In March 2007 the Rev, Albert Mohler Jr, a leading voice in the 16 million-strong Southern Baptist Convention began to use the discourse of  "fallen creation" and "natural imperfections" to reject any connection between essentialism and tolerance of homosexuality. Mohler was responding to an article in the now defunct US-based  RADAR magazine.  The RADAR article explored a hypothetical future medical scenario in which a mother-to-be grapples with the question whether to have a homosexual baby.  Tyler Gray, the article's author, suggested that screening for behavioral traits like homosexuality in the womb is an immanent possibility. Gray cited London's Sunday Times, in which experts predicted that within a decade hormonal patches would be offered to parents that would allow them to change the sexual orientation of their fetus. Gray went on to state "there's little doubt that expectant parents will soon be able to screen their embryos and choose one with the `correct' sexual preference."    Gray correctly pointed out that the procedure known as Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) already allows doctors to screen for more than 1,300 chromosomal disorders.  The same techniques can also allow medics to screen for traits such as eye colour, hair colour and height before implanting the DNA in the uterus.  Gray predicts that "as geneticists map the location of the genes responsible for more complex behaviours and pinpoint, once and for all, those that help determine homosexuality, such traits, too, will factor into would-be parents' decisions to implant an embryo and carry it to term - or to toss it and all of its undesirable qualities in the trash."  

Albert Mohler, Jr. described the homosexual activists' reaction to the possibilities outlined in the RADAR article.  He interpreted their argument as a form of the naturalistic fallacy. Here is how he described their view: "... the discovery of a biological cause for homosexuality would lead to the normalization of homosexuality simply because it would then be seen to be natural, and thus moral."  This description of the homosexual activists' position erroneously depicts it as a version of the Christian right's own argument - namely that if something is `natural' it is therefore automatically `moral' (morally good).  But this is the opposite of what homosexual activists argue. Homosexual activists understand, along with many thoughtful Christians, that observations about what occurs with regularity in nature are descriptive, not prescriptive, and therefore morally neutral.  By contrast, Mohler's own response to the gay sheep research wove prescriptive Christian value judgments into descriptive accounts of the scientific observations.  In his list of ten points on how "to think in genuinely Christian terms" about the future possibilities outlined in the RADAR article, Mohler claimed that "the human genetic structure ... shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God's judgment."  This reasoning contains several problematic assumptions. First, it offers no method of discerning exactly which parts of the human genetic structure manifest `pernicious' effects of original sin.  Second, it implies that some aspects of the human genetic structure reflect God's punishment or `judgment' against Adam and Eve for the Fall. The pernicious effects of human moral failure are written into the homosexual's very nature, inscribed there by God as punishment for their heterosexual progenitors' disobedience.  Should we assume some sort of a Calvinistic doctrine of predestination whereby only some of Adam and Eve's offspring are singled out for heterosexual salvation, while others are doomed to lives of homosexual repression and misery? If so, it is difficult to see how this innate divine punishment for the Fall could be just. Third, this seems to require a particularly sadistic picture of a God who both creates homosexuality and plants it in human nature to punish some humans for Adam and Eve's abuse of freedom, and then rewards those unfortunate individuals for not acting in accordance with the nature He implanted in them. Moreover, it would seem that St. Paul's moral exhortations against those who rebel against their God-given nature (and hence all creation) cannot be used to condemn homosexuals after all, but instead would make a virtue of rebellion against `creation'.  Yet Mohler specifically alluded to Paul's reasoning to explain why homosexuality is a `sin' in the first place. The argument is circular.  

Even if we overlook these issues, there is a more basic problem with the very idea of original sin.  Either (1) God created Adam and Eve with an innate susceptibility to temptation that led them to transgress His rules, or (2) He did not, but they disobeyed anyway. If we choose (1) accepting that an innate `pattern of temptation' caused them to commit the sin then they cannot be held personally responsible and we have to ask why a perfect God would create them with this design flaw. On the other hand, if we choose (2) and they are personally responsible for their sins, then it would not be just to punish others, who are likewise innocent until they choose to sin. Original sin punishes all humans for the sins of their progenitors.  The idea is that we are not individually responsible for being `sinners' but nevertheless we can be held morally responsible for being `saved' (good). This is a half-baked determinism, ambivalent as to whether humans have free will (and hence morally responsibility) or not.  

Mohler seems to think that moral responsibility hinges on freedom of choice: we may not choose our temptations, or the situations we find ourselves in, but we are nevertheless absolutely responsible for our decisions and actions. His reasoning is almost existentialist. If this is the case then it makes no sense to say that we are `sinners' by virtue of Adam and Eve's sins.  We can only be called `sinners' for our own sins.  If the Fall is God's way of holding Adam and Even accountable for their own choices, rather than unjustly blaming them for His own design flaw, then He should be consistent and hold all other humans responsible for their own sins in the same manner, rather than punishing otherwise innocent individuals for the sins of their progenitors.

As to the scientific evidence pointing to biological causation for sexual orientation in some individuals, Mohler says, "The biblical condemnation of all homosexual behaviors would not be compromised or mitigated in the least by such a discovery. The discovery of a biological factor would not change the Bible's moral verdict on homosexual behavior."   Mohler's view is entirely consonant with the Catholic creed: "Love the sinner, hate the sin."  But it also runs into the same contradictions with its own past position on sexual ethics.  

Mohler says that we sin against homosexuals by insisting that they choose their temptations.  But he goes on to say that we all (whatever our sexual orientation) are absolutely responsible for "what we do with sinful temptations".  Homosexual activists agree with Mohler that we are all equally morally responsible agents, whatever our sexual orientation and whatever our sexual temptations.  Homosexual activists have never argued that a biologically fixed sexual orientation prevents one from being a free, responsible moral agent, although heterosexual rapists and their defence attorneys have sometimes argued thus. Mohler assumes without argument that homosexual acts per se are amongst the "sinful temptations" even when there is no `victim'. The rationale for defining homosexual acts as `sins' can no longer be furnished by simply claiming that the `sin' consists in the homosexual's rejection of his own nature (the nature intended by God). The reasoning behind the Bible's moral verdict on homosexual behaviour is eliminated by the new scientific evidence that homosexuality is, after all, part of some people's God-given nature.  So Mohler must insist, as he does, that "no scientific finding can change the basic sinfulness of all homosexual behaviour."  Mohler identifies homosexuality as a particular "pattern of temptation" and says that those who commit same-sex acts are responsible for the choice to commit the `sinful' act.  The temptation is to behaviour that has already been established as a moral evil. When we probe into why a homosexual act is `sinful' or a moral evil, Mohler's recourse is to the Bible, and specifically to Paul's reasoning in Romans (".. the Bible ... places this condemnation in the larger context of the Creator's rightful expectation of our stewardship of the sexual gift.  All manifestations of homosexuality are thus representations of human sinfulness and rebellion against God's express will." ) In his follow-up blog of 16 March Mohler tries to make this more explicit by quoting 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 where Paul includes homosexuality or its cognates in a list of sins that are to be condemned. It is through sanctification or "justification in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" that those who were once homosexual sinners have been saved.  However, the argument is circular; it assumes what it needs to prove  - namely that homosexual acts per se are morally evil.  In Mohler's blog the only explanation given for why homosexual acts are always sins is that the Bible condemns them as such.   Yet the reason why the Bible condemns them as such is because they are perceived to be a form of rebellion against one's given sexual orientation.  The new empirical research invalidates this claim and renders the Biblical exhortations obsolete, showing that Mohler is mistaken in claiming that the discovery of a biological factor would not change the Bible's moral verdict on homosexual behavior.  

Mohler goes on to say that the homosexual tendency to sin (the pattern of temptation to homosexual acts) is encompassed within a more general human tendency to sin, as "we are all sinners from the start" having been "born with a huge moral defect".  For this more general moral defect, Mohler says there is only one cure: the cross of Christ. The doctrine of original sin is seldom given such a literal interpretation, since it flies in the face of modern ethics.  Even Mohler himself appears uncomfortable with the notion that individuals can be born sinners prior to making any free choices.  In his blog of 16 March, Mohler says moral responsibility does not require absolute moral choice. But it does require some choice, and Mohler clearly sees this as what is morally significant. Citing what seems to be an example taken from Sartre, he says "a soldier in battle may not have chosen to be in a situation of moral anguish, but he is still absolutely responsible for his decisions and actions. Those who commit homosexual acts, whoever they are and whatever their biological profile, are absolutely responsible for their sin."  This again begs the question as to why homosexual acts per se are sins at all.  Homosexuals and their defenders would fully agree that homosexuals are absolutely responsible for their sins. They merely disagree that all homosexual acts per se are `sins'.  

While Mohler and other prohibitionists say that no "orientation" can alter the moral status of actions, they simultaneously assume that a heterosexual act is inherently morally good, merely by virtue of its biologically procreative structure, which is not a matter of choice at all.  But upon reflection, most heterosexuals do not feel that merely being attracted to the opposite sex, and acting accordingly, is something for which they merit moral praise!  The object of attraction's sex is morally neutral, whereas how one expresses this attraction (fidelity, dishonesty, exploitation, abuse, violent coercion, etc) is morally significant because it involves volition. Mohler and other Christian prohibitionists need to explain how pre-volitional biological facts like "orientation" and "procreative potential" automatically assume a particular kind of moral significance.  In other words, what makes some biological facts morally better than others? Anyone could agree that human beings have certain feelings about biological functions.  We might say that it is `bad' to be blind, or to be born with differences that make ordinary tasks more difficult. In this sense we could see dwarfism as `bad' in some pre-moral sense.  But we also recognise that dwarfism is morally neutral with respect to behaviour and that dwarfs are not to be morally condemned by virtue of their inability to perform the functions we associate with people of average height.  We might say that a dwarf makes a `bad' basketball player but we would not say that dwarfism makes one morally `bad'.  Likewise, homosexuals might be `bad' at reproduction, in that homosexual couples cannot procreate without the help of the opposite sex. However, morally condemning them for this would be like morally condemning a dwarf for using a stool, or thick soled shoes.  

Mohler's perspective needs to be thoroughly examined, with a view to exposing the unstated premises.  For example, when Christians talk about restoring creation to 'it's full glory' or of 'imperfections' we must assume that we have some working definition of what 'perfection' or 'fullness' consists in. No doubt heterosexuality will be a part of that definition.  But, since Christian authors also suggest that the genetic mutations which prevent this 'fullness' are 'harmful' or 'defective' we must ask to whom this harm is being done, and in what the harm or defectiveness consists?  Liberalism's rejection of paternalistic interference with the private sphere except to prevent harm to others places the burden of proof squarely on those who wish to allow parental interference with the future potentials of unborn children.  

Whether this responsibility or duty is couched in theological terms or secular ethics, and whether genetic engineering is used to root out "imperfections", or actual disease, it is equally clear to me that this position presupposes some sort of ethics of 'care' that is deeply paternalistic and antithetical to protection of the private sphere in the liberal state. Parental liberty is as valuable, but it does not override the liberty of individual children to express their own biological natures. So called `parental liberty' over-steps when it is used as a euphemism for paternalism.  The `harm' such parental interventions aim to prevent is not harm to the child, but to the dominant but fragile and fallible cultural value of heterosexism.  Only heterosexist parents would want to inscribe heterosexuality into an unborn child. To prevent harm to homosexual children we need only foster a culture of toleration and diversity, rather than to alter nature to conform to fallible cultural values.