On what defines someone's sexual orientation....

In my last post, I showed a link to this blog post.  I didn't talk much about it then because I wanted to devote an entire post to just what it has to say and what the one comment (as of this writing) on the post says.

Before I get started, I want to be sure to note that when I say "gay" here, I am referring to anyone who not heterosexual, be they male or female.  I find it easier to just say that, so please don't think I am addressing exclusively gay men, although that is what I can best speak to as I am one.

First, I think this post does a wonderful job explaining what does and does not make someone gay or straight.  Many people, of all sexual orientations, think that being gay (or lesbian or bi) is simply a matter of who you have sex with.  After all, isn't the word "sex" in "sexual orientation"?  And yes, I have actually seen someone online write that.  Here's the thing, under that logic, a virgin has no sexual orientation.  The problem with this is self-evident, people have a sexual orientation even if they have never had sex.  There is also a large dose of hypocrisy here, because the same people who insist on this have no problem insisting that people are born straight.  Excuse me, but if one is true, the other must be too.  Of course, these hypocrites are also the people who insist that homosexuality is a choice and that only heterosexuality is "normal".

Let's unpack all of this, starting with some basic facts:

[1] Sexual orientation is inborn and a part of who a person is.  Whether it is gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, or pansexual (did I miss any?) your sexual orientation is a part of who you are.
[2] Sexual orientation is not synonymous with sexual activity.  Someone who is straight might experiment with someone of the same sex.  This does not make them gay or bi.  It just means that they are experimenting.  Someone who is gay or lesbian can have sex with someone of the opposite sex and this does not make them straight or bi.
[3] Sexual orientation is *NOT* the equivalent of political beliefs, religious beliefs, or anything like that.  Those can (and frequently do) change.  Sexual orientation does not change.  It can be ignored and suppressed, but it does not change.  So stop with the false equivalences.

The problem is that there are many people (and not just on the political/religious right) who want to equate sexual activity with sexual orientation.  Around the time I was coming out, I was actually asked by someone how I knew I was gay if I had never had sex with a woman.  My answer was simple, I am not attracted to women.  I can tell you that I think a woman is beautiful and I can admire her attributes, but the attributes have no impact on me in a physical sense (trying to be delicate here).  On the other hand, put a hot guy in the room and a physical reaction will most definitely occur.  Being gay really does have an impact across your life, not just in the bedroom or wherever else you have sex.  Being gay impacts how people look at me, legal and religious options I have, choices about my family, and a whole lot more.

The first step (after the realization that you are gay) for most people is coming out of the closet.  I addressed that here, so I don't want to belabor the point too much except to address something in the comment I mentioned above.  The commenter spends a lot of time talking about how gay men make "false arguments" which are "designed to make you feel justified in your 'coming out' ritual."  I want to address some comments a little bit more, so here is a quote from the comment:

                           I'm conservative. I don't have to have a "coming out" party to
                           announce that I'm a conservative, and that this will "shape many
                           if not all of my experiences and opinions." Similarly, I don't
                           choose a specific day to announce that I prefer to sleep with the
                           opposite gender because this will, "shape many if not all of my
                           experiences and opinions." I'm also a carnivore. While this does
                           "shape many if not all of my experiences and opinions," I have
                           yet to have a "coming out" date to announce my propensity to eat
                           meat. 

                           I don't announce these things because nobody does, nor should they,
                           care. Your opinions and personality will speak for itself. I don't need
                           what you ultimately decide to do in the bedroom to be the definition
                           you choose to label yourself with.

There are so many issues with this that I could spend several blog posts talking about them.  I want to start with the assumption that being gay is akin to political ideology or dietary choices.  This assumption is so wrong headed that it is laughable.  While all of these things do shape how you view the world (as do all your experiences), both dietary choices and political ideology are *CHOICES* and not immutable whereas sexual orientation is an inborn part of you and is immutable.  You can deny it, suppress it, or fight it, but it does not change short of some incredibly dramatic and life-changing event (if then).  I know there are people who claim to be "ex-gays" but (as far as I can tell) they are either deceiving themselves or were never actually gay in the first place.  Also, note how the commenter equates sexual orientation with "what you ultimately decided to do in the bedroom," continuing the thought that sexual orientation is a "choice".

As for his comment about "I don't choose a specific day to announce that I prefer to sleep with the opposite gender," all I need to say is that our society if heteronormative and therefore everyone assumes that you are straight unless you actually say otherwise, so this argument is completely nonsensical as well as being a non-sequitur.  Trying to equate the two is like comparing apples and oranges, in other words, it makes no sense.

I do want to address something else, even though it is not strictly speaking related to this topic.  Over the past several months, there have been cries from the religious and political right that they are being persecuted against because of their beliefs regarding sexual orientation.  For example, bakers and photographers being told that they must serve gay customers and cannot refuse them due to religious beliefs.  While I am not at all fond of people being told who they must or must no deal with in terms of business, I find myself reluctantly forced to agree with the courts.  The reason is one that is questionable logically, but has been played out often enough that it is a valid concern: the slippery slope.  After all, if someone is told that they can refuse to serve someone due to their religious beliefs (which are inherently subjective and thus not subject to any legal test), where will it stop?  Experience tells us that most people, if given an inch, will take a mile.  In order for a exception to a law to be made, there have to be measurable standards that the exception can be compared to.  When something is inherently subjective, there can be no test which makes the exception untenable.  This is a case where the courts need to decide how rights interact with the open market and the courts felt (rightly) that if you enter the market, you need to put up with some restrictions (like are currently in place regarding serving people of other races) if you wish to serve the public.

Which are more important, actions or words?

I was reading this blog entry and had some thoughts about it.  If you have a chance, give it a read before going on any further.  Also read this one which is brilliant and very well written.

First, I want to say that what those people wrote to him was incredibly wrong (it seems to have in reference to this blog post, although I could be wrong).  I do have to wonder if the person honestly meant it or was just blowing off steam.  Not that that excuses anything, but it always needs to be considered.  Secondly, I am stunned at his hypocrisy.  On the second page of the post, he says

                    But what about me? Do I have hate of my own? Yes, I do. Sometimes
                    we should feel hatred. It’s just that progressive hatred is often the
                    wrong kind. Your hatred is for individuals, whereas mine is for certain
                    actions and ideas.

In other words, my hate is ok and yours is not.  While I do understand his point, what Mr. Walsh seems to fail to realize is that there are times when hatred for actions and words becomes hatred for the person who holds the idea or commits the action.  Look at almost any reply thread to different news articles or blog posts and you'll see people (on both sides of an issue) making gross generalizations and demonizing the other side.

This leads me to the thing I wanted to talk about.  Before I write more, I want to include a fairly lengthy excerpt from Mr. Walsh's blog post:

                    Perhaps this is the root of our massive communication failure. I’ve
                    noticed that many liberals don’t understand how it’s feasible to detest
                    an action without detesting the actor, or how one can possibly hate an
                    idea without hating (and wanting to punish or censor or kill) the person
                    who articulated it. They laugh hysterically when a Christian suggests
                    that it’s possible to condemn the homosexual act without hating the
                    homosexual person. I’ve attempted to make this clarification so many
                    times, and, on every occasion, I’m told that such a distinction is
                    impossible. Hate what a person does, hate the person. It’s that simple.

                    Progressives are so insistent on this point because this is how they operate.
                    They make no delineation between the individual and the action, and they
                    project that thought process onto everyone else.

                    You hate my beliefs, so you hate me. I hate certain beliefs and actions, so
                    you assume I hate the people behind those beliefs and actions. Only, if you
                    asked me, and if you were open to the answer, you’d find that your
                    assumptions are baseless....

                    The point is, I don’t hate these people. I want them to be successful and
                    happy. I want them to be healed of the psychological and spiritual
                    affliction that causes them to be so lost, confused, and consumed by
                    horrible feelings of animosity towards strangers they’ve never met.

I agree with him that we do need to separate the person from what they believe and that not everyone who is against something is necessarily a bigot (and I 've stated this time and again on my political blog).  That being said, what Mr. Walsh fails to grasp is that actions do speak louder than words.  It is very easy to lie with words, particularly written words on a page (or computer screen).  It's harder to lie with actions.  If someone says that they love all people, but then proceeds to tell a whole group of people that they are suffering from "psychological or spiritual affliction[s]" or that they are going to hell, you've shown that you don't really love the person.  Part of the issue is that people like Mr. Walsh view things such as sexual orientation as a choice and therefore something that is wholly under the control of the person involved.  They don't get that these are intrinsic parts of a person that cannot be given up or changed if a person's will is simply strong enough.  This in turn causes them to not realize that by attacking someone because they of what they are causes an immense amount of damage.  Basically, people like Mr. Walsh think that they are merely attacking actions or ideas, but they end up attacking the person because what they are attacking is a large and important part of who that person is.

What this blog is all about

The reason I am starting this new blog is because there are a lot of times when I want to talk about things that are not exactly relevant to my other blogs.  Some of these are religious issues, some are LGBT issues (non-political), and others are something else entirely.  I wanted to dedicate this first post to something that my sister and I were talking about the other day.

We were talking because I read this blog post which a friend who is a priest posted on Facebook.  In the blog post, the writer (a Catholic who is gay), says that he prefers the descriptor same-sex attraction to gay "because [same-sex attraction] suggests that homosexuality is something I have rather than something I am."  In other words, he looks at homosexuality as an affliction or a disease rather than as something which is inborn.  This is the very reason that I reject this euphemism.  By equating homosexuality with a disease this encourages the use of "reparative therapy" (see this page also) which can be very barbaric.  The other problem is that if you use the logic that homosexuality is an affliction, then so must heterosexuality and by extension all sexuality.  After all, if "same-sex attraction" is "something that [you] have rather than something that I am" then the same must also be true of other sexual orientations.  This, in turn, makes sexuality something to be suffered from rather than an integral and beautiful part of who we are.

This, in turn, leads to the main point of this post.  One thing both my sister and I do not like is when people define themselves entirely based on one aspect of who they are.  It doesn't matter whether that aspect is the person's sexual orientation, religion, race, sex, gender, or any other one, no one of these can possibly hope to define anyone in all their glory.  I am gay.  I am Catholic.  I am a white male.  I am English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, Dutch, Polish, and Native American.  I am blonde haired and blue eyed.  I am a moderate Republican.  I am all of these and so much more.  To use any one of these to define me is to miss out on so much that I am.

Most people would object to being defined by one of these aspects, yet most people insist on defining others in this way.  Also, we often self-define ourselves by saying things like, "I am _______," as if that one thing is the most important thing about us.  I remember an assignment I did with my 8th grade class in 2008 based on the One Tree Hill episode "Pictures of You" in which the characters had to learn about each other using labels.  I did the same thing with the class and showed them that even though the labels may be accurate, they are incomplete and can be hurtful.

The deal with labels is also about the power of words.  Words and the way they are used have a tremendous amount of power.  When someone says that "I am _________,"the implication is that is all they are rather than a part of who they are.  When you define yourself or someone else based on one thing, you are limiting the perception of who you or they are in a radical way.  Don't limit yourself or anyone else in this way.  We need to acknowledge the entirety of who each person is in order to acknowledge their full inherent human dignity.