January 17, 2005

To the Editors of the Wesleyan Christian Advocate:

Dear Editor:

I submit the following for publication in the letters section. It is quite germane today and includes a different take on the gay-straight thing for the powerful Christian coalitions. Nevertheless you may wish to eliminate that paragraph in the interests of space, for it is a side issue for the secular public. In that paragraph I mention long hair on men which for Paul was unnatural as was same-sex sex (per 1 Corth. 11:14)


When you think about it, is homosexuality really any more unnatural and quirky and queer than left handedness? When 10% of the population insist that they are freer with their left hand and more comfortable using it and better able to do things with it, I think we right handers ought simply to accept that, although warning them that they will be in a slightly disadvantageous position in a majority right handed world; even though we may always wonder how such an orientation is possible.

The same logic of course holds for the homosexual, for even if it is not yet certain science, there is enough evidence and sincere testimony to suggest that some people are as naturally attracted to their own sex as some people are to their left hand. And so shouldn’t they be given the benefit of any doubt? If it is not certain one way or the other, shouldn’t homosexuals be given the same rights as left handed people? a presumption of equal naturalness in orientation? If it is not totally certain one way or the other as to whether a fetus is a person or not, shouldn’t the assumption be made that the fetus is a person? Isn’t it better to err on the side of individual rights rather than against them? Isn’t it better for two guilty persons to go free rather than a single innocent person go to jail?

With regard to the powerful political block of Christian fundamentalists we might note that Paul’s complaint against same-sex sex was premised on the presumedly self-evident fact that all men then were what we today call heterosexual.. Hence for any men to have engaged in same-sex sex, much as for them to have worn long hair, would not only have been unnatural, but must be assumed by Paul to have been undertaken for that very reason, i.e., because it was unnatural. Hence these will have have been understood to be demonic rebels who flaunted their contempt for all law, and if for the law of nature, then most assuredly for the moral law. These people would have epitomized a sinful and corrupt world. Hence Paul’s reasoning says no more with regard to homosexuals than putting the sinful goats on the left side at Judgment Day says anything about left handed people.

Today it just so happens that there is an added advantage of the homosexual over the left hander, in that homosexual couples do not naturally produce any children, although they might very well be willing and able to adopt them and give them a secure and loving home.

Yours truly,

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Philip McPherson Rudisill