I’ll just not respond to it. Perhaps we can find peace in that way.

I won’t debate, yet again, your obsession with the peculiar notion that someone somewhere demands that people “identify with” or “assume” and orientation.

I’ll just say that this scenario exists solely within your own imagination, and let it be.

But I’ve got other things on my plate that I keep putting off because yet another comment is directed my way…I really must get to them.

I think you misread Warren’s comment. He was not challenging the existence of sexual orientation but rather was saying that if the entire “moral” component of an anti-bullying program was limited to “except that one cannot assume sexual orientation and one should not disrespect someone due to perceptions of orientation”, then this is not a threat to conservative Christian teaching.

And I’m finding it peculiar that you complain that I did not address your question right after telling me that you find no value in discussing it. I find that to be a bit of a mixed message.

But as the current message is a complaint about being ignored, I’ll try to address your question:

At what point do we move from the admirable value of

except that one cannot assume sexual orientation

to insisting that everyone has one and must identify by it?

First “one cannot assume sexual orientation” is not a “value”. It is not a principle or an ideal or a goal, it is simply a fact.

As for “insisting that everyone has one”, it’s difficult to address that objecition without rehasing our last conversation. I suppose for me it’s a bit like a conversation objection to the idea that everyone has an ethnicity – I’m not always sure what to do with declarations of that sort.

Sure, I understand that not everyone “identifies by their ethnicity”, whatever that could be taken to mean, but that seems to be a bit of an anomaly. And it would be more than a little peculiar if every time a discussion about ethnicity arose this person insisted “I deny the existence of ethnicity”.

Wouldn’t you find it odd if that were to occur?

Here’s what I find difficult about your objection to sexual orientation: you are fine with the idea that there are same-sex attracted persons and persons who are not same-sex attracted. On that we agree.

And I understand that you would greatly object to being called “gay”. And I think that your objection would be well founded – many of the assumptions that come with that phrase do not apply to your life, your goals, your views, or your perspectives.

I’m less convinced about your objection to “homosexual”. I think it is a far more clinical term that does not include assumptions about behavior, beliefs, views, or goals. But I can respect that your personal history lends to your objection.

But here’s the problem: I would say that SSA is your sexual orientation. You don’t like that. But while using SSA is fine, it is your… what, exactly. You have an SSA __________ and Warren has an OSA __________.

I don’t think “temptation” or “struggle” or “problem” work exactly, because Warren’s opposite sex attraction is not in and of itself a problem.

Maybe something like: my “attraction” is same-sex attraction and Warren’s “attraction” is opposite sex attraction. Would that be acceptable to you?