Posted by cav on March 29, 2005 at 19:43:54:
Have any of you heard of the Kinsey sexuality continuum? I just learned about it. It was the result of research in the mid-20th century. Sociologists have been using it and similar developments from it to map human sexuality, sexual preference, and sexual identity for a long time. It is based on real research with no predetermined point to prove.
Just briefly it asks people to rank how they feel on various issues regarding their sexuality with totally no attraction to the same sex, to totally homosexual in every facet. The scale is broken into points with bisexual, equal preference for either and equal gender identity, in the dead middle, but it is a continuum so people can fall anywhere. The research found that only 4% of the population fell at either pole. Further, subjects were likely to change their rankings throughout their life given circumstances.
This basically blows our current gay/straight politics out of the water. There's no such thing. It's like the myth of race, which scientists have been able to prove doesn't really exist.
What I'd like to know is why the Christian community hasn't jumped onto this...oh right, legalistic fear...but I think it is an excellent development. It eliminates the need for people to have to "decide" what they are. To have to fear coming out. To have to fear their own feelings. While the Bible is explicit about homosexuality, it is no worse than any other sin, and if someone struggling with this on either side of the issue (the straight Christian or the Christian with homosexual tendencies) can see that it isn't an either/or it opens a whole lot more room. There is nothing wrong with close same sex relationships and we don't have to fear that it means we are on the other pole. We are free to move along the continuum throughout our lives. This is normal. Christianity simply requires that sex remain in its rightful place. Basically we are all human and we all crave intimacy and affection, and we all have flaws and persistent struggles. If we can eliminate such false classifications our world would be better. I'd love to see a church preach this publically, that there was no gay or straight, only human. And there is sociological research to back it up!
While I'm pretty sure where Falwell would stand on this, I wonder what Dobson would say? He's far too "moral politics" for my tastes, but he's at least a little more reasonable than Falwell.
Interestlingly, I also saw an article in a mainline interdenominational evangelical magazine about how Christians should handle the whole "gays in the church" thing. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they handled it in muchthe way I just described. Wow, I have hope for the future of mankind. Maybe our modern darkages are finally drawing to a close! I may have to revise my entire worldview! I'll let you know after I see the World Expo here in Japan. (Nature's Wisdom is the theme.)