I had a relatively casual chat with a friend today about Christianity's view on homosexuality. As I was more keen on trying to understand their mindset on the issue and stimulate a discussion, I refrained from winding him up just for the sake of a wind-up. Okay, maybe I did just a little. And only because some of the statements made were begging for it.
The central premise for Christianity's negative stance towards homosexuality, besides the Bible saying it's wrong, is basically this:
"Homosexuality is strictly a choice and not a congenital condition"
That is the crucial argument because from a Christianity standpoint, if (1) all living beings are created by God, and, (2) some people are born homosexuals, we can reasonably argue that God condones homosexuality. Assuming he’s a benevolent God of course; it’s equally likely that he just likes to take the piss. There's of course a slight problem in that the Bible explicitly says that homosexuality is wrong. You can then see why Christians, instead of possibly having to deal with this perplexing contradiction, would rather stick their fingers into their ears and scream "lalalalala" in the face of any potential evidence that is contrary to their viewpoint.
Based on this then, I asked him whether he thought a person can actively choose to be gay, and whether homosexuals can be "rehabilitated", to which he said yes. It still sounded fairly reasonable until he brought up how he thought homosexuals become what they are. Most homosexuals were victims of child sexual abuse, apparently.
*Struggles badly at holding back a priest/small boy joke*
I pressed him for the exact statistic. Is “most” 75%, 50%, 35%? About 40% was his estimate (A quick Google search later revealed it to be 38%). Well, what about the other 60% then, I asked him. No coherent reply was forthcoming. In any case, it was irrelevant. Correlation does not equate to causation. If they really wanted to prove that child sexual abuse is a factor in sexual orientation, they should flip the parameters. The number of child sexual abuse victims who go on to become homosexuals should be the supporting statistic.
My personal opinion is that since there isn’t conclusive proof (I may be wrong) on whether homosexuality is or isn’t a choice, an open mind should be kept regarding the matter. Adopting a homophobic stance because a book told you to is not just ignorant; it’s lazy. I then tried a different approach: “What if there is conclusive scientific evidence that homosexuality can be a congenital condition? Would that help change your mind?” There was a sudden pause followed by an emphatic no.
The reason given was hilariously flimsy, though. He would have been better off just falling back on the Bible excuse. ”Unless you surveyed all 7 billion of the world’s population and found that all homosexuals are born that way, the study is unreliable.” Hearing that actually made me go:
I don’t need to gather all the black swans in the world to disprove “all swans are white”; I need just one! Similarly, a study just needs to reliably prove that one (or several, just for the sake of repeatability) homosexual is born with a particular sexual orientation to disprove “homosexuality is a choice”. That he can’t see the logic despite being a scientist dumbfounded me a little. You know, I would have thought that being a student of science, you would be more accepting of new theories.
This anecdote kind of sums up my beef with religion besides the money-making part (have you seen their accounts?). As a device to draw strength, comfort and inspiration from, it’s great. Even the back and forth arguments about the origins of the universe are largely inconsequential. The problem arises when it’s used to spread backward and potentially poisonous ideas such as the forbiddance of contraceptives like condoms and birth control pills (a whole other post which I won’t go into detail).
Most religions preach faith so strongly that followers just surrender all their opinions and trust the teachings of a book to the letter; a book that has been doctored by men heavily over the years to suit their own personal agenda no less. I might empathise with the average person but I would expect more from a man of science than to relinquish all thoughts of inquisition. Is religion to blame for my friend’s poor reasoning skills? No, but since his opinion on the matter was already cemented from the brainwashing of religion, he’ll fight tooth and nail to defend his opinion and stoop to brittle logic in desperation.
“What if the Bible is wrong?” I asked my friend midway through our small debate. “It’s never wrong,” came the confident reply.
Galileo wept.
