“Born this way”? Published and unpublished letters in the Church Times.
On 15th January 2016 Dr Paul Vallely wrote an article in the Church Times, which contained these assertions:
“[…] Much theological opposition to homosexuality rests on the presumption that it is a choice, a perverse decision to deviate from the heterosexual norm. But that view has been left stranded by a scientific and social consensus … Homosexuality is now seen not as a choice, but a biological disposition influenced by genes and prenatal brain structure.
In one sense, David Bowie added confusion rather than clarification to this. Although he once publicly declared himself to be gay, he later said that he was actually bisexual, and, later still, insisted that he was “always a closet heterosexual”. His sexual ambiguity was the act of an agent provocateur out to attract attention to his music.
But if Bowie was a controversialist and a contrarian, he was a catalyst. He was a role model to the alienated and angst-ridden, experiences that many people endure at some point in their lives. More than that, he was a force of liberation to those whose sexuality meant that they were oppressed by a stultifying social conservatism rooted in an obsolete anthropology. Theology that rests on out-dated science needs rethinking.”
The following week Revd Dr David de Pomerai replied:
Paul Vallely is right to plead for a theology of human sexuality informed by sound science, but he is too gung-ho in his apparent conviction that the scientific debate around homosexuality is all but settled.
Having reviewed the relevant biological evidence in 2008 (in The Anglican Communion and Homosexuality, SPCK) and kept abreast of the literature since, I regretfully beg to differ.
A contrasting pair of recent papers exemplify my point. Last year brought the publication of the biggest ever genetic screening study (Sanders et al., 2015, Psychological Medicine 45, 1379-88), demonstrating two genetic loci that show clear links to homosexuality — albeit within a limited study group of 400 male homosexuals with at least one homosexual brother.
Conversely, in 2014, Neil Whitehead could claim — on the basis of eight published studies of concordance for homosexuality among identical twins — that the influence of genes on homosexuality was negligible — perhaps as low as ten per cent.
Although this appears to be an online review (hence not peer-reviewed?) and is widely quoted in conservative Evangelical circles, the original studies cited do suggest low concordance for homosexuality between identical twins. So, how can two such diametrically opposite conclusions both reflect reality?
The answer lies in an unstated assumption that this small ten-per-cent-genetic influence applies equally to all homosexuals. But why should that be the case? The same overall concordance figure would emerge if the contributory factors were 100 per cent genetic for one in ten homosexuals, so long as there was no genetic influence whatsoever for the other nine out of ten.
This second scenario is consistent with the evidence presented in both studies, but strongly questions the conclusions inferred. A parallel might be drawn with conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, which is usually sporadic and most probably caused by environmental risk factors, but can also be inherited through mutations in one or other of a small set of genes. Very different causes can underlie the same condition.
Homosexuals are not a uniform category of people, nor is there any good evidence for a single underlying “cause” or “explanation”. For some, the causative factors may indeed be genetic (cf. Sanders et al., above), while for others they may be hormonal, or psychosocial, or a matter of choice. What we can assert as a Church, surely, is that each and every one of them is precious to God.
Not published was a letter from Mr Dermot O’Callaghan:
Paul Vallely rightly says that theology ‘that rests on out-dated science needs rethinking’; he considers that opposition to homosexual practice has been left stranded by a scientific consensus. This, however, was not the conclusion of the Pilling Report, which showed that the science is hotly contested. The Royal College of Psychiatrists wrongly claimed to Pilling that ‘sexual orientation is biological in nature’ and ‘there is no evidence that change is possible’. This ignored the evidence of twin studies which undermine the ‘born gay’ myth, and also the research of Lisa Diamond which shows that orientation is not fixed. Furthermore, more people now claim to be bisexual than homosexual, and David Bowie himself ignored social mores, theology and biology in shaping his sexuality.
After a formal complaint to the College, they have changed their position statement, now admitting that homosexuality is neither innate nor immutable. The theology, I suggest, therefore needs to be reviewed in the light of the evidence.
A week later, Revd Dr David Gosling replied to Dr de Pomerai’s letter:
The Revd Dr David de Pomerai’s letter underlines the urgent need for a scientific understanding of the basis of human sexuality which was totally lacking in the prelates’ recent Lambeth decisions. But I am not totally convinced by his arguments, and I believe that some of his points need stronger emphasis.
It is important to emphasise that there are different causative factors in the homosexual disposition, but at least some of them are known to relate to the pre-natal period. This removes all grounds for blame or sin and the consequent discrimination that characterises so much religious thinking about this issue.
Homophobic Christians are therefore obliged to attempt to justify their attitudes by a selective and anachronistic interpretation of scripture which ignores both Jesus’s claim to replace parts of tradition with his own teaching (“but I say unto you”) and the ambiguities in St Paul’s views on the subject. This kind of fundamentalism will be eradicated only with better education and a stronger emphasis on science at secondary level in schools.
Dr de Pomerai draws attention to an online review about homosexuality between identical twins as evidence for disagreement within the scientific community on fundamental scientific issues. But if, as he suggests, the study is not peer-reviewed, then may we not disregard it altogether? — in which case it is hardly evidence of disagreement.
Mr O’Callaghan offered a further letter as a response (again not published):
Revd Dr David Gosling says that Jesus replaces Old Testament tradition with his own teaching (“but I say unto you”), and that St Paul’s teachings about homosexual practice are ambiguous.
One would then expect that Jesus’ teaching about sexual ethics would soften the OT law, for example saying “you have heard it said do not commit adultery, but I say to you do not judge the adulterer”. But of course he does not say this, rather the opposite: even lustful thoughts are sinful. On what basis does Dr Gosling claim that Jesus would have treated homosexual practice differently?
Similarly, St Paul uniformly affirms traditional Jewish sexual ethics and is decidedly unambiguous about same-sex relationships (Rom 1:26-27, 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10). We have a choice: to follow Jesus and Paul on these matters (considered ‘fundamentalist’ by Dr Gosling), or to disregard them. What we cannot do is make claims about their teachings for which there is no evidence in Scripture.
Dr Gosling says that some of the causes of homosexuality are pre-natal, and that teaching this as science will eradicate the beliefs of “homophobic” Christians. This conflation of moral opinion and science is a category error; the call to use ideological ‘re-education’ to suppress biblical Christian faith chillingly echoes totalitarian experiments of the last century. The scientific paper he dismisses (Whitehead) was peer reviewed (Journal of Human Sexuality 3: 81-114), and the contrasting study (Sanders et al) said, “… we also emphasize that genetic contributions are far from determinant but instead represent a part of the trait’s multifactorial causation both genetic and environmental.”
With so many factors at work, science does not warrant a change in church policy.
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