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As everybody knows, gay marriage is a huge issue in our country right now. Whenever I read or hear opinions about gays and gay marriage, I remember my one and only sexual encounter with a homosexual. Actually, he was bisexual. The other fellow happened to be John Cheever, famous short-story writer and novelist who in the early 70s was a friend of mine. I was a graduate student writing my doctoral dissertation about him. I lived nearby, we became friends, and I visited him about once a month. After a while, I stopped taking notes, because I had more material than I could use. One day, something astounding happened. I showed up for a visit at his home in Ossining, New York, and he came downstairs with a manuscript in his hand. "I have just finished a new story," he announced. I was dumbfounded. This master storyteller hadn't written a story in quite a while, and now here he is, holding one in his hand. "Would you like me to read it to you?" Still speechless, I nodded. I knew that I would be the first person in the world besides the author to enjoy this story. It is "The Leaves, the Lion-Fish, and the Bear," which was published in the November 1974 issue of Esquire. He put his hand on mine and read the story to me. It's a glorious story, vintage Cheever. During the rest of his life, he wrote only two more stories. Afterwards, he asked, "Did you like it?" Ha! Later we went for a walk in the five acres of woods in the hills behind his house. To make a long story short, he made a pass at me. I was completely surprised. I had no idea he was gay. As kindly as I could, I explained that I was as purely heterosexual as a man could be. We stayed friends, but this new understanding of him caused me to reconsider all my research. I had to rewrite my dissertation, "The Novels of John Cheever," which was accepted by Duke University in 1977. As a strange footnote to all this, Cheever's bisexuality became recognized as an important thread in his life and work, so the story of this episode is documented in his daughter Susan's biographical memoir, Home Before Dark (1984) and Scott Donaldson's biography, John Cheever: A Biography (1988). It's no surprise, then, that I have considerable sympathy for gay people. My later research into the brain has led me to understand that many if not most have not chosen to be gay. They simply are gay. While they may not have been born gay, they acquired opposite-sex characteristics during crucial periods of brain and hormone development. When pressed for my views, here's what I usually say: For some homosexuals, the sexual preference is a matter of choice. They are men with male brains, or women with female brains, and even though they may be heterosexual in all other respects, they may choose same-sex partners. For others, homosexuality is not a matter of choice. For example, a man may have a male body, but by the time he's fully mature, he may have some female hormonal and brain characteristics. He looks like a man, but inside he also thinks and feels like a woman. This happens because at critical junctures of development before and after birth, when the gender differences in the brain are supposed to manifest themselves, they didn't. He developed female gender characteristics instead. This kind of developmental difference can happen at puberty, too, if the male hormonal development doesn't happen normally. Growing up to be male in all respects turns out to be an uncertain journey. The same kinds of problems can occur for young women. There are many physical, mental and emotional developmental milestones that can go awry. Why? Scientists aren't sure of the causes. Inherited genes? Environment? Diet? Stress? The bottom line, though, is that in many (most?) cases, a person did not choose to be a homosexual. His or her body simply developed that way. The sexual preference is hard-wired in the individual, and it can't be undone. That's my finding anyway. On the other hand, I know that this point of view isn't widely held. For many others, including many members of my family, their understanding of this issue is grounded in their religious beliefs. Not too long ago, a friend of mine offered this point of view: "Homosexuality can be changed, just as an alcoholic can change. The point is not what has happened to you or how you were born. The point is what you are doing about it. To legalize homosexuality is going the wrong way, neighbor or not. I dare say you wouldn't condone an alcoholic continually getting worse, destroying him/herself, his/her family, and others; and even legalize his/her behavior because he/she is a nice person or a neighbor or a co-worker. You missed my point--we are all sinners. We must confess our sins and get right with God. We must accept Jesus as our Savior, and receive the Holy Spirit. We must ask for help in correcting our sins, not furthering them. We must stop intellectualizing and rationalizing the world's problems. They will not go away like that. This is not a primitive attitude and lifestyle, it is a fundamental one." I respect his beliefs and his right to voice his opinion, and I'm sure he respects mine. Also, I'm pretty sure a lot more people agree with him than with me. The bottom line is, we're still friends. But the interchange impressed me that at least two sides to this question are dramatically different from each other and that this is a potentially divisive issue for our country. As another of my buddies said, "there probably aren't many fence-sitters on this."
Article Source: http://www.articledestination.com
Dennis E. Coates is CEO of Performance Support Systems, author of MindFrames, a brain-based personality assessment system (www.initforlife.com) and co-founder of the Train-to-Ingrain alliance (www.train-to-ingrain.com, info@train-to-ingrain.com, 800-488-6463), which delivers a reinforcement-centered approach to learning and development that achieves permanent, measurable improvements in workplace behavior and positive impacts on business results.
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