Ep. 14 - Are Gay People Born That Way?

Are we predestined by biology when it comes to who we love? Our latest series heralds a deep and respectful exploration into the often-polarizing question of whether people are born gay. Join us as we fuse our expertise in counseling, psychology, and theology to weave through the historical, psychological, and spiritual threads of sexual orientation. This thought-provoking series is not just another discussion; it's an educational pilgrimage designed to cultivate understanding and support within the church community.

Embark on a historical trek with us as we revisit the psychological landmarks that have charted the course of societal attitudes toward same-sex attraction. From the scrutiny of early psychological models to the seismic shifts in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, we dissect the legacy of researchers like Alfred Kinsey and engage in the challenging debates over the 'gay gene', brain mapping, and hormonal influences. Moreover, we confront the delicate interplay between personal convictions and professional responsibilities faced by Christian mental health workers, encouraging a dialogue that's as compassionate as it is courageous.

As we conclude this series, prepare for a candid discussion on the intersections of homosexuality, Christianity, and personal identity. We'll unravel the complexities around attending gay weddings and the impact of sexual abuse on sexual orientation, all within a framework that honors spiritual growth and the transformative power of faith. Whether you're seeking answers, understanding, or simply a fresh perspective, our conversation is an invitation to grow together through knowledge and empathy.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

All right, everyone. Welcome back to the Psych and Theo podcast. Sam and Tim here, ready to tackle a difficult topic today. And today we're tackling the question or answering the question are we born gay or are people born gay? Nothing short of controversy, right, sam?

Speaker 2: 0:18

Just another day in the office no sir, no sir, Okay, so why are we doing this?

Speaker 1: 0:23

Yes.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Why are we doing this? Yeah, I asked that question, but I just took a drink after I asked that question.

Speaker 2: 0:31

All right. So we I think you know for our audience out there, if you're listening, let us know what you think of this. I think we're kind of finding our stride a little bit. We think we've stumbled onto a format that's really going to work well for us and that's first of all we're going to do more of like interview style between the two of us. So if there's a topic that's heavy in psychology, I'm going to interview you because you're the expert in counseling and psychology.

Speaker 1: 0:58

The expert.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Yeah, you're an expert. Okay, and then if it's heavy in theology, or Bible.

Speaker 1: 1:23

You're going to have good conversations.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Back and forth going. So that's one thing, and then the other thing I think we're going to try to do more of are these mini series when we do a few episodes in a row on a topic and that will allow us to go deeper into the topic, to answer more main questions and then sub questions, like questions that dovetail you ask one question and then that dovetails into a lot of other questions. So it'll help us go deeper on a subject, to talk about it from both angles theology, bible and psychology, counseling and then the audience can get a deep dive into the subject. So we've decided to try that with, uh, a pretty benign topic, something yeah yeah, um, are we born gay?

Speaker 2: 2:11

we're going to talk about homosexuality for three episodes what happened last time we talked about this oh, we got so much hate. We did, and that was our first episode. We were small, you know that was the first episode.

Speaker 1: 2:21

That was our very first episode.

Speaker 2: 2:22

If you haven't, if you've just started listening to us. Our first episode is called there Are Only Two Genders. Here's why and that was our first episode we decided we were going to just start out strong and man we got some hate?

Speaker 1: 2:38

Yeah, that one and the one. Should you Attend Gay Wedding?

Speaker 2: 2:41

Yeah, that one too so it's interesting.

Speaker 1: 2:43

I mean, this is the one that we're doing, the miniseries on touching on these different aspects of homosexuality and how Christians can address that. You know.

Speaker 2: 2:49

I was actually just talking with someone today, though, about they asked me how the podcast was going, and I was telling them you know all the different ideas we had, and she said I listened to the one about the gay weddings. It was really interesting.

Speaker 2: 3:03

I was like just interesting. No, she was complimentary to it. So if you like these episodes, please share, leave us feedback. We really would appreciate that. If you think this podcast is important, please help us grow in some way. We consider this a ministry because we want to educate people. We're not simply just trying to go engagement farm out there and spout our opinions and then just get a bunch of clicks and likes and retweets and reposts and all that stuff. We actually want to produce content that is helpful for people in the church, helpful for people in the church.

Speaker 2: 3:42

So if you find these episodes to be helpful conversations, please share them with people in your church and ask them to follow us, because that helps a lot.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Yeah, and just to add to that, there was a friend that we know and was able to share and actually have a conversation with his sons about these very topics that we're discussing. So young, 13 and older, and you know it's opening up conversations. This is for families, right, talking about the things that we're discussing, and we're very thankful and appreciative of that encouragement that he gave us. So thank you.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Yeah, now, with that said, these next few episodes, I think, are for a mature audience. Now, that is not necessarily indicative of a certain kind of age that you need to have, because we all know there are adult children in the world, but it is for a mature audience because we're going to be talking about some things that are I wouldn't say they're graphic, but we need to talk about sexual things If we're going to talk about homosexuality, and so these are not episodes for really young people, but they are episodes for mature people. So if you think, if you have teenagers who are listening and you think they're mature enough to handle this kind of conversation, yeah sure, go ahead, you know by the way, this is better than them getting the same information or different information from their friends at school.

Speaker 1: 5:03

So, yeah, it's a good conversation either way. Just obviously use your wisdom and discernment as you share.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Yeah, yeah, okay, awesome, you want to get into it.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Let's get into it, okay. So what's this first one? Well, the question that we're trying to answer is are people born gay? Right, yeah, and this idea of being born gay? When people say that, what do they actually mean? So what do they mean when they use this phrase? So, do you want to start off? You want me to start?

Speaker 2: 5:31

Yeah, that was my. That was my first question. You're already stealing my thunder man.

Speaker 1: 5:35

No man, slow down. I have to switch hosts right.

Speaker 2: 5:41

Slow down. I am the host this time. Ok, I get the interview Set me up. Look at me, I am the host this time. Okay, I get the interview set me up. Look at me, I am the host now. All right. So, sam, when we say, you know, people are now okay, let me um, let me preface this. We should start, we should try cold opens with like stories and stuff.

Speaker 1: 6:01

We should try I like it maybe okay yeah what we hear this argument a lot.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Okay, we don't have a cold open, but why did we choose this episode? Well, people make this argument. I was born this way. I'm born gay? Okay, so that's why we chose the title of this episode that way. So we're going to answer that question Are people actually born gay? End quote. What do people usually mean when they use this phrase?

Speaker 1: 6:33

Yeah, well, you know, there's personal experiences that we have and I've had personal experience with some friends who have said this and then you have the society in general and it's very different how society in general addresses this topic of being born gay and how an individual person will talk about being born gay and essentially what they're saying or how it kind of starts.

Speaker 1: 6:54

As I, as I trace back how people share their story, it starts with something like I felt attracted to this kid, this boy, and I'm a boy and I noticed that real early on, that I liked this boy and I didn't really like girls. And to kind of move forward with that is that they feel that there is no way to change that aspect of themselves to be born to be gay. So what is this? Are they actually born gay? What do they mean when they're saying that? Do they mean that they are attracted to other boys or do they mean that they have boy characteristics or girl characteristics and so on? So that's kind of what people try to communicate when they say that they're born gay is that they are attracted to the same sex and that they can't do anything about it.

Speaker 2: 7:51

And it's like basically, from not just early on, but it's like their natural state, yeah, I mean, that's how they communicate it.

Speaker 1: 7:59

So remember that they're making sense of all of their life now as adults, and they're looking back and they're piecing everything together, which, again, everyone does. Everyone looks back at their story, looks back at early childhood, looks back at their teenage years, and they've created a story, and the more you've kept repeating that story, the more you believe it. So for them, whoever was in their circles when they were growing up, whatever it is that they thought of themselves as kids, now as adults, they've created this narrative around them being gay, yeah, and that's their whole, that becomes their whole identity and that we talked about that could be true of them, even if they are in a traditional marriage.

Speaker 2: 8:36

I've I've heard, I've heard of stories of that where someone is, they're in a actually I know of examples like that where they are, they're basically married to someone of the opposite sex and then they sort of either discover that they are gay or they. They kind of come out and say, well, I've always been this way. And then they I actually know a someone who was a good friend who, uh, he, you know he, he was actually, you know, liberty student and um was married, he got, he got married and everything, and then he ended up leaving his wife and came out of the closet, essentially, and then and they kind of said like, well, I've always been this way. I've heard of examples like that.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Oh yeah, I mean that's. That's very similar to an example that that I know as well. A close friend of mine kind of had the same type of thing. But the argument here is were they born that way or type of thing? But the argument here is, were they born that way or is it something that happened through their childhood, in early teenage years, into adulthood, that shaped the way that they viewed that aspect of themselves? And it's never one thing right, and I think that's probably the biggest thing that we can communicate.

Speaker 1: 9:37

It's not just you were born this way. You could be born with certain characteristics, certain tendencies, certain features, all of those things that can communicate something to you about yourself. And usually you'll see them define a personality characteristic like, well, I didn't like playing with toys, with cars and trucks, I like playing with dolls. But how long was that period for? And what was the messaging around you playing with dolls, was it? Oh, it's okay, you're just playing're just playing, you're just exploring. Or, oh, you must be a girl like the television. You know, what do you hear in music? What do you hear with your friends? All of those things inform you on how to make sense of those things yeah, so they are.

Speaker 2: 10:16

They are attaching meaning to certain certain things, and then that gets threaded into a story of yeah, and no child.

Speaker 1: 10:23

And this? This is why this becomes a concern. I obviously we're going to talk about this a little bit later, but there's no child who's thinking about their sexuality at that age unless they're being exposed to it on a consistent basis. You know the idea of attraction at that early age. All it has to do is just I like this person, I like spending time with this person. There is no sexual romantic feelings towards another child from another child. It's just friendship, it's just being together, it's just enjoying each other's company. But as adults we look back at that and we start to input what we believe about that type of relationship.

Speaker 1: 11:01

There was a movie, a cartoon, that was made not too long ago. I forget what. I think it's called Luca, think it's called luca, and it's about these two boys. You know they're italian and you know they kind of create this friendship and through that friendship they display certain characteristics, as though they like each other, but they're really just being friends. But the world view that you have now as an adult informs how you're going to start seeing each of those types of relationships with your kids. It's the same way. Oh, if my kid's playing with dolls, he must be gay like you can't think that way because they're not associating it that way. So there's multiple factors as to why someone believes that they're gay. But it's not only this idea of I was born this way and then you can't do anything about that, right, because then anyone can make that argument. Well, I was born to be a little bit more angry.

Speaker 1: 11:46

I'm a little bit more hot tempered we're getting a little ahead of ourselves I know, I know it's all gonna flow down to get a whole episode to record, man, okay, that's hard man I don't know how you do that it's a discipline see you're learning, you're see, you are an expert, yeah, um all right.

Speaker 2: 12:03

Well, let me ask you. Let me ask you another question. So we talked about people being uh, threaded, like finding a thread of meaning or a story through their childhood and attaching meaning to certain experiences and things like that. Take us down a history lane for a moment with the psychological research on this question of, well, here's what I describe it as innate same-sex attraction.

Speaker 2: 12:31

That's what kind of what they're arguing for is like this is this attraction to this, to the same sex, is innate within me. It's something that I've been born with. Take us down, like a history lane, of how we came to this point where this is sort of the dominant view. It is the dominant view in psychological research, or is it the dominant view? It's certainly the dominant view in the culture. So take us down. How did we get to this point? Yeah, was it always this way? And then when did it change?

Speaker 1: 12:58

yeah, you know, I was thinking right now about the, the definition or the term for attraction and attraction as defined by webster is the definition or the term for attraction and attraction as defined by Webster is the action or power of drawing forth a response. Okay, so attraction meaning being drawn in to someone else, right, but it does not mean and, speaking in terms of the same-sex attraction, it does not mean that you want to or should have sex with someone and it does not mean that it is wrong or right. And I'll explain a little bit more about this in a bit, because we're going to talk about the early psychological perspective. Was that it was pathologized? I mean, it was seen as wrong because it landed within these four or five Ds of abnormal behavior. So that's kind of how everything was defined early on in psychology is is this abnormal behavior? Is this something that breaks away from what we would deem as normal? So the four Ds or five Ds of abnormality are deviance, which is different, extreme or unusual. So that was different, extreme or unusual compared to the time that they were making these assessments.

Speaker 1: 14:07

The second D is dysfunction, which means that it causes interference within the person's daily life. So how much does it bother them throughout the day, what does it limit them from doing, and so on. Distress, so unpleasant or upsetting to the person. So people struggled a lot with that. They didn't know what that meant about themselves, especially when they didn't see other people struggling with the same type of issue. It wasn't talked about Danger. It poses a risk or harm to themselves or others, which it can and very much did.

Speaker 1: 14:35

And then lastly this one's not always included, but I thought it was important here is duration how long has this been happening for you to consider it to be a problem, right, a psychological disorder? So with time, as people started to see this as those things, they started to remove the stigma around it, probably around the mid-20th century, seeing it now as just another variation of sexuality, that if a man was attracted to a man or a woman was attracted to a woman, that was just a different way of expressing one's sexuality. So I think those four Ds five Ds kind of give us the idea of early psychological research, why it was defined as a disorder.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Because it landed there. Can you run through the five Ds just real quick? Again I got deviation. What were the others? So?

Speaker 1: 15:23

deviance, dysfunction, dysfunction, distress, danger and duration. Okay, great, yeah, so those are the, the five things that would be described as abnormal behavior, and we see that right now it's definitely not seen that way. Now it's seen much more acceptable, as, as we talked about, um, but one of the biggest, I guess, articles or reports that was done was by Alfred Kinsey, and it was pretty interesting how he arrived at his conclusions, because he was trying to talk about sexual orientation and sexual behavior. But the pool that he was using was men, prison inmates and he tested them and using collecting his data through his interviews and surveys and sexual histories, he assumed or kind of generalized their behavior to the general population and obviously there was a problem with that. He had a sampling bias and so on. So he started to create this whole narrative around sexuality that actually wasn't existent for the general population. So it was a pretty landmark report by him and we do research a lot differently now, but that's kind of what opened up the door to normalizing certain types of behavior.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yeah. So those in the audience who don't know who Alfred Kinsey is and when was this taking place, these studies that he did oh, 40s and 50s, the 40s and 50s. Okay, yeah, 40s and 50s and 50s really early on.

Speaker 1: 16:43

I mean there was there's probably no irb by that time, during that time, definitely not, um. So people were just able to kind of test and do whatever they wanted and just report what they found.

Speaker 2: 16:53

And so his goal was to kind of figure out what was the quote-unquote. Normal sexual experiences. Yeah, what are the?

Speaker 1: 17:01

sexual experiences, uh of men. What do they actually want? What do they fantasize about? But the population that he was observing, obviously you know it's going to be land under those four.

Speaker 2: 17:11

Yeah, so if you're, if, you're, you know the prison population has a probably a disproportionate amount of, let's just say, um same-sex behavior you know with each other, homosexual behavior with each other, homosexual behavior with each other, and so he's going to look at that data set and then make a conclusion for the general population, conclude that this is indicative of the general population. Is that right?

Speaker 1: 17:37

Yeah, yeah, I mean he did all these interviews, he did all these surveys and then, based on those responses, he just kind of said here's what I found. But most people just started to attribute that to the internal population.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Just as a sidebar he did other studies with. Like he's famous for doing lots of different sex studies, so he did. You would know more about this than me, but it wasn't just the homosexuality question.

Speaker 1: 18:00

It was just sexual behavior, all kinds of things.

Speaker 2: 18:02

So he, and I mean he, he, I remember that I was, I was reading about this for one of my PhD classes and, um, you know, he, some of the the subjects that they were using were, like, they were interviewing prostitutes off the street and pimps and things like that, like he was trying to prove a point yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah it's like these if you're interviewing, if your your data set involves people who do sex for a living, that's going to be a different.

Speaker 2: 18:29

They're going to have a different, very different experience than, say, your average joe who gets married to the same and is married to the same woman and has, like you know, three, four kids yeah, yeah, very much so yeah, and their religious beliefs are gonna be. You know if that that's gonna weigh in on everything.

Speaker 1: 18:44

So yeah, I mean methodologically it was crazy, crazy. I mean it would hit there. I mean it was one of those things where it was so shocking. Right, there was a shock factor behind it. Yeah, and people like shock, shock factor but he's lauded as a hero.

Speaker 2: 18:57

Kinsey's a hero. Well, maybe not in york, but like a pop culture he is.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Yeah, yeah because he kind of freed up. I mean, what was that 40s, 50s, so leading to, was it the 60s? That was more the sexual revolution, yeah, and from him.

Speaker 2: 19:09

Some of the post-moderns in the 60s are lauded as heroes like um. There's a famous post-modern philosopher named michelle foucault. Sometimes he's called michael foucault, as people uh sometimes refer to him in america, but he's he's a french guy, so michelle foucault is how you say his name yeah, he was. He was very famous for talking about.

Speaker 2: 19:29

So post-modernism is all about like deconstructing power structures and things like that and so he, he honed in on the um uh, the, the marginalization of homosexual communities, and now the power structures of the day were marginalizing them, especially like the aids, with a aids community and things like that yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, they they. Uh, kinsey was their spiritual grandfather. Let's say, okay, so anyway, I don't mean to take over the show, no, you're good, I am interviewing you okay.

Speaker 2: 19:59

So yeah, deviation, dysfunction, distress, danger and then maybe duration. All right, okay, all right. So thanks for that walk through history, like, okay, that was kinsey is there? Were there other developments?

Speaker 1: 20:12

uh, in recent decades no, I mean he's probably the most famous one, obviously in regard to opening up the conversation around it because it was so early, but throughout time it's just been more the idea of normalizing this behavior and they removed it from the DSM-3 to DSM-4. And after that it just wasn't seen as a disorder anymore. So now you see them testing different things to see. Should we include this as deviant behavior, distressful behavior, dysfunctional behavior, with all these new things like pedophilia is probably one of the more recent ones that they tried to test and they had to remove from the DSM because there was such a uproar about it.

Speaker 2: 20:50

They removed pedophilia from the DSM.

Speaker 1: 20:51

Yeah, I mean I think I told you before now what they're trying to use is MAPS I think I told you before now what they're trying to use?

Speaker 2: 20:58

is maps right? This minor attracted person.

Speaker 1: 21:05

And basically, again, if we look at the beginning, when you start having these conversations about homosexuality, it's all a matter of time and once it gets that point, at that breaking point of now, it's acceptable, now anything goes right. So now they're going to test maps and they're going to see how far this goes.

Speaker 1: 21:17

They've let it go for right now, but maybe they're going to test maps and they're going to see how far this goes. They've let it go for right now, but maybe they're going to tackle it again next five, ten years, because the culture is going to change, it's going to ship and we've talked about this before. They're always going to start with the children. Yeah and work. Well you're, you're running ahead again.

Speaker 2: 21:30

You're running here slow down, slow down, superman, let's go yeah okay.

Speaker 2: 21:33

So um so talk, Kinsey, a little bit of History Lane. Are there any nowadays? Are there scientific studies? Is there any scientific basis? So in the pop culture it's hard to for someone who is not a scholar or is not an expert, not a researcher. They get their news from media. They're going to hear things like oh yeah, it's proven, people are born gay. So that we want to straw man. If we're going to take the negative, we're going to say our answer to that question is no. Before we try to prove our point, let's steel man the other side.

Speaker 2: 22:15

Yeah, because a lot of people straw man their opponents and that straw man is a fallacy where you make your opponent's position look weaker than it actually is so that you can put forward some argument, make yourself look stronger. But when you're in a good tactic of debate and a good discipline is to steel man your arguments. I think I've said this before in a previous episode you want to steel man your arguments or your opponent's argument, to present it in the best light possible. So that way, when you refute it, your position is that much stronger. So you want to account for this. I see this all the time with podcasts. Who make Christian podcasts or political podcasts. They do this all the time. They always straw man their opponents or they just don't address the objections that their opponent would raise. They don't address how their opponents would actually argue their case. Some of the podcasts do that, but a lot of them don't. So let's steel man. Let's steel man the proponents of this question. Yeah, what kind of scientific basis would they use to claim that people are born gay?

Speaker 1: 23:15

are there studies now that they would point to to say, yeah, this is this, is this proves it yeah, one of the biggest arguments that they make is this or that they were trying to prove many years ago and they still have not proven. It is to find the gay gene right.

Speaker 1: 23:28

I think there was a whole search about the gay gene, like there has to be something that dictates this type of behavior, and they haven't been able to find it. Um, the most recent things that they've been looking at is brain mapping, like are there similar brain structures from men and women and what does that actually look like? And so on yeah, that's.

Speaker 2: 23:46

That's in reference to like transgenderism gender yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:49

So with the gender sport, it's kind of that idea of okay, well, we have similar brain patterns, but they haven't been able to find anything scientific that's solid and founded that shows that that means that you're attracted or that you're going to act on that sexual behavior. There's no strong. I mean. They try to make arguments about hormones again, but that ties into transgenderism. So nothing really solid that I have been able to find on their argument for homosexuality.

Speaker 2: 24:20

So is it more like is it fair to say like in the pop culture media as people talk about this, are they just misled that there is a solid scientific basis for this? Or is it more like well, we got our studies and you got your studies and so we're just going to take our position on this, like what? Like? Are people just completely that's like a misnomer that there's a scientific basis to this?

Speaker 1: 24:47

I don't. I don't think people want to hear the truth. I don't think people want to accept like, if they're, if we were to find we haven't found any evidence we or someone being just heterosexual, right, there's no argument necessarily being made for that. There's only the argument wanting to say that there is evidence for homosexuality, that people are born attracted to a member of the opposite sex. But it's never just one thing. You can't say that you were born that way because there is the nurture and there's the nature part of it, and all of those have so many different factors. So there's nothing that you could point to and say, yeah, this does mean that we are born gay. Like there. You can't. There's, there's no argument to be made there so is, so is is.

Speaker 2: 25:27

This is the main argument, based more on sort of like anecdotal self-reporting. Like the people who who identify as gay, they are self-reporting their upbringing. The people who identify as gay, they are self-reporting their upbringing and saying I've always been this way and so that's sort of counted as evidence that people are actually born that way.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Right, I mean it's sexual preference. It's. I mean, who are you to tell this person that they don't feel that way, and so on, which is fair on one point, like who am I to tell you that you shouldn't feel that way? So we're not saying that you don't feel that way. We're saying that that's not a biological component, like you're not born, that way, there's a lot of things that happen throughout your life that contribute to that.

Speaker 1: 26:05

It could be messages that your parents have said to you, it could be the people that you spend time with. It could be certain character traits that seem more feminine rather than masculine, or vice versa. So all of those things factor into how you view yourself today. When you said that I'm coming out of the closet or I'm going to, you know I feel attracted to the same sex, like there's a narrative behind there that has continued to build with time that you now believe right. How is a 13-year-old now open to that experience of being gay or coming out Because they've been told our culture has said this isn't. This is an option, this is something that does happen and that you are born that way.

Speaker 2: 26:48

So it sounds like it sounds like there could be a lot of confirmation bias going on here. Yeah both with the studies. So if you're, if you're studying people and you're taking their like self-reporting and no, I'm not a statistician and you know. So, like you know, if you go through counseling and psychology, you know advanced degrees you have to take statistics and things like that. As a theologian, I didn't take statistics I compete greek and hebrew, and latin and french and all these other things, you know, but it sounds like in the research.

Speaker 2: 27:18

is it fair to say that the biological and maybe neurological research is searching for a hard link? They haven't found it yet. They found some, you know, maybe some loose correlations, loose correlations, but it's the the things that people are really leaning on. Are these anecdotal, self-reported surveys and studies? Yeah, and then okay okay, yeah, that's interesting because I think, what if I'm?

Speaker 2: 27:48

so I'm a critic, you know, of the, of the. If someone's going to say are people born gay? And they answer yes, I'm going to push back because I, because my answer is no to that question. So if I were to critique that, I would ask them. Okay, you mentioned something earlier about adults tend to read things back into their childhood, and I do that in my own life.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Everyone does that You're?

Speaker 2: 28:11

like. What does that mean? I ate too many.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Lucky.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Charms that morning. Whatever, what did that mean? I I ate too many lucky charms that morning, you know, whatever? Um, so it it seems that this kind of methodology, coupled that with just a cultural shift in pressure, is is really vulnerable to confirmation bias. Is that fair?

Speaker 1: 28:35

yeah, again, I'll come back to do I want to hurt this person's feelings. You know what? What already affirms what they already believe about themselves. I mean, no one wants to be torn down for what they believe their whole life. So the error is best to just kind of go along with it. And if you push back, you know you're going to hurt their feelings or they're not going to want you to be around them anymore.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Even now it can be seen as offensive or even, you know, verbal violence per se. So, yeah, I mean, there is a lot of confirmation, but there is nothing that they can point to biologically where they could say this is this means that we were born gay. They'll address certain characteristics which, again, are just maybe more feminine features or more masculine features if you're the opposite sex of that, um, and that's it. And they'll say well, that means this. It doesn't mean that it just means you have more feminine traits or you have more masculine traits and that's, that's all it means. But again, throughout their story, they've continued to repeat the same narrative, which has reinforced, reinforcing their belief about it.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Yeah, it's almost seems like in the. In the attempt to figure out what the cause is, they are assigning causation to things that that themselves are not inherently causal.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's like I'm thinking right now just being Latino, okay, all right. So being Latino, does that come with certain characteristics or attributions that are pretty common to most? Yes, does that mean I have to be those things?

Speaker 2: 30:05

No, is this where I ask you about racial stereotypes?

Speaker 1: 30:07

Oh yeah, you can ask me about that all the time. I mean, we could do one. Actually, we haven't done one on this. Oh man, we could do a series on that. Yeah, I'd have to be careful though.

Speaker 2: 30:16

You won't get canceled, but I will. We're friends.

Speaker 1: 30:19

I'll bail you out, yeah, yeah um, but yeah, I mean, it's one of those things like you're born latino mexican, yeah, but that doesn't mean I have to carry on the same types of behaviors that are seen in my culture, right, and it's kind of the same thing here. Even if that were the case, even if you were born that way which again hasn't been proven and there's nothing to point to then what and I guess we'll get to that question a little bit later, but you're faced with another dilemma is okay, you have that behavior. Now what? What do you want to do with that? Right?

Speaker 2: 30:51

Okay, so that's okay, that's a good point. So let's, I want to shift it a little bit to maybe you making a counter argument to this, to this idea of are people born gay? So you've kind of poked holes in their argument of oh, this is why these are all the indicators of these are all evidences that I was born gay. I like certain things, I have these certain feelings when I was a child, and so they're kind of tying all these things in together as an explanation. Like the thing that can make sense of all of that stuff is that I was born this way. Is what they're is really what they're doing? They're, they're. In my opinion, I think they're making a non-sequitur, like it doesn't follow that all of these experiences, it doesn't follow to the conclusion that you were actually born that way, okay, okay, so we've poked holes in that. Let me flip it and say if people are not born gay, okay, what would be or what could be the possible causes or the influences of same-sex attraction?

Speaker 1: 31:57

Yeah, one of the biggest ones that you find is the lack of a father figure. A father presence find is the lack of a father figure, a father presence. Specifically talk about males, homosexuals, who when they grow up they feel drawn to men because they don't know what characteristics to actually look for or what type of character they want to develop. You know, admiration is confused for attraction and young boys want to admire older men. That's why you have such a close bond between brothers. Right, if you have two brothers and one's older. Typically the younger one really looks up to the older. There's certain characteristics and traits that he has that he admires.

Speaker 1: 32:33

What if you don't have an older brother? Then you have your dad and if you have your dad you admire certain traits and characteristics about him. So you grow up in this home where there's no father, there's no older brother, and you start to want that. You desire that so strongly that we start to confuse admiration, for attraction is kind and gentle with you know, with his parents or with his grandparents. You like certain characteristics, but we attribute that to mean you're attracted and you are sexually attracted to that person and it doesn't mean that it's an emotional void, it's a character void. You want those things and that person replicates it so well that you desire to be around them. And again, because culture around you says you know, maybe you're, maybe you are gay, maybe you're just, you really do like him and it could be nothing to do with sexual attraction, but we convert it into sexual attraction when all it could be is a character attraction or quality attraction.

Speaker 2: 33:36

Yeah, so that's that would be called. What is it? What is the term when you suggest something in someone's mind and then it gets implanted as a belief? I'm drawing a blank on the phrase, anyway, so yeah, okay, so you mentioned lack of a father figure and men, but what about women?

Speaker 1: 33:56

Yeah, so for women it's almost the same thing. Usually what you'll find with women is strong mother presence. So, again, no father figure. Mom has to take on a strong paternal role. So she's both mom and dad. And what you start to realize real quickly and this I've heard through testimonies is they'll start to say how much they desire to have a father and it just doesn't feel right.

Speaker 1: 34:18

There's something about lacking that fatherly presence in the home. That affects young women, right, they want to be loved and they want to be loved by someone who makes them feel special, and moms typically not like that. You know, it's interesting because moms will typically be tougher on their daughters and dads will be tougher on their sons. So they need kind of the opposite of that, right? I guess the way that they would describe it to you like the masculine, the feminine, like they need that balance for each other. So the father provides security, trust, safety for their daughters. Now they know what to look for in relationships.

Speaker 1: 34:53

But when you don't have that and you only have a strong female presence being mom, then you feel maybe that's how you should be and because you start taking on those very masculine traits, now you're acting like a man, or feel like you're acting like a man and feel that the only natural conclusion to that is well, I need to find someone who's more feminine. Or vice versa maybe you become so feminine and you seek out those strong masculine traits in someone else and if it's one of your best friends or if it's a close friend around you or someone that you know, you're drawn to that. But again, that's not sexual attraction necessarily. It's just you're attracted to their character, to quality characteristic that they have.

Speaker 2: 35:32

So the emotional attachment is it fair to say, like the emotional attachment, emotional attraction, sort of gets transformed into some sexual. Yeah, okay, and that's a whole culture, I mean the whole culture, sexualized. Everything sort of gets transformed into some sexual.

Speaker 1: 35:43

Yeah, okay, and that's a whole culture I mean the whole culture sexualized everything. So even if you were to feel attracted to that person, that doesn't even mean that it's sexual. I mean, it's like with anyone, you're going to feel attracted to different people, but if you're married, you maintain that integrity, you maintain that I'm not going to pursue, that you don't go and have sex with someone. You maintain that I'm not going to pursue, that you don't go and have sex with someone. But now, as it continues to get normalized, now it's okay, maybe it's okay. So now adultery will start to be accepted because, well, you know, you couldn't control yourself.

Speaker 1: 36:13

There's certain limits and boundaries that we have to put around our behaviors. So, even if you were, you still have to have a boundary right, because then you cross into other things. What if you're attracted to a married woman? As a female, what if you're attracted to a married woman? What would stop you from pursuing that relationship? The fact that she's married, that you're committing adultery or that you're doing a homosexual act? Which one is stronger? Well, they're married, but we'll figure out a way. You have to have some sort of limit, right, you know, we'll figure out a way. You have to have some sort of limit right.

Speaker 2: 36:45

Some sort of boundary in that type of behavior. Okay, so that's really fascinating. So in both men and women, the absence of the father could be a major contributing factor.

Speaker 1: 36:53

Right, and the reason for that is because fathers usually are the ones who set the rules right. And because you set rules, you set boundaries both for men and for women right, for your sons and for your daughters. You set those limits and they work within those limits. Now what happens when a father is domineering and dictator-like is that you create such a constraint on them, is that once they're loose, once you don't have that over them anymore. Now they just go and do whatever they want. So it's almost like you're building up this tank to explode once you let them go. So it has to be a gentle approach to establishing those boundaries right.

Speaker 1: 37:44

What's affected the culture most today is that there's that fathers who give rules without the relationship create disobedient or rebellious children at some point right. And those who have the relationship without the rules, they just have no authority and don't care about authority. So you have to have both the rules and the relationship, and usually the way that I try to look at it is 80% should be relationship, 20% should be rules. Like they should know that you love them so much that the 20% rules they're good rules they need to follow, but they're following it because you have such a good relationship with them.

Speaker 2: 38:13

Okay, so that's one fact.

Speaker 1: 38:16

That was like multiple facts. That was father factor, maternal factor.

Speaker 2: 38:21

Okay, what are some other possible factors?

Speaker 1: 38:25

Social acceptance. Before, when it first became a deviant type of behavior, it was seen as that. It was deviant, it was dysfunctional, it would cause distress in people. We've normalized that, that even today, those who still struggle with coming out, they still wrestle with that, that idea of, oh, who's going to judge me?

Speaker 1: 38:47

You know because there's something, I feel like there's something deep inside that tells them that it's off, something's off about their behavior, but because society has normalized it so much, that makes it easier to kind of follow along in that behavior and it's almost encouraged. I mean it is encouraged in a lot of different ways in in our culture. Um, you know disney would hold its uh gay parades and you know disney has such a huge market and who's their market? Children. I mean really it's parents, but you mean they're, they're marketing to children. Um, so again, the earlier you start, the easier it is for that to become acceptable. So social acceptance would be another one.

Speaker 2: 39:23

And that would explain, I think, the explosion of LGBTQ identification in Gen Z.

Speaker 1: 39:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:30

Because it's not just purely an evolutionary. If it were purely biological, let me back up. This is what I tell my students when we talk about this issue.

Speaker 2: 39:38

If it were purely biological, we would expect to see the same kind of distribution throughout history of like gay to not gay basically Because the recent study, one of the recent studies, showed that almost up to one in four Gen Zers identify as LGBT, you know as somewhere in that alphabet soup. Okay, I'm going to get canceled for that one. Anyway, and I tell my students look, are we to believe that this is a purely biological or purely natural thing? Let's say either biological or psychological, because the trans community roots their stuff in psychology. Again, harking back to our first episode, go listen to that. But if it's purely natural, through evolutionary means, we would expect to see that kind of distribution throughout history.

Speaker 1: 40:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:29

But we don't. And one of the arguments is well, people weren't accepted, there wasn't social acceptance back then. They were all in hiding. And that's when one of my students raised that objection. You know, almost sincerely, you know, you know, almost sincerely, you know, and I said, well then we'd have to believe that somehow the, these, the 75 of humanity, was so successful in suppressing the other 25 in their, in their sexual behavior. Are we, are we to believe that that that was the case throughout all of human history, throughout all of societies, like every single culture, like that's the claim that they would have to demonstrate so. But if you reverse social acceptance, and then that then leads to more people embracing what they would otherwise, what otherwise calls them distress, or they would try to, yeah, avoid in some way. Now it's like celebrated right that would explain the explosion.

Speaker 1: 41:24

Right, and we talked about too in, I think, one of our previous episodes about the different stages of psychosocial development for children. So when is this? When are they coming out? They're not coming out at five or seven. They start to implant those ideas at five or seven. But really, this whole idea of coming out is 10, know, 10, 11, 12. And what's going on there? Well, that's the identity versus identity confusion stage, right? So they need to identify with something. So whatever is seen as popular, whatever is seen as cool, whatever seen as a new trend, like they're jumping on that wagon. You know, if you go back to, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 41:59

Here's a silly example. We see this in church all the time with kids. My friend walked the aisle and got saved quote unquote, got saved and then got baptized. I want to do that too.

Speaker 1: 42:09

Exactly, we do that. I saw that growing up.

Speaker 2: 42:12

It's like, but by the fruit you will know them yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:15

Yeah, no. That's a great example. Everything that everyone is doing. I want to get on that wagon and that's what happens with kids. Kids are bandwagoners dude.

Speaker 2: 42:24

They are they need to grow a spine. Exactly Stand up for themselves. Kids All right. So yeah. Social acceptance, maternal, paternal influences. Let me just ask you one before we move on what about abuse?

Speaker 1: 42:48

Is abuse a factor, common factor? Um, you know, most of the research that's done is on the lack of a father presence okay, but there is some with with sexual abuse.

Speaker 1: 42:53

Again, when you're and depending on the age too, because the younger you are, the less sense you're able to make of that type of experience yeah, right, so when you have a person who hurts you, for example, let's say that throughout your history it's a young girl Again, tim warned you guys about just kind of things that we'd be talking about. But if it's a young girl five, six years old and she's abused by her grandfather, and then she gets older she's seven now, and she's abused by an uncle, and then it's her dad or a stepdad or something like that, and that's her experience all the way until she turns 17, 18 years old. She's learned not to trust men. I can't develop a relationship with men, so why would I even seek out a relationship with a man? So the only alternative to that is we'll seek out another woman and seek out women who have the traits that you're looking for, that you think a man should have had or should have displayed to you, and you seek that out. Right. So it distorts their whole view of men and of relationships, because what other option do you have when every experience that you've had with men has been negative.

Speaker 1: 43:56

Same thing for young boys. If they were sexually abused by a father, stepfather, grandfather, uncle, whatever the case is, they start to question well, what did that mean? Their bodies respond, both for the girl and for the boy. Their bodies respond to sexual acts. So if they're being touched inappropriately, their body's responding to that and they don't know what to think of that.

Speaker 1: 44:17

Does that mean that I am gay because it's my grandpa or my uncle that touched me in this way? What does this mean about me? Right? And because the message in society is, if you feel attracted to another male, that automatically that means you're homosexual. Then they're going to start to believe that and they start reinforcing that belief in their mind. So as they get older, that's what they start to pursue. If men hurt me, then I'm going to choose either men that I'm stronger than, or I'm going to choose to be someone who's just like me, right, who's going to be able to, who went through the same experience, and so on. So sexual abuse does have a significant factor in it, but a lot of it is mostly done on the lack of a father. Okay, that's good, it's really sad, yeah, yeah, good point, though done on the lack of a father.

Speaker 2: 45:00

Okay, that's good it's really sad yeah, yeah, we're talking about good point, though, um. Okay. So let me ask you this if someone, if someone is um experiencing same-sex attraction, maybe they identify as gay, maybe they're living a gay lifestyle, they're in a gay relationship of some sort? Um, can that be reversed? Can they? Can they become heterosexual?

Speaker 1: 45:25

Yeah, I mean it's a good question. It's one that I could say I don't know, because what I'm saying by that is I've seen men who had the opposite thing, where they lived a gay lifestyle and then they left that lifestyle, married a woman and had a family and they're happy, right. So it was this idea of choosing a different lifestyle. A great example of this is Jackie O'Perry. I mean, I love her content, she's great. I think she got saved when she was like 18 or 19,. But she was saved from that homosexual lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 45:59

But one of the points that she makes that's really interesting I think this will be helpful for everyone to understand is that when someone leaves a homosexual lifestyle and they become a Christian, it's not about reorienting their sexual behavior. The way that she explains it is. Everyone was making so much emphasis on how I needed to be straight, when really what they should have been emphasizing I need to develop the fruits of the spirit, and in developing the fruits of the spirit, I learned to let go of that gay lifestyle, because one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. So, even though she would have that attraction, because she was developing the fruits of the Spirit, the spirit of self-control, she was able to move away from that and she wanted to follow Jesus. So she pursued that. Now she has husband and, I think, four kids and has a great ministry in just kind of helping educate people on what this looks like and how they can approach this aspect of homosexuality. You know she actually and I think I shared that with you they did an episode on the very same topic that we did her and her husband about should they attend a gay wedding?

Speaker 1: 47:03

Oh, interesting, she landed where we did and her husband. He took the approach of an evangelist in saying that if I go there, I'm going to be very clear to the person who invites me why I'm there and if there's opportunity, I'm going to be preaching the gospel to people. And what Jackie was saying, she was saying I wouldn't be able to go into that. It would conflict too much with my past life and I would need to speak truth. I wouldn't feel comfortable being in that type of environment because I'm supporting something that God warned me against. Yeah, not to pursue that type of relationship.

Speaker 2: 47:34

Well, she's right and he's wrong, because we agree with her.

Speaker 1: 47:38

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 47:39

Yeah, just in response to that, I think. Now I don't know her husband, so I'm just shooting from the cuff here Jackie Hill Perry's husband. Please don't hate me if you hear this one day. I think that sounds very idealistic. What he's saying about I'm going to go to that wedding and preach the gospel I just think that sounds very idealistic.

Speaker 1: 47:59

Yeah, because the people who are going to be there are most likely not going to have the same beliefs, right, and that's kind of the point that jackie jackie was and do you go to?

Speaker 2: 48:09

do you go to a wedding to like cause trouble exactly, exactly, yeah that was a whole john the baptist showing up to your wedding, you know? Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 48:20

You know, and she said that too. You know she was saying you know, from our perspective, she was um. She said they're not gonna. They know where I stand on this issue. Yeah, why would they invite me? Yeah and if they invite me, it's. It's kind of one of those things of okay, I'm gonna have to compromise my beliefs because to go to this wedding and you know I wouldn't be able to. So I was happy to hear that when I when to that episode. But that was a good example.

Speaker 2: 48:45

Another. Just a quick success story I would give. There's a guy named Sam Albury. He worked for Ravi Zacharias Ministries when that existed back in the day. I don't know where he is now, but he is a formerly. Is he an atheist?

Speaker 1: 49:02

No, no, he's a Christian, no no, he's Christian.

Speaker 2: 49:04

He no, no, he's christian. Um, he was uh formerly gay and then he came out. Okay, I I think he's uh single, um, you know, I think he's chosen singleness, so he's a different example jackie hill perry's married has kids. Uh, ros has um. At least the last time I I knew he um. Yeah, he's a chosen to be a single guy. He's british, so he's over in england somewhere um yeah another, another example of someone who's come out of that lifestyle yeah, you're not.

Speaker 1: 49:38

You know, from a, from the perspective of psychology, it's not determined that this is the way that you have to be for the rest of your life. Which is the argument that people who are born gay, or say that they're born gay, make is that I can never change this. You can't, because what we're referring to is the behavior of the sexual activity.

Speaker 2: 49:55

Yeah, I think we'll get into that in episode three about how do church people can think about this as these different kind of arguments. How do you respond to them, like this biological determinism argument, some other things. So, yeah, that's a good primer for the third episode coming up. All right, let me, let me ask you this as we, as we wrap up this episode it's been good, um, what cultural challenge? So you're, you're a counselor, okay, what cultural challenges do christian mental health workers face? Psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors like yourself what do they face Challenges in dealing with this issue?

Speaker 1: 50:45

homosexuals, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Now we've communicated or there are a lot of Christians who have communicated very wrongly, have communicated it with this anger and hate. I think that's shifted though in the last couple of years, where there's the tone of addressing the aspect of homosexuality with grace and truth and we do care about homosexuals and we see the damage that it can do to their lives and to other people's lives and to the culture in general. You know the primary family unit. So I think it's fighting that narrative of all the people who maybe have created this idea that we hate homosexuals. We have to fight against that. So how do you do that? It's the way that we relate to them.

Speaker 1: 51:28

I've had a good handful of gay clients. Every single one of them has said that it's been the best experience with a counselor Not to say that about me, but the work that the Lord is doing because of how I approached it differently. I listened to them, I connected with them, I kind of journeyed along with them. Some of them weren't wanting it, so it was journeying with them in that way. Some of them were still struggling with it and some of them I think like one or two were still in it and wanted to continue in it, so I was just hearing them out challenging some thoughts, and once they had to face themselves, that's where they stayed stuck. So that's kind of where it's been as it relates with those clients that I'm remembering.

Speaker 1: 52:12

But the biggest challenge is going to be that facing the narrative of what do Christians actually think about homosexuality. So we believe that it's a sin. We believe that the Bible condemns it right. We believe that it doesn't do good for the family unit, it destroys the family unit. So those are things that we believe, but along with that, we also believe that we can show care and concern and be, with people who are wrestling with it.

Speaker 1: 52:44

We're not going to encourage it, but we can be there with you as you wrestle with it, because it does come with its own challenges.

Speaker 2: 52:51

Are there any legal problems and legal challenges?

Speaker 1: 52:54

Yeah, I mean the APA, ACA, the Code of Ethics. I mean they have a lot of things that they're going to start to implement, where what happens if you have a gay couple who comes to me for couples counseling and they want to talk specifically about how to have better sex, like I can't do that, right, yeah, so the argument is going to be OK. Well, the the ethical thing to do is to refer them to someone who can't help them with that, you know. But then we have to start asking ourselves the question of are people going to come to us in order to get us canceled or to get us our license removed for that very purpose? Because why would you go to a christian counselor to help you with something that they disagree with?

Speaker 2: 53:34

that doesn't make sense, it's the whole same strategy of baking the cake, exactly what I was going to refer to yeah, so it's the same thing.

Speaker 1: 53:39

Yeah, um, so those are some of the legal challenges, because that's going to continue to change. But we can provide. I can counsel someone who is experiencing or going through a stage and experiencing depression, and they're homosexual. I can work with the depression right. I wouldn't push them away or send them somewhere else because they're homosexual. I would deal with the depression, with their presenting concern. But when it's something that's such a direct conflict with your values as a person because every counselor has values you're able to refer them. The best thing to do for them is to refer them to someone who is capable and able to do that for them. So some ethical, some moral stuff. And then the narrative is a big one too.

Speaker 2: 54:20

All right, narrative is a big one too.

Speaker 1: 54:25

All right, well, this is a good episode. Thanks man. Yeah, good interview it was. It was different, it was weird, but yeah, you kept me in check, so it was good.

Speaker 2: 54:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna keep you in check, man, keep you in check. Um, yeah, being, you know, being trained in philosophy, it's I. I credit a lot of my, it's just my, my own ability to think critically was ingrained in me by my teachers. You know philosophy and theology, but especially philosophy. You go through philosophy classes, especially, in particular, apologetics classes. Yeah, they really, really train you and how to think through uh issues and then how to parse, parse questions and things like that.

Speaker 1: 55:01

So was there something that was either unclear or just another question that came up for you throughout our interview? I know these were beforehand.

Speaker 2: 55:08

No, I can't think of anything, if you know, I think that's a good question for audience members. Let's say, we left something on the table here, uh, just on this episode alone, like with being born gay. Maybe there's research studies that, um, you want us to address or something like that that might be. You know, know that could that could spin into a lot of different episodes, is like dealing with specific studies or or anything like that. You know, there's questions related to are people born gay that we could address in future episodes. Let us know and we'll be happy to address that. Now, you know, our next episode in this series is what does the Bible say about this? So, if you're, if you're, if you're going to, if you're going to give us criticism like, well, you guys didn't talk about the Bible.

Speaker 2: 55:52

It's like we got that plan. It's already in the chamber. Man, it's loaded. Okay, there's so many yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:58

So our next episode. So don't stop here, go on to the next episode when it comes out, uh, and that's uh, what does the bible say about homosexuality? And so, sam, you're gonna interview me, yeah, and that one we're gonna go, we're gonna go deep I know I have some.

Speaker 1: 56:12

Follow your notes, buckle up, we're ready we'll be ready, all right, guys. Thanks for listening.