What’s Wrong with the World

Personally I think he should remember that he is called to be chaste, go frequently to confession and receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, keep away from the company of those who would lead him into sin and explore the possibility of marrying a women if he feels so inclined.

The orthodox socially conservative answer is, of course, for him to be celibate his entire life. (Why is it that the topic of discussion is almost always a him?)

But you've put your finger on the fact that in this area, unlike most aspects of sexual morality, we have made factual discoveries in the last century that might (I emphasize, might!) warrant some rethinking of the traditional position. Didn't Keynes have something to say about changing facts? And I suppose social conservatives _have_ changed their minds, as not many of them support a return to the criminalization of homosexual relations. Even Enoch Powell voted for the Sexual Offences Act, after all.

Hmmm. Someone is feeling controversial today. I'll assist you with a highly speculative evolutionary viewpoint.

Wiki summary of Sperm Wars by Robin Baker:
Regarding sexual orientation, he states that true homosexuals are rare; that only 6% of the male population engages in any sort of homosexual behavior in their lifetime, and that 80% of those also have sex with women, so he focuses on bisexuality. "It seems most likely that exclusive homosexuality is a genetic by-product of the reproductively advantageous characteristic of bisexuality. If so, homosexual behaviour joins the ranks of a number of other human characteristics that are advantageous when a person has inherited a few of the relevant genes, but disadvantageous if they have inherited more."

Bisexuality in both men and women is explained as an adaptive trait because it provides earlier opportunities to gain sexual experience, and more opportunities to practice skills such as infidelity and interacting with people of different personalities. Experience gained with a member of the same sex of a particular character type can help the bisexual to get the most out of a relationship with a member of the opposite sex of a similar character type. Although studies show that by the age of 40 years bisexuals have fewer children than heterosexuals, he maintains that at low levels in the population bisexuality is still an evolutionary advantage since the children are typically conceived earlier in life; by age 20 years bisexuals have four times the reproductive success of heterosexuals, and by age 25 twice the success. Homophobia is then explained as a natural response to the threat of this reproductive advantage (despite the fact that true homosexuals are not in competition for females), as well as "the bisexual's role in the spread of disease".

Marry a woman he'll make miserable, because he can never really love her, in the normal way?

Considering the heterosexual divorce rate, he would have a lot of company in making a woman miserable.

"Marry a woman..."—well, he might or might not make her miserable. If she knows what she's getting into, such relationships can work, although it's a lot of work on both sides. I've seen it happen. But certainly a same-sex-attracted guy might reasonably figure that the odds aren't worth the potential cost, and choose not to go there.

"Die and be damned" isn't a serious option. I don't believe you intended it as such. Obviously, same-sex-attracted men *do* die like everyone else; whether or not they're damned isn't up to us. I, at least, can't find anything in either Scripture or Tradition that says anybody's damned for their temptations. What we do with our temptations is another matter; and even there, grace is pretty clearly bigger than we can imagine.

"Or what?" Wait—what happened to staying single? People do that all the time, for lots of reasons—not all of them self-chosen—and have full lives. The idea that you can't have a full life without being sexually active is a lie told us by our culture. (It's not a particularly *new* lie—Scripture refutes it already in Isaiah, so it must have been around then—but it's still a lie.) It's a life of constant struggle against sexual temptation (at least until age dulls the edge of it), but that seems to be pretty much the common lot of the post-pubescent.

I don't know that that's necessarily what you were looking to hear, of course.

Peace,
--Peter

How about this:

I am a conservative who is against homosexual behavior (I of course am not against the people as a whole) because engaging in homosexual relations and the mockey that is homosexual marriage goes against the natural law that can be discovered by reason and was instituted by God.

I do NOT think homosexuals choose their attraction to men, although I'm not sure that it's as simple as being "born that way"-although I DO think that point is basically irrelevant. The REAL point is that, in most cases, homosexual people do not choose to be attracted to those of the same sex. I consider this a fairly uncontroversial, if occasionally challenged, position.

HOWEVER, I DO think homosexual intercourse and marriage is sinful, for reasons I stated above (e.g., its contradiction with natural law).

So what is a homosexual to do if it is sinful for them to marry the person they are sexually attracted to or have intercourse with them?

They are to do the same thing that people who are sexually attracted to children are called to do or that people who are sexually attracted to close family members are called to do or that people who are sexually attracted to a man/woman that is not their spouse is called to-stay celibate (or, in the last case, stay faithful to their wife despite the difficulties this may cause them emotionally).

I mean, really. Yes, it's a cross to bear. But it's not like ONLY homosexual men have crosses. This is just one particular cross they have. Unmarried heterosexuals cannot fornicate or masturbate morally, and married people can't commit adultery morally. Is that "unfair"? Should we feel especially sorry for them?

Of course we should try and sympathize-but those are all still immoral things to do! So it is with homosexual "marriage" and homosexual intercourse.

So, why do I oppose homosexual marriage and homosexual intercourse?

Because it is morally wrong. Period.

Frankly, everything else is irrelevant.

And what should a homosexual man do with himself?

Take up his cross and offer up his sufferings to God and to others.

My two cents.

Orson Scott Card wrote a novel (well, a series) in which a homosexual man and a heterosexual woman get married, knowing full well what each other were. They marry for social reasons only, and expect to live celibate within the marriage, though they are friends in the platonic sense. Later, the woman has (normal, biological and emotional) cause to regret her childless state, enhanced by social pressures. The man decides that out of true friendship, he can at least make the effort to grit his teeth and TRY to impregnate her, even though he finds it repugnant. He also sees a kind of good in having children, even though he had always assumed this good was out of his realm of options. So they make the attempt.

Steve, is this later choice by the guy completely outlandish as a human way of acting?

Just a Guy is right: there is nothing impossible about a man having feelings that must not be accommodated because to act on them is a sin, as we know in people who are attracted to kids. His FIRST option is to sin or remain celibate. We also know that SOME men can become changed, as COURAGE proves. We don't know how many of them, perhaps just a few and perhaps more than a few. That represents another, longer-range option.

Jack, when I try to think myself into the perspective of an orthodox Catholic, I can understand, and even sympathize, with what you say, until I come to this: "explore the possibility of marrying a women if he feels so inclined" - at which point I can only cry: *no, no, no!*

No woman deserves to have her life ruined like that.

No woman deserves to have her life ruined like that.

How do you know this will ruin the woman's life again? What if this is a woman who is perfectly happy living with a man she has a platonic friendship with because he goes out of his way to support her?

It's not like there haven't been successful celibate marriages before. There have been PLENTY.

Step2: interesting theory, but I'm not buying it. Every "bi-sexual" I've ever known was simply a homosexual who gave in to social pressure, sometimes up to the point of marrying a woman and fathering her children. I think that true bi-sexuals are extremely rare.

Peter Brown: "a same-sex-attracted guy might reasonably figure that the odds aren't worth the potential cost, and choose not to go there..."

With respect, I think it's the *woman* in such relationships who ought to figure that the odds aren't worth the potential cost.

Tony: as it happens, I'm somewhat uncomfortably close to just such a situation as you describe: gay father, straight mother, both supposedly knowing what they were getting into, two children...and a lot of suffering, regrets, and cries for help.

I don't think it's a good idea to encourage that sort of thing.

Just a Guy: I think that the notion of a "successful celibate marriage" is very nearly a contradiction in terms. Only by courtesy can a celibate relationship be considered a "marriage."

I think that the notion of a "successful celibate marriage" is very nearly a contradiction in terms. Only by courtesy can a celibate relationship be considered a "marriage."

Then I am afraid that our definitions of marriage are totally and 100% incompatible.

Thus, the irreconcilable differences in viewpoint.

Steve, I can easily tell you what to do about your situation and that of others, but I'm afraid hardly anyone in your shoes will do it. It requires a faith so strong and determinedly in love with God, that you're willing to be murdered over and over again; that is, dying to self has to be repeated and repeated until God gets to up to Zero (being a normal human in God's eyes) on the Christ-meter.

As humans, we start out in the negative with, scars, defense mechanisms, inclinations to selfishness, willingness to be cruel, and simply wounded no matter how well raised we may have been. It's impossible to heal ourselves from ourselves and all our internalized grief, rage, pain, etc.

It takes prayer and blind faith. Blind because you don't know where it will lead or what it will accomplish. It takes a willingness to both receive grace, and see yourself as you are. It takes years, maybe a decade if you're a thoroughbred, maybe more than a lifetime if you're a turtle.

Kierkagaard can give you some idea of how hard it is, along with St. John of the Cross among others. The way of the cross is through the hell of yourself. There's no shortcut and no way out but through. But it has its rewards. The insights and wisdom gained are worth it all.

What I usually see is that people will impatiently demand that God fix them. They have a timetable. They'll only wait so long. But God respond well to demands. In fact, there are entire constellations of other things that need fixing or healing first before He'll even begin to work on your sexuality; or maybe He'll grant the gift of celibacy if that's what's needed right away.

Prayer is the royal road to heaven.

That's my two cents worth. It can start with a miracle, but then it's all process. I was a pretty effed up man not so long ago. Some might think I still am, but I know the difference.

Steve

I think you are (correct me if I am wrong) forgetting that romantic love is not a requisite for the Sacrament of Matrimony to be valid, if it were half of the Royal Marriages made for political reasons would be invalid. Sure it is a good thing if both parties have a romantic attatchment but it is not strictly speaking absolutely necessary, it might therefore be a good idea for two Catholics (man and women) who suffer from this cross yet are determined to be chaste to marry each other whilst living celibatly, given the fact that they are living moral lives it would I guess be licit for them to adopt children so far as they intend to raise them with the mind of the Church (please anyone correct me if am wrong in this respect).

Steve basically sets up a strawman about what social conservatives believe then declares them to know nothing about homosexuality. I don't know what kind of social conservative sites he trolls but I've never heard such nonsense. Is Steve some sort of token liberal on this site? As for his argument, it boils down to 'you won't let me have sex in peace!'. Actually, you can. Not one social conservative has ever prevented gays from having sex. You want us to approve and that's why you're posting on this topic. We can't give you the answer you want.

Jack, when I try to think myself into the perspective of an orthodox Catholic, I can understand, and even sympathize, with what you say,

Let's just say that if I had a beloved sister, I would advise her never to marry a man with same-sex attraction problems. So, Steve, if you can "think yourself into" the perspective of a person who accepts traditional sexual morality, including a Protestant, and sympathize with Jack's prescriptions of being chaste for life, staying away from those who would lead one into sin, and seeking grace from God, but not the one about marrying a woman, then there you have it. What's the beef? (And you must know that your talk about social conservatives who don't realize that homosexuals have same-sex attraction is not what social conservatives think. It's very odd that you should even bring up such a strange caricature.)

There's certainly nothing _in_ social conservatism or Christianity that involves urging people with same-sex attraction problems to try to marry members of the opposite sex. Indeed, even fully heterosexual people sometimes stay single. We used to call them "bachelors," and they were among the more interesting and colorful characters of American society. Sometimes I think it's a shame that never-married, chaste, heterosexual bachelors seem to have disappeared from the scene.

The thing about social conservatives that makes most homosexual activists, and even some non-activists, angry, is that social conservatives really believe that same-sex attraction isn't just another "orientation," that it is an unfortunate and unnatural state that some people _suffer_ from, and that people who do so suffer are called to be chaste, period. Not to act on their desires, and certainly not to celebrate or ask others to normalize them.

As for not being able to turn around in your own corner of the web without this subject coming up, I'm a little baffled. Subjects ebb and flow. More recently we've been talking about other subjects. Let's see, of the last _twelve_ entries, from 9/11, I count:

--One 9/11 memorial entry
--One entry on infanticide in Canada
--One entry on finance in Europe
--Two entries on leaving your spouse with Alzheimer's (I'm doing that by topic, not in chronological order), one by Jeff Culbreath and one by me.
--Two music entries
--One entry on statistics concerning general teen sexual activity (not specifically homosexual or heterosexual)
--One entry on organ donation
--One entry on Muslim cab drivers and inappropriate ads on cabs
--One entry on wife murder
--One entry on dual-track civil marriage, with no mention of homosexuality in the main entry, the emphasis being on permanence along Catholic lines.

I could keep going, too. So far I'm back to August 27, and the only entry among all of those I've found that is about homosexuality in any way, shape, or form, is mine from August 30 about the totalitarian rules in Illinois trying to force Catholic adoption agencies to place children for adoption with homosexual couples. This is a topic that a libertarian should sympathize with, I might add, and it is usually the type of post I write related to this topic. Heaven knows there are plenty of such incidents, and more and more all the time. I was just thinking of writing another related to some incidents in England, where things are even crazier than in America. As you yourself have noted, Steve, the balance of power has shifted radically.

Homosexuality is brought up a lot in the comment sections though. Not that it bothers me personally.

So are a lot of things brought up in the comments section. Recently divorce has been a biggie, even taking some posts off-topic into the entire issue of Catholic annulments.

I suggest not being touchy. (Not that you are, Monkey Boy.)

A homosexual is to do what anyone else is to do, live his sex life in private. The "Or What" presumes an inherent condition of angst, a general malaise pertaining to the identity of the person. As such it is as much prejudicial as any of the lower order insults directed at homosexual men. My own prejudice is that they are as much capable of happiness and adjustment as any other group in our identity ridden world, and also unhappiness. That's humanity for you.

Perhaps it is becoming clearer that inviting an unrepentant pervert to write for a weblog devoted to defending Christendom wasn't such a good idea.

an unrepentant pervert

How do you know this about him?

I'm not sure why you're asking the questions you do, Steve. If you have no vision of what constitutes a virtuous life, you'll be asking them forever.

And if you think social conservatives are stupid, you might try asking the moral anarchists, also known as liberals. As they will be the first to tell you, they know almost everything.

Btw, the reason social conservatives bring the subject up at all is that what we call the 'homosexual agenda' seems to constitute a political force out of all proportion to the actual numbers of homosexuals in society.

Have the editors noticed a recent upturn in the number of first-time posters? They see, to wander in and make comments without spending some time reading the site and getting a feel for it. Ah, for the good old days when Netiquette reigned.

The Chicken

Should be:

They seem to wander in...

live his sex life in private.

The problem, Johnt, is that one's so-called "private" sex life doesn't stay private, and that's because sex was designed by God as a central role in man's SOCIAL nature. Sex leads to kids, and society has a necessary interest in your kids.

Indeed, it used to be taught that a married couple had, in general, a positive social obligation to extend the race if possible.

I don't think it's a good idea to encourage that sort of thing.

Steve, I don't either. I think that homosexual men ought to be planning to live their lives without having sex, just like a lot of other people are obliged to do: boys who are in love but are too young to marry; men who want to marry but have not found a woman who is suitable who says yes and are uncertain of ever finding one; men who are called to the priesthood; men who are paralyzed from the waist down and cannot consummate marriage, and so on. Each one of these may have desires that he cannot licitly find an outlet for. Each one of these is called to offer up this suffering for Christ.

As for not being able to turn around in your own corner of the web without this subject coming up, I'm a little baffled. Subjects ebb and flow. More recently we've been talking about other subjects. Let's see, of the last _twelve_ entries, from 9/11, I count...

Just for fun, let's pretend that there IS alot of conservative commentary on homosexuality. I'd say someone needs to show that it is disproportionate to the societal onslaught to normalize it. To wit: If there is ever a Thieves' Pride Parade and legal rulings upholding someone's alternative property-rights orientation, expect more conservative commentary on the wrongness of stealing.

Not the sort of post that I'd expect to bump into on W4; but interesting. I can't respond as a "social conservative" as I'm not sure what that entails across the pond. As an Conservative Evangelical Christian I'd offer a few thoughts in no particular order.
1) Identifying ourselves by our sexual preferences is not an option for a Christian. We are in, or out, of Christ. Period.
2) I'm not sure that anecdotal evidence, or reasoning from personal experience, is helpful. Simply put, there are personal stories that tell a different tale. No one narrative will describe every homosexual's history.
3)George Michael famously encountered hostility from the gay community when he explained the formation of his sexual identity to the wider British public. He had sexual relationships with men and women. He then decided that he had a strong preference for men (although relationships with women had been enjoyable.) This story is not uncommon. But it is not the narrative that gay rights activists wish to present to the wider public. Perhaps Social Liberals are not that different than Social Conservatives - there is only one narrative that they want the public to hear.
4) Of course there are many individuals who have only ever felt same-sex attractions; they have never, and most will never, feel attracted to members of the opposite sex. Conservative Christians tend to think that all homosexuals share Michael's story; and that's wrong. But we can't pretend that many "homosexuals" don't feel some level of attraction to the opposite sex either - or that they have felt that attraction in the past.
5) A culture that is not only tolerant of homosexual relationships, but which promotes a gay community, will make life difficult for those Christians with same-sex desires. Should they marry? It depends. If the partner knows the deal, and knows that they will never be the object of their spouse's sexual desire, perhaps. But marriage should never be promoted as a solution.
6) Christian faithfulness demands martyrdom in some contexts. It always demands a cross. The loss of romance and recreational sex is a heavy price, especially in a consumer culture. The cost of becoming a Christian comes sharply into focus in such sitautions.
7) OK, what about my attitude to homosexuals who have no interest in becoming a Christian? I certainly don't want them to die. And I don't want them to be forced into any relationship. I would like to reserve the right to believe in a different sexual ethic; and I would like to reserve the right to preach that ethic. Beyond that, minding our own business would be an option. Being civil; showing manners. Not expecting everyone to approve of what we believe. That sort of thing.

Graham Veale

A few more thoughts -

Ai) Actually, there are heterosexual Christians who will never marry, or have sexual intercourse, because of their faith. Women, famously, outnumber men in evangelical (and other Christian) Churches. There is a traditional "ban" on marrying outside the faith. And I know many single Christians who suffer as a result.
Aii) I also know individuals who have been counselled not to have children for medical reasons. If these people changed their sexual ethic they would at least have the opportunity of casual sexual encounters. And singles could change their theology of marriage.
This is not a sacrifice that homosexuals make alone. Not every single Christian is single by choice. The majority are single against their wishes.
B) I am fortunate to have a wife who is attractive, who is my best friend and who is a loving mother to two children (and who, for reasons beyond my ken, still finds me attractive). My family makes me happier than any other thing I know. So I do ask - could I have lived out a single life? And the answer is "I don't know. I hope so." I am not oblivious to the pain of the single Christian; but sometimes I wonder if Church services and Christian social networks are designed to exacerbate their struggle.

GV

The report"Sexual Behaviour in Britain", published in 1994, surveyed 20,000 randomly selected Britons. The report concluded that 6.1 % of men and 3.4% of women had had any homosexual experience at any stage. 90.3% of that 6.1% of men, who had had an homosexual experience, had also had a female sexual partner. This would leave 0.6% of men being exclusively homosexual. Less than 1% of men and less than 0.25% of women described their sexual experience as either mostly or exclusively homosexual.

From what I gather, this is in keeping with findings in the US, Canada and Europe (although slightly conservative). I'm sure that I can dig the research up. Whatever the anecdotal evidence, or personal stories, no matter "how it seems to you" the scientific evidence is that many, many homosexuals have had heterosexual experiences. By which I mean, sex. By which I mean, they are capable of having heterosexual relationships. They might have a strong preference for same-sex partners. But, unless you simply want to give words your own meaning, bi-sexuality seems to be rather more than a myth.

Still, thought provoking article.
GV

Aha! Like Columbo I'm back with "just one more thing"

I think a celibate marriage is a contradiction in terms; you cannot marry for the purpose of being celibate

That does not rule out marriages in which the couple hopes to consummate the marriage, but is unable to.

GV

explore the possibility of marrying a women if he feels so inclined

As this will not be the first thread sidetracked into a discussion of annulments, may I ask for opinions as to whether a woman married to a man who is not attracted to women would qualify for an annulment (assuming the marriage was consummated)? Or, for Protestants, how about a divorce? Would the answer depend on whether she knew what she was getting into or not?

I don't think a divorce automatically, depending on his behavior (e.g., did he remain faithful? did he become addicted to pornography? etc.). From a Catholic perspective, it might be argued that if he deceived her about his desires, this made the marriage null because he entered it in a deceptive manner and hence didn't mean his vows sincerely or something of that kind.

Molly, a normal marriage includes a right of the spouse to ask the other for sex and, within reason, receive it. If the homosexual explicitly did not intend this as a permanent feature of the marriage, then possibly he did not actually consent to marriage properly so called, and an annulment may be possible. But it wouldn't be automatic.

In exceptional cases, the Church has very rarely permitted 2 to enter into something called a "josephite" marriage, with the explicit intention of remaining celibate. (In my humble opinion this falls short of true marriage in some fashion, and is called marriage only by extension of the term.) However, it is my (very rudimentary) understanding that even with this, the spouses are cautioned that if the one spouse no longer wishes to remain celibate, they have that right and the other must accommodate.

I don't see how merely being "not attracted" to your spouse, or to women in general, would be a basis for an annulment: if you demonstrably CAN consummate the marriage, such a non-attraction cannot preclude your intention from being a valid marital intention.

Bonald: anytime my colleagues here ask me to go, I'll go.

But so long as they don't ask me to go, I'll feel free to say what I think. Thank you very much.

I am Catholic. I belive that the Blessed Mother was ever-Virgin and married to her husband Joseph. So I guess Catholics and other Christian groups have different definitions of marriage? (Actually, that's a dumb question, huh? Obviously we do.)

Honestly I don't think you will find any Catholic who would DARE denigrate the marriage of Joseph and Mary, unless they were doing it specifically to spit in the face of Church teaching on it.

And I don't believe either Joseph or Mary was deceived at any time about Mary's permanent virginal status (and as a result, Joseph's). Marriage has TWO main purposes-to create life AND to help one's spouse to grow in holiness and engage in selfless love and self-sacrifice to another human being, not to mention provide a loving and stable support system for any children the couple might have (even those who are married and celibate can adopt).

That said, I come from a Catholic view-but hey, as I acknowledged, I suppose my views and those of Mr. Burton's (and apparently others on this thread as well) are just incompatible. Hence our rather extreme differences in viewing this subject.

Bill Luse: I'm currently teaching a couple of sections of Ethical Theory at the local Jesuit University. So, being the dutiful guy that I am, I'm pretty thoroughly boned-up on the going ethical theories, from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to the Stoics & the Epicureans & the neo-Platonists & Augustine & Aquinas, followed by Hume & Kant & Marx & Nietzsche & the Darwinists...

So I'm on familiar terms with all too many visions of what constitutes a virtuous life.

"...what we call the 'homosexual agenda' seems to constitute a political force out of all proportion to the actual numbers of homosexuals in society."

Yes, I think that's true. In some important areas of public policy, homosexuals seem to be almost as weirdly over-represented as jews.

Regarding divorce, I thought the so-called "Matthean Exception" permitted husbands to divorce wives (for fornication) without commiting adultery but did not give this same liberty to wives.

I guess I agree with Just a Guy. Homos have the same options that other deviants like pedophiles and traditional Christians have: Do what you want and try to keep it quiet or act like you're normal. The bad thing about being on the margin is that you are on the margin, and society just ain't set up for you like it is for the normals.

It's true that homos can't independently will themselves to be straight, but you can count on one hand the number of attributes about yourself that you can independently will differently. I'm not sure there are any...it seems to be a mystery how or why anyone changes at all.

I'm not sure why homos want marriage. Marriage is arguably rather out of date for our society's sexual ethic. People get starry-eyed about the tax break and the benefits, but marriage confers a number of legal obligations that most people, were they to consider the matter honestly, would decide they want no part of. Then again, the numbers of gay marriages in those locales that have instituted it are extremely tiny even relative to the tiny amount of potential gay marriages. So I guess it's all about the symbolism.

Tony, I do feel some discomfort in your reference to the "so called" private. As well your assurance that Christianity should be the ruling factor, as you cite it's teaching. Granted that privacy has had questionable permutations over recent decades, but if the remains are to be preserved we can make our own judgements while abstaining from dicta and it's possible applications. My only point was to question what I regarded as a too general description of homosexuals, inaccurate I felt in it's generality. Christianity is our guide, but for us, civil law and mores having moved the proverbial goalposts. Closed doors are closed for a purpose, I must recognize this, and God will judge as He wills.

Whoa, there.

I wish to offer two (related) objections to the assumptions underlying this piece.

STATS

The first is this: Are your stats right? Are you certain that the AVERAGE homosexual guy has only ever experienced sexual attraction to other guys?

I ask, because somewhere on this darned Internet thingy in the last three months I saw some kind of published study stating that, of the 2-3% of the population who self-identify as LGBTQ or XYZPDQ or WYSIWYG or whatever the current acronym is, a little more than half have had consensual sexual relations with a person of the opposite gender.

The gist being that most gays are, to some degree, "bi."

Now of course everyone knows you can't trust every haphazard thing you read on the Internet, and I willingly stipulate the shaky provenance of this information because I now can't remember where it was and a quick Google search is coming up dry.

But I remember thinking, when I originally read it that it made sense: It's hard to believe -- evolutionary pressures being what they are, and biology being the messy kind of thing it is -- that human sexuality would function like a digital bit-switch: Either gay or straight, on or off, zero or one. There's a pretty broad spectrum, and it stands to reason that within that spectrum one won't usually find the majorities distributed towards the extreme ends. In a natural population, a bell-curve distribution is normal.

That evolutionary pressures give us reason to expect the bulk of the distribution to be shifted artificially towards "hetero" doesn't change the overall shape of the curve; we should expect a big bulk piled up near or at "hetero," but there's every reason to expect that there should be fewer people with unalterably homosexual tendencies than people with a slight mix-in of heterosexual preferences; and fewer with a slight mix-in than there are with a more substantial mix-in, and so on.

And this moves us to my second objection:

THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN SEXUALITY

And, look, we know -- we KNOW -- that human sexuality is highly habituated, and that orgasms tend to addict one to a particular way of getting orgasms, and that certain expressions of human sexuality are clearly inculcated through experience because they could not possibly, as a matter of history, have been evolved as biological tendencies. Forget homosexuality for a moment and focus on various fetishes: Latex and balloons and nylon and those bizarre things they only seem to think up in Japan. There are people who can only get turned on if their partner wears or does XYZ, where XYZ involves some material or device which didn't exist until the 20th century. Is that a "biologically predetermined" preference?

We also know that hormonal balance (or imbalance) at different points during gestation and puberty, can impact the wiring of the brain (and body) toward a male or female pattern. Look at the examples of undescended testicles and ambiguous genitalia: Suddenly puberty comes on and Juanita turns out to be Juan. Pregnant women under stress (in war zones, for example) apparently have a slightly higher tendency to produce hyperagressive male children and "butch" female children. Hormone treatments can affect "brain gender" during development. (Have we experienced a slight uptick in the incidence of gender identity disorders because of women being on the pill? Would the pharmaceutical manufacturers, or our very politically correct government regulatory bodies, even tell us if that was happening, if they knew it?)

I bring these factors up in order to say: Human sexuality is very complicated and flexible and adaptable and murky, and this binary "gay/straight" notion is suspiciously simplistic -- suspiciously nonhuman -- in character. The reality is surely more complex.

I suspect that a hundred years hence, when the situation is less politically fraught, we'll have studies saying something roughly like the following: "Of all American men, where the term 'gay' indicates the ability to get turned on by sexual activity with another man, 50% are 10% gay, 25% are 20% gay, 12% are 30% gay, 6% are 40% gay, 3% are 50% gay, and so on...but it is mostly only those who're more than half gay are ever willing to voluntarily [engage in homosexual acts--edited, LM], and thereby become habituated to doing so."

-- R.C.

LM (Lydia, I guess?):

I notice that you edited part of my previous note, may I respecfully ask that you clarify exactly why?

I was not using any crude colloquialisms. If I recall my words correctly, they were rather clinical, if also rather specific. Indeed the terms I used were chosen to convey the nature of the act as essentially onanistic rather than marital/procreative.

In asking why you edited the note, I intend no challenge or accusation or indeed complaint. I would simply like to know: Was it because you felt my terms were too graphic for this site? Or because you disagree with my characterization of homosexual acts as essentially onanistic? Or for some other reason?

R.C.: would it really surprise you to learn that lots of same-sex oriented men have managed to do the deed with a woman, without ever experiencing a moment's attraction to her?

You *are* aware of the role played by social pressure, here, aren't you?

I can't make much sense of your following remarks.

Was it because you felt my terms were too graphic for this site?

Yup. We occasionally have people reading who might (surprising as this might sound) learn some things they might not want to know from threads like this. Hence, I try to watch the threads. We have a somewhat elastic definition of "family friendly" (one which I know some readers would think _too_ elastic), and it's a judgment call as to when something is over the line. I'm not saying you did something objectively wrong, R.C. Just a little too descriptive.

In reply to Lydia:

Got it. Thanks for the clarification. It reminds me of something Bill Buckley wrote, eulogizing practical philosopher and humanist Sidney Hook, relating how Hook asked in all innocence "what do homosexuals do?" I suppose there are still those, even today, who do not know; but far more who perhaps don't want to be viscerally reminded.

In reply to Steve Burton:

re: "...would it really surprise you to learn that lots of same-sex oriented men have managed to do the deed with a woman, without ever experiencing a moment's attraction to her?"

No.

re: "I can't make much sense of your following remarks."

Hmm. I admit that they are detailed and sometimes speculative. Do you have a specific question?

Steve, I wasn't questioning your knowledge OF various versions of the virtuous life. But if you do not possess one you do not have one. It's sort of like knowing the theology of a faith in depth without subscribing to any of it. Even then I don't claim with certainty that you don't subscribe to some version. I was just following where your questions seem to lead.

It must be admitted that in our society, it is difficult for a person to remain chaste if chastity requires continence (abstention from sexual activity). Yet this is morally obligatory for an awful lot of people; in fact, depending on the numbers of the married, our success in extending the lives of the elderly, the length of schooling our society prescribes prior to eligibility for marriage, and the state of the economy, it may constitute as much as half the human race at any given time.

Since, in our society, sex is advertised as the ultimate entertainment, those who are in a position of needing to abstain feel rather like their faces are "always being rubbed in it." This is certainly true for the person with homosexual urges who feels that his heterosexual leanings are insufficient to make a marriage practicable; it is also true for the married man whose wife would be endangered by a pregnancy, or who is traveling away from his spouse or serving in the armed forces, or those who are simply unmarried either because their vocation demands it (priest, bishop, religious) or circumstances haven't allowed them to locate a fit spouse.

Add to this the Christian prohibition on masturbation and it's all a bit hard to bear. One is inclined to accuse God of cruelty...but of course it isn't His fault. He didn't make us this way; we are fallen.

Unfallen Adam surely had, because of his (then) perfect communion with his Maker, control over his body to put the most well-trained Tibetan monk to shame; and he may either have had, or may have been gradually obtaining through his communion with his Father, such miraculous capabilities as the Second Adam, Jesus, demonstrated during His ministry. Adam, before the fall, was "impassible"; that is, incapable of coming to harm through the action of any other unless he gave consent. Was that because he could heal himself in the same fashion that Jesus could heal others? Some have wondered whether in unfallen nature tsunamis never inundated beaches and wild tigers never attacked humans; I wonder instead whether in unfallen nature humans could not simply heal themselves from any tiger attack, or levitate above it, or have a St. Francis-like friendship with any beast, or be whisked away by the Spirit a la Philip, or resurrect themselves if they so chose. Jesus walked on water; had humanity not fallen we might all have body surfed on tsunamis.

All that is speculative if not outright sensational. But with certainty we can say at least this: Unfallen man would simply experience sexual desire when he chose, for whom he chose, and to the degree he chose, and he would always choose rightly. God put man in authority over nature, including that part of the created order which is his own body. When man sinned his perfect communion with God was severed and perfect grace was shattered producing corruption. His body became susceptible to all kinds of problems, and became unruly, difficult to tame. It is not just human sexuality which became difficult to subject to one's will; parents feeling grumpy and impatient with their children, and people feeling quarrelsome with one another, started as well. But of course the sexual instinct (by the grace of God, for the preservation of the species) is powerful in proportion with its importance, and thus, one of the hardest things to tame when directed towards a wrongful object.

So it's not, as usual, God's fault, but ours, that we are in this state. How annoying! It's very much like the experience of writing a computer program; if the program crashes with an error message or fails to compile or produces the wrong output, it's never because the computer messed up. You always know the human is at fault.

So now what? Here we are, our sexual wiring is crossed-up in many kinds of ways; and we can't, like unfallen Adam, just casually will it to stop bothering us and behave rightly. It keeps nagging us with all kinds of perverse longings, like unscratchable itches. What to do about it?

Well, the usual: Pray a lot, and as soon as we are aware of a temptation, develop the habit of immediately redirecting our thoughts elsewhere rather than lingering over our disordered desires. We must take a businesslike and standoffish attitude towards those temptations to which we are particularly susceptible: Like a corrections officer set to guard Hannibal Lecter in his cell, we must not listen to what those temptations tell us, and we must keep out of reach of the bars. When we sin, we must immediately pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, confess our sin, and resolutely try not to do it again. When situations have the tendency to threaten us with opportunity to sin, we must flee those situations.

Some of us, frankly, ought to forgo having an internet-connected computer in our house....

And there is another temptation: When we are constantly tempted to sin in a particular way, we often get tired of resisting it. We get exhausted by the never-ending struggle, and start looking for an alternative approach. Wouldn't it be nice, we think, if the problem just "went away?" If it turned out that this wasn't an issue about which we're morally obligated to obey God, after all? If we could just do as we pleased in this area of our life, without all that constant warfare, that constant itch?

And, oh...that thought seems like a breath of air to a man who is suffocating. But it is a lie: Our lungs may be nearly bursting with holding our breath, but we must not breathe in that vapor; it is in reality a poison gas. We must resist the temptation to give up the fight and pretend that sin is not sin.

For that of course is one of our enemy's favorite tactics: "You know you can't defeat me, not about this, not in this area of all areas! Why not pick your battles? Surrender this territory to me, and save your strength, and opt instead to be environmentally conscious, or to show conspicuous charity to your neighbor, or to have enlightened political opinions. Everyone will think well of you for doing that."

No, no, a thousand times no. To claim that masturbation, or adultery, or copulation in vase indebito, or fornication, or remarriage after divorce from a genuine marriage, is not sinful? No! That is not, in the end, what it promises to be: A longed-for way out of warfare into relaxation. It is instead a way out of warfare into slavery. It is a choice to adopt the enemy's propaganda as one's own message, and then to parrot it to others. It is, in Orwell's nasty phrase, to learn to "love Big Brother." It is Quisling, it is Vichy.

Our attitude must instead be Churchillian. To all the baptized, whatever their temptations, we must give encouragement, exhorting them to faithfulness, even against overwhelming odds. The Lord Himself has given us a Prime Minister, and many other Ministers, to speak on behalf of His royal government, and His Majesty has instructed His Prime Minister to tell us that there is an "inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act."

Or, to put it in different terms, the Prime Minister, on behalf of His Majesty's government, is telling us:

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.... We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long years of struggle and of suffering.

"You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by thought, word, and deed, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against all the most monstrous temptations in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human sin and corruptibility. That is our policy.

"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all propaganda, victory, however long and hard the road may be.... We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in hotel rooms, we shall fight in the bedrooms and dorm rooms, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our purity, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight in the mass media, we shall fight in the legislature, we shall fight in the college campuses and in the elementary schools, we shall fight in the darkest corners of our own hearts.

"We shall never surrender."

"...we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air..."

Shouldn't that have been "_on_ the air?" ;-) Other than that, thanks for a great and inspiring post.

R. C. I don't know about you but I don't believe in fighting in the bedrooms, make love not war, and don't muss the sheets !

"we might all have body surfed on tsunamis."

I believe tsunamis typically don't have a face.

Al:

Re: "I believe tsunamis typically don't have a face."

Looking it up, I find you are right. How disappointing. I stand corrected.

But if we were unfallen, I think I might stand on Lake Lanier, corrected. So there's that.

Bill Luse - you're quite right that I do not subscribe to any one of the various versions of the virtuous life.

I try to present them all, as objectively as I can. That's my job, as I see it.

"Marry a woman he'll make miserable, because he can never really love her, in the normal way?"

If he has no sexual attractions towards women, how is he supposed to have sex with her? If he can have sex with a women, it seems to me, that he is sexually attracted by women after all.

I'm currently teaching a couple of sections of Ethical Theory at the local Jesuit University. So, being the dutiful guy that I am, I'm pretty thoroughly boned-up on the going ethical theories, from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to the Stoics & the Epicureans & the neo-Platonists & Augustine & Aquinas, followed by Hume & Kant & Marx & Nietzsche & the Darwinists...

...I do not subscribe to any one of the various versions of the virtuous life.

I'd suggest a pagan version. Get married and have a family if it's required of you as a citizen. Otherwise, follow the advice of Lucretius: "when a man is pierced by the shafts of Venus, whether they are launched by a lad with womanish limbs or a woman radiating love from her whole body...Your only remedy is to lance the first wound with new incisions; to salve it, while it is still fresh, with promiscuous attachments; to guide the motions of your mind into some other channel."

.I do not subscribe to any one of the various versions of the virtuous life.

Steve, if you were teaching at a Catholic school, I am afraid that this would be a direct impediment to holding the post for teaching that particular class (and, naturally, an impediment to carrying out the task of teaching the class properly). Fortunately for you, though, you are at a Jesuit school, so it's no big deal.

Do you subscribe to a good life?

@Tony: I guess you think that the proper business of a Catholic school is not education, but indoctrination.

Perseus - what a pleasure to learn that you're still out there!

I think that, in this case, Lucretius' advice is extremely naughty.

rad: he thinks of England.

(Well, possibly England. Or, just possibly maybe...other things.)

capisce?

capisce?

Well, no. You seem confused about the strong aversion to same-sex intimacy by the average heterosexual man. As you have mentioned, for most heterosexual men it is only ever contemplated as a form of abuse or rape. So you seem to realize how taboo the mere thought of it is and then bizarrely claim they can just fantasize about someone else while violating the taboo. Of course many men are intimate with women they are only slightly attracted to (and vice versa), but to voluntarily be intimate with a person they find repulsive indicates a serious level of self-hatred.

@Tony: I guess you think that the proper business of a Catholic school is not education, but indoctrination.

If what the kids are being indoctrinated in is true, then they're being educated. It's only indoctrination to someone who assumes that the doctrine is false.

what a pleasure to learn that you're still out there!

I check in periodically, but it just seems that I'm far too late to the party to post a comment.

@Willliam Luse:

"If what the kids are being indoctrinated in is true, then they're being educated. It's only indoctrination to someone who assumes that the doctrine is false."

Trouble is, Bill (if I may) - that's *exactly* what the lefties who currently control the academy believe. They think that they're "educating" people, when, in fact, they're just indoctrinating them.

Sometimes I think that I must be the last person in the world who believes that it's both possible & desirable to impart the relevant facts to people without trying to manipulate their values.

Sometimes I think that I must be the last person in the world who believes that it's both possible & desirable to impart the relevant facts to people without trying to manipulate their values.

Well, first of all, it doesn't follow that you have to have no notion of the relevant values *yourself*. You sort of implied that above, Steve.

you're quite right that I do not subscribe to any one of the various versions of the virtuous life.

I try to present them all, as objectively as I can. That's my job, as I see it.

One might infer from this that you think one has to prescind from subscribing to any specific concept of the virtuous life in order to be objective in presentation.

Second, there are different approaches to teaching, and it is not obvious to me that the best approach is for a teacher to keep his own views on a controversial subject or even on a large-scale subject like "the nature of the virtuous life" hidden from his students.

I can understand not grading your students down for disagreeing with you. But for that purpose it isn't necessary to wear a mask.

Finally, I think you need to get a wider set of categories. You seem to have only two ideas of how this could go: 1) Education in which the teacher takes no stance on important matters such as, say, the purpose of life, etc. 2) Education that is indoctrination and hence, by definition, poor education.

It is _obvious_ to me that there is a third category of education in which, yes, young people's views are influenced and guided but in which they are given a rational basis and grounding and not merely manipulated.

I think C.S. Lewis addresses this issue fairly well in _The Abolition of Man_.

And the younger the students are, the more absolutely obvious it is that this type of legitimate guidance is not only possible but necessary and important.

Second, there are different approaches to teaching, and it is not obvious to me that the best approach is for a teacher to keep his own views on a controversial subject or even on a large-scale subject like "the nature of the virtuous life" hidden from his students.

How does telling a student one's personal views on a controversial subject (e.g., abortion, the financial bailouts, the Good Life, etc.) ADD anything of great importance to the student's education?

"How does telling a student one's personal views on a controversial subject (e.g., abortion, the financial bailouts, the Good Life, etc.) ADD anything of great importance to the student's education?"

Because you think your position is the truth, and it's the Professor's job to teach their students the truth.

"I guess you think that the proper business of a Catholic school is not education, but indoctrination."

With respect, this is a weak argument. If something is true, obviously it's not indoctrination. It's education, and I won't be called an "indoctrinator" (or whatever the heck the word is) because I teach students that it's wrong to kill a child in the womb or some other controversial issue.

In fact, I'd consider it morally wrong if I didn't speak up for the rights of the unborn.

Present all the facts, give all the arguments, but make it clear why you think one argument is wrong and another is right. If a student still disagrees, well, you've done your job.

A Professor's job is to teach the TRUTH, not be uncontroversial.

Because you think your position is the truth, and it's the Professor's job to teach their students the truth.

Vainglory masquerading as education.

Vainglory masquerading as education.

Then I guess the truth has no place in education.

I must be the last person in the world who believes that it's both possible & desirable to impart the relevant facts to people without trying to manipulate their values.

Excuse me, Steve, but we were talking about Catholic schools. People who sign up to study or teach there understand the place has a prior commitment to certain values. That's why it's called Catholic. Should students find these values reinforced in certain areas of study, and should teachers find themselves required to do the reinforcing, we can call this "manipulation" only if we wish the school to abandon its mission and join the ranks of the emasculated, who call themselves men while fighting for nothing.

Yes, I know lefties think they own the truth as well. But that's part of the enterprise, weighing competing arguments. Are you telling me someone like Ed Feser can't treat the arguments fairly while standing foursquare for what he believes?

Lydia's comment has much to offer, if you'll take it.

Then I guess the truth has no place in education.

My view may or may not actually be the truth, and if I have presented the facts and arguments of thinkers far greater than I, then I don't see how adding my two cents benefits students.

Perseus, much of the time it's terribly artificial to _conceal_ one's view. Students aren't dumb and are going to figure it out anyway.

Moreover, no one thinks that in science (say) professors have to hide their "two cents" on the truth of (say) the ether theory.

It's not a matter of adding one's view as some kind of pointless P.S. but just of teaching a subject naturally. If one considers alternative views to have sufficient merit argumentatively to deserve to be brought up (again, science profs. don't think this about a gazillion theories, so they don't do this for every possible view of a subject), then of course one does one's best to present the arguments for that view fairly. But it will often come out just in the fact that one presents arguments for one's own view and that one obviously doesn't think there is a good answer to them. In fact, sometimes it "adds" something to tell students that view X is your view because then they can beware of any possible bias that you have allowed to creep in where, say, there is a good reply to an argument for view X but you have not found it or have misevaluated it.

Or students may have read your written work. This is true on technical subjects. It would be dumb for a philosophy prof. who has published extensively in favor of foundationalism to try to pretend to his graduate students in epistemology class--many of whom come to study with him _as_ a foundationalist--that he doesn't think this is the correct view.

All kinds of things like this go on all the time, and it's not in itself a bad thing that they do.

As a general rule, I expect that the people who get baffled or who cry "indoctrination" in these arguments are people who are thinking of a subject where they don't actually think the evidence strongly supports a particular view.

Ask some biology prof. who teaches origins to be entirely neutral on the subject of Intelligent Design sometime and to hide from his students his own view on the origin of species. In the name of not "indoctrinating," of course.

On the contrary. Students who disagree with the received view _may_ be able to get away with expressing it without ridicule. If so, they're lucky and have a pretty fair-minded prof. The prof. _might_ (but probably won't, and in K-12 will consider it illegal to) bring up some arguments on the ID side and try to present them fairly. If so, the students have an uber-just prof. at least at the metalevel. But to ask for more from a mainstream prof. would be ridiculous.

Bam! (That was the sound of a can of worms opening with a bang.)

My view may or may not actually be the truth, and if I have presented the facts and arguments of thinkers far greater than I, then I don't see how adding my two cents benefits students.

Well, of course any of us may be wrong, and of course we learn from those greater than ourselves.

However, I, at least, didn't spend 10+ years in higher education to be able merely to give my students some facts and arguments that others have made. I spent those years, and have spent the two+ decades since, learning about my discipline, so that I myself could form reasonable opinions about the truth and falsity of the various arguments made in it. It seems an odd humility to say "oh, I haven't formed any opinions, I don't know anything to be true or false; I'm just reporting on the ideas of others." Isn't the point of learning to learn truth, to learn how to discern what is good and true and beautiful from the morass of ideas that exist?

Yes, humility requires us to not suggest we know all truth and can never be wrong, or that we are somehow greater thinkers than all those from whom we have learned. But surely it doesn't require us to pretend -- or believe -- that we therefore know nothing, we see no view as "better" than any other view, and we can offer no opinion on anything!

And, as Lydia says, our students will pretty well know where we stand anyway, at least on many issues. Being upfront about it allows them to consciously -- and rightly, not based on gossip or guessing -- weigh our opinions in with, and against, what they are reading and their own worldviews. I don't even know how to teach my students without reference to their thinking skills or to the worldviews on which they are basing their thinking -- and once we start discussing weak and strong arguments we are certainly going to be revealing our own worldviews. One can do this more or less fairly, of course -- I can simply assert "my way is right; end of discussion" or I can discuss with them what assumptions and values underlie the various arguments and help them see the need to confront these.

To get back to the main point of the original post, I am all for civil discourse in the classroom. I see it very much as my job to help my students begin to understand that decorum and decency are not out-of-date. I love Bill's response to the term "vegetable" -- a perfect teaching moment taken in a perfect manner!

Moreover, no one thinks that in science (say) professors have to hide their "two cents" on the truth of (say) the ether theory.

I think ether is just grand...I ...think...ether.....is.......just..........gran(mumble).......

@Perseus:

"My view may or may not actually be the truth, and if I have presented the facts and arguments of thinkers far greater than I, then I don't see how adding my two cents benefits students."

Thanks, Perseus - that is *precisely* my own view.

I am a *teacher* - not a propagandist.

I will merely direct you to Lydia's response and Beth's response, they've said what I would have in a much better way than I ever could.

Perseus, much of the time it's terribly artificial to _conceal_ one's view. Students aren't dumb and are going to figure it out anyway. Moreover, no one thinks that in science (say) professors have to hide their "two cents" on the truth of (say) the ether theory.

Even if students figure it out (and keeping one's opinions to oneself doesn't imply that one doesn't have any), I don't see why precious class time should be wasted on my views when that time could be better spent getting them to understand and to engage the views of the Great Thinkers.

However, I, at least, didn't spend 10+ years in higher education to be able merely to give my students some facts and arguments that others have made. I spent those years, and have spent the two+ decades since, learning about my discipline, so that I myself could form reasonable opinions about the truth and falsity of the various arguments made in it.

"I, I, myself, and I." Bully for you, but you are there to teach. If you want to offer your opinions, then I'd suggest doing it after class. If you want to offer them during class, "then do some great and mighty deed--the place may be prepared for you then, even though you do come last."

Steve, are you still reading this?

I've heard claims that homosexuals are disproportionately pedophiles and that pedophiles are disproportionately homosexual and that the homosexual lobby tries to make psychologists seperate the two phenomena (i.e. pedophilia is a completely different phenomena and men who are attracted to young boys aren't homosexuals) so that homosexuals don't look bad. Is this true? Note: I'm NOT saying you're one of them (obviously!). I'm just saying that if this is true then you should be able to understand why social conservatives are preoccupied with (anti)homosexuality.

I've also been told, anecdotally, that a disproportionate number of homosexual men had no father or had a distant relationship with their father. Again, is this true?

To be honest with you, I want it back in the closet - period. I don't want the law to be changed so that you're castrated but if you're going to do this, it should be hidden in the privacy of your home and to everyone else, the other guy should seem like your buddy who's coming over to drink beer and watch the game. To the extent that it's made public, I think discrimination (non-violent, non-harsh) should push it back into the closet. Sorry to be mean and I know that this has zero chance of happening in the 21st Century but I think we should be honest with you.

A former blogger over at the Anglican Continuum blog, an Anglican layreader says that he is attracted to young boys but has never acted on this attraction. He treats his temptation like some above suggest. He prays for the strength not to act upon it and it has worked for him - thanks be to God.

http://poetreaderpacht.blogspot.com/2008/12/celibate-homosexual.html

On a lighter note, I do enjoy your writings.

Perseus, shouldn't it be obvious that a lot of what you are saying relates only to a specific type of teaching of a specific subject?

If, for example, one is teaching literature, one will obviously be conveying aesthetic evaluations of the works.

If one is teaching science one will be teaching what one takes to be factual information, the best current theories, etc.

If one is teaching philosophy one isn't always doing history of philosophy. One teaches students to _evaluate_ arguments, and this will inevitably involve letting them know what one thinks of the value of particular arguments for and against particular positions.

Frankly, it's pretty obvious that at least at a metalevel more evaluation is involved even in the area of, say, history of philosophy or history of government than you seem to think it is. The very act of choosing X thinker rather than Y for your syllabus is an act of evaluating the relative merits of X and Y. And I see no reason, if X or Y made an error in his arguments, not to show the students that. In fact, you're not a good teacher if you deliberately don't, and not doing it on the grounds that you don't want to give "your own opinion" is just childish, frankly.

But beyond all of that, it is simply not the case that all subjects involve conveying the words and thoughts of some specific great thinker of the past.

Perseus, shouldn't it be obvious that a lot of what you are saying relates only to a specific type of teaching of a specific subject?

We were talking about different views of the good life (and other moral/political controversies), not math.

A couple of years ago in a thread a former blog colleague of mine pointed out that it is probably more obvious to most people that fornication is wrong than that quantum theory is true. At the time this comment was derided (not by me personally) as irrelevant. Your last comment, Perseus, makes me wonder whether it was so irrelevant after all.

Perseus (and Steve),

Seems to me that your opposition of “teacher” to “propagandist” is itself strongly value-laden—and thus, in your terms (if I understand them correctly), propagandistic. In itself, that doesn't actually bother me; I teach computer science, in which field nobody has a problem with stating one's own (admittedly provisional) opinions on controversial subjects in class. But (again, if I understand you right), it should pose a problem for you.

My point here is that being cagy about one's own opinion in class is a pedagogical choice, not (normally) a moral one. In my field, I certainly have controversies about which my students need to reason, but I don't have a history of Great Thinkers to draw upon. So I couldn't use your approach even if it were a good fit for me personally (which it doesn't happen to be). Instead, I do what most people in my field do; I mark my opinions on controversial subjects as controversial, give the reasoning so the students have a worked example of what reasoned arguments in the area look like, and then give them open-ended situations where they are expected to make choices and defend those choices.

It isn't just a discipline-specific thing, either. I have a colleague in political philosophy who is usually quite open about his own beliefs on the subjects under study, and gets very good results in discussions nonetheless.

So while I see your practice of concealing your own positions as a perfectly reasonable pedagogical choice, I don't buy your evident (and evidently moral) disdain for the “propagandists” who are less reserved. The distinguishing characteristics of propaganda, as far as I can see, are these:
(1) Students are given only one side of a controversy. If other points of view are presented, they are presented in caricature rather than as real options that might be held by intelligent people.
(2) Students are not taught how to reason about a topic. In some cases, they may not be taught that reasoning about the topic is even necessary.

Merely letting the students know one's own position on a controversial topic doesn't qualify.

Peace,
--Peter