Sunday, August 10, 2003

Bronson has Been Drinking to Much Wine
Peter must have been drunk when he wrote this. Now, when you are drunk often one tends to let down their guard and speak one's mind freely without limit. Here Peter is doing two incredibly stupid things. First he is letting his bigotry out with a vengeance. How can a man who is supposedly educated and an informed person state the following?
The Catholic Church can't seem to connect the dots that link homosexual priests to sexual assaults on boys.
Peter, you need to for once look up the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. You will note they are not the same thing. They are not linked. Bigots who wish to attack homosexuals try to link them, but offer no factual data to support their unfounded claims, which sounds like what Bronson did. Peter then exhibits his own ignorance about his own religion wit this statement:
The Bible is unambiguous: Homosexuality is a sin like adultery.
Did Peter rewrite the Ten Commandments? Are the Ten Commandments now not the highest Christian dogmatic law? Where is the reference to homosexuality in the Ten Commandments? I can find the commandment on adultery in there. That is clear. Homosexuality is not a comparable sin to adultery. First of all it is not even treated the same in most churches. When was the last time a minister or a politician or any individual denied rights or kicked out of a church for committing adultery or for getting a divorce? Adultery is not considered a big deal to people like Bronson, if it was he would never have supported Ronald Regan. Homosexuality is a footnote in the bible. There are plenty of other rules, no pork, how you grow crops, circumcision, and killing adulterers that are not practiced by nearly all Christians. Those rules are just as clear as the homosexual decrees, yet I bet Peter Bronson does not comply with all of those requirements. If I see him at next month’s Oktoberfest eating a Brat I will be sure to shun him for "breaking God's law."

I am not the only one with an opinion on Bronson's column. City Council Candidate John Schlagetter sent me a copy of the email he sent to Bronson:
Peter: whatever happened to "hate the sin but love the sinner?"

Opinion pieces are one thing; these unrelentingly uninformed and poorly-constructed assaults upon the Enquirer's readers' intelligence are growing tiresome.

As I understand it, the Bible contains half a dozen remonstrations against homosexual "acts" but over two hundred against heterosexual acts- what's the bigger problem here?

Your comparison of homosexuality to adultery is logically flawed. Homosexuality is a state of being; it can exist without volitional action. Thus we have homosexual (and heterosexual, et.al.) virgins. One is homosexual simply by virtue of sexual attraction or affectional preference for others of one's own sex. Age here is not an issue unless the attraction is acted upon.

By contrast, adultery cannot exist without the commission of an act. One cannot be an adulterer without first committing an act of adultery.

Once again, your attempt to causally link pedophilia to homosexuality is beyond the pale. Yes, pedophilia and ephibophilia (I'm not bothering to
spell check this morning) are problems in the Catholic priesthood. Is the incidence rate of pedophilia higher in this population than the general
population? Possibly. Is this causally the result of homosexuality? Of course not, no more so than different-sex pedophilia is causally the result
of heterosexuality.

Two points come into play to refute your argument (hysterically shared by CCVers et.al. which they find necessary for effective fundraising):

1. Pedophilia is not about sex, it is about power. It is about the ability to control and manipulate one who lacks the emotional and intellectual development to consent to sex with an adult.

2. The incidence rate of same sex behavior will of course be higher among single sex populations: prisons, the military, et.al. This will have much to so with the use of sexual substitutes, "making due." You've also reported on the problem of rape in prison, to your credit. Of course rape is about violence not sex and does not comport with this discussion. Others may be "gay for pay," intrinsically heterosexual but willing to perform mechanical sexual acts for compensation. Thus the incidence rate of "gay sex" must be considered separate from the incidence rate of homosexuality per se.

Should homosexuality ever be generally accepted (different from behavior tolerance) as what I characterize "common cause variation," a one to two percent incidence rate in the otherwise statistically normal heterosexual population, then maybe closeted and conflicted individuals will be more comfortable openly pursuing healthy and consensual adult relationships rather than pursuing what they might consider "easy marks" (the young) or furtively skulking about public restrooms (many closeted men, including those who are married, are too afraid to be seen in known gay-friendly establishments to socialize, seeking instead short-term gratification concommitant with risky and socially unacceptable behavior).

As "common cause variation," homosexuality is never going away. We are hard wired this way; this is the crux of the "nature" argument. Compare this to the reparative or restorative therapy camp believing that homosexuality can be "unlearned." They believe homosexuality is "special cause variation," existing outside the statistically normal process of sexual orientation and that it can be done away with; this is the "nurture" argument confounding same-sex behavior with orientation. The inability to distinguish between the two dooms this approach.

If the Church were generally to relax its restrictions on the ability of its priests to marry or otherwise engage in healthy consensual adult relationships, I predict the incidence rate of same sex pedophilia in the Church would plummit. Be sure, I am not excusing any such misbehavior, I simply think there are intelligent ways to reduce it rather than pounding sand about the "menace" of homosexuality.

As our friends in quality management remind us, "Fix the problem, not the blame."

Hope you a great vacation!

Regards, J.

John Schlagetter


Peter's second stupid thing, is his embrace of the Vineyard as the next generation of Christian Churches. I don't know much about that church and its teachings. I would on the surface make one judgment about it. I think they might not care much about homosexuality, and they might even welcome homosexuals, without the worry about "changing" them. They might even ordain gay/lesbian ministers. I don't know this as a fact, but their website really is not concerned about putting forward a fundamentalist Christian Agenda, and I would surmise they at a minimum don't share Peter's crusade against gays.

Bronson still must be in vacation mode.

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