Reframing the Question in Terms of Gender

 This is the second post in my blog series on same-gender marriage. For an outline with links to the whole series, click here. The views expressed in this series are my own and do not represent those of my denomination, conference, or local church.

My two-year-old daughter is at a stage in life where she likes trying on different clothes. One day, I was working on my computer when she asked if she could go to her room to change into a dress, and I said that would be fine. So she disappeared from my view, and after a minute or so I hear her say, “Dad, this dress doesn’t fit.” I wasn’t quite ready to stop what I was doing, so I told her to try a different one. She obliged. But then, a couple of minutes later, she called out from her bedroom, “Dad, this dress doesn’t fit either.” I told her to try yet another, and again she obliged. But a third time, I heard her say, “Dad, this doesn’t fit either!” and she was clearly getting exasperated. So I went into the room and discovered the problem: she was trying to put them on by stepping into them and pulling them all the way up to her shoulders, but the neckline was too small. The only way to wear these dresses was to put them on over your head. Fortunately, this meant that we were able to find a dress that fit her, once she put it on in the right direction.

Similarly, I believe that the Christian church has yet to find a theological understanding of homosexuality that “fits.” For the past fifty years or so, several options have been tried, but they all seem to come up short either in their faithfulness to Scripture or in the positive impact they are supposed to have in the lives of gay people. [E1] I submit that this is because we have been coming at the question “from the wrong direction.” The primary questions that frame the debate tend be some version of these: “Is homosexual behavior sinful?” or “Is homosexuality a part of God’s good creation?” The problem with these questions is that they don’t get to the heart of the issue at stake. The primary issue at stake is the meaning of gender. Our sexual ethics only make sense once we have clarified the role that gender is supposed to play in our lives.
This may seem like a meaningless distinction on the first reading, but when you really think about it, it runs counter to the way we’ve been conditioned to think about same-gender attraction and marriage for the past forty years. Although questions about sexual attraction and behavior have always been present in the church to some extent, the church was forced to confront with the question of gay rights in a thorough way for the first time in response to the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. This movement challenged not only the legal restrictions against same-gender sex but also the moral teachings that the church had always raised against it. Naturally, when the church responded to this challenge, we answered in the same frame in which the question was posed to us: by treating homosexuality as a subcategory within the broader issue of sexuality. In the Mennonite Church, this analysis began in the 1970s. Our church responded to this "crisis" by commissioning a study on sexuality, called “Human Sexuality in the Christian Life.” [E2] This study was explicit that it was not just a treatise on "homosexuality" but one on human sexuality in general, and that frame dominated the way that questions about same-gender attraction and sexual behavior were engaged.
From that time until the present, the theological debate about homosexuality within the Christian community has been consumed by questions about sex rather than gender. For example, it delves into questions about where our sexual desires come from, how we are expected to manage them, etc. But I believe that all of this is only tangential to the core issues at stake. On this score, I find myself in alignment with Mark Yarhouse, a conservative [E3] Christian theologian and psychologist, who states, “Ultimately, does the cause of same-sex attraction fundamentally change the Christian sexual ethic? No. We are called to live the way that God reveals is good for us in terms of sexuality and sexual behavior.” [E4]

Yarhouse is right. Our ethics should not be determined by the strength of our desires. Instead, our desires should be evaluated in terms of our ethics. So how do Christian conservatives evaluate same-gender ethics in the Bible instead? Some conservative scholars suggest that we ought to shift the focus from "homosexual desire" to “homosexual behavior.” This is the approach followed by Robert Gagnon, the leading conservative Biblical scholar on the subject. In the introduction to his book, he says, “The focus of this book on ­same-sex intercourse or homosexual practice, as opposed to homosexual orientation, is a reflection of the Bible’s own relative disinterest toward motives or the origination of same-sex impulses.” [E5]  

Gagnon gets us a little closer to the actual issue at stake, but unbeknownst to him, he still is held captive by the sexual frame of the sexual revolution rather than the way the Bible engages this issue. How is that? Because he is right that the Bible does not address "homosexual desire," but neither does the Bible use terms like “homosexual practice” or “homosexual behavior.” Those are modern terms that frame the behavior in terms of the desire. More importantly, that language suffers from being too imprecise. The term "homosexual behavior" subtly conflates two separate factors: a sexual behavior and the gender of the person performing it. To say that "same-gender sexual behavior" is immoral leaves one wondering - what is immoral about it - the behavior itself or the gender of the people engaging in it? Which of these factors is the Bible concerned about?

Let’s start by considering the sexual behavior. What actions do we actually have in mind when we are evaluating the morality of “homosexual behavior”? In many cases, the sexual behaviors that gay couples practice are similar or identical to the sexual behaviors that straight couples practice. Consider oral sex, as an example. If it is unnatural for two people to engage in any kind of sexual activity other than vaginal intercourse between a male and a female, then we would expect the Bible and the Church to condemn all oral sex, whether it is being practiced by gay couples or straight couples. But neither the Bible nor the Church make an issue out of this because it is not the key issue at stake. [E6]

The other factor that is implicit in the phrase “homosexual behavior” is the gender of the people engaged in that activity. [E7] That is where the Bible's real concern lies. Listen to the actual wording of Leviticus 18:22, the first prohibition against same-gender sex in the Bible. It says, ““You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.” For better or worse, this passage assumes that the audience – the “You” – is male. It then forbids the male reader from “lying with” another man as one lies with a woman. The prohibition is not concerned with the action, “lying with someone,” for it implies that it is appropriate to perform the same action with a woman. The emphasis is on the gender of the sexual partner. In other words, it is not the sex act itself that is forbidden, but it is the gender of the people who engage it that is of primary concern.

What does this mean? That we have been going about this whole thing backwards. Just like my daughter couldn’t find a dress that “fits” because she was trying them all on “feet first,” so have we struggled to make sense of how the Bible’s ethics could apply to the healthy and godly same-gender couples that we see in our society. We have been searching for a more “liberal” sexual ethic in the New Testament, but there is none to be found. If anything, the New Testament holds followers of Jesus to higher sexual standards than the Older Testament. However, the New Testament does have some pretty radical things to say about gender. That is where our conversation should begin, and it makes all the difference.

So let me propose an alternative question. Rather than centering our debate around the imprecise concept of “homosexuality” or even “homosexual behavior,” let’s ask the question, “Do Biblical ethics allow for two people of the same gender to have sex in any setting?” Better yet, let’s ask a more important question – whether Biblical ethics would permit two people of the same gender to get married, with the understanding that sex would be a part of the marriage package. I believe that it does. Here is my basic argument as to why:

I.               The Bible reveals that God did not intend for human behavior to be determined by gender norms.

II.             The prohibition against same-gender sex is a gender norm (i.e. a restriction/requirement imposed solely because of the gender of the people involved).

III.           Therefore, those who accept the authority of Biblical revelation should not make blanket prohibitions against same-gender sex, but should remain open to the possibility that God may call two people of the same gender into the covenant of marriage and bless their sexual intimacy in that context.

In this post, I have argued the minor premise, that the prohibition against same-gender sex is a gender norm. That is to say, it is primarily about gender and only secondarily about sex. I am sure that many of you will have doubts and questions about the major premise – that the Bible reveals that God did not intend for human behavior to be determined by gender norms. Already the objections come to mind! I’d ask you to hold them just a little longer. My next(and longest) post will seek to address just that – what does the Bible have to say about gender?

End Notes

[E1] I should acknowledge at this point that there are many gay people who have chosen to follow a conservative interpretation of the Bible’s teaching on same-gender intimacy and who have been relatively “successful” with it.  I put successful in scare quotes because this all depends on how you define success. They have not been successful in changing sexual orientation. This extensive study by the American Psychological Association evaluated a number of “gay converstion therapy” programs and concluded that they rarely work. However, people who enter these programs may be able to reduce their sexual drive in general – if that is considered a good thing – and form meaningful relationships with others who are going through a significant experience. Of course, this last piece should be applauded and encouraged, but it doesn’t really have any bearing on the question at hand.

On the other hand, there are testimonies of people who have come out of a promiscuous gay lifestyle, accepted a conservative Biblical interpretation on same-gender intimacy, and have felt that they made the right decision. Indeed, many of them came to a saving relationship with Christ in the conversion process. These are testimonies that I take very seriously, and I praise God for their experience of salvation and freedom. However, I would submit that it was the promiscuity that was hurting them, not the fact that the people with whom they were promiscuous were of the same gender. I’ll address this more extensively in my sixth post.

Additionally, I recognize that among the gay people who accept a conservative reading of Scripture, there are several who have been able to find someone from the opposite sex to whom they are attracted to some degree, marry them, and enjoy healthy marriages. If these marriages truly are healthy for both parties, then I do not want to say anything to undermine them. However, in my personal interactions with such people, I have found that even in the best of circumstances, they still feel same-gender attraction and they still have to live with the sense that there is something “wrong” with them. This is a daily oppressive assault to their dignity, and it ought to be challenged. For many people who are in these marriages, this becomes unbearable, and it is not uncommon for them to leave their marriages and their faith at the same time.

Finally, let’s not forget that there are many gay people on the other side who have been deeply wounded by the conservative interpretation. Some of them have left the church and will never come back. Others have joined affirming or welcoming congregations. Still others suffer silently with their pain – often dealing with severe depression in the meantime. This is not the focus of my Biblical series, but I’ll offer one link to gay voices who’ve had this experience.

[E2] The text of this study, Human Sexuality in the Christian Life, can be found here. When I say it was produced by the “Mennonite Church,” I am speaking somewhat anachronistically. My current denomination, the Mennonite Church USA, came into existence in 2002, when two smaller denominations – the (Old) Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church merged. These denominations were already talking about merging in the 1980s when the document was produced, and so the study was done jointly, by members of both groups. For all intents and purposes, it’s the same church.

[E3] When I use the terms “conservative” and “progressive” in this blog series, I am using them in a very narrow way, with conservative indicating that they do not believe that God permits same-gender marriages and progressives having the opposite view. On the one hand, I hesitate to use such broad categories in such a limited way and I was I knew of a better one-adjective description that I could use. On the other hand, it seems to me that this issue is the line in the sand that most people have drawn to determine whether they or others are “conservative” or “progressive” Christians. By using it myself, I’m acknowledging this reality.

[E4] Mark Yarhouse, Homosexuality and the Christian, p. 30. Generally speaking, I think Mark is one of the most insightful thinkers on the subject, though I ultimately come out at a different place than he does.  

[E5] Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, p. 37-38.

[E6] The Roman Catholic Church serves as a partial exception to this, not because it explicitly prohibits oral sex specifically, but it does seek to regulate sex acts broadly, on the basis of whether or not they lead to the possibility of procreation, and the rationale for prohibiting sex between two people of the same gender falls under this rubric. Cf. Humanae Vitae, the paradigmatic papal encyclical published by Paul VI on the heels of Vatican II.

It would take another blog post entirely for me to give thorough attention to this issue, but perhaps I should say for now that I do not find the Catholic understanding of sex to be convincing, and neither does my church. For example, in the Mennonite document I mentioned in E2, Human Sexuality in the Christian Life, the section entitled “Sex within the marriage” (2.5.6) says, Thus, Paul does not view the purpose of sexual intercourse only for the procreation of children. The sex act has the value of uniting the married couple.” I’ll leave it at that for now – unless there is considerable demand from my readership to engage this further. 

[E7] The term “homosexuality” itself contributes to the problem. The word ‘homo’ is Greek for “same” and sexuality, of course, refers to sexual desire, but put those together and just get “same sexual desire.” That doesn’t make sense. There is a third concept in the word that is implied but that doesn’t get represented etymologically: gender. This way of talking calls our attention to the “sexual” aspect of it and obscures the “gender” aspect. Part of the reason I insist on using the less familiar term “same-gender marriage” or “same-gender sex” is to put extra emphasis on this overlooked aspect of homosexuality. This does not mean that I believe that people who experience same-gender attraction honor have a same-gender orientation should refrain from using this word themselves. I leave it to them to determine the best self-designation.