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Eve Tushnet

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Last updated on: June 19, 2006 at 4:03 pm by Eve Tushnet

2006-06-19T16:03:00-04:00 Eve Tushnet

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GIANT GAY MAILBAG OF DOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!: I’m sorry this took so long. These are roughly in reverse chronological order, most recent first. And I’m not posting all the emails I received, though I will post any critical ones (assuming the author gives permission). Where readers praise or criticize other groups or books, please assume that I have no knowledge of these groups/books. Thanks very much to everyone who read my NRO piece.

From an anonyreader:

I’ve enjoyed reading your posts and your NRO article this past week, but especially your recent post Closer to Heaven. If you’re looking for an antidote for the ex-gay movement’s tendency to immanentize the eschaton, I highly recommend The Spirituality of Imperfection, which a spiritual director had me read a few years ago. The book’s not entirely orthodox, but it does a good job of emphasizing that the spiritual life is not so much about turning ourselves into super-duper-human-beings-without-any-flaws, as it is about learning to acknowledge our dependence on God’s merciful love and opening ourselves to that love by receiving the sacraments and by practicing it concretely with regard to others.

Personally, I’m a big fan of Theresian spirituality and her Little Way, and I often look at this issue in that light. Rather than grow despondent on account of her weaknesses, she found joy in viewing them as opportunities to practice humility and to open herself to God’s merciful love precisely in the context of ordinary, everyday life. For people like us who experience SSA, I find that approach is a healthy antidote to the temptation to despair.

Another way to frame the issue is that these ex-gay ministries all too often look at people with SSA as problems in need of fixing rather than persons in need of love. I would compare it to the way society treated crisis pregnancies pre-Roe v. Wade. As awful as that decision was, it prompted pro-lifers to open crisis pregnancy centers to help women in need, in a way that had not been done previously. I hope that it doesn’t take similarly awful public policies on gay rights to inspire comparable ministries to people with SSA. But sometimes God permits these evils to occur in order that He may draw forth an even greater good.

If you’re interested in learning more about how solidly Catholic psychologists approach these “ex-gay” issues, you might want to contact a local outfit called the Alpha Omega Clinic, which has close ties to the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Crystal City. They do some great work on these issues.

From John:

I was interested in your report on the ‘ex-gay’ conference. When it comes to ‘ex-gay’ theology, do you think that Catholic/Protestant differences might be important? I was wondering about this in one particular respect. One of the issues at the Reformation was whether concupiscence as such had the nature of sin. Concupiscence is the existence of physical desires to sin, desires that remain in us even after baptism has removed original sin, and that remain present in this life even in the saints unless they are given some extraordinary grace. Catholic teaching was that since these desires are not in the will (we don’t choose to have them or feel them, and can’t choose to get rid of them), they are not sinful, since sin can only exist in the will. This teaching was stated by the Council of Trent at its fifth session;

‘ 5. If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.’

‘Of sin’ refers to its resulting from the sin of Adam, not from the sins of those who suffer from concupiscence. The teaching was directed against Protestants who claimed that concupiscence was really and truly sin, and used this claim to support their view of justification (according to which justification is something external to the person justified, and does not change them from being sinners to not being sinners). So on the Catholic view homosexual desires (like most heterosexual desires), which are froms of concupiscence, are not as such sins, and do not make the person who experiences them any worse as a person. So Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, remarks, ‘The evils remaining after baptism, such as concupiscence, suffering and death (poenalitates), have for the baptised person no longer the character of punishment, but are a means of testing and proving him (D. 792: ad agonem) and of assimilation with Christ (p. 355).’ St. Thomas interestingly says that one reason why God permits such concupiscence to remain after baptism is that ‘it is also useful for man in order to avoid the vice of self-exaltation that the infirmity of sensuality remain; “And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7)”. Consequently this infirmity remains in man after baptism, just as a wise physician discharges a patient without having cured his illness if it could not be cured without the danger of a more serious illness.’ (De Veritate, question 25 article 7 ad 5.)

I wonder if Protestants do not tend to inherit from their Reformation forebears the idea that homosexual desires as such are sins, and so that redemption requires that they be eliminated. I don’t suppose that they all read Luther and Calvin on this subject, only that it is part of the outlook they have inherited. (Obviously they have not inhertied the whole outlook since they no longer think that sin must necessarily persist in the justified; they only inherit the part that holds that physical desires resulting from concupiscence are sinful.) If so this would explain why they can only conceive of ministry to homosexuals as an effort to get them to become heterosexual. It certainly does not seem to occur to them that homosexual desires can be useful, or means of assimilation with Christ. Do you think there is anything in this?

[Eve replies: I don’t know nearly enough about Protestantism to feel comfortable taking a stand here. I do think it’s interesting, of course, that “ex-gay” ideology is much more a Protestant concern than a Catholic one; but I don’t have an opinion on why that is.]

An anonyreader writes:

Nice set of observations on ex-gay ministries on NRO and your blog. You are going to get an earful of abuse from all sorts of people, no doubt, so I wanted to chime in my approval, even if I agree with them only 87 percent of the time. 🙂

Some random thoughts:

Re Nicolosi and NARTH–what gets me about those conservatives who lionize him is that usually conservatives rightly deride Freudian psychoanalysis as psychobabble. Do they think that Freud was wrong about everything except the etiology of homosexuality? Special pleading perhaps?

Re change in sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is much more fluid than gay activists usually suppose and whole lot less so anti-gay activists suppose. The experience of classical pederasty/homosexuality should indicate that clearly! On the other hand, it seems to me that the more likely one needs psychological therapy to change one’s sexual orientation, the less likely one will succeed. I certainly don’t think A.N. Wilson, Evelyn Waugh, or thousands of English public school/graduates required therapy to live an ostensibly straight life and therapy, and in contrast prayer meditation wouldn’t (didn’t) do a lick of good for Christopher Isherwood.

My own “origin” story–assuming that it dovetails with reality at all–covers some of the same bases as Nicolosi, but not others. Reading origin stories are very much like reading horoscopes in that way. It is uncanny how much I resemble Scorpio whenever I look at the astrology page of the paper, but then again, those horoscopes are rather universal to the human experience aren’t they? Mothers will always be mothers and fathers and sons will usually butt heads and have serious misunderstandings growing up.

I would just assume not go into the reasons why I think I am the way I am, but it will suffice for now that the primary numero uno suspect is an issue that the ex-gays never considered up to now–at least I have never read it. And if my suspicions were ever proven correct, any sort of change for me would be nearly impossible. It is also curious that my personality traits are completely different than the vast majority of gays that I ever come across. It is as if that, save sexual orientation, I have very little in common with any of them. Yet another reason to distrust the psychobabble and sweeping generalizations emanating from the ex-gay movement.

P.S. If you really want to be pissed off at reparative therapists, read van den Aardwig’s “Battle for Normality.” His method of therapy can be reduced to the following theme: “Snap out of it, you deluded self-pitying fag! Yes, you heard me right!” Repeat ad infinitum. Let the beatings continue until the homo’s morale improves.

…I think that Aardwig’s approach (and I haven’t looked at the book in years mind you) is a variant of cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy is one of the only forms of psychoanalysis that works and is very good having people identifying flawed reasoning and misconceptions, but that assumes that the reasoning of the analyst doesn’t suffer from logical flaws either–else one trades one set of false assumptions for another. Or that the analyst could be also abusive in pointing out the supposed flaws.

Warren Throckmorton is hosting a lively debate about “reparative therapy.” I haven’t read most of it, but, you know, if you want lots more on Joseph Nicolosi and so on, clickez-vous.

From L.:

I thought your take on the ex-gay conference was interesting. How many ex-gays have you spoken with? I’m just wondering if you’ve been able to speak to very many one to one.

I knew I was a lesbian when I was about five years old and fantasized about my Sunday School teacher. (ha) From there my sexual orientation developed basically into lesbian although I did date boys occasionally to keep people in my very conservative church from talking about me. I shared some of my feelings with girlfriends, who in some cases became my lovers.

However, when I was 20, I knew I had to make a decision in my life and I made a CONSCIOUS choice to pursue heterosexuality, for the simple fact that I wanted a family that conformed to societal mores. I can’t tell you how difficult this choice was, to turn my back against who I was at the very core of being. I married a man who has been very understanding of my psyche and I have achieved 20 years of marriage with four children.

It’s been hard….it is not an easy choice but it IS a choice. And I can’t say that I haven’t occasionally fallen by the wayside. It is still very difficult for me and probably always will be.

But worth it? Yes, when I see my four healthy normal kids who have both a mom and a dad; when my husband takes me in his arms; when I search my heart and find nothing but peace.

My point, though, is that in today’s culture gays are depicted as having no control over their actions and as a lesbian, I know this to be untrue.

From Michael:

Thank you for your reporting as written in NRO and your blog. Briefly, I am a bisexual New Orleanian who spent time in a Benedictine Catholic Seminary, at which I was converted to Buddhism by some visiting Sri Lankan monks.

As I shed my Catholic cosmology, and its attendant Judeo-Christian morality (which has done much good in the world) I began to realize how beautiful and funny and human our religious impulse is.

To try to meet the dictates of a great big sky god, who evidently has all the power in the universe except the ability to speak clearly, seems so human a thing. Trying to make sense of a universe which baffles, and comforted by the idea of a great big invisiblle parent, who will make all the accidents of fate, and injustice, and confusion be alright in the end–do you know how hard that was to give up?

But it was then that I realized that my impulse to shame, shame of all kinds, was not indigenous, it was learned. That sex is a human function that is just like eating, or breathing–it only means what we want it to mean (humans are “meaning-making” creatures, to be sure) and if we over (or under) eat, there will be consequences.

But I don’t knock the shame-makers. People forget how impossible it was for early humans to claw their way out of huddling in caves and learning how to hunt. Trying to make sense of the world they found themselves in–scientists all.

So, keep your faith, if it explains most of the relevant facts of your existence. But how does that hypothesis explain the beautiful, multifaceted humans–gay people–so wondrous and trancendant and beloved–that the Sky God invented a place called Hell for?

Again, thank you for your words.

[Eve replies: Thanks for writing. Two very quick notes: I think humans are meaning-seekers, not solely meaning-creators–we don’t paint meaning on a meaningless world. And, of course, I do not believe God “invented Hell” for gay people. All of us are infinitely precious to Him.]

From Mark:

Long time no talk, but I saw your article on NRO and wanted to ask a few questions.

My own dramatic religious conversion involved a spontaneous (but temporary) healing of a physical disease, and a longer process of healing emotional traumas.

Knowing, as I do now, that God can heal anything (but that doesn’t mean he will), how much a role can or does God play in healing homosexual orientation I wonder?

Does it require dramatic conversion, a simple turn to God and gradual shift toward faithfulness and religious practice, or is faith generally minimal in helping a change in this area?

My own experience tells me that even though I know that many people sincerely ask God for help in their lives with core difficulties, very few seem to persevere in prayer to the extent that they may be helped or truly seek the depth of faith that transforms them. Could it be that many give up too early or easily on God, or simply want to remain pretty much as they are except for the bad parts?

[Eve replies: Well, yeah, that could be the case with some people. I believe in miraculous healing, and (although I think this is a different issue) grace moving people to a place where past temptations are no longer a pressing problem for them. Specifically, I do believe that some people who considered themselves completely homosexual end up making good, fulfilling, loving marriages. I think the ex-gay movement, however, makes it seem like a) you can make God change your orientation if you want it badly enough, and b) if you don’t experience a change in orientation, you are, therefore, a complete failure doomed to misery (and doomed to an obsessive focus on your sexual orientation, to the exclusion of all other possible causes of unhappiness or spiritual difficulties). Even if someone truly desires a change in orientation, I would not direct that person to an ex-gay ministry.]

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