Ex-gay man: ‘Homosexuality is just another human brokenness’

I obviously didn’t read the whole thing, (quick skim) I’ll read it tonight.

This might not be a popular opinion on this site but I think most of the time that sexual orientation is a product of your environment and relationships with family. I’m not saying that’s a hard rule but a majority of the time I feel like it is.

I agree with you in that I don’t believe you can just pray and want it bad enough to change your sexual orientation. I have friends who have gone through the ‘therapies’ and they didn’t come out better for it.

His story is interesting. I don’t think it is typical of most gay men.

Most gay men wouldn’t categorize themselves as being broken.

I totally agree.

As I’ve thought about this a bit more, considering gays broken is part of the problem.

This might not be a popular opinion on this site but I think most of the time that sexual orientation is a product of your environment and relationships with family. I’m not saying that’s a hard rule but a majority of the time I feel like it is.

I have seen compelling evidence that makes me believe that a large part of most people’s sexuality is biological. Bill Reel had a great podcast on this. However, I also believe environment also plays a role. Regardless of the exact percentages of nature vs. nurture, the human race will always have a degree of homosexuality (5%?).

there are millions of gay men and lesbian women who are homosexual in the exact same way and to the exact same degree as I and my wife are heterosexual.

I agree. If homosexuality is human brokenness it is only to the same extent that all sexuality is part of the human “brokenness” of the human condition. I do not have any idea if a human race without sexuality would be a better world. Interesting thing to ponder. Sex can be a powerful motivator to do good, noble, and society building things.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2003361.html

I found this article very interesting about whether or not homosexual people are born that way. It’s very hard to find articles nowadays that are balanced and not so biased one way or the other. I liked this one because while the author is rooting for gays, he also shows research for the other side as well so it feels fairly balanced. One thing I did not agree with in the article was a part about how saying ‘they can’t help that they’re gay so we should accept them’ is laced with homophobia and a way of saying that they would be straight if they could, but they can’t. Which I don’t think is the case with that phrase. Most straight people also say that they can’t change the way they are either so I think it’s pretty common for both sides to feel like they can’t switch to a different sexuality because in many cases, they can’t. I figure though, whether it was nature or nurture, it’s still something that the majority feel like they can’t change and so it doesn’t really matter how it happened, the fact is it’s there and most people gay or straight feel like they can’t change the way they are.

First, it’s critical to recognize that homosexuality is sexuality, just like heterosexuality is. It’s no more or less valid. Homosexual people and Heterosexual people both have an attraction toward a specific gender. That’s it. I am attracted to the female gender. What makes me heterosexual is that I am a male. If I were female, I’d be homosexual. We’ve spent most all of human history right up to the present day declaring that one form is ‘normal’ and the other ‘abnormal’, ‘deviant’, or ‘perverse’ simply because more people are heterosexual than homosexual.

Second, therapy to change orientation is known to have low success rates and to introduce all kinds of problems of its own. The Church used to try it, but gave up on it about they same time they started to say that homosexuality is not itself a sin.

Third, marrying a member of the non-attracted-gender is a practice that has existed for far beyond our ability to see into history, I’m sure. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I personally know cases where marriages have both flourished and floundered. I suspect that this is common in the Church, but I hope for a day when heterosexual marriage is no longer considered God’s ideal.

Fourth, IMO, sexuality for all of us is biological with reinforcement from environment. Environment can overwhelm biology in a number of fronts, but in the case of sexuality, I’m fairly certain that environment is and has historically been against homosexuality rather than toward it (see #3).

Finally, I just want to say that it is dangerous to think of homosexuality as a deficiency, brokenness, or something that needs to be fixed. If someone is attracted to another person and that person reciprocates, how in the world can we tell people that they shouldn’t feel attraction? The article talked about “gay identity”… I had to laugh at that (cry on the inside). I don’t have a “straight identity”, why does a gay person have to have a “gay identity”. I am me. That is my only identity. I have attributes and characteristics that are part of me being me: I’m male, straight, white, and blonde. Those are attributes, but they aren’t my identity. I’m not the blonde me, I am just me. I’m not the white me, I’m just me. I’m not the straight me, I’m just me.

Even more finally, therapy to change a person’s orientation seems like a left-over from the early-cold-war era. Sorry, fellas, I can assure you that no amount of therapy will ever make me feel sexual attraction for a dude. It ain’t happenin’. By the same token, I could never hold an expectation that anyone should undergo therapy in an attempt to alter biological conditioning.

I skimmed through the article, and I’m very skeptical of his conclusion.

I am an active Latter-day Saint, have never participated in homosexual acts, and am bisexual. I can say with absolute certainty that my sexual orientation is not a choice. It is not something that will go away by turning to Jesus. However, if someone is extremely worried about his/her sexual orientation and is attracted to both genders, it is possible to convince yourself that you really like others of the opposite sex and aren’t actually attracted to those of your own. I suspect this is what’s happening with this guy.

Conversion therapy is harmful, don’t inflict it on anyone.

I had the same thought about the possibility the guy in the article was actually bisexual or as someone else stated just had sex with men (although he did say he was attracted to men). I know enough homosexuals to believe them when they say they didn’t choose their sexuality, and the church even admits as much. I also agree that conversion therapy is dangerous and harmful and should be illegal – it is certainly unethical IMO.