Argument 6: The Psychological Development of Homosexuals

I've taken a comment left by a friend of mine, edited it, and used it as Argument 6. It's a bit lengthier than the other arguments, but it's length is mitigated by its thoughtful and articulate construction. The psychology presented is one of many takes on the social development of homosexuals, and it's perfectly valid, reasonable, and - for many homosexuals in our society - accurate, which is why I felt it was worth addressing.
I also want to quickly point out that I'm not responding to my friend, but to those who would take his argument a step further and use it to advocate policy. He did not do that, and doesn't follow the anti-gay movement.

Argument 6:
Behavioral studies have shown there are 3 stages of homosexuality: (1) Homosexual urges or thoughts, (2) acting on these urges or thoughts, (3) accepting homosexual identity (when an individual goes from doing homosexual acts to actually accepting what they are doing as part of their identity).
So is homosexuality a choice? Yes, because one is acting on impulses one receives. And since I believe in libertarian free will then I believe that partaking in homosexual acts or being gay are choices.

Where do these impulses come from and are they natural? Natural like God's original intent? No. Sin is natural to all humans because we are sinful creatures but that doesn't mean that God's intent was for us to sin or that it's okay to sin. It isn't always okay to do what's natural.

If we don't know where these impulses come from, can we still "blame" people for acting homosexually? Well, what if we were to look at the reasoning behind another case. Consider murderers. They may have psychological issues that are very different from the "normal" person's. There may be an abundance of people (10%) that have these issues. These psychological issues may make them more likely to commit murder.

Similarly, some people have stronger homosexual tendencies than others. We still blame murderers when they kill people. So, gays can still be blamed for committing homosexual acts. Sure, when we find out that a murderer grew up in a rough neighborhood (or his parents were divorced or abusive, or he didn't have many friends when he was a kid or he has a psychological disorder) we see these as reasons why he may be more inclined to act the way he did, but these circumstances don't excuse him from what he's done. NOTE: I AM NOT TRYING TO EQUATE GAYS WITH MURDERERS. THIS ANALOGY IS MEANT TO POINT OUT THE SIMILARITY ON ACTING ON IMPULSES, STRONG OR WEAK, NATURAL OR UNNATURAL AS THEY MAY BE.

So acting homosexually and being gay are choices, the impulses or tendencies are not. There is no blame to be held for having impulses beyond our control, but there is blame for acting on them. Acting on any other sinful impulse makes one blameworthy of sin but to me homosexuality is no different.

My Response:

There’s an argument from the rightists, the homophobic base, that if a homosexual wants to circumvent discrimination, s/he can just “act straight” and not tell people (in honor of Elijah Anderson, we’ll call this the switch approach).

That’s fine. Except that it requires a constant effort to deceive, a constant looking over the shoulder, a scheduled and meticulous coordination of lies – lies that breed more lies, in a cycle that can cause a broad range of psychological problems.

There is this sense among advocates of the switch approach that homosexuals, if they didn’t want to be treated worse, could simply turn the “gayness” on and off. My friend argues that homosexuality is a choice because a person doesn’t have to act on their homosexuality or accept it. The use of the psychological argument relies on the assumption that you’re not truly a homosexual until you act on it and accept it.

But I wonder how accurate that really is. I think psychologists would agree that a person can be homosexual even if they don’t act on their urges and don’t accept their homosexuality. The psychology of homosexuality, like the psychology of so much else, is largely a result of socially constructed roles and expectations. Even if a person concedes to those roles and expectations and refuses to act on their homosexual urges or accept them, I don’t think we would expect that they should start experiencing heterosexual urges so much as a deep and corrosive self-hatred. What really happens when the homosexual urges and identity are rejected by a person experiencing exclusively homosexual urges? It’s an important question when religious rightists are controlling social expectations and advocating anti-gay policy.

With regard to the murderer analogy. I think this is a valuable and important analogy. Would we have a basis for outlawing murder if there were (against all logic and reason) no victim? What if murder were really like homosexuality in the sense the it involved consenting adults behaving in a way that didn't result in physical, financial, or emotional victimization? If there was no reason but religious ideology to outlaw murder, would we still have legitimate legal grounds for banning murder?

Returning to the psychology of homosexuality, I wonder if a psychologist agreed with the psychological process presented, would they encourage a gay client to act on and accept his or her homosexual urges, or would they look at the individual as someone with a disorder and discourage them from acting on their impulses? If we are to cite psychologists and use their work in constructing our opinions on social policy, I think we must ask them specifically, "What would you advise a gay client to do?"

That a person can resist their sexuality does not mean that they should. As I have said and as my friend who presented Argument 6 agrees, there is no reason but religious ideology to deny one's homosexual impulses or identity. But the issue of religion is, I fear, not of great use in a substantive dialogue between people of differing ideologies. We must find a common ground. But in this case, as in so many cases, religion doesn't represent any common humanity between people: it defines their divisions. If the psychology of homosexuality is going to be used in an argument against homosexual equality, we need to complete the argument by explaining why homosexuals should resist their natural urges. "Because they can" is not a reasonable standard. Nor is it reasonable to expect one person to act on the religious beliefs of another. Such an expectation should have no place in law. As our founders understood (and as I have elaborated on in earlier arguments), using religion as an ingredient in law creates a recipe for disaster.