The author considers the role of male and female homosexuality in society and presents a range of theories about the causes of homosexuality as well as diverse theories about free will and the extent to which it influences sexual orientation.

That a homosexual -- man or woman -- is neither a sinner nor a sick person is the thesis of this paper by an authority on sexual deviation. Therefore, such a man or woman neither needs penance and pardon nor cure in the medical sense. Nevertheless such individuals sometimes need the help of doctors and must be treated with understanding. The medical profession also has, in the view of the behaviourist school of psychiatrists, of which Dr Bancroft is a (...) member, the duty of influencing social attitudes towards homosexuals. Obviously homosexuals who come into conflict with the law are special cases, and must be treated as such but this is not 'medical' treatment so much as social control even if drugs and other forms of therapy are used. (shrink)

Rymarz, Richard Review of: Homosexuality and following Jesus, by Paul Flaman,, ISBN 9781926645780, pp.181, pb; The plot to kill god: Findings from the soviet experiment in secularization, by Paul Froese, ISBN 9780520255289, pp.248, pb.

Since the late 1990s, the Russian Orthodox Church and several mainline Western Protestant churches have been at odds over homosexuality to such an extent that it has turned into a church-dividing issue. This article aims to find new openings for the ecumenical dialogue by examining how the ROC’s negative attitude toward same-sex relations has been influenced by cultural and historic factors. The analysis focuses on the affective dimension of the ROC’s discourse on homosexuality in important social documents and public speeches. (...) The methodology applied is taken from affect studies. The rhetoric of the ecclesial texts recalls ‘shadows from the gulag’ and frightening memories of the chaos of the 1990s, and functions to create an imagined national, moral and religious community – the ‘Russian Christian civilization’ – which is characterized by masculine heterosexuality. Religious concepts tend to become subordinate to the affective politics of the discourse. In conclusion, the author proposes that ecumenical partners continue with a profound theological discussion on human sexuality in all its diversity and complexity, and clarify to each other how understandings of basic theological notions such as human dignity and freedom have also been shaped by formative historic experiences. Furthermore, ecclesiological debates should address, at a fundamental level, the relationship between Christian community and the freedom ‘to be different.’. (shrink)

Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims. By Scott SiraJ al-Haqq Kugle. Oxford: Oneworld, 2010. Pp. × + 335. $90 ; $29.95.

Professor Mark A. Yarhouse proposes an ‘identity synthesis’ model of sexual modification therapy for homosexuals. This model is meant primarily to target the process by which one’s sexual identity is synthesized, rather than the changing of sexual orientation itself. I highlight some of the advantages of Yarhouse’s model along with some of its potential pitfalls. My primary point of departure with Yarhouse concerns how one ought to direct those self-identified homosexual clients who fall within our clinical sphere of influence (...) and who, in the end, contrary to our better judgment, decide that they would like to pursue a course of “homosexualization.” Based on the “autonomy”-emphasizing aspects of the identity synthesis model, it appears that Yarhouse is willing to sanction the referral of certain clients to “therapists” who are willing to facilitate these clients’ homosexualization. I do not believe that Christians involved in the care of homosexuals can licitly participate in such referrals. (shrink)

Jamake Highwater is a master storyteller and one of our most visionary writers, hailed as "an eloquent bard, whose words are fire and glory" (Studs Terkel) and "a writer of exceptional vision and power" (Ana"is Nin). Author of more than thirty volumes of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, Highwater--considered by many to be the intellectual heir of Joseph Campbell--has long been intrigued by how our mythological legacies have served as a foundation of modern civilization. Now, in The Mythology of Transgression, he (...) uses his remarkable narrative powers to offer a personal and extraordinarily far-ranging examination of how people who stand outside of society--by dint of their sexual orientation, physical appearance, ideas, artistic inclinations, or ethnic heritage--often achieve lasting, even profound influence upon the culture at large. Drawing from a stunningly rich variety of sources ranging from the arts and literature to biology, physics, psychology, and anthropology, Highwater looks at his own outsider status--as a gay man, an artist, and an orphaned Native American--in an attempt to explore how mythologies from ancient times to the present have shaped the ways we think about social "abnormality" and alienation. Throughout, he points to a paradox at the center of Western values--the competing notions that the outsider is at once sinful and wise, that in everyday life the transgressor is ostracized, while in our most durable folklore and religious legends, heroes must break the rules to achieve greatness. Focusing in particular on homosexuality as a modern metaphor of transgression, Highwater brilliantly mixes personal anecdotes with wide ranging research, leading us on a tour through the history of social conformity and rejection, citing examples that span from Judeo-Christian-Islamic doctrines of good and evil, to the Navajo Nation's ambivalence toward the nature of sexuality, to Carson McCullers's treatment of physical deformity in the novella Member of the Wedding, to Descartes's theories of dualism. He also pays special attention to the debates currently raging in science regarding the biology of homosexuality and provides an engaging discussion of why we are motivated to seek a genetic basis of sexual orientation in the first place. Jamake Highwater has long been celebrated as a writer uniquely suited to give voice to the social outsider. Often provocative, always fascinating, The Mythology of Transgression is a tour de force of eloquent scholarship, a book that will prompt discussion and debate on the subject for years to come. (shrink)

I am going to consider some common and, for the most part, fairly unreflective reasons for thinking that homosexuality is a bad thing and, therefore, something that should be extirpated, if that is possible, or suppressed, by, most obviously, legal prohibition or, falling short of that, by moral or social pressure. These reasons are five in number: homosexuality is held to be unnatural, abnormal, a perversion, morally wrong or sinful and aesthetically repellent or disgusting. The first three of these unfavourable (...) characterisations of homosexuality apply to it primarily as an orientation, a disposition to engage in homosexual activity, whether the disposition is manifested or not. The other two, the moral and aesthetic ones so far as most of their proponents are concerned, apply only to homosexuality, as manifested in actual conduct. The desire to sin, after all, is a necessary condition of virtue. There is no merit in not doing things one has no desire to do. Similarly the desire to do something disgusting is hardly, in itself, disgusting. (shrink)

Historically, the Christian church was united in firm opposition to both homosexuality and contraception. Today most evangelical Christians continue to oppose the former but have embraced the latter. This paper argues that there is a clear tension between these views, especially when it comes to the evangelical use of natural law–type reasoning. The conclusion of this paper is that Christians who view homosexual activity as immoral must also view artificial contraception in the same light. They are wrong for the (...) same reason: they both misuse the sexual organs by directing sexual activity away from procreative unity. (shrink)

The book analyses the Indian Supreme Court's jurisprudence on homosexuality, its current approach and how its position has evolved in the past ten years. It critically analyses the Court's landmark judgments and its perception of equality, family, marriage and human rights from an international perspective. With the help of European Court of Human Rights' judgments and international conventions, it compares the legal and social discrimination meted out to the Indian LGBTI community with that in the international arena. From a social (...) anthropological perspective, it demonstrates how gay masculinity, although marginalized, serves as a challenge to patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. This unique book addresses the lack of in-depth literature on gay masculinity, elaborately narrating and analysing contemporary gay masculinity and emerging gay lifestyles in India and highlighting the latest research on the subject of homosexuality in general and in particular with respect to India. It also discusses several new issues concerning the gay men in India supported by the living law approach put forth by Eugen Ehrlich. (shrink)

We recently synthesized and reinterpreted published studies to advance an epigenetic model for the development of homosexuality (HS). The model is based on epigenetic marks laid down in response to the XX vs. XY karyotype in embryonic stem cells. These marks boost sensitivity to testosterone in XY fetuses and lower it in XX fetuses, thereby canalizing sexual development. Our model predicts that a subset of these canalizing epigenetic marks stochastically carry over across generations and lead to mosaicism for sexual development (...) in opposite‐sex offspring – the homosexual phenotype being one such outcome. Here, we begin by outlining why HS has been under‐appreciated as a commonplace phenomenon in nature, and how this trend is currently being reversed in the field of neurobiology. We next briefly describe our epigenetic model of HS, develop a set of predictions, and describe how epigenetic profiles of human stem cells can provide for a strong test of the model. (shrink)

In this paper, I claim there is nothing morally wrong with homosexuals adopting children. It is often argued that even if we ought to tolerate homosexuals in society, we must nevertheless forbid them from raising children. This is simply preposterous. There is no good argument for maintaining it, as I hope to demonstrate here.

Grapples with the problems of identifying homosexual content in a work of art, showing how artists often used sexual codes to communicate to their subculture. The major part of the book is a discussion of Demuth's and Hartley's lives and works.

This paper defends the view that homosexuality is abnormal and hence undesirable—not because it is immoral or sinful, or because it weakens society or hampers evolutionary development, but for a purely mechanical reason. It is a misuse of bodily parts. Clear empirical sense attaches to the idea of the use of such bodily parts as genitals, the idea that they are for something, and consequently to the idea of their misuse. I argue on grounds involving natural selection that misuse of (...) bodily parts can with high probability be connected to unhappiness. I regard these matters as prolegomena to such policy issues as the rights of homosexuals, the rights of those desiring not to associate with homosexuals, and legislation concerning homosexuality, issues which I shall not discuss systematically here. However, I do in the last section draw a seemingly evident corollary from my view that homosexuality is abnormal and likely to lead to unhappiness. (shrink)

This paper examines the argument that moral approval of homosexuality is analogous to the early church's inclusion of gentiles. The analogy has a long but often overlooked history, dating back to the start of the modern gay-rights movement. It has recently gained greater prominence because of its importance to the Episcopal Church's debate with the wider Anglican Communion. Beginning with the Episcopal Church argument, we see that there are five specific areas most in need of further clarification. In this essay (...) I examine significant uses of the analogy from the prior 25 years to see how effectively they address these five areas. I conclude that the conversation surrounding the Gentile Analogy is the current, best hope for mutual understanding among Christians about homosexuality. However, if the analogy is to advance the Christian conversation, much greater care and precision is needed in its application from traditionalists and revisionists alike. (shrink)

I argue on utilitarian grounds that while traditional constraints on heterosexual activity, including the prohibition of pre-marital sex and divorce may be justified by appeal to purely secular principles, no comparable prohibitions are justified as regards homosexual activity. Homosexuality is in this respect.

In ‘Aeon’ magazine, 2 August 2017, Professor Paul Russell maintains that identities such as race, gender and sexual orientation have equal ethical standing because they cannot be discarded and they are not constituted by beliefs, values or practices. We should, he says, resist attempts to present those who identify as gay as making a choice and affirming certain values and practices that they are capable of shedding. However, such identities can be discarded and they are in part constituted by beliefs, (...) values or practices. Russell’s defence of homosexual equality, because it focuses on the inclination to homosexuality, is pointless and useless. A proper defence of homosexual equality focuses on homosexual lifestyles and argues that the choice of such lifestyles is not wrong. Whether people who choose homosexual lifestyles do so because of a natural and unchangeable inclination, or whether environment or choice plays a part in bringing about that inclination, is an interesting question for science but of no concern for politics. (shrink)

The ideological interface between Muslims and liberal educators undoubtedly is strained in the realm of sex education, and perhaps on no topic more so than homosexuality. Some argue that schools should not try to ‘undermine the faith’ of Muslims, who object to teaching homosexuality as an ‘acceptable alternative lifestyle’. In this article, I will argue against this monolithic presentation of Islam. Furthermore, I will argue that a narrow view of Islam is neglectful of gay and lesbian Muslims who are particularly (...) vulnerable to the unrepentant hostilities of their own communities. (shrink)

Se aborda la literatura homosexual en México desde una perspectiva político-social en el que el auge de la literatura hispanoamericana, retoma los principios de la lucha del reconocimiento de derechos homosexuales, en un contexto histórico de cambios, partiendo de un análisis crítico que permitirá al lector, dar cuenta de los hechos libertarios de un movimiento que, aunque no es nuevo en nuestro país, sí se postula como un momento de concientización social que rompe estereotipos y esquemas tradicionales de la (...) libertad sexual. (shrink)

Homosexual aversion therapy enjoyed two brief but intense periods of clinical experimentation: between 1950 and 1962 in Czechoslovakia, and between 1962 and 1975 in the British Commonwealth. The specific context of its emergence was the geopolitical polarization of the Cold War and a parallel polarization within psychological medicine between Pavlovian and Freudian paradigms. In 1949, the Pavlovian paradigm became the guiding doctrine in the Communist bloc, characterized by a psychophysiological or materialist understanding of mental illness. It was taken up (...) by therapists in Western countries who were critical of psychoanalysis and sought more ‘scientific’ diagnostic and therapeutic methods that focused on empirical evidence and treating actual symptoms. However, their attitude towards homosexuality often played a decisive role in how they used aversion therapy. Whereas Czechoslovakian researchers cautioned readers about low success rates and agitated for homosexual law reform in 1961, most of their anglophone counterparts selectively ignored or misrepresented the results of ‘the Prague experiment’, instead celebrating single-case ‘success’ stories in their effort to correct ‘abnormal’ sexual orientation. In histories of queer sexuality and its pathologization, the behaviourist paradigm remains almost entirely unmapped. This article provides the most detailed study to date of aversion therapy literature from both sides of the East/West border. In doing so, it contributes to the project not only of ‘decentring Western sexualities’, but of decentring Western sexological knowledge. Given its Pavlovian origins, the history of homosexual aversion therapy can be fully understood only in the context of Cold War transnational sexological knowledge exchange. (shrink)

Science and Homosexualities is the first anthology by historians of science to examine European and American scientific research on sexual orientation since the coining of the word "homosexual" almost 150 years ago. This collection is particularly timely given the enormous scientific and popular interest in biological studies of homosexuality, and the importance given such studies in current legal, legislative and cultural debates concerning gay civil rights. However, scientific and popular literature discussing the biology of sexual orientation have been short-sighted (...) in representing it as objective, new scientific work. This volume demonstrates that the quest for the biological "cause" of homosexuality and other sexualities is as old as the term itself. These essays explore the active role experimental subjects played in shaping scientific theories of homosexuality and cultural perceptions of sexuality and sexual identity. Finally this anthology studies the way in which this doctor-patient interaction shaped not only scientific theories of homosexuality, but also cultural perceptions and self-identities as well. Contributors include: Garland E. Allen, Erin G. Carlston, Julian Carter, Alice D. Dreger, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Margaret Gibson, Stephanie Kenen, Hubert Kennedy, Harry Oosterhuis, James Steakley, Richard Pillard, Jennifer Terry. (shrink)

People who notice details might have observed I would like to take this point further to suggest that the description of this panel that appears on the that the terms communities of faith and people of Ten Percent Society literature is different than the faith are inapplicable in the Christian or any other one included on the Philosophy and Religion religious context as well. One does not have faith in Colloquium announcements. This is intentional; I..

This article focuses on the events surrounding a homosexual Romanian man's attempt to be recognized as a refugee in Britain. Numerous themes emerge such as the nature of authenticity, knowledge, identity, pleasure, evidence and the homosexual refugee as being caught in between two legal apparatuses (that is, fleeing from the hostility of one legal regime and then trying to gain refugee status, and thus legal protection, via a British Immigration Tribunal). In this article, the corporeality and sensuality of (...) legal practices are exposed in the form of `practices of truth'. That is, in this case medico-legal `living individuals' were to perceive, hear, speak, touch and penetrate the `secrets' of Mr Vraciu's body in order to authenticate his sexual identity for the purposes of law. This case also demonstrates the existence of a differend between what I describe as the self-knowledge of homosexuality and the `legal' fact-based, or authorized knowledge of homosexual identity produced through practices of truth. (shrink)

T his essay analyses key examples of language used during the recent case of Private Jake Kovco, the first Australian solider to die during Australia’s military involvement in Iraq. Kovco died not in combat but in his barracks room, shot in the head by his own pistol. In particular, the essay considers the implications of the military inquiry being told that Kovco may have accidentally shot himself while joking with his roommates ‘in a female/homosexual way’, the gun held to (...) his head ‘almost to say this is so gay I would rather be dead’. Payne revisits Sedgwick’s concept of ‘homosexual panic’ to argue that the erasure of homophobia from the record of the incident contributes to the normalisation of homophobia as an unworthy source of social and political panic, precisely because of the ‘systemic function’ Sedgwick attributes to homosexual panic in reinforcing heterosexual masculine entitlement. (shrink)

The last several years have been marked by a seemingly increasing numbers of individuals with homosexual inclinations. There are consequences to society-wide increases in disordered dispositions, and this paper presents one such consequence. Patients often enter the physician–patient relationship basedon the physician’s “sexual preference.” In order to avoid sexual misconduct from a physician, patients often choose physicians that are not inclined to be sexually attracted to the patient. It is often assumed that a patient can infer a physician’s sexual (...) inclinations by his or her gender, but this is not the case. Due to the inability to determine a health care professional’s “sexual preference” by their gender, a physician has a duty to disclose this information prior to care. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.3 (Autumn 2013): 445–450. (shrink)

In the face of the recent backlashes against homosexual persons in Africa, on the ground that the phenomenon is un-African and/or threat to procreation and marital values, it is pertinent to review the discourse in the light of how ancient Africans perceived the reality. This is imperative given the lack of consensus on the part of scientists to disinter a conclusive finding on what causes homosexual behaviours among humans. In this research, I employ traditional Yorùbá philosophy to provide (...) a plausible justification for homosexuality among the people. In the face of this justification via Yorùbá folklore, I find that there is no documented evidence among the ancient Yorùbá that is suggestive of discrimination and stigmatization of homosexuals and inter-sex persons. As homosexual persons were respected but not criminalized, this study recommends the regurgitation of this outlook in the contemporaneous dealings with homosexual persons, beginning with the repealing of the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014 in Nigeria, which is inconsistent with African values and outlooks on the subject. (shrink)

Homosexuality is criminalised and socially condemned in many places in Africa. This fact seems to suggest that African moral philosophy would likely render homosexuality immoral. Indeed, some of the African philosophical literature tries to suggest that homosexuality is morally wrong. Contrasting with this view, in this article, I will show that Afro-communitarian ethics implies that homosexuality is morally permissible and, indeed, can be an excellent way to promote social harmony. I defend this theory by drawing out the implications of social (...) harmony, and also respond to potential objections from African intellectuals and new natural law theorists. (shrink)

Los historiadores queery los activistas tienen una relación particular con la historia de la Unión Soviética. Un vínculo que ha sido moldeado por las políticas de la Guerra Fría y el ascenso, en primera instancia en el mundo anglo-americano, del movimiento de liberación gay. Para los militantes de izquierda, saber que el primer Estado socialista del mundo sancionó políticas sexuales radicales ha sido un talismán y una guía. La despenalización de la homosexualidad masculina, caratulada como sodomía, en los primeros años (...) de la Rusia revolucionaria, fue uno de los cambios más radicales en las leyes criminales, familiares y de propiedad que marcaron la llegada de los bolcheviques al poder. La eliminación de las regulaciones religiosas y reaccionarias del régimen zarista sobre la sexualidad ha sido presentada como el punto de referencia de las políticas sexuales progresistas. Siguiendo esa lectura, la re-penalización por parte del gobierno soviético de la sodomía durante 1933-34 es interpretada como una “tendencia reaccionaria” de la mano del régimen de Joseph Stalin, una degeneración del presumiblemente socialismo legítimo de Vladimir Lenin (o León Trotsky). Nuestras narrativas también presentan al cambio en la legislación de la homosexualidad masculina durante los convulsionados años de 1930 a través del prisma de las relaciones internacionales. Esta perspectiva recurre fuertemente al trabajo del reformista sexual freudiano y marxista Wilhem Reich, quien en 1936 publicó una acusación de la represión de los homosexuales soviéticos. (shrink)

In some of his more obscure works, Michel Foucault characterises homosexual culture as being connected with an interesting practice of friendship. Since homosexual relationships cannot be derived from existing norms, they are inherently underdetermined, and this means that homosexual culture provides a space for the creation of new types of relationship. Inspired by this practice of social experimentation, Foucault puts forward a concept of friendship based on the collaborative creation of new relationships in marginal spaces. I argue (...) that putting this concept of friendship into practice entails social activism in two ways: first, the creation of new relationships in marginal spaces constitutes a form of localised resistance to social normalisation, and second, because experimentation with relationships presents a challenge to the excessive normalisation of relationships on a societal scale. Friendship, for Foucault, is therefore a resource for both local resistance and large-scale social change. I also argue that Foucault's work on gay culture deserves more scholarly attention because it provides a supplement to his interpretation of the Enlightenment and forges a link between friendship and the aesthetics of existence. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, EarlyView. -/- For the longest time, it has been generally held and widely acknowledged that Thomas Aquinas thought homosexual activity to be morally wrong. In recent years, this common interpretation has come under challenge by none other than the President of the Leonine Commission, the Dominican Adriano Oliva. In a recent book, Loves: The Church, the Remarried Divorced, and Homosexual Couples (in French Amours: L’Église, les divorcés remariés, les couples homosexuels), Oliva argues that Thomas Aquinas (...) would have supported homosexual practices for homosexual persons, or at least that an accurate application of Thomistic principles entails that homosexual acts are morally good. Is this just wishful thinking on Oliva’s part or does his argument have some merit? In order to answer that question, I will proceed in three parts: first, I will reveal numerous texts Oliva failed to take into account; second, I will explicate Oliva’s hermeneutic and the principal textual support he gives for his position; third, I will examine whether Aquinas would have changed his views on the morality of homosexual activity in light of modern advances in our understanding of the etiology and unchangeability of homosexuality. It is concluded that Oliva's view is a gross misinterpretation of the texts. (shrink)

Questions about the naturalness or unnaturalness of homosexuality are as old as the hills, and the answers have often been used to condemn homosexuals, their behaviors, and their relationships. In the past two centuries, a number of sciences have involved themselves in this debate, introducing new vocabularies, theories, arguments, and data, many of which have gradually helped tip the balance toward tolerance and even acceptance. In this book, philosophers Pieter R. Adriaens and Andreas De Block explore the history and philosophy (...) of the gay sciences, revealing how individual and societal values have colored how we think about homosexuality. The authors unpack the entanglement of facts and values in studies of male homosexuality across the natural and human sciences and consider the extent to which science has mitigated or reinforced homonegative mores. The focus of the book is on homosexuality's assumed naturalness. Geneticists rephrased naturalness as innateness, claiming that homosexuality is innate-colloquially, that homosexuals are born gay. Zoologists thought it a natural affair, documenting its existence in myriad animal species, from maybugs to men. Evolutionists presented homosexuality as the product of natural selection and speculated about its adaptive value. Finally, psychiatrists, who had initially pathologized homosexuality, eventually appealed to its naturalness or innateness to normalize it. Discussing findings from an array of sciences--comparative zoology, psychiatry, anthropology, evolutionary biology, social psychology, developmental biology, and machine learning--this book is essential reading for anyone interested in what science has to say about homosexuality. (shrink)

Throughout the nineteenth century, significant transformations took place in the understanding of Western homosexuality, shifting from the domain of criminal law to that of medical science. This article explores the role of European legal thought in laying the groundwork for such changes, particularly starting from the mid-eighteenth century. Examining the contributions of the Roman jurist Filippo Maria Renazzi (1745–1808), this research emphasizes his role among the thinkers who lived through the transition from the European ius commune tradition to the era (...) of criminal codes. Renazzi, a conservative university professor in papal Rome, not unfamiliar with Enlightenment discussions, penned a successful criminal treatise in Latin between 1773 and 1786. His expertise was also in demand during the subsequent development of the criminal code for the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. By focusing on the figure of Renazzi, still not extensively studied, this article attempts to shed light on the transition towards the general decriminalization of non-reproductive carnal offenses, including sodomy. In the new penal code project, only acts committed against the will of others and public order remained generically condemned. This underscored the indifference of criminal law towards penalizing behavior that medicine would subsequently come to recognize as an inherent identity. (shrink)

The argument presented here explores homosexuality within the context of applied Christian ethics. The argument works by asking students to grapple with and define the common characteristics of all eros relationships. Once the students analytically break down eros relationships, and wrestle with defining concepts such as “love,” “sex,” and “desires,” basic biblical moral precepts are applied. After this biblical application it can be shown that there is latitude enough in Christian morality to openly permit homosexuality that iscompatible with biblically stated (...) ethical dictums. The argument is pedagogical in nature, and is a challenging, engaging, and accessible argument that avoids the educational pitfalls that entangle other arguments of this nature. (shrink)

In response to powerful criticisms of older arguments, contemporary defenders of the Church’s traditional stance on homosexuality have fashioned a new kind of argument based upon the special relationship God created between the sexes. In this paper we examine two recent incarnations of this kind of argument and show that both fail to demonstrate the inherent immorality of homosexual relationships, and at most demonstrate that homosexual relationships are inferior to heterosexual relationships in certain respects. At the end of (...) the paper we argue that a good God would have reason to make a certain proportion of humanity homosexual in order to unmask sexist myths. In this way homosexuality could itself strengthen, rather than weaken, the special relationship God created between the sexes. (shrink)