INTEGRITY FORUM

FOR GAY EPISCOPALIANS AND THEIR FRIENDS

c Integrity, Inc. 1979   ISSN: 0095-2184

Volume 5  Number 4   May - June 1979

INTEGRITY FORUM

Managing Editor:  David R. Williams. 

Editorial Board:  David S. Blix, Rev'd Grant M. Gallup, Rev'd T. Dewey Schwartzenburg. 

Contributing Editors:  Rev'd Ellen M. Barrett, Rev'd Malcolm Boyd, Jim Cotter, Louie Crew, William A. Doubleday, Rev'd Carter Heyward, Rev'd Canon Clinton R. Jones, Rev'd John McNeill, S.J., Rev'd James B. Nelson, Rev'd W. Norman Pittenger. 

Circulation:  Integrity/Chicago. 

Integrity Officers:  John C. Lawrence, President; Kevin Scahill, Vice-President; Donn Mitchell, Secretary; George W. Casper, Treasurer; and the 8 Regional Representatives as listed on the back page. 

INTEGRITY FORUM:  FOR GAY EPISCOPALIANS AND THEIR FRIENDS is the official publication of Integrity, Inc.  Publication of the name, photograph or likeness of any person or organization is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such person or organization.  Editorial correspondence should be sent to Integrity, P.O. Box 891, Oak Park IL 60303 or telephone 312/386-1470.  Copyright by Integrity, Inc.  6 issues per year.  Memberships are $10 per year; subscriptions without memberships are $17 per year.  Add $5 for mailing in a plain envelope.  Make checks payable to Integrity, Inc. and remit to George W. Casper, 530 Massachusetts Av., Boston, MA 02118. 

THE GAY CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT

by Giles Hibbert O.P.

IT IS ONLY WITH THE DECLINE of the social and moral influence of the Church that sexual deviancy from the norm has become to any extent accepted by our society, just as agnosticism or even atheism is now accepted without moral stigma being attached to it ‑‑ as long, that is, as the latter is not directly linked to a commitment to rid our society of its intrinsic or parasitic injustices.  Sexual normalcy, allied in many ways to social conformity, is in fact so much an aspect of Christian traditional teaching that it would seem to be a radical part of it ‑‑ there are in fact many Christians who would believe this and many more who will have accepted it unthinkingly and who will probably also have accepted that this whole subject is not one which we should be openly talking about.  So in this context it comes as quite a shock to find an organised group of committed Christians declaring their conviction that "it is entirely compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same sex but also to express that love fully in a personal sexual relationship" ‑‑ part of the Statement of Conviction made by all members of the Gay Christian Movement.  No wonder the Festival of Light campaign against the Movement; no wonder preachers fulminate against and denounce it, citing God's judgment on Sodom, or Paul's 'clear' condemnation of homosexuality; no wonder, if this is going on within it, the Church is losing, or has lost its right to be respected and to be seen as a guide and arbiter of men's mores.

The Gay Christian Movement is not, however, made up of people concerned for their own self-indulgence, nor is it involved in any form of special pleading.  It is concerned precisely with the reality of our existence as human beings, and with the relation of all men and women to God.  It is thus an association of Christians ‑‑ not all members are necessarily themselves gay ‑‑ who believe that "human sexuality in all its richness is a gift of God, gladly to be accepted, enjoyed and honoured as a way of both expressing and growing in love, in accordance with the life and teaching of Jesus Christ" (again from the Statement of Conviction); they further believe that neither God nor nature impose arbitrary patterns upon men and women, and their experience has taught them to recognise the validity and integrity of actions not understood by those who both do not share their experience and have in effect undergone subtle and pervasive indoctrination.  They do not believe that the Church's tradition with regard to homosexuality has been properly thought out or formed according to true Christian principles; they do not believe that the texts habitually cited from Scripture in condemnation are adequately interpreted, or in fact generally approached without what can only be called gross prejudice, and moreover they recognise, again from their own very acute experience, that countless numbers of people have been wounded, damaged, even seriously maimed, by the Church's traditional attitude ‑‑ even at times when what is taught is moderated or even dominated by apparent compassion.

In this overall context the Gay Christian Movement has a number of tasks and aims, not all of which unfortunately are easily compatible.  First of all it has to support, encourage and give security to those who have already been harmed by the pressures and tensions caused by both Church and society with regard to their sexuality; and these probably constitute the majority of its membership.  These are the people who will not really appreciate any militant role for their Organisation, will not easily tolerate anything which looks like rocking the boat or stirring up hostility against them.  But if it should succumb to these pressures the Movement will lose its own validity, because for this to have reality it must exert its energies towards undermining and eliminating the source of this insecurity and the harm done to human lives which has brought it about.  The Gay Christian Movement, to have any fundamental validity or long-term effectiveness, must challenge, along with other gay liberation movements, the dimensions of our society which perpetuate this situation, and, in its own right, the theological assumptions and ignorance which are continually presented as being the Christian faith in this area.

The Movement has, however, another potential enemy within its own  ranks.  When people are forced into a ghetto or into a corner, they tend to take refuge from the fundamental unbearability of their situation either in anger or in fantasy, in commitment or escapism.  It is this latter element which, when combined with dramatic sensibility (or probably the lack of real, or creative, sensibility), produces a form of 'camp' which characterises a great deal of the remnant of traditional Christianity.  Our churches are full of it:  young and wishfully young, often decorative or self-consciously beautiful men (but not yet women) camping it up in surplice, cassock or even mitre.  Everything is acceptable as long as one is never quite open or honest about it; for if one is, the fantasy breaks up and one is faced with unbearable reality ‑‑ unbearable, that is, if one is not prepared to take oneself seriously, and do something real about it.  What the Gay Christian Movement must fully realise, indeed perhaps what the Church must realise, is that it is not effectively in the theatre but in the arena.

Within this context the tasks and role of the Movement, which impinge heavily not only upon itself but upon the whole of the structure of our society, are particularly the following.  It has first to develop its own selfconsciousness, to understand itself so as to be a genuine agent for supporting, and not just propping up, others.  It has, as I have already mentioned, to engage in serious theological research and education to investigate, often enough in the face of hard and congealed tradition as well as hostility, the real dimensions of Christianity's understanding of sex and sexuality, and a real understanding of the meaning and significance of its Scriptures.  Bus perhaps more than anything else it is necessary for the Gay Christian Movement to investigate and understand the power structures which both make it a necessity and effectively control what it is able to do.  In Gramsci's historic study of hegemony he investigated the power structures which effectively made the worker think that he was being served and made well off by the system that exploited him, the psychological factors which were used to ensure his continued subservience, and so on, and thus added a new dimension to social analysis.  In a similar way it is necessary for any gay movement, and particularly a movement within the organisation which has most effectively wielded this power, to come to grips with its actuality, to attack the forces which have led gay people to despise themselves and their sexuality, even completely to deny it and take refuge in dishonesty, fantasy and cynicism; the forces which have imposed upon men and women a concept of sexuality which is destructive and neurotic, because inadequately human ‑‑ to attack those forces, this use, abuse, or rather actuality, of power, at the level at which it operates.  In the strictest sense this task is a subversive one; the engagement which it involves is not simply with regard to religion, but with the whole structure of our society, its cultural and material dimensions, and the forces which control them.  Whether the majority of its members are happy with it or not, the Gay Christian Movement is a revolutionary movement or it is nothing. If it can find and develop its role here, it has a future.

Reprinted from the Newsletter on ONE for Christian Renewal, a progressive Ecumenical pressure group in Britain.

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE AMERICAN CHURCHES:

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

by David S. Blix

In September of 1979 the General Convention will meet in Denver and will debate the report on homosexuality and ordination submitted by the Joint Commission on Religion and Health in Human Affairs.  Judging from the experience of other Christian denominations in this country, we may expect the debate to be difficult and fierce.  But in this case Episcopalians have an advantage:  the others have gone first.  Accordingly, we may do well to learn from their experience.  One way of doing this is to take a comparative and analytical look at some of the study documents prepared by these denominations in the past six years. I am thinking in particular of the studies done by the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, by the Disciples of Christ, by the United Church of Christ, and by the Roman Catholics.  From these four studies we may be able to learn some lessons about how to interpret our own.  Of the four studies, two ‑‑ the Presbyterian and the Disciples ‑‑ deal specifically with homosexuality.  The other two ‑‑ the United Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic ‑‑ deal with sexuality as a whole.  Let us look at each in turn.

The Presbyterian study was the work of a Task Force to Study Homosexuality, consisting of nineteen members, and appointed in September of 1976 at the direction of the 188th General Assembly in Baltimore.  The task force transmitted the completed report to the 190th General Assembly, which met in San Diego, in May of 1978.  The occasion for the study was quite specific.  In 1975 the Presbytery of New York City, unable to ascertain whether a self-acknowledged homosexual candidate was eligible for ordination, asked the 188th General Assembly to provide definitive guidance.  The Assembly in turn mandated the task force to take Scripture as the norm of its study, observing that "there is always more light to break forth from the Bible through the work of the Spirit" (D-32).

The report opens with a brisk review of the current findings of the empirical sciences on homosexuality.  One might object at once that this is already to displace Scripture as the norm of the study.  But the task force seems to be making a simpler point before one can apply the normative teaching of Scripture to any phenomenon, one must identify what the phenomenon is.  In this case, the review is markedly post-Bieberian and post-Kinseyian.  For while citing the work of these men in due course, the task force finds its guiding principles in the work of John Money, Patricia Tucker and Anke Ehrhardt (in biology and psychology) and the work of William Simon and John Gagnon (in psychology and sociology).  For our purposes, we summarize their work in six points.  First, following Money, Tucker and Ehrhardt, we must distinguish at least three criteria of sexual identity: gender identity (one's inner sense of being male or female), gender role (one's outer enactment of the inner sense as masculine or feminine), and sexual orientation (one's erotic attraction to males or females).  There is no empirical confusion in saying, for instance, that a woman has a female gender identity, a feminine gender role, and a lesbian sexual orientation.  Second, these three dimensions of sexuality are not biologically innate, but are psychologically learned ‑‑ determined by a "continual interaction of heredity and environment" (D-13).  Third, scientists are not agreed on what psychological causes determine these three dimensions.  That is, the original causes of homosexuality in childhood remain unexplained.  Fourth, following Simon and Gagnon, we may say that, even though the original causes of homosexuality in childhood remain unexplained, the patterns of homosexuality in adulthood may be explained.  They may be explained as a result of the "social structures and values that surround the homosexual after he becomes or conceives of himself as homosexual" (D-20).  Fifth, these social structures and values generally tend to make the pattern of adult homosexuality one which is marginal to the larger society.  Sixth, this pattern may change when homosexuals take the initiative, move from the margins, and strike up a dialogue in the centers of society itself, such as in the church.

Now, it is only once they have made this point that the task force goes on to recount the circumstances in the Presbytery of New York City in 1975.  Indeed, I would be tempted to say that precisely because the Presbyterians began their report in this way ‑‑ grasping the social and public dimensions of homosexuality ‑‑ they were really able to hear the candidate, and to grasp his self-acknowledgement as an invitation to serious theological reflection, rather than as an unwanted intrusion of private concerns into the life of the church.  Only then do they turn, in the second section of the report, to consider Scripture.

The consideration of Scripture includes any exegesis of Biblical texts, and a discussion of the problems and models of Biblical authority and interpretation.  The exegetical survey covers three Old Testament and three New Testament texts.  On the story of Sodom and Gomorrah they take what we call a middle interpretation.  A traditional interpretation would be that the story refers to homosexuality as such, and that homosexuality as such is the sin in question.  A broad interpretation, like that proposed by Bailey in 1955, would be that the story does not refer to homosexuality at all.  A middle interpretation holds that the story does indeed refer to homosexuality, but only to homosexual rape, and that the rape ‑‑ as a sign of inhospitality ‑‑ is the sin for which the cities are punished.  In Deuteronomy 23:17-18, the task force dismisses it as a mistranslation to read "Sodomite" for kadesh (male cult prostitute), since the cults in question were fertility cults, and since it is hard to imagine what role a fertility cult might assign to a homosexual.  On the Holiness Codes in Leviticus, the task force observes that the criterion of holiness here is the avoidance of tebel (mixing, confusion), and that the Codes are thus an early midrash on the orders of creation in Genesis 1-2.  Hence the Codes condemn homosexuality as a confusion of the orders of male and female, just as they condemn the eating of pigs as a confusion of the orders of "having cloven hoofs" and "not chewing the cud."

In Romans 1:26-27, observes the task force, Paul unequivocally ranks homosexuality as one of the marks of the pagan self.  It is a symptom of Gentile idolatry, which is contrary to the order of creation, even if it is no more condemnable than Jewish self-satisfaction over keeping the law.  In I Corinthians 5-6, Paul commends the new freedom of Christ, and, as a typical Hellenistic Jew, catalogs some of the pagan types which that freedom excludes.  Among them are two groups of people who in Greek are referred to as malakoi and arsenokoitai, but whom the Christian Biblical tradition has taken to be homosexuals of passive or active sorts.  Citing the (as of yet unpublished) work of John Boswell at Yale, however, the task force observes that there are good, though by no means definitive, grounds for translating malakoi as "the dissolute" and arsenokoitai as "male prostitutes."  The same translation is possible in I Timothy 1:1-11, and in each case, it eliminates any reference to homosexuality.

From the exegetical survey, the task force reaches a modest but important conclusion:  Scripture gives no clear and definitive guidance on homosexuality.  At best it raises a series of questions, and, as a task force sees it, all these questions converge in one:  What is the relation between the ancient Israelite view of orders of creation and the Christian view of the creative, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit?  For example, if "Paul counseled women, Greeks, and slaves to receive sanctification within their given estate," and "if Paul were to understand that many homosexualities in our society are given estates, would he counsel those particular homosexual persons to receive sanctification outside their given estate rather than within it?" (D-62).  Obviously this is to pose the question in its most radical form.  Unitarian opinions of all sorts might fancy that the power work of the Spirit should be either to reiterate or to abolish earthly estates, rather than sanctify them.  But the task force scorns such fancy, and takes the doctrine of the Trinity with full seriousness.

How, then, are these questions to be answered?  The task force does not say in so many words.  Rather it presents four distinct models of Biblical authority and interpretation on which it believes to be prevalent in the church at the present time.  It documents these four models in great detail, but we shall settle for a paraphrase.

Model A holds that Scripture and the guidance of the Spirit may not disagree, that they are unconditioned by historical context, and that Scripture unilaterally provides the objective standard by which to distinguish the guidance of the Spirit from mere human experience.  Model B holds that Scripture and the guidance of the Spirit may not disagree, but that Scripture may be conditioned by its historical context, and that therefore Scripture unilaterally provides the objective standard, not simply for distinguishing the guidance of the Spirit from human experience, but for discerning the guidance of the Spirit in human experience.  Model C holds that Scripture and the guidance of the Spirit may not disagree, that Scripture may be conditioned by its historical context, but that therefore Scripture and the guidance of the Spirit are related dialectically rather than unilaterally, and that the Spirit may as much illumine Scripture as be illumined by it.  Model D holds that neither Scripture, nor the guidance of the Spirit, nor both in dialectical relation, can fully reveal the Word of God who is Jesus Christ, that therefore neither is any less or any more authentic a witness to Christ than human experience, and that the principle in experience for discerning any witness to Christ is the "principles of God as active love, creating, responding to need, and liberating" (D-66).

The application of each of these models to homosexuality follows suit.  Adherents of Model A condemn homosexuality as a sin, for which homosexuals alone are responsible, and for which they should repent.  Adherents of Model B condemn homosexuality as sin, but one in the genesis of which heterosexuals fully participate, and which is to be met by gentle admonitions to continence or conversion.  Adherents of Model C reason that, although human beings are biologically equipped for heterosexuality, they are not thereby determined for it, and that they have a capacity for freedom of choice.  But, unlike adherents of Model A, who infer that free choice means repentance, adherents of Model C infer that it means we may respond in a free but disciplined way to divine commands, and that this response is a freedom for creating new structures in oneself and one's society.  Adherents of Model D infer that free choice means freedom from old oppressive structures, and that the basis for this freedom is the principle of active love.  Adherents of both Model C and Model D hold that homosexuality reflects this freedom, and is therefore not a sin.

These, then, are the four models.  The task force casts its concluding recommendations in their mold.  The majority report, along the lines of Models C and D, sees no impediment to the ordination of self-acknowledged homosexuals.  The minority report along the lines of Models A and B, does see an impediment.  As I suppose everybody by now knows, the 190th General Assembly did not accept the majority report, and drafted a compromise version of the minority report which prohibited presbyteries from asking candidates if they were gay, but which also prohibited presbyteries from ordaining candidates who acknowledged that they were gay.

Turning to the "Study Packet on Homosexuality and the Church," put out in 1978 by the Disciples of Christ, we confront a very different kind of document.  Our particular concern here is with one item in that packet.  "Study Document No. 7750," on which the Disciples voted at the General Assembly in October 1977.  Unlike the Presbyterian study, the Disciples study is preliminary in aim and brief in scope.  Also unlike the Presbyterian study, it follows a different order of argument.  The Presbyterians, as we saw, began their study with a look at the empirical sciences.  The Disciples, begin by turning at once (and, no doubt in good Disciples fashion) to Scripture, postponing their look at the empirical sciences till later.  In doing so, however, they unwittingly split their exegesis into two parts, and the two parts are not, as one might expect, about heterosexuality and homosexuality respectively, but about human sexuality and homosexuality.  Naturally, this split introduces a bias, and means that the Disciples effectively treat heterosexuality alone as the properly human form of sexuality, thus as the sole context for understanding homosexuality.  The first part of the exegesis notes that humanity is created male and female, that the Biblical view of sexuality is celebrative rather than ascetic, and that sexual love should be secondary to the primary qualities of agapeic love ‑‑ faithfulness and responsibility.  The second part of the exegesis discusses the specific passages on homosexuality (with the implicit assumption that these are the only passages that bear on homosexuality), and parallels the exegesis of the Presbyterian study with two exceptions.  On Sodom and Gomorrah, they follow the broad interpretation of Bailey, and on Deuteronomy they accept the homosexual translation of kadesh.

Having dealt with Scripture, the task force moves on next to the empirical sciences, and a look at the cultural, physical, and psychological aspects of homosexuality.  Negatively, they argue that the pathological aspects of homosexuality result from a lack of social opportunities to develop relationships.  Positively, they argue that to provide such opportunities would diminish the pathology in homosexuality, without diminishing the frequency of heterosexuality.  But the odd thing about these arguments is that, while they suggest the task force would have wanted to examine the sociological aspects of homosexuality directly, this is just what it does not do.  Perhaps this is because a sociological theory of homosexuality (such as we find in Simon and Gagnon) would also require an active theory of sexual learning, according to which homosexuals acquire their orientation through an interaction with society that is intelligent and partly self-initiated.  The task force, however, seems to prefer a passive theory of sexual learning, according to which homosexuals acquire their orientation largely through the influence of society, with only minimal initiative on their part. That is, the task force favors the work of Kinsey, whose rating scale suggests the fluidity of human sexual response, and Hooker, who regards human sexual response as easily malleable by external factors.

In conclusion, the task force borrows from James Nelson, and cites four possible stances that heterosexuals might take toward homosexuality.  First, there is a rejecting-punitive stance, which is the traditional one.  Second, there is a rejecting-non-punitive stance, which is the one favored by Barth.  Third, there is a stance of qualified acceptance, which is the one favored by Thielicke.  Fourth, there is a stance of full acceptance, which is the one favored by Pittenger, McNeill, and Nelson himself.  In comparing the four stances of the Disciples study with the four models of the Presbyterian study, we see that they do not quite match.  These is no model in the Presbyterian study which matches the first stance in the Disciples study.  The second stance matches Model A, the third stance matches Model B, and the fourth stance matches Model D, with its emphasis on freedom from structure, and the principle of love.  There is no stance in the Disciples study which matches Model C in the Presbyterian study, with its emphasis on freedom for structure, and the principle of discipline.  This, I suppose, is not surprising.  It is in accord with the split between the homosexual and the human, and the passive theory of sexual learning.  For it is difficult to conceive of homosexuality in terms of structured freedom, if one does not regard the homosexual as fully human, or as capable of personal initiative.

The United Church of Christ study and the Roman Catholic study, unlike the other two, each deal with human sexuality as a whole. The UCC study is the work of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, and was commissioned by the tenth General Synod in 1975.  It was published in 1977 as Human Sexuality:  A Preliminary Study (The United Church Press).  As a survey of human sexuality, in light of the Christian faith, it is unsurpassed.  Yet only a small part of it deals with homosexuality.  Does it therefore labor under the same split as the Disciples study?  No, I think not, and for several reasons.  One reason is that UCCers are old hands on this issue.  They published the first church-related anthology on homosexuality back in 1969 (The Same Sex, ed. Weltge), and have since moved beyond dealing with homosexuality in isolation, to seeing it as part of the fabric of human sexuality as such.  Another reason is that the ordination of William Johnson in 1972 effectively defused that issue.  And still another reason is that such fine UCC pastoral theologians as Peggy Way have been quietly working with gay men and women since the early sixties, and can now provide the first-hand expertise that any truly Christian approach to homosexuality requires.

There is one chapter in the book, however, that commands our attention here.  This is the chapter on "Psychosexual Development" It is, in my judgment, one of the best brief summaries anywhere of the current research on the formation of sexual identity.  Like the Presbyterian study, the chapter draws on the work of Money, Tucker, Simon, and Gagnon.  The guiding distinction is again that among the three sexual criteria of gender identity, gender role, and sexual orientation.  But unlike the Presbyterian study, this chapter, following suggestions from James Harrison and Joseph Pleck, links these three criteria to the other six which Money et al. have developed, and looks at all nine in terms of additional research on sex roles.  For the record, the nine criteria are as follows chromosomal sex (XX,XY,etc.); gonadal sex (ovaries and testicles); hormonal sex (body hair, breasts ‑‑ glands other than the gonads may secrete sex hormones); internal sex organs (uterus or prostate): external sex organs (clitoris, penis, labia); the sex of assignment and rearing (the sex to which doctors and parents assign the child); and then, gender identity, gender role, and sexual orientation (119).  Now, once we see all nine criteria in series, constituting a hierarchy of levels, we are in position where we can grasp what is perhaps one of the key implications of Money, Tucker and Ehrhardt's work.  The key implication, as Pleck points out, is that gender identity is principally determined by the prior criterion of sex of assignment and rearing ‑‑ the sex the parents want the child to be ‑‑ and not by the subsequent criterion of gender role ‑‑ the incorporation of masculine or feminine characteristics (118-119).  Once the child has a sense of his identity as male or female, it can incorporate whatever range of masculine or feminine characteristics it wishes.  Masculine and feminine characteristics, therefore, are very much the result of socialization, and this point is borne out in the additional research of Eleanor Maccoby, Carol Jacklin, and Sandra Bern.  The actual psychological differences between women and men are neither as radical nor permanent as commonly supposed.

Now, this implication leads us to make two observations.  First, we may observe that this implication requires us to revise the widely influential teachings of psychoanalysis on this point.  Psychoanalysis has taught that sexual orientation is learned automatically as part of learning gender identity, and that a confusion of gender identity is at the root of homosexuality, caused by a failure to identify with the parent of the same sex. But, as gay people are wont to point out in their autobiographical reminiscences, learning a sexual orientation is indeed very much a matter of adopting a particular range of masculine or feminine characteristics, without detriment to one's sense of maleness or femaleness, but very often at conscious variance with the wishes of one's parents and peers.  Yet, as we have just seen, gender identity is not learned in that way.  Thus, any correct theory of sexual orientation must distinguish not just one, but two phases of learning.  First there is a more passive phase of learning gender identity, and second there is a more active phase of learning gender role.  For homosexuals the two phases, while not confused, may not reflect one another in the neat ways that heterosexuals often expect them to.  Now, to be sure, psychoanalysis has not overlooked this distinction entirely.  Freud himself eventually came to distinguish (for men at least) between primary and secondary identifications with the father, which correspond roughly to the two phases we have distinguished here.  (See, for example, The Ego and the Id.)  But so far as I know, neither he nor his successors have explored this distinction in a systematic way in their accounts of homosexuality.

Second, we may observe that, like Freud and his successors, Money, Tucker, and Ehrhardt, do not themselves develop the implication we have noted, and so adopt a point of view on homosexuality that remains close to that of psychoanalysis.  They argue thus.  If, for instance, we find that a man acts out a particular gender role of such as receiving a man's penis) and if, as it happens, society defines the role as feminine, then the correct way to explain the outer role is to say that there is an identity inside to match, i.e., a feminine gender identity.  (See Man and Woman/Boy and Girl, Johns Hopkins, 1972, p. 146)  Clearly the UCC study suggests another line of argument.  For, like the Presbyterians, the UCCers link their psychology with sociology, and sense that the relations between individuals and their society may be more complex than Money et al. have allowed.  That is, just because society defines a role as feminine, it does not follow that the individual in question will define it that way.  There is room for his or her own creative self-understanding.  Hence, many gay men may regard it masculine, not feminine, to receive another man's penis, or, indeed, may not think about the question at all.

We come finally to the Roman Catholic study.  It is the work of a five member Committee on the Study of Human Sexuality,  established in 1972 by the Board of Directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America.  The report was received by the Board in 1976, and published in 1977 as Human Sexuality:  New Directions in American Catholic Thought (Kosnik, et al., Paulist Press).  Of the four studies we are considering here, it is the longest, and in some ways the most difficult.  The difficulty is particularly acute for Protestant readers unfamiliar with the tradition and terms of Roman Catholic moral theology.  Hence, more than with the other three studies we need to read it in its own context.  That sense of context comes only with a sense of history, and, happily, the Committee has documented that history in the first and second chapters.

Spurning any attempt to deduce a code of sexual ethics from historical facts, the Committee instead traces out a line of historical development in the Christian tradition, and then, from the line, extrapolates ethical principles for the present situation.  ln Scripture (which they discuss in the first chapter) the line of development moves from the Yahwist tradition in Genesis, which anchors sexuality in a doctrine of the goodness of creation; to the Priest]y and Levitical traditions, which prize legal and cultic purity: to the prophetic tradition, which interiorizes the law in the heart.  The prophetic tradition, as the Committee sees it, climaxes in Jesus, who taught the equality of men and women, fidelity in marriage, and the primacy of love. In Mark and Paul, the doctrine of creation fades behind a doctrine of eschatology, which excludes sexuality in the earthly estate from ultimate human fulfillment in the life to come.

In the remainder of the tradition (which the Committee discusses in the second chapter) the line develops further.  Theologians of the Patristic Period and the Middle Ages emphasized that the primary end of sexuality is procreation.  In the twentieth century, however, this emphasis begins to shift.  Pius XI in Casti Conubi (1930) recognized that, alongside the primary purpose of procreation, sexuality (in marriage) had a secondary, unitive purpose of "mutual interchange and sharing" (46).  Vatican 11 (1965) reversed the order of the ends of marriage, and made the procreative end secondary to the unitive end.  More importantly Vatican 11 proposed that the principle for integrating both ends should be "the nature of the human person and his acts" (48).  Finally, in 1975, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Declaration on sexual ethics, extended this principle to areas of sexuality outside marriage.  Thus, says the Committee, in the principle of the "person and his acts" we have the "proximate objective norm for determining which behavior is appropriate and moral" (51).  Here, perhaps, is the Committee's most valuable insight.

The fourth chapter gathers up these historical extrapolations, and works out their implications for a theology of sexuality, while the fifth (and longest) chapter proposes a set of pastoral guidelines.  We will return to the third chapter in a moment.  What, then, are the implications of taking the person and his acts as the principles for human sexuality?  First, according to the Committee, we must see that human sexuality is the chief mode of human experience as such.  It is a "force that permeates, influences, and affects every act of a person's being at every moment of existence ... at the core and center of our total life-response" (81).  Second, it is the chief mode of intersubjective experience, by which an "isolated subjectivity reaches out to communion with another subject ... to banish loneliness" (83).  Third, it is the mode of intersubjective experience that depends on the difference between the male and female bodies.  "Anatomy and physiology modify the manner in which the world is perceived and form a basis for relationship with the world" (84).  Fourth, because this is so, it is a mode of experience that depends on genital impulse and union ‑‑ "a phenomenon in which the biological difference of gender is significant" (84).  Fifth, the genital impulse is "biologically tied to procreation" and is a "given in each one's experience," so that "the reaching out to a genital encounter will be biased in the direction of heterosexuality" (84-85).  Sixth, only in the genital union of heterosexuals does the union of subjectivities have the "potential for fullest realization" (85).  Seventh, in light of the principle of personhood, we must nonetheless say that the chief mark of the person is "creative growth toward integration," and that therefore this is the purpose ‑‑ the "basic finality" ‑‑ of sexuality, not simply procreation or union (86).  Eighth, we cannot therefore evaluate the morality of individual acts from an "abstract analysis of the biology of the act," as if we could treat the act in isolation.  We must consider the act in relation to the creative and integrative person, and thus in relation to the circumstances, intentions, and decisions that surround the act (89, 91).  Ninth, by so doing, we can avoid offering moral evaluations either by the "extremely subjective criterion of sincere intention alone," or by the "exaggerated objective criterion of act alone" (51).

Now, how does homosexuality fit into all this?  We have been told that the fullest realization of intersubjectivity is in heterosexual genital union.  But we have also been told that genital union of subjectivities is not the basic finality of sexuality ‑‑ creative integration is.  At the very least, then, we may expect the position of the Committee on homosexuality to be confused.  And so it is.

The first hint of the confusion comes in the third chapter, in which the Committee sifts through the various data from the empirical sciences.  On homosexuality they cite the usual sources, such as Kinsey and Bieber.  But for the rest, their citations are oddly eclectic, as in a medieval Summa.  Some sources they omit, others they dismiss, others they read without a critical eye.  Simon, Gagnon, Maccoby, and Bern they omit, except to list them in the bibliography.  Hoffman and Hooker they cite, on the complexity of homosexual psychology, but then dismiss as probably biased by a pro-gay ideology.  Money, Tucker and Ehrhardt they also cite, but uncritically.  For they ignore altogether their nuanced hierarchy of sexual criteria, and completely collapse the distinction among gender identity, gender role, and sexual orientation.  Then, to shore up the collapse, they advance the psychoanalytic theory (citing Green and Ferenzci) that disturbances in sexual orientation have the same causes as disturbances in gender identity, and state that this theory is "especially supported" by Money, Tucker and Ehrhardt's work (73).  The upshot, of course, is nonsense.  As if to certify the most simple-minded notions of homosexuality held by the man in the street, they give us a picture of homosexuality as the mere "inversion" of traditional male and female roles (199-200). But as we saw in looking at the UCC study, the work of Money et al. carries critical implications which, especially in light of sociology, may as much lead us to revise psychoanalytic theory as to support it.  Even more importantly, this picture misrepresents the lived experience of real gay persons, who experience their sexual identities in ways far more diverse and coherent than the Committee recognizes.  And this is the crucial hint.  A picture that misrepresents the experience of persons will also very likely misrepresent the principle that we should examine experience in terms of the person and his acts.

The Committee makes good this hint in the section on homosexuality in the fifth chapter.  On Scripture they do the customary exegesis, accepting (like the Presbyterians) a middle interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah, and accepting (like the Disciples) the homosexual translation of kadesh.  Also like the Presbyterians and Disciples, they sketch out four basic positions on homosexuality.  But whereas the Presbyterians speak of models of Biblical interpretation, and the Disciples speak of stances for heterosexuals toward homosexuality, the Roman Catholics speak of approaches to the morality of homosexual acts.  The first approach, which is that of the Declaration on sexual ethics, holds that "homosexual acts are intrinsically evil" (200).  The second approach, which is that of McCormick, Kennedy, and Curran, holds that "homosexual acts are essentially imperfect" (202).  These two approaches are virtually identical with the first and second stances in the Disciples study.  The third and fourth approaches, however, have no exact parallels in either of the other two studies.  The third approach, which is that of the Michigan Episcopal Diocese Report, and Salvatorian Gay Task Force, and Gregory Baum, is that "homosexual acts are to be evaluated in terms of their relational significance" (204).  The fourth approach, which the Committee describes as the "extreme position of the Gay Liberation Movement" (208) is that "homosexual acts are essentially good and perfect" (206).

Of these four approaches, the Committee cites the second and third as most nearly compatible with the view of sexuality they have advanced in the fourth chapter.  But more to the point are perhaps the reasons the Committee marshalls in each case.  The first approach they reject, because it is biological, and isolates the homosexual act from the homosexual condition, and thus from the homosexual person.  The second approach they question, because it assumes that heterosexuality is always the norm.  The third approach they question, because "mutual love, faithfulness, and caring for one another" represent only a "basic minimum" for sexual ethics, and "is that enough?" (206).  The fourth approach they reject because, as they see it, it rests on the "extremely subjective criterion" of personal experience, divorced from historical and empirical objectivity.  Now, while the reason marshalled against the first approach comes as no surprise, the reasons marshalled against the remaining three, given the preceding argument, are truly astonishing.  As to the second approach, if before the Committee was quick to grant heterosexuality alone the "potential for fullest realization," how can they now, consistently, doubt that heterosexuality is the norm?  To be sure, they ought to doubt it.  Their arguments about the heterosexual bias of the genital impulse are decidedly specious.  Statistically, such a bias is as a matter of fact not given "in each one's existence," but at most (following Kinsey) in 90% of existences.  Qualitatively, the homosexual bias given in the remaining 10% is no less genital ‑‑ male or female ‑‑ than in the 90%.  As to the third approach, if Jesus taught fidelity and love, and if the basic finality of sexuality is neither procreation, nor union, but creative integration: then how can the Committee now say that love and fidelity are no more than minimal aspects of human sexuality?  Or are we to conceive creative integration as unloving and unfaithful?  Finally, as to the fourth approach, the Committee's reasons are ambiguous.  If they are advising us not to rely for moral guidance on the experience of homosexuals who are irresponsible, then the advice is well taken.  But if they are advising us further that we should not rely on the experience of homosexuals at all, then the advice begs the question.  For why assume that claims for the essential goodness of homosexuality must be rooted in extreme subjectivism? The only evidence the Committee cites for this assumption is an interview with Dick Leitsch, former director of the Mattachine Society of New York (hardly an extremist group), published in 1971 in a popular sex magazine (207-208).  They show no familiarity with the actual literature and art of the gay movement up to 1976.  Yet there they would have found, I think, ample evidence of concerns among gay women and men that exceeded mere self-interest, and that were well-versed in the scientific, historical, and theological literature.  More to the point, they do not discuss the work of John J. McNeill, or the later work (1971) of Henri Nouwen.  Yet both men offer reasoned arguments for a view of homosexuality in which moral responsibility figures prominently.  Thus, there seem to be only accidental reasons for supposing that a view of homosexuality as essentially good and natural could not be consistent with the "proximate objective norm" of the person and his acts.

How are we to interpret this confusion?  My hunch is that, in the face of homosexuality, the Committee has retreated on its original theological premises.  They originally proposed to interpret sexuality in terms of personhood ‑‑ to personalize sexuality.  Instead, they largely interpret personhood in terms of sexuality, thus sexualizing personhood.  They therefore fail to grasp the point, which is a commonplace to persons with any amount of interpersonal genital experience, that sexual attraction and personal affection do not necessarily coincide.  In connection with heterosexuality, this is evident from the way they make sexuality the very ontological ground of human experience, "at the core and center of our total life-response," and this, in a way that rests mainly on anatomy and physiology.  In connection with homosexuality, it is evident in two ways.  First, the very phrasing of the four approaches slants the terms. The Committee is concerned, not for the morality of homosexual persons and their acts, but only for the morality of homosexual acts.  This phrasing cannot but favor the "exaggeratedly objective criterion of act alone."  In a subtle but decisive move, the Committee has isolated the act from the person, and then, as might be expected, identified it in purely sexual terms. Second, however, even if they had kept the act attached to the person, they would probably have phrased the approaches in the same words.  For although they set aside the idea that sexuality is a monolithic biological drive, which overmasters the decisions of the individual person, they replace it with the idea that sexuality is a monolithic existential drive, presumably of "being itself."  Yet an existential drive, no less than a biological one, may overmaster one's creative and integrative powers for making moral decisions in diverse real-life contexts.  Once again every human act becomes sexual.  There is no role here for the transformative powers of human freedom, much less human freedom under divine grace.  The proper logic for a personalist theology, therefore, would be indeed to interpret sexuality in terms of personhood, but then to interpret personhood, as do McNeill and Nouwen, in terms of something else, like "responsibility" or "moral agency."  But notions such as these are intrinsically social.  They require us, as we saw in assessing the Disciples study, to pay attention to those dimensions of sexual behavior in which social interaction, and self-initiated active learning, play a part.  Unfortunately, by neglecting the sociological work of people like Simon and Gagnon, the Committee misses this point, and so, I fear, ultimately misses the properly ethical aspects of sexual ‑‑ and thus homosexual ‑‑ behavior.

We now have the four studies before us.  What are the lessons they have to teach us?  I can think of eight.

(1)  If these four studies are any indication, then, when a church body undertakes a reasonably thorough study of homosexuality, it finds that it cannot condemn homosexuality unequivocally as sin, regardless of its confusions on particular issues, or its conclusions on the question of ordination.  We may therefore take it as a rule of thumb at least that, if any other church body should submit a report which does condemn homosexuality unequivocally as sin, then that group did not in fact undertake a reasonably thorough study of homosexuality.

(2)  Scripture is properly a source of normative and historical themes for Christian life and reflection.  It is only improperly a source for empirical and scientific data on any phenomenon in the created world, including homosexuality.  As evidenced in the Disciples study and the Roman Catholic study, any attempt to begin a discussion of homosexuality with Scripture, rather than with empirical data (as in the Presbyterian study), inevitably distorts our descriptions and theories of homosexuality.  This is so, not only because Scripture may introduce cultural biases different from our own, but because it may introduce cultural biases similar to our own ‑‑ that is, a bias in favor of the universality of heterosexuality.  We then get, not the data on homosexuality, but heterosexual interpretations of the data on homosexuality, which are simply a further set of data on heterosexuality itself.  Even though heterosexuals cannot avoid interpreting the data in one form or another, the interpretations are still to be measured against the data, and not the other way around.

(3)  Our descriptions and theories of homosexuality, therefore, must be empirically based.  Even Christians have not the option of propounding theologies of fictional creatures, be they unicorns or homosexuals as popularly conceived.  These descriptions and theories, in turn, will strongly influence our decisions about which points of Christian theology we bring to bear on the issues.  As you conceive homosexuality, so will you theologize about it.

(4)  For instance, if you conceive homosexuality in terms that are largely biological and psychological but rarely sociological, you will probably be confused about the public dimensions of homosexual behavior.  You will then reflect this confusion in the ambivalent complaint that homosexuals are narcissistic (are too asocial) and that they should keep in to themselves (are not asocial enough).  You will also probably be unable to make sense of the vocal presence of homosexuals in the life of the church.  Your theology will speak of the way homosexuals are narcissistically rending the unity of the Body of Christ.  If, on the other hand, you do describe homosexuality in terms that include the sociological, you will be able to take the homosexual presence seriously, and your theology will speak of freedom, love, and responsibility, by which the entire Body of Christ may cohere.

(5)  If you conceive of homosexuality in terms that do not include the sociological, you will probably also not be able to conceive of homosexuality in terms that include the ethical.  For, as we have seen, to grasp the sociological dimensions of homosexuality is to have the insight that homosexuals are not simply the "patients" of society (in both the common and philosophical senses of the word), but also agents in society.  They interact with society in ways that are intelligent and partly self-initiated.  This insight, in turn, leads to another. The sense of self from which these initiatives spring is, for many homosexuals, not mere passing whim or lust, but rather a perduring and reflective awareness of the self as a center of value and purpose.  In short, it is the insight that homosexuals are not only intelligent agents, but also moral agents.  This is so, in virtue of the dimension of sexual orientation itself, as well as in virtue of other dimensions of the self.  It is also true, in virtue of the aetiology of sexual orientation (in the present).  That is, one becomes homosexual, as well as stays homosexual, partly because one likes homosexuality.  The desire itself, as intelligent, is already a cause, and not merely a latter effect.  These insights, moreover, have an important corollary:  the moral judgements that homosexuals make are therefore part of the initial empirical on homosexuality.  You may, if you wish, initially rule these data out of court, and pronounce as acceptable only those studies of homosexuality that are purely "objective," and are done by recognized heterosexual "experts."  If you do this, however, you will probably discover that you cannot bring these data back into court in time for the final verdict.  For you will have eliminated what you are not equipped to restore, and will be stuck with the hopeless task of trying later to derive moral statements from factual ones.  You will also probably lodge a second ambivalent complaint:  that "objective" studies of homosexuality (such as Kinsey's or Bieber's) focus only on the impersonal, quantifiable aspects of homosexuality (often do not include moral values but should), and that "objective" studies of homosexuality must not focus on such personal matters as gay "apologetics" or "politics" (often do include moral values but shouldn't).  For a recent example of this ambivalence, read Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse.  If, however, you admit these data into court from the beginning, you will be able to derive both moral and factual statements from the same body of date, differentiated according to levels of concreteness.  In particular, you will see that an essential source of data on homosexuality (in addition to formal research) is the informal and open interactions of homosexuals and heterosexuals in their day-to-day lives, such as in the church.  To shun interacting with homosexuals in the church, therefore, is equivalent to suppressing part of the data essential for understanding homosexuals in the church.

(6)  If you do not take account of the full range of research on the formation of sexual identity, you will very likely place more weight on the doctrine of creation than it can bear.  In particular, the burden will be on you to defend four claims: first, that homosexual men and women are confused about their identities as male and female; second, that the psychological differences between men and women are radical, and are fixed in permanent forms of masculinity and femininity; third, that these radical differences are in every case beneficial to human relationships; and fourth, that the most important way for women to relate is through actual or potential genital union in which these radical differences are reflected.  The first and second claims, as we have seen, are false.  The third claim is also false, since traditional sex roles are often fronts for the abuse of power in human relationships.  The fourth claim stretches the Yahwist account in Genesis beyond its means, and, as in the Roman Catholic study, makes sexuality the key to personhood.  If anything, the force of the Yahwist account here is not that we are to use the idea of genital relations between men and women to interpret the idea of being created in the image of God.  It is the other way around.  We are to use the idea of being created in the image of God to interpret the relations among men and women, and, by extension, their progeny, in which homosexuals are included.  And for Christians, the image of God is in turn revealed in full form only in Jesus the Christ.  This, however, is another way of saying that, for Christians, any doctrine of creation must be completed by a doctrine of Christ, the second person of the Trinity.

(7)  If you take some of the weight off the doctrine of creation, and shift it, as I have suggested, to the doctrine of Christ, you are then also free to pay attention to some of the other doctrines in Christian teaching.  Here, however, you have at least three options.  First you may opt, as in the Disciples study and in Model D of the Presbyterian study, for the doctrine of agape, which subdues sexuality to the liberating love of God. Second, you may opt as the Roman Catholic study suggests in its exegesis, for the doctrine of eschatology, which minimizes the importance of sexuality in ultimate human fulfillment.  Third, you may opt, as in Model C of the Presbyterian study, for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, which speaks of sanctifying human sexuality in its earthly estate.  Of these three options, it is worth noting that only one lays its primary emphasis on love.  Perhaps, then, one of the most important lessons these four studies have taught us is that a love ethic, however weakly or strongly defined, need not be the only alternative to the traditional condemnation.

(8) In short, if we invoke the full range of Christian teaching (and as Christians why should we not?), and if we observe its Trinitarian integrity, we will find that any condemnation of homosexuality per se is difficult, if not impossible.

                 David S. Blix

                 Chicago

                 Christmas Eve, 1978

David S. Blix is a graduate student the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where he is completing a dissertation on the idea of love in the theology of Bernard Lonergan.  He has been active with Integrity/Chicago since 1977, and is a member of the Editorial Board of Integrity Forum.

CALLING ALL CANADIANS

Alex Wilson-Hyde, Convenor of Integrity/Toronto, would appreciate it if the various Canadian members would let him know of their concerns for Integrity.  Especially, he would appreciate hearing from Toronto area members of Integrity who may not be members of the Toronto chapter.  You may write to him at 650 Parliament St., #717, Toronto M4X 1R3.

You might be interested to know that Integrity/Toronto holds its eucharist and fellowship on the second Tuesday of the month at the Church of the Holy Trinity.  If sufficient members want more frequent services this can be arranged.  Everyone is welcome.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

This expanded special General Convention issue of FORUM has been carefully and thoughtfully prepared by Editor David Williams and the Editorial Board.  It is our hope that the high quality and the variety of material contained in this issue will serve as a strong basis for educating and informing the Church ‑‑ clergy and laypeople ‑‑ about the concerns, thoughts and needs of gay women and men, especially those who are Christians seeking to remain within the Episcopal church.

This isn't easily done for many gay people within a Church, where we have often not found our humanity affirmed as gay persons, instead encountering only rejection and oppression.  Too often we have asked for bread and the Church has offered a stone.  Too often we have been dealt with from premises of fear, ignorance, and irrational assumptions which have diminished the great love for one another to which we are so clearly called by the Gospel.

It is especially important that bishops and deputies to the General Convention be accurately informed:  that they seek knowledge and understanding about gay people and gay issues.  In many respects, gay people are the expert resources in such a learning process.  Since gay issues promise to be a major topic deliberated in Denver, it is imperative that discussions and decisions be carried out in an atmosphere that is both rational and informed, not in a negative climate dominated by fear, misinformation, myths, stereotypes, and prejudice.

INTEGRITY is prepared to be one source that can inform discussion and decision-making.  It is also important that the discussions not be simply cold, intellectual debates, but rather that there be some effort to arrive at a real human "feeling-level" understanding of gay people, gay relationships, gay culture, and all of the attendant issues and concerns.  We hope to assist in facilitating the much needed dialogue and interaction that will, at least, begin such a process.

This issue of FORUM represents only our preliminary effort to be a positive force for change in preparation for the Convention.  If it raises questions or issues which are bothersome, confusing, or unclear, please feel free to contact me personally.  While I may not always be able to provide "answers" I can surely put you into contact with people or literature that may be of help.

Integrity will hold its own Convention in Denver September 6-9, 1979.  We welcome all seekers of information to attend all or any part of it.  We will have speakers and workshops which may serve to inform or develop your views in an enlightened way.  At the General Convention itself, we will sponsor an exhibit, a hospitality suite, and a bookstore.  We urge you to take advantage of these opportunities to meet gay people and to engage in dialogue with us.  We also encourage familiarity with the excellent resources in the literature which is now available.  In these months before the Convention, you may wish to arrange to talk with Integrity people, either personally or by sponsoring an education forum in your Diocese.  Integrity resource people are available to you in many areas of the country.

Our prayers and thoughts will be with those who will represent the Church at General Convention.  Growth will not come without openness and some discomfort.  Truth will not be found without struggle.  Mutual understanding will not be achieved without some conscious effort to talk with each other and to hear each other in an atmosphere of Christian love.  While recognizing that disagreements will inevitably exist, it is my hope that positive feelings and our love for one another will prevail.

John C. Lawrence, President

THE REPORT OF THE SCREENING TASK FORCE OF THE

COMMISSION ON MINISTRY OF THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF OHIO

November 1976

PREFACE

The Screening Task Force of the Commission on Ministry has been asked by the Bishop to propose a position on the issue of the fitness of acknowledged and or practicing homosexuals for Candidacy for the Sacred Ministry.  The Task Force is composed of eight women and men, clergy and laity of diverse occupational backgrounds, heterosexually and homosexually oriented ‑‑ all concerned about the issue, all Episcopalians, all Christian.

We have been dealing with the issue for several months: we have read, we have discussed, we have drafted, we have argued, we have redrafted, we have prayed ‑‑ all of this over our charge and over what that charge raised in our hearts, minds and souls.  We did not start at ground zero.  Much has already been written on the issue (i.e., the Statement of the Diocese of Michigan) (Appendix A) which has spoken to us and to our task.  Homosexuality is a current and pressing issue in and for our society.  It in many ways parallels the issues of racial justice and women's equality in regard to discrimination.  And yet the strides made by Blacks and women have done little to lessen the heavy charge connected with homosexuality.

Though much work has been done, new roads are always cleared with great resistance.  Yet resistance does not make the task any less compelling or necessary for the Christian community.  Political expedience or a tradition of oppression does not abrogate the rights and value of any of the children of God.

The core of our position is:

Sexual orientation has no relevancy in consideration of a candidate for ordination as a Deacon, Priest, or Bishop of the Episcopal Church unless there is well-documented evidence that the "sexual orientation" is "a symptom of some underlying personality problem or psychiatric illness"1  which, unless treated, would interfere with her or his professional performance as a Clergyperson.

Our position, as did Michigan's, grew out of our understanding of sexuality as being a gift of God's creation and therefore good.  The Christian qualities of redemption and the overcoming of alienation can find expression through sexuality, sexuality expressed with the qualities of love and wholeness.  Subsequently, the 65th General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed a resolution which states in part "that homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the church."2

The false concept of the dichotomy of body vs. soul has been the source of much pain and misery to the Christian community.  The same false dichotomy exists between the concepts of heterosexual and homosexual.  The fiction of this dichotomy is most aptly spoken to by the Kinsey scale of human sexual behavior3 (Appendix C).  ALL ‑‑ body and soul, heterosexual and homosexual ‑‑ are the gifts of God to be celebrated, enjoyed and responsibly expressed.

Scriptural Perspectives

Scripture authorizes sexual activity as witness to God's creative love, power and glory.  Cultural concerns, seen through scripture in the experiences of the developing Hebrew nation, place a high emphasis on populating the world for the sake of national strength.4 Christians are asked to recall that Yahweh was early regarded as the exclusive deity of the Hebrew people, and that his chief concern was for their number, well-being, and strength as a nation.5

For this reason, Old Testament laws said much about the sexual activity of the Hebrew people.  These laws condemn any and all sexual behavior which does not lead to pregnancy.  Both culturally and religiously, pregnancy answered the problem of the times.  The human expansion of Israel guaranteed armies of sufficient size to protect her political interests.  As a holy nation, Israel's population expansion was a necessary testimony to her faith.  References to sexual taboos abound in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament.  These reflect an inspired understanding of God's concern for the well-being of his holy people in that time and place in much the same way as the dietary laws of the Old Testament, and in this case the sexual laws in particular, were inspired pastoral understandings offered by the scriptural authors who attempted to portray God's great love for Israel in all matters of human life.  Just as St. Paul's defense of Onesimus at a much later date is a pastoral concern for a single member of the Christian community and his relationship with another from that same community, not a justification for slavery.  So also we ought to keep alert to the possibility that scriptural teachings about sex practices may be the same sort of inspired pastoral helps offered out of the human concern to discover and interpret God's will for those to whom these were addressed in history.  As a casual acceptance of human slavery in the time of Paul has often been used to condone the Christian tolerance of this practice, so also have the sexual mores of Israel been adopted informally by western civilizations.  "We've always done it that way" has come to characterize even the Church's moral teachings.  Often the Church seems immune to the examination of whether or not these ancient moral teachings are congruent with the cultural and religious understandings of a people other than those for whom they were composed.

The Curse of Ham,6 used to defend racial prejudice, segregation, and slavery, has been promoted to the present time to further negative, selfish and racist attitudes toward Black people.  This misuse of scripture by some has not ceased even with contemporary Biblical scholarship and research.  Rather it is maintained by those who would justify and proof-text the validity of their own racial attitudes.

Sex laws in the Old Testament come under the same sort of misuse in many cases.  Many try to justify their own sexual attitudes and feelings, as well as their agreements and disagreements with others about these, through citing scriptural references which were intended for another group of people in quite another time and place.  For example, if we were to acknowledge the Levitical qualifications for religious ceremonial cleanliness and apply these to clergy today, the Church would necessarily forbid marital sexual relations in every Episcopal Rectory after sundown on Saturday.7  We might respond, "Certainly that law was not intended for us!"  Thus we begin picking and choosing those things in scripture which support our private needs, promptings, compunctions, conscience, and/or sense of morality.  Clearly, the Bible is not intended to further a goal of personal vindication, nor is it to be used as an argument against itself.

Scripture is the Word of God containing all things necessary to salvation.  This premise effects our study and interpretation of the Bible.  In the Old and New Testaments, God guided his people to search out the mysteries of the human condition in the world. This guidance from God is called inspiration.  When this search culminates in unfolding one of God's mysteries, we speak of divine revelation.  Hence, everything in the Bible is inspired, but not everything is revealed.8  Discerning between inspiration and revelation is a pertinent activity as we study the sexual laws in the Bible.  Not every word of scripture can, should or must be taken literally.  Scripture must be viewed in the light in which it is offered and in the context of a culture which we cannot thoroughly understand nor participate in.  Scripture is truly inspired, but not necessarily every passage contains a potential revelation of the will of God.  Discernment of ancient value systems and the scriptural author's loving concern for their community from the divine will also become a problem for the serious Bible student.  Revelation concerns itself with the nature of God, his relationship with his creation, and the culmination of this in eternity ‑‑ a timeless, endless experience of mutual love.  Inspiration serves to prepare, maintain, and nurture God's people in preparation for this.  The sexual laws of Scripture intend only to maintain a people ready and willing to witness to an anticipated eternal relationship with God.  Proof texts for every human activity have never been a goal of scripture, nor for that matter has scripture ever intended to supply a prescription for inclusion in the heavenly kingdom.  Though sexual activities and their acceptance are reported at a number of points in the Bible, it is not necessarily indicated that these are to be considered applicable and binding for all times.  Yet certain basic principles of sexual activity are established.  These, too fall under the general category of inspiration; for to elevate Biblical views of sexual experiences to the status of divine revelation is to put them on a par with the revealed divinity of Christ, the empowering of the Holy Spirit, or any one of a number of other mysteries that God's intervention in history has solved.

Any relationship, entity, or object which stands through human choice between the individual and God, and inhibits an open and free intimacy with God, becomes a source for idolatry.  In idolatry, God is supplanted for that which is other than God.  Whether we speak of golden calves, money, treasured possessions, people, or sexual expression, anything which hinders the flow of human and divine affection becomes idolatrous.  For the purposes of this Biblically based position paper, any mode of sexuality (autosexual, bisexual, celibate, heterosexual, or homosexual) contains within it the possibility of supplanting God's love with that for self or another person.  It also contains the possibility for implementing God's love for self and others.  Rather than condemning one or another expression of human sexuality, scripture seems more truly concerned with condemning idolatry and selfishness based on sexual expression.  It would appear that scripture speaks of human sexual activity in an inspired way, and not as a revelation of the divine will.  The search for meaning in sexuality continues, and for this reason we may presume either that man has missed, misunderstood or ignored God's will in all sexual expression, or that a revelatory experience has not yet been offered us.  Scripture is often cited to condemn homosexual activity.9

In each case, it can be well argued that God's wrath was directed against the unrighteous idolatry, selfishness, exploitation and unwelcoming attitudes more than against the homosexual activity. The homosexual behavior is usually condemned only as it is related to other acts.  Supplanting divine affection with human affection likewise seems to be St. Paul's chief concern when he speaks about marriage and marital sexual activity as marginally acceptable.10  Many examples of conflicting sexual values within scripture could be cited as inspired authors attempted to persuade Israel to forsake those things which appeared to bar the people from their fullest relationship with God.  For the most part, the real concern of scripture seems to be that God's people not replace his worship with the worship of penis, vagina, another person, animal or thing.  At the same time, the Bible calls people to sexual expression which serves to mirror the unselfish and sacrificial love flowing from God.  Sexual unrighteousness in its Biblical sense occurs when sexual activity for its own sake replaces God in the hearts and minds of people. Satisfying human sexual desire in ways which reflect God's creative love, rather than denying either his love or the human desire and drive, becomes the focus for us as Christians.  Perhaps Paul's revised view of the dietary laws could equally be applied to human sexual appetites.11  By this, a person judges only what is clean or unclean for him by what promotes his peace and mutual improvement within the body of Christ.

Human love is truly designed to serve as a witness to God's infinite love.12  Love and sexual behavior are not equated any more than God's righteous judgment on his people is dependent on a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Jesus redeems people from their sins, not from their sexual activities unless these are their sin.  Sexual sin is real sin when the individual engages knowingly in that which is unclean for him.13  Any mode of sexual encounter can be sinful and unrighteous if it replaces God's love and power in the lives of those who practice it.  Conversely, any mode of sexual encounter can reflect grace and righteousness if it celebrates and enhances God's love.  For this reason, Christians seem to be called on to refrain from making judgments about the sexual acts of their brothers and sisters in Christ.

In addition to the previous exegetical work done by the Task Force Members, we also requested a meeting with The Very Reverend Sherman Johnson, former Dean of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.  He graciously prepared a position paper which is enclosed as Appendix A and summarizes our discussion with him.

In responding to the question, "Should avowed homosexuality disqualify a person from ordination?", Dean Johnson stated the question must also be discussed with moral theologians as Biblical exegesis can only try to tell what the Bible says in its context.14

We recognize the need as imperative.  Our work to date has included the review of writings by Norman Pittenger.  The following are direct quotes:

"What Paul said on this matter of homosexuality, like the long Christian moral tradition on the subject, is not ipso facto divinely given and divinely imposed.  In all such teaching, on many more things than sexual issues, new occasions teach new duties.  Our ancestors were not fools, but they were not all-wise either.  We need to look at such statements in the light of new knowledge, new understanding, new awareness, deeper Christian perception.  Some of us are convinced that such an enterprise will result in an openness to homosexuality as an equally licit way of sexual genital expression as heterosexuality.  We shall not pity nor condemn the homosexual man or woman; we shall try to understand him or her, help him or her to be the best sort of person possible, just as we should try to do for the heterosexual.

To call them abnormal or deviant specimens of humanity would be a scandalous misuse of words.  According to the possibilities which are theirs, they are entirely normal; they are not deviant, but obviously they are different.  And I venture to speak of that difference in the same fashion as did the Frenchman in the story who said of the difference between man and woman, vive la difference!  That is, I should rejoice in the fact that there are people who thus love persons of their own sex, just as I rejoice in the fact that there are people who love persons of the other gender ‑‑ it adds variety, color, and spice to the common life, if only we will accept and help rather than reject and condemn.

For it comes down to the theological conviction that God has worked in his creation to produce men and women of different kinds and interests, including sexual kinds and interest.  Why should we not agree with this?  I can think of no reason for failing to do so, except for inherited prejudice, dislike of what is not 'our own thing,' and failure in insight and charity.15

Along with our reading of Dr. Pittenger we also attempted to gain the perspective of authorities in Ohio.  We sought an interview with Professor Richard Hettlinger, Professor of Religion at Kenyon College, who echoed many of the same concerns in an interview.  Author of several books on human sexuality,16 Dr. Hettlinger, on the subject of the ordination of homosexuals, stated, "It seems to me the judgment of the acceptability or non-acceptability from a Christian point of view must surely be; are they not expressions within the range of possibilities of relationships expressions of love and commitment and concern and compassion or whatever which is the criteria for heterosexual relationships?"

In response to the question, "What would you feel is the range of cost to individuals who through social concern or whatever are put in a position of denying their sexuality?" Hettlinger replied, "I think anyone who is put in a position of denying their sexuality is being very seriously, tragically abused by society.  Being a sexual person is the only kind of person you can be anyway."

Dr. Hettlinger recommended consideration of various points made in "Gay Can Be Good," a chapter in his most recent book.17  Feeling that the Episcopal Church "with its relative condition of freedom and openness" has an "incredible opportunity" to help in changing the atmosphere, Hettlinger, in his book, decries the societal pressures towards heterosexuality and adds, "The roots of true homosexuality lie far below the level of simple choice: nobody makes up his or her mind to be a homosexual, though someone may choose whether or not to engage in homosexual acts or to accept the fact of being homosexual.18

He goes on to argue that homosexual acts are not necessarily degrading:  it is the nature and quality of a relationship that matters.  In his concern that homosexuals gain the self-esteem and self-respect so long denied them, he adds, "As homosexuals erase the low self-image with which they have been imprinted, and as society begins to accept them as people (neither depraved nor sick) the possibility of serious, loving relationship is opened up.19

Dr. Hettlinger spoke of the need of practicing homosexual clergy for support and understanding in their isolation.  This concern is re-enforced by some of the closing words in his chapter:  "I know homosexuals whose fidelity, sensitivity and integrity equal or surpass that of most of the heterosexuals I know: yet the majority of our society absurdly condemns them as immoral just because they differ in loving a member of the same sex."20

In addition to the work of Dr. Hettlinger a work was received by the Task Force after the writing of the report The work, "The Church And The Homosexual" by John J. McNeill S.J. was found extremely helpful and should be read by anyone contemplating a serious study of the issue.

Psychological Perspectives

In addition to questions of Biblical exegesis and moral theology, the Task Force addressed itself to the psychological/psychiatric areas pertinent to our study.

Sexuality is but one of the many things determining who a person is and does not determine goals, ideals, or personality structure.  Evidence supporting this position was found by Dr. Evelyn Hooker,21 a respected authority on contemporary homosexuality.  Matching non-patient heterosexual and non-patient homosexual men on the basis of age, intelligence, and level of education she gave each subject a battery of psychological tests and interviews.  These test results were not distinguishable by psychologists trained in their interpretation.  The homosexual subjects were basically equal with their heterosexual counterparts on virtually all levels of psychological adjustment.22  This correlation is amazing in the light of severe social pressures under which homosexuals in our society live.

This correlation was recently corroborated by Thomas R. Clark, Ph.D., University of Windsor, Ontario and Wayne County Psychiatric Hospital, Detroit.  Using "non-patient homosexual subjects expressing varying degrees of homosexual behavior and preference (a significant methodological departure from past research)"23 Clark investigated the assumed relationship between homosexuality and psychopathology.  He found "there was no trend toward the homosexual group being even slightly more pathological as the level of homosexuality increased, and no evidence emerged to suggest that homosexuality and heterosexuality are differentially related to emotional adjustment or disturbance .... (The) present data offer empirical evidence that the traditional view in the clinical literature, that homosexuality is always a sign of symptomatic psychopathology may be in need of qualification or revision."24

Again the Task Force sought the help of authorities in the area. Consequently, the Task Force invited Douglas D. Bond, M.D.,25 to join us for a discussion of the psychological and psychiatric implications of homosexuality and ordination to the ministry.

The following statements are pertinent.  Dr. Bond, on sexual preference, stated, "There's an enormous variation in people of all kinds, and other qualities are more important than this one quality (sexual orientation) alone ....  Homosexuality would not necessarily cause them not to be able to function well."26

In responding to the question of when does homosexuality itself become important in psychopathology he said:

"Homosexuality is dysfunctional when it becomes a real nuisance to the person or to the people around that person. By this I mean sexual molesting, attempting to influence minors to homosexual acts ....  I tell you I have something very gross in mind.  It is if the homosexual business, or the heterosexual business, for that matter, becomes imposed on minors ‑‑ imposed on others against their will.  Then it's a big problem.  But that is just as true of one sexual preference as of another.  You see, I don't think there is anything very important about the sexual orientation of people as long as it is in some sort of control.  You worry about the sexual orientation when it is out of control, is imposed upon somebody defenseless.  That is the only time I would ever worry about it."

Dr. Bond explained that sexual orientation does not have to inhibit the intellectual or moral development, and he considered that these were primary.  He said that homosexuality is one of the variants of human beings as they mature and that sexual preference is irrelevant to the main issue of having other qualities that are particularly desirable in a clergyperson.

The problems of homosexual women and men arise, he said, not out of their sexual preference, but rather from the oppression imposed on them by a heterosexually-oriented society.  Until very recently homosexuals blamed themselves after introjecting the standards of society.

Dr. Bond was asked, "What can happen to someone asked to deny or to not acknowledge sexual preference?"  He responded, "Well, a lot of that is very tragic ... a tremendous sense of isolation, shame over something that can't be helped.  Alienation from people around you is a very depressing and unhappy business."

Sociological Perspectives

We now turn our attention to the question of the right to relationship and expression of sexuality among homosexual clergy and among homosexuals in general.  The 65th General Convention stated in resolution A-69 that "homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim, with all other persons, upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral care and concern of the Church."  The Church also called for acceptance by society at large of homosexuals and protestation of their civil rights against discrimination.  This is an attempt by the Church to deal with the injustice of society toward the homosexual.  The Church asked society to change not only its attitudes (prejudice) but also its behavior (discrimination) toward homosexuals.  The Church at this point accordingly leaves itself open to the charge of hypocrisy unless it is willing to change its attitudes and behavior toward the homosexual.

Let us look at the present stance of the Church toward homosexual persons.  Within its sphere the Church bars homosexuals from rights, specifically the sacraments of marriage and holy orders. Marriage is denied unilaterally to homosexuals on the basis that primary cause of the sacrament, namely procreation, cannot be met.

     The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church states:

"The preface to the Marriage Service in the BCP aptly sums up the ends of marriage.  It defines its purpose as the procreation of children, the avoidance of sin, and mutual society.  The first of these universally understood as the prime end."27

From this it must be understood that the prime end of marriage is procreation.  How is it then that the sacrament of matrimony is not denied to those heterosexuals who either will not or cannot meet it prime end?  The ends of marriage would seem to suggest that this holy state be open only to those Christians who would attest that their prime goal is procreation.  And yet all of us would see it as unfeeling and unjust for the Church to deny marriage to a loving couple who were past the age of child bearing, or to a couple with a congenital disease, or to a couple who has serious reservations about bringing into their over-populated and starving world more children.  These couples come to the Church asking for authentication and support of their relationship on the basis of the two ancillary reasons for the sacrament, i.e. avoidance of sin and mutual society.  The Church joyously grants the request.  The homosexual couple asking on the same basis for the Church to authenticate and support their relationship is denied and rejected.  This clearly then is discrimination expressed through a double standard imposed by the Church toward some of her children, the "children of God".

As to the issue of Holy Orders, currently Holy Orders are denied to all noncelibate homosexuals.  The Convention has decided to hold in abeyance "the ordaining of practicing homosexuals" D-58 (emphasis added).  From the resolution one may understand that the injunction limits only the ordination of "practicing" homosexuals, and that non-practicing, i.e. celibate homosexuals, are not barred under the resolution.  There is no condition of imposed celibacy in the Episcopal Church for heterosexual clergy, as the option of marriage is open.  This abeyance, then, is discrimination in the form of another double standard inflicted upon some of the "children of God".

We must now look at the form of the discrimination practiced by the Church toward its homosexual members.  An analogy may be revealing here.  In society at large discrimination is evidenced in behavior, not attitudes, and ranges in severity from anto-locution, i.e. speaking despairingly of a person, as in "Nigger" and "Kike" to genocide, the systematic extermination of a group. The most severe sanction which the Church imposes today is the exclusion from the sacraments.  In this sense, then, exclusion from the sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders is parallel with spiritual genocide.  In terms, of the Spiritual life and alienation of an individual, this analogy may be telling.

To the extent then, that the Church does not change its behavior, while calling for society to change their behavior, the Church leaves itself open to the charge of Hypocrite.  To the extent that the Church does not change its behavior, it does violence not only to the homosexual children of God, but also to the charge and tradition of Jesus Christ.

On this basis, at least, it follows that sexual orientation ought not be among the criteria for selecting aspirants to Holy Orders. Saying that, however, does not solve the problem.  Culturally we may be a long way from the acknowledgement of such a broadly accepting view of human sexuality as the one contained herein.  Leaders of all sorts, including ecclesiastical, are viewed and judged by the eyes of their constituents as well as the general public.  While this may be an uncomfortable position, unjust and even inappropriate for those who judge as well as for those who are judged, one must also admit that no amount of argumentation will be likely to satisfy, unify, obliterate, or ameliorate all judgments of people toward those who differ in choices and values which are unlike their own.  Nevertheless, the Church is charged to lead the way in proclaiming the unalterable love of God toward all his children though their ways and values may vary from age to age as well as within their own time.  We can speak in certainty only of the reconciling love we have come to trust and anticipate in our God.  It is, for this reason alone, appropriate for the Church to ponder how best to serve as Christ's ambassadors of reconciliation in moral teachings concerning sexual activity.  To follow the sexual laws and mores of ancient Israel would seem foolish and inadequate; for we cannot know or appreciate adequately the mind of that time, or the culturally derived good that was sought.  We can only ponder, and begin to explore, the ways in which human differences can be celebrated within the Body of Christ.  We now have that opportunity to celebrate differences in those who aspire to Holy Orders in Christ's Church.

Conclusions and Recommendations

As a result of the large amount of work done, through the review of written materials, face to face interviews and our own wrestling with the issues we have reached some conclusions and recommendations.

In the area of ethics and moral theology the Anglican Communion has a long history of viewing its role as teacher as descriptive not prescriptive.  If there is any danger in holding an ancient religious view, opposing any but heterosexual expressions of sexuality, it lies in the possibility of our Church's adoption of a prescriptive approach to sexual morality.  If there is any danger in holding a more contemporary religious acceptance of human sexual activity as being one more way of expressing "creatureliness" the danger lies in supplanting the divine will with human desire.  To be true to our Anglican heritage of descriptive moral and ethical teaching is a difficult task, for we attempt not to seek a middle road of compromise but rather a road of truth reflecting the love of God.  We cannot presume to know the will of God, even through diligent study of Holy Scripture.  Nor can we know this through history, doctrine or social ethical and moral thought.  Truly, it does seem blatantly hypocritical to acknowledge homosexual activity outside marriage as worthy while at the same time condemning heterosexual activity outside marriage.  This is the essential effect of the proscription on homosexual marriages.  Needed, perhaps, is an approach to human relationships which acknowledges that there are many sorts of interpersonal meetings which cannot be described in either marital or non-marital terms.  Homosexual "marriages," while they may not meet the present definition of marriage offered in liturgical forms, are of significant interpersonal import to those thus involved.  A means whereby other expressions of love of a truly interpersonal and personal nature can be manifested may well solve a portion of the dilemma.  What seems to lie at stake is the ability of human beings to express their felt affections without incurring the condemnation of society.  If human beings exist to proclaim God's love, it is then time to acknowledge that there are many avenues and expressions to Divine Love.  Again, lest we be too presumptuous, sexual expression is not the only way in which God's Love is reflected to society, nor is it the only way in which God's Love is mocked.

God's Will, Love and ways expressed through the Sacrifice of Christ become our only concern in surveying an overview of sexual righteousness.  Lover laying down life for the beloved becomes the test of sexual morality.  Performance of the most loving act while accepting the responsibility for its outcome has become a major theme of contemporary moral theologians such as Joseph Fletcher.  Sexuality viewed in this light becomes a worthy response to the Sacrifice of Christ.  We are able to love not only God in Christ, but our brothers and sisters as well when the sexual expressions seek to serve the other party in the relationship, not the gratification of self only.  How truly reflective of Christ's Sacrifice of loving his people to the end is any form of sexual expression?  How offensive to the will and ways of God are any of our sexual attitude or appetites?  And in this sense, how can we single out one or another expression of human sexuality as being exclusively according to or opposed to the Divine Will?

Sexual expression outside marriage has scandalized generations of Christians.  Fornication has been a favorite topic of condemnation among Biblical writers.  It seems a bit late in history to require a special brand of morality for the clergy considering the number of years we have proclaimed to those in Holy Orders to be just ordinary human beings called to an extraordinary task.  Heterosexual or homosexual temptations and acts have been no strangers to either married or celibate clergy. In addition to examining the avenues available to all Christians to express loving relationships, the Church must now examine her attitudes toward double standards in clerical and lay morality on many fronts.  It is time to be frank and honest.  Members of the clergy have been party to many forms of sexual impropriety, and will continue to be so.  To acknowledge what is true seems to be the necessity of the moment.  Many philandering heterosexuals have been ordained.  Many promiscuous homosexuals have, too.  Still the focus lies on the heterosexuality or homosexuality of the clergy, and not on their manner of expressing their persuasion.  Greater understanding and study of human sexuality and the Church's position on it are needed.  It is no longer possible to deny sexual identity among any of God's people, including the clergy.  What seems appropriate also is that clinics, workshops and other educational programs be launched to enable people to choose their sexual orientation with understanding and not by default.  Counseling in sexuality is deplorably deficient in the Church.  Clergy need training to counsel in areas of sexuality and sexual choice rather than passing along prejudices and fears which they themselves often hold.  A possible program might be:

• Seminars in counseling on sexuality for the clergy

• Laboratory teaching on human sexuality for clergy and laity

• Support systems for persons who wish to acknowledge their sexual orientation

• Support systems for those who wish to change their sexual orientation

• A study program developed for use in parishes employing a believable textbook or audio-visual resource on human sexuality in general

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