I Think People Who Can’t Discern Between Sexual Orientation and Paraphilia Should Shut Up

Wow, harsh title. I guess I’m just tired of society being so ho-hum when people are just wrong in what they say. No, it’s not that they have a “different opinion.” They just have no clue what they’re talking about.

Here’s a quick primer. Everyone has a sexual orientation. Everyone. And it only means one thing. It means to which sex(es) a person is oriented. It’s right there in the name. You can be oriented towards males or females or potentially both or potentially those whose sex defies the binary. But, that’s pretty much it. It has been measured, documented, and defined over and over again and that is all that it means.

Guess what’s not a sexual orientation? Necrophilia. Death is not a sex. Here’s another one: pedophilia. Kids are not a sex. So guess what? Those are not sexual orientations; they never have been considered sexual orientations; and they never could possibly be confused for sexual orientations if you have any clue whatsoever what you’re talking about! They are called paraphilia and they are considered disorders and they have nothing to do with sexual orientation.

But you know who doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Oklahoma State Senator Steve Russell.

This bright gentleman is convinced the new hate crimes law hinders free speech and religious freedom. I wonder if he read it? Or did he just buy into the crap they were preaching at that pathetic rally they held on Monday? The law makes it pretty clear it can only be enforced for violent crimes, not speech. If he doesn’t think the government should be protecting special classes of people, why didn’t he oppose hate crime protections based on religion?

But here’s where Russell lets us know that it’s not just a difference of opinion, it’s ignorance:

“The law is very vague to begin with,” Russell said. “Sexual orientation is a very vague word that could be extended to extremes like necrophilia.”

No, you’re just wrong. You, sir, are JUST PLAIN WRONG! A lot of links show up in the ads on this site for online degrees. Senator Russell, please enroll in a Psychology 101 class before you open your mouth again about these issues. You’re hurting people.

You know who else is hurting people with ignorance? The Catholic Church of course! They’re good at that.

As you may recall, in response to the huge scandal of lots of little boys (and some girls) being sexually abused by priests…

In 2005, the Vatican issued a policy statement that men with “deep-seated’’ attraction to other men should be barred from the priesthood.

How convenient for the Church. They can use one thing that they’re wrong about as a scapegoat for another thing they’re wrong about. Too bad they weren’t smart enough to leave it at that. See, they commissioned this study and found just the opposite:

A preliminary report commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to investigate the clergy sex-abuse scandal has found no evidence that gay priests are more likely than heterosexual clergy to molest children, the lead authors of the study said yesterday.

We tried to tell them that, but I guess they needed to hear it for themselves. That’s right. There is absolutely no connection between having a sexual orientation toward other men and having a paraphilia for nonconsenting children.

I wonder if they’ll ever learn. I’ll let Dan Savage take us out…

According to the authors of the study the Church has to distinguish between sexual identity and behavior and be on guard against pedophile priests, not gay priests, “and to look at who the offender had access to when seeking victims.” This study is going to throw a serious wrench in the Vatican’s efforts to pin the whole clergy sex abuse scandals on teh gays.