From Modern Theology 13 July 1997, p 371-397

 

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE PRACTICES OF MARRIAGE

DAVID McCARTHY MATZKO

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homosexuality is a divisive issue for the church. The faithful presence of gay and lesbian Christians induces a good bit of dissonance about traditional practices of marriage and about how to respond to the number of persons who are entering steadfast same sex unions. The dissonance has reached a critical pitch for reasons not exclusively related to homosexuality. Marriage is faltering, and for many, the issue of homosexuality provides footing to take a stand against our culture's libertarian assault on the practices of marriage. When these defenders presuppose a simple cause-effect connection between homosexuality and the troubled times of marriage, they are mistaken. But they are correct to assume that a justification of same sex unions requires rethinking the meaning of heterosexual marriage. A reformulation appears to be inevitable. For instance, most who justify gay and lesbian unions do so by elevating the unitive end of marriage to a primary position while diminishing the procreative purpose. The interpersonal bond is understood to be the essence of marriage, fulfilled on common terms by both hetero- and homosexuals.[1]

This essay provides a set of arguments supporting the role of same sex unions within the practices of marriage. But, oddly, it does not argue the case by providing a rationale for marriage suited to the particularities of same sex unions. Conceptualizing marriage in terms of homosexuality is, of course, unavoidable–as unavoidable for detractors as it is for defenders of homosexuality. While defenders emphasize goods specific to same sex unions, detractors impose innovations through their efforts to highlight marriage's particularly heterosexual aspects. In this sense, both homosexuality and heterosexuality bring something new. Marriage, like other practices of the church, is bound to traditional ways of life and is changing, but

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the arguments of this essay do not depend upon tipping the weight of change toward one side of the marriage debate or the other. The essay maintains a conservative view, upholding the two ends of conjugal love and procreation as the best articulation of the goods and practices of marriage. The essay, then, is not concerned with restructuring a theology of marriage. Its starting point is more practical. The essay presupposes the fact that certain same sex unions already are functioning within their communities as marriages. These gay and lesbian couples support and are supported by the community's practices of marriage and family as a whole. With these unions already in place, the task is not to reformulate marriage so that gays and lesbians might enter. Instead, the task is to understand how and why these same sex unions fit so well, given that so many good arguments are made against them.

The essay has four sections. The first broaches the issue of homosexual unions through a concrete example, a lesbian couple and their daughter, who, as the section unfolds, are referred to as an anomaly. The concept of anomaly might be understood to imply that this lesbian couple represents a distorted union, but such is not the purpose here. On the contrary, the concept provides a means to indicate the unanticipated (yet natural) fit between this couple and the practices of marriage in their dominantly heterosexual community. Anomaly is a useful concept because an anomaly does not conform to normative categories, but neither does it conform to customary conceptions of deviance. It is in between. The anomalous appearance requires a decision about which categories will be used to arrive at the best evaluation of its characteristics. The idea of an anomaly, then, offers a means to accentuate the norm of heterosexual marriage, while also opening the question about the status of our two women and their child. If their lives together are between clear categories of the norm and deviance, on which side of the divide to they belong? If their union is constituted within and by a community's practice of marriage, will the typical arguments against homosexual unions still hold? The subsequent three sections of the essay approach these questions, each by dealing with a different objection to homosexuality. The objections are made through a defense of the public good (section 2), in terms of the immorality of the homosexual act itself (section 3), and by means of particular texts from Scripture (section 4). 1 consider the strongest arguments from each objection and argue that on their own terms they are unable to exclude our test case.  I maintain that marriage provides the appropriate categories far understanding not all but particular same sex unions.

 

The Anomaly

Imagine two women and a child sitting together among a congregation during Sunday Mass. They share Christ's peace with those around them, say the Sanctus, announce that Christ has died, risen, and will come again, and

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they move forward with the rest of the people toward the altar to break bread. The scene is common, two women and a young girl together. They may be mother, daughter, and friend or sister-in-law, mother, and daughter. The possibilities are many, and their relationships unextraordinary. Now, imagine that these three go home together; eat, nap, and spend the afternoon in recreation and performing those domestic tasks we save for weekends. When the night settles in, the child goes to her room to bed, and the two women go to their room, lay in the same bed, read, talk, embrace, kiss, caress, grow weary, and fall to sleep. In the morning, the three go about their business of living, go to school and to work, and return in the evening to attend to the day to day details of home, being a kid, raising a child well, and sustaining a relationship of intimacy, trust, and mutual care.

            Are the elements of this little story incongruous? My hope is that the imaginations of my readers were unified by its ordinary beginning but divided by the end. Did the scene in the church cohere with the move to the bedroom and the implied sexual intimacy of the two women? Some readers may be inclined to respond that the transition is not odd because they have imagined the two women and a child to be a family, as they go about their lives together in the framework of the more common three member family, man, woman, and child. Others will argue against this friendly attitude toward lesbian relationships. The appearance of family is given. But adulterers and child molesters also give the appearance of family, while they surely fall short of the mark. To call these women and their child a family is an uncritical use of the word.

            Whether by intuition or reasoned arguments, some will assert that certain goods are sustained by this family of woman, woman, and girl, and others will contend that goods essential to the marriage covenant are denied by the nature of their same sex acts. On one hand, the relationship sustains fidelity, steadfast covenant making, and the full complement of parenting roles, such as loving, nurturing, and educating the child. On the other hand, their relationship is not procreative and does not reflect the natural reciprocity of man and woman in the ordering of creation. Both sides of the debate are likely to marshal themes and passages from Scripture, claims based in a theological anthropology, and anecdotal evidence. My intention is to be accountable to the basic arguments from both sides. Longstanding traditions of Christian practice and moral theology are set against this lesbian couple; yet, these two women, along with other couples, have already entered a faithful, steadfast covenant, and are raising a child. Although their union is informal and lacks the explicit consent of their community of faith, the couple has come together in order to live well in Cod's grace and to be a sign of God's covenant to the world. How do we, who are set within the Christian tradition, deal with this phenomenon?

            Our lesbian couple and their daughter present their community with an anomaly. An anomaly defies categorization, and calling a particular

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homosexual union an anomaly creates room for discovering which set of categories will be most appropriate for dealing with that particular relationship. Is its basis mere pleasure? Is it fornication? Is it unnatural? Does it represent an immature or maladjusted form of sexual expression? Is it a marriage? All five of these options could be used to describe heterosexual relationships. That is precisely the point. Not all heterosexual activity is classified the same, and some lesbian and gay relationships require us to make difficult determinations about which of our typical categories make sense to them. In the modern West, desire for sexual intimacy is believed to emerge from a person's sexual orientation. The notion of an orientation not only has distinguished the same sex use of the genitals as a deep rooted deviance (in a person rather than an act), but also has created the possibility for persons to assert their identity as homosexual. Before the idea of orientation, same sex intimacy as viewed as an act, as an expression of excessive desire or once form of non-procreative sex, among others.[2]  Categories are essential to understanding. If certain relationships are called anomalies, then there is something about them that creates categorical unclarity.

To say that certain gay or lesbian relationships are anomalous is to hold that they deviate not only from the normative paradigm, but also from how corruptions and abuses of the norm are evaluated. The anomaly, then, induces category confusion. If our established categories are circles and squares, do we place a three sided figure with those that have sides or with those that lack four sides? Someone may respond that the obvious answer is to create a third category, but this response mistakes the perplexity of an actual anomaly for the clarity of the circle and square example. If four sided figures are normative, is the three sided figure equivalent to the odious circle? Or are its three sides close enough to a square to make it acceptable, although not paradigmatic? Consider another example. Without counting the cards in a deck of playing cards, it is possible to decide whether a red two of clubs should be considered a club, a heart, or a diamond? No. We count the cards and find a place for the red club by highlighting its club-ness (and deal with it as black card) or by highlighting its red-ness (and calling it a heart or a diamond).

These examples are next very distant from the church's treatment of marriage. If we assume that marriage is marked by steadfast fidelity and procreation, then we will have to make decisions about relationships which do not include these two basic ends. About childless marriage, the Catholic Catechism says this. "the Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil." "Absolute" is a significant qualifier, indicating that barrenness imposes a suffering which can be endured. While suffering what is somewhere between the hardly and absolutely evil, many childless marriages are sustained as unions and maintain the procreative character of marriage. How? They  "should unite themselves with the Lord's Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting

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abandoned children or performing demanding services for others."[3]  Is the red two of clubs enough like the rest of the clubs so that its redness is overlooked as long as it is able to function as the black two? It seems so. Through adoption or generous service to the community, the childless marriage, by analogy, sustains the procreative character of marriage in general. It does not fulfill the basic paradigm but supports the normative case by highlighting its similarities to a full expression of the ends of marriage.

When a childless union,, is sustained within the context of marriage, challenges to fidelity present a more ambiguous case. Infidelity is more ambiguous because the actual union of marriage is at stake. The unitive end is not as elastic as the procreative end. In Humanae Vitae, for instance, the conjugal union, rather than childbearing, is considered to be in the most serious danger when methods of artificial birth control are used.[4]  Much commentary has been written about the relationship between unitive and the procreative ends of marriage, especially in terms of Humanae Vitae.[5]  For our purposes. the importance difference between the two is that procreation can be expressed through analogous practices of service and raising children, while fidelity has no proximate expression. Infidelity contradicts the theological character of marriage as a steadfast covenant of intimate self-giving. An instance of infidelity begins to be healed when the covenant is recognized and restored. But consistent habits of extramarital intercourse will reach a point where unfaithfulness moves a couple's relationship beyond the bounds of marriage. There is a point where perpetual infidelity can no longer be held within marriage and the relationship becomes akin to polygamy or to a union which lacks commitment entirely. A marriage which is permanently childless or one that endures an episode of infidelity is imaginable, but a marriage marked by persistent habits of adultery introduces a case which hangs between marriage and some other type o€ relationship. Persistent infidelity will unravel a marriage.

The purpose of comparing adultery and childless marriages is to indicate how they are understood in terms of their opposites, the ends of unity and procreation in marriage. Although both contradict an end., they can be understood in a way that does not transgress the limits provided by the basic expression of marriage. The childless are able to sustain the ends of marriage by parenting through others means, and the unfaithful can be restored. But there are limits. The question for this essay is whether or not all gay and lesbian relationships are beyond the limits of the basic paradigms. Are all same sex unions a violation of the marriage covenant? Or are some an acceptable, or even obvious, analogy to it? Can the aspects of marriage which same sex relationships lack be performed by other, analogous practices? These questions remain open, provided we assume that not all same sex relationships are the same.

Some gay and lesbian unions will present an anomaly to the degree that they do not match either traditional frameworks for marriage or typical

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standards of deviance. The concept of an anomaly itself might create confusion. The idea of an anomaly is not being used to argue that homosexual unions are an abomination, but to recognize that some gay and lesbian unions are well suited to Christian practices of marriage. The expectation that all homosexual unions are alien to marriage makes the likeness of some an anomaly. In other words, the arguments of this essay presuppose that gay and lesbian relationships are not paradigmatic, but that some will cause conceptual dissonance for those who assume an irredeemable difference between homosexuality and marriage. Hopefully, dissonance was created by the introductory story of the two women and young girl. The next three sections will consider frameworks for evaluating their relationships and practices of family_

 

Objection One. The Public Good

 

In 1994, the Ramsey Colloquium, a group sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, published a brief but nuanced statement regarding the cultural revolution which the gay and lesbian movement seems to be pushing forward in American society.[6]  The Colloquium's statement does not give a detailed account of the revolution's goals. Rather, the significant issue for the Ramsey group is that the so-called revolution amounts to a recasting of sexual norms, not only so that the gay "lifestyle" will be tolerated but also to free all persons from oppressive standards of heterosexual monogamy and fidelity. The issue, then, is that the gay movement is set against traditional norms of marriage and family. In response, the Colloquium describes the revolution not as liberation but as the demise of practices which sustain the moral fabric of the commonweal. In this vein, its statement is directed against what it calls "gay and lesbian politics" rather than the morality of particular individuals.  Individual morality, of course, will enter the discussion as soon as, certain social norms are defended. But the Colloquium's statement divides the -social movement from individual cases so that its arguments will be engaged in terms of the public good.

The Ramsey group wants to make it clear that two frameworks of sexual morality are in opposition to one another. On one side are the norms of marriage and family sustained within Judaism and Christianity, and on the other is the homosexual movement which promotes a gay lifestyle and an ideology of sexual libertarianism. The Colloquium's statement is `unclear about the particular elements of what it refers to as the "gay lifestyle" and unclear about whether or not acting on one's homosexual desires is ipso facto engaging in this lifestyle. This second point will become important as we proceed, insofar as the statement seems to imply that acting out one's homosexuality is equivalent to promoting a "gay politics". This correlation is not supportable, logically or empirically. Although the statement opens the way for this inference, it does refrain from making a necessary connection

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between expressing sexual desire for a person of the same sex and the ideology of the "gay lifestyle". Its concern is to challenge the convictions of the homosexual movement, which it does not isolate as a particularly homosexual ideology but a mind set of heterosexual libertarianism as well. This general ideology of the sexual revolution advances both the view that no sexual desire ought to be restrained and a cavalier attitude toward the significance of sexual intimacy. It also encourages a selfish pursuit of desire and an abuse of the body in heroic conquests of pleasure. This ideology is ultimately destructive According to the Ramsey Colloquium, it is a false doctrine which "leads neither to individual flourishing nor to social well-being."[7]

Standing opposite the sexual revolution are the norms of marriage and family. The Colloquium is consistent in its focus as it holds up traditional convictions and practices in order to promote the public good. Their statement on the heterosexual norm asserts that "marriage and the family–husband, wife, and children, joined by public recognition and legal bond – are the most effective institutions for the rearing of children, the directing of sexual passions, and human flourishing in community.”[8]  The union of male and female, paradigmatically expressed in marriage, is procreative, and therefore provides a stable context for rearing children and sustains the continuity of the human community through time. The complementarity of the sexes, possible only within a heterosexual union, expresses the unity in difference of the human community, and the institution of marriage cultivates and guides healthy sexual desire. In short, marriage is the normative context for sexual expression and for sustaining all the goods which emerge from it.

From their assertion that heterosexual marriage is normative, the Colloquium proceeds to define homosexual acts as a form of extramarital deviance. Those persons who are not called to marriage, then, whether homosexual or heterosexual, are called to be chaste. The statement does recognize that homosexuality is an orientation rather than an occasional act. But it resists making the homosexual orientation equivalent to heterosexuality, as defenders of gays and lesbians would claim. Indirectly, the statement slips in an analogy between a homosexual orientation and a predisposition toward alcoholism or violence.[9]  Both may be innate, but neither is justified by its naturally given origins. These analogies are insufficient, as will be argued at the end of the essay. For now, it is important to note that from the Colloquium's point of view this manner of diminishing the homosexual orientation is consistent with asserting heterosexual marriage as a norm. In the Colloquium's terms, homosexuality cannot be elevated to a lifestyle choice. In order to underline this point, the statement moves from its initial concern with the ideology of the sexual revolution to the morality of individual acts. While, initially, the statement is concerned with the ideology of the gay lifestyle, by the conclusion, all homosexual acts and same sex relationships are considered a challenge to the norm. All gay or lesbian relationships seem to fall under the banner of the gay lifestyle.

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I have given this brief account of the Ramsey Colloquium's document in order to concede, at least for the sake of argument, that its reasoning about the public good is sound. The Colloquium is right to claim that predominant Western culture is inextricably bound to the practices and the ideological norms of heterosexual marriage. Some of its other claims are less evident, such as the claim that we have learned to value differences within community by means of the male-female complementarity of marriage. "Valuing differences" is a slippery phrase, given that the value of women often continues to be determined by economic exchange. Even though this claim about male-female complementarity and other claims (e.g. the alcoholism analogy) are questionable, I would grant that they are basically true, that heterosexual marriage and the family form an irreplaceable fabric of our human community. While acknowledging, the basic thesis, I offer an exception, what l am calling our anomaly of two women and a child.

Imagine that our two women agree with the Ramsey Colloquium concerning its challenge to the politics of the "gay lifestyle". Like the Colloquium, they believe that the sexual revolution erodes family values. They despair about the prevalence of pornography and the gradual loosening of what pornography has come to mean. They are incensed by the causal promiscuity on prime time television, and they are cautious about what they will permit their little girl to watch. They believe that abstract notions of free speech have distorted the public form, and generally, at least in terms of moral questions, they find themselves on the conservative side of the typical conservative-liberal divide. Our two women live faithfully in their union; they have committed themselves to a permanent covenant; and they do their best to raise a child and support their community in its nurturing and child rearing practices. They believe strongly in the dignity of their sexual orientation, but, to make matters more difficult for the Colloquium, I will add that they delight in watching their daughter's obvious flirtations with boys. They are not homosexuals who supposedly consider their orientation a cause for seeking converts. Math homework, coaching soccer, piano lessons, the PTA, and sharing rides with the neighbors are the substance of their life together. The life which they sustain and the practices they publicly endorse are hardly what the Ramsey Colloquium refers to as a gay lifestyle. They live a rich life doing was is expressed through the paradigm of marriage, and they do their best to strengthen these practices in their community. They contribute to what the Ramsey Colloquium might call the social fabric of marriage and family, but when they lay down at night, they do so together in the same bed.

I call this relationship an anomaly because it does not fit into the precise contours of the male-female relationship, but it does not mount a challenge either. In fact, these two women work hard to sustain the practices of fidelity and child rearing which are associated with the practices of marriage. If so, then their lives together are appropriately placed on the marriage side of the.

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Colloquium's divide between heterosexual marriage and "gay politics". This placement is certainly anomalous in terms of the Ramsey Colloquium's claims. The Colloquium is consistent with its connection between a public affirmation of heterosexual marriage and its categorization of all homosexual relationships as deviant. But the union between the women in our example both affirms the basic paradigm and seems to transgress into deviance. Their union obviously lacks elements like male-female complementarity and natural procreative possibilities, but its steadfast fidelity, its nurturing of children, and its contributions to the family-sustaining practices of the comunity set it within the public network of marriage. The Ramsey Colloquium would have no other option than to welcome this lesbian couple into their common pursuits of common goods, all the while maintaining a conceptual dissonance about their own hospitality. This category shift also characterizes the couple's relationships in their community. From the group of those who hold a principled stance against gay and lesbian relationships, some will find the relationship between our two women intolerable. But a good number of neighbors, co-workers, and friends will say that they are against homosexuality in principle, but that these two lesbians, Sally and Janice, are different somehow. Others, of course, will not hesitate to join in a common life with them. Why? Theories about tolerance are unnecessary. In the everyday practices of their lives together (e.g., taking trips to the park, playing softball, and running fund-raising projects), the two women and their daughter live among neighbors and friends as a family living among families. They are bound by common ways of life, common goods, and common goals for their children.

To sum up the arguments so far, I have suggested that certain relationships which do not fulfill all the elements of marriage are marriages nevertheless. The most obvious case is when a man and woman find that they are childless. They continue to be married in the fullest sense, although they are expected to contribute to the community and its child rearing practices in some other way. The same holds for couples who encounter difficulties in their interpersonal relationships. No marriage is exempt from dysfunction; yet, marriages continue to be vital because marriage is a set of practices which encompass far more than the interpersonal relationship between spouses. Through common practices, couples are sustained within the public network of marriage, and this network will also sustain particular gay and lesbian relationships. This fit between practices of marriage and homosexuality might not be anticipated, given the contrast between traditional practices of heterosexual marriage and the gay identity as it has been shaped in response to the hegemony of heterosexuality and in terms of the politics of liberation.[10]  Because particular relationships will not be anticipated, like our coalition between our lesbian couple and the Ramsey Colloquium, they will be seen as anomalies. Recognizing them as anomalies opens the way for local judgments which do not undercut common practice or the general rule. On a

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local level, persons might say yes to the Ramsey Colloquium and yes to Sally and Janice.

Members of the Ramsey Colloquium are likely to counter my arguments by explaining that I am avoiding the critical issue. This lesbian couple is a lesbian couple, and no matter what they do to sustain the social fabric of marriage, their relationship is a public endorsement of homosexuality as a lifestyle choice. In support of their position, the Colloquium might cite the fact that church and state have not recognized homosexual unions as unions even though they have existed informally. There is a great deal of merit to this line of argument, not only because formal recognition of marriage provides a context for common goods to be pursued, but also because it establishes a framework through which public support is given to particular marriages. Formal recognition opens the way for a community to furnish a home through bridal showers and wedding gifts, for the partners to cultivate their identity as married persons, and for common commitments and continuing community support. Lacking formal bonds, the Ramsey Colloquium might claim, homosexual unions are inherently precarious and not likely to withstand typical challenges to fidelity and lifelong commitment. But this claim begs the question about public recognition. The Colloquium's arguments about the public good may provide the best care for formal recognition of gay and lesbian unions.[11]  Formal recognition requires choices and commitments which undercut the notion that being gay is limited to a single (promiscuous?) lifestyle.

 

Objection Two: The Act

 

While the previous section deals with ideologies and social frameworks, this section considers the way homosexual acts themselves are conceptualized as immoral. As the previous section does, this one will consider the strongest arguments available against the permissibility of gay and lesbian unions. These arguments will provide a point of departure from which to consider the status of our two women who are raising a child in community among the married, whether the women present an anomaly which can be taken into the network of marriage or whether their sexual acts set them apart irretrievably on the side of immorality.

A concise statement of the Roman Catholic Church's standard for judgments about sexual expression is provided by the "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the pastoral Care of Homosexuals," issued in 1986. Appealing to Scripture but also tapping traditional and more recent claims of natural law theology, the letter concentrates on God's creation of humanity as male and female.

God, in his infinite wisdom and love, brings into existence all of reality as a reflection of his goodness. He fashions mankind, male and female,

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in his own image and likeness. Human beings, therefore, are nothing less than the work of God himself; and in the complementarity of the sexes, they are called to reflect the inner unity of the Creator. They do this in a striking way in their cooperation with him in the transmission of life by a mutual donation of the self to the other.[12]

            This short passage ties together important theological themes. God fashions an image and likeness of God's own being in male and female. But this likeness is not merely imaged in both male and female; it is expressed in the complementarity of the two sexes which, together, reflect God's unity. Man alone or woman alone does not furnish a complete image. It seems to follow, then, that two, ten, or one hundred men, perhaps living together in a religious community, do not reflect the inner unity of the Creator any better than one man alone. A man and a woman are required, and this union of two expresses a likeness to the Creator in a deeper sense, by cooperating with God in the transmission of life. The union of man and woman and the transmission of life are intimately connected. They are the two interlocking ends of marriage.

       This statement about male-female complementarity and procreation provides the basis for judgments about the immorality of homosexual acts. The "Letter to the Bishops" continues:

To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the Creator's design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of Christian living. This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves, but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent.[13]

            In this argument against homosexual acts, it is important to note that the Letter does not hold that all unions of male and female are self-giving or beyond reproach simply because they are heterosexual. Rather, the Letter states that homosexual acts, because they are not heterosexual, necessarily violate the Creator's design and express a selfish turn toward sameness rather than the complementarity of the other. Homosexual acts, then, are immoral according to the structure of the act itself. On one hand, heterosexual acts will be judged in their particular contexts–faithfulness, commitment, mutuality, and free participation. On the other hand, homosexual acts are immoral merely as acts. The "Letter to the Bishops" recognizes the possibility of a homosexual orientation, which is a tendency or inclination of the self regardless of deliberate choice.[14]  But it sees this orientation as disordered insofar as it is expressed through a sexual act.  The Letter interjects

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an unusual view of an unnatural nature. The orientation is not merely a physiological tendency but an indelible aspect of a person's identity. Homosexual persons are not culpable for their constitutive orientation, but free decisions to act on this orientation are a moral failure nonetheless.

Despite difficulties in coming to terms with the nature of sexual orientation, the Letter's arguments are effective. The procreative purposes of marriage and the notion of male-female complementarity clearly exclude the permissibility of homosexual acts. The procreative end might appear to be decisive in itself, but from a sheerly procreative point of view, gay or lesbian sexual acts are on the same standing with heterosexual acts after menopause or with sterility. As noted above, sterility for heterosexual couples does not preclude participation in the procreative end of marriage, but requires involvement in pursuit of that end through adoption or through support of a community's child rearing practices. This participation could be performed by gay or lesbian couples also: therefore, male-female complementarity, rather than procreation, will provide a clearer delineation between heterosexual and homosexual acts.

Male-female complementarity, at least its current use, is an innovation in understanding the conjugal union. A document as late as Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church of the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, makes no mention of it. Gaudium et Spes approaches what could be considered an allusion to complementarity, but it does not state the principle outright. For my purposes, whether the principle is explicit or assumed is not the issue. The issue is whether or not a notion of complementarity has a definitive function. Gaudium et Spes introduces the theme of the relationship between male and female while discussing humanity as created in the image of Cod. The Constitution asserts that "God did not create man as a solitary. For from the beginning 'male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27). Their companionship produces the primary form of interpersonal communion. For by this innermost nature man is a social being, and unless he relates himself to others he can neither live nor develop his potential."[15]  Gaudium et Spes puts emphasis on the fact that humans have been created as social beings. Creation as male and female is used as the paradigmatic example, but the example does not exclude other ways of imaging humanity's social nature. When the document expounds further on conjugal love and the sanctity of marriage, it begins with the claim that "the intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws," but the encyclical does not draw out the point in detail.[16]  Instead, it develops themes of interpersonal love, mutual self-giving, faithfulness, the fruitfulness of marriage, and the necessary harmony between procreation and the conjugal union (building the case against artificial means of contraception). The inseparable bond between the marriage union and procreation makes a development of male-female complementarity unnecessary. The notion of complementarity does not have a substantive function in the encyclical.

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But complementarily does take on a prominent role when other issues are broached-particularly discussions of contraception, homosexuality, and the equality of women. The role of woman, according to Philip Keane in his Sexual Morality: A Catholic Perspective, is key to gaining a clear picture of human sexuality. For him, the idea of male-female complementary is a critical feature of sexuality because it expresses the view that men and women are different, and that their differences are the source of unique social and interpersonal contributions to human fulfillment.[17]  In addition, complementarity offers a way to sustain the general outline of the church's traditional view of marriage while, at the same time, highlighting the unitive end as autonomous, that is, as a good end in itself. Up until this century, the unitive end has been overlooked or overshadowed by the dominant end of procreation.[18]  Keane is concerned to put the covenant between husband and wife firmly on a level with procreation.  By doing so, he is able to emphasize interpersonal goods of marriage and to approach issues of contraception with more latitude than the procreative model. Highlighting the conjugal union sets the conditions for complementarily to become decisive in identifying the goods essential and internal to that union.

Likewise, in dealing with homosexuality, complementarily becomes crucial when the procreative end is diminished. A good example of this strategy is found in James Hanigan's Homosexuality: The Test Case for Christian Sexual Ethics. Hanigan departs from the procreative view and seeks to establish the goods of marriage primarily in terms of the union between husband and wife.[19]  He holds that marriage is a shared love, expressed as a vocation, that is, a way of life and service to community, which has its basic expression in the unity in difference of sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse makes two become one flesh; it expresses a new way of life in the bond of husband and wife, and it gives life if, in fact, a child is conceived. The unity in difference of sexual intercourse is grounded in the complementarily of male and female, an interrelation which same sex couples will never achieve. Complementarity, then, becomes the linchpin for Hartigan's arguments against homosexual unions. He agrees with his opponents who hold that a gay or lesbian relationship can be a loving, caring, growth enhancing union. But he shows that such a union will fail to express the sexual core of unity-in-difference. Therefore, the gay relationship lacks the complementarily which is the foundation for a couple's symbolic and substantial contribution to human community.[20]  As the title of the books suggests, his arguments against homosexuality are to be understood as a test case for understanding human sexuality in general. In this sense, male-female complementarily is an innovation---introduced as a stopgap measure against homosexuality.

Complementarity is one of those innovations which fits with the tradition so well that most assume that it has always been the way male-female relationships have been conceptualized. To this degree, it is important to draw a historical contrast. Thomas Aquinas, for example, holds that men
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and women have different functions in maintaining a household. The household is the location for their differentiation because Thomas assumes that the completeness of the social or civil order can and ought to be sustained through relationships between men.[21]  He does agree that the perfection of nature includes a diversity of the sexes,[22] but he explains the creation of women by diminishing rather than enhancing the notion of complementarïty. "We are told," he explains, "that woman was made to help man. But she was not fitted to help man except in generation, because another man would have proved a more effective help in anything else."'[23]  Any view of complementarity found here is a function of the procreative end and certainly is not the concept to which Keane and Hanigan refer.

Male-female complementarity accentuates the physical character of the heterosexual intercourse, but it also introduces a claim about social goods which differs from the traditional focus on procreation. For Thomas, the social benefit of a relationship between a man and a woman is generation. Nevertheless, procreation is not sufficient to provide the contours for appropriate sexual expression. Marriage is the context. Even for Hanigan, mere sexual intercourse between a man and a woman is not the normative context for complementarity. Once again, marriage is. The physical character of male-female complementarity is considered an expression of unity-indifference, sociality, and mutual self-giving only when a faithful, steadfast, life-giving covenant has been formed. Male-female complementarity does not produce the goods of marriage but is produced by it. Therefore, complementarity is an innovation well suited to conceptualizing the particular goods of heterosexual marriage, but there is a danger in allowing the male-female structure of the sexual act to carry the significance of marriage as a whole. Complementarity does not have a function when the usual judgments about sexual acts are made. Are they consensual? Faithful? In the context of covenant? In these questions, male-female complementarity is otiose. Hanigan is mistaken in his attempt to elevate complernentarity from virtual obscurity to being a linchpin for sexual ethics. On a social level, there is an additional danger in elevating sexual difference above other distinctions which might divide or complement human community or, more particularly, the church. The church is animated by a diversity of gifts and vocations, all of which contribute to the fullness of common life. Being male or female is neither calling nor gift of the Spirit.

This section began with a focus on the homosexual act itself as a violation of the goods of procreation and male-female complementarity. Yet, the subsequent discussion has underlined the point that the sexual act itself is morally intelligible only when understood within a wider context of marriage. The structure of the sexual act is determined not by the physical act in itself but by intentions and circumstances internal to the act as a moral act. This contrast between claims about the physical act itself and dependence on a wider context creates a gap where certain homosexual unions might be

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viewed as anomalies. Homosexual acts clearly set gay and lesbian unions apart from the heterosexual norm. But particular homosexual unions which are faithful, steadfast, and productive of the public good are brought near to the network of goods which are sustained by their practices of faithfulness and parenting. In the gap between the act itself and the wider context, some homosexual unions will blur the line dividing their non-heterosexual acts from positive contributions to the ways of marriage. Particular gay and lesbian relationships will function less like extramarital sexual encounters and more like marriage.

Consider Humanae Vitae's account of conjugal love.

[T)his love is total, that is to say, it is a very special form of personal friendship, in which husband and wife generously share everything, without undo reservations or selfish calculations... (T)his love is faithful and exclusive until death ... And finally, this love is fecund, for it is not exhausted by the communion between husband and wife, but is destined to continue, raising up new lives...[24]

If the two women in our test case are raising a child, or if they are contributing to their community as teachers, coaches, and mentors, if they are willing to open their home to children, if their love is total, faithful, and exclusive, if they show promise of being united till death, they will present a difficulty for those who would quickly east their relationship only in terms of their immoral homosexual acts. The two women hold their acts accountable to the practices which would make non-procreative heterosexual marriage justifiable. With their nearness to the normative paradigm, it is easy to understand why male-female complementarity is such an important theme for arguments against homosexual unions. The entrenchment of complementarity is a way to avoid this anomalous case: the lesbian couple who does not fit the contours of heterosexuality but clearly conforms to the practices of marriage. The anomaly does not alter the normative view of marriage, but it does require judgment about how to categorize the particular case. In this sense, our consideration of the homosexual act repeats the basic question raised while dealing with the Ramsey Colloquium's defense of the public good. What is the appropriate response when same sex unions sustain marriage far more than they promote homosexual acts? Particular gay and lesbian couples will present anomalies for Christianity's way of dealing with marriage and sexual intercourse, and on a local level, communities will deal with this type of anomaly by taking in same sex couples as family among families.

 

Objection Three. Scripture

This section will proceed like the previous two. It begins with strong arguments about conventional standards of sexual expression, but looks for gaps.  Complementarity is one of those innovations which fits with the tradition so well that most assume that it has always been the way male-female relationships have been conceptualized. To this degree, it is important to draw a historical contrast. Thomas Aquinas, for example, holds that men

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where faithful gay and lesbian unions enter the context of practices which sustain and are sustained as marriage. The plate to bin, then, is Scripture's model of heterosexual marriage. Key tents used to support the model are the first chapter of Genesis, I Corinthians 7, and passages such as Colossians 118, "Wives, be subject to your husbands." The Genesis text, “...male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to there, "fruitful and multiply..."' (1:76-7), is used by those who focus on the procreative end of marriage as well as those who make male-female complementarity essential. I Corinthians 7 is Paul's instructions about the advantages and disadvantages of marriage. These teachings, according to the standard interpretation, offer a full account of the relationship between men and women the conjugal union.[25]  The Colossians text, along with others like Ephesians 5:21--33, not only solidifies the norm of heterosexual marriage but also has plagued Christianity with the issue of whether or not a gender-based hierarchy is essential to the union. Here, claims about male-female complementarity reach a social/functional level.  Whether on one side of this issue or the other, marriage between a man and woman is understood to be the Scriptural form of sexual expression. Homosexual acts are excluded.

Although heterosexuality has become the standard interpretive grid in understanding Scripture, male-female relationships have been shaped in a variety of ways. Following the creation account in Genesis, we find that polygamy and concubinage are common practices and that women, in general, are considered goods to be protected or exchanged between men. We find that the holiness codes in Leviticus 18 presuppose heterosexual relations and explicitly prohibit "men lying with men". But we also find a different content and a different way of organizing what moderns call sexual ethics. If we accept the codes' strictures against homosexual acts, do we also base our incest regulations of the violation of a man's right to the possession of a woman? No. We reinterpret incest, framing it as a pernicious form of possession, dominance, and abuse. Do we put sexual intercourse during menstruation on the level with adultery, bestiality, and sacrificing one's child to Molech (Lev. 18:19-23)? No, we keep same prohibitions and reorganize others. The holiness codes conceptualize sexual relations differently. They are based on categories of discrimination which are not used when Christians formulate their sexual ethics, categories such as the cutting off of blemishes, avoiding, the mixing of kinds (especially in relation to the "polluting potential of women"), disavowing association with idolatrous cult practices, and-in the case of adultery--protecting property rights.[26]  Typically, these ways of organizing sexuality are overlooked when Genesis or the holiness codes are marshalled in defense of marriage car against homosexuality.

The same is true of appeals to Paul. Few of his interpreters emphasize the fact that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, encourages men and women, especially women, not to marry. Singleness is preferred, and marriage is for those who have not been given gifts of the unmarried life. Likewise, interpreters are
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likely to cite Paul in their discussions of marriage and procreation while failing to make note that Paul never draws a connection between the two. Interpreters might attribute this omission to Paul's imminent eschatology. But if the impending end of time is not eliminating the need for marriage, why would the gift of children be any less significant? Why not have more lives to populate the kingdom? Finally, in his comments on marriage, Paul does encourage mutual love. Why, in Ephesians 5, does the author call the husband to love his wife, but the wife to subjection and respect for her husband (vv. 21-33)? The reciprocity is asymmetrical. Again, these questions are not intended to undercut the biblical witness to marriage, but to suggest that more than a few different ways of conceptualizing sexual activity are present in Scripture.

Male-female relationships are the paradigm, and same sex acts are prohibited. These points are clear. But the Christian view (or views) of marriage cannot be located in one Scriptural passage or another. Views of marriage depend as much on texts which do not treat either marriage or sexual ethics as they do on texts where such themes are explicit. Note, for instance, the contemporary practice of using Paul's discourse on love. l Corinthians 13, as a text in wedding ceremonies. "Love is patient; love is kind ..." (v. 4) rings the ears of bride and groom as testimony to the enduring love which will embodied in their marriage. But the Corinthian text itself sets love within the ongoing life of the church, its spiritual gifts, and its life as a single body. Marriage is not mentioned as a context for this love. Texts which treat marriage explicitly are secondary, even when we are looking for guides to marriage itself. Marriage is a set of practices which emerges from the vocations, commands, and themes of Scripture as a whole and the continuing life of, the church as a whole. No single text gives marriage its form. The basic themes of Scripture, the practices of marriage, and the practices of Christian community all function as guides for reading particular texts as texts which reveal the character of love and marriage.

This relationship between Scripture and marriage reveals two significant points for our discussion of homosexuality. First, in contrast to marriage, discussions of homosexuality are dominated by the evidence of particular texts. Second, sexual orientation is a conceptual framework used by interpreters to examine what various texts have to say about homosexuality, but the framework itself is not basic to Scripture. The holiness codes have one way of organizing sexual acts, while Paul or Philo or Greek philosophers have another. Yet, none conceives of a sexual orientation as a modern person will refer to this constitutive aspect of his or her identity. Therefore, Scripture is clear about its disapproval of same sex acts, but dues not broach the idea of orientation. In the main, a gendered object of desire is not considered a source of that desire (that is, women do not produce desires in men), and in the Hellenistic world, desire itself (rather than the object) is gendered.[27]  Same sex acts might be considered impure, or excessive, or non-procreative, or

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effeminate, but they would not be considered as emerging from a mistaken "orientation". As soon as a person's desires are understood to have a particular orientation, the question about same sex acts is cast differently. Same sex acts then become homosexual acts which emerge from a given, stable sexual identity.

Three New Testament passages contain references to homosexual acts, I Corinthians 6:9-11, I Timothy 1:8-11, and Romans 1:24-32. All three refer to homosexual acts in a list of corrupt activities, ranging from fornication to drunkenness and thievery. These vice lists are used to illustrate a main argument. In the Corinthian text, Paul begins with a rebuke against those who take their grievances to the courts and uses the list of vices to draw a contrast between a life of wickedness and life in Christ. The Timothy text holds that the law is laid down for the lawless, and the catalogue of corrupt behavior expounds on the ways of lawlessness. In the first chapter of Romans, the list of sins is part of Paul's argument that, while both Gentiles and Jews are guilty of sin, God's grace is offered to both. In all three texts, the lists of vices are not matters of contention. They are details which underline the main points, and in order for them to work as illustrative points, their meanings and rhetorical impact are assumed rather than argued. As a result, the few references to homosexual acts in the New Testament are not developed as arguments, but simply stated.

The vice list in I Corinthians 6:9-11 uses two terms malakoi and arsenokoitai, both of which have been considered references to homosexual acts. But the meaning of these terms is not entirely clear. They are translated by the American Bible Society (Today's English Version, 1936) as homosexual perverts, while the Revised Standard Version (1971) uses sexual perverts, and the New Revised (1989), male prostitutes and sodomites. The consensus of interpreters seems to be that the New Revised Standard Version is closest to the mark. The terms refer either to pederasty (a passive, effeminate male and an active, masculine counterpart) or to male prostitution. In either case, malakoi and arsenokoitai do not refer to homosexuality in general, but to pederasty or prostitution in the ancient world. Arsenokoitai is also used in I Timothy 1:8-11, and its use with the pornoi (fornicators or male prostitutes) and andrapodistai (slave dealers) suggests a meaning similar to the use in 1 Corinthians 6.[28]  Again, the terms do not identify a homosexual orientation, but particular types of acts which could be called abusive and immoral whether or not they are homo- or hetero-sexual.

Romans 1:18-32 presents a more controversial case. The text is located in Paul's attempt (Rum. 1-3) to place both Jews and Gentiles on the same level in terms of both sin and grace. The first chapter of Romans begins by revealing the guilt of the Gentiles. Even though they have not received the Torah law, they have no excuse for dishonoring God because God can be known in creation. The Gentiles, nevertheless, worship creatures, images of birds and reptiles, rather than the Creator. Paul repeats that they have no

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excuse. His condemnation unfolds in a litany about the hardened hearts of the Gentiles. They have turned away, and God has given them up to their drifting astray. One section of this litany refers to homosexual acts.

For this reason, God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, where consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (vv. 26-7)

Unlike the texts from 1 Corinthians or 1 Timothy, this passage does not imply any particular practice (e.g. prostitution), and it contrasts the degrading character of the acts with what is natural. The text seems to imply that homosexual acts in general are disordered, and it seems to give an explanation why. They are contrary to the created order.

This 'against the order of creation' interpretation is developed by Richard Hays.[29]  He agrees with other interpreters that Paul's reference to homosexual acts is only an illustration of the main point. The main point is made explicit in Romans 3:21, where Paul announces that the redemption of all, both Gentile and Jew, comes through Jesus Christ. In order to make this point clear, Paul describes the unfaithfulness, first of the Gentiles and then of the Jews. None is righteous on their own merit, and none, particularly the Jews, has ream to boast. Both Gentile and Jew are justified by grace alone.

The passage which condemns homosexual acts is part of the section, Romans 1:18-2:16, which functions as a condemnation of Gentiles and as a set-up for criticizing Jewish pride as people of the law. The Gentiles are criticized soundly. Then Paul turns to the Jews. "What about you?" he will ask in Romans 2:17. "You call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast about your relationship to God." What excuse can the Jews give for their unfaithfulness? They have no excuse, just as the Gentiles have none. Paul's reference to homosexual acts works as part of the rhetorical set-up. First, Paul "entices his 'Jewish' hearer to nod in agreement with this traditional Jewish indictment of Gentile corruption...".[30]  Then he turns the tables on the Jews. "You have the law, but you are not better off."

Paul's reference to homosexual acts, according to Hays, is an illustration which fits within this rhetorical progression. But when Hays explains the impact of the illustration, he shifts from a reference to the sins of the Gentiles, their idolatry and their self-deception, to an inference about human sinfulness in general. Hays suggests a link with the Genesis account of creation.

Reference to God as creator would certainly evoke for Paul, as well as for his readers, immediate recollections of the creation story in Genesis 1-3, which proclaims that 'God created man in his own image ... male

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and female be created them,' charging them to 'be fruitful and multiply' (Gen. 1:27-28) ... Thus the complementarity of male and female is given a theological grounding in God's creative activity ... Thus, Paul's choice of homosexuality as an illustration of human depravity is not merely random: it serves his rhetorical purposes by providing a vivid image of humanity's primal rejection of the sovereignty of God the creator.[31]

Hays' interpretation seems convincing. Homosexual acts show that humanity is corrupt and rightly condemned.

Despite its clarity, there are some difficulties in Hays' argument. First, we should note that he is making an inference about what Paul and his audience would think. He is attempting to look beneath Paul's explicit statements. Second, his attempt to connect Paul's explicit statements with an implied reference to Genesis 1-3 is a problem if such an inference is assumed to show the fallenness of human nature in general.[32]  Such an inference undercuts what Hays has already determined about Paul's strategy with his readers. Hays' appeal to the male-female structure of sexuality is indisputable to the degree that Paul would not have imagined otherwise. But, in Romans 1:18ff, Paul makes his remarks concerning the failure, not of the Jews, but of those who must depend on knowledge of God as creator, i.e. the Gentiles.

Robin Scroggs, in The New Testament and Homosexuality, gives a more consistent argument, maintaining that the verses in Romans 1:26-7 hold their rhetorical force not through an implied appeal to creation but by tapping common Hellenistic Jewish propaganda against the Gentiles. He makes the case that Paul is referring to a condemnation of pederasty which is leveled by both Stoics and Hellenistic Jews, and as a result would be a handy criticism of the Greek world on its own terms. In addition, Scroggs notes that the condemnation of homosexual acts is a direct appeal to contemporary practices, not an abstract comment about the ordering of male and female in creation. "Paul is thinking only about pederasty... [because[ there was no other form of male homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world which could come to mind."[33]

In sum, Scroggs agrees with Hays about the themes in Romans (sin and grace) but disagrees concerning Hays' inference concerning Genesis 1-3. Paul's condemnation of homosexual acts will be effective insofar as it shows the difference between Jew and Gentile rather than the fallenness of humanity in general. Idolatry, sexual corruption, and other evils mentioned in the first chapter of Romans are Gentile ways, for which the Gentiles have no excuse. The differences between Gentiles and Jews might be cause for the Jews to boast, but Paul will go on to show that they are guilty in a different way. Scroggs also historicizes homosexual practices, limiting Paul's condemnation of homosexual acts to practices particular to the Greek world. Scroggs does not neutralize the fact that Paul condemns all the homosexual acts within his purview. But he shows that the condemnation is a convention

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rather than an implied disputation. Scroggs denies the presence of a theological argument for a condemnation of homosexuality in general.

The notion of homosexuality in general introduces the problem of a homosexual orientation. Scroggs argues that Paul does not deal with the question of homosexual persons, especially those who, today, are entering faithful, permanent relationships of love and service to the community. This type of relationship is not part of Paul's world; therefore, it is a mistake to generalize about a homosexual orientation from Paul's disapproval of pederasty. A similar approach to the issue of orientation is detailed by John Boswell, who holds that Paul's condemnation of homosexual acts would not apply to persons with a homosexual orientation. Boswell's thesis is that Paul assumes that those who turn to an unnatural passion for the same sex had a natural heterosexual orientation from the start.[34]  Therefore, homosexual persons would not be violating their own natures.[35]  In response to Boswell, Richard Hays argues that Paul's "nature" implies a theology of the created order.[36]  As we have seen, Hays' claim is debatable. But even if we grant its accuracy, the issue of orientation is not settled.

Hays' theology of the created order loses its legs as soon as a sexual orientation is understood to be an intrinsic feature of a person's identity, which is neither chosen not coerced. The orientation is simply a given for those who discover themselves to be oriented toward persons of the same or opposite sex. To this degree, both Hays and Boswell are right. Paul may assume that male-female intercourse is natural (Hays), but he would not have considered a situation where persons find themselves definitively oriented toward the same sex (Boswell). Not would he imagine the possibility of two equals (in social, age, or gender status) joining together in a sexually intimate union (Scroggs). Such an egalitarian sexual relationship did not exist in the ancient world whether or not one was engaging in pederasty or male-female intercourse. Although sexual orientation is an anachronism, it is assumed as a given by Scroggs, Boswell and Hays. Considerations of homosexuality cannot avoid "orientation" because that is what homosexuality is: a constitutive orientation.

Once "orientation" is presupposed, the Romans text becomes ambiguous. Perhaps a space is opened for a consideration of our anomalous case. The notion of a homosexual orientation requires those who condemn homosexuality to make a distinction between a blameless homosexual disposition and blameworthy choices and acts. The orientation as opposed to the act, along with the innocence of one and guilt of the other, is a distinction foreign to Paul in Romans 1. A sexual orientation is not chosen, but Paul indicates that the Gentiles are condemned precisely because of their choices. They have turned away. For this reason, a homosexual orientation is not interchangeable with the acts condemned by Paul. While he assumes that homosexual acts among the Gentiles are a clear image of Gentile disobedience, puns with a homosexual orientation live among the faithful and unfaithful. In

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other words, orientation does not provide the image of a people who have willed to turn away from God.

Whose obedience or disobedience causes a sexual orientation-whether hetero- or homo-sexual? The question is nonsense in terms of orientation; yet, it makes sense for Paul in terms of choices and acts and in terms of the divide between Jews and Greeks. The striking fact about a homosexual orientation is that it knows no boundaries. Sexual orientation cannot be secured or prevented by a style of child rearing or by heterosexual or homosexual pedigree. Heterosexual parents bear homosexual children; homosexual parents raise heterosexuals. These truths are as empirically grounded for us as homosexual acts among the Gentiles are for Paul. Paul's illustrative use of same sex acts simply does not translate to the homosexual orientation. The willfulness of a people, the Gentiles, is key for Paul.

The involuntary nature of sexual orientation requires a category shift, not only in terms of Romans but also for traditional ways of understanding dispositions and their acts. Consider greed as a representative example. Acts of greed are immoral, the disposition blameworthy, and all people are susceptible to both. Given this consistency of guilt, opportunity, and universality, greed is not an appropriate analogy to homosexuality. While all are inclined toward greed, gays and lesbians are a small minority, and their orientation is no fault of their own. Yet typically their acts are considered blameworthy. Unlike sins of greed, the homosexual orientation presents an inconsistency between disposition and act. The disposition of greed will be amplified, diminished, or eliminated in relation to one's acts in the acquisition of vice or virtue. But there is no evidence that heterosexual acts will reverse a homosexual orientation, or vice versa. In terms of sexual orientation, disposition leads to acts, but acts do not shape the disposition. Sexual orientation, itself, is not a virtue to be cultivated or a vice to be denied. It just is. The traditional analogy of sin does not hold.[37]

Given the differences between homosexuality and dispositions toward virtues or vices, alcoholism might be a better analogy. It is a disposition of some who must abstain from the act of drinking alcohol, as persons of a homosexual orientation are asked to refrain from same sex acts. But this analogy fails inasmuch as the act itself, drinking alcohol, is not considered a problem for non-alcoholics. The disposition rather than the act is at issue – while the inverse is assumed to be the case for homosexuality. If the analogy were to hold, the only persons that ought not engage in homosexual acts are persons with a homosexual orientation. Heterosexuals would be free to do so-not a satisfactory solution for either side of the debate.[38]  Therefore, analogies with dispositions like alcoholism also fail.

Another analogy, one used by defenders of homosexuality, compares sexual orientation to the difference between being, right or left handed.[39]  The analogy is appropriate insofar as gays and lesbians, the left handers, are a minority who do not choose their inclinations. The analogy also fits to the


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degree that we live in a right handed world, from our language of power and privilege (e.g. the president's right hand man) to our use of scissors and can openers. But the analogy is inadequate because it trivializes our moral struggles with homosexuality, as though the question were morally indifferent. A left handed person can be trained to use the right hand with no ill effects or ongoing tensions with the tendencies of the left. The same cannot be said of one's sexual orientation. In addition to this asymmetry, the left handed analogy evades difficult issues. An effort to say that sexuality is as morally neutral as the use of one's left or right hand diminishes the frameworks of faithfulness and service of community which give shape to the goods of sexual expression.

Homosexuality does, indeed, present us with an anomaly. When all is said, an attempt to be honest about the notion of homosexual orientation while also maintaining that all homosexual acts are immoral results in a troublesome incongruity. First, the orientation is understood to be a given aspect of a person's identity, constitutive but not chosen. Then, it is considered disordered since it is inclined toward immoral acts. Finally, those who are disordered are required to resist their natural inclinations. In effect, they are required to show heroic virtue and effort of the will far beyond those who have an ordered, heterosexual orientation. Paul considered the chaste life a particular gift, given only to some. It is odd that those who consider homosexuality disordered also believed that this same group of people has been given the special graces of chastity, while those in the heterosexual population, who have been set in good order, typically will not be able to control themselves.

This view is an incongruous combination of despair about the homosexual nature mixed with heroic expectations concerning the will of homosexual persons. The disordered (homosexuals) are assumed to have a capacity for good order (chastity), greatest than those who are ordered well (heterosexuals). This view does not make much sense. What it does is confuse the concepts of desire and orientation. When heterosexuals are chaste, we assume that they have learned to limit their desire, or conform them to a particular way of life–all the commitments and loves of the celibate life. We do not assume that all heterosexuals will be capable of this manner of living. It is a calling and a particular gift to the community. In contrast to this gift, we see marriage as the wide road, but still, as a way to conform our desires in faithfulness to God and service to community.

When we ask all homosexuals to be chaste, we treat what we believe to be an irreversible orientation as though it were an untutored desire, conformable to a particular calling and gift. We are assuming that the same sex orientation is equivalent to desires conformable to chastity. As a result, we give gays and lesbians no other means for their desires to be tutored in holiness, A consistent position would hold that all homosexual acts, like all heterosexual acts, are not alike. Some acts are ordered to God and the goods


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of common life, others are not. The orientation itself is not disordered, but it can be misdirected. Both chastity and steadfast fidelity in marriage are our typical means of ordering our desires.

With this discussion of orientation and desire, we have come a long way from our treatment of Scripture. The question of orientation and the debate between Scroggs, Hays, and Boswell leave me a bit unsettled---for two reasons. First, it may seem that I am outlining a theory of sexual orientation. But this is not my concern. Rather, I hope to show that there is room for thinking about our anomalous case of the two women who are raising a child. The discussion of "orientation" has indicated that the few texts which treat homosexual acts are not sufficient for judgments about all same sex unions. Clearly, pederasty, prostitution, and other forms of domination and licentiousness are excluded. But what about our example of a couple who fits well into a community's practices of marriage?

Second, I may have given the appearance that Scripture has nothing to say on the subject of homosexuality--because the analysis and the argue which I have presented have been set in negative terms. It seems that I have determined only what Paul does not say about the homosexual orientation. We ought to remember that homosexual acts are condemned, but that they receive only slight and indirect consideration, so that a substantive treat­ment of the topic is difficult. Homosexual acts do not rank as an important concern. In positive terms, the weight of the biblical witness about marriage points to God's gracious self-giving in Jesus Christ and to the community which is established through the power of Christ's Spirit. The discussion of orientation is important only because it shows that Paul, in Romans 1, emphasizes the choices of the Gentiles and the corruptions they entail. Insofar as we do not see choices in an orientation or a nation or race of people, we can begin to hold each other accountable, not for our orientation, but for the impulses and acts of our desires and the shape of our sexual relationships.

Homosexuality, like marriage, ought to be judged by a comprehensive understanding of Sc