Imagine: Anti-LGBTQ makes about as much sense as anti-left-handedness
Next in our “Imagine” series! At times it is hard for straight cisgender folks to understand the LGBTQ world, but on this blog we’re lifting up insights that make it easier.
By Evan Smith
"I wish to urge upon the Saints . . . to understand men and women as they are, and not understand them as you are" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:37, April 6, 1860, emphasis added).
Consider how silly it would be for a parent to tell their left-handed child that they love them “even though” they write with their left hand, not their right hand. That’s how I feel about being asked to consider my son Wes’ potential future gay marriage any differently than how I consider my other kids’ potential future straight marriages.
Parents in the church need to be allowed to publicly say they’re proud of their gay children who are pursuing or are in healthy marriages with same-gender partners without being judged. They shouldn’t be made to feel bad just for unconditionally loving their child. They shouldn’t be made to feel like they need to communicate to church members that they love their LGBTQ child “even though” they are no longer in the church.
In fact, sexual orientation develops in a similar way to handedness (i.e., being right or left-handed). [But] handedness is not as central to human intimacy, life purpose, companionship, mating, belonging, and identity as sexuality is.
Some studies have concluded that actual inherited genetics (i.e., normal genetics, not epigenetics) can account for 25-32% of the differences in sexual orientation: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/jul/24/gaygenes-science-is-on-the-right-track-were-born-this-way-lets-deal-with-it ; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/science/gay-gene-sex.html . So the primary determinants for where anyone falls on the spectrum of sexual orientation, including, of course, being gay, may be a mix of inherited genetics and epigenetics, with proportional variation occurring in that mix for each person.
Many other biological traits are similarly determined through a mix of inherited genetics and epigenetics, such as being right-handed or left-handed: “[T]win studies indicate that [inherited] genetic factors explain 25% of the variance in handedness, while environmental [or epigenetic] factors [occurring in utero] explain the remaining 75%”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness.
From Chapters 2 & 3 of Gay LDS Crossroads, a free e-book.
There used to be a time, not too long ago, when lefties regularly faced discrimination. Such mistreatment has fortunately subsided (although hasn’t completely disappeared) over time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people#:~:text=Beyond%20being%20inherently%20disadvantaged%20by,by%20the%20right%2Dhanded%20majority.). I have hope that our society and religious institutions will someday experience a similar progression with respect to gay sexual orientation. I look forward to the day when treating someone differently, in any context, simply because they’re gay, is viewed by virtually everyone as being as ridiculous and unjustified as harmful discrimination against lefties is today.
"There never seems to be a polite way of saying, 'Look, the problem isn't me. It's your inability to greet me as I am instead of how you want me to be” (Blaire Ostler, Listen, Learn and Love, Richard Ostler, 157).
Also in our “Imagine” series: