SL Tribune Op-ed

The Standard of Liberty Foundation

For God,Religion,Family,Freedom

Bringing real diversity to the debate over homosexuality

By Stephen Graham

(appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune February 26, 2006)

A recent Tribune op-ed by Kim Clark (Jan. 22) provides an interesting perspective on homosexuality, but it's not the only perspective. After all, diversity, real diversity, includes different world views.

Clark's piece seems to be more of a confession on the part of a father of his love for his children and an assertion of his support for their self-identification as "gay" and their lifestyle choices rather than an educated opinion on the issue of homosexuality. He disregards the fact that it is possible for parents to love their children unconditionally and at the same time refuse to support their bad decisions.

My religious and moral beliefs dictate that homosexuality is a bad idea. This is not to say I do not love homosexuals and wish for them what I think is most beneficial. I have a son who had a bout with same-gender pornography addiction and homosexuality. Contrary to Clark's piece quoting non-expert William Bradshaw who said, "it is virtually impossible for these people to change their orientation," my son voluntarily chose to seek help and was successfully reoriented.

That was six years ago. It seems to have been a very positive move that is enabling him to live a wholesome, normal life. There are thousands like him. And yet many respond negatively to this good news. This is because it holds people accountable for their unnatural thoughts and behaviors.

About the "born that way argument," the developmental biologist, Anne Fausto-Sterling, a self-identified lesbian, noted, "It provides a legal argument that is, at this moment, actually having some sway in court. For me, it's a very shaky place. It's bad science and bad politics."

I agree with local LDS scientists who have actually studied and written on this topic and have decades of clinical case studies under their belts. One says that learning plays a part in developing attitudes toward sexuality. Another says that being supportive of the basic civil rights of self-identified gays and lesbians does not require a belief in the false notion that homosexuality is invariably fixed in all people - it is not.

Many psychologists believe it is an injustice to homosexual men and women not to let them know that they have choice in the lifestyle on which they graft their attractions. Fausto-Sterling goes on to say, "It seems to me that the way we consider homosexuality in our culture is an ethical and a moral question."

Perhaps the crux of the matter lies in whether or not our culture as a whole will accept homosexuality as normal and healthy or continue to see it as abnormal and unhealthy. Clark seems to assert that "normal" is up to the individual. He says the movie "Brokeback Mountain" portrays two men who "discovered that society's idea of 'normal' was for them abnormal."

This view denies that there is a long-held objective standard, outside ourselves, of health, goodness, normalcy and truth. Much has been written by the world's greatest thinkers through the ages on this topic. The consensus is that civilization cannot long survive without such a standard, without, to borrow from Clark, "moral purism."

Without a reliable, unchangeable standard of right and wrong, wellness and disease, fairness and injustice, beauty and ugliness, truth and error, such as we derive from God and His laws, our individual relationships and social systems fall apart.

I note that Clark in his piece personally attacked Larry Miller. It is now commonplace for those who are self-confident in traditional morality, and who exercise their freedoms, to be maligned. Evidently for some people, diverse world views are not allowed.

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