This post is based on a previous one, in which I criticized Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum for his views on homosexuality.

A number of people disputed my position in the comments section, but one of them was particularly dogged, and I’d like to continue the discussion here, in a post that will have more visibility, for the moment…

I can see that you and I simply do not agree. You look at homosexual activity in the prisons and see it as evidence of repressed sexuality. I look at it and see it as a behavior caused by the conditions.

I see it as both. There is no bright line between people of differing sexual orientations, but however fuzzy, many are far over it on one side or the other. Some, indeed most, are born heterosexual, and you can’t get them to do it with the same sex at the point of a gun (at least the men, who literally wouldn’t be able to get it up). Put me in that camp.

Some (a very unfortunate few) are capable of feeling sexual attraction only to those of their own sex.

The rest (not the majority, but a significant minority) can do it either way, but most behave heterosexually under standard circumstances, because that’s the path of least social resistance.

In an environment in which the only sexual option is homosexual (e.g., to use your example, prison) those who are…flexible…will do what they need to. Those who are homosexual (assuming they are also the Big Man On Campus, or at least Prison) will be in hog heaven. Those who are heterosexual will commune with themselves, with the ugly and brutal exception of physical rape, which is all too prevalent in such environments.

To answer your question, I don’t foresee any reasonably “normal” circumstances under which I would engage in homosexual activity. I would like to think I wouldn’t even in outrageous circumstances like those in prison because of my faith.

I’m not going to let this question go, because it is at the crux of the issue. I’ll repeat it from the previous thread, just to make the point.

I asked:

Are you saying that you can imagine circumstances in which you would willingly, even eagerly, engage in homosexual activity? If not, why not, and why do you think I would?

Your response is “I don’t foresee any reasonably ‘normal’ circumstances under which I would engage in homosexual activity. I would like to think I wouldn’t even in outrageous circumstances like those in prison because of my faith.”

Really? You “would like to think”?

I don’t have to like to think.

I know.

Interesting. So, you’re saying that under those circumstances you might find yourself attracted to men, and the only thing preventing you from indulging yourself in that attraction is the fact that it would be immoral, according to scripture? Because it would be opposed to your faith?

If that’s the case, you’re much different than me, because my “faith,” such as it is, has nothing to say about with whom I should or shouldn’t have sexual relations. Despite this, I can confidently state, notwithstanding rape or some otherwise extreme duress, that I will never, ever, engage in sexual relations with a man. I can state with absolute certitude that I will never do so willingly, because men don’t turn me on, in any sexual way.

No man, no way.

On the other hand, I have to infer from your statement that, in your case, they at least might. What does that say about you?

However, that said, I also would say that I would never commit murder. Yet given the right circumstances, I think there are many rational people, like myself, who would. To me, homosexuality and other assorted sins are not mere matters of genetics but more of environment. I don’t believe anyone is born a killer any more than they are born gay. I think there are genetic factors that may predispose you to these things but they are more often than not highly influenced by your environment.

So, you don’t believe that people are born to love the same sex, and you don’t believe that people are born to murder.

Well, I don’t have any reason to disbelieve either. Talk to any family therapist, or juvenile detective about the number of children who were torturing and killing animals from an early age, and how many of them ended up doing the same to humans. Sorry, but I do believe that some people are born predisposed to be sociopathic, and utterly indifferent to (or who even take pleasure from) the suffering of other sentient beings, and to whom murder is not only inconsequential, but enjoyable. Despite the fact that I’m neither Christian or Catholic, I am in fact capable of appreciating the concept of evil, and that some people are, sadly, born that way.

That said, I think that the comparison between sexual orientation and proclivity to cause pain and death to innocents is not only irrelevant, but odious, and I have to wonder at the mind of a person who would make such a comparison.

You are comparing, on the one hand, intimate consensual interactions between two people with the intent of eliciting joy, to the taking of life, often in a callous and brutal way.

Think about it.

So I believe you when you say you are irredeemably heterosexual. I think because of your upbringing and your natural genetic disposition that you probably have not had these desires. Neither have I. But I do believe that human sexuality is mutable and that under the right conditions it can be changed.

Do you not understand the fundamental dissonance between these two sentences? Either I am irredeemably heterosexual, or my sexuality is mutable. You cannot have it both ways.

How are you going to resolve this profound logical conflict (absent resorting to illogic and “God says it’s so”)?