What is Human Sexuality
and What is "Normal"?
What does it mean to be homosexual? To answer this, one must first ask what human sexuality means at all. Attached to a person's sexuality is the capacity to feel affection, to delight in someone else, to get emotionally close to another person, to be passionately committed to him or her, to be in love, to be struck by the beauty of another and be drawn out of yourself, to become attached to another human being so powerfully that you easily begin measuring your life in terms of what's good for someone else as well as for yourself. All of these things are what makes someone a homosexual. Sexual acts themselves are just one part of the whole.
People who are afraid of their sexuality are constantly in hiding from their own selves. To be forced to chose between religion and a persons normal (inborn) sexuality is to have to choose between religion and themselves... it is to have to choose between God and human wholeness. This is a choice that people should never be forced to make and one I believe God never intended for us to make. He created us how we are and for a purpose.
Normal Variation
There is a wide range of individual differences among human beings. Sexual orientation seems to be one of those differences. There is much variation even in the animal world. Females are not even the only ones who even become pregnant! It is the male seahorse who carries this role. The sex of alligators is determined by the temperature the eggs are exposed to during incubation. There are species out there that will switch roles during their lifetimes. Suprisingly, there is about the same percent of homosexual type behavior among animals as is seen in humans. These facts are unknown to a lot of people. So, one can not use the belief that such behavior isn't natural or "normal". It is very natural for about 1-3% of the population. (This percentage is debated, but the variations are higher than this value.) There is also a broad continuum that can be found between homosexuality and heterosexualtiy. There is all kinds of "female" behavior and all kinds of "male" behavior. To put it simply, people are different and cannot be "boxed" into clear-cut categories or labels. Nature is based on variation.Biology has shown that variations in levels of certain hormones during gestation can alter unchagedly the future "emotional sex" of a child. Furthermore, any future changes in those hormone levels will NOT change the result of the effects from earlier conditions. Science continues to reveal more and more facts such as this, that confirm that these differences in us may be more set when we are in-utero than we previously thought. To condemn someone because of something they are born with is ethically and morally wrong.
According to our faith, it is God who creates us. He forms us as we are. Our genes, our temperments, our time and place in history, our talents, our gifts, our weaknessess -- all are part of God's inscrutable and loving plan for us. So, somehow God must be behind the fact that some people are homosexual. Why then would God's word condemn it? Does it mean that these people are "mistakes"? God doesn't make mistakes; but humans do, in biblical interpretation for example. These are facts to think about when considering this issue and the relevance and meaning of the verses in the Bible so commonly used to condemn homosexuals.
devold@badlands.nodak.edu Ronda DeVold
last updated 11-6-97