At First Things' blog Richard Neuhaus notes that Gene Robinson, the man who left his wife to join his male lover and who created a stir when he was ordained a Bishop in the Anglican Church, has checked himself into alcohol rehab. Neuhaus writes:
Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion, has been in alcohol rehab since February 1. There is this in his letter to his diocese:
"Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I am writing to you from an alcohol treatment center where on February 1, with the encouragement and support of my partner, daughters and colleagues, I checked myself in to deal with my increasing dependence on alcohol."
"Over the 28 days I will be here, I will be dealing with the disease of alcoholism-which, for years, I have thought of as a failure of will or discipline on my part, rather than a disease over which my particular body simply has no control, except to stop drinking altogether."
One has the greatest empathy for people afflicted with alcoholism, but the logic is intriguing. It is not a matter of will or discipline but a disease of his particular body over which he has no control.
One might imagine a person severely afflicted with same-sex desires writing something like this: "I thought of it as a failure of will or discipline on my part, rather than a disease over which my particular body simply has no control, except to stop having sex altogether and live a chaste life."
The self-exculpating dismissal of will and discipline as irrelevant to disordered desires is always a morally dubious step. Bishop Robinson will now be a recovering alcoholic. Good. If only he were also a recovering gay.
There may be a genetic predisposition to being gay, as some believe, just as there is a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. But just as we don't accept the alcohol addiction as normal there's no reason why homosexuality should be accepted as normal. Both conditions, in different ways, ravage body and soul and wreck lives. This is not to say that everyone who is gay devastates his life through his behavior, of course, but it is to say that the chances of ruin are far greater if one is homosexual, all other things being equal, than if one is not. And this, like the ruined lives of so many good people by alcoholism, is a terrible waste and an awful tragedy.