One must indeed ask oneself if Dr Rowan is fomenting schism deliberately, or if he's merely being illusional :-(

Well at minimum we are getting the good outlines of a domain of positive replies-criticisms, answering RW.

I'd combine, for starters: ABrown, Jake's Friends, Tgiving, Chicago Consult, and Anglican Scotist. If RW isn't reading this blog package, he's not interested in knowing how he really reads and sounds to many Anglicans.

RW's whole turnabout reeks, aromatically. Is this a heavier-smellier cloud of the smoke given off by the infamous Jeffrey John affair? Or just self-regarding heterosexuals only please business as usual, per VGR's exclusion from Lambeth? Either way, it reveals pretty much exactly where RW says he stands, and how he will apply his self-regarding negatives to everybody else. He's chosen this particular lifestyle, so I suppose he must endure its consequences, per his own analysis. Alas. Lord have mercy.

Second tier might not be a terrible place to be, provided we get to manage our own finances, mission, and so forth in connection with others still willing to acknowledge us as Anglican. First tier instruments will predictably still preach nasty things about the rest of us - and surely over time Iker, Duncan, Gomez, Schofield, Harvey and the lot will be further elevated in the orthodox breezes blowing. Let the first tier gradually become known for its false witness themes focusing on modernity or others perceived as non-standard; let the second tier gradually be tested and known as the remnant of big tent Anglicanism?

Structurally, difficult. RW will supposedly be one place, first tier, while CoE is another place, predictably second tier. Now how will that work out? Cleaning up the Anglican Mess in preparation for future visits with Pope Benedict, are we?

Andrew Brown makes a good point. Just change a few words and the logic from the ABC might read as follows:

So long as the church catholic, or even the communion as a whole does not ordain women a person cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a church whose public teaching is at odds with their gender.

Can RW's retirement be hastened?

Andrew Brown perfectly describes the voices that provoked Lambeth 1.10.

IT perectly recalls the alternative voice of Rowan Williams that won him the appointment to Canterbury.

Yes Neil, but remember that only recently Rowan Williams has said he regrets that the Church ordained women before there was a consensus - his present policy is not encouraging.

"If RW isn't reading this blog package, he's not interested in knowing how he really reads and sounds to many Anglicans."

My bet is that what he reads is given to him each morning by his handlers - much like Shrub, who, reports say, never opened a newspaper or watched TV news for 8 years, but read 'news digests' prepared by his staff.

I would further bet that Rowan, who doesn't know how to drive a car, doesn't actually know how to 'run' a computer on his own.

Isn't that a little scary?

C

"So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle." - Rowan Williams -

In other word, the ABC is here at odds with what has already happened in the American Episcopal (Anglican) Church with the ordination of Bishop Gene. If this were merely the Head of the Church of England speaking in a private capacity, this might be considered to be one of several legitimate opinions offered by any one of the Anglican Communion Partners. However, by making this statement publicly, the Archbishop of Canterbury has made a very definitive judgement of a Communion Partner as Primus inter pares - a rather different platform from which to offer such an opinion.

One wonders whether women would ever have been ordained to the priesthood if it had been left to an Archbishop of Canterbury to give his personal imprimatur to such an action, which could still come under the same scrutiny, as a matter on which the Church Catholic has still to offer its concerted sanction.

If the Church were to wait for every doctrinal matter to be determined at 'Head Office' we might well still be in a mediaeval situation, where the laity and clergy had no voice in the politics of Church government. If the Anglican Communion is to wait for Rome to approve of doctrinal matters, we might just as well all forske the gains made by the reformation and secede to the Magisterium.

Personally, I believe enough in the Holy Spirit's movement in TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada - in their care for women and gays in the Church and its ministry - to sincerely question any movement towards papal government within our Communion.

I suppose there was more than a little *incongruity* involved when the Judaisers were defeated in their attempt to retain circumcision as a defining ritual for early Christians. Would the Church have survived if the Apostles had not come to some sort of accommodation on this issue, which was considered vital at the time?

The Church of England at one time was brave enough to not go along with the decision of the 'Church Catholic' to ordain only celibate male clergy. Christinaity did not founder on this reluctance to kowtow to Rome. When will the Anglican Communion be brave enough to affirm the rights of gays and women to minister in the Church through which they were baptized and nurtured in the life of Christ?

One can respect the sincerity and integrity of some liberals, but Rowan Williams' attempts to be conservative and orthodox seem about as convincing and hollow as the leader of the British National Party trying to convince us he is not racist.

I agree that it is inaccurate always to portray homosexual behaviour as a matter of choice. What are the factors?
(1) There must always be at least *some* element of choice unless we are to assent that human beings are nothing more than animals and/or robots.
(2) The element of choice is minimised, for example, in the case of addictions.
(3) It is also minimised in the case of peer-approved or culture-approved activities, whether or not thos activities are actually beneficial.

RW certainly knows that there is rarely such a thing as a definitive conclusion in scholarship, and he would only have claimed (with a smattering of rhetoric) that such-and-such was *his own* definitive conclusion, not anybody else's. What is certain is that New Testament is not (unlike in the case of what one would estimate to be over 10,000 internationally who are in NT-specialist posts and/or have NT-specialist doctoral qualifications) his specialism - in fact, he is such a learned man that it may not even be in his top ten specialisms.

Ah, "agreement by the Church Catholic."

Married clergy? Transubstantiation? Predestination? Purgatory?

Christopher Shell: I am getting the teensiest bit fed up with you discussing long-term committed loving partnerships between people who happen to be of the same-sex in the same breath as "addictions." Wanting to love and be loved is no more of an addiction for gay people than it is for straight ones, and your use of term reminds me of what a different wavelength you appear to be on when discussing the issue.

"Choice", C Shell? One of the most deliberately insulting, ignorant posts I've seen here in my years of visiting TA. Congratulations.

"it is inaccurate always to portray homosexual behaviour as a matter of choice. What are the factors?
(1) There must always be at least *some* element of choice unless we are to assent that human beings are nothing more than animals and/or robots."

The problem here, Christopher, is that you are not differentiating state from behaviour. If I were celebate, I would still be gay. I know you don't believe that, but I still need to make the point, in the hopes that you will one day hear. So we get down to the choice to be sexually active or not. I know this is a distinction conservatives CAN make, because they do argue for celebacy. But every other statement makes it clear that the idea that being gay is what a person IS, not what a person DOES, is not all that clear to most conservatives, in fact, most times it seems incomprehensible. Look at the whole "homosexual inclinations" issue on another thread. The person who made that statement is so unaware of what the issue actually IS that he can't see why that would make some people angry and honestly feels persecuted because people felt insulted by it! But Paul clearly believes celebacy is a charism not granted to all. So, the effect of imposed celebacy on homosexuals is, essentially, a claim that one can only be saved if one is granted a charism that God does NOT grant to all His children. Unless one is so blashpemous as to believe that God is so cruel as to create people deliberately to send them to Hell, this presents a bit of a dliemma. It is easily resolved, of course, if one can convince one'sself that homosexuality is solely a matter of desitre, then the answer is easy: control your lusts. That's why conservatives so vehemently deny that our sexuality is anything but a disorder of desire. To admit otherwise would shake much of their understanding of what God is and how He communicates with us: He says in the Bible homosexuality is a sin, so anyone "afflicted" by homosexuality has to be celebate or go to Hell. If homosexuality is NOT a choice, if celebacy is indeed a charism granted only to some, then conservatives have to face the idea that a) God is actually so cruel as to make people purposely for damnation or b) their concepts of Scriptural revelation and interpretation are wrong. The latter option is just too abhorrent for most conservatives to contemplate, hence the resistence to any notion that homosexuality is NOT a sinful choice.

Re: Andrew Brown -- I am torn -- yes, the C of E is governed by the Commons, but does the Reformed Parliament (which was the spark that began the Oxford Movement) really care in the least what the C of E does? I would think not, but MPs like the atheist Glenda Jackson voted down reform of the 1662 BCP -- so who can say ... (not I, at any rate).

And Andrew Brown is certainly perceptive about the way the ABC's attempt to avoid a split ignores the GAFCON boycott of Lambeth, etc., etc.

"There must always be at least *some* element of choice unless we are to assent that human beings are nothing more than animals and/or robots"

I am right-handed. I always have been. I did not 'choose' to be right=handed. Does this make me "nothing more than animals and/or robots?"

I am gay. I always have been, even when trying to deny it to myself and others. I did not "choose" to be gay. Does this make me "nothng more than animals and/or robots?"

Of course, in the past, left-handed children were forced to learn to write, eat, throw, etc. with their right hands. This did not make them right-handed; it made them into left-handed people functioning awkwardly with their right hands.

This just in:

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/7/29/vatican-backs-archbishop-williams-response-to-convention-actions

Interesting argument, Ford Elms. But if I have understood you correctly it seems to imply that, for example, a man whose wife becomes sexually incapacitated can claim not to have the charism which enables abstention from sexual relations, and therefore feel free to be adulterous.

I am one of those left handed children not "allowed" to be left handed... I side with Cynthia.

The collected thoughts of Cynthia Gilliatt on Rowan Williams, from earlier threads:
"...he repeats lies...", "...his treachery...", "...his hypocrisy...", "...a bully...", "...he has no moral standing..."

But now we have:
"I would further bet that Rowan, who doesn't know how to drive a car, doesn't actually know how to 'run' a computer on his own. Isn't that a little scary?"

If I reacted to every ad hominem, personal or unkind remark on this site I would do little else, but I must point out in response to this latest that Rupert Shortt (Rowan Williams: An Introduction, DLT, 2003, p.11) states that the meningitis which RW caught aged 20 months stopped him from ever cycling or driving.

An Imaginary Talk: With Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Professor Rowan Williams

Interviewer: Welcome, glad you could be here.
RW: I'm pleased to speak with you today. I preach, you know, my calling?

INT: So, what's up with Anglicans?
RW: Well, people say they are changing their minds about queer stuff, and frankly, we just can't have it that way.

INT: What seems to be the problem?
RW: Well, we have never, ever believed anything positive about those queer folks. Ever.

If we did change our minds, it wouldn't be one by one by one, but all at once, all together.

That way, we'd know for sure that our minds were changing. We'd know for sure that even if we had accidentally ended up thinking wrong, we'd still have plenty of company. It's better to put your confidence in a group mistake, than to risk being right and true, individually.

Surely you can see this? Common sense?

INT: But haven't important changes of all sorts, been more one by one by one, than altogether, all at once? I don't get your reliance on this group oriented model of change.
RW: Well of course I can understand that you do not understand yet.

You may wish to keep an open mind, here. We always rely on other people to help us correct our individual mistakes, don't we? Come back to the safety and sanity of God. Anglican Group Think is a better way, really it is. And, Top Down Anglican Group Think is even better. And far better is, Complete Worldwide Religious Group Think. Far better, by far, actually. Really.

Look. If three gazillion really religious people see nasty queers thumbing their noses and mooning bare behinds – making terrible fun of the finest things in human civilization and religion; bare-behinded? Surely it must be true.

INT: Look, archibishop. I know queer people in daily life. No, thumbing noses. We work together, we are family, we are friends. We are neighbors. ...ah ....
RW: (interrupting) Well, we agree then. No offense to you or those queer folks.

We Anglicans believe that our scriptures are really very clear: No earth goods, no heaven goods for queer folks. Quite decent and kind of us, really, to let queer folks say they repent. You see my dilemma, don't you?

INT: I rather think ... ah ...

Imaginary Interview 2:
...
RW: I can see, this is puzzling ... Let's ask Tom Wright, the renowned Bible scholar to join us? I think he can clear things up a bit.

INT: Okay, I ...
RW: Now, Tom. Can you help me explain this unpleasantly awful but true stuff – about queer folks?

TW: Oh yes. Yes of course. You see, God through scriptures clearly tells us – queer folks are a bad business. Like any other bad business, really. Nothing good to say, unfortunately.

Let's be honest scholars, believers.

We've changed our minds about just exactly what sort of bad business, queer folks are according to holy revelation. In the old, silly past centuries of unfortunate ignorance – believers thought queer folks caused crop failures, bad weather, stillborn cattle. That upset people deeply. Crop failures and such meant life and death for people in those centuries.

We know today that these things were not true. Never were true. But we can understand and empathize with how awful it all was, and how dangerous queer folks were. And are, today.

INT: Oh, ...
TW: Well. Glad you ask. Today we know that queer folks are still very bad business. They like sex, for instance. Now straight people like sex, too. In fact whole social arrangements are more or less built on top of how much straight people like sex. But that is all part of God's plan.
Without it, we straight folks could not reproduce, and so making babies redeems how much we like sex.

INT: ... so? ...
TW: Well, it is simple. Queer folks like sex, too, but they do not make babies, so we have no way to see anything good in all that sex that might likely be going on.

INT: We have changed our minds?
TW: Oh yes. We Anglican believers change our minds lots. More often than other religious groups in fact.

Contraception is okay.

We accept that divorce and remarriage happens.

Nothing more horrible than enduring a really bad marriage, you know. Or watching a new baby go hungry. You wish you'd put on a condom.

Just think of all the past suffering ...such suffering ...Anglicans are nothing if not pastoral and generous when it comes to human suffering ...

INT: No changes about queer people, then?
RW: Sorry, none. Holy revelation.

INT: Gee, Really Bad business? ...

If I cared what the Vatican thought, I would join the RC Church, like Rowan Williams should do.

"I am one of those left handed children not "allowed" to be left handed... I side with Cynthia." - Goran Koch-Swahne -

I, too am left-handed but, growing up in England, my teachers were clued-up enough not to force me to right-handedness. I bowl with my left hand but bat with my right - I guess that makes me a bit different in yet another way - still not self-chosen but definitely natural to me.

Perhaps the anti-gay crowd will one day begin to understand the infinite and wonderful variety of 'natural instincts' encountered in the psychological, biological make-up of individual human beings - enough to enable better insight into what makes both gays and straights tick - with integrity. Fact is, that most 'gays' would prefer for pure convenience' sake (because, mainly, of opposition from established religious prejudice) to have been made differently.
However, when gays are allowed and encouraged come to terms with who they are, most just want to live with it and enjoy the same sort of love-lives as other people - that is, except for those who find public opposition to their status so uncomfortable that they feel the need to end it all and commit suicide. This is the terrible result of the Churches' lack of understanding of the true situation.

The sooner the Church comes to terms with the reality of the claims of women and LGTB people to a rightful and legitimate share in our common God-given humanity, the better it will be for all. The inclusive mission of the Church might then be all the richer for the legitimate inclusion of ministry from such people.

This choice debate is a total red herring.

The pertinent question is: "Are loving, committed, same sex relationships good and godly things which further the Kingdom of Christ?" I believe they are; most people on this site believe they are; once upon a time, Rowan Williams believed they were, before he was kidnapped by George Carey's staff and replaced by a stunt double. If they are, then the whole question of choice or nature is completely irrelevant.

I know we're all on the same side, but this whole "I was born this way, I can't help it" line is soooo 1973. You know, that's the line people used when they'd had a lifetime of homophobic propaganda shoved down their throat and were trying to cling on to their self-respect despite it all, begging straight society to not make them criminals or give them electric shocks or drive them to suicide like they did to war hero Alan Turing.

Personally, I don't care whether it's nature, nurture or choice. I know I like sex with men. I know I don't have any interest in sex with women. I know I'm blessed to be in a long-term partnership with a man who loves me. I know that love has taught me more about living a Christian life than any number of exegetical sermons.

And I’m not going to apologise for it. And I’m not going to explain it anymore either. If you want to see whether gay relationships are good or evil, it’s 2009, and at least in developed countries you can open your eyes and look at the evidence around you.

As far as I’m concerned this debate is over. As far as our civil and political rights go, we’ve won, and we’re just waiting for a final handful of legal niceties to be tidied up. It would be nice to say the church was in the forefront of our struggle to not be treated like dirt, but instead it was and remains too often the braying voice of bigotry. Sorry Rowan, this isn’t an accusation “readily thrown around” but a cold statement of fact. And I love my church too much to allow it to be made pastorally unfit for mission in the society I live in.

“This is not simply a question of human dignity.” Did Rowan Williams really mean to say that? I mean, really?

I'm puzzled too by the freewill vs robots comments.

Mr. Shell says he occupies a nature x nurture frame, or prefers to do so - yet he proffers up legacy frameworks for what is or is not free will or choice - and in many domains (people have posted about some of the examples in question), the legacy frame simply gets repositioned frankly by modern knowledge.

I'd add language acquisition into the samples.

Clearly biology makes a very strong contribution to language acquisition, including setting some critical time clock periods. Just as clearly, social environments have another set of huge effects, too.

Neither set of factors sets much of a stage for me to have all that decisive and conscious an opporutnity for making choices. I certainly cannot have chosen - either the times during which my language acquisition would grow fastest; nor the particular language I ended up having as a first primary language, nor the size of my vocabulary or the different levels of expressive fluency with which I use this or that language.

In analogy with our best modern grasp of what really is manifested as varying sexual orientation, then? This whole free will legacy framework may simply be - sideways - obliquely related if at all; and missing the modern point altogether.

So far as biology and conditioning go, my leeway for making choices may exist at the same time I am clearly limited and constrained by any number of hugely influential factors. I hardly notice some of them, they are supposed to be so automatically taken for granted; and others I do notice still prove nearly impossible to change in this or that regard. Much, much functions beneath or away from consciousness and choice - dimly known at best.

Tranposing (medieval?) religious notions of will and freedom or human rational essences? Onto a modern NxN matrix often will turn out to be pesky, risky, and misleading or wrong-headed.

"Interesting argument, Ford Elms. But if I have understood you correctly it seems to imply that, for example, a man whose wife becomes sexually incapacitated can claim not to have the charism which enables abstention from sexual relations, and therefore feel free to be adulterous."

In no way, shape, or form was that implication made. It might be *inferred* by one of the many sexually-incontinent married heterosexuals looking for an excuse to cheat on their spouse, but the implication was not there.

"a man whose wife becomes sexually incapacitated"

Sexually incapacitated?

What's sexually *capacitated*?

For that matter, what's Christopher Shell's "homosexual behavior"?

I don't know which is more disturbing: the poverty of imagination which TOO MANY have towards spousal intimacy---or the OBSESSION, oft implied (if not outright expressed) with one drop-in-a-one-ocean aspect of it [Male Tab A in Male Slot B: the horror, the horror!]

What did Auntie Mame say?

"Life is a banquet, and most people are starving to death"

[NB: 1. she wasn't speaking per se of food, and 2. our obsession w/ S-E-X of course takes our gaze away from those ACTUALLY starving for lack of food]

Spousal intimacy is a BANQUET, people! "Homosexual behavior" in a same-sex couple can be doing the dishes, walking the dog, taking the kids to soccer practice, OR enjoying one another's Naughty Bits ("Incapacitated"? Puhleez).

To *single out* certain tissues, certain nerve systems, certain physical responses---something Scripture certainly doesn't do!---and say "Aha! That's what's banned!" is, for want of a better word, INSANE. [See re CofE bishops asking their civil-partnered priests what they're NOT doing!]

Can the Church PLEASE "put away childish things" already?

If haltingly, that's what TEC is doing: God bless! :-D

Hi Lapinbizarre-
The first line of my comment says the direct opposite to what you think it says.
Also: I said that choice must play *some* part unless we are no more than animals/robots - what alternative is there?

Hi Fr Mark-
Yes, I think it is always going to happen that when people proceed from different presuppositions those presuppositions are a bit like different wavelengths. To be different is not the same as being wrong, nor is it the same as being right. So the thing to do is examine whether the presuppositions are valid and coherent.

Hi JCF-
How can a homosexual couple take 'the kids' to soccer practice? Since they did not produce the kids, you are assenting (in a fair proportion of cases) to someone's abandonment of their own children and/or to those children being placed with parents that do not correspond with their actual family even in a matter so basic as gender - rather than seeking with the same breath to produce a society where that does not need to happen. Its being touted as normal is the main reason it becomes normal.

Hi Cynthia-
Exactly: because right-handedness, unlike homosexuality, is very much a genetic matter. I could understand your answer if you produced a gay gene or interacted with (e.g.) Bailey et al. 2000 on identical twins (little significant genetic factor, even given the most generous definition of homosexuality: anything from mainly-but-not-totally heterosexual upwards); Laumann et al. (also Chicago UP, 1994): massive variation in 'male gay' rates from rural to urban (600%) or female from college to non-college (800%).

How is one to believe that the oft-touted comparison with red hair or lefthandedness is more than propaganda (supposing that it is)? If statistics back it up to any extent, then to that extent it is valid, and something better than propaganda. I suspect there is probably a small extent (clearly less than the environmental factor), so the task is to estimate that extent accurately percentage-wise. Having established the percentage-significance of any genetic factor, it would still be a separate task to determine whether this factor was beneficial or otherwise.

MH,
"a man whose wife becomes sexually incapacitated can claim not to have the charism which enables abstention from sexual relations, and therefore feel free to be adulterous."

By sexually incapacitated, I assume you mean unable to have sex. Is sex so important that all the other things that make up a marriage would be of no consequence? Are all those other things disposable if she can't "fulfill her wifely duty"(or he can't fulfill his 'husbandly duty')? Legally, there IS precedent for that in the granting of divorces. But we are called to far better than mere legalism, to far more respect for our partners than to treat them as sexual objects, disposable if they can't perform their function any more. Isn't it surprising that these exalted concepts of marriage should come from a gay man who, according to the Faithful True Christians, is merely desiring the Church to bless wanton hedonism and promiscuity, and really can't have a real relationship like "normal people"? But there you go, the world is full of surprises! So, no I didn't mean, neither did I imply, that if a couple becomes incapable of sexual intimacy because of some affliction, that should be an excuse for adultery. It would also preclude the practice of sexual abstenence within marriage, a very old tradition.

Interestingly, though, the world, to judge by the legal system, certainly does think like that, and the Church has very much supported it. Don't forget, we Anglicans thought sexual receptivity, or at least the production of a male child by such activity, was so important we were willing kick the Pope in the behind, to allow for the person we would make our temporal head to get a divorce, and trump up charges to justify chopping the head off another such throw away spouse. Then, of course, there's also the Biblical command that if a man dies without an heir, his BROTHER is to "lie with" the widow so that the dead man, not the woman, you notice, can have an heir.

But we no longer see women as baby machines, right, so that doesn't apply to us. And besides, that second bit was important for a tribal nomadic society in which family meant survival, we're different now, more modern, and we also have the Gospel to reveal to us that we should not live by the letter of the Law, but by its spirit.

But is your post a warning to be more clear in what I say, to consider how my argument might be turned around? Good advice. Or is it that, for you, the sexual act is at the core of marriage and if one or both members of the marriage are unable to "provide" the sexual goods, then that somehow makes the marriage less worthy of respect? That's a very worldly attitude, and given that it treats people as nothing more than sex providers, it is not in line with a Christian anthropology. And the idea that celebacy involves nothing more than abstention from sexual activity is a bit off the mark, too, don't you think? What do you think marriage IS, anyway? I'm, naturally, not married, but I get the idea from those who are that it is about an awful lot more than just having a steady supply of sex. In fact, most straight people seem to describe their relationships in a way that makes them sound very much like my own. Odd that.

I want to second Gerry Lynch's remarks. Let's take a deep breath for a moment. In 2009, every reasonable person knows that sexuality is not chosen; everyone knows that humans are entitled to discover and own their sexuality, and should not be denied loving relationships. Reasonable people feel these things in their hearts and claim them for themselves. Only fanatics and neurotics deny them.

For most people in the west, especially young people, the mood is not one of visceral digust at LGBT people, but "provided you respect me, my life, my solemn decisions, I shall respect you." Has God not already wrought a great change in our midst?

Gerry is right. We need to stop justifying our lives every moment of the day. It is bad for our health, if nothing else. The debate has been won in modern societies, and we need to know that. More than that, hearts have changed. So it is totally reasonable to think that the church will follow with time, and perhaps more quickly than we think. Rowan's declaration is interim; it will be soon forgotten. Time moves on, and God is still God.

So even in our struggles, let's not forget to give thanks.

The collected thoughts of Cynthia Gilliatt on Rowan Williams, from earlier threads:
"...he repeats lies...", "...his treachery...", "...his hypocrisy...", "...a bully...", "...he has no moral standing..."

Well, I said more than that, and I'll stand by my words, because that is what his actions look like.

".Rupert Shortt (Rowan Williams: An Introduction, DLT, 2003, p.11) states that the meningitis which RW caught aged 20 months stopped him from ever cycling or driving."

I didn't know that; all I knew was that he didn't drive. I apologize.

I do wonder how isolated from the outside world he is. I don't mean the big issues he takes on - he's clearly aware of Christian/Muslim tensions, global warming, etc etc.

I don't understand how someone so well-informed in many areas can appear, at least, so uninformed about human sexuality and the real lives of gay people.

Christopher, when and how exactly did you choose to be heterosexual? Most of us are unaware of any such watershed - what did we miss?

I'm not JFC, to whome Christopher Shell addressed the following... but I just can't resist....

"How can a homosexual couple take 'the kids' to soccer practice?"

Um, in the car?

"Since they did not produce the kids..."

Things may be different in the U.K., but in the United States and Canada, many lesbians conceive children through artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilization. So, in many lesbian couples, one of them DID "produce the kids." Close friends of mine are one such couple, who have a lovely little girl.

"...you are assenting (in a fair proportion of cases) to someone's abandonment of their own children...."

Back again to this nasty denigration of people who, for various reasons, cannot (or SHOULD NOT!) raise the children they produced. Christopher, your denigration of adoption is remarkably out-of-line with the standard evangelical position advanced in the face of abortion, which is to GLORIFY the courage of those who give up kids for adoption, and the dignity of those who choose to adopt. Here in the United States, the late Dave Thomas, founder of the "Wendy's" hamburger chain, was a major evangelical spokesman and advocate for adoption, having been adopted himself.

In the case of gay and lesbian couples, often the adopted kids are "special-needs" children, who have been passed over by straight people looking for "healthy, white babies." One lesbian couple I know is raising two boys who suffer from the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome.

I just can't be bothered responding to the rest, which seems ot suggest that society would be better off if measures were taken to keep gay and lesbian people from having children.

"How is one to believe that the oft-touted comparison with red hair or lefthandedness is more than propaganda (supposing that it is)? If statistics back it up to any extent, then to that extent it is valid, and something better than propaganda. I suspect there is probably a small extent (clearly less than the environmental factor), so the task is to estimate that extent accurately percentage-wise. Having established the percentage-significance of any genetic factor, it would still be a separate task to determine whether this factor was beneficial or otherwise."

I don't think any of us are denying an environmental factor in determining sexuality--including, may I insist, the various kinds of heterosexuality (by which I mean things like commitment to monogamy, serial monogamy, polygamy, preference for a particular body type, etc.) But the question is WHEN does that environmental conditioning occur, and when is it "fixed" (that is, unable to be changed).

Current investigation seems to indicate that some sexual preferences are determined so early in life as to be virtually inherent. Can a two-year-old really be said to be making a "choice" as to whether he prefers girls or boys? Do you completely discount the testimony of those homosexuals who say they knew they were "different" almost from the moment of their first encounter with children from outside their immediate families?

Chris T.,

thank you for the kind words. There is much that is wise in what you say but I am not sure that I can agree with it entirely.

It would be nice to think that the sweep of history will simply carry the Anglican Communion along into a future where homophobia is past. I used to think that too and when I meet many young Evangelicals in particular, both inside and outside the Church of Ireland, I think the whole gay debate is very much one of the current time. I have work colleagues and friends who are fairly conservative Evangelicals, from the C of I right out to the House Church movement, and few of them are bothered about gay relationships as long as those relationships are based on love, commitment and fidelity.

But, to be honest, that's exactly the argument you one might have made in the Church of England 20 years ago; on the ground, gay couples, lay and clerical, were welcomed and valued members of the Church and official policy was slowly crawling along to meet that reality.

But then, you see, us mainstream Anglicans got complacent and were also too pious, particularly after the bruising experiences around the ordination of women, to do ecclesiastical politics. On the fundies out organised us, seized political power and also completely outflanked us with the threat of schism from abroad. And in the Church of England at least, things have gone backwards in 20 years. A generation ago the CofE was a haven of tolerance in a homophobic society. Now, at official level, it's a nest of bigotry in a tolerant society - and although reality on the ground is much better than that for lay people, the witch-hunts that keep clergy and church employees being locked and bolted closet doors seem to be getting worse. The Reaney affair was a particularly despicable incident which would have been unimaginable, say, 15 years ago.

So, I'm afraid if we want our churches to be part of this new, tolerant future, we're going to have to fight for it. Otherwise they will be tiny sects catering to an extremist minority and completely unfit for mission in the West. Jesus came not to bring peace but a sword; pace Dr. Williams conflict is not always wrong.

We need to agitate, educate, and most of all, organise - odd words for a classical liberal to utter ;-). Some of us can't fight in the front line - because of our jobs (like if we're gay clergy in the Church of Ireland), or because our temperament is not suited to it, or because years of being battered by the church make our faith to fragile to survive stress. That just makes it all the more important than those of us who can fight, do.

And this isn't just about gays. Us queens are only a public pretext - the real battle is about your right and mine to belong to church were thinking is allowed and you don't need to agree with your neighbour to recognise them as a good Christian.

Even in a relatively "fixed" world, Christopher Shell, people still die or become critically sick. People still may be incurably mentally ill. The assumption you make in the studies you quote above is that homosexuality is genotypical. There's a hypothetical "gay gene" and that's it. That's not the way human reproduction works. Our genes are teeming with blueprints, but environmental factors (especially in utero) affect which blueprints are expressed. Have you read about the link between male homosexuality and having older sisters (and the fertility of those older sisters)? Might this suggest that male homosexuality at least arises as a way of providing males with an interest in taking care of their nieces and nephews in case of misfortune? But it's the same thing as handedness, once the blueprint is executed, it changes the way the brain is structured.

The key is: genotypical or phenotypical, if it bears good fruit, it is as God intended.

Well, the Vatican "approval" of RW's statement seems to be about church unity and does not pontificate about gays. The Vatican seems to leave that to Anglicans now.

Christopher Shell insults thousands of gays who have courageously "come out" and of course insults as well thousands of children who have been pushed to suicide by being bullied over their sexuality. For Christopher Shell, gays who say they are gay are indulging in propaganda.

I found the following paragraph particularly chilling: "How is one to believe that the oft-touted comparison with red hair or lefthandedness is more than propaganda (supposing that it is)? If statistics back it up to any extent, then to that extent it is valid, and something better than propaganda. I suspect there is probably a small extent (clearly less than the environmental factor), so the task is to estimate that extent accurately percentage-wise. Having established the percentage-significance of any genetic factor, it would still be a separate task to determine whether this factor was beneficial or otherwise." The mad-scientist objectivism of this shows a remarkable disconnect -- a loaded disconnect -- from the people he is talking about.

"you are assenting (in a fair proportion of cases) to someone's abandonment of their own children and/or to those children being placed with parents that do not correspond with their actual family"

Adoption is *so basic* to the Christian faith, Christopher S, that our very soteriology is predicated that we are "God's children by adoption."

...and yet you dismiss the concept without a second thought. Strange. (And, pity!)

Gerry Lynch, go for it!

Christopher
""Since they did not produce the kids..."

Is this another piece of your scientific evidence that flies in the face of actual empirical truth?

Quite a few of us here have told you that we're raising children. Some of us raise children that were born out of our own bodies, others raise adopted children. You may not like the fact that we can adopt children or that our perverted bodies can give life to them, and you may wish to change that. But there are literally millions of kids being raised in same sex families. That's just a verifiable fact. Fact, you know. That scientific stuff you're usually so keen on.

It's one you don't like, I grant you.

But nevertheless, real parents are driving these real children to real football and dance practice. They supervise real children's real homework, they cook real children real dinners and, when they're small, read them real goodnight stories.

Wishful thinking on your part isn't going to change that, and your dark fears that all these children are being corrupted and emotionally damaged beyond repair are.... well... your problem, really.
Because we who look at this empirically from within the lived reality of our lives, will just continue to pick real children off the floor when they've fallen out of a tree, will cuddle real children when they're upset and will save real money to send real children to university.

And while you imagine wholesale moral destruction everywhere, we just get on with doing the washing, the ironing, the cooking, the cleaning - you know, the real stuff that living and loving is made of.

Hi Erika-
It is clear that whether such family patterns exist depends to a large extent on what culture and historical period one inhabits, and on how far this is presented as an option in the first place. You are speaking as though these things are true for all people everywhere. That could not be less true. They are true for the small minority of people that inhabit cultures of that very particular sort and/or haver never considered the alternatives which are played out daily before their eyes in so many other cultures.

Pat-
Yes, I have always agreed with the point that somethign may be felt as a strong compulsion even though it is not a genetic/inborn compulsion but 'arrived' later. Therefore the following points need to be made:
(1) Homosexual people and supporters need to be precise not evasive in estimating what proportion of their drive, if any, is actually genetic/inborn (I often wonder whether it is not around 10%, but this is obviously a very complex calculation);
(2) they should be guided by research not instinct in doing so, since genetics are not the sort of thing that can be gauged by instinct;
(3) They should be clear about in what way their drive differs from other things that one is driven to do starting form later periods in life, given that the term for a lot of these is 'addictions'.
(4) They should also deal with the question of the massive difference between the questions 'was it formative?' and 'is it beneficial?'. People are massively influenced by formative experiences at formative ages, after which their personalities are more likely to become comparatively set in stone. So is our character and personality simply at the mercy of the lottery of what occurred during our formative years, or can we rise above that? In NT studies, and doubtless elsewhere, people tend (alas) to go on believing the theories they first adopted in their twenties - whatever these were. This suggests a psychological element. We all know for sure that the fact that something was formative in our life does not in any way intrinsically make it right - so why not admit that?

Hi William K-
I've never heard anyone say adoption is the best option or even necessarily a good one. Equally, no-one can deny it will 100% of the time be better for the child than abortion. Better than death doesn't equal intrinsically good!
-You and Erika say that your hypothetical couple produced the 'kids': no. One of them will, only sometimes, have played a 50% role; t'other must certainly have played a 0% role. And it's 100% true that this couple's coupling didn't produce the children.

Hi Caelius-
1-You speak for 'God' in asserting that XYZ is 'what God intended', but go diametrically against Jesus's opposition to sexual immorality (Mark 7) and firmness on the indissolubility of [one-male-one-female] marriage (Mark 10). Mark is the oldest gospel. How does the 'God' you quote relate to the God to whom Jesus prayed?
2-Male homosexuality & older sisters: fascinating -what is the source? I'd read only of a link with older brothers, a year or two ago. Of course, the two theories could conceivably (but would not necessarily, since there might be a link with being youngest per se) cancel each other out. I always thought the older brothers link could work 2 ways: (a) mum has used up so much testosterone on elder brothers that she's little left for the youngest. (This is congenial to homosexuals, though ideologically problematic cos many of them categorically deny that there's anything unmacho about homosexuality.) (b) The youngest is also growing up in a male-dominated environment and his male relationships will therefore be formative. (Again problematic: it could equally produce a greater longing for / idealisation of females and a stronger macho sense.)

Hi Spirit of Vatican II-
1-It's simple to refute me: just produce the evidence that homosexuality is comparably genetic to righthandedness or red hair.
2-To connect is not to agree. To be honest is not to confuse or mix the two.

"I've never heard anyone say adoption is the best option or even necessarily a good one."

It was certainly the best option - and very good - for my parents and myself.

But putting aside your bizarre prejudice against adoption, Christopher, I ask you again - exactly how and when did you choose to become heterosexual? This isn't a rhetorical question. You allege that homosexuality is a choice, so it logically follows that heterosexuality is as well. What were the circumstances of that choice for you?

By the way, I believe that the research on older brothers and homosexuality specifically refers to male children produced by the same biological mother, regardless of whether or not they were raised together. But "mum has used up so much testosterone on elder brothers that she's little left for the youngest"? Really? This is how you imagine fetal development to occur - the mother has a fixed amount of raw materials with which to form the bodies of her children, and when it's gone, it's gone?

"And this isn't just about gays. Us queens are only a public pretext - the real battle is about your right and mine to belong to church were thinking is allowed and you don't need to agree with your neighbour to recognise them as a good Christian."-Gerry Lynch

Yup. That's what it's all about, and like it or not, Christianity is subject to the same extremism that has battered Islam. The ability to think for oneself is a time honored principal in the AC of the past, and we must fight to keep it that way and remind ourselves that we are not dogmatic Roman robots, nor crazed obsessive neo-prots. Reason, Tradition and (measured reading of) Scripture. Somebody go down to Exeter and look at that statute that sits on the north side of the cathedral and see who he is. He'd be turning in his grave if he were to see what is happening today. It's the extremists that will kill the church in all certainty.

"You and Erika say that your hypothetical couple produced the 'kids': no. One of them will, only sometimes, have played a 50% role; t'other must certainly have played a 0% role."

FALSE.

A lesbian couple (who are friends of mine) had a child several years ago, where one carried the egg of the other (because medically it worked out best that way). That's hardly 50 and 0%! [Tell the one pregnant for 9 months, plus labor&delivery (plus breastfeeding), that she played "0% role" in producing their son. Go on, ChristopherS, tell her: I double-dog DARE you! >;-/]

"And it's 100% true that this couple's coupling didn't produce the children."

Lemme guess: by "coupling", Christopher, you ONLY mean Teh Sex.

To carry around your monomanical obsession MUST be exhausting---God only knows it's tiresome enough for everyone exposed to it...

"To carry around your monomanical obsession MUST be exhausting"

Not only that, it also doesn't answer anything at all.
OK, so 2 people cannot bring a chid into the world that is genetically 50% of each.
That happens to infertile heterosexuals too.
The question is why anyone would see that as sinful in a meaningful way.

What is it about producing children that is so intrinsically moral that a failure to do so is seen as sinful.

The way some people speak you would think the only value in their marriages is sex and babies. It's a truly shocking picture of what some people's lives are like.

Oh, dear. Are we back to the bizarre orthodite idea that humanity is God's breeding stock - that sex is no more than rutting to make more little cattle?

I've always considered that a sad, lazy, unfaithful and entirely childish view of sexuality and humanity. If that's what the right-wing argument is, we can safely dismiss it.

Christopher Shell should heed the old expression, "it is better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, then to open one's mouth and prove it."

First, sigh, there is good evidence for a genetic component to homosexuaity, which persists across cultures at a fairly consistent rate. Is it an absolute, mono-genic trait? Heavens no. But then, almost nothing in human genetics is.....including left handedness. Space is too slight here for me to expound, though perhaps I will put a post up one of these days on one of my blogs attempting to educate those who will not be educated on the facts and limits of genetics.

Second, on the children issue:

A new ABCnews article discusses the two mommies/two daddies families. Interesting fact the first: Of the 270,000 children living with same-sex parents in the USA, about 65,000 are adopted. Most, like other Americans, are in two-child families. The non-adoptees may come from various uses of in vitro fertilization, or particularly commonly, from previous straight marriages. (So regarding my relationship to my wife's children from her prior marriage, it's no different than a huge fraction of other kids in this country, since Christopher Shell cannot tell whether I am male or female.)

Fact the second:Twenty percent of gay couples have children under 18.

Fact the third: about 4% of all adoptive parents are gay couples

Fact the fourth: the kids are doing just fine shown by longitudinal studies. Most of the kids with gay parents are straight, healthy, and mainly differ from their peers in being more accepting of diversity.

"Most of the kids with gay parents are straight, healthy, and mainly differ from their peers in being more accepting of diversity."

Ahhh, but you see--I'm not sure Christopher would consider that last to be "healthy".

The great unspoken is that if children end up with one or more parents that are not their own then in a significant proportion of cases there is either:
(1) an irresponsible parent somewhere not pulling their weight (which is a highly culture-dependent factor, and it goes without saying that all Christians and kind people would side with the cultures where this happened less not with those where it happened more);
(2) an unforgiven/unresolved relationship somewhere in the background (again: the anathema of Christianity);
(3) a casual/anonymous relationship somewhere in the background (ditto);
(4) selfishness towards the children who want to know their roots if they are to be secure in their identity;
(5) further selfishness in depriving them of statistically by far the best (on average: and please take averages seriously since they are the direct source of aggregates) upbringing: by one's own mum and dad.

Christopher:

Surely you are aware that there are many instances in this world where being brought up "by one's own mum and dad" is far from the best thing for the children: when mum and dad are abusive, when mum and dad are addicts, when mum and dad are criminals....

Perhaps you think all of these are subsumed under your (1)...but even so, do you really think it's better for the kids involved to be brought up in such circumstances than to be adopted by other, non-related, loving people?

Hi Pat-
Of course, but the bad parents need to be improved or restored. You are just writing them off?

And more importantly, they need to inhabit the kind of society that makes policies that maximally prevent such immature parents arising in the first place. As has often been said, the type of remedy one often hears recommended can be likened to having bountiful and expensive supply of ambulances at a cliff base where the cliff has no restraining fence in the first place.

"Of course, but the bad parents need to be improved or restored. You are just writing them off?"

In most cases, yes. The harm they have done is so great as to make a normal, healthy relationship with their offspring all but impossible. Ask the kids in these situations if they'd prefer to go back to their birth parents, if they are in a good, healthy foster or adoptive home. I assure the answer is no.

"And more importantly, they need to inhabit the kind of society that makes policies that maximally prevent such immature parents arising in the first place. As has often been said, the type of remedy one often hears recommended can be likened to having bountiful and expensive supply of ambulances at a cliff base where the cliff has no restraining fence in the first place."

It's not just immaturity, Christopher. It's outright inhumanity. "Growing up" (either physically or psychologically) won't change these people into good parents...often, they have been so damaged themselves (by horrendous parenting in their own histories, most frequently) that they wouldn't know good parenting if they saw it. Sometimes, they see it and think its bad parenting--because it's not what they have experienced.

There may be some utopia, perhaps in the ultimate Kingdom, where such people will not exist. But it is unlikely to develop in the real world.

Until it does, adoption is the best case for the children who would otherwise be permanently damaged.

Hi Pat-
You are closing your eyes to the elephant in the room: I repeat that different societies (and also different historical periods) have vastly different rates of bad parents of that sort. Some have very low rates. You write as though all societies have equally inevitable rates: clearly false. The worldview from which a society begins contributes massively to its degree of success, depending on whether that worldview is true or false. For example: our present acting prime minister says all forms of family are equally good. When asked to back up this untrue claim statistically, she ignores the question but presses ahead like a good absolutist or fundamentalist, to whom the rules of debate do not apply. And in doing so becomes part of the problem not part of the solution because policies associated with her are based on a false premise.

Christians believe in restoration. What is your plan for the lives of these parents whom you apparently are writing off, even though you then admit that their own background is partly to blame.

"You are closing your eyes to the elephant in the room: I repeat that different societies (and also different historical periods) have vastly different rates of bad parents of that sort."

No--different societies and different historical periods have vastly different rates of REPORTING of bad parents of that sort. It's much like rape--there isn't MORE rape today, it's just that it's now more acceptable to report it, to investigate it, to talk about it.

I would do everything possible to rehabilitate the parents in these situations...but I would not expose their children to harm while doing so, or even after, if the children prefer not to have contact with the parents.

Dear IT-
To deal with your comment:
The truth is that we can all learn from each other. The world is not divided into 100% stupid people and 100% intelligent people - so I would so much like to get some sense of that -some balance, wherein lies truth- from your comments.

When you say that there is good evidence for a genetic component to homosexuality, you are ignoring the fact that I assent to a small genetic element provisionally on the basis of existing studies; what I dissent from is people's inexact reference to it without giving any clue that the genetic element is so much closer to 0% than to 100%. In exactitude, and in informed percentage-estimates, lies progress.

Of the two cliches you refer to you cite handedness rather than hair colour. Had you been more balanced and cited both, you would have commented that hair-colour is about as genetic as anything can be - which makes the comparison with homosexuality inappropriate. I am pressing for people to admit that fact, and to state why they made the comparison in the first place.
On handedness I half agree with you and half disagree. The genetic element in handedness can be estimated very well within a society that has no expectations that children will conform to any particular handedness.

Re your other useful figures: the relevant figures would be:
-a comparison of how well children do with adoptive guardians as opposed to with their normal parents;
-...and a comparison between the success-rates of adoptive guardians similar and dissimilar to the parents;
-...and a comparison between success-rates of homosexaul and heterosexual guardians.

Absolute figures on such things would be preferable to absolute generalised comments; and, even after that has been achieved, relative figures are always better than absolute ones. Because the point under discussion is relative success rates.

Christopher, what is your response to this?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/abandon-gay-change-therapy-mds-told/article1244175/

I don't really have the time to do a good search for information on children raised by gay parents. Much of what comes up is from groups like NARTH and therefor must be considered unreliable without a significant amount of verification of their sources. I do know from experience that they tend to cite and conduct studies designed to come up with the results they want, so unless I can review all their references I wouldn't trust any of their conclusions, and I don't have the time to do that at present. There have been reports that the problems experienced by the children of gay parents come from discrimination by the straight people around them, bullying and such like. A recent report in the Globe and Mail that I can no longer access, indicated that the children of gay parents are quite happpy and well adjusted. NARTH says otherwise, but, as I say, they can be expected to, and unless one is able to adequately asses the quality of the supporting "evidence" they site, one is putting one'sself in an untenable position quoting them.

Hi Ford-
To my knowledge the APA would have issued a similar report at any time in the last 40 years since c1970. Ideologies that will allow or prohibit behaviour that is dear to the hearts of many are obviously going to be the ones most jealously fought over, and I gather that the c1970 campaign, very much in tune with the anti-family times from which we are now reaping the statistical whirlwind, was very much a product of its time.
Was there a link to more detailed statistics? All I saw was summaries of conclusions and/or assertions, all of them the only possible ones to be expected given the APA's image.

Of course, one would in principle no more treat a single nation's judgment as ultimate - let alone in a case where that nation was the very one that caused the said trends in the first place and is still most assocaited with them - in the case of America than in the case of China, Saudi, Germany, S.Korea, Australia - you name it. But the numbers involved are big in America's case and America has been at the forefront of psychiatry.

*Some* of what you say about NARTH has got to be incorrect. Namely:
(1) the very idea that non-NARTH researchers are not also, probably (on average) equally, to some extent influenced by their presuppositions is laughable. You surely can't mean that.
(2) A good proportion of work in this field is done by NARTH - would you prefer instead to subtract NARTH and so work with a smaller, probably inadequately small, database of findings?
(3) It was real human beings that answered the research questions, not pre-planted spies. Nobody made them answer as they did.
(4) Regarding anything accepted for peer-reviewed journals, on what authority do you think your own judgment to be superior to said peers?
(5) Or indeed to that of the people who did the research on the ground in the first place? That would be even more impossible.

The truth is that many very deeply ingrained behaviours have been removed, sometimes instantaneously, by encounted with Christ. This includes strong addictions, whether or not homosexuality be thus classified.
And people should and will always vote with their feet as long as the gross generalisation that *nobody* can relinquish homosexual attraction be put about. Such blanket generalisations issue only from absolutists, but how can they possibly reflect reality in a world as large as ours?

Christopher, are you ever going to answer my question about choice?

Further intelligence about this APA statement reveals undoubted biases:
(1) Not one single member of the (self-selected?) task force was among those who offer reorientation therapy. Conclusions were therefore predetermined.
(2) Some large-scale studies were cordoned off, whereas any impartial study would have aimed to be comprehensive. Namely: those by Jones and yarhouse; and by Karten. A third, by Spitzer, was given insubstantial acknowledgement.
(3) A good case could apparently be made for every single member of the task force being described as an 'activist'.

Hi BillyD-
With pleasure - as you know there's any number of questions thrown at me.
I (together with many other men) certainly did not have to choose to be attracted to women, indeed to a large number of the women I encounter each day. In a society that taught different norms, I and the other men would doubtless be doing something about that! But civilised norms have taught us the habit of restraint.

Just to clarify, then - homosexuality is a choice, but heterosexuality is just a given?

I do apologize for posting twice in a row, but something just struck me, Christopher. You wrote: "In a society that taught different norms, I and the other men would doubtless be doing something about that! But civilised norms have taught us the habit of restraint."

Well, I'm 50 years old, and I was raised in a society that very much taught heterosexuality as the norm. God knows that no one every encouraged me to be gay in the Fort Worth, Texas of the 1960's. Why didn't the heterosexuality "take" in my case, do you think?

And what does restraint have to do with it? Are you saying that you have to actually restrain yourself from straying beyond the norms of heterosexual behavior?

Hi Billy-
We are civilised by habit and upbringing not by nature. Because if we acted by instinct we would harm a lot of people. But the instinct is bubnbling just below the surface for most people, and the last thing harmful instincts need is social/governmental encouragement.

Practically everything is a choice, but some choices are more difficult to resist than others. That is down partly to how well-civilised we are, and partly down to how intrinsically difficult a certain thing is to resist.

Some choices we make because we want to, others because we know they are in our long term interests.

As I've mentioned, there are many, many possible factors behind someone's becoming self-identified homosexual, not all of which will be operative in each instance. These include genetic above-average predisposition (everyone by definition is above- or below-average predisposed to anything at all one can name, good or bad or neutral); early/formative sexual experiences or other significant experiences affecting views of genders and/or of one's own identity; testosterone; early views of gender / roles of the 2 genders in formative years / significance ascribed to genders and their representatives in formative years....

I should clarify that I see the genetics/environment issue as the key one precentage-wise, rather than the harder-to-pin-down choice/non-choice issue. See the review of the combined/average findings of all known studies of the claimed orientation of those bright up by self-styled homosexuals at:
www.drtraycehansen.com/Pages/writings_sexpref.html

OK, I'm still not getting this, Christopher. How is what you have described different from the case of heterosexuals?

In two ways:
(1) For heterosexuals it is a pre-programmed genetic matter. For homosexuals, various tests (urban/rural; identical twins; college/non-college; brought up by homosexuals or not; suffering homosexual abuse at a formative stage, in some very tragic cases - or not) indicate that the genetic percentage is overwhelmed by the environmental percentage, but may still exist as a tendency or predisposition. Of course we all have predispositions to many things: sin, otherwise known as human nature, looming large among them. To have a predisposition is a separate matter from the question of whether that predisposition is beneficial.
(2) Ruling out heterosexual sex would be silly, since that is so fundamental that it is where we all came from in the first place. This situation does not apply with homosexual sex, and therefore the debate has to take place about whether or not it falls into the large category of things we feel predispositions towards but reject as overall harmful: i.e. 'temptations'.

"For heterosexuals it is a pre-programmed genetic matter. "

Exactly what gene has been identified as controlling heterosexuality, Christopher?

What you call heterosexuality, as though it were some exotic phenomenon (although the word was not felt to be needed for thousands of years), is about the most basic thing for all animals down to fish/insect level. No-one needs to argue that it is endemic and fundamental to being an animal, because that is self-evident.