Re: “New Jersey State Senator and NAACP’s Bond Support Genderless Marriage While Rejecting Ex-Gay Rights” [12-9-09]
“…major scientific studies and mental health associations have stated homosexuality is not innate,” said Regina Griggs, director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX). “No scientific evidence has found a ‘gay gene.’ No DNA or medical test can determine if a person is homosexual. Sexual orientation is a matter of self-affirmation and public declaration…”
“Sexual orientation is a matter of self-affirmation and public declaration.”
Try it like this:
Human sexuality is a matter of self-affirmation and public declaration.
—
Apparently you’re not human until you say so in public.
major scientific studies and mental health associations have stated homosexuality is not innate
And how many of those “scientific studies” have been published in peer reviewed journals vs. vanity presses or organizations who have a political interest in propping up those findings? And exactly which “mental health associations”? Besides NARTH, obviously.
No scientific evidence has found a ‘gay gene.’
No. But then only someone with an extremely limited education in science thinks that all genetically or biologically determined traits are determined by a single gene. I’ve been told that if you want to make a high school biology teacher squirm, ask him to try to explain the genetic factors affecting eye color in his classroom. Apparently, they’re just too complex to explain in a high school course.
And again, why does hate crimes need to cover ex-gay or formerly homosexual people explicitly? It already covers straight people. And if you’re no longer gay or homosexual, aren’t you in effect saying that you’re straight? Why this need for some special classification of “ex-gay”? I mean, you’re either attracted to MOTOS (straight), attracted to MOTSS (gay), attracted to both (bisexual), or attracted to neither (asexual). What mysterious (and near as I can tell, non-existent) fifth possibility is “ex-gay” trying to cover?
Uh, did I not get the memo about “sexual orientation” being a new code word for “homosexuality” or something? Because the way I read this line, they are saying that no one has any sexual orientation unless it is declared in public (and also self-affirmed, but I don’t know what that means when they say it here). Presumably this applies to heterosexuals too. So no one’s really straight either, they just declare themselves to be so in public!
Erm, on Griggs, argument that there is totally NO evidence of homosexuality being innate, I am reminded of this little news I read the last Christmas season:
Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait.
Regina. Griggs. Speaking. Without. Facts. As. Usual.
not to mention, there is no HETERO gene either.
The crux of the problem is PFOX et al don’t think of “orientation” the way the scientists think of orientation. Scientists think of orientation as primarily how you feel which manifests into thoughts and actions but ex-gays think of orientation as primarily thoughts which manifest into feelings and actions. That’s quite similar to the biblical perspective which saw same-sex behavior as a manifestation of beliefs such as polytheism (Romans 1) or not valuing hospitality (Sodom). The entire problem with Christians and sexual orientation is that they’re over-simplifying sexuality by taking the biblical model of same-sex behavior out of context and applying it to all same-sex behavior even when the model doesn’t fit. It’s exactly the way the Church has responded to every part of “scientific” portion of the Bible when scientists have a different model – heliocentrism, evolution, orientation. The result is that we end up speaking two different languages.
Thank you, Ephilei. That’s a very good summing up of the problem. It may well explain why so many people with the PFOX et al. way of thinking on sexual orientation are also creationists and why some creationists are also geocentricists, incredible as it may seem.
https://www.geocentricity.com/
Ephilei,
I, too, thank you for that summary. I grew up in the evangelical camp and suffered as a closet gay for many years and eventually in ex-gay therapy. You are right, they believe that sexual orientation is a result of wrong thinking and bad relationships. As a student working toward a doctorate in clinical psychology I have discovered incontrovertible evidence that emotion is primary. Feelings tend to come first before thoughts. A person experiences their sexual orientation as an emotional reaction to an opposite or same sex stimuli and then thoughts are produced as they process that emotion. But this is a typical evangelical folly. This is why they are so rabid about doctrine. They maintain that correct beliefs will result in Godliness and feelings will then follow, whereas scripture seems to teach that it is the experience of being loved (1 John 4:19) and the feelings that it produces that change a person into somone who will think and act more Godly. But hey, what do we know, we only study this stuff for a living, right? 🙂 Peace.
Aw, shucks.
I’m a Christian and I think the biblical beliefs->feelings model is appropriate for many things, but orientation isn’t one of them. Eg, believing in generosity will lead to generous actions which will lead to feeling generous even if the feelings weren’t present before. I think the difference is the depth of the feelings. Orientation is so deep, I prefer using “instinct.” In my experience as asexual, I was able to feign feelings of attraction by sheer will but the feelings weren’t very deep, certainly not instinct-level, and when I stop trying to be attracted I stopped feeling attracted. I “successful” ex-gays have the same experience except they don’t stop trying. So I do think there’s some validity to their orientation change, keeping in mind their definition of orientation is superficial, our definition is instinctive.
Good distinctions my friend. Just recently I was introduced to the fact that one can feel attracted to either sex by a matter of sheer will power. It’s an amazing fact that I wish more “ex-gays” would realize so that they could stop deceiving themselves.
These comments are why I LOVE coming here! This is a discussion with serious and thoughtful experience as well as education.
The responses to one another are shared, but also generous. Those determined in their prejudice and fear and willful ignorance don’t display such ability, nor are especially generous in appreciating the experience that gay people in particular have.
I’ve noticed a long time ago that the most bigoted and specious have their arguments couched almost exclusively in abstraction and dry statistics. Not at all with a broad range of experience with the subject they speak ON and AT, but not WITH and certainly with no incentive to LISTEN to.
I think that the considerable patience and courage it takes to BE gay or a transperson, and then open and committed to education blesses the world’s march to discovering it’s diversity.
And I thank the folks here for that. I wouldn’t be who I am without you, that is to say a happily committed ally who feels that the rest of the world is truly missing something when they are closed off by the likes of Regina Griggs.
After all, if gay folks are still silent and hidden and can’t give others the benefit of truly understanding them and not fearing them, then nothing is gained.
Grigg’s insistence on even setting aside a separate designation of ex gays is patronizing and condescending in the worst way.
She insults ex gays actually. As if to say, who and what they are requires such handling and notice and focus that without it, they are nothing, with no rights or value otherwise.
And as a hetero myself, she insults the rest of us by setting aside what we are as supreme, special and need no other requirement to BE valued other than our sexual orientation.
One isn’t hetero based on merit, and neither are ex gays. There is too much social and political COERCION for ex gays to be considered person’s without INNATE instinct to BE gay.
Otherwise all this coercion, social threat and so on wouldn’t be necessary.
Nor does Griggs engage the notion of the inverse.
What would it take for HER or any OTHER hetero to change into a gay person?
If her answer is not even wild horses and threat of death, then how can she or any other person assume that heterosexuality is innate and biological, but homosexuality is not?
Even though, homosexuality crosses all human life and history?
That alone is proof that it’s biologically determined regardless of where and in what era of human life it’s manifest.
I think it’s important to note her fear and that of her colleagues that she wants her educational materials to supercede anything else that could be taught in schools or integration of gay/straight alliances without the interference of PFOX.
What she fails to understand is that her beliefs and so on, have BEEN tried before and that time is PASSED. Her tradition has a lot of damage in it’s wake and it’s OVER with and done. People need to move on to new business.
And rather than do so, and accept that she’s not espousing any new, or especially worthy information or tactics that people no longer SHOULD accept, then that’s her problem.
PFOX can’t force their irrelevance and lack of legitimate information on people.
Griggs REALLY should have learned that long ago.