Churches and homosexuality: an overview of recent official church statements on sexual orientation - Homosexuality: Some Elements for an Ecumenical Discussion

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 1998 by Wolfgang Lienemann

The significant -- and in most churches unresolved -- controversies begin precisely at the point where (inevitably) the awareness of reality regarding sexual behaviour is affected by evaluative positions. As a rule this is signalled by the introduction of distinctions between "natural" and "unnatural" "healthy" and "sick", "normal" and "abnormal". It is easy to see that empirical research cannot decide the justifiability or appropriateness of these points of view for an unbiased awareness of sexual orientations. Certainly it is important that the World Health Organization struck homosexuality from its list of illnesses in 1992, but on this basis alone one cannot force anyone in a free society to view homosexual behaviour as "healthy", desirable or morally permissible. Even less can one prescribe what people on the basis of their experiences, formation and convictions should consider "normal" or "natural". Rather, it belongs to the essential consequences of human freedom that human morality has its locus of responsibility in the capacity of people to react discriminatingly and selectively to what is empirically given (whether this is "natural", genetically determined, or normal", corresponding to expectations). This insight limits the status that empirical scientific research into human sexuality can claim in the area of morality.

But two considerations must immediately be added. In the first place, this acknowledgment that the presuppositions of the human sciences are value-laden cannot be used as a licence simply to ignore empirical findings or to avoid a critical examination of them.(17) Second, one must be aware that for their part these evaluative distinctions find no unshakable grounds in undisputed empirical facts. Here again I would add an important ethical consideration which is unfortunately not taken into account in all the documents available to me: that is, one can and must strictly distinguish between applying such attributes as "natural"-"unnatural", "healthy"-"sick" or "normal"-"abnormal" to oneself and applying them to someone else. The direct consequence of this is that one cannot describe a person against his or her expressed self-understanding and self-description as "unnatural", "sick" or "abnormal",(18) without violating the principle of respect for the other. To put it another way: the evaluative implications of the awareness of homosexual reality are unavoidable: they must be made conscious and addressed as such openly. But what matters above all is that in making any judgment the self-determination of the other person is unconditionally respected.

Finally, the development of people's sexual identity and orientation is as a rule embedded in very specific cultural and religious traditions. Presumably this also has implications for the basic problems of sexual research and the acceptance of its methods and results in diverse cultural contexts. So far, intercultural studies of the various forms of human sexual behaviour and of the views of the differences between the sexes which underlie them have hardly played a role in ecumenical dialogue. The need for this is particularly evident in connection with conversations with Christians outside Europe and North America, that is, with representatives of those churches which have said little or nothing in public on questions of sexual morality.