Thursday, July 9, 2009

Gays and Generativity: The Significance of Non-Biological Generativity for the Human Community

From a journal entry dated September 1990:

People argue that homosexuality is abhorrent because non-generative. But generativity clearly occurs in non-biological, non-physical ways. When opponents of homosexuality encounter that recognition, however, they often retort that God has equipped humans to generate biologically, and that gays fly in the face of nature by not conforming to this divine biological plan. In other words, they respond with a tautology: God made human beings to procreate biologically; procreation itself proves that God made human beings to procreate. And so the assertion that God made human beings to procreate biologically must be true, because it proves itself true.

The idea struck me recently: God is the supreme model of non-biological generativity. “In the beginning was the Word”—the Word proceeds eternally from the Father, begotten, not made. Of course we birth others in non-physical ways. Gays are in the business of giving birth everywhere, in manifold ways, just as many others are in the business of giving birth who never conceive or bear a child physically. What incalculable damage does the human race do to itself when it allows generations of talented and loving people to be marginalized, shut out from contributing to society even when their gifts are apparent? What damage does the human race do to itself if it faces the ravages of AIDS on this generation of gay men with apathy or even glee that gay men are suffering and dying now, their talents, contributions, generative impulse obliterated from the face of the earth?