With all due respect, I believe that you and many others over the last four decades are, and have been, deceived by people who have deceived themselves into believing that they and their behavior are inseparable parts of their personhood.

This conflation of self with behavior took an especially pernicious turn in the 1980's when, prior to AIDS appearing in the blood supply, the gay leadership of the time insisted that they must be allowed to behave in accordance with how they saw themselves, refusing to close bathhouses, vilifying all who disagreed, thereby exacerbating the spread of AIDS.

I don't trust this movement now any more than I did then, and believe you should take care as well. Polio would have been much more widespread in the US had that earlier public health crisis been politicized in the same way. The context is different, but the demand is the same.

Yet, does not the Bible teach in Jeremiah 9:"The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can understand it?" It is obviously difficult to convict one's own self of sin, and much easier to criticize those with whom we disagree.

But, it is also divisive, and I think you would do better to urge homosexual people not to see the glass as half-empty, and to make history by righting the Church instead, using your excellent powers of persuasion! Please bear with me while I elaborate a bit more, as I have studied this situation rather extensively since the 2003 General Convention.

* I would be much less concerned than I am if indeed homosexuality truly were genetic, such as maleness and femaleness are genetic, because if this were truly the case it would have been a far simpler matter to educate the public about it and proceed from there. However, sexual desire is NOT immutable, is NOT a genetic condition and CAN be warped by inappropriate and/or risky youthful experiences.

I have read the Koinonia Statement, which insists that homosexuality is a 'gift' from God. But this is now known to be false. That statement was written in the mid-1990's when research was ongoing and reports about sexuality being 'genetic' were common news fodder. However, virtually none of that research (most of which was done by gay men) has been replicated. In fact, the human genome has been completed and no genetic component to homosexuality was found.

Therefore, it is not scientific, any more than is Creationism for example, to view homosexuality as a genetic or given condition. And, as you must surely be aware, claiming a 'gay identity' began as a political persuasion based on the 1960's - 70's idea that "the personal is political". * With respect to the TEC favoring 'gay rights', I do think it peculiar that leaders of the church have failed to grasp a basic reality about civil rights, which is that one person's civil rights must not impinge on the next person's equally important civil rights.

For this reason, civil rights that convey privileges to specific groups are very likely to be problematic and unfair to other groups. With respect to 'gay rights', an example of this can easily be discovered within the Episcopal Church itself, in spite of its pride in its ideas about justice. I speak of the fact that many churches now deny the use of church property to the The Boy Scouts of America because the Supreme Court of the USA granted this group the right to refuse openly gay men the privilege of becoming Scout Troop leaders.

Yet, the BSA has considered its own history, which includes considerable experience with youth being seduced by adult male leaders. Unfortunately, many Americans, and Episcopalians, have become conditioned to thinking it is bigotry to refuse a gay person any privileges, though privileges are not rights! But it is much more complex than that, just as it is with respect to the problems of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion.

Please consider the following comparisons:

* As the Civil Rights era made clear, it is both possible and fairly easy to discriminate against a person for his or her race, for example. Racial characteristics are generally a visible quality of every person and are100% genetic, 100% immutable, 100% morally neutral, and 100% non-behavioral. On the other hand, homosexual attraction is an invisible quality, is not proven to be genetic, and is changeable over the course of one's life.

Thus, not one immutable quality of race correlates with a comparable quality of a homosexually-inclined person. In addition, homosexual behavior is not morally neutral (no 'sexual' behavior is morally neutral), and is a quality separate from personhood. Were behavior not separate from personhood, it would not be possible for people to repent of sin.

* Another difference of racial groups is that they procreate their own kind. Homosexual persons rarely procreate, because relationships are inherently barren, and when they choose to procreate through modern technologies, they bring into the world a child who will not ever know one of his/her natural parents.

If it is tragic for a child to lose his father prior to his birth, for example, how much more tragic it is for a child to be conceived and born with no prospect of being reared by one of his/her natural parents, most likely be the father, as with Mary Cheney.

In addition, what parent is overjoyed to have a child 'come out'? And, what is it to take pride in one's 'sexuality'? Are you proud to be a woman? What accomplishment is it to be a woman?

* Last, but not least, it is also tragic, and an indication of perversity, that many homosexually inclined persons cheer the very notions that most other people deplore.

The Episcopal Church has failed to recognize that a homosexual person is no more compelled to act on his/her physical attraction than you or I are compelled to follow any particular desire to which we might be prone, such as a desire to smoke, drink, or overeat.

Therefore, it seems peculiar to me to privilege homosexually-inclined persons as such persons are difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish from the general population, and must make obvious their proclivities for them to be known! This cannot be said of people whose distinguishing differences are wholly visible to all around them, are immutable, are genetic, are morally neutral, and are non-behavioral.

Sincerely yours,

Emily Volz
Silver Spring, MD