More Than an ‘Urge’
Avi Shafran’s opinion piece, “Orthodoxy and Homosexuality” (February 24), obscures the relevant facts. He sets up a straw man by disingenuously asserting that we who disagree with him believe “that any human urge is inherently legitimate.” Nonsense. We abhor murder and non-consensual sex, for example. Further, his argument that “there is no incontrovertible evidence of a ‘gay gene’” blinds Shafran to the massive evidence that genes and intrauterine development play critical roles in the sexual responses of adolescent and adult men and women.
Homosexual love is thus a gift from God that, like heterosexuality, draws people into loving relationships. It is much more than “an urge,” and Shafran’s belittling of those of us who recognize this facet of human existence trivializes an important issue.
George B. Driesen
Bethesda, Md.
The writer is a Reconstructionist rabbi and president of The Institute for Science and Judaism.
