I wish to briefly consider gay “soul” versus same-sex sexual behavior. Same-sex sexuality has been frowned upon and deemed abnormal and inappropriate for centuries. Prior to same-sex marriage litigation, Psychiatrist, Arno Karlen wrote, “…we do know that predominant or exclusive homosexuality is seen negatively everywhere, and that when a society alleged to approve homosexuality is carefully studied, it turns out that homosexual acts are accepted only in special situations or times of life, and to the extent that they do not impair heterosexual functioning or loss of sexual identity.” Only in the last century have there been efforts to normalize homosexuality. U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, John G. Roberts, Jr., decried the court’s granting marriage rights to those of the same sex. He did not believe it legitimate, this “transformation of a social institution [marriage] that has formed the basis of human society for millennia.”
Now, concerning being, a focus on the unique inner psyche of men who seek sex with other men began in 1870. Writing about this event, gay historian, Michael Foucault, explained: “…the psychological, psychiatric, medical category of homosexuality was constituted from the moment it was characterized … less by a type of sexual relations than by a certain quality of sexual sensibility, a certain way of inverting the masculine and feminine in oneself. Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy into a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphroditism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; The homosexual was now a species.”
Gay activist, Dennis Altman wrote “The greatest single victory of the gay movement over the past decade has been to shift the debate from behavior to identity, thus forcing opponents into a position where they can be seen as attacking the civil rights of homosexual citizens rather than attacking specific and (as they see it) antisocial behavior.”
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