On Tuesday, while the media was focused its Election Day coverage, Rev. James Dobson, one of the leaders of the American homophobe movement, quietly removed himself from the team trying to cure Pastor Ted Haggard of his bisexuality and his drug habit:
“Emotionally and spiritually, I wanted to be of help – but the reality is I don’t have the time to devote to such a critical responsibility,” Dobson said.
The other two members of the team, Pastors Jack Hayford of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Calif., and Tommy Barnett of First Assembly of God in Phoenix, declined to comment…
The counseling process, called restoration, could take years, said H.B. London, vice president for church and clergy at Focus on the Family.
Yes, since changing a person’s innate sexual persona is like changing his left-handedness or eye color, it can take a very long time.
Wait a minute — Our religious leaders have clearly explained to all of us — repeatedly — that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. This is what makes it such a sinful self indulgent act and a threat to marriage. Get it? If men choose to mate with other men it will logically lead to the end of the human species. And duh, it also threatens the bonds of traditional marriage. I’m not exactly sure how, but it does because our spiritual leaders say so. I just don’t understand why it should take more than one simple sit-down chat to straighten out the Rev. Haggard. I mean, if he is choosing to be a sinner then it should be a simple matter to advise him against making sinful choices. Right? Or am I completely ignorant and simple minded about all this?
Taylor, let’s assume that people who believe sexual identity is a choice are basing this assertion on their own imperical knowledge.
Therefore, if, say, a religious leader tells us that homosexuality is a choice, that minister must have made a choice at some point to be heterosexual — meaning he tried having sex with another male and thought, “Hmm. Not for me! I think I’ll be a straight person from now on.”
What confuses people about the issue of choosing one’s sexual identity, of course, is that some people (Kinsey said most people) are bisexual — including, probably, Ted Haggard.
But what’s key is, while bisexuals may choose to have sex with people of either gender, they cannot choose to be bisexual because they were born that way.