Position Statement

on Alternative Sexualities

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Bill Brewer, 2012

Position Statement on Alternative Sexualities

Dissenting opinion on societal acceptance of alternative sexualities coalesces around three crucial points: The first is the reification of sexual orientation to justify homosexuality. Truth is sexual orientation is simply a concept and thus without any inherent connection to the real world. The second is the fact of ontological inferiority. Even if sexual orientation did have real-world substance, the substance of a homosexual orientation would still be inferior to the substance of a heterosexual orientation. The third is the fact of axiological inferiority. Even if the substance of a homosexual orientation were equal to the substance of a heterosexual orientation, the moral and ethical inferiority of the former vis--vis the latter would still justify the privileging of heterosexuality at the expense of homosexuality. The reification of sexual orientation for the purpose of justifying alternative sexualities is well known. Consider the following quote from the Journal of Social Work & Human Sexuality:
It can be argued that there are no homosexuals. Indeed, it can also be argued that there are no heterosexuals. The labels heterosexual and homosexual are relatively new, as is the idea that people can be categorized by their sexual preference. Until the late 19th century, when the terms homosexual and heterosexual were invented, terms like "sodomy," "buggery," "pederasty," and "unnatural vices" were used to describe criminal acts of which, presumably, anyone could be guilty. Since then, "homosexuality emerged as a total personal identity. According to Focault, "The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species." The idea that people can be classified by their sexual gender preferences is a reification: that is, taking a concept (e.g., sexual preferences) and treating the total person as if he or she were permeated with that quality; indeed he or she is that quality.1

Figure 1: The challenge facing gay activists . . .

THE UNREALITY OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION:

Sexual orientation is an abstraction, not a reality. Treatment of abstractions as if they are real is known as "reification." Arguments based on reification are notoriously fallacious. For example, on average, Switzerland is entirely flat, but that says nothing about the real topography of Switzerland, and to argue or act otherwise would be to make a huge mistake. The same is true of sexual orientation. Sexual orientation exists as a concept, but to argue from its conceptual existence to its existence in the real world would likewise be a huge mistakelike arguing Switzerland is flat.

Figure 2: The evolution of alternative sexualities . . .

Sexual orientation, along with all other abstract concepts, is alien to the material world of cause and effect. The story of two duck-hunting statisticians illustrates. When the first flock of ducks flushed from the water, both hunters fired at the same time at the same duck, one overshooting by a foot and the other undershooting by the same amount, whereupon both statisticians jumped for joy saying, "We got him! We got him!"

"Teaching Social Workers to Meet the Needs of the Homosexually Oriented," Journal of Social Work & Human Sexuality, Vol. 2, No. 2/3, 142
2 http://historeo.com/?p=84 Bill Brewer, 2012

Figure 3: Concepts (e.g., average shot) do not produce real-world effects the bird lives!

The humor here is in the occupational predisposition of our hunter-statisticians to make a reification error; i.e., to confuse the efficacy of their average shot (a concept) with the inefficacy of their real-world marksmanship. In that respect, it illustrates why sexual orientation (a concept) cannot possibly be the explanation (cause) of homosexual behavior. To get real-world effects, one must look to real-world causes. The real-world causes of same-sex sexual behavior are manifold and likely include cultural, social, philosophical, religious, educational, familial, experiential, biological, physiological, psychological, moral/ethical, and volitional elements. But these same elements also provide the raw material for all kinds of orientations: conservative, liberal, racist, welfare, criminal, gang, addictive, and pedophile come to mind. Many of these "orientations" are unappealing and some are downright unacceptable but none operates in the real world to actually cause the behavior it conceptualizes. Just imagine someone justifying racism by claiming it as part of his or her nature. Then (re)consider the same fallacious connection so often alleged between sexual orientation and homosexuality.

But isnt the "gay thing" a gene thing? The answer is no. The equation of sexual orientation with genetics is a strategy for gaining acceptance by alleging a deterministic (and therefore morally neutral) basis for same-sex sexuality. Genes-only explanations, however, are overthrown by studies of identical twins. Although one early (and extremely biased) study2 showed a concordance rate (sexual identity match) of 52% within pairs of identical twins, better, more recent studies have shown concordances as low as 20%.3 Gay activism has nevertheless prospered because the general public does not know and fails to appreciate just how disconfirming the numbers really are. The biased study equates to a fair-coin toss hardly deterministic. And later, better studies are even less supportive of a deterministic explanation for homosexuality.

Figure 5: Twin studies disprove the reality of sexual orientation . . .

Twin studies are also problematic for gay activists because they prove too much. For example, in a report published in 1998,4 concordance of identical twins for cocaine abuse was almost 80%, thus begging the question of how gay activists can argue for acceptance of sexual orientation on genetic grounds when "addiction orientation" has almost four times the genetic evidence but absolutely no chance of social acceptance. Most notable of all, and something so certain it is not even checked, is the concordance of identical twins on the matter of race. It's never less than 100% thus refuting the single-most, oft-repeated gay-activist claim of all "sexual orientation is like race." It is not. If it were, then the concordance of identical twins for sexual orientation would be 100%, not 20%.
2

Figure 4: Components of sexual orientation and a sampling of other possibilities

"A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation," Archives of General Psychiatry, Dec 1991, Vol 48, No. 12. See in-text links for highlighted abstract. 3 "Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Mar 2000, 78(3):524-36. See in-text links for highlighted abstract and extract from study. 4 "Cocaine use, abuse and dependence in a population-based sample of female twins," British Journal of Psychiatry, Oct 1998, 173:345-50. See in-text links for highlighted abstract.
Bill Brewer, 2012

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The reality of race, over against the unreality of sexual orientation, is further highlighted by a study published in February 2005 study5 in the American Journal of Human Genetics in which researchers studying a large multiethnic population found near-perfect correlation between certain genetic markers and the self-identified race of participants. Using that as a benchmark, if sexual orientation were truly like race, then researchers should be able to achieve a similar, near-perfect correlation between genetic markers and self-identified sexual orientation. No one can do that though, and twin studies suggest that such a correlation will never be possible. In the meantime, a remarkable contradiction on the subjects of race versus sexual orientation is the wariness of the prevailing culture toward admitting the reality of race, despite all the evidence for that reality, compared to the eagerness of that same culture to affirming the reality of sexual orientation, despite a stunning lack of evidence for the reality of that phenomena. This huge inconsistency is no doubt attributable to the amazing success of gay activists in reifying sexual orientation in the face of both contrary logic and contrary facts. Gay activists have devoted so much energy to inventing and reifying sexual orientation because without that reification, homosexuality has no chance of gaining or remaining in the mainstream of American life. The assertions go like this: Sexual orientation is real. Homosexuals embody their orientations within their very own natures. Those orientations are inherently good. Arguments to the contrary are hate speech. Sexual orientation cannot be changed. Professional assistance to people seeking relief from same-sex attraction should be outlawed. Homosexuality is like race and should be given ethnic status. Recruitment into homosexuality is impossible. Since recruitment is impossible, exposure of children and young people to gay propaganda is harmless. Parental concerns with openly gay public school teachers are unfounded. Programs encouraging young people to question their gender identity are risk-free, even humane because the quicker children discover their real sexual identity, the happier they will be. Establishment of homosexual support groups in schools is necessary. Referral of troubled youth to those groups for help is a kind and compassionate thing to do.

Figure 6: Some of the second and third-order effects of reifying sexual orientation

BUT if sexual orientation is not really real, then the reality of recruitment comes to the forefront and all of the preceding assertions begin to unravel. Critique of homosexual ideology is not hate speech. Homosexuality can be prevented, and to some extent cured. Professional services toward those ends are warranted. Recruitment is possible6 and should be prevented. Exposure of young children to gay propaganda is abusive.7 Parental concerns are well-founded. Programs encouraging children to question their gender identity constitute institutionalized abuse. Establishment of homosexual support groups in schools should be outlawed. Referral of troubled youth to such groups is cruel, possibly criminal. The threat to gay activism in all of this is the very real possibility of homosexuality being forced out of the mainstream and back onto the margins of society.

THE ONTOLOGICAL INFERIORITY OF HOMOSEXUALITY:

Even if substance of sexual orientation were real, the substance of a homosexual orientation would still be inferior to the substance of a heterosexual orientation.

Figure 7: The Great Chain of Being

6 5

"Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies," American Journal of Human Genetics, Feb 2005, 76(2): 268-275.
4

http://www.queerty.com/can-we-please-just-start-admittingthat-we-do-actually-want-to-indoctrinate-kids-20110512/ 7 http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-bay-state-teenstaught-queer-sex/
Bill Brewer, 2012

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Ontology refers to the quality of being. In terms of autonomy, plants are ontologically superior to rocks. Animals are ontologically superior to plants. Humans are ontologically superior to animals, and on and on . . . From a philosophical standpoint, the substance of an ontologically superior entity is polluted when conflated with the substance of an ontologically inferior entity, but not vice versa. For example, a drop of sewer water in a bottle of fine wine pollutes the wine, but a drop of fine wine in a bottle of sewer water does not pollute the sewer water. The equation of play money with real money debases the value of real money, but it does not debase the value of play money. The equation of homosexual marriage with heterosexual marriage debases heterosexual marriage, but it does not debase homosexual marriage.

An ontologically inferior entity can caricature the substance of an ontologically superior entity, but the inferior can never match the substance of the superior and the inferior's caricature of the superior will eventually fail. Play money is a caricature of real money. It is ontologically inferior to real money. Thus real money can buy play money, but play money cant buy real money. Homosexual marriage is a caricature of heterosexual marriage. Homosexual marriage is ontologically inferior to heterosexual marriage. Thus heterosexual marriage legitimates homosexual marriage, but homosexual marriage cannot legitimate heterosexual marriage. Heterosexual marriage is grounded in something really real human physiology. Interracial marriage is also grounded in something really real race. Gay marriage, in contrast, is grounded only in a concept specifically invented to justify things like gay marriage. Since the substance of gay marriage is not grounded in reality, it can only function as a caricature of real marriage. Recognition of interracial marriage differs from recognition of gay marriage in that race and human physiology are real while sexual orientation is not. Gay marriage should therefore be understood as marriage in "black-face."

Figure 9: A great example of the "reification fallacy" in action

Figure 8: Illustrations of ontological inferiority/superiority

A huge irony in the equation of gay marriage with interracial marriage is that the perniciousness of slavery in America was magnified by its justificatory reification as a matter of race. Compare that to gay activists who want to impose, by force of law, an analogous reification of sexual orientation as justification for homosexuality. In the antebellum South, slave masters used the power of government to run roughshod over slave marriages. In the 21st century, gay activists would do the same to all marriages.

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Bill Brewer, 2012

The ontological inferiority of homosexuality extends to everything it touches. Heterosexual marriage confers legitimacy upon children, but homosexual marriage needs children as a way of conferring legitimacy upon it. Heterosexual marriage is a source of legitimacy. Homosexual marriage consumes legitimacy. The ontological inferiority of the latter vis--vis the former is apparent everywhere. Homosexuals thus seek legitimacy by caricaturing heterosexuality, including demands upon society for marriage and for children. Contingency is a classic criterion of ontological inferiority. Homosexuality is contingent upon heterosexuality in that homosexuality cannot exist without heterosexuality, but heterosexuality can easily exist without homosexuality. Every homosexual owes his or her existence to heterosexuality, but no heterosexual owes his or her existence to homosexuality. Homosexuality is therefore ontologically inferior to heterosexuality.

Sexual orientation as a justification for alternative sexualities stumbles over questions of virtue and moral authority. The telos (end or design) of human identity (male and female) is self-evident in human development/ physiology and associated gender identities undergirded by natural affections and reinforced by the social structures that emerge from the same. What then is the telos of alternative sexualities and associated gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, inter-sexed, and questioning (GLBTIQ) genders? If the virtue of a horse is in its swiftness and the virtue of a knife is in its sharpness, what then are the virtues of GLBTIQ people as GLBTIQ people? How do we know a "good gay" when we see one? Western culture socializes males and females to heterosexual norms only with great difficulty. What hope then is there of socializing people to GLBTIQ norms when such norms apparently do not even exist? The grudging answer of course is there are and will be no norms, not for GLBTIQ folks, and in the future, not for heterosexuals either. Thus the price of admission for mainstreaming homosexuality into American life is a revolutionary surrender of all gender norms for everyone. And so there can be no happy coexistence between traditional sexuality and alternative sexualities because accepting the latter disinvests the former. Threats of hate speech allow this radical change to proceed without clarity, without notice, and without protest. Moral authority is the ability to influence people by appealing to a sense of obligation, or in other words, to make a claim on their consciences. Cultural pluralism creates an environment where subcultures interact in ways that tend to mutually undermine their respective moral authorities. Pluralistic cultures are thus inherently deficient in moral authority. Gay activism flourishes in a pluralistic culture because pluralism undermines the particulars of subcultures that would ordinarily operate to push alternative sexualities to the margins. In a pluralistic culture, the fringe frequently becomes the center and that center is often without moral authority. In American society, gay activism has taken center stage, and like pluralism in general, it lacks moral authority. Gay activists make up that deficit by laying claim to the moral authority of others, most often by identifying their cause with the civil rights movement. All of that evaporates though when the connection between sexual orientation and race is exposed as illegitimate. It gets even worse when the identification of gay rights with civil rights is understood as the moral equivalent of "identity theft," with gays presuming to "write checks" against the suffering of others.

Figure 10: Yet another and even more compelling example of ontological inferiority/superiority

Prudence demands society take notice of the preceding things the same way prudence would demand society take notice of the difference between such things as real money and play money, between fine wine and sewer water. A society that cannot make such obvious distinctions is a society in deep trouble.

THE AXIOLOGICAL INFERIORITY OF HOMOSEXUALITY:

Even if the substance of a homosexual orientation were equal to the substance of a heterosexual orientation, the moral and ethical (axiological) inferiority of the former vis--vis the latter would still justify the privileging of heterosexuality at the expense of homosexuality.

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Figure 11: The higher values of particular cultures constrain the lower values common to all cultures . . . Figure 14: Tolerance is not a substitute for a unified system of virtues. Pluralism substitutes moral neutrality for tolerance. If tolerance is not an adequate substitute for a unified system of virtues, then moral neutrality is even less so.

Figure 12: Pluralism sweeps away the higher values of particular cultures and the moral authority that goes with them. Lower values dominate public life. Public life becomes crass . . .

Figure 15: In a pluralistic culture, Superman renounces his citizenship . . .

Figure 13: In a pluralistic culture, character is replaced by personality, virtue by values, calling by lifestyle, and on and on . . . . The net effect is to create an environment where virtue and moral authority are lacking and gay activism can flourish.

Figure 16: . . . and Green Lantern comes out as gay . . .

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Suffering is THE crucial criterion for moral authority but not just any kind of suffering will do. For moral authority to be unequivocal it must be grounded in innocent, enlightened, free-will suffering on behalf of others. This is not to say no moral authority accrues if any of the preceding attributes are absent or limited it just means moral authority is more or less diminished to that extent. Since no human being possesses absolute moral authority, the preceding criteria best serve as a model for analyzing claims to moral authority rather than as a blackwhite checklist.

from doing donor screening. Tens perhaps hundreds of thousands died from HIV-infected blood. Almost all hemophiliacs who received even a single dose of clotting factor between 1980-1985 died. Sexual orientation by itself confers no moral authority, not for heterosexuals, not gays. Deference to gay activism is moral cowardice and ignorant. Resistance to gay activism requires wisdom and moral courage.

CONCLUSION:
The three objections described in this paper transcend the usual counter arguments. Quibbles about the details of various studies do not diminish them. In the unlikely event one objection is overcome, the others remain in effect. They are not changed by whether a person has friends or acquaintances who are gay or not, nor are they dependent upon whether those friends and acquaintances are nice people or not. They still apply whether homosexuality is irresistible or not. They would not be affected by the coming out of one's self or one's own children. They are not silenced by sad stories. They are not countered by distinguishing authentic gays from inauthentic ones. They cannot be dismissed as being bigoted or religious in nature. Claims to civil or human rights are irrelevant and appeals to diversity don't matter. Such well-worn counterpoints evaporate because the objections stated in this paper are evidence-based. The inability of gay advocates to associate the concept of sexual orientation with anything having discrete and concrete existence in the real world is a fact. The fallacious use of sexual orientation to explain homosexuality is a fact. The ontological and axiological inferiorities of homosexuality vis--vis heterosexuality are facts.

Figure 17: Moral authority is perfected in innocent, free-will suffering on behalf of others . . .

How then do GLBTIQ devotees stack up in terms of moral authority? Using the preceding model, do gays suffer? Is their suffering innocent? Do gays choose to suffer? Is their suffering on behalf of others or solely for themselves? Is their suffering enlightened? Putting it all together, do gays commend themselves to the consciences of other by freely, innocently, and wisely bearing the burdens of others? A useful exercise would be to analyze both the civil rights and the gay rights movements and then compare results. Truth is gays have forfeited claims against individual and collective consciences in light of their threat to the common good. For example, they insist on the right to donate blood regardless of risk to blood supplies. They refuse to go public in the interest of public health." They have lobbied for the repeal of "don't ask don't tell" heedless of risk to national defense. They want the right to adopt no matter the effect on children. They want to shift the economic burdens of gay lifestyles to others. They are unconcerned about the pervasive moral confusion inherent to their ideology. They pursue their rights to the detriment of their own (e.g., forced outings); to the detriment of traditional marriage, family, and children; at the expense of those seeking relief from same-sex attraction; and through propaganda, violence, and intimidation. Gays outrage moral sensibilities by failing to differentiate the deaths of HIV carriers from the deaths of their victims (e.g., the "AIDS quilt"). In the late 70s and early 80s, gay activists successfully steered the blood products industry away
8

Figure 18: Competing norms of gay activism vs. traditional morality leave little room for genuine tolerance from either side

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Bill Brewer, 2012

This paper originates in the deeply held belief that ignoring existential facts is a dangerous thing to do. Traditional norms and the new normal of gay activists are radically different. The zone of tolerance is therefore small. Gay activists have tried to widen that zone by inventing and reifying sexual orientation, caricaturing heterosexuality, appropriating the moral authority of others, and misrepresenting moral neutrality as tolerance. The smallness of the zone of tolerance, however, is NOT a problem to be solved but rather a reality to be respected. The natural social location of homosexuality is on the fringe of society. Reality is homo-foe-bic. Bringing homosexuality into the mainstream of public life is ultimately cruel to both gays and straights alike. A culture that gets cross-ways with reality is a culture headed for big trouble. Homosexual ideology is incompatible with a just, enduring, and prosperous society. Bill Brewer
http://historeo.com, brewerwt@hotmail.com

"20 Reasons to Question the Gay Agenda" pdf format

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Bill Brewer, 2012