumcised gentiles to the Jewish people, and the widespread adoption of Jewish practices by gentiles (e.g., Sabbath observance, food laws such as abstinence from pork, fasts, abandonment of idols, worship of and prayer to the God of Israel, certain fundamental ["Noahide"] moral laws).204 Josephus reported that in Antioch (Syria) large numbers of Greeks were attracted to synagogue services and that Jews "had made these, in a certain way, part of their own community" (J.W. 7.45). "The wall between Judaism and paganism may have been high, but it was a wall made from steps and there were Gentiles at each level."205
The fact that large segments of first-generation Jewish Christians (including the "pillars" of the Jerusalem church and the major Christian center at Antioch) could so quickly embrace uncircumcised gentiles as fellow believers in Christ is itself testimony to a blurring of boundaries between Jews and gentiles already in pre-Christian Judaism. As E. P. Sanders notes, "There was wide variety in views about what would happen to the Gentiles."206 To be sure, some Jews thought that gentiles who did not convert fully to Judaism as proselytes would be consigned to destruction. Acts 11:18 states that when the Jerusalem church heard Peter's report of the gift of the Spirit on Cornelius they concluded that "Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life"—suggesting a change of heart from an earlier conviction that uncircumcised gentiles would not inherit eternal life. Yet even Jews who discounted the salvation of uncircumcised gentiles knew that the matter was still a highly debatable one within Judaism. The circumstances were entirely different in the case of homosexual intercourse, where the issue was sexuality and not Jewish ritual, where the Bible was quite explicit about its character as egregious sin, where "nature" itself made clear its abhorrent quality, and where Jews everywhere agreed on this.
This is a very tempting, final fall-back argument: let the person without sin cast the first stone. Maybe homosexuality is a sin after all. Yet since we are all sinners, with equally broken lives, and equally in need of God's grace, heterosexuals have no right to come down so hard on the sin of homosexuality.
The problem with this argument is that, followed to its logical conclusion, it would result in a church that never takes a stand against sin and evil, a church that neither exhibits its own redemption to the world nor calls the world to responsible conduct. All people are sinners; but not a single writer of a biblical text, not a single protagonist of the gospel, ever concludes from this that the church should cease to take a stand against sin in all its forms. No biblical text treats grace and holiness as incompatible goals of the church. Few people in the church today who argue for toleration or affirmation of homosexual conduct would want to argue that the church should tolerate or affirm adultery, pedophilia, incest, polygamy, sexual harassment, spousal abuse, discrimination against women, racism, economic oppression, or a host of other societal ills. In such cases, few would say, "Hey, we're all sinners; who am I to judge you?"
The church must always approach the rebuking of sin among its members with humility and sensitivity, repenting of its own faults, and providing offending members with support for change. We all sin but not all sin is equally offensive to God and not all sin is to be treated in the same way. Pocketing a single" company pen is not equivalent to committing adultery; the two acts call for radically different responses on the part of the church. Jesus and Paul took firm stances against hypocritical judging and judging in trivial matters but never exhorted the community of God to give up altogether its role of admonishing members. "Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times a day and turns to you seven times and says, 7 repent,' forgive him" (Luke 17:3-4; cf. the instructions for church discipline in Matt 18:15-20; also Gal 6:1; 1 Thess 5:12-14).
Two situations in Paul's churches are illuminating. One is the circumstance in which one of the believers at Corinth was sleeping with his stepmother (1 Corinthians 5), a sexual sin of comparable seriousness to homosexual conduct.207 Just as today many promote an "enlightened" attitude toward homosexual behavior, so too then many in the church at Corinth expressed support for the incestuous man's conduct. Paul had to criticize them for taking no action against this sin. According to Paul they should have "mourned" for their brother rather than become inflated with pride (5:2). Paul's advice to the community was to expel the member from the church (5:2b, 5). The reason is interesting: not only so that the church might not be overtaken by a lax attitude toward sin ("a little leaven leavens the whole lump") but also so that the offending believer might somehow be "saved" from judgment "on the day of the Lord" (5:5-6). The same concern for the offending party is manifested in 2 Cor 2:5-11: After the offender had experienced discipline from the church, Paul exhorted the Corinthian community to quickly "forgive and comfort him" and "to reaffirm your love for him" in order that Satan might not be able to take advantage of the situation.
There are at least five negative effects that affirming homosexuality can have on the church and society. First, ecclesiastical and societal affirmation will lead to an increase in the incidence of homosexuality and bisexuality, which in turn will lead to a larger number of people afflicted with serious health problems and shortened life expectancy. In section IV above we noted that cultural support for homosexual behavior can significantly increase the incidence of homosexual behavior and the numbers of self-identifying homosexuals. The impact of disease on the homosexual population is well documented. In Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover has argued that one way to determine the moral desirability of homosexuality is to examine the medical facts. What, he asks, should society think if a relative, friend, or colleague had a condition that is routinely, even if not always, associated with the following problems:
We can add four qualifications to this unnamed condition. First, even though its origins are influenced by genetics, the condition is, strictly speaking, rooted in behavior. Second, individuals who have this condition continue the behavior in spite of the destructive consequences of doing so. Third,... many [with this condition] deny they have any problem at all and violently resist all attempts to "help" them. And fourth, these people who resist help tend to socialize with one another, sometimes exclusively, and form a kind of "subculture." (p. 50)
Obviously, Satinover states, society should consider the condition worth treating and worth persuading other members of society to avoid the behavior that brings on these terrible medical risks. Then Satinover lets his reader in on a secret. The condition he was alluding to was not homosexuality but alcoholism. The medical downside of homosexuality is worse:
The additional qualifications given for alcoholism also hold true for homosexuality: a behavior with a partial and indirect genetic component; participation in the behavior despite its destructive effects; participants' rigorous denial that there is a problem; and the formation of a subculture. "Yet despite the parallels between the two conditions, what is striking today are the sharply different responses to them."210 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has kept tabs on the number of AIDS cases by exposure category from 1981 on.211 Through the end of 1999, among AIDS cases where an exposure category has been identified for adults and adolescents, 52% (341,597) have occurred in men who have sex with men; another 7% (46,582) occurs in men who have sex with men and inject drugs. An additional 28% (184,429) can be traced to injecting drug use and 11% (74,477) to heterosexual contact. What this means is that roughly 2% of the population has accounted for about 60% of all adult/adolescent AIDS cases and 84% of those due to sexual activity. Although the percentage of AIDS cases arising from heterosexual contact has risen in the last decade, in 1999 alone homosexual intercourse still accounted for 50% (17,270) of all new adult/adolescent AIDS cases (34,954) where an exposure category is known and 71% of those due to sexual activity (24,409). A considerable part of the problem is anal intercourse, which is never safe and yet remains the preferred sexual activity among homosexual men. Multiple sexual partners, cruising, and sex with strangers—all hallmarks of typical male homosexual behavior—also factor into the picture.
As the list above indicates, the problem is not just AIDS. On average those who engage in homosexual behavior contract sexually transmitted diseases at a rate two to three times higher than those who do not.212Oral-anal contact (where feces can be ingested),213 penile-anal contact214 and oral-penile contact215 account for a number of infections.216 tact,Homosexuals experience significantly higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse, major depression, and thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts (often over partnership breakups).217 There is debate over how much of the fault for these indications of distress rests with homosexual behavior itself (e.g., high relationship turnover) and how much is attributable to social hostility against homosexuality. The fact, though, that significantly higher rates of substance abuse has been documented for homosexuals in San Francisco (as compared to heterosexuals in San Francisco) suggests that pinning the lion's share of the blame on societal homophobia is unfair.218 The high incidence of sadomasochistic sex, sex with strangers, the deliberate infection of partners with STDs, and domestic violence among homosexuals is consistent with the profile of high-risk, aggressive, and dehumanizing behavior.219
Higher rates of substance abuse may be related to the same obsessive, compulsive, or addictive needs for self-soothing that made samesex intercourse an appealing form of sexual expression in the first place. Higher rates of depression and suicide attempts are probably exacerbated by the inherent deficiencies of same-sex unions, and not just by societal opposition to such unions. These deficiencies include:
No one can pretend to know all the causes for the current health crisis and pinpoint the exact percentage of "blame" on each cause. Nevertheless, the bottom-line statistics speak for themselves.
Two recent studies in the Archives of General Psychiatry (56 [1999]) also support the conclusion that there is something pathological about homosexual orientation itself. One study by Richard Herrell, et. al., examined 3,400 male twin pairs (so 6,800 subjects) in which both had served in the United States military between 1965 and 1975.220 About 2% (120) of these reported participation in same-sex intercourse; all but sixteen of these had a co-twin who reported only female sex partners. The authors found that those men who had at least one male sex partner in their lives were six times more likely to report attempted suicide than those who had no male sex partners generally and three times more likely than their heterosexual co-twin. After reviewing scientific literature over the last forty years, showing a fairly consistent six- to sevenfold increase in claims of attempted suicide among homosexuals, the authors concluded:
There does not appear to be a reduction in the [suicide rate for homosexuals] that one might expect given social change in recent years.... In conclusion, reports of lifetime measures of suicidality are strongly associated with a same-gender sexual orientation. These effects cannot be explained by abuse of alcohol and other drugs, non-suicidal depressive symptoms, or the numerous unmeasured genetic and non-genetic familial factors.
The second study by D. M. Fergusson, et al., followed 1,007 children from birth to the age of twenty-one in Christchurch, New Zealand, deriving information from self-report, parental report, and observations by the authors.221 Unlike some previous studies that implicated societal homophobia as the problem for disturbances among homosexual youth, this study was not based on one-time anonymous self-reports and did not implicate societal homophobia as the prime culprit. Comparing the self-identified heterosexuals with the twenty-eight young adults identified as "gay, lesbian, or bisexual,"222 the authors found that the homosexual/bisexual young people were significantly more likely to experience psychiatric disorder: major depression and conduct disorder (four times more likely), nicotine dependence (five times), generalized anxiety disorder (three times), other substance abuse/dependence (two times), and multiple disorders (six times). They also had higher rates of suicide ideation (three times) and suicide attempts (six times). At the same time, the authors found that
there was some evidence to suggest small tendencies for the GLB [gay, lesbian, and bisexual] group to have experienced more troubled childhoods, with this group having greater exposure to parental change including separation and/or divorce and remarriage and higher exposures to parents with a history of criminal offense.
Neither of these two upbringing factors can be traced to societal homophobia.
Commentary in the same issue by J. Michael Bailey (of identicaltwin-study fame and himself an advocate of gay rights) followed the two studies, in which Bailey concluded: "These studies contain arguably the best published data on the association between homosexuality and psychopathology." He noted that, although antihomosexual attitudes probably play a part in increased suicidality of homosexuals ("but this remains to be demonstrated," he admits), other factors were likely to be involved: "developmental error" (there is "a possibility... that homosexuality represents a deviation from normal development . . . that may lead to mental illness"); the tendency of effeminate homosexuals to experience female-like types of "neuroticism"; and "lifestyle differences" associated with sexual orientation (especially "receptive anal sex and promiscuity" and the attendant fear of sexually transmitted diseases).223
The argument might be made that, as dire as the health risks associated with homosexuality are, they are risks faced only by those who freely engage in homosexual behavior. If homosexuals are willing to take such risks, why should heterosexuals care? Four responses come to mind. First, it is hardly a compassionate response on the part of society to ignore, let alone laud, participation in same-sex intercourse by those with a homosexual orientation. At a time when society is becoming increasingly vocal against smoking, drinking to get drunk, drug use, and unsafe sex, society's openness to homosexual intercourse, with its score of attendant problems, is strangely inconsistent. I am not advocating the enforcement of sodomy laws against consenting, same-sex adults who have intercourse in the privacy of their own homes. Yet, minimally, the state might promote, through education and counseling, programs of abstinence from same-sex intercourse. Second, the enormous health costs generated by same-sex activity are borne by the whole society, not by the homosexual community alone. These costs are nothing short of staggering. Third, the argument for ignoring the health risks of same-sex intercourse mistakenly assumes a rigid dividing wall preventing any sexual contact between homosexuals and heterosexuals. The reality, of course, is much different. The categories we have created to define people by discreet acts are broad strokes which often do not do justice to the complexity of human life and community. The overwhelming number of homosexuals and a minority of heterosexuals undergo one or more shifts along the 0 to 6 graduated Kinsey scale of sexual preference during the course of their lives. Bisexuals compose roughly a third of the homosexual-bisexual population. What this means practically is that some who engage in same-sex intercourse also engage in opposite-sex intercourse, exposing their partners to certain risks. In addition, microbes are transmitted in other ways, such as the sharing of needles by intravenous drug users from the homosexual population to the heterosexual one, and vice versa. Fourth, and perhaps most important, societal approval of same-sex intercourse will probably increase both the number of homosexuals and the incidence of same-sex intercourse in the population. Along with this increase will be the unintentional but inevitable exposure of more members of the population to the numerous, serious health risks associated with homosexual activity than would otherwise be the case.
A second negative effect of societal endorsement of homosexuality has to do with the problem of pedophilia and its role in "recruiting" homosexuals into the fold. There can be little doubt that affirmation of a same-sex lifestyle will increase the incidence of pedophilic activity, or at least adult-adolescent same-sex activity, regardless of society's attempt to distinguish the two. The greater the latitude given to sexual expression, the more likelihood there will be of people crossing the line into illicit conduct. Indeed, a substantial body of literature emanating from the homosexual community entertains the morality of adult-adolescent sex. The homosexual community as a whole has not vigorously and swiftly rejected this development. Indeed, homosexual groups in other countries have been at the forefront of efforts to lower the age for sexual consent.
Although the majority of homosexuals are not pedophiles and do not publicly promote pedophilia, the incidence of same-sex pedophilic behavior is disproportionately high. The 1992 NHSLS study (Laumann, et al.) found that 21% of all instances of adult-child (preteen) sexual touching was same-sex. A 1983 Family Research Institute study arrived at a similar 22% figure.224 Other studies have reached figures as high as 35-40%. study arrived at a similar 22% figure.225 Cameron summarized the data as follows: "About a third of the reports of molestation by the populace have involved homosexuality. Likewise, between a fifth and a third of those who have been caught and/or convicted practiced homosexuality. Finally, a fifth to a third of surveyed gays admitted to child molestation. All-in-all, a rather consistent story."226 On average, homosexual pedophiles also molest seven to eight times more children than heterosexual pedophiles.227 We have already noted that same-sex molestation of children increases the chances that the child will later identify his orientation as homosexual. The problem of molestation pertains not only to adult male homosexual molesters but also to adolescent male homosexual boys who are increasingly being encouraged by sex-ed programs and gay-activist groups to engage in same-sex sexual experimentation with their peers.
A third negative effect arising from affirmation of homosexuality, perhaps far more dangerous than that of pedophilia, is greater permissiveness as regards sexual promiscuity. Homosexual expression is harmful to sexual mores and the maintenance of stable families in heterosexual society. It is not just that homosexual unions fail to contribute to the development of stable family units through the inability to procreate, the inability to provide complementary modeling of the sexes to adoptive or neighboring children, or their apparent incapacity for longevity. It is, rather, that typical homosexual behavior undermines society's standards for sexual fidelity across the board, inasmuch as acceptance of homosexuality by heterosexual society seems to require an acceptance of patterns of irresponsible and unstable sexual behavior prevailing among homosexuals. An ethic that embraces only monogamous, lifelong unions between members of the same sex will, it seems, encompass such a tiny fraction of the homosexual population that heterosexual acceptance of homosexual unions in theory will have to appear to homosexuals as rejection of such unions in reality. Homosexuals will (rightfully) insist that heterosexuals are imposing an unfair heterosexual norm on the reality of homosexual orientation and that true acceptance of homosexuals must be acceptance of who homosexuals really are and what they really do, not some abstract ideal that hardly any homosexual unions appear capable of sustaining. Having already made a commitment to affirm the legitimacy of homosexual intercourse and facing guilt over heterosexual failures in the area of stable relationships, church and state will likely capitulate to a standard of sexual fidelity for heterosexual and homosexual alike that will wreak havoc on the institutions of marriage and family. The scenario sounds alarming, but it is quite realistic in view of the statistics on promiscuity in the homosexual community and the propaganda on sexual liberation put forward by leading figures in the homosexual movement. Perhaps the best that one can realistically hope for is that, when the smoke clears and society has made its peace with the homosexual norm, a person who has cohabited with "only" four or five people and had a half dozen "one-night stands" over the course of a lifetime will be regarded by society as someone with a relatively stable sexual life.
Doubtlessly, appeals can be made, as counter examples, to particular cases of same-sex couples who have maintained long-term monogamous relationships and live as stable and productive citizens of society. Yet the occasional anecdotal evidence does not stack up against the cumulative statistics culled from numerous scientific studies, let alone deal with the question of God's revealed design for sexuality in Scripture and the anatomical puzzle of same-sex coupling. Approving same-sex unions because a tiny percentage of the total number appear on the surface to be positive arrangements is like dropping society's moral strictures against incest, pederasty, and polygamy because in isolated instances such arrangements seem to be working out. One may wish for a Utopian society where homosexuals will "behave" like the average heterosexual (in accordance with some fictionalized dramatic representations of gays and lesbians in film, television, and the print media), but wishing will not make it so. Nor is it fair to harshly criticize homosexuals for failing to achieve seemingly unrealistic standards. Males will be sexually stimulated as males, regardless of whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. By this I mean that, relative to females, males have a stronger visual (figural) component to sexual attraction, intimacy needs that require less interpersonal communication, and thus a greater willingness to sacrifice long-term, monogamous relationships for short-term sexual gratification. To put two men together in a sexual bond and then to expect a lifelong union of monogamous fidelity to develop is, to my mind, a recipe for failure. One can also politely request that male homosexual unions abstain from anal intercourse, but such restrictions on specific behaviors are unlikely to win converts. Nor is the problem of short-term relationships limited to male same-sex unions. The average length of homosexual relationships appears to be slightly less for women than for men.
A fourth harmful effect to church and society is the total annihilation of societal gender norms. Indeed, this is one of the explicit goals of homosexual activist organizations, and a predictable one given (1) the override of God-given gender differences in acts such as a man penetrating another male's anus and (2) the high incidence of effeminate males and "butch" females among homosexuals. In its most bizarre forms we will be asked as a culture to accept as perfectly normal and well-adjusted a man wearing lipstick, panty hose, and a pink dress. Already homosexual-lobby groups are pushing for laws that will impose hefty fines on any who would "discriminate" against transvestites and transsexuals in the public sector, with "discriminate" left ambiguous enough to include such things as denying a school teacher the "right" to come to work in drag or denying an in-process transsexual man the "right" to use female bathrooms.228 One may grant that different cultures have developed varying ways of encouraging some clear differences between the sexes, sometimes with oppressive results for women. Nevertheless, to assert that there are no natural sexual differences between males and females is a distortion of reality in its own right; and misogyny and cultural appreciation for legitimate gender differences can be distinguished. Attempts to obliterate all gender norms can only increase sexual confusion among the young—in fact, it will encourage it—and lead to the further erosion of Christian ethical standards and the institution of marriage.
A fifth harmful effect that we can mention only briefly here is the public marginalization of all those who in good conscience regard homosexual intercourse as sin. This is already a reality in many career paths—certainly in the arts, the media, many institutions of higher learning, and increasingly in major corporations, in public primary and secondary schools, and in federal, state, and local governments. People who "come out of the closet" about their negative evaluation of samesex intercourse risk not being hired, or, if hired, being demoted, fired, or stalled in their careers. Within the last few years some American colleges and universities have withdrawn recognition of Christian student groups that deny self-affirming practicing homosexuals the "right" to hold office. Ostensibly, these Christian groups have violated the institutions anti-discrimination policy on sexual orientation, although no one made the connection at the time such policies were put in place. The de-recognition usually means the loss of thousands of dollars in school funding, of the use of school facilities for meeting, and of the use of the school's name—not to mention being branded with a terrible social stigma. And why not, since homosexual interest groups equate "homophobia" with racism. In the name of anti-discrimination those who uphold moral values are discriminated against while those who violate such values receive affirmative action. This is only the beginning. Children in the public school system will be indoctrinated through government mandated and funded programs to regard every conscience-directed opposition to homosexual behavior as homophobia. Christian schools and universities that "discriminate" on the basis of "sexual orientation" will suffer in many ways (loss of accreditation for some or all of their programs, loss of government funding or research grants, exclusion from interscholastic sports). This will happen regardless of religious exemption clauses which, in any case, are now under attack from homosexual activists who, apparently, all along have employed such exemption clauses as part of a "bait and switch" strategy. Parents who raise their children to revere God's creation design for human sexuality will one day do so in the knowledge that their children will be treated as the equivalent of racists—all in the name of societal tolerance.
Finally, it is not only the church and society that suffer when homosexuality is approved. Ultimately it is the individual homosexual who suffers in his or her relationship to God when the church shirks its duty to call a sin a sin. Far from being an unloving act, a sensitive refusal to condone homosexual conduct is the responsible and loving thing to do. The church deceives the homosexual by affirming a lifestyle that God deems to be sin. It is a nice, easy way out. No one is offended, the arguments go away, the tension dissipates—all at the "minimal" cost of forestalling the redemptive work of Christ. God did not offer up Jesus Christ for the purpose of rubber stamping and affirming all human desires. Christ died in order that human beings might be reconciled to God and begin the process of sanctification that will ultimately lead to glorification. To simply assert that God loves us and forgives us as we are, without holding out the necessity and hope of a life conformed to the will of God, is to deny
God's power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. . . . To fly in the face of scripture in a pale call for acceptance and inclusion is a failure to do the costly work of reconciliation that liberates us from the bondage of our sinful selves. . . . Acceptance is not forgiveness. Affirmation is not transformation. And inclusion is not reconciliation.229
The church must not shirk its duty to effect the costly work of reconciliation that liberates persons from bondage to a sinful self. It is not a kindness for a parent to allow a child to play with a scorpion or touch a hot radiator; nor is it a kindness for the church to give its blessing to forms of sexual expression that, as Paul notes, degrades the body created by God. The church should reject the notion that the only alternatives are to affirm homosexual behavior or to hate and harass homosexuals. Rather, the church must affirm a third option: to love the homosexual by humbly providing the needed support, comfort, and guidance to encourage the homosexual not to surrender to homosexual passions.
With two millennia and more dividing the biblical texts that speak about homosexual behavior from our own time, it is inappropriate to simply assert the Bible's authority at face value. At the same time, the strong biblical testimony against homosexual practice sets the burdenof-proof bar very high for Christians who wish to discount the Bible's witness. We have investigated the main arguments employed to discount the normative force of the Bible's perspective for our own day and found each of the arguments wanting. The Bible does not limit its rejection of same-sex intercourse to particular, exploitative forms. It does not condemn same-sex intercourse (at least not primarily) because of the threat that such intercourse poses to male dominance over females. The Bibles stance is not weakened by an alleged failure to understand the genetic or innate orientation of homosexuals, partly because scientific data indicates that the genetic influence pales in comparison to environmental influences, partly because the Bible recognizes an innate character to sin. Despite the limited number of texts in the Bible that speak directly to the question of same-sex intercourse, there is very little likelihood that any writer of Scripture, or Jesus, would have supported homosexual behavior of any sort. Comparisons drawn with such issues as women's roles as church leaders, slavery, and divorce are poor analogues for contemporary disagreement with the Bible's stance on same-sex intercourse. Finally, on grounds of health and sexual morality, same-sex intercourse cannot be regarded as a "light" or relatively harmless sin. The clear implication, then, is that the unambiguous rejection of same-sex intercourse that we find in Scripture remains in force for the church.
Stephen D. Moore takes a similar approach ("Que(e)rying Paul: Preliminary male and female homoeroticism (procreation and Questions," Auguries [eds. D. ]. A. Clines and S. D. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1998], 250-74). Constraints of Desire (pp. 37-40), he interprets Paul's remarks the light of the second-century C.E. work The (Onirocritica) of Artemidorus. In 1.78-80 Artemidorus intercourse (for additional discussion of this text, cf. also Women, 175-86; Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 76-77). Artemidorus develops three basic categories. "The best set analysis of intercourse is, first, intercourse which is physin] and law/convention [nomas] and customary usage [against law/convention [para nomon], and third, intercourse physin]" (1.78). Generally assuming the dreamer to be a man, under "intercourse which is according to nature and with all types of women (one's wife, mistress, prostitute, stranger, a female servant), intercourse with males (his male slave), and masturbation (by stroking). He classifies against law/convention" various acts of incest (including same-sex incest), but also intercourse which involved penetrating intercourse between social equals) and fellatio with others. against nature" the following: orally stimulating or kissing sex with a god or goddess, sex with a corpse, and woman who dreams either of "possessing" or "being possessed" is also listed as "intercourse against nature." Following Winkler, Moore argues that what gets placed "unnatural" is any act of sexual intercourse that does not social inferiors; that is, any act of sexual intercourse that does human social hierarchy. He concludes his article with an "Rom 1:26-27: Their women exchanged natural relations (of domination designed to display social hierarchy, they themselves position by accepting penile penetration) for unnatural display of domination or submission occurred and hierarchy was exhibited, because no penile penetration were locked into an "ideology of hierarchical polarization." response to homosexual behavior stems from men adopting the passive, penetrated role of socially and women attempting to take on the active role of 2S men.
1. The "diagnostic checklist" that Richard Hays has developed for proper use of scripture in contemporary ethical discourse is similar (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 212-13). I put the "descriptive" and "synthetic" task under one heading (the synthetic task is itself descriptive) and see no reason why the "pragmatic" should not come under the "hermeneutieal."
2. Cf. Grenz, Welcoming But Not Affirming, 63-80; Soards, Scripture and Homosexuality, 33-46; Wright, "Early Christian Attitudes to Homosexuality" 329-34; Peter Coleman, Christian Attitudes to Homosexuality (London: SPCK, 1980), 124-44; Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 82-160; H. Kimball Jones, Toward a Christian Understanding of the Homosexual (New York: Association Press, 1966), 66-89; on female homoeroticism, Brooten, Love Between Women, 303-57. Boswell's argument in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality that homosexual intercourse was not seriously opposed in the church's history until the mid-thirteenth century is unconvincing. Boswell tends to maximize the meager evidence favoring a pro-homosexuality interpretation (construing silence as neutrality or even acceptance and expressions of same-sex friendship as erotic) and minimize the mountain of evidence in opposition to same-sex intercourse. As Hays notes, "every pertinent Christian text from the pre-Constantinian period . . . adopts an unremittingly negative judgment on homosexual practice, and this tradition is emphatically carried forward by all major Christian writers of the fourth and fifth centuries. . . . A critical reading of Boswell's own discussion will confirm the point: he is unable to cite a single early Christian text which approves homosexual activity" ("Relations Natural and Unnatural," 202). Boswell's astounding assessment of the New Testament evidence ("The New Testament takes no demonstrable position on homosexuality" p. 117) is indicative of his treatment of subsequent church history. The same problems reappear in Boswell's more recent book, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (New York: Villard, 1994), where Boswell attempts to show that a quasi-marriage ceremony between men existed in the Eastern Empire until the early Middle Ages. Schmidt's comments are apropos: "at every key point Boswell's argument depends on quotations taken out of context, questionable translations and speculation to fill in very wide gaps between very small bits of evidence. What he has 'discovered' is a ceremony of ritualized brotherhood that borrows a few elements from marriage ceremonies. Although homosexuality may have been present in some such relationships, there is no evidence that sexual partnership (or even nonsexual marriage) was sanctioned by the ceremony, the church or the culture. Indeed, the ceremony in question typically includes prayers that the two men avoid 'offense,' 'scandal' and 'temptation'.... he can find no historical data to . . . support the claim that such ceremonies reflected church or societal acceptance of homosexual marriage" (Straight and Narrow?, 135). Cf. Robin Darling Young, "Gay Marriage: Reimagining Church History," First Things 47 (1994): 43-48; and Brent D. Shaw, "A Groom of One's Own: The Medieval Church and the Question of Gay Marriage," The New Republic 211 (1994): 33-41.
3. Nissinen argues that "unless we totally oppose homosexuality, we have to diverge from the 'clear word' of the Bible. But this is true also when one professes that the earth is round and revolves around the sun" (Honweroticism, 126). The analogy is hardly credible. Belief in a certain cosmology is never presented in Scripture as essential for salvation. Moral sexual behavior, however, is always considered essential; and homosexual behavior is consistently regarded as incompatible with membership in the redeemed community. In terms of the authoritative claim of Scripture on the church's faith and practice, the two matters are not comparable.
4. Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality; inter alios, Furnish, The Moral Teaching of Paul, 52-82; Waetjen, "Same-Sex Sexual Relations in Antiquity," 107-12; Arland J. Hultgren, "Being Faithful to the Scriptures: Romans 1:26-27 as a Case in Point," WW 14 (1994): 315-18.
5. Sex with coerced slave boys could take the form of household boy-slaves being forced to have sex by their masters or boys unwillingly enslaved in brothel houses as prostitutes.
6. "Female homosexual practices took many forms, from almost violent nymphomania to bisexuality to homosexual marriage. It is probable that there was no female parallel to pederasty (with the possible, though doubtful, exception of Plutarch's Spartan women). From what we can tell from the available evidence, the most prevalent form of female homosexual practice involved mutually consenting women of roughly equal age" (Mark Smith, "Ancient Bisexuality," 243). "The reference to women itself indicates that Paul's criticism should not be restricted to pederasty, although it is definitely one of the phenomena in the background" (Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 110). Cf. Brooten, Love Between Women, 359-60.
7. In Plutarch's Dialogue on Love, the character Daphnaeus speaks negatively even of consensual intercourse between males: "to consort with males (whether without consent, in which case it involves violence and brigandage; or if with consent, there is still weakness [malakia] and effeminacy on the part of those who, contrary to nature, allow themselves in Plato's words 'to be covered and mounted like cattle')— this is a completely ill-favored favor, indecent, an unlovely affront to Aphrodite" (751D-E; W. C. Helmbold, LCL). Homoerotic intercourse is inherently exploitative because it confuses the genders.
8. Cf. the pro-homosexual (albeit misogynistic) arguments by Protogenes and Pisias in Plutarch, Dial. Love, 750B-751B, 752B-C: "Since [marriage to a woman] is necessary for producing children, there's no harm in legislators talking it up and singing its praises to the masses. But genuine Love has no connection whatsoever with the women's quarters. . . . Love, in fact, it is that attaches himself to a young and talented soul and through friendship brings it to a state of virtue; but the appetite for women we are speaking of, however well it turns out, has for net gain only an accrual of pleasure in the enjoyment of a ripe physical beauty.... [Heterosexual love is] an effeminate and bastard love. . . . mere copulation. . . . What insolence! To think that human beings who acknowledge that they are locked like dogs by their sexual parts to the female should dare to transport the god (Love) from his home in the gymnasia and the parks with their wholesome fresh-air life in the sun (i.e., the noble venues for pederasty) and confine him in brothels . . . !" (Helmbold, LCL). Cf. also Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 2.38.
9. The following translations of the Symposium are my own.
10. "[Agathon's] relationship with Pausanias is between consenting adults whose age differential is by now irrelevant, who have chosen to continue mutually loving each other, in spite of the possibility of cultural censure.... In a later tradition Plutarch describes the love of the tragic poet Euripides for Agathon, who was then well advanced in years. To term either of these a pederastic relationship is a serious stretch of the evidence and the language" (Smith, "Ancient Bisexuality," 235).
11. Later an inebriated Alcibiades barges in on the symposium and recounts how Socrates had previously withstood his youthful attempts to give himself sexually to Socrates. "Regarding him to have been in earnest for my bloom of youth (hora), I regarded it (viz., this situation) to be a gift of Hermes (hermaion; or: a godsend) and a wonderful piece of good luck for me, supposing that by granting favors to Socrates I would earn the right to hear whatever things he knew; for I would take exceedingly great pride in my bloom of youth. So with these things in mind, . . . I would send the attendant away and alone keep company with him. . . . I would think that he would immediately converse with me as a lover might converse with his darling boy in private, and I would rejoice. But none of these things would ever happen. . . . After t h a t . . . I would exercise in the gymnasium with him in anticipation of making some progress there. . . . And what need I say? For I got no further. And since I accomplished nothing by that method, it seemed to me that 1 had to impose myself upon the man forcefully. . . . At last I invite him to have supper with me, just like a lover plotting against his darling boy" (217A-C). After convincing Socrates to stay the night, Alcibiades propositioned him. "You seem to me . . . to have become the only lover worthy of me, and you appear to me to be hesitating to mention it to me; I understand (sc. things) in this way: I regard it to be entirely senseless not to grant you even this favor. . . . For to me nothing is more important than that I become the best person possible, and I think that in this 1 have no helper more able than you. So I would feel far more shame before sensible people if I did not grant favors to such a man than I would feel before the senseless many if I did grant such favors" (218C-D). When Socrates rebuffed this offer, pointing to the superior beauty of the mind over the body, Alcibiades tried one last ploy. He wrapped his body around Socrates and slept with him all night. "I rose from sleep having no more slept with Socrates than if I had been lying down to sleep with a father or older brother. After this you can well imagine what thoughts I had: on the one hand regarding myself as dishonored; but on the other hand admiring the nature of this man and his sexual self-control and manliness. . . . Accordingly, then, I neither had the capacity to be angry and deprive myself of social intercourse with this man nor did I know the means by which I might draw him to myself (219D). Alcibiades is portrayed as someone who, far from being exploited, prided himself in his ability to attract older men through his youthful beauty, pursued Socrates as though he himself was the active "lover," counted the giving of himself sexually to an eminent older man as a high honor, and was almost tempted to feel angry at Socrates' rebuff. Mark Smith cites other texts that point to youths experiencing sexual pleasure from pederastic relationships ("Ancient Bisexuality," 231).
12. The translations of Affairs that follow are my own.
13. Lycinus sides with Callicratidas: "Though marriage is a thing useful for men's lives and blessed whenever it turns out well, I regard the loves (or: erotic desires) for darling boys, so long as they woo the pure rules of friendship, as the activity of philosophy alone. Therefore marriage is a must for all men, but let the boy-loving {paiderastein) be permitted only for the wise; for complete virtue grows least among women" (51).
14. Smith, "Ancient Bisexuality," 236-37. For example, "Xenophon of Ephesus in his second-century C.E. novel, Ephesiaca, introduces Hippothoos, a truly versatile man who is consecutively in love with a male of his own age, an older woman, and a younger man." Springett cites Suetonius's reference to the emperor Galba who "showed a preference for mature and sturdy men. It is said that when Icelus, one of his old-time bed-fellows, brought the news of Nero's death, Galba openly showered him with kisses and begged him to get ready and have intercourse with him without delay" (Galba 21).
15. Ibid., 246. James E. Miller, in a short critique of Smith's article, argued: "Though I would not argue that Paul felt homosexual relations between adult males were acceptable, I doubt very much that such practices were on his mind when he wrote Romans 1:27 or that any of his first-century audience would have thought of two adult males when they heard this verse" ("Pederasty and Romans 1:27: A Response to Mark Smith,"JAAR 65 [1997]: 861-66, quote from p. 864). He further contends that "Paul is attacking an accepted Gentile practice. Homosexuality between adult males was not an accepted activity, but pederasty was" (ibid., 863). He faults Smith for allegedly claiming "that first-century sexual attitudes and practices were rather like modern attitudes and practices" (ibid., 864). Smith emphasized in his rejoinder that: (1) although there "were differences in cultural attitudes toward sexuality," "the differences in sexual practices were few, if any"; (2) since pederasty in Paul's day was only part of a broader range of homosexual activity, it is not likely that Paul's reference to males "consumed with passion for one another" referred to "only one of many options available for homosexual expression" (Miller's own admission that he "would not argue that Paul felt homosexual relations between adult males were acceptable" makes essentially the same point); and (3) to assert that Rom 1:27 attacks only "an accepted Gentile practice" becomes problematic in view of the fact that the vices cited in Rom 1:18-32 are not limited to practices "accepted" in Roman sources ("Paul and Ancient Bisexuality: A Rejoinder," JAAR 65 [1997]: 867-70). Smith had the better of the exchange. My only criticism of Smith's article is that he contends that "Paul (as well as other biblical authors) does not place any special emphasis on censuring homosexual activity" (p. 247), regarding homosexuality as "a minor issue (as far as human sinfulness can ever be a minor issue)" (p. 250). Although he insists that "Rom. 1 is relevant to the modern discussion" of homosexuality, Smith does not take a stance in his article on whether Paul's perspective was "correct" (pp. 250-51).
16. Thus Boswell: "If the difficulties of historical research about intolerance of gay people could be resolved by simply avoiding anachronistic projections of modern myths and stereotypes, the task would be far simpler than it is. Unfortunately, an equally distorting and even more seductive danger for the historian is posed by the tendency to exaggerate the differences between homosexuality in previous societies and modern ones. One example of this tendency is the common idea that gay relationships in the ancient world differed from their modern counterparts in that they always involved persons of different ages: an older man (the lover) and a young boy (the beloved). . . . It is clear that in many cases it was superior beauty which earned one the position of beloved, not inferior age. . . . In any event, one did not have to be young in any accepted sense: Euripides was the lover of Agathon when Euripedes was seventy-two and Agathon forty; Parmenides and Zenon were in love when the former was sixty-five and the latter forty; Alcibiades was already full bearded when Socrates fell in love with him. . . . [I]t does not seem likely that, with a few exceptions, the apparent prevalence of erotic relationships between adults and boys in the past corresponded to reality. It was, rather, an idealized cultural convention. . . . [T]erminology is also misleading on this point. . . . Beautiful men were 'boys' to the Greeks just as beautiful women are 'girls' to modern Europeans and Americans. The actual age of the male involved may have mattered to some Greeks; to others it obviously did not... . Most used terms which suggested erotic attraction for young men and for older males interchangeably, clearly implying that age was not a consideration. The term 'pederasty' frequently has no more relation to the age of the objects of desire than 'girl chasing'" (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 27-30 [28 n. 52]; my emphasis). I suspect a similar concern lies behind Brooten's critique of Scroggs: "Robin Scroggs argues that Paul must be referring to pederasty.... If, however, the dehumanizing aspects of pederasty motivated Paul to condemn sexual relations between males, then why did he condemn relations between females in the same sentence? . . . Scroggs . . . maintains his thesis concerning pederasty even though the sources on women do not support i t . . . . Rom 1:27, like Lev 18:22 and 20:13, condemns all males in male-male relationships regardless of age, making it unlikely that lack of mutuality or concern for the passive boy were Paul's central concerns. . . . The ancient sources, which rarely speak of sexual relations between women and girls, undermine Robin Scroggs's theory that Paul opposed homosexuality as pederasty" (Love Between Women, 253 n. 106, 257, 361).
17. Indeed, as Schoedel intimates, in the Greco-Roman world homosexual intercourse between an adult male and a male youth was regarded as a less exploitative form of same-sex eros than intercourse between two adult males, precisely because the key problem with homosexual intercourse—behaving toward the male passive partner as if the latter were female—was exacerbated when the intercourse was aimed at adult males who had outgrown the "softness" of immature adolescence ("Same-Sex Eros," 50). When Jews like Philo and Paul rejected pederasty they were rejecting the best, not the worst, in the homosexual practice of their day.
18. Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 123-29.
19. Brooten, Love Between Women. A similar view is given by Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 94-97; Martin, "Heterosexism," 344-46; Edwards, Gay/Lesbian Liberation, 78-80; Wolfgang Stegemann, "Paul and the Sexual Mentality of His World," BTB 23 (1993): 163-65; among commentators, Byrne, Romans, 69 (though "a more theological note may also be present: such behavior is contrary to the design inserted into the natural order by the Creator").
20. Love Between Women, 275-80.
21. Ibid., p. 302.
22. Homoeroticism, 105, 107
23 . Ibid., 107.
24. Ibid., 108.
25. Ibid., 129, 133. Cf. Abraham Smith, "The New Testament and Homosexuality," 25. was fully cognizant of what he was saying or whether he was merely a dummy on the knee of a ventriloquist culture" (p. 272). In addition to the discussion below, two immediate responses can be given to Moore's reconstruction of the logic of Rom 1:26-27. Artemidorus's classifications of natural and conventional, unconventional, and unnatural are indeed heavily marked by concerns revolving around human social hierarchy and the importance of the symbolism of penile penetration. Hence, sex between women is inherently unnatural (no penis is involved) while sex between two men of unequal status is natural. However, not all the classifications are so neatly placed under a concern for social hierarchy. For a man to have sex with his daughter or son is "against law/convention," even though no disruption of human social hierarchy takes place; indeed human social hierarchy is affirmed (to be sure, incest is not "contrary to nature"). Sex with a god or with an animal does not establish a human social hierarchy but neither does it disrupt human social hierarchy. If a man penetrates a dog, human social hierarchy is not inverted (the same can be said for self-fellatio and sex with a corpse). Might we not suspect that additional issues are involved here, for example, "union between two radically different spheres of existence" (to use Brooten's expression)? And why is masturbation by self-stroking listed as intercourse which is "according to nature or convention/law" but self-fellatio as intercourse "contrary to nature"? Neither act of masturbation establishes human social hierarchy. Attempts to define everything in the list according to whether human social hierarchy is affirmed may be overly reductionistic.
More important is the rather obvious point that Paul was not simply mimicking the cultural milieu inhabited by Artemidorus. If he had been, he would not have regarded all male homosexual intercourse as unnatural. The fact that he does regard all homosexual intercourse as against nature suggests that more was at stake for him than the creation of human social hierarchy. Men are in socially subordinate positions to other men as much in Jewish culture as in Greco-Roman culture. Why not permit a socially superior male to penetrate a socially inferior male if the only issue is one of status differentiation?
26. Epictetus extended this argument to beards in Diatr. 1.16.9-14: "Has not nature used even [the hairs on a chin] in the most suitable way possible? Has she not by these means distinguished between the male and female?... Again, in the case of women, just as nature has mingled in their voice a certain softer note, so likewise she has taken the hair from their chins. . . . Wherefore, we ought to preserve the signs God has given; we ought not to throw them away; we ought not, so far as in us lies, to confuse the sexes which have been distinguished in this fashion" (LCL). Similarly, in Athenaeus's Deipnosophists the story is recounted of Diogenes of Sinope, who once accosted an effeminate man with shaven chin for "finding fault with nature" for making him a man rather than a woman, a story that is then used to blast pederastic philosophers for "indulging in passion contrary to nature" (13.565C). Musonius Rufus, Epictetus's teacher, taught that the beard should not be cut; but he also had an explanation for why some cutting of the hair on one's head was not unnatural. "A man should cut the hair from the head for the same reason that we prune a vine, that is merely to remove what is useless. . . . the beard (should not) be cut . . . (for it) has been provided for us by nature as a kind of cover or protection (compare Paul's argument that the hair on a woman's head is given to her by nature for a covering, 1 Cor 11:14-15). Moreover, the beard is nature's symbol of the male just as is the crest of the cock and the mane of the lion.. . . The remark of Zeno was well made that it is quite as natural to cut the hair as it is to let it grow long, in order not to be burdened by too much of it nor hampered for any activity. For nature plainly keeps a more careful guard against deficiency than against excess, in both plants and animals, since the removal of excess is much easier and simpler than the addition of what is lacking. In both cases man's common sense ought to assist nature. . . . Therefore the hair should be cut only to get rid of too much of it and not for looks . . . " (XXI, Lutz). No one today would accept the argument that to shave is to "confuse the sexes" and so one may justifiably point to a flaw in the argument. Still, the general point holds: those who go to extraordinary lengths to deny what nature has bestowed bodily to distinguish the sexes (and most today would still put men plucking hairs for beautification purposes in that category) are engaging in an "unnatural" activity.
27. This is the view taken by Schrage, Fee, and Collins; also Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians (IBC; Louisville: John Knox, 1997), 187-88. Alternatively, the head covering functions as the sign of, or means by which a woman exercises, her right to prophesy. The remark "because of the angels" at the end of the same verse probably picks up on the rationale of the Corinthian women prophets and turns it against them. The Corinthian women prophets may have claimed that they could not wear a head covering because, having been made like angels by virtue of their participation in Christ, gender boundaries had been transcended (cf. Gal 3:28)— particularly at those moments when they exercised angelic authority in prophesying or speaking the language of angels (1 Cor 13:1). Paul countered: it was precisely "because of the angels" that the women prophets should exercise their newly acquired authority by taking responsibility for their own head, for they "must be covered to keep the heavenly host from a misplaced worship of man whose glory [they] reflect" (Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990], 121). Scholars disagree over whether Paul's remarks in 11:1-16 refer to a covering in addition to the woman's hair or to a distinctive hairstyle (tying the hair up on top of the head rather than having the hair hang loose). The language of "covering down" that Paul recommends for women prophesying and the shameful alternative of having the hair shorn or shaved (11:5-6) suggest the former.
28. Cf. Balz, "Biblische Aussagen zur Homosexualität," 67: In 1 Cor 11:2-16 "it is a matter of rules for the life of the congregation, whereas homosexuality is connected with fundamental questions of 'righteous' and 'unrighteous' in general, thus with every behavior which divides humans from God."
29. Works consulted include: J. Louis Martyn, Galatians (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1997); Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC; Dallas: Word Books, 1990); James D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993); Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979).
30. Cf. "in their essential nature" (Koester; similarly, Betz, NEB); possibly, though perhaps too loosely, "in the true nature of things" (Dunn), "in reality" (Dunn, Longenecker), or "really . . . at all" (NJB; cf. REB).
31. BAGD has "natural endowment or condition (inherited from one's ancestors)." Koester refers to "by original descent, in essence, in their true nature" {"physis," TDNT 9:272).
32. It is not entirely clear whether "by nature" goes with what precedes (so Stanley Stowers, C. E. B. Cranfield, Paul Achtemeier) or with what follows (so nearly everyone else). If the phrase goes with what precedes, then it must have the pregnant meaning "by birthright" (Stowers) or "by virtue of their birth" (Cranfield); that is, it would refer to "Gentiles who do not have the law by right of physical descent." In that event the meaning would closely approximate the sense suggested for Gal 2:15. However, the standard interpretation (viz., that "by nature" goes with the following "doing") is more likely given: (1) the placement of the word after rather than within the preceding participial clause (as in Gal 4:8; cf. Rom 2:27); (2) the subsequent references to "law written in their hearts" and to "conscience"; and (3) the widespread Greek tradition of "unwritten law" or "law of nature" (cf. Rom 7:23; Cicero, Leg. 1.6.18; Philo, Good Person 46 and Abr. 275-76).
33. Given extra-biblical parallels, the translation preferred by BAGD is unlikely to be correct: "when Gentiles fulfill the law's demands by following the natural order (of things)." BAGD adds: "[physei] may mean instinctively."
34. Paul was not referring in Rom 2:27 to the uncircumcised state of gentiles as "natural," as if in so doing he hoped to denigrate circumcision as an "unnatural" practice (cf. NEB: "uncircumcised in his natural state"). Neither did he imply that the act of circumcising a Jew was "natural," as though forgetting that cutting is an unnatural act because of "the close identification between circumcision and the Jewish race" (Dunn). Nor did he intend to designate those who had remained gentiles in distinction to gentiles who had become circumcised as proselytes (contra Koester, TDNT 9:272; Fitzmyer).
35. The reading "lest somehow" (me pas) is omitted by a number of important manuscripts and is textually suspect.
36. For a discussion of the meaning of kata physin and para physin here in relation to Rom 1:26-27, see n. 68, pp. 390-91 below.
37. We recognize, and indeed to some extent Paul himself must have recognized (based on OT genealogical lists, the fictive kin relationships of covenants, and the phenomenon of proselytes), that the question of the biological connectedness of every Jew to Abraham was complex. Paul, however, is speaking in general terms. The exceptions merely establish the rule.
38. This is not to say that Paul could never have used "nature," especially "by nature," in a sense that has little to do with "nature" in the proper sense (e.g., in the sense "fundamentally" or "essentially") or used it with reference to things that are morally bad; probably he did. Cf. Eph 2:3 which may or may not reflect Pauline idiom, but which clearly gives a different sense to "nature" than that found in Rom 1:26: "we were children of wrath by nature," that is, "in our natural condition (as descendants of Adam)" (BAGD; NLT correctly paraphrases as "we were born with an evil nature"). Rather, the point is that the extant evidence provides some guidance as to Paul's usual use of the word.
39. Cf. Boswell: "The only instance in which 'nature' seems to have a moral significance for Paul greater than simply 'human nature' is 1 Cor. 11:14.... But it would be fatuous to imagine that 'nature' even in the most idealized sense could have an effect on the length of a man's hair.... Clearly Paul here uses 'nature' in the sense of custom, tradition, or ethical heritage, ignoring (or rejecting) the usual dichotomy in Greek between custom and nature" (Homosexuality, 110 n. 63). Countryman thinks that Paul used "nature" in 1 Cor 11:14 to mean "something like 'widespread social usage.'" However, he does not think that such a sense is relevant to Paul's understanding of "nature" in Rom 1:26-27 because there an argument from "widespread social usage" would "fall flat" in view of widespread acceptance of homosexual intercourse in the Greek world. Instead, he thinks "nature" in Rom 1:26-27 referred to the fact "that Gentiles experienced only heterosexual desire before God visited uncleanness on them and have therefore changed their 'nature,' that is, lost a certain continuity with their remotest past" (Dirt, Greed, and Sex, 114; similarly, Scanzoni and Mollenkott, 7s the Homosexual My Neighbor?, 63-64).
40. "To her" is textually uncertain.
41. The consensus among interpreters is that the causal clause in v. 15 at the very least infers "long hair" and indeed a few translations (W. Schrage, NAB, NIV, PHILLIPS) reflect this: "for the (i.e., her) long hair has been given to her for a covering." BAGD translates "(long) hair." However, despite the meaning of the related verb kotnao as "to let the hair grow long, to grow long," LSJ gives as the meaning of the noun kome "hair of the head," not "long hair." The usage in the LXX (twelve times), Josephus (nineteen times), Philo (three times), and Greek Pseudepigrapha texts (two times) bears out this sense. With the possible sole exception of Josephus's Ant. 14 §45, "long hair" is never required as a translation of kome in these texts and usually is positively excluded by the context.
42. The following translations were consulted: Augustine Fitzgerald, ed., The Essays and Hymns of Synesius of Cyrene (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 2.243-74; George H. Kendal (ed.), In Praise of Baldness (Vancouver: Pharmakon, 1985). The treatise is a semi-lighthearted response to a discourse by Dio Chiysostom (40-115 c.E.) in praise of hair, a discourse that made Synesius feel ashamed of being bald already in his twenties. About ten years after writing this work, Synesius was baptized and elected bishop of the Cyrenean diocese of Ptolemais.
43. In light of this interpretation of nature in 1 Cor 11:14, I cannot understand Koester's comment: the technical use of physis here "is of no theological significance" (TDNT 9:273). An alternative explanation of what Paul may have been thinking of is hinted at by Schoedel ("Same-Sex Eros," 60-61 nn. 23, 26): Paul may have thought that female "softness" and "moistness," like good soil, allowed for the growth of long and luxuriant hair on the head, whereas male "hardness" tended to produce short, rough hair (citing Pseudo-Lucian's Affairs 26 and Galen's De usu partium 11.14).
44. Custom in v. 16 probably refers not to the custom of covering women's heads in worship (contra H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975], 191). Such a construal would cut against the grain of the argument in 11:2-15, which strongly advocates such a covering. Nor does it refer to a custom of being contentious (as in "it is not our custom to be contentious"; contra Calvin). Rather, custom probably alludes to a custom of women worshiping without a covering (correctly, G. Fee, C. K. Barrett, apparently W. Schrage): "but if anyone wants to be a lover of conflict (by advocating that women should be able to worship without a head covering), we do not have such a custom (i.e., of women worshiping with uncovered heads), nor do the churches of God."
45. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 110-11, 114.
46. Koester argues that Philo advanced the Stoic discussion of natural law through his equation of the didactic character of nature with the Mosaic law (TDNT 9:265-66, 269).
47. Martin, "Heterosexism," 339-49 (for ancient moralists homoerotic desire was a "natural" but "inordinate desire," not a "disoriented desire," p. 342); V. Furnish, The Moral Teaching of Paul, 60-65; idem, "The Bible and Homosexuality," 26-27; Bartlett, "A Biblical Perspective on Homosexuality," 138, 140. Stowasser makes it a "decisive" hermeneutical consideration that Paul allegedly treated homosexual practice as a willing "turning away from their own actual heterosexuality" ("Homosexualität und Bibel," 519). "The analysis of the biblical texts has led to the insight that homosexual acts were understood as an act of will, i.e., subjected to free decision, and could therefore be forbidden and declared to be sinful." Once it is recognized that homosexuality is not "a conscious choice to turn away from God" one can no longer apply the concepts of "guilt and sin" to it (ibid., 522; similarly, Wengst, "Paulus und die Homosexualität," 77-78). Stowasser does not explain why he seems to regard the acting out of innate desires as beyond the realm of human responsibility. Nor does he help us to understand why other forms of innate sexual desire (proclivity to multiple sexual partners, sexual attraction to children or animals) or non-sexual desire (violent or aggressive personality types, alcoholism) which have a biological dimension are not validated along with homosexual desire.
According to Nissinen, "Paul refers to heterosexual people who knowingly and voluntarily make themselves homosexuals" (Homoeroticism, 109). Nissinen is not clear about what import to give this observation. On the one hand, he seems to suggest that the modem view about innate homosexual orientation would have made no difference to Paul's opposition. He writes:
Paul's criticism does not focus on homosexuals or heterosexuals but more generally on persons who participate in same-sex erotic acts. The distinction between sexual orientations is clearly an anachronism that does not help to understand Paul's line of argumentation. Paul does not mention tribades or kinaidoi, that is, female and male persons who were habitually involved in homoerotie relationships, but if he knew about them (and there is every reason to believe that he did), it is difficult to think that, because of their apparent "orientation," he would not have included them in Romans 1:26-27 (109). . . . For him, there is no individual inversion or inclination that would make this conduct less culpable (110). . . . Presumably nothing would have made Paul approve homoerotie behavior (112).
On the other hand, Nissinen contends that Paul's assumption that homosexual behavior was a voluntary act of heterosexuals means that Paul's views on homosexuality cannot be appropriated in our contemporary context. He writes:
Paul, like his contemporaries, could not possibly take into consideration homosexual orientation or identity (111).... It would not be fair to claim that Paul would condemn all homosexuality everywhere, always, and in every form. Paul's arguments are based on certain Hellenistic Jewish moral codes that are culture-specific. . . . Paul cannot be held responsible for things he does not appear to know about—such as sexual orientation, which is not a voluntary perversion (124).... Other biblical authors.... cannot be expected to give statements about questions for which they were not sufficiently equipped or knowledgeable. . . . Therefore it is dangerous to assume that the biblical authors would have opposed homosexuality even if they had shared modern ideas about it. We cannot possibly know what they would say today (125).
I cannot see how to harmonize these two groups of statements in Nissinen. If, as Nissinen has to concede, it is highly unlikely that Paul would have changed his view about homosexual behavior for those who had an innate inclination, how can current perspectives on the innateness of homosexual behavior make any difference in evaluating Paul's words? If "nothing would have made Paul approve homoerotic behavior," how can it be unfair "to claim that Paul would condemn all homosexuality everywhere, always, and in every form"?
48. Chrysostom (ca. 390), concerned to spare Paul of the charge that he was being unduly harsh toward people who experienced no sexual passion toward the opposite sex, interpreted "exchanged" and "having abandoned" in Rom 1:26-27 to mean that all women and men who engaged in same-sex intercourse were capable of satiating their sexual desire with members of the opposite sex (cited by Boswell, Homosexuality, 109). To the quotes given above can be added, inter alia, Musonius Rufus, "On Sexual Indulgence" XII: "Not the least significant part of the life of luxury and self-indulgence lies also in sexual excess; for example those who lead such a life crave a variety of loves not only lawful but unlawful ones as well, not women alone but also men; sometimes they pursue one love and sometimes another, and not being satisfied with those which are available, pursue those which are rare and inaccessible . . . "; and Pseudo-Lucian, Affairs of the Heart, 20: "In the beginning . . . life was in obedience to the authority of the laws that nature framed. . . . But little by little, descending from that magnificent height in the pits of pleasure, time was cutting strange and peculiar paths to enjoyment. Then wantonness, daring all, transgressed the laws of nature herself (cf. pp. 165-66 n. 10).
49. Ibid., 109, 112-13. Cf. Edwards, Gay/Lesbian Liberation, 98; Scanzoni and Mollenkott, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, 63-66; Byrne, Romans, 70, 77; Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 38, 157, 169, 173 (frequently distinguishing between homosexual "perverts," whom the Bible condemns, and homosexual "inverts," of whom the Bible does not speak).
50. Richard Hays's otherwise devastating critique of Boswell appears to me to be guilty of this. "His proposal falls apart completely as exegesis of Paul when we recognize that the whole conception of 'sexual orientation' is an anachronism when applied to this text. The idea that some individuals have an inherent disposition towards same-sex erotic attraction and are therefore constitutionally 'gay' is a modern idea. . . . It is, in short, a textbook case of 'eisegesis,' the fallacy of reading one's own agenda into a text" ("Relations Natural and Unnatural," 200-201). As noted below, it is not quite true to say that the notion of "inherent disposition" to homosexuality is only a modern concept. Hays and Boswell are actually agreed that Paul supposed homosexual behavior to be "the result of insatiable lust seeking novel and more challenging forms of self-gratification" (ibid., 200). They differ only in what to do with this knowledge: Boswell intimating that Paul might have arrived at a different conclusion about the "unnaturalness" of homosexuality if he had known what we know, Hays contending that it is irrelevant to Paul's point.
51. Martin, "Heterosexism," 343-49; Boswell, Homosexuality, 111-14.
52. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1148b, lines 28-34; Pseudo-Aristotle, Probl. 4:26 (translations and discussion in Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 168-70; Boswell, Homosexuality, 49-50). See also the Hippocratic treatise De victu 1.28-29 which attributes homosexual development to a preponderance of sperm from the opposite-sex parent (with the female parent contributing sperm) or from an opposite-sex element within the sperm (cited by Schoedel, "Same-Sex Eros," 58). The full text of Eth. Nic. 1148b, lines 28-34 is as follows: "the (sc. intercourse or disposition) of sexual pleasures for males . . . occurs for some by nature (physei), but for others from habituation, as in the case of those who were abused from the time they were boys. So for all those for whom nature is the cause, no one would describe these persons as lacking in self-control, any more than they would women because they do not take the active sexual role but the passive (or: do not take in marriage but are married; or: do not mount sexually but are mounted)." The author of Probl. 4:26 has no dificulty in speaking about what is "by nature" (innate) as "contrary to nature" (in disharmony with natures usual distinguishing marks of male and female): "Those who are effeminate by nature. . . are constituted contrary to nature (para physin) for, though male, they are so disposed that this part of them (the rectum) is necessarily defective." Similarly, when Paul speaks of same-sex intercourse as "contrary to nature" he is not necessarily denying an innate component to homoerotic sexuality but rather emphasizing that same-sex intercourse is contrary to God's intended design for human sexuality manifested in the anatomical complementarity of male and female.
53. Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 48-49; Boswell, Homosexuality, 49.
54. Brooten, Love Between Women, 140-41, 172, 242-43, 360-61; also, Boswell, Homosexuality, 52.
55. Bisexuality, too, could be regarded as natural: "The noble lover of beauty engages in love wherever he sees excellence and splendid natural endowment without regard for any difference in physiological detail.... The hunter has no special preference for male dogs. . . . So too will not the lover of human beauty be fairly and equably disposed toward both sexes, instead of supposing that males and females are as different in the matter of love as they are in their clothes" (Plutarch, Dial. Love 767 [Helmbold, LCL]).
56. Cf. the comment by Maximus of Tyre in Or. 18 (late second century C.E.): "Periander, tyrant of Ambracia, had a young man . . . as his boyfriend, but since their relationship was immorally constituted, it was a matter of lust not love" (The Philosophical Orations [trans. M. B. Trapp; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997]). Maximus was distinguishing between virtuous and vicious love among both same-sex and opposite-sex unions, but the principle is the same.
57. Martin, "Heterosexism," 346. Martin himself acknowledges that some Greco-Roman texts speak of "unnatural desires" (p. 344). Philo speaks of "abominable lusts" and a "polluted and accursed passion" (Spec. Laws 2.50), and "a pleasure contrary to nature" (ibid., 3.39). Josephus uses the expression "pleasures which were disgusting and contrary to nature" (Ag. Ap. 2.275).
58. "Heterosexism," 344-45.
59. Ibid., 347-48.
60. Ibid.
61. Fredrickson, "Romans 1:24-27," 200-201.
62. Ibid., 204-7.
63. Ibid., 202, 205-7.
64. Ibid., 222.
65. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 78; Hays, "Relations Natural and Unnatural," 189-90, 200.
66. Cf. Brooten, who regards the "oversexed heterosexual" argument as detrimental to contemporary lesbians and bisexuals: "Thus, both arguments fall short (that Paul condemns only heterosexuals committing homosexual acts and not homosexuals per se, and that the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual acts would have made no sense to him). Paul could have believed that tribades [lit., "woman who rub (other women)," i.e., lesbians], the ancient kinaidoi [catamites], and other sexually unorthodox persons were born that way and yet still condemn them as unnatural and shameful, this all the more so since he is speaking of groups of people rather than of individuals. Further, even if Paul condemned only homosexual acts committed by heterosexual persons, many lesbians in the church, who feel that they have chosen to love women, as well as all bisexuals, would fall under that condemnation and are thereby not helped by this interpretation. In sum, the category of the innate homosexual who is thereby free of shame and whose sexuality counts as natural does not fit the Roman world and does not address the self-understanding of many contemporary lesbian, bisexual, and gay Christians. I believe that Paul used the word 'exchanged' to indicate that people knew the natural sexual order of the universe and left it behind. . . . I see Paul as condemning all forms of homoeroticism as the unnatural acts of people who had turned away from God" (Love Between Women, 244).
67. Cf. the use of "law(s) of nature" in Philo's discussion of same-sex intercourse (Abr. 135; Contempl. Life 59), as well as such characterizations of same-sex intercourse as "unlawful," "debasing the currency of nature and violating it," "not standing in awe of the (male) nature" of the passive partner, forcing "those who had been born men to submit to play the part of women," and "restamping the masculine cast into a feminine form." LSJ uses the meaning "in transgression or violation of rather than "contrary to, against" (s.v. para, III.4, citing numerous examples with this sense, including para physin).
68. Martin, "Heterosexism," 343. In Rom 11:24 Paul does not have in view an overflow or too much of something (not too much "tree" or branches, certainly not too much passion) when he utilizes horticultural imagery to describe the gentiles' inclusion into the community of God's people as a grafting, "beyond nature" (para physin}, of branches that "in accordance with nature" (or "by nature," "naturally," kata physin) belonged to a wild olive tree, into a cultivated olive tree whose "natural" (kata physin) branches had been broken off. Nor is Paul with kata physin referring to something that we in our own time would consider to be matters of mere convention, but rather to material and organic processes. Here para physin has to do with an artificial, non-natural process (grafting), fooling nature but at the same time helping nature by doing for nature what nature cannot do for itself: replacing one tree's unfruitful original branches with potentially fruitful branches from a different tree. To be sure, para physin in Rom 11:24 does not denote an action that runs counter to God's will ("contrary to nature"), though Hays is right to point out that "the metaphor plays secondarily upon the negative connotations of para physin: God's action in incorporating Gentiles... is a stunning manifestation of the offensive paradox of grace" ("Relations Natural and Unnatural," 199). However, for Boswell to deduce from the usage in Rom 11:24 that para physin in Rom 1:26-27 means nothing more than "extraordinary, peculiar" is to ignore completely the widespread and unremittingly negative use olpara physin for same-sex intercourse in the Hellenistic world (Homosexuality, 112, 114). "It is precisely the context [in Rom 1:26] which insures that sexual acts 'contrary to nature' are given a negative moral evaluation" (Hays, "Relations," 199).
As for the other uses of para with an accusative object in Paul, two passages clearly demonstrate the meaning "contrary to, against, in opposition to" in connection with teaching that does not merely add "more" to Paul's gospel but contradicts it (Rom 16:17; Gal 1:8-9). In three other passages the sense is "beyond, more than" (Rom 14:5; 1 Cor 3:11; 2 Cor 8:3), and Rom 4:18 may belong here as well (usually translated "who believed against hope" but perhaps better "who believed beyond what hope could conceive"). The uses in Rom 1:25 ("served the creature instead of or rather than the Creator") and Rom 12:3 ("not to have exaggerated thoughts compared with what one ought to think") are mediate uses between the senses "more than" and "contrary to"). Two other uses (1 Cor 12:15-16: "because of; 2 Cor 11:24: "less") are in altogether different categories of meaning (cf. BAGD). The variety of usages in Paul confirm that context means everything for defining the meaning in Rom 1:26.
69. Cf. Balz, "Biblische Aussagen zur Homosexualität," 65: "Constitutional homosexuality would be for Paul nothing else than the clearest expression of non-Jews being given over [to unnatural desires]."
70. Boughton, "Biblical Texts and Homosexuality," 152-53.
71. "Same-Sex Eros: Paul and the Greco-Roman Tradition," 43-72.
72. Ibid., 45.
73. Ibid., 46-47.
74. Ibid., 46.
75. Ibid., 50.
76. Ibid., 67-68.
77. Ibid., 51-52, 70-71.
78. Ibid., 54-55.
79. Ibid., 55-57.
80. Ibid., 57-58.
81. Ibid., 56 (quoting Sehoedel's summary; my emphasis).
82. Ibid, (my emphasis).
83. For the discussion that follows I am particularly indebted to the following works: Neil and Briar Whitehead, My Genes Made Me Do It! A Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation (Lafayette, La.: Huntington House, 1999; Neil Whitehead is a research scientist with a Ph.D. in biochemistry); Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse, Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research (Downer's Grove: InterVarsity, 2000) [my thanks to InterVarsity Press for permitting me to see a penultimate version of the book in manuscript form]; Jones and Yarhouse, 'The Use, Misuse, and Abuse of Science in the Ecclesiastical Homosexuality Debates," Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture, 73-120; and Jeffrey Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996). Also helpful were: Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 131-59; Grenz, Welcoming But Not Affirming, 13-33; Paul Cameron, The Gay Nineties: What the Empirical Evidence Reveals About Homosexuality (Franklin, Tenn.: Adroit, 1993); Sherwood O. Cole, "The Biological Basis of Homosexuality: A Christian Assessment,'' JPT 23/2 (1995): 89-100. For material in scientific journals, cf. esp. William Byne, "Science and Belief: Psychobiological Research on Sexual Orientation," JHomosex 28 (1995): 303-44; idem, "The Biological Evidence Challenged," Scientific American 270 (May 1994): 26-31; idem and Bruce Parsons, "Human Sexual Orientation: The Biologic Theories Reappraised," Archives of General Psychiatry 50 (1993): 228-39; Paul Billings and Jonathan Beckwith, "Born Gay?" Technology Review (July 1993): 60-61; J. Maddox, "Wilful Public Misunderstanding of Genetics," Nature 364 (1993): 281; M. Barinaga, "Is Homosexuality Biological?" Science 253 (1991): 956-57; T. R. McGuire, "Is Homosexuality Genetic? A Critical Review and Some Suggestions," JHomosex 30 (1995): 115-45; R. C. Friedman and J. Downey, "Neurobiology and Sexual Orientation," Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 5 (Spring 1993): 134-48; L. Gooren, "Biomedical Theories of Sexual Orientation: A Critical Examination," Homosexuality / Heterosexuality (ed. D. McWhirter et al.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 71-87; A. Banks and N. K. Gartrell, "Hormones and Sexual Orientation: A Questionable Link," JHomosex 30 (1995): 247-68.
84. In addition to the Whiteheads and Jones/Yarhouse, cf. Paul and Kirk Cameron, "Homosexual Brains?" Family Research Institute Special Report (1996).
85. A region of the brain connected with sexual behavior.
86. Interstitial Nucleus of the Anterior Hypothalamus, four different sections of which have been examined to date.
87. The number includes one bisexual.
88. Simon LeVay, "A Difference in the Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men," Science 253 (1991): 1034-37.
89. Only two of the fourteen heterosexuals had denied before their deaths that they had ever engaged in homosexual behavior. There was no information about the sexual orientation of the rest of the "heterosexuals."
90. Whitehead, Gene, 129.
91. Whitehead, Genes, 127. "fT]he average carbon atom stays about seven years in brain tissues. This means that the complete material of the brain is changed during a lifetime by substitutions of different atoms and brain cells—even in 'permanent' nerve tissue. Nothing is hardwired. Anyone determined to change any behavior should be able to make a substantial difference in thinking and habit patterns within a decade. Biological determinism is a myth" (ibid., 131).
92. Satinover, Homosexuality, 79-80.
93. S. Marc Breedlove, "Sex on the Brain," Nature 389 (Oct. 23, 1997): 801.
94. J. Maddox, "Is Homosexuality Hardwired?" Nature 353 (Sept. 1991): 13.
95. Dean Hamer, et al., "A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation," Science 261 (1993): 321-27.
96. S. Hu, et al., D. Hamer, "Linkage Between Sexual Orientation and Chromosome Xq28 in Male But Not in Females," Nature Genetics 11 (1995): 248-56.
97. For the source of the quotes, cf. Whitehead, Gene, 135,146-47.
98. G. Rice et al., "Male Homosexuality: Absence of Linkage to Microsatellite Markers at Xq28," Science 284 (April 23, 1999): 665-67.
99. Whitehead, Genes, 209; more detailed discussion on pp. 13-31. Mutations, they note, could appear suddenly in a family tree, but for a behavioral change that would require the implausible scenario of many genes mutating at the same time and would likely not affect more than .025% of the population (ibid., 24-25). The Whiteheads acknowledge that "many conditions . . . have been traced to specific gene locations or chromosome faults: muscular dystrophy, familial colon cancer, Huntingtons disease," etc., but these are not behaviors (ibid., 21).
100. Quoted by Whitehead, Genes, 215-16. Jones and Yarhouse (Homosexuality, 82) refer to a recent study published by none other than Dean Hamer (and others) on "A Genetic Association for Cigarette Smoking Behavior" (Health Psychology 18 [1998]: 7-13). Although people without a particular gene were more likely to smoke and not quit, the identified gene "is not a strict determinant of the ability to quit smoking, but rather an influence on an individual's general need and responsiveness to external stimuli, of which cigarette smoking is but one example" (interview of Hamer, APA News Release, Jan. 14, 1999). In other words, the genetic influence is indirect, hinges on particular interactions with the environment, and at most constitutes one among multiple influences. This would also be an apt description of any genetic influence on homosexual behavior—should one be discovered some day.
101. Paul R. McHugh and Phillip R. Slavney, The Perspectives of Psychiatry (2d ed.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1998), 185-86. With regard to homosexual behavior, McHugh and Slavney conclude that "genetic factors play some role in the production of homosexual behavior, b u t . . . sexual behavior is molded by many influences, including 'acquired tastes' (or learning) closely related to the culture in which the individual develops . . . . It is possible . . . to picture a future in which homosexual behavior will be so much in the cultural experience of every individual that the genetic contribution will become undetectable" (ibid., 184-85).
102. J. Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard, "A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation," Archives of General Psychiatry 48 (1991): 1089-96; idem, et al., "Heritable Factors Influence Sexual Orientation in Women," Archives of General Psychiatry 50 (1993): 217-23; Michael King and Elizabeth McDonald, "Homosexuals Who Are Twins: A Study of 46 Probands," British Journal of Psychiatry 160 (1992): 407-9; F. L. Whitam, M. Diamond, and J. Martin, "Homosexual Orientation in Twins—A Report of 61 Pairs and 3 Triplet Sets," Archives of Sexual Behavior 22 (1993): 187-206. Cf. also N. Buhrich, J. M. Bailey, and N. G. Martin, "Sexual Orientation, Sexual Identity, and Sex-Dimorphic Behaviors in Male Twins," Behavior Genetics 21 (1991): 75-96.
103. Four of the identical twin pairs were female.
104. Of 46 twin pairs in the study, 38 were male pairs and 8 were female pairs.
105. J. Michael Bailey, Michael P. Dunne, and Nicholas G. Martin, "Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (2000): 524-36 (quote from p. 533). "In contrast to most prior twin studies of sexual orientation, . . . ours did not provide statistically significant support for the importance of genetic factors for that trait." Commenting on Hamer's study, the authors note that "our male [identical-twin] concordance figure suggests . . . that any major gene for strictly defined homosexuality has either low penetrance or low frequency"—that is, any influence on sexual orientation from an X-linked gene is likely to be minimal at best (quotes from p. 534). The authors do note, however, that "our results provided some support" for the "assumption that trait-relevant environment is no more similar for [identical twins] than for [non-identical twins]" (p. 533). Bailey reports higher concordance rates than the ones I give above because in cases where both twins are homosexual he counts each twin separately as a match. This gives him the following inflated concordance rates: 20% for male identical twins, 24% for female identical twins, 0% for male non-identical twins, and 10.5% for female non-identical twins. To this layman, such a method of reporting gives a false impression: given a sample size of one pair of identical twins, if both identical twins were homosexual the concordance rate would be 200% (an oxymoron). Whichever concordance-rate figures one uses, the general public should be aware that Bailey's inflated concordance rates do not represent the percentage of twin pairs concordant for homosexuality. Also important to be aware of is that Bailey counts as "non-heterosexual" anyone who numbers a "2" (heterosexual with substantial homosexual feelings) or above in Kinsey's 0-6-point graduated scale of sexual orientation. See Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 75-78.
106. The figures for the 1993 study of female twin homosexuality by Bailey and Pillard are concordance rates of 16% for non-identical twins, 14% for non-twin sisters, and 6% for adoptive sisters. Even here the incidence of lesbianism among adoptive sisters of lesbians is still three times higher than the national average. Cf. Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 78-79.
107. For references to twin research in the scientific literature, cf. Whitehead, Genes, 152, 155-56.
108. E. Eckert, et al., "Homosexuality in Monzygotic Twins Reared Apart," British Journal of Psychiatry 148 (1986): 421-25. The researchers also located two sets of male identical twins reared separately. In one instance the co-twin was also homosexual, in the other instance the co-twin was heterosexual. Cited in Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 74.
109. Cf. the discussion in Whitehead, Genes, 118.
110. H. F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg, et al., "Prenatal Estrogens and the Development of Homosexual Orientation," Developmental Psychology 31 (1995): 12-21.
111. Cf. Whitehead, Genes, 114.
112. Even gay-gene researcher Dean Hamer acknowledges as much. "Most sissies will grow up to be homosexuals, and most gay men were sissies as children. Despite the provocative and politically incorrect nature of that statement, it fits the evidence. In fact, it may be the most consistent, well-documented, and significant finding in the entire field of sexual-orientation research and perhaps in all of human psychology" (The Science of Desire [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994] 166). Similarly, Simon LeVay, Queer Science (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996) 6,98.
113. Cf. the discussion in Whitehead, Genes, 49-75; Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 54-60, 65-66; Satinover, Homosexuality, 104-8, 184, 221-28; Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 144-48, 214-16; Grenz, Welcoming, 15-21. Also: Joseph Nicolosi, Healing Homosexuality: Case Stories of Reparative Therapy (New York: Jason Aronson, 1993); idem, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (New York: Jason Aronson, 1991); Elizabeth Moberly, Psychogenesis: The Early Development of Gender Identity (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983): eadem, Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic (Cambridge: Clark, 1983); eadem, "Homosexuality: Restating the Conservative Case," Salmagundi 58/59 (1982/83): 281-99; Irving Bieber et al., Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals (New York: Basic Books, 1962); Gerard van den Aardweg, On the Origins and Treatment of Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Reinterpretation (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1986); idem, The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-)Therapy for Homosexuality (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1997); idem, Homosexuality and Hope: A Psychologist Talks About Treatment and Change (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Books, 1986); Elaine V. Segal, Female Homosexuality: Choice Without Volition (Hillsdale, N.J.: The Analytic Press, 1988); Charles Socarides, Homosexuality: Psychoanalytic Therapy (New York: Jason Aronson, 1989); idem, Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far (Phoenix: Adam Margrave, 1995); idem, "Advances in Psychoanalytic Theory and Therapy of Male Homosexuality," The Sexual Deviations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 252-78; Lawrence J. Hatterer, Changing Homosexuality in the Male: Treatment for Men Troubled by Homosexuality (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970); Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, Homosexuality: A Symbolic Confusion (New York: Seabury, 1977); Edmund Bergler, Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life (New York: Collier Books, 1962).
114. Daryl J. Bem, "Exotic Becomes Erotic: A Developmental Theory of Sexual Orientation," Psychological Review 103 (1996): 320-35. Bem, a homosexual who "came out" after thirty years of marriage and two children, hopes his theory will promote a "non-gender-polarizing culture" (ibid., 332).
115. Joseph Nicolosi, "A Critique of Bern's E.B.E. Theory," n.p. [updated Aug. 5, 1999]. Online: http://www.narthom/docs/critique.html.
116. Satinover, Homosexuality, 189-95.
117. Cf. Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 57-58. According to the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey, among those who had been sexually touched as a child by an adult, 7.4% of the men and 3.1% of the women identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual. Yet self-identified homosexuals/bisexuals accounted for only 2.8% of the men and 1.4% of the women in the survey (Edward O. Laumann et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States [Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994], 297, 344). A nationwide survey by Family Research Institute found that homosexuals and bisexuals were nine times more likely to have been sexually molested as a child (Paul Cameron et al., "Child Molestation and Homosexuality," Psychological Reports 58 [1986]: 327-37). A review of the literature on molestation of boys in the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that adolescents who were sexually molested by men were up to seven times more likely to identify themselves later as homosexual (W. C. Holmes et al., "Sexual Abuse of Boys," JAMA 280 [1998]: 1855-62).
118. Whitehead, Genes, 85-95. The Whiteheads also refer to an interesting experiment on animals, in which researchers at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge "allowed ten ewes to raise goats from birth and ten nanny goats to raise lambs from birth. . . . Once mature they ignored their own species and tried to mate 90% of the time with the foster mother species even after years of mixing with their own species, the males did not revert (but females did). If the sexuality of these lower animals was so influenced by learning, human sexuality will be more so" (ibid., 59; referring to: K. M. Kendrick et al., "Mothers Determine Sexual Preferences," Nature 395 [1998]: 229-30).
119. The Construction of Homosexuality, 66.
120. Ibid., 74-77.
121. Ibid., 487 (my emphasis).
122. Cf. the chart in Laumann et al., Social Organization, 305-6. The NHSLS study is the most extensive survey to date of sexual practices of Americans. The addition of the GSS adds 5,585 more adults to the NHSLS sample size, bringing it to a total of 8,744 adults.
123. Ibid., 307 (my emphasis).
124. Ibid., 308 (my emphasis).
125. Ibid., 305.
126. Ibid., 310.
127. Polls consistently show that a significant majority of all Americans still regard homosexual intercourse as inherently wrong.
128. Social Organization, 298-300, 311.
129. That is, 8.6% and 10.1% of the total number of women and men surveyed, respectively.
130. Paul Cameron et al., "Sexual Orientation and Sexually Transmitted Disease," Nebraska Medical Journal 70 (1985): 292-99; Paul Cameron, Kirk Cameron, and K. Proctor, "The Effect of Homosexuality upon Public Health and Social Order," Psychological Reports 64 (1989): 1167-79; results cited in Cameron, The Gay Nineties, 71-74.
131. Alan P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 53-61, 286-94. In the following discussion, it is useful to keep in mind Kinsey's 7-point graduated scale: (0) exclusively heterosexual, (1) predominantly heterosexual, (2) mostly heterosexual, (3) equally heterosexual and homosexual, (4) mostly homosexual, (5) predominantly homosexual, and (6) exclusively homosexual.
132. A. P. Bell, M. S. Weinberg, S. K. Hammersmith, Sexual Preference: Its Development in Men and Women (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).
133. Particularly helpful for the following discussion are Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, ch. 5; Satinover, Homosexuality, chs. 11-13; and Whitehead, Genes, ch. 12.
134. Satinover, Homosexuality, 186.
135. "The Results of the 1997 NARTH Survey on Change," self-published and distributed by NARTH (www.narthom).
136. Cf. Satinover's description of the sordid politics behind the American Psychiatric Association's decision to normalize homosexuality in 1973 (Homosexuality, 32-35). The "big chill" is most dramatically illustrated in the sharp decline in articles in medical and psychological journals, as listed in the Medline database: from 1,021 for the years 1966 to 1974; to 42 for the years 1975 to 1979; to a paltry two for the years 1992 to 1994 (ibid., 169).
137. This is particularly true of lesbians, where it is not at all uncommon in midlife for exclusively lesbian females to become bisexual or exclusively heterosexual females to become bisexual. Cf. M. Nichols, "Bisexuality in Women: Myths, Realities and Implications for Therapy," Women and Therapy 7 (1988): 235-52; J. K. Dixon, "Sexuality and Relationship Changes in Married Females Following the Commencement of Bisexual Activity," JHomosex 11 (1985): 115-33 (both cited by Whitehead). In 1993 a case was reported in which a man who was being treated for social phobia with the drug phenelzine incidentally switched orientations from exclusive homosexuality to primary heterosexuality (Satinover, Homosexuality, 189-90).
138. Included here is Desert Stream (headquartered in Los Angeles), founded by Andrew Comiskey, an ex-homosexual. Among independent ministries two in particular merit special mention: Redeemed Life Ministries, which is based in Wheaton, Illinois, and founded by Mario Bergner (another ex-homosexual); and Pastoral Care Ministries, also operating out of Wheaton, Illinois, and founded by Leanne Payne.
139. For further information, see Satinover, Homosexuality, 196-209, 268-69; Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 133-38. Among the books providing pastoral help to homosexuals seeking to change, see Mario Bergner, Setting Love in Order: Hope and Healing for the Homosexual (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995); Andrew Comiskey, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How Jesus Heals the Homosexual (Lake Mary, Fla.: Creation House, 1988); William Consiglio, Homosexual No More: Practical Strategies for Christians Overcoming Homosexuality (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1991); Joe Dallas, A Strong Delusion: Confronting the "Gay Christian" Movement (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1996); Bob Davies and Lori Rentzel, Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men and Women (Downers Grove, I11.: InterVarsity, 1993); Father John E. Harvey, The Homosexual Person: New Thinking in Pastoral Care (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987); idem, ed., The Truth About Homosexuality: The Cry of the Faithful (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1996); Jeanette Howard, Out of Egypt: Leaving Lesbianism Behind (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994); Ed Hurst, Overcoming Homosexuality (Elgin, I11.: David C. Cook, 1987); Leanne Payne, Healing Homosexuality (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996); Michael R. Saia, Counseling the Homosexual (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1988); Frank Worthen, Helping People Step Out of Homosexuality (Manila: OMF Literature, 1991).
140. For a strident and biased critique, see Douglas C. Haldeman, "The Practice and Ethics of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 62 (April 1999): 221-227; idem, "Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy for Gay Men and Lesbians: A Scientific Examination," Homosexuality: Research Implications for Public Policy (ed. J. C. Gonsiorek and J. D. Weinrich; Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1991), 149-60. For a critique of Haldeman, see Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 140-48.
141. One study of women becoming lesbian in midlife found that they broke into two groups: those who thought they had always been lesbian and those who believed that they had made a conscious choice to become lesbian (C. Charbonneau and P. S. Landers, "Redefining Sexuality: Women Becoming Lesbian in Midlife," Lesbians at Midlife [eds. B. Sang et al.; San Francisco: Spinsters Book Co., 1991], 35-43).
142. Genes, 197.
143. Warren Throckmorton, "Attempts to Modify Sexual Orientation: A Review of Outcome Literature and Ethical Issues," Journal of Mental Health Counseling 20 (Oct. 1998): 283-304 (quote from p. 286).
144. Haacker, "Exegetische Gesichtspunkte," 177.
145. The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 390: 'The Bible's sober anthropology rejects the apparently commonsense assumption that only freely chosen acts are morally culpable. Quite the reverse: the very nature of sin is that it is not freely chosen. That is what it means to live 'in the flesh' in a fallen creation."
146. Balz, "Biblische Aussagen zur Homosexualität," 64. Biblical writers used catch-all terms for sexual immorality and licentiousness which readers would have understood to include same-sex intercourse.
147. Even Hays succumbs to the temptation of confusing frequency of mention with importance: "In terms of emphasis, [homosexual behavior] is a minor concern in contrast, for example, to economic injustice. The paucity of texts addressing the issue is a significant fact for New Testament ethics. What the Bible does say should be heeded carefully, but any ethic that intends to be biblical will seek to get the accents in the right place, not overemphasizing peripheral issues. Would that the passion presently being expended in the church over the question of homosexuality were devoted instead to urging the wealthy to share with the poor!" (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 381). I would say a hearty "Amen" to the last sentence if the "instead" were changed to "in addition," emphasizing that the passion for generous distribution of material resources should attain to the same level of passion for sexual purity (to be sure, heterosexual and not just homosexual), not that the latter should be diminished in significance. Frequency of New Testament mention is not in itself a decisive factor in determining significance, as the incest example in 1 Corinthians 5 clearly shows. I see no reason from a biblical perspective to rank various forms of sexual immorality lower on the scale of sin than economic injustice. Both are egregious, though individual culpability for economic injustice is more difficult to establish in all but the most severe cases. The debate on same-sex intercourse receives greater stress in the contemporary context than it does in most writings of the Bible because it has now become affirmed by a large minority of Christians, whereas in the first century there was no serious debate about its legitimacy.
148. Twice in vice lists if one accepts the Pastoral Epistles as Pauline (1 Tim 1:10).
149. The deuteropauline texts are Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus). The so-called Catholic Epistles are James, 1-2 Peter, 1-2-3 John, and Jude.
150. See, for example, the negative references to homosexuality in 1 Tim 1:10; Rev 21:8; 22:15; Jude 7; 2 Pet 2:7; the conservative household codes, which presuppose only one acceptable sexual relationship; and Revelation's uncompromising stance against eating idol meat.
151. According to the Apostolic Decree, gentiles were to abstain from: (1) "things sacrificed to idols" (eidolothyta), encompassing both sacrificing to a god other than Yahweh and eating food offered to idols (alluding to Lev 17:1-9 which mandates that all sacrifices be brought "to the entrance of the tent of meeting" so that "they may no longer offer their sacrifices for goat-demons, to whom they prostitute themselves"); (2) "blood" (haitna; alluding to Lev 17:10-12 where the eating of blood is prohibited), possibly containing a secondary allusion to not shedding blood (i.e., "bloodshed," murder) since the command to Noah and his descendants in Gen 9:4-6 couples the prohibition against eating animals from which the blood had not been drained with a prohibition against shedding human blood; (3) "what is strangled (or choked to death; pnikton), that is, eating animals that were killed without having the blood drained from them (alluding to Lev 17:13-14 which refers to pouring out the blood of animals that have not died from a shedding of blood); and (4) "sexual immorality" (porneia; alluding to Lev 18:6-23, which forbids incest, adultery, intercourse between males, and bestiality). The fact that the sequence of the commands of the Apostolic Decree corresponds to the sequence in Leviticus 17-18 further confirms the former's derivation from the latter. Obviously the Decree was not exhaustive but was designed to treat disputed matters.
The historicity of the Apostolic Decree has been subject to much debate, largely because Paul's own account of the Jerusalem Conference emphatically states that the only stipulation placed on gentile believers was the collection for the poor Christians in Jerusalem (Gal 2:10) and because Paul advocated a more liberal stance toward the eating of idol meat when discussing the issue in 1 Corinthians 8-10 (for Paul it was permissible to eat idol meat so long as one did not eat it in a pagan temple or eat it in the presence of fellow believers or pagans who might be "stumbled"). There is also no extant evidence from the Pauline corpus that Paul would have objected to the eating of meat that had not been properly drained of blood. Some have speculated that the author of Luke-Acts was describing an event that occurred after Paul's meeting with the "pillars" of the Jerusalem church, whether still during the lifetime of Paul (but perhaps without Paul signing off on it) or in the author's own day. Regardless, it certainly represents the view of the author of Luke-Acts and, at least with respect to the proscription of porneia (including same-sex intercourse), undoubtedly represented the sentiments of Christian leadership everywhere in the first hundred years of Christian history. It is possible that the prohibition against eating meat improperly drained of blood was implemented purely for the sake of avoiding offense in dealings with Jews and some Jewish Christians, especially given that no other NT text mentions a problem with eating blood. The same may also be true of the injunction against eating idol meat (though Rev 2:14, 20 and the "weak" gentiles at Corinth also objected to this). However, no early Christian leader (certainly not the apostles of the early church or their disciples) viewed worship of idols and sexual immorality as a mere "convention" that one should respect so as to avoid offending the scruples of others. Codex Bezae (D) dropped the prohibition against "what is strangled" and added the Golden Rule in order to conform the Apostolic Decree more closely to moral law (prohibitions against idolatry, "bloodshed," and sexual immorality). For discussion of text-critical problems, see B. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed.; Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 1994), 379-83.
152. By the early third century C.E., rabbis generally identified at least seven "Noahide" commandments, having to do with judicial injustice, idolatry, blasphemy of the divine name, "sexual immorality" (literally, "the uncovering of nakedness," a reference to forms of sexual intercourse forbidden by the Torah in Leviticus 18), "the shedding of blood" (murder), robbery, and eating the flesh of living creatures (i.e., meat that had not been drained of blood; cf. t. cAbod. Tar. 8:4; b. Sanh. 56a-b). According to b. Sanh. 58a, sexual intercourse between males was included in the prohibition against sexual immorality (cf. Maimonides, Kings 9:5). Whether this precise series existed in the first century C.E. is a matter of debate but certainly many of the elements (including idolatry and sexual immorality) were part of the minimal expectation on moral behavior for gentiles, as the Apostolic Decree suggests. In Jub. 7:20-21 (ca. 150 B.E.) Noah is said to have commanded his descendants to "do justice and cover the shame of their flesh (= avoid incest) and bless the one who created them and honor father and mother, and each love his neighbor and preserve themselves from porneia and pollution and from all injustice." Sibylline Oracle 4:24-34 (ca. 80 C.E.) pronounces happy "those of humankind on earth" who worship the true God and reject idolatry, "commit no wicked murder, nor deal in dishonest gain. Neither have they disgraceful desire for another's spouse (= adultery) or for hateful and repulsive abuse of a male (= homosexual intercourse)." The Didache (Syria, early second century) mentions prohibitions against murder, adultery, idolatry, theft, and blasphemy (3:1-6; the same five appear in b. Yoma 67b; Sipra on Lev. 18:4). Cf. David Novak, The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws (New York: Mellen, 1983), 3-51,199-222; Mark D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans, 50-55; Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 195-200; Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (vol. 3.1; rev. and ed. F. Millar, et al.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986), 171-72; Str-B 2.722; 3.37-8; Moore, Judaism, 1.274-75; 3.86; JE 7.648-50; EncJud 12:1189-91.
153. See the helpful treatment by Dearman, "Marriage in the Old Testament," 53-67.
154. Adultery for same-sex unions would be a non sequitur because a union that has no standing from the start cannot be violated.
155. E.g., Mark 6:18 par.; 10:2-12, 17-22 par.; 13:18-27 par.; Luke 16:18 par.; Rom 7:1-6; 1 Cor 7; 9:5; 11:1-16; 1 Thess 4:3-8; Col 3:18-19; Eph 5:22-33; 1 Tim 3:2, 12; 5:14; 1 Pet 3:1-7.
156. E.g., Isa 5:1-7; 54:5-7; 61:10; 62:4-5; Jer 2:2, 20-3:3; 31:32; Ezekiel 16, 23; Hosea 1-3; Mark 2:19-20 par.; Matt 22:1-14; 25:1-13; John 3:29; Eph 5:30-32; Rev 19:7-9.
157. "The Use of Scripture," 18, 27, 29, 30, 32.
158. Sheppard claims, wrongly in my view, that Paul recommended marriage "only if it prevent[ed] one from being consumed by lust." Ibid., 27.
159. E.g., sperm as the self-sufficient seed of life or same-sex orientation as a voluntary choice.
160. Ibid., 30.
161. Ibid.
162. Bartlett, "A Biblical Perspective on Homosexuality," 142; Sheppard, "The Use of Scripture," 19, 30-31.
163. For application of the divorce sayings to our contemporary context, see Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, 366-76.
164. For a recent treatment along these lines, explaining why "we find a significantly different situation with regard to homosexuality from that with regard to the ordination of women," cf. R. T. France, "From Romans to the Real World: Biblical Principles and Cultural Change in Relation to Homosexuality and the Ministry of Women," Romans and the People of God (FS Gordon Fee; eds. S. K. Soderlund and N. T. Wright; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 234-53.
165. The literature on slavery in the Bible and in the ancient world is enormous and no attempt will be made here to provide a comprehensive citation of even the most significant treatments. For a general treatment, cf. M. A. Dandamayev, "Slavery (ANE)" and "Slavery (OLD TESTAMENT)," and Scott S. Bartchy, "Slavery (Greco-Roman)," ABD 6:58-73; for Philemon, Norman R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985); idem, "Philemon," HBC (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 1245-48; Bartchy, "Philemon, Epistle to," ABD 5:305-10; for 1 Cor 7:21, G. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 315-20; Bartchy, MALLON CHRESAL First Century Slavery and the Interpretation of 1 Cor 7:21 (SBLDS 11; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1973; but Bartchy's translation of chresai as "live according to [God's calling]" is implausible); Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990).
166. The ancient "Book of the Covenant" or "Covenant Code" (Exod 20:22-23:33) distinguished between male and female slaves. The latter were not required to be released in the seventh year, since they were sold by fathers into slavery as concubines (Exod 21:7-11). Later, Deuteronomic law eradicated any distinction between male and female slaves (15:12, 17).
167. The law of the Sabbatical year was often not enforced in Israel's history (cf. Zedekiah 's actions during the siege of Jerusalem by Babylon in Jer 34:8-17; cf. also Neh 5:1-13; 2 Kgs 4:1). Our concern here, however, is with the statements of Scripture, not human disobedience.
168. For points (2) and (3), cf. also v. 21: "I know that you will do even more than what I am (explicitly) asking."
169. Like the pre-Civil War American South, ancient Greece and Rome had slave economies. As much as one-third of the population of the major cities consisted of slaves. However, slavery in the Roman Empire had significant differences from antebellum American slavery. Regarding the former, first, slavery was not based on race (Rome was an equal-opportunity oppressor). Second, for most slaves (particularly urban or domestic slaves) slavery was not a permanent condition. Third, for some people, slavery was a means of climbing the social ladder or obtaining special jobs or rights (depending on the status of one's owner). Even if slavery did not bring any elevation in status, many undoubtedly considered it preferable to starvation. Fourth, slaves could own property. Still, despite these "benefits," slaves were treated as pieces of property (a "speaking tool"), were often sexually abused by masters, and were required to be tortured to verify any testimony given in court.
170. Paul contends that Philemon is not losing a slave but gaining a Christian brother for fellowship, for the work of the gospel, and for assistance to Philemon's spiritual patron Paul (vv. 15-16).
171. Perhaps the biggest mistake made by the NRSV translation committee in the entire NT is the flipflop done on 1 Cor 7:21. In the RSV, the main reading was "avail yourself of the opportunity" (i.e., to become free) and the marginal reading was "make use of your present condition instead" (i.e., stay a slave). The NRSV reversed the order, making the marginal reading the new main reading (replacing "instead" with "now more than ever"; cf. NJB: "you should prefer to make full use of your condition as a slave"). The main NRSV reading presumes that Paul instructed the Corinthians not to become free even if they had an opportunity to do so. This is surely a nonsensical interpretation, which not even the Stoics recommended. (Cf. the old Stoic adage to eat from the plate if it passes before you but not pant after it if it does not). Moreover, it requires that 1 Cor 7:17-24 be the only major section in 1 Corinthians 7 lacking an exception clause, and this despite containing the "but if that introduces most of the other exception clauses (all' ei in 1 Cor 7:21, elsewhere ei de). Furthermore, one usually supplies the word missing in an ellipse with the closest antecedent, in the same sentence if possible. The closest referent is "becoming free" at the beginning of the sentence, not "slavery" (which appears in the preceding sentence). Finally, the statement "do not let it trouble you" is not of the same character as the expected "let him remain a slave"; the apparent reason is that Paul was not adamant about a slave remaining in bondage if that slave could obtain freedom. I have read of no convincing counterargument for advancing the interpretation adopted by the NRSV (1 Tim 6:2 does not provide a persuasive parallel and the usual sense of ei kai as "even i f can support either interpretation). Apparently, the committee was swayed by the similar readings adopted by Conzelmann ("remain the more readily as you are"), Barrett ("put up rather with your present status"), and Orr and Walther ("rather make use of [slavery]") in their respective commentaries on 1 Corinthians; possibly also by the misplaced idea that a translation that made Paul look less appealing to contemporary interpreters was more likely to be the correct reading. Significant arguments against that interpretation had already been advanced by Bartchy, Peter Trummer ("Die chance der Freiheit. Zur Interpretation des [mallon chresai] in 1 Kor 7, 21," Bib 56 [1975]: 344-68), and Peter Stuhlmacher (Der Brief an Philemon [EKKNT; Zurich: Benziger, 1975], 45); cf. NIV: "do it"; NEB: "take it." Since the 1980s, the dominant interpretation has been that Paul was recommending that believers take their freedom if they can get it: G. Fee ("by all means make use of it"); W. Schrage ("use it [= the freedom] all the more so"); J. Albert Harrill, "Paul and Slavery: The Problem of 1 Corinthians 7:21," Biblical Research 39 (1994): 5-28 ("use [freedom] instead [of remaining a slave]"); your freedom]"); Norbert Baumert, Ehelosigkeit und Ehe im Herrn (Würzburg: Echter, 1984) ("make use of it rather for yourself [i.e., . . . 'concern yourself rather with this 'being-able-to-become-free'"); similarly, Will Deming, "A Diatribe Pattern in 1 Cor. 7:21-22," NovT 37 (1995): 130-37. Stuhlmacher and Schrage are exceptional, however, in recognizing that Paul was not just saying "take the opportunity to become free"; he was exhorting believers to "use that freedom all the more to serve Christ."
172. Walter Wink, "Homosexuality and the Bible," in Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches (ed. W. Wink; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 33-49.
173. Cf. Countryman who argues "the gospel allows no rule against" bestiality, polygamy, pornography, and for "those who have no other access to sexual gratification," sex with prostitutes (Dirt, Greed, and Sex, 243-44, 264). Countryman conspicuously leaves unbroached incest between consenting adults.
174. Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:11; Phil 3:10; Gal 4:19.
175. Homosexualities, 81-102, 312-25.
176. The Social Organization of Sexuality, 313-16. According to the study, the mean number of sex partners in the last year for men who self-identify as homosexual or bisexual (= H/BM) is higher, but not extraordinarily higher, than heterosexual men (= HetM): 3.1 (H/BM) to 1.8 (HetM). Given the very small sample size of homosexual men for this study and the much higher rates for homosexual men suggested in the studies cited below, the NHSLS figure of 3.1 is probably too low (the authors report a "confidence level" that the real figure for H/BMs is no higher than 4.2 partners). Even so, the difference between a relationship having no extra-relational outlets in a given year and one having one or two additional sex partners is enormous. The same study noted that three quarters of all adult males (a composite of the 97.2% heterosexual and the 2.8% homosexual or bisexual) had just one partner or less in the preceding year. I do not know any husband who, upon telling his wife that he only had one or two extramarital outlets that year, would be congratulated on his fidelity to the relationship. When the time interval is stretched to the number of sex partners in the last five years the increase is even more significant: means of 18 for H/BMs to 4.9 for HetMs (an increase of 367%). The authors acknowledge that the real figures could be as high as 26.7 for H/BMs and 5.6 for HetMs (a 477% increase). As for the number of partners since age eighteen, H/BMs have a mean of 42.8 sex partners and HetMs 16.5 (an increase of 260%). Here again the figures could be as high as 73.1 sex partners for H/BMs and 19.4 for HetMs (a 377% increase).
Unfortunately, because the sample size for current self-identified female lesbians or bisexuals was under thirty, NHSLS did not report their findings for this group. However, for women who at one time or another since the age of eighteen had at least one same-gender sex partner (and who currently may or may not selfidentify as a lesbian), the mean number of sex partners since age eighteen was 19.7, compared to 4.9 for women who have never had any same-sex partners since the age of eighteen (a fourfold increase). These figures can be compared with the same category for men, those who had any same-gender partners since age eighteen (44.3 sex partners) and those who did not (15.7 sex partners). In effect, females who had any same-gender partners since age eighteen had slightly more sex partners than men who have never had same-gender partners, but still less than half the number of sex partners had by men with any same-gender partners since age eighteen.
177. R. A. Kaslow et al., "The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study: Rationale, Organization, and Selected Characteristics of the Participants," American Journal
of Epidemiology 126 (August 1987): 310-18 (cited by Satinover). A Boston study of 481 homosexual men published in 1992 reported that 77% had more than ten partners in the previous five years. For this and other studies, cf. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 106-7, 199.
178. Social Organization, 179: 0 partners (3.4%), 1 partner (19.5%), 2-4 partners (20.9%), 5-10 partners (23.3%), 11-20 partners (16.3%), 21 or more partners (16.6%). Note that among those males surveyed, roughly 2.8% identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual; removing them from the sample would mean a slightly higher rate of heterosexual males having 20 or fewer sex partners.
179. Paul Van de Ven, et al., "A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men," Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 349-60 [and personal correspondence]. The study was done for the National Centre in HIV Social Research at Macquarie University.
180. Janet Lever, Ph.D., "The 1994 Advocate Survey of Sexuality and Relationships: The Men: Sexual Relations," The Advocate (Aug. 23, 1994): 16-24.
181. Janet Lever, "The 1995 Advocate Survey of Sexuality and Relationships: The Women: Lesbian Sex Survey," The Advocate (Aug. 22, 1995): 25, 29. Lever does not list the number of female sex partners in just the prior year for all respondents; but she notes: "Long periods of celibacy are common among lesbians" (ibid., 26).
182. A. A. Deenen, L. Gijs, and A. X. van Naerssen, "Intimacy and Sexuality in Gay Male Couples," Archives of Sexual Behavior 23 (1994): 421-31.
183. P. Blumstein and P. Schwartz, "Intimate Relationships and the Creation of Sexuality," Homosexuality/Heterosexuality (eds. D. P. McWhirter et al.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 317.
184. Cf. the series of studies cited by Paul Cameron, "Same Sex Marriage: Til Death Do Us Part?" (Colorado Springs: Family Research Institute, 1997). Briefly, the percentage of gays in monogamous relationships for the preceding year alone was: in London, 23% (though here only for the preceding month; 1987); in Toronto, 12% (1990); in Australia, 25.5% (with 35% in non-monogamous relationships and 29% participating only in casual sex; 1991); in San Francisco, 14% (1993). Two combined Dutch studies (1992) indicated that 78% of homosexual males had more than five partners in the past year alone (P. J. Veugelers et al., "Estimation of the Magnitude of the HIV Epidemic Among Homosexual Men," European Journal of Epidemiology 9 [July 1993]: 438; cited by Schmidt). The Bell and Weinberg study (1978) reported that only 10% of homosexual males and 28% of homosexual females could be classified as "close-coupled," a classification that required a "low" number of sexual partners (under four per year?), minimal "cruising," and minimal sexual problems. Another large survey from the 1970s, interviewing 4,329 homosexual men, found that over a third had never been in a relationship lasting longer than a year, over half for more than two years, and only 7% for more than ten years (K. Jay and A. Young, The Gay Report [New York: Summit, 1979], 339-40).
185. The NHSLS study found that 76.7% of all male respondents had either just one (66.8%) or no sex partners (9.9%) in the preceding year, 18.3% had 2-4 partners; 5.1% had five or more, 88.3% of all women had only one partner (74.7%) or none (13.6%); 10% had 2-4 partners; and only 1.7% had five or more (Social Organization, 177). Another major survey, published at roughly the same time, reported that 83% of all men and 90% of all women had either one sex partner in the previous year or none (C. Leigh, et al., "The Sexual Behavior of U.S. Adults," American Journal of Public Health 83 [October 1993]: 1404; cited by Schmidt).
186. Social Organization, 216.
187. David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984).
188. J. Harry, Gay Couples (New York: Praeger Books, 1984), 115 (cited by Schmidt).
189. In the April 1994 issue of Genre magazine (a publication geared toward homosexuals), Doug Sadownick examined the phenomenon of gay partnerships and concluded that "to adapt heterosexual relations [to homosexual ones] is more than just foolhardy; it's an act of oppression." Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual and editor of the New Republic, has written: "there is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman; and again, the lack of children gives gay couples greater freedom. . . . marriage should be made available to everyone. . . . But within this model, there is plenty of scope for cultural difference. There is something baleful about the attempt of some gay conservatives to educate homosexuals and lesbians into an uncritical acceptance of a stifling model of heterosexual normality" (Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality [New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1996], 200-204).
190. The Project SIGMA study of nearly one thousand homosexual men in England and Wales found that the median length of cohabitation with a regular male sex partner was twenty-one months. The number of homosexual couples is also extremely small relative to the number of homosexuals. Many estimates put the number of homosexuals/bisexuals in the population as 2-3%. Yet the 1990 U.S. Census indicated that there were only 88,200 homosexual couples and 69,200 lesbian couples—less than one-fifth of 1% of the total number of couples (Cameron, The Gay 90s, 31). Denmark has legalized a form of homosexual marriage since 1989. Yet, six years later, only 5% of Danish homosexuals had married (Cameron, "Same Sex Marriage," 3).
191. One study found that only 8% of homosexual men and 7% of homosexual women ever had relationships that lasted four years or more (M. T. Saghir and E. Robins, Male and Female Homosexuality: A Comprehensive Investigation [Baltimore: Williams Wilkins, 1973]; cited by Schmidt). A large non-random survey of almost 8,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples indicated that the average length of relationships was 3.5 years for male homosexual couples and 2.2 years for lesbian couples (P. Blumstein and P. Schwartz, American Couples [New York: Morrow, 1983]; cited by Cameron). The recent Advocate surveys confirm the shorter terms for lesbian relationships. Twenty-six percent of the male respondents who were in a relationship at the time of the survey claimed that they had been with their partner for at least ten years (albeit often in an "open" relationship; a nearly equal number, 23%, said that the relationship had been going on for less than a year (Lever, "Men," 24). By comparison only 14% of the female respondents had been with their partner at least ten years and of these 14% only 2% in a relationship longer than twenty years; 22% said their current relationship had gone on for less than a year. A full 30% had seriously considered ending their relationship within the prior twelve months (Lever, "Lesbian Sex Survey," 27).
192. Of course it would be foolish to suggest that women are not at all sexually stimulated by sight or that men are not at all sexually stimulated by a demonstration of concern. Nevertheless, there are basic differences in the way men and women are stimulated sexually. What married man does not know this? Wives get sexually stimulated when they see their husbands taking the initiative to wash and wax the kitchen floor (more precisely, it is the conveyance of caring and compassion that translates into greater receptivity to sexual intimacy). Husbands get stimulated when they see their wives wearing something sexy. Wives need the big buildup all throughout the day; husbands can get visually stimulated on a moment's notice. The far greater popularity of pornography among males than among females is also clear testimony to the different ways in which men and women are sexually aroused.
193. Cf. Donald Symons, The Evolution of Human Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 292-300. Symons emphasizes "the male's tendencies to be sexually aroused by visual stimuli, the specifically genital focus of male sexual arousal and relief, and the autonomous, fantasizing, initiatory, appetitive, driving aspects of male sexuality. . . . The function of these male characteristics is to generate reproductive opportunities in a milieu in which such opportunities were always competitive" (292). According to Symons, women evolved differently because it was not in their reproductive or nurturing interests to be sexually promiscuous. Differences in the sexual behavior of men and women are most evident in male and female homosexual relationships. The former are much more given to pornography, one-night stands with strangers, multiple partners, and the lure of youth and physical beauty; the latter are more successful at serial monogamy and put greater stress on the social status of partners. An illustration of the differences is the absence of the phenomenon of lesbian baths. Male homosexuals, Symons argues, do not exhibit different tendencies in sexual behavior than their heterosexual counterparts; they simply lack the restraints imposed by female partnership. Symons acknowledges that different social conditions may have some effect on transforming evolutionary patterns, but within limits. He notes that cross-cultural studies confirm significant differences between homosexual and heterosexual relationships. These transcultural differ-ences can be explained by the fact that "heterosexual relations are structured to a substantial degree by the nature and interests of the human female" (300). In commenting on Symons's work, Steven J. Pope is a little more hopeful about change in male homosexual patterns of behavior. "If modification of male sexual patterns has in fact been effected by conditions attending the formation of pair-bonds with females, perhaps the same is possible, if more difficult, in moral commitments of male same-sex partners" ("Scientific and Natural Law Analyses of Homosexuality: A Methodological Study,"JRE 25 [1997]: 89-126; quote from p. 120). Pope overlooks Symons's point: males can be resocialized when their partners are females. But males will remain males; when a male's partner is a male both will share these proclivities.
My faculty colleague Charles Partee pointed me to the following citation in David M. Buss's The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (New York: Basic Books, 1994): "Imagine that an attractive person of the opposite sex walks up to you on a college campus and says: 'Hi, I've been noticing you around town lately, and I find you very attractive. Would you go to bed with me?' How would you respond? If you are like 100% of the women in one study, you would give an emphatic no. You would be offended, insulted, or plain puzzled by the request out of the blue. But if you are a man, the odds are 75% that you would say yes. You would most likely feel flattered by the request" (p. 73).
194. Jeffrey S. Siker, "Homosexual Christians, the Bible, and Gentile Inclusion: Confessions of a Repenting Heterosexist," Homosexuality in the Church, 187-90; idem, "Gentile Wheat and Homosexual Christians: New Testament Directions for the Heterosexual Church," Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality, 145-46; Luke Timothy Johnson, Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making in the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 144-48 (see already the 1983 edition, pp. 96-97); idem, "Debate & Discernment, Scripture & the Spirit," Commonweal (Jan. 28, 1994): 12-13.
195. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 399.
196. See Donald Gowan, Eschatology in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 42-58.
197. Gen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; illustrated already in the blessings of Ishmael and Esau.
198. Cf., e.g., Isa 2:2-4 (par. Mic 4:1-4); 19:18-25; 25:6-7; 45:22-23; 49:6; 56:7; 66:19; Zech 8:22-23; 14:16-19.
199. Even the "Judaizers" that dogged Paul's law-free mission were not opposed to active gentile mission (indeed, they themselves undertook such a mission). The disagreement existed only over whether gentile believers should observe the Mosaic law in toto, particularly those elements that in the ancient world defined a Jew as a Jew (i.e., circumcision, dietary laws, sabbath and festival observances).
200. Exod 12:18-19; 20:10-11; 22:21; 23:9; Deut 5:14; 16:11,14; 29:11; 31:12; Leviticus 17-18; 24:22; Num 15:14-16, 29-30.
201. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People, vol. 3, 162-63.
202. John J. Collins, "A Symbol of Otherness: Circumcision and Salvation in the First Century," To See Ourselves as Others See Us (eds. J. Neusner and E. Frerichs; Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), 164-69 (my emphasis). Also: idem, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 137-74, esp. 142-43.
203. A Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 81-82.
204. Cf. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.123, 282; J.W. 2.463; Ant. 14.110; Luke 7:1-10; Acts 10; 13:16, 26, 43-50; 14:1; 16:14; 17:4, 12, 17; 18:4, 7; Rom 2:19-20; the category of "fearers of Heaven" and "righteous gentiles" in the Talmud; the inscription from Aphrodisias, ca. 210 C.E., which records a group of donors distinct from Jews and proselytes known as "God-fearers"; the inscription on a theater seat in Sardis, "Place for the Jews and God-fearers" (or: ". . . 'Jews' [i.e., gentile adherents to Judaism] who are also [more precisely called?] God-fearers"); the inscription from Panticapeum, which refers to a manumission "under the guardianship of the synagogue of the Jews and God-fearers"; Juvenal, Sat. 14.96-106; and Tertullian, Nat. 1.13.
205. McKnight, A Light Among the Gentiles, 100. See: ibid., 78-101,108-15; Collins, "Otherness," 163-86; Schürer, History, 3.1:160-74; Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 342-82; idem, "The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers," BAR 12:5 (Sept/Oct 1986): 58-63; Paul R. Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (SNTSMS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991), 145-66; Bernd Wander, Gottesfürchtige und Sympathisanten: Studien zum heidnischen Umfeld von Diasporasynagogen (WUNT 104; Tubingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1998). For the rejection of the notion of a formally recognized status of gentile "God-fearers"
206. Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE (London: SCM, 1992), 295.
207. Like the homosexual offender, "the man who lies with his father's wife" is to be given the death sentence according to the Holiness Code (Lev 20:11).
208. Cf. Paul Cameron, Kirk Cameron, and William L. Playfair, "Does Homosexual Activity Shorten Life?" Psychological Reports 83 (1998): 847-66. Another study estimated "life expectancy at age 20 for [Canadian] gay and bisexual men [to be] 8 to 20 years less than for all men" (Robert S. Hogg, et al., "Modelling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men," International Journal of Epidemiology 26 [1997]: 657-61). The twenty-year figure assumes homosexual and bisexual men account for 3% of the total male population aged over twenty; the eight-year figure assumes they account for 9% of the population. (By contrast, smoking is estimated to reduce lifespan by two years.) With advances in AIDS treatment, we might expect that figure to come down a little.
209. The data that Jones and Yarhouse (Homosexuality, 123) have accumulated regarding the success rate of sexual orientation conversion therapy suggests that the 50% figure may be high. The 30% figure given for treatment of alcoholism is about right for homosexuality as well.
210. Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, 49-51.
211. Cf. cdc.gov/nchstp/hiv_aids. A 1997 Australian study indicated that among homosexually active men from ages twenty-five to fifty roughly 11% of those who had been tested were HIV positive (Van de Ven, "Older Homosexually Active Men," 357. A self-selected survey of American homosexual men put the figure at 13% (Lever, "The 1994 Advocate Survey," 21). Both studies also indicated that the majority of men who were homosexually active in the preceding year did not use condoms, either sometimes or always. The Young Men's Survey studied the prevalence of HIV infection among 3,492 fifteen- to twenty-two-year-old males who have sex with males, in seven American cities from 1994 through 1998. It found that the HIV infection rate was high, averaging 7.2%, and rising to 9.7% already by the tender age of twenty-two. Making matters worse, only 18% of the HIV-positive men knew before the survey that they had the disease. Overall, 41% had unprotected anal sex during the previous six months. John Hylton et al., "HIV Prevalence and Associated Risks in Young Men Who Have Sex with Men,"JAMA 284:2 (2000):198-204.
212. Two studies reached similar results: a study in the early 1980s conducted by the Family Research Institute (Paul Cameron et al., "Sexual Orientation and Sexually Transmitted Disease," Nebraska Medical Journal 70 [1985]: 292-99) and a British national sexuality survey conducted in the early 1990s (A. M. Johnson et al., Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles [London: Blackwell, 1994]). Schmidt lists in order of prevalence among homosexuals the following nonviral infections: amebiasis (inflammation of the rectum and colon), giardiasis, gonorrhea, shigellosis, chlamydia, syphilis, and ectoparasites; of viral infections: condylomata (anal warts, linked to anal cancer), herpes, and hepatitus B and A (Straight and Narrow?, 116-22; HIV/AIDS is discussed on pp. 122-26).
213. The 1994 Advocate survey makes especially clear the attraction that homosexual males have toward the anus. The most popular way to have an orgasm involves anal intercourse (so 45% of respondents: 26% via masturbation while being penetrated; 19% via insertive anal intercourse). The next most popular way to have an orgasm is by receiving oral sex (17%). In the past year alone, 58% performed insertive anal intercourse and 56% engaged in receptive anal intercourse; 41% performed anilingus (tongue on or in the anus), 47% received it. Only 15% expressed an aversion to fingering another male's anus (Lever, "The 1994 Advocate Survey," 21, 23). By contrast, lesbians' "least favorable activities included giving or receiving anal stimulation: More than half will neither perform nor receive anilingus, and almost as many express dislike of anal penetration" (Lever, "Lesbian Sex Survey," 26). Similarly, the 1997 Australian survey found that over 60% of homosexually active men had had anal intercourse during the six months prior to interview; about half had engaged in "rimming" (oral-anal contact); and about 10% had engaged in "fisting" (Van de Ven, "Older Homosexually Active Men," 355-56).
214. For the serious medical risks associated with anal intercourse, cf. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 117-18; Satinover, Homosexuality, 22-23, 66-68.
215. "Semen contains many of the germs carried in the blood" and "the penis often has tiny lesions (and often those of homosexuals will have been in unsanitary places such as a rectum)" (Cameron, The Gay Nineties, 40). According to the 1997 Australian survey cited above, about half had engaged in oral-genital contact that involved ejaculating into the mouth of the partner; over 90% had engaged in oralgenital sex without ejaculation. According to the 1994 Advocate survey, 71% said they were fond of receptive oral intercourse, 72% of insertive oral intercourse. In the past year, 58% had another man ejaculate into their mouths, while 44% (including 26% of HIV-positive men) ejaculated into another male's mouth.
216. Cameron, The Gay Nineties, 39-44; Schmidt.
217. Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality, 102-106; Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 110-14.
218. Cf. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?, 110-11, citing a 1989 study.
219. Cameron, The Gay Nineties, 47-50; idem, "Same-Sex Marriage." The Advocate survey of homosexual males found that 20% engaged in bondage and discipline, 10% in sadomasochism; 45% made use of a cock ring, 19% nipple clamps; among lesbians: 25% engaged in bondage and discipline, 14% in fisting, 7% in sadomasochism; 6% made use of nipple clamps.
220. "Sexual Orientation and Suicidality: A Co-Twin Control Study in Adult Men," 867-74. Quote below from p. 873.
221. "Is Sexual Orientation Related to Mental Health Problems and Suicidality in Young People?" 876-80. Quote below from p. 879.
222. Twenty (2%) of these identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual. Another eight (.8%) "self-identified as heterosexual but . . . had had sexual relationships with a same-sex partner since the age of 16 years" (p. 877).
223. "Homosexuality and Mental Illness," pp. 883-84. Bailey also cites the stress on "physical attractiveness and thinness" in the gay culture, which may explain why male homosexuals are "vastly overrepresented among male patients with eating disorders."
224. Paul Cameron et al., "Child Molestation and Homosexuality," Psychological Reports 58 (1986): 327-37.
225. Cf. Cameron, The Gay Nineties, 61.
226. Ibid., 63.
227. K. Freund and R. I. Watson, "The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (Spring 1992): 34-43; cited by Schmidt. A study by C. Jenny et al. ("Are Children at Risk for Sexual Abuse by Homosexuals?," Pediatrics 94 [1994]: 41-44) is often cited as "proving" that 98% of men who molest boys self-identify as heterosexuals. In fact, the authors only checked hospital charts and never interviewed the molesters, victims, or those who prepared the charts. The only study in a refereed journal that based its findings on self-reports by molesters concluded that 86% of the molesters identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual (W. D. Erickson et al., "Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters," Arch. Sexual Behavior 17 [1988]: 77-86; cited in FRR 14:1 [Jan./Feb. 1999]).
228. As this book was going to press the California State Assembly had passed by a single vote a bill that would extend special employment protections to transsexuals and transvestites. Lobbying on behalf of these "transgendered" people and sponsoring workshops debunking "transphobia" has become part of the portfolio of mainstream homosexual organizations in recent years. Based on an ordinance passed by the city council of Boulder, Colorado, which granted broad civil rights protections to transsexuals, a pre-operative transsexual working in a bagel shop recently appealed to the Office of Human Rights for the "right" to come to work in a pink skirt and lipstick. Similar ordinances are already on the books in Cambridge (Massachusetts), Pittsburgh, Seattle, and San Francisco.
229. The quote is from an unpublished essay by Marion Soards. Used by permission.