Kevin, you are behind the times. Don’t you know that human sexuality is fluid, changing all the time-a constant state of flux. So many variations and shades the pronoun makers can’t keep up.

Ah well.

And since God doesn’t make mistakes, trying to change what He intended one to be is to try and alter His handiwork, and thus insult Him.

While one cannot choose their sexual orientation, they can, however, choose which religion/denomination to follow, i.e., whether to be accepting or condemning of gay people. To condemn someone for something they cannot change is to be ugly and hateful.

Those who say that sexual orientation can be changed are simply speaking from ignorance.

Those who say that they have successfully changed their sexual orientation are simply lying, and anyone who believes them is just a fool.

Now I am twelve years into a happy and faithful marriage to a woman. I sinned at different times, but talking things over with people helped me overcome my harmful behavior. I begged God for forgiveness. You couldn’t pay me to have sex with a man at this point in my life. I don’t feel the urge — maybe because I’m in my forties and one calms down in middle age, or maybe because it just wasn’t right for me all along.

There’s no point in obsessing over my sexual ontology, never mind obsessing over other people’s. …

…Crystal Dixon pointed out something that no amount of peer-reviewed research can disprove. Gay is not the new black. “Gay” is about sex and genitalia. People we call “gay” make choices about what they do with their genitals; blacks do not make choices about the color of their skin. Period. How Frank you are on the subject.

Today marks the the 27th anniversary of the falling asleep in the Lord of Professor Serge S. Verhoskoy professor emeritus of Dogmatic Theology and Ethics, and Provost of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary from 1955 until his retirement in 1981.

He was born in Sarzha Russia in 1907. He left Russia with his parents and sisters in his early youth following the Bolshevik Revolution. He completed his secondary education in Prague, Czechoslovakia before moving to Paris, France. Greatly influenced by Fr. Georges Florovsky, while studying at St. Sergius Theological Institute between 1932-36, he became known for his passion for Orthodox Tradition, grounded in the Patristic Fathers and the Holy Scripture, and he was an open and vocal critic of the popular “Russian ėmigrė intelligentsia,” to Paris. By the early 1950’s he was recognized as an important theologian and writer, and was invited by Fr. Florovsky to join him in NYC in the forming of SVS.

Prof. Verhovskoy always seemed to live “beneath the radar,” until it was necessary for someone to step forward to speak the Truth, which he always did without hesitation – an issue for which he continually chided students. And when Fr. Alexander Schmemann expressly and adamantly responded to the “Sorrowful Epistle of Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky), “I trust people like… Prof. SS Verhovskoy,” he might well have duly cited him in his description of the role of the theologian:

The theologian has no rights, no power to govern and to administer that which belongs exclusively to the hierarchy. But it is his sacred duty to supply the hierarchy and, indeed, the whole Church with the pure teaching of the Church and to stand by that truth even when it is not considered “opportune.” It must be admitted that much too often our official “academic” theology has failed to accept this “obedience” and preferred quiet complacency. It has thus become accomplice to many deviations and distortions from which the whole Orthodox Church suffers today. But again, it was not so with the Fathers. Almost to the one, they suffered from the various “power structures” of their days for their refusal to opt for the compromise or to accept silent obedience to evil. And the fact is that ultimately the Church followed them and not those who, then as today, have a thousand excellent reasons for avoiding the “abstract principles” and preferring the “demands of reality.”

And like many great men, he was a character. He loved the “Motown Sound” and he borrowed every one of my original blues albums – from Muddy Waters to Howlin’ Wolf – and he loved nothing more than to have a student drop by for tea and discussion, day or evening. At the end of his life I had arranged a very small favor for him, and he called my busy office just to say, “Well, my dear, I don’t know, but you are somehow angel.” Me, Prof? It was like the life affirmation you had always wanted, and the warmest hug you never expected! Memory eternal and may his soul rest with the saints!

Stankovich:

The fact that you are asking me to define for you the psychiatric distinctions between sexual orientation, sexual disorder, paraphilia, and sexual deviancy. . .

Here’s what I am asking:

Do you use the term “sexual orientation” as an ontological statement, that is, intrinsic to one’s created being — ontological in the theological meaning of the term? Usually when you are asked the question you resort to proof-texting scripture so the implied answer is yes, you do. When asked directly however you always dodge the question.

If you do indeed see homosexual orientation as part of human ontology (in the theological meaning of the term), then what criteria do you use to exclude other sexual orientations such as pedophilia and bestiality?

If you don’t and use the term only in a more generalized sense, then why would pedophilia and bestiality be considered perversions (your term)? In other words, why is pedophilia and bestiality defined in terms of behavior, but homosexuality in terms of “orientation?” What reasoning is employed to justify the conceptual shift?

Father, it seems that there is nothing but hubris offered at this point.

There are no genetic links to homosexuality. It occurs in gestation and is hormonal in a minority of instances, but is usually LEARNED BEHAVIOR and choice.

To argue that GOD created homosexuality is not only unpatristic, but the type of heretical speculation that has no support in any Judeo Christian literature of the last 7500 years. Such views have been condemned as nothing but blasphemous: this is tantamount to Blasphemy of the HOLY SPIRIT.

GOD created them male and female and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply.

Father, I appreciate how you have clearly indicated the obfuscation and intentional immoral diversion the other is presenting here. It seems some just aren’t satisfied with morality and Orthodoxy. Such views are simply best left to worship of their own echoes.

Fr, Hans wrote:

It’s the “ontological categorization of existence” part that remains slippery. The term “ontological” implies that “homosexual orientation” is natural to the human being, a constituent of his created being. If by the term you mean something different, say, a condition common to some men (collective noun), then you should use another term besides “ontological.” Something like a “category of human experience” would do just fine.

I was always cautioned about “those Jesuits,” but I found their teaching of philosophy systematic and impeccable. I retain my notebooks from those days, from where I retrieved the “classic categorizations of ontology,” including a “simple affirmation of truth.” I stand by the Jesuits. Things always seem “slippery” to you when you cannot refute it.

For the record, I am not now, nor have I ever been discussing matters pertaining to anything “natural to the human being” if by “natural” you are referring to our humanity κατ’εἰκόνα θεοῦ in the very image of God (Gen 1:27), “as it was in the beginning.” Everything I have discussed is directly consequential to our rebellion and sinfulness that resulted in our expulsion from the Kingdom prepared for us, into a world cosmically shattered by the consequence of our sinfulness. As I noted on my own blog, “Exactly how many ways can you describe the same cracked vase?” If one were to really listen to and contemplate Psalm 103 that begins each and every Service of Vespers, “O Lord, how manifold (increased, abundant, numberless) are Your works! [ὡς ἐμεγαλύνθη τὰ ἔργα σου, Κύριε!] In wisdom You have made them all!” (Ps. 103:24) and then consider, “And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made and he ceased on the seventh day from all his works which he made,” (Gen. 2:2) the creation was complete. Of what possible need could there be for evolutional gene mutation, allele expressions, and pheotypes. What more was to be served in “evolutional diversity” in the completed creation?

Further, at what point did Adam and Even become heterosexual? By the description of St. Methodius of Patara: ““Adam, upon see­ing her [Eve] said, “‘She is the other myself. So God estab­lishes between them a mutual attrac­tion. They are attracted to one another both psy­cho­log­i­cally and phys­i­cally. They long for one another, because deep down in them­selves they know that they are one and belong together.” After sinning and “discovering their nakedness? Or at the Expulsion in the words to Eve, “And to the woman he said I will greatly multiply your pains and your groanings; in pain you shall bring forth children and your submission shall be to your husband and he shall rule over you.” (Gen. 3:16) Did homosexuality suddenly awaken at the confrontation at Sodom, or was it endemic to the Expulsion and our interaction with broken world.

And ultimately, what are to we to make of the Gospel’s emphateic statement: “Καὶ ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο And the Word became flesh (John 1:14), expanded by the Fathers of the Council in Chalcedon:

Fol­low­ing the holy Fathers, we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be con­fessed as one and the same [Per­son], that he is per­fect in God­head and per­fect in man­hood, very God and very man, of a rea­son­able soul and [human] body con­sist­ing, con­sub­stan­tial with the Father as touch­ing his God­head, and con­sub­stan­tial with us as touch­ing his man­hood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begot­ten of his Father before the worlds accord­ing to his God­head; but in these last days for us men and for our sal­va­tion born [into the world] of the Vir­gin Mary, the Mother of God accord­ing to his man­hood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be con­fessed to be in two natures, uncon­fus­edly, immutably, indi­vis­i­bly, [and] distinctly.

And this meant that our God σὰρξ ἐγένετο save sin, assumed our biogenetic and biomolecular makeup. in fact, presenting with one of the most precise, most detailed genetic pedigrees ever written, contained in total in Matthew 1:1-17.

The fact that you are asking me to define for you the psychiatric distinctions between sexual orientation, sexual disorder, paraphilia, and sexual deviancy indicates you are neither qualified nor prepared to debate them with me. I’ve been down this road before. Bon chace, it is just more distraction.

It seems Fr. Hans is supported by Orthodox biblical interpretation, the Holy Fathers, Orthodox theology, science and voices from the GLBT community itself in what he has presented on the topic of homosexuality.

He did so without attempting obscurantist insistence on credential, without namedropping and without a high opinion of himself: he managed to avoid a hubris which would give him an unfounded confidence in upholding morally wrong points of view.

Study Finds Biological Causes For Homosexuality

…A new study suggests that homosexuality can be explained by biology, though not by genes specifically. Instead, the researchers propose that there are sex-specific epi-marks on the genes that are triggered during fetal development to maintain a hormone level balance. These switches cause fluctuations in DNA expression that impacts sexual development, including sexual identity and various other gender characteristics. These switches help protect both the fetus and the mother from the natural variation in sex hormone levels present during fetal development…

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/12/11/1318311/study-finds-biological-causes-for-homosexuality/

See also:

Scientists claim that homosexuality is not genetic — but it arises in the womb

http://io9.com/5967426/scientists-confirm-that-homosexuality-is-not-genetic–but-it-arises-in-the-womb

[SOME homosexuality occurs in gestation. Probably most does not and is a matter of choice, making it perversion. In both instances, it is abnormal sexuality, unless one colludes with the Left to redefine perversion and what “normal” is. – R]

Robert Oscar Lopez, “Yes, gay is a choice. Get over it.”

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/yes_gay_is_a_choice_get_over_it.html#ixzz2ashC6AB4

…I feel compelled to write a column once again emphasizing a basic reality: gay sex is a choice. Nobody lacks the power to refrain from having gay sex. Get. Over. It.

Dixon said that gays had the choice to leave the lifestyle (in other words, stop engaging in anal sex and fellatio). According to her detractors, such was tantamount to being anti-gay. Her detractors are following the lead of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which lists “conversion therapy” as a hate crime, …

…Dating and marriage don’t magically happen, like going to the bathroom or breathing. They take conscious choices — where do you hang out? What are you looking for? What type of partner shares your goals? Whether to hang out in gay clubs or straight clubs makes a huge difference; these are completely different cultures. We choose the life we want to live (or leave, for that matter).

Even gay men still choose which sex acts they commit. I hate to admit this, but I worked as a housekeeper in a gay sex club in Manhattan in the early 1990s, when I was desperate for work. I witnessed, literally, thousands of men having sex in the open, with me having to go clean up after them. Very rarely (thank the Lord) did they engage in anal sex. …

…Moreover, a lot of times I saw people who were addicted to drugs and addicted to anonymous sex; the two compulsions were linked somehow, and there was no way for such people to quit their addiction without quitting their homosexuality. These folks often ended up on the AA circuit or joining a church and getting baptized.

Lastly, a lot of men came to the gay sex scene in order to engage in bondage and sadomasochism, because they were raped as boys. The aftereffects of sexual assault, as we know from studying female rape victims, are complicated and often lead people to repeat or recreate the assault scene. Many of these mentally scarred men did not even have sex in sex clubs, even though they sought male partners to enact their eroticized simulations.

Lastly, straight men do not magically reach puberty with a fully functional sex life because of their nature. They struggle with impotence, might be late bloomers, get embarrassingly aroused in all-male environments occasionally, and sometimes can’t find women they are attracted to. To address these issues, many men in relationships with women have to work through their difficulties by talking things over with someone else, who might be a chaplain or even a counselor. Are they all gay? No!

Lastly, I am left with my own life story. I can’t change it. I went from being in the gay lifestyle to marrying a woman, having a daughter, and living a happy heterosexual life.

Consider the difference that twenty years make. Twenty years ago, I had never been with a woman, but I had had relations with quite a few men. Virtually all of my friends were gays, lesbians, or women who enjoyed gay company. I found girls pretty, but I was scared of them. Most of them were not attracted to me because I was effeminate.

Now I am twelve years into a happy and faithful marriage to a woman. I sinned at different times, but talking things over with people helped me overcome my harmful behavior. I begged God for forgiveness. You couldn’t pay me to have sex with a man at this point in my life. I don’t feel the urge — maybe because I’m in my forties and one calms down in middle age, or maybe because it just wasn’t right for me all along.

There’s no point in obsessing over my sexual ontology, never mind obsessing over other people’s. …

…Crystal Dixon pointed out something that no amount of peer-reviewed research can disprove. Gay is not the new black. “Gay” is about sex and genitalia. People we call “gay” make choices about what they do with their genitals; blacks do not make choices about the color of their skin. Period. …

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/yes_gay_is_a_choice_get_over_it.html

Fr. Thomas Hopko, “The Homosexual Christian”

… Given the traditional Orthodox understanding of the Old and New Testament scriptures as expressed in the Church’s liturgical worship, sacramental rites, canonical regulations and lives and teachings of the saints, it is clear that the Orthodox Church identifies solidly with those Christians, homosexual and heterosexual, who consider homosexual orientation as a disorder and disease, and who therefore consider homosexual actions as sinful and destructive.

According to Orthodox Christian witness over the centuries, Biblical passages such as the following do not permit any other interpretation but that which is obvious:

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination . . . (Leviticus 20:13)

For this reason (i.e. their refusal to acknowledge, thank and glorify God) God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameful acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26-27)

Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral (or fornicators), nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals (or sodomites; literally those who have coitus, or who sleep, with men), nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) …

…There are sins which are involuntary, unwilled, unchosen; sins which overcome people and force them by irrational impulses and compulsions, by weaknesses of the flesh, emotional drives and misguided desires into actions which they themselves do not want, and often despise and abhor – even when they are engaging in them. These are known traditionally as the sins of passion. The fact that these sins are not freely chosen do not make them any less sinful. To sin means to miss the mark, to be off the track, to deviate, to defile, to transgress . . . whether or not the act is consciously willed and purposefully enacted; and whether or not the offender personally is freely and fully at fault. …

…According to Orthodox Church Tradition, Christians are redeemed sinners. They are human beings who have been saved from sickness and sin, delivered from the devil and death by God’s grace through faith in Jesus by the Holy Spirit’s power: “and such were some of you.” (1 Cor. 6:10) They are baptized into Christ and sealed with the Spirit in order to live God’s life in the Church. They witness to their faith by regular participation in liturgical worship and eucharistic communion, accompanied by continual confession, repentance and the steadfast struggle against every form of sin, voluntary and involuntary, which attempts to destroy their lives in this world and in the age to come.

The homosexual Christian is called to a particularly rigorous battle. His or her struggle is an especially ferocious one. It is not made any easier by the mindless, truly demonic hatred of those who despise and ridicule those who carry this painful and burdensome cross; nor by the mindless, equally demonic affirmation of homosexual activity by its misguided advocates and enablers.

Like all temptations, passions and sins, including those deeply, and oftentimes seemingly indelibly embedded in our nature by our sorrowful inheritance, homosexual orientation can be cured and homosexual actions can cease. With God all things are possible. When homosexual Christians are willing to struggle, and when they receive patient, compassionate and authentically loving assistance from their families and friends – each of whom is struggling with his or her own temptations and sins; for no one is without this struggle in one form or another, and no one is without sin but God – the Lord guarantees victory in ways known to Himself. …

http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/homosexual2.htm

The Holy Bible

Gen 19:5-8 “and they called to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.’ But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him, and said, ‘Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly.'” The Greek word in the New Testament for homosexuality is literally “a sodomite”. (A term that has unchanged in 5000 years, even today- “sodomy”) Apart from the fact the city was clearly destroyed by God because of homosexuality in the narrative of Gen 19.

Jude 7 “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.”

Lev 18:22-23 “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”

Lev 20:13 “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.”

1 Cor 6:9 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals”

1 Tim 1:9-10 “realizing the fact that (civil) law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers”

Rom 1:26-27 “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

Homosexuality

1st Century
The Didache from A.D. 90 says [Didache 2:2], “You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery [Ex 20:13-14], you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal [Ex 20:15], you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born.

St. Clement of Alexandria says in 190 [Exhortation to the Greeks 2], “All honor to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who shot with an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians the mystery of the mother of the gods … condemning him as having become effeminate among the Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy to the rest of the Scythians.”

“[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities.” Tertullian, Modesty 4 (A.D. 220).

“[God forbid the Jews to eat certain foods for symbolic reasons:] For that in fishes the roughness of scales is regarded as constituting their cleanness; rough, and rugged, and unpolished, and substantial, and grave manners are approved in men; while those that are without scales are unclean, because trifling, and fickle, and faithless, and effeminate manners are disapproved. Moreover, what does the Law mean when it…forbids the swine to be taken for food? It assuredly reproves a life filthy and dirty, and delighting in the garbage of vice…Or when it forbids the hare? It rebukes men deformed into women.” Novatian, The Jewish Foods 3 (A.D. 250).

St. Cyprian the Martyr of Carthage says in 253 [Letter 1:9 to Donatus in PL 4:212A],
Oh, if placed on that lofty watchtower, you could gaze into the secret places–if you could open the closed doors of sleeping chambers and recall their dark recesses to the perception of sight–you would behold things done by immodest persons which no chaste eye could look upon; you would see what even to see is a crime; you would see what people embruted with the madness of vice deny that they have done, and yet hasten to do–men with frenzied lusts rushing upon men, doing things which afford no gratification even to those who do them.
+++
“[T]urn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of another kind of spectacle…Men are emasculated, and all the pride and vigor of their sex is effeminated in the disgrace of their enervated body; and he is more pleasing there who has most completely broken down the man into the woman. He grows into praise by virtue of his crime; and the more he is degraded, the more skillful he is considered to be. Such a one is looked upon–oh shame!–and looked upon with pleasure…nor is there wanting authority for the enticing abomination…that Jupiter of theirs [is] not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders…now breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question: Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion.” St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letters 1:8 (A.D. 253).

“[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: `Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them that dwell upon it’ [Lev. 18:24-25].” Eusebius of Caesarea, Proof of the Gospel 4:10 (A.D. 319).

St. Basil the Great of Caesarea (Doctor, Cappadocian Father, & Holy Hierarch) says in 367 [Epistle 217:62 to Amphilochius in PG 32:800A], “He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline for the same time as adulterers.”
+++
“If you [O, monk] are young in either body or mind, shun the companionship of other young men and avoid them as you would a flame. For through them the enemy has kindled the desires of many and then handed them over to eternal fire, hurling them into the vile pit of the five cities under the pretense of spiritual love. At meals take a seat far from other young men. In lying down to sleep let not their clothes be near yours, but rather have an old man between you. When a young man converses with you, or sings psalms facing you, answer him with eyes cast down, lest perhaps by gazing at his face you receive a seed of desire sown by the enemy and reap sheaves of corruption and ruin. Whether in the house or in a place where there is no one to see your actions, be not found in his company under the pretense either of studying the divine oracles or of any other business whatsoever, however necessary.” St. Basil the Great, The Renunciation of the World (A.D. 373).

“[The pagans] were addicted to the love of boys, and one of their wise men made a law that pederasty…should not be allowed to slaves, as if it was an honorable thing; and they had houses for this purpose, in which it was openly practiced. And if all that was done among them was related, it would be seen that they openly outraged nature, and there was none to restrain them… As for their passion for boys, whom they called their ‘paedica,’ it is not fit to be named.” St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Titus 5 (A.D. 390]).
+++
“[Certain men in church] come in gazing about at the beauty of women; others curious about the blooming youth of boys. After this, do you not marvel that [lightning] bolts are not launched [from heaven], and all these things are not plucked up from their foundations? For worthy both of thunderbolts and hell are the things that are done; but God, who is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forbears awhile his wrath, calling you to repentance and amendment.” St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 3:3 (A.D. 391).
+++
“All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26-27]… were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored than the body in diseases.” St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).
+++
“[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men.” St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).
+++ (Especially:)
“And sundry other books of the philosophers one may see full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is yet according to nature; but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this would be worse than any punishment.” St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).

Blessed Augustine of Hippo says in 400 [Confessions 3:18:8:15 in PL 32:689-690],
Therefore those offences which be contrary to nature are everywhere and at all times to be held in detestation and punished; such were those of the Sodomites, which should all nations commit, they should all be held guilty of the same crime by the divine law, which has not so made men that they should in that way abuse one another. For even that fellowship which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature of which He is author is polluted by the perversity of lust.

“[Christians] abhor all unlawful mixtures, and that which is practiced by some contrary to nature, as wicked and impious.” Apostolic Constitutions 6:11 (A.D. 400).

Brian,

I address this with a certain annoyance that these arguments are drawn from the interpretation or a supposition as to my position – most often from Fr. Hans – rather than simply reading what I wrote. In all of my writings, I have, in fact, raised the issue of “ontology” exactly once:

Much of the tone of these comments speak to my assertions regarding sexual orientation and not homosexuality per se – but how can they be separated – which leads me to say that I view this as a “tactic” I find especially distasteful, “lazy scholarship.” I have contended that sexual orientation is ontological, as a simple entity, as a simple affirmation of truth: homosexuality is. The lazy scholar claims that orientation is nothing more than a socio-cultural falsity, a contrivance and construct of “Gay, Inc.” to bathe aberrance in psedo-science; to soften moral condemnations, and ultimately result in “normalization.” Orientation be- comes, then, analogous with “desire,” “passion,” “urge,” “lust,” and “drive,” examples of which are glut- tony, drunkenness, smoking, and so on. And while it would be foolish to deny the element of appétence in any form of sexual expression, their goal, ultimately, is to place the responsibility for same sex attraction firmly in your hands.

Secondly, I am accused of teaching that, pursuant to this “ascription” of sexual orientation to “human ontology” – a term for which I find no precedence – there is a “homosexual identity” contrary to Orthodox anthropology. In actuality, what is written is entirely to the contrary:

According to the reality of our fallen and broken humanity, sexual orientation is innate, unconscious, essential to my identification, and essential to my identification as a person. And as I am frequently challenged that by stating “essential to my identification” I imply “identity by orientation,” I must emphasize: while sexual orientation is an essential aspect of our identity, as is proprioception [Note: proprioception is the innate, unconscious neurological sense of the “ownership” of one’s body and its position in a 3-dimensional grid in space that I had used as an analogy], it is ridiculous to suggest it is my identity. It is not defining of the self, but it is inseparable.

And finally, what little Fr. Hans knows in regard to human genetics, epigenetics, endocrinology, embryology, and psychiatry he owes to me, yet he continues to follow these ridiculous trails of “If homosexual orientation is grounded in human ontology, then there is no reason to restrict any kind of sexual orientation as part of human ontology.” The Google School of Medicine is apparently on summer break.

I am a disciplined, duly cautious, and precise scientist and seminary graduate who has offered nothing that is contrary to the Holy Scripture, the writings of the Patristic Fathers, the Canonical Fathers, and the Holy Tradition of the Church. I have openly & transparently sought correction as to substance, and more often than not, I am engaged in these fabulously ridiculous arguments over what I did not say or what I do not believe, rather than the substance of these issues.

Stankovich writes:

I have made no contention that sexual orientation is “grounded” in anything beyond a simple ontological categorization of existence, your contentions as to pedophilia & bestiality are ridiculous.

It’s the “ontological categorization of existence” part that remains slippery. The term “ontological” implies that “homosexual orientation” is natural to the human being, a constituent of his created being. If by the term you mean something different, say, a condition common to some men (collective noun), then you should use another term besides “ontological.” Something like a “category of human experience” would do just fine.

However, that would call into question the entire category of “sexual orientation,” particularly the implied relationship between orientation and ontology. So. . .

Essential psychological factors are necessary for the development of sexual deviancy & disorder, such as pedophilia & bestiality, meaning they cannot be “another type” or expression of orientation, but are simply deviance.

. . .why wouldn’t pedophilia and bestiality be considered another type of orientation given your usage of the term? From the other direction, why do you exclude homosexuality from your definition of deviancy if by “ontology” you only mean a category of human experience?