Even if a genetic cause for homosexuality is found, gay behavior would still be “sin,” and Christians should support prenatal treatment to “cure” it, said SBC seminary president Al Mohler.
Comments by Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., in a March 2 column on his personal website are prompting strong reactions from the left and right. His column—titled “Is Your Baby Gay? What if You Could Know? What if You Could Do Something About It?”—appeared on www.
albertmohler.com.
The scientific evidence is mounting that human sexual orientation may be fixed by genetic and biological factors, wrote Mohler, contradicting what many conservative evangelical leaders have asserted for decades.
“The discovery of a biological factor would not change the Bible's moral verdict on homosexual behavior,” Mohler insisted.
Rather than excusing homosexual behavior, such a genetic discovery could lead to prenatal ways to eliminate homosexual orientation, Mohler said, and Christians should support such a development.
“If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin,” Mohler wrote.
Mohler did not specify what treatments would be morally acceptable. His article raised the hypothetical possibility of a prenatal “hormone patch” that could reverse sexual orientation before birth, but he neither approved nor disapproved it. In an unusual clarification posted on Baptist Press March 16, he ruled out “genetic therapies” and added: “The only cure for sin itself is the cross of Christ. No therapy will cleanse us of sin.”
“I must admit much frustration about the way many in the media have handled the issue,” said Mohler in his clarification.
“I am even more frustrated with many conservative Christians who read the secular headlines without even bothering to read my article. … I have received a great deal of hate mail from those identifying themselves as homosexuals outraged that I believe homosexual acts to be unconditionally sinful. But I also received mail that can only be described as hateful from those who identified themselves as Christians—people who clearly had never read my article and simply jumped to conclusions or accepted misrepresentations. Furthermore, some who identified themselves as Christians spoke of homosexuality and homosexuals with hate-filled language that literally made me shudder.”
Mohler's blog prompted national news articles in Associated Press and Religion News Service, as well as numerous blog responses.
Mohler also noted that the discovery of a biological basis for homosexuality would be “of great pastoral significance, allowing for a greater understanding of why certain persons struggle with these particular sexual temptations.”
He continued, “For the sake of clarity, we must insist at all times that all persons—whether identified as heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, transsexual, transgendered, bisexual, or whatever—are equally made in the image of God.”
However, gay-rights supporters and at least one biologist said Mohler's assertions were misguided, at best.
“He's willing to play God,” said Harry Knox, a United Methodist minister who directs religious outreach for the gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign. “He's more than willing to let homophobia take over and be the determinant of how he responds to this issue, in spite of everything else he believes about not tinkering with the unborn.”
A University of Minnesota biologist, meanwhile, posted a blog entry March 10 that said Mohler's suggestion was both naïve and potentially dangerous.
The discovery of a specific “gay gene” is highly unlikely, wrote P.Z. Myers on his Pharyngula blog (scienceblogs.com/pharyngula). In fact, he said, several factors—genetic, hormonal, environmental and psychological—may contribute to the formation of any person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
“I will confidently state that it both will and will not be shown to be genetic,” he said, in a March 15 email to Associated Baptist Press. “There will be factors that predispose one towards homosexuality, but they will also be important in affecting other behaviors, and their expression will be contingent on the environment. It's not going to be simple.”
In his blog, Myers also noted that the research to discover any potential in vitro “cure” for homosexuality would likely lead to the very kinds of embryonic research Mohler opposes. “It would take years of experimental work on human and non-human embryos—embryos that would not survive the experiments—to build up that repertoire of reliable expertise,” he wrote.
Myers also faulted Mohler—who, he notes, is a creationist who believes God created the universe just a few thousand years ago—for attempting to delve into complex bioethical discourse. “Does anyone else find it incredibly jarring when these guys talk about scientific research and then suddenly switch gears and start telling us what a god tells them is his personal opinion?”
In his clarification, Mohler said his purpose in writing “my previous article was, in the main, to draw attention to a very real threat to human dignity that lurks as a possibility on our horizon …. This is the possibility that, if a biological marker (real or not) is ever claimed to mark homosexuality in prenatal testing, widespread abortion of such babies might well follow. As the author of the magazine article I cited explained, the liberal commitment to unrestricted abortion rights might well run into direct conflict with liberal commitment to the normalization of homosexuality. In that event, hypothetical in the present time, it will be biblical Christians, opposed to all elective abortions, who will stand for the full human dignity of all human beings, born and unborn.”