Q Except we know now, in a way people writing the Bible couldn’t, that being gay isn’t a choice.
A I take a different view of what they could have known. But yes, the evidence that homosexuality isn’t chosen — along with basic humanity — should inspire repentance for cruelties visited on gay people by their churches.
But at Christianity’s bedrock is the idea that we are all in the grip of an unchosen condition, an “original” problem that our wills alone cannot overcome. So homosexuality’s deep origin is not a trump card against Christian teaching.
Douthat is conducting here an interview with himself, in order to show that laws which permit discrimination against gays are different than laws which permit discrimination against minorities, and allright.
Ho-hum.
I want to draw attention here to that portion I highlighted — with which, incidentally, I agree; Original Sin is no mere metaphor, no allegorical way of saying we could all be nicer to one another, or some such. It is indispensable to the whole of Christian thought, the bedrock indeed.
Original Sin says it is an objective, metaphysical fact that to be human is to be inherently defective, broken, incapable of moral behavior and affirmatively hostile to moral behavior — with which I disagree. I think, rather, that the doctrine of Original Sin is amongst the most destructive, downright evil, ideas to ever soil the earth. It has no basis in objective, testable facts, relies upon a childish fairy tale, and has caused humankind endless misery. It is time to be done with it, and the malice it inspires and justifies on the part of those who imagine they have seen the light — that we are all no damn good (especially people who don’t belong to the club, who are the most no damn good of all).
Notice, too, Douthat’s offhand remark that the Bronze Age goat-herders who gave us Leviticus could have known that being gay isn’t a choice. Oh? How? Douthat doesn’t say, so we are left to suppose he believes that the Invisible Wizard could have given his scribes that important information but chose not to.
And Douthat is supposed to be a reasonable, not-insane Christian thinker. Bah.