Do What Suits You

I was reading a post on the Witherspoon Institute's Public Discourse site about our culture's insanity concerning gender and sexuality. The gist of the post is that the woman writing it wore a tuxedo to her high school's prom (in 1985) as an expression of her 15-year-old gender confusion, but then moved on from there to live a "normal" life as a well-adjusted female/feminine member of society (happily married, mother of two, Ph.D. holder). This is to be contrasted with what would happen to the young girl who did that today: she would be applauded by the local LBGTQA community, then asked to become a member, and then practically harassed and coerced (but oh-so-sympathetically) until she embraced her secret identity as one or more of those letters (though not "A" for straight "Ally")

If she resists embracing a lesbian identity, she is encouraged to come out of denial and accept herself for who she is. If she seeks counseling, her therapist hews to a strict, professionally mandated protocol to affirm and validate her identity as homosexual. The counselor tells her that being lesbian is an unchangeable and good part of who she is, even though the girl is experiencing significant distress over the intense emotional and physical draw she feels toward other girls and women.

While she is in therapy, if she mentions wishing to resist these attractions and wonders whether she might develop heterosexually—or at least not identify as gay—it is considered unethical for the counselor to discuss this possibility with her. In some states, such as California and New Jersey, it is even against the law.

If she speaks of her religion and says there are faith convictions at stake that matter deeply to her, the therapist tries to help her overcome her “homophobic” values and free her from the “false consciousness” and oppression to which she is clearly subject.

And if she finally discusses the still unrevealed secret of sexual abuse—the fifty-year-old uncle and the summer six years ago? Exploring its possible connection with her same-sex attraction is forbidden. Any such discussion or treatment must still affirm her same-sex orientation and disassociate the abuse from her sexual development. She is, after all, only fifteen, and must be protected from dangerous ideas that might depress her further and chip away at her fragile self-esteem.

I've seen such things happen before, and I've seen some of the transformations which occur when they do: none have been for the better. There are a few who are out but also attempting to live chastely--but even this can be problematic (see, for example, the article about Gay Christians on page 31 of the January/February 2015 Touchstone magazine).

Society may (or may not) tolerate this particular position as a personal choice, but never as a policy or recommended course of action (especially not by a church!). It certainly doesn't tolerate the personal choice of desiring to not be "gay" or whatever term you may prefer to describe a person who is sexually deviant or gender-bent. Is it possible to (ethically) cure a person who identifies as gay (or whatever) and who has come out with it? It may well be (and there are many testimonies from those who were so cured), but then, this is a road which our society wants to see closed. It turns out that there are some "personal choices" which men will not be allowed to make by our supposedly permissive society. And those choices--whether they may actually be accomplish-able or not--will increasingly be the old moral choices in which we would have found real freedom.