An Open Letter to a University President regarding the
Suspension of a Black Female Administrator Who Challenged a Comparison
between Homosexual Practice and Being Black
Robert A. J.
Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
gagnon@pts.edu,
www.robgagnon.net
For a PDF version with proper
pagination and format click
here
May 6, 2008
President Lloyd Jacobs
University of Toledo
Dear President Jacobs,
Your suspension of Ms.
Crystal Dixon, Associate Vice President of Human Resources at the
University of Toledo, for rejecting a comparison between homosexuality
on the one hand and being black or handicapped on the other hand
constitutes, in my view, a gross injustice and an expression of the very
intolerance that you claim to abhor. The disciplinary action is
also predicated on a lack of knowledge and thus prejudice. I have read
of your action first at
worldnetdaily.com, then the full exchange at www.toledofreepress.com
(the
editor’s editorial,
Ms. Dixon’s response,
your response, and finally the
news of the suspension).
Ms. Dixon is
absolutely right that sexual orientation is not akin to race or sex.
Unlike a homosexual orientation, race and sex
are 100% congenitally predetermined, cannot be fundamentally changed in
their essence by cultural influences, and are not a primary or direct
desire for behavior that is incompatible with embodied structures.
Of course, generally
people don't wake up one morning and say, "I think I'll be a
homosexual." Yet that is different from arguing that homosexual
development is always and only something "given" like race and sex. Even
the Kinsey Institute has acknowledged that nine out of ten persons with
same-sex attractions will experience at least one shift on the Kinsey
spectrum from 0 to 6 during their life; six out of ten will experience
two or more shifts. The intensity of impulses, and sometimes even their
direction, can and often do change over time. Like various forms of
sexual impulses, the degree to which a homosexual "orientation" becomes
fixed in an individual's brain and the intensity with which it is
experienced, at least in part and for some, can be affected by choices
regarding fantasy life, responses to social and environmental factors in
childhood and adolescence, the degree to which one acts on impulses, and
the degree of self-motivation for change.
Even Edward Stein, a
scholar of law and philosophy who is strongly supportive of homosexual
unions, has challenged deterministic models of homosexual development.
He posits instead a nondeterministic model that incorporates a
significant role for choice—often blind, incremental, and indirect but
choice nonetheless (The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory,
and Ethics of Sexual Orientation [New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999]). This is what the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review
had to say about Stein's book: "A landmark book…. It so pulls the rug
out from under biological arguments for lesbian and gay rights that
anyone from now on who appeals to such arguments will have to answer to
Edward Stein's objections" (from back cover).
Without discounting
congenital influences on some homosexual development—which may create a
higher risk factor for homosexual development, but nothing like a
deterministic fait accompli—microcultural factors (family
and peer socialization) and macrocultural factors (societal
incentives for, or sanctions against, homosexual practice; demographics)
probably have a significant impact on the level of incidence of
homosexuality in the population.
Consider the
following:
1. The authors of the
1992 National Health and Social Life Survey—still the best
representative survey of sexual practices in the United States—had
started their study with the belief that a relatively uniform
distribution of homosexuality in social groups "would fit with certain
analogies to genetically or biologically based traits such as
left-handedness or intelligence. However, that is exactly what we do not
find. Homosexuality … is clearly distributed differentially
within categories of ... social and demographic variables" (Edward O.
Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels, The
Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States
[Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994], 307-10). "An environment
that provides increased opportunities for and fewer negative sanctions
against same-gender sexuality may both allow and even elicit expression
of same-gender interest and sexual behavior…. There is evidence for the
effect of the degree of urbanization of residence while growing up on
reported homosexuality. This effect is quite marked and strong for men."
They also found that the relation of education to same-gender sexuality
to "stand out for women in a way that it does not for men." Women who
were college graduates were significantly more likely to report same-sex
partners, same sex desire, and homosexual/bisexual identity than were
women who had only a high school degree or less. Laumann et al.
attributed the difference, in part, to "greater social and sexual
liberalism … and … greater sexual experimentation" that coincides with
education. The fact that women are much less likely than men to be
exclusively attracted to persons of the same sex and much more likely to
vary sexual preference over time suggests that education is a cultural
variable that can impact the incidence of homosexuality on some women.
2. A 1992 study of
nearly 35,000 Minnesota junior and senior high school students concluded
that "responses to individual sexual orientation items varied with age,
religiosity, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status…. The findings suggest
an unfolding of sexual identity during adolescence, influenced by sexual
experience and demographic factors" (G. Remafedi, et al., "Demography of
sexual orientation in adolescents," Pediatrics 89:4 [Apr. 1992]:
714-21.
3. J. Michael Bailey of
Northwestern University, using the Australian Twin Register, showed that
only one out of ten times when one member of an identical twin pair
self-identified as non-heterosexual (a generous 2 to 6 on the
Kinsey spectrum) did the co-twin likewise self-identify (J. Michael
Bailey, et al., "Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual
Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample," Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology 78 [2000]: 524-36). Bailey
admitted that two of his previous identical twin studies, done in the
early 1990s and positing a 50% concordance rate for homosexuality, had
been riddled with sample bias because they recruited participants by
advertising in gay publications.
4. The Columbia and
Yale authors of one twin study using an enormous and nationally
representative sample of adolescents (30,000) concluded: "Less gendered
socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent
same-sex romantic preferences" (Peter S. Bearman and Hannah Brückner,
"Opposite-Sex Twins and Adolescent Same-Sex Attraction," American
Journal of Sociology 107.5 [2002]: 1179-1205). They found no
significant difference in concordance rates for non-heterosexuality
among identical twin pairs (6.7%) and fraternal twin pairs (7.2%), even
though the latter are no more genetically "identical" than non-twin
siblings. Moreover, they found that opposite-sex twins were twice as
likely to report same-sex attraction as same-sex twins; and that males
without older brothers among opposite-sex twins were twice as
likely to report same-sex attraction (18.7%) than their male
counterparts with older brothers (8.8%).
5. According to William
H. James, "There is an abundance of data suggesting that male
homosexuals and paedophiles report having experienced more sexual abuse
(however defined) in childhood (CSA) than do heterosexual controls….
There are grounds for supposing that some of the reports are veridical
[causally related], and there is support from a longitudinal study
reporting a small but significant increase in paedophilia in adulthood
following CSA. To summarize: most boys who experience CSA do not later
develop into homosexuals or paedophiles. However, the available evidence
suggests that a few do so as a result of the abuse" ("Two Hypotheses on
the Causes of Male Homosexuality and Paedophilia," Journal of
Biosocial Sciences 36 [2004]: 371-374; the quotation is from the
abstract).
6. Another study
indicates influences from family structure: Morten Frisch and Anders
Hviid, concluded in a 2006 study that men were more likely to marry
homosexually if their parents had divorced or cohabited for only a short
duration, if parental cohabitation had been characterized by long
periods of a father's absence, or if paternal identity were unknown.
Women were more likely to marry homosexually if their parents had a
short marriage or if the mother had been absent during the child's
adolescence because of abandonment of death. For each extra year that
one's parents stayed married, the percentage of those who married
heterosexually went up 1.6% among sons and 1% among daughters, while the
percentage of those who married homosexually went down 1.8% among sons
and 1.4% among daughters. The study also found that having older
brothers increased the likelihood of marrying heterosexually, a result
that stands in tension with a Canadian study that found that the
incidence of homosexuality increases in proportion to the number of
older brothers.
The above studies
should suffice for demonstrating the error of comparing an
impulse-related condition like homosexuality with race and sex, so far
as origination is concerned. Nor can they be compared as behavioral
conditions. Homosexual attractions are a desire for a form of behavior
that is structurally discordant; race and sex are not in the first
instance impulse-related conditions, much less impulses for behavior
that is incompatible with embodied structures. This leads to the next
issue.
Why is homosexual
practice wrong? One can point to the
disproportionately high rate of measurable harm that attends male
homosexual relationships and female homosexual relationships. The former
exhibit markedly higher numbers of sex partners over the course of life
and a markedly higher incidence of sexually transmitted infections, even
relative to homosexual females. The latter exhibit a markedly higher
incidence of mental health issues and markedly shorter durations of
sexual unions on average, even relative to homosexual males.
Many would like to
attribute these higher rates of measurable harm primarily to societal
"homophobia." Yet such a supposition (for that is all that it is) is
contradicted by two facts. First, these problems persist, at similar
rates, even in the most homosex-affirming cultures within parts of the
United States, in Canada, and in the most sexually "liberal" countries
of Western Europe. Second, societal "homophobia" doesn't explain why the
types of harm affect homosexual males and homosexual females at
different rates and in ways that reflect male-female differences.
For example,
significantly higher rates both of sexual partners over the course of
life and of STIs are exactly what we would expect of all-male sexual
bonds since, as cross-cultural (and even cross-species) studies have
shown, males find monogamy more difficult than females. Put two men
together in a sexual bond without the benefit of female socialization
and the results are predictable. Similarly, the fact that homosexual
females exhibit higher rates of mental health complications is a
reflection of the reality that females generally experience higher rates
of such problems than do males. Women generally invest more of their
self-worth in relationships, which creates a special problem for mental
health when the relationships fail. This problem gets ratcheted up in
all-female unions. Moreover, homosexual females experience shorter-term
relationships on average, even in comparison to male homosexual bonds,
because females generally put greater demands on the quality of the
relationship as a means to satisfying their own individual needs, which
in turn puts greater stress on the relationship. Put two women together,
each making the same high demands of neediness on the other, and one
will predictably get a relatively short union. There are, of course,
exceptions to the rule but the exceptions don't invalidate the rule.
Putting two (or more)
people of the same sex in a sexual union does nothing for moderating the
extremes of a given sex or filling in the gaps of a given sex. It rather
exacerbates the extremes and highlights the gaps. That is the nature of
a one-sex sexual bond. This measurable reality discloses the
non-measurable problem of attempting sexual merger with someone who is
not a true sexual complement. The disproportionately high rates of
problems cited above, as bad as they are, are only symptoms of the root
problem.
What is the root
problem? The root problem is erotic attraction for, and the attempt to
merge sexually with, what one already is as a sexual being. Those who
claim an exclusive orientation toward members of the same sex tacitly
know that what they desire from a person of the same sex is something
that they believe is unobtainable from a person of the other sex;
namely, more of the essential quality of their own sex. A male wants
more maleness, which he believes is unobtainable from a sexual bond with
a female. Conversely, a female wants more femaleness, which she believes
is unobtainable from a sexual relationship with a male, even a
gender-nonconforming male.
It is axiomatic and
undeniable that a male or a female is only one half of a complete sexual
whole since, obviously, there are two primary sexes. The logic of a
male-female sexual bond is that the two primary sexual halves are united
into a single complementary sexual whole. The logic of a same-sex sexual
bond is that each partner is only half his or her own sex, which unites
to form a whole male or a whole female. Such a union dishonors the
integrity and completeness of one's maleness, if male, or femaleness, if
female.
A homosexual person,
despite what he or she may think, is not half of his or her own sex but
half of the full male-female sexual spectrum. A person may be in need of
"structural affirmation" from members of the same sex, but not
"structural supplementation." Merging sexually with another of the same
sex does not make one "more" male, if male, or "more" female, if female.
Rather, it has the opposite effect of regularizing the
self-misperception that one can complete one's own sex only by uniting
sexually with someone of the same sex.
The closest
parallels to adult-committed homosexual relations are
not ethnicity or gender but rather adult-committed incestuous unions
and adult-committed polysexual unions (i.e., sexual unions involving
more than two persons concurrently). The root problem with
adult-committed incest must be applicable even when the relationship
will not produce children (e.g., when one partner is infertile or takes
birth-control precautions; or in a case of homosexual incest). That root
problem is that two people who are too much alike on the level of
kinship and who are thus already members of the same "flesh"
attempt to become "one flesh." It is an instance of too much structural
sameness, not enough complementary otherness. This is the same problem
with homosexual bonds, only now the sameness is more keenly felt on the
level of sex or gender. So adult-committed incest and adult-committed
homosexual unions are analogically related.
As regards polyamorous
unions of a committed sort (i.e. unions with three or more sex
partners), the connection with homosexual practice is not analogical but
foundational. That is to say, the restriction of validated sexual unions
to two persons at any one time is ultimately predicated on the
dimorphism, or "twoness," of the sexes. A sexual union between a man and
a woman so brings together the full range of human sexuality that a
third party is neither necessary nor desirable. Once the importance of
the twoness of the sexes is disregarded, there no longer remains a
logical or nature-based reason for limiting the number of partners in a
sexual bond to two. This is especially so since many people experience
an innate and intense polysexual orientation that is not of their own
choosing.
Nor can the
counterargument be made that a person can only really love one other
person concurrently. For parents don't love their first child any less
when a second child comes. Moreover, most people have many intimate (but
non-sexual) friends, not just one. Yes, there is something special about
sexual bonds that requires a limitation to two persons. But
that "something special" is the fact that a man is the true sexual
complement to a woman and a woman to a man, on a holistic level:
anatomically, physiologically, and psychologically. To disregard that
obvious reality is to leave oneself without rational grounds for
dismissing consensual and committed sexual unions involving more than
two persons. Since a limitation of sexual unions to two persons is
predicated on the foundation of a two-sexes prerequisite, faithful
homosexual unions must be a greater sexual violation than faithful
polysexual unions inasmuch as the foundation is more important than the
structure built on the foundation.
So, given your full
affirmation of homosexual activity, you are left with Oprah Winfrey's
conclusion after meeting some economically upscale, adult-committed
polygamists for a 2007 show: "The best part of doing this job … [is
that] I come in with one idea and then I leave a little more open about
the whole idea. And what I realize … is that in every situation there
are people who give things a bad name. There are difficulties and then
there are people who handle those difficulties differently" ("Polygamy
in America: Lisa Ling Reports,"
http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200710/tows_past_20071026.jhtml?promocode=ssend20071026TD;
full video at
http://video.aol.com/video-search/query/oprah%20winfrey%20&%20lisa%20ling).
Give America more
exposure to upscale, adult-committed polygamous bonds (and
adult-committed incestuous bonds) and America will learn to be more
tolerant of such bonds, as Oprah has. Those who dismiss a polygamy
analogy and an incest analogy on the grounds that polygamy and incest
always produce "demonstrable harm" are simply responding out of their "polyphobia"
and "incest-phobia." And then you can suspend people who say critical
things about such relationships, once you overcome your own prejudices.
Of course, one can
choose to remain logically inconsistent. Yet my point to you is not
merely a slippery slope argument, although supporters of homosexual
unions such as yourself are providing both the slope and the grease. My
point is that if you find adult-committed incest and adult-committed
polyamory offensive on formal or structural grounds, you should find
adult-committed homosexual practice even more offensive. And don't
forget that an appeal to a biologically based orientation is not a moral
argument. As two researchers who have worked hard to demonstrate
congenital influences on homosexual development have admitted: "No clear
conclusions about the morality of a behavior can be made from the mere
fact of biological causation, because all behavior is biologically
caused" (Brian S. Mustanski and J. Michael Bailey, "A therapist's guide
to the genetics of human sexual orientation," Sexual and Relationship
Therapy 18:4 [2003]: 432).
I hope as a president
of a university you will provide your students with an example of
thoughtful and rigorous reflection rather than the kind of harsh,
knee-jerk response that you have thus far taken. Instead of suspending
Ms. Dixon you should be singing her praises for her honesty and her
courage of conviction.
Sincerely,
Robert A. J. Gagnon,
Ph.D.
Associate Professor of
New Testament
Pittsburgh Theological
Seminary
Author of: The Bible
and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001)
Co-author of:
Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress, 2003)