Human sexuality; a defense of the orthodox Christian view

This is not an essay that I ever thought I would need to write: a defense, written for Christians, of the historical Christian view of human sexuality. And yet, in the 21st century, none of these views can be assumed within the Christian church. I will deal with the three most-controversial doctrines – sadly, I suspect that I will need to add another section on pedophilia soon. More and more, I am reminded of the most-famous line of that great comic actor, Dudley Dickerson*

I will also mention that, although conservative Christians are routinely accused of being obsessed with sex, I would have been delighted not to have written this essay – I would have been happy for a continuation of the 1970s-vintage trajectory of increasing acceptance of sexual minorities by the broader culture, coupled with kind but firm insistence that many of their practices are labeled as sinful by the Bible (much like the early church seems to have done). Only the current insistence (from within and without the Church) that the Church must accept and indeed affirm these sexual practices has brought me to a vocal defense of the historical position.

General remarks

The basic Christian doctrine on sexuality is “inside marriage, great – outside marriage, nope.” It’s worth asking, “Why?” The answer to this seems to be varied: some reasons are easy to see – providing a stable environment for the procreation and development of children (and having both biological parents present seems to help with this); avoiding the violence of rape; avoiding the emotional and financial harm to an abandoned innocent spouse. Others are a bit harder to spot – as one example, same sex activity between two unmarried, consenting partners produces no children, has no effect on a spouse, is not rape: what’s the harm?

I can’t claim to have all the answers here, but there does seem to be some spiritual harm to even the willing participants in proscribed sexual activity, some damage to their spiritual formation. The result is a sort of “hiding in the garden” from God. Said differently, God’s proscription of sex outside (heterosexual) marriage seems to be not a malum prohibitum (something that is wrong because it is prohibited) but a malum in se (something that is prohibited because it is intrinsically wrong or harmful). The main evidence I have for this is that in the New Testament, when the question of what portion of the Mosaic Law would be required of Gentile converts, the mala prohibita of the law (that is, the ceremonial requirements of the law) were dropped. The sexual prohibitions, however, were not.

I would also point out that another valid answer to “Why?” is that God said so. He is not obligated to explain His reasons to me for any of His decisions. I’m not trying to be mean-spirited here, nor advocating that anyone be treated badly, but the Bible does say what it says. Those within the Church currently opposing the traditional views may have a variety of reasons for their beliefs, but those beliefs did not originate with the Bible, except by way of the “hermeneutic of wishful thinking.”

Another valid question from the opposite direction is, “Why now?” That is, why is all this opposition to the long-term Judeo-Christian teaching on sex (which, recall, is not new – either any of the sexual practices in question [apart from the 1950s-vintage ideological split between sex and gender] or the doctrines) arising today? Again, I can’t claim to have all the answers, but it appears that part of the answer may lie in the rise of “victimhood culture.” All the sexual practices now laying claim to approval by the Christian Church are minority practices, whose practitioners (at least in times past) have been actually persecuted. In a victimhood culture context, this makes them virtuous and high-status, and they seem to be desirous of using this newfound status to cause any institutions (or individuals) who retain opposition to their practices to “bend the knee.”

Traditional Marriage

Traditional marriage (or, as it was called before about 1985, “marriage”) has its purposes (from the Christian perspective) described in the wedding ceremony itself. Consider the 1662 Anglican Book of Common Prayer (the oldest English-language liturgy still in some use today): the marriage solemnization form gives the following (lightly edited) purposes:

Signifying the mystical union between Christ and the Church
Procreation and raising of children
Remedy against sexual sin
Mutual society, help and comfort in prosperity and adversity

The ceremony detailed in that document joins:

a man and a woman,
forsaking all others,
so long as they both shall live.

This, clearly, was the 17th century (Anglican, at least) understanding of the definition of Christian marriage. I should point out that, while other Christians in other parts of the world and at other times might have disagreed with parts of the Book of Common Prayer, the form of the marriage ceremony was not one of those controversial parts. There were many local twists on the ceremony itself worldwide, but none of those appear to have affected the basic three-part description of “marriage.”

All three features of this definition are under attack at this point (same-sex marriage, open marriage, no-fault divorce). I will address the first two subsequently in this post – the attack on the third point seems (to me at least) to be a fight that has been already lost. About no-fault divorce, I will only say that there are valid Biblical reasons for divorce (essentially: adultery, abuse and abandonment), but “it just didn’t work out” or “we just don’t love each other anymore” or “we were just too young” is not one of them. Keep your promises!

Same-sex sexual activity

The argument in favor of same-sex marriage within Christianity seems to fall along two lines:

We’re much more scientifically knowledgeable these days about sexual orientation
All those Biblical passages about same-sex sexual activity really mean something else (pederasty, cult prostitution, etc.) and the activity was being condemned for other reasons (lack of consent, association with pagan worship, rape, etc.)

The first point seems uniformly to involve an approving quotation of the work of Kinsey, without showing any awareness of the sizable body of scientific objection to his work: use of [particularly poor] samples of convenience as though they were random, devising an a priori 7-point scale for a nominally categorical variable, using a table of “data” derived from conversations with one person, et al. See here and here for a good overall summary [full disclosure – the authors of these summaries are Christian seminary/college professors, and thus not themselves dispassionate]. Frankly, my assessment of Kinsey’s work is that he was a sexual activist who used his experience as an entomologist (I have no particular objection to his early work on gall wasps) to cover his activism with a veneer of “science.” In particular, anyone who quotes the myth that 10% of people are homosexual, has single-sourced this statement from Kinsey – no other researchers have come anywhere near his number. And yes, I am aware that there has been other, much higher-quality research in the field since Kinsey, but so much of it was built on the foundation of assuming Kinsey’s work was correct, that I’m not sure it can be redeemed without the field dismissing Kinsey and then embarking on an enormous replication effort. Frankly, I don’t see that happening.

In any event, even if we do know more of the (social and biological) science of same-sex attraction, from the Christian perspective none of it is any surprise to God, so it hardly seems a sole basis for overturning a couple of millennia of doctrine.

The second point is usually accomplished by some fairly detailed examination of the words used in various Biblical passages in the original languages (though often this is done only for the New Testament – the Old Testament passages are dismissed as part of the Mosaic Covenant, superseded by the New Covenant, though sexual matters within the law were specifically not superseded). I’m not going to get into the linguistic details of these – “detail fights” are never over, and frankly, I think the arguments are irrelevant for reasons I’ll make clear below. For the sake of continuing my discussion, I will grant that some of these arguments are at least partially correct in that there is something worse going on with each of these sins being condemned than just same-sex sexual activity. I will also remark that, “whenever it’s mentioned in the Bible, it’s always associated with something that’s worse” is hardly a ringing endorsement of the activity in question.

My overall defense of Christian marriage as being exclusively heterosexual, though, comprises the following three points:

Wherever same-sex sexual activity is mentioned in the Bible, it is universally condemned, never condoned, and certainly never encouraged. This is so, even though in many cases the broader cultures of the time likely had a HIGHER prevalence of same-sex sexual activity than today.
If the Biblical passages dealing with these practices really do mean what the progressive theologians say they mean today, why did no one – none of the saints, apostles and theologians of the last two millennia – ever notice this before the broad culture accepted these practices and began pressuring people of faith to knuckle under to their view? Note particularly that this includes theologians of the past who actually spoke Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek, and who were themselves embedded in cultures in which (again) these practices were likely even MORE prevalent than today.
Marriage is used regularly as a metaphor for the relationship between God and His people as well as Christ and the Church; this metaphor loses its power completely if there is no sexual complementarity in marriage (or if gender is a fluid construct, or if marriage is “open”).

So, if Christian marriage is heterosexual, and sex outside marriage is sinful, then, well, same-sex sexual activity is sinful. This is not to say that same-sex attraction is sinful, though. Temptation to a specific sin is not itself sinful (see particularly here). Now, to be sure, Jesus does say that (paraphrase) “looking with lust is adultery in the heart.” The issue here, though, is not one of temptation to sin, but of contemplation of sin. He is making the point that sins of the heart are just as damaging to the sinner as sins of action. There is an old proverb (not Biblical but often useful, perhaps due to Luther) that “you can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair.” We are called on to “put to death” evil desires as part of our sanctification: for this reason, same-sex attraction should not be embraced, even though the temptation itself is not sin.

My own opinion is that a Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction and successfully lives without sexual sin is worthy of considerable respect. Regarding whether or not same-sex attraction can be effectively extinguished, the likely answer is that it can in some instances, but it’s best not to count on that – the much more probable result is that it will be a lifelong struggle. I suspect that Warren Throckmorton’s counseling approach, described here, is largely correct – “I can’t turn you straight, but you don’t have to be gay.”

Open marriage/polyamory

God seems to have tolerated (in the Old Testament, at least) the polygyny form (single husband, plural wives) of this, but it is never encouraged (with the sole exception of the now-extinct practice of Levirate marriage, it is described, but neither prescribed nor proscribed), and nearly every described instance causes problems. All other forms of polyamory put the paternity of children in doubt, which is an obvious detriment to societal stability.

Furthermore, by the time of the New Testament, even polygyny had nearly died out (the Romans didn’t allow it). One can come up with economic justifications for it (in, for example, violent times with a shortage of men), but there are better ways of dealing with the financial problems of widows in an economically patriarchal society (charitable support for widows and orphans is encouraged throughout the Bible).

In any event, polyamory today is principally sexual in nature and has nothing to do with the economics of support for widows and orphans. There is simply no Biblical support for the current practice.

Transgenderism

One doesn’t have to read very far into the Bible (27th verse) to find out that God created us in two categories, male and female. Furthermore, one doesn’t need to know a whole lot of biology to realize that these two categories are represented at the cellular level: every cell in my body testifies to my maleness – if I were female, the same would be true about my femaleness. Sex is the first thing you notice when you meet someone, and the last thing you forget about them.

To be sure, this is a bit of an oversimplification. There are intersex individuals who have some sex chromosomal type other than XX or XY as a result of some meiosis irregularity – these, typically, have fertility issues (some also have learning difficulties), but not atypical phenotypes (the vast majority do not know about their genotype irregularity until adulthood). There are also intersex individuals with XX or XY chromosomal makeup who nevertheless have an atypical phenotype (like anorchia, vaginal agenesis, 5ɑR2D, et al.). In some cases, these people have a unique enough appearance that cultural presentation as “male” or “female” is somewhat difficult, though most are able to do so if they wish (estimates are that around 0.018% of the population is intersex in such a way that phenotype is different from genotype or phenotype is difficult to classify as male/female – even these can usually present culturally as one or the other should they so choose). Transgender activists, though, are very clear that their focus has little or nothing to do with these genotype/phenotype issues (though the existence of intersex individuals is the basis for their claim that biological sex exists on a “spectrum” – also see here).

Instead, the transgender activists will tell me that my “sex” and my “gender” are two very different things (and this is apparently true simply because they wish it to be so) – one describes my biology and the other describes how I feel and express myself with regard to my own sexual identity; sex is biological and gender is cultural. Putting aside the rather horrific origins of the concept of the sex/gender split, if that were the limit of “gender activism,” I suspect that it would cause little difficulty. Many people might well be confused by some of the “gender” expressions of others, but would likely be laissez-faire enough to walk on by with a shrug.

The problem occurs when gender (culture) feeds back into sex (biology) and power (politics):

Discussions of gender identity in schools (including elementary schools) lead confused children (or their parents) to seek irreversible hormonal/surgical “treatment” to help a child appear to be the other biological sex.
Athletes who are undergoing hormonal/surgical “treatment” to appear as the other biological sex wish to be allowed to compete as female (unsurprisingly, regardless of the direction of the transition, desire to compete as male seems to never occur).
Intact biological males wish to be allowed into female restrooms/locker rooms because that’s how they feel (perhaps with a daily shift in this identity). The number of sexual assaults that have occurred as a result of this practice is not large, but it’s not zero, either – to be clear, it doesn’t appear that the predators are actually transgender, but just using the bathroom/locker room policy to access their victims (though this recent event may be an example of an actual transgender predator – description without paywall here; in addition, this essay contains examples of 122 male sexual predators who transitioned to “female-identifying” during incarceration or following release – many are now incarcerated in women’s prisons).
People who wish for the sex on their official records to reflect their gender rather their biological sex (including various “non-binary” options). This might make some sense for intersex people, but that’s typically not who is pushing for this.
People who wish for others to use some set of pronouns other than those derived from their physical appearance and presentation (including, perhaps, a set of pronouns they have created for the purpose). In some cases, they wish to enforce this pronoun use by force of some sort (law, boycott, Twitter mob, etc. – see victimhood culture). They frequently wish also to force others to disclose their pronoun preferences routinely, regardless of whether or not their pronoun choices are atypical in any way.

Note that most of these situations (all but the pronoun issue) have to do with just one particular “gender identity,” namely, people who identify as the opposite biological sex from the one they actually possess (though, in some cases, intermittently – genderfluid or possibly bigender). This is typically related to “gender dysphoria,” the psychological distress associated with self-perceived mismatch between gender and sex. Regardless of the rhetoric from the activists, at issue is not so much people who wish to experience or express their biological sex in some novel way, but rather people who wish to reject their biological sex and take on the other one. Frequently, one will hear something like, “I may be a man biologically, but I feel like a woman.” The difficulty with this statement is that it can’t be literally true: at most, the correct statement would be, “I may be a man biologically, but I feel like I imagine a woman would feel.” No one who is biologically male can possibly know what it feels like to be biologically female (or the reverse) because no one can truly feel what any other person feels. We can appreciate what others say, how they describe their emotional state, and parts of that can resonate with us, but we really can’t experience the emotional state of another.

At another level, all of these situations are about dominance and power (again, see the victimhood culture post). It’s not, “I wish to be allowed to express my gender identity fully” but rather, “I require society to accommodate my gender identity in the particular way I wish.” Note, for example, that the bathroom/locker room issue (which is a real issue for people transitioning from presenting as their biological sex to presenting as the opposite sex) could be handled easily by mandating the provision of a single-stall shower/bathroom, but this has been consistently rejected by activists.

So, what is the Christian response to this situation? There are two aspects to this:

First, how do we respond to non-Christian people whose (self-professed) gender differs from their sex? There are a couple of categories here that I think are fundamentally a bit different.
- One category is people who are presenting consistently as the opposite sex from their biological sex (however they are doing that – personally, I’ve seen it done in a professional context very effectively, and I’ve seen it done quite poorly [i.e. dude-in-a-dress]). These people, we should simply treat as they appear. Unless you’re a medical practitioner, or you’ve been told by the people themselves, anything you think you know about their chromosomal makeup is speculation or hearsay. Just treat them the way you think they are wanting to be treated, based on their appearance. I understand that using someone’s preferred pronouns may feel like lying (or at least affirming their lie), but it is a form of respect. I would also point out that it’s always possible that they are currently “re-transitioning” so that the “new” pronouns are really correct – without a DNA test (or self-declaration), you really don’t know. I would also add that, though it’s a bit awkward, pronouns can often be avoided in conversation.
- The other category is those who present as some novel “none-of-the-above” gender identity. Particularly for those of us of a certain age, it may be a bit of a challenge to interact with them in a respectful way without gawking. The only suggestion I have at this point is to recognize that the gender identity that they are presenting is part of who they are, but it is only part of who they are (and, as far as I’m concerned, one of the least interesting parts). Try to interact with them enough to find out some of the more-interesting parts of who they are.**
The second aspect of the Christian response to gender issues, though, has to do with Christians who struggle with gender issues (and, to a lesser extent, people who may struggle with gender issues and seek the advice of a Christian). It is at this point that, I suspect, a historically orthodox Christian would behave differently from a Progressive Christian.
- For Christians, our “gender” – how we feel about our sexual identity – is supposed to align with what God tells us about our sexual identity. And, what He has told us about it is that we don’t get to choose based on our feelings. We were created male or female, and our sexual identity is a Son or Daughter of the King. None of the primary creeds (nor the Bible itself) address the “gender” vs. “sex” distinction – how could they? literally no one had ever thought in those terms before John Money, et al. in the 1950s (and what a sordid tale that is). Neither do they address “gender confirmation” surgery/treatment – again, it didn’t exist (at least, not in any voluntary sense). The Bible does speak about cross-dressing in the Old Testament (it’s forbidden in the Mosaic law); I’m pretty confident, however, that this is part of the ceremonial law that was superseded by the New Covenant. Nevertheless, you won’t find anything positive ever said about any sort of gender-shifting in the Bible at all. I am aware of the (to my mind, rather bizarre) interpretation of Genesis 2 that says that Adam was created genderless and genders weren’t created until the creation of Eve – this seems like a real stretch to me***, and has little to do with the case at hand in any event.
- It may seem unfair of God to require His people to affirm a sex choice that may not correspond to their feelings. This is not the only such affirmation that we are called on to make, though. If we could depend on our feelings to tell us what to do in every situation, we wouldn’t need Him at all – there are times I do not feel God’s forgiveness, or Christ’s love, or the communion of saints, or any of a number of other true facts, affirmed by the Bible as interpreted through the lens of the primary creeds. I must submit my will to what God says is, not what I feel. Note carefully that I am not suggesting that feelings and emotions are valueless – they are part of the imago Dei within each one of us. They are not, however, dispositive; we submit our feelings to the facts informed by our faith.
- Now, as to how God’s choice of our sex is expressed by us within our cultural context, I think there’s considerable flexibility there so long as we are not rebelling against His choice.†

I certainly understand that this stance gives the gospel considerably less surface appeal to non-Christians who have invested a great deal of their energy into a non-binary gender identity, or a different-than-chromosomal gender identity. But recall, “let the thief no longer steal, but let him labor…” – wouldn’t the gospel be more appealing to the “thief community” if we instead say, “well, it’s probably fine, as long as you steal only from people who can afford it, or who are insured, or…” The only problem is, it’s not what God says. This may seem like an inapt comparison, especially since people with gender identity issues have historically been treated badly in many circumstances, but so were first-century thieves – truly when we become Christians we are called to live differently! Consider the “sin list” in 1 Corinthians 6.9-10 – people who do these things will “not inherit the Kingdom of God” – but then the following verse: “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 by the Spirit of our God.” That’s the gospel – not that our habits are excused but that we ourselves are transformed; that we now “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.”

What about civil rights?

This is truly a different question from the one treated in the rest of this essay. USA version 1 is not a theocracy, and the categories of legal/illegal are different from moral/immoral (though there should be considerable correlation and overlap!). In particular, I’m libertarian enough to have supported the Lawrence v. Texas decision striking down state sodomy laws (which, though they technically applied to heterosexuals as well, were only ever enforced as a way to, frankly, persecute gay men).

I have long believed, though, that if the activists supporting LGBT+ causes were really interested in improving the lives of LGBT+ people, their strategies would have been quite different. As one example: long before same-sex marriage was imposed on the country by Obergefell v. Hodges, contract law allowed same-sex couples to enter into an arrangement that nearly mimicked same-sex marriage.†† If activists really wanted to make the legal aspects of same-sex marriage widely available to same-sex couples, they would have produced a set of contract templates (probably one per state) that allowed them to easily enter into such an arrangement, and would have lobbied for changes to the (few) laws that still privilege marriage over other domestic arrangements (such as, for example, common law marriage). No one did this, though, and I’m left to wonder why – I suspect it is that they wished to enhance the appearance of persecution so as to have a more emotionally persuasive argument for the SCOTUS case they wished to eventually bring.

There was also a case just prior to Obergefell, in which a gay couple in Texas who had two children born via surrogacy (each partner was the biological father of one of the children) were bringing suit about birth certificate issues, wanting to both be listed as the parents on both birth certificates (either by writing the original certificate that way or by cross-adoption). They claimed that this was to alleviate potential custody problems if one or the other of them were to die. But all that would be required would be for the surrogate to give up parental rights (so that each partner has sole custody of his biological child) and then each partner executes a will giving the other partner custody of his minor children on his death. I had a cousin, many years ago, in Texas, who did exactly this, long before same-sex marriage, and it simply wasn’t a problem when she died (with minor children). Consequently, this wasn’t really a problem here (and I’m sure that any experienced Texas family lawyer would know this) but a problem was nevertheless asserted in order to force the state to more completely “normalize” same-sex marriage in those pre-Obergefell days. To make it more clear that this was likely an intentionally manufactured problem, the two men were married in DC (where same-sex marriage was legal at the time), but moved to Texas to do the surrogacy procedure – why would that be?

For that matter, why was a landmark SCOTUS case redefining “marriage” the preferred approach for LGBT+ activists (as opposed to pragmatically solving the actual legal problems encountered by same-sex couples)? I suspect that the answer††† has to do with power to be projected against religious citizens, whom the activists now regard as the principal authors of their persecution. Whatever the reason, though, the current state of affairs is that “marriage” has been defined by the state in a fashion that is contradictory to the definition used by orthodox Christianity (and, indeed, most religious traditions). How this will play out in terms of religious freedom is anybody’s guess (though I’m not particularly sanguine about the short-term future).

On the other hand, regardless of the morality of the situation, people are engaging in same-sex sexual activity, forming households on that basis, and raising children in those households. The legal environment needs to support the needs of those children for protection and stability, and even if I would prefer a very different legal approach (for religious freedom reasons), there’s no point now in lying down in front of the LGBT+ bulldozer – the governmental issue is settled, let’s focus on being faithful within the Church, and loving toward those outside the Church. Christian doctrines haven’t changed, and we are here in this time and place to bring light to a dark world.

Postscript: after this essay was written, this essay by (progressive) evolutionary biologist Heather Heying was written, supportive of the biological portion of my transgenderism argument. She offers the following biological definition (lightly edited), which I find succinct and useful:

Females are individuals who do or did or will or would, but for developmental or genetic anomalies, produce large, sessile gametes.

Males are individuals who do or did or will or would, but for developmental or genetic anomalies, produce small, motile gametes.

In plants, there can exist individuals who are both, but (in particular) mammals are one or the other. As near as I can tell, in humans (in fact, in all mammals except monotremes) this boils down to “do you possess a Y chromosome (male) or not (female)” – even the various atypical genotypes (Turner’s [X], Superman [XYY], Klinefelter’s [XXY] et al.) follow this rule. Other intersex individuals also follow this rule, but with atypical external genitalia/secondary sex characteristics.

Second Postscript: here is an essay by Peter Heck at Not The Bee, discussing many of these same issues – specifically, pointing out that some slopes really are slippery!

* Yes, I realize that Mr. Dickerson played stereotypical roles with the Three Stooges (compilation here), but his “reaction comedy” and physical comedy skills were truly spectacular, and he was (IMHO) the best of their recurrent foils. We can’t allow our contemporary desire for avoiding stereotypes to rob us of great art (or at least great slapstick): his performance is the best thing about every scene he’s in, and he should have taken over as “Third Stooge” after the death of Shemp, instead of bringing in Joe Besser – I’m just sayin’: “Larry, Moe, and Dudley” would have been great.

** A quick digression along these lines (related, but not really about gender identity): I was once teaching a very large math class in a large university, and there was a student who sat in the back of the class, had bright green hair, dressed somewhat outrageously, and acted rather confrontational – not a trouble-maker, just a bit of a sullen, disengaged attitude. She was also one of the best students in the class, but rarely participated, just did the work (very, very well). Second semester of the same sequence, she was in my class again – after the first day of class, I called her by name and spoke to her a bit. She was surprised and said, “You know who I am?” I responded that I know the names of all my students who write a final exam as good as the one she wrote last semester. She grinned, her attitude softened, and not only was she my best student in the second semester of the class, but she began speaking up in class and her questions and attitude were helpful for other students as well. Once she knew that I thought of her not as “the green-haired girl in the back” but as “<her name>, who wrote that great final exam,” everything changed.

*** It seems to hinge on a distinction-without-a-difference in the use of two Hebrew words for man: אָדָם (adam) and אִישׁ (ish). The first one is used primarily of Adam before the creation of Eve and the second is primarily used afterwards. The problem is that it isn’t used this way exclusively – אִישׁ is used when paired with אִשָּׁה (issa), the word for woman or wife, in verses 23-24, for obvious poetic reasons (she is called “issa” for she came from “ish”; an “ish” shall cleave to his “issa”), but in verse 24, the reference is clearly to later marriages (since it refers also to the man “leaving his father and mother”). Most devastatingly for this interpretation, the last verse of the chapter goes back to אָדָם (adam) for the man. It’s really just wishful thinking, combined with a 21st-century mindset, to believe that אָדָם (adam) is a genderless human, who was then split into אִישׁ (ish) and אִשָּׁה (issa).

† What about true intersex people, for whom even their chromosomal identity may be neither male (XY) nor female (XX) (and when they do have a typical genotype, their phenotype may not match)? Nearly all of these do have a well-defined male or female phenotype (though possibly as the result of surgery soon after birth). It’s my general belief that these people, if Christian, should maintain this phenotype as their sex, but honestly I could be persuaded differently in individual cases (especially where infant surgery was required). In any case, those people requiring infant surgery are fortunately quite rare. As most of these people have reproductive difficulties as adults, they may be who Jesus was referring to as “eunuchs who have been so from birth.”

†† There are a few laws that still privilege marriage in ways not amenable to modification by contract, like the spousal rules with Social Security, but those need reform anyway – single people are (relatively speaking) ripped off by Social Security, since they have no beneficiary to receive the equivalent of their spousal benefits, allowing the government to retain those assets.

††† I will mention that back in the 1970s/1980s I had a great many gay and lesbian college friends (it’s OK, kids: the LGBT+ acronym wasn’t a thing back then) with whom I had many discussions on these topics. In terms of political history, this was between Stonewall and Lawrence v. Texas, and at that point, they uniformly said something like, “We’re not wanting anyone to approve of us, and we’re not looking to ‘get married’ (usually said with an eyeroll) – we just want to be left alone.” This is offered for what it is worth: it should be regarded as an anecdote, not data, and I have no idea whether or not their views have changed in the intervening years (and, honestly, many of them died from AIDS in the 1990s – it’s difficult for younger people to understand how devastating the disease was at that point).