ABSTRACT
This literature review summarizes and highlights the various articles advocating for sexually orientation people as to create non-discriminatory standards to serve this diverse population in various settings including hospitals and employment sites and one hand, one-fifth or 20% of the articles speaks against the minority group, LGBT, providing theological rationale to prove the argument It exegetes these scholarly articles comparing and contrasting them with
respect to their pros and cons effects bearing on sexual orientation, sexual identity, and gender identity. It lays emphasis on human biologically besetting conditions or impulses which are at odds to that of the God’s ordained sexual orientation condemning it and giving scriptural solution to the controversy of LGBT sexual orientation and concludes with the chaplaincy ministry’s response and approach to the situation of LGBT patients and families in the work environment.
SYNTHESIS
The article on the Joint Commission’s Advancing Effective Communication concerning cultural competent and patient and family-centered care conducted a research on 80% of the United States hospitals on June 4, 2010 to examine issues of performance standards and guidelines affecting hospital staff that minister to sexually orientation people who include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). After the deliberation, the Join Commission issued a 93 page monograph addressing issues identified by health experts as critical to delivering quality health care to diverse populations including LGBT patients and their families as mentioned. In this monograph, the Joint Commission has taken extraordinary positions on many of the most important issues in LGBT’s health and thereby developed a new general nondiscriminatory standard relating to sexual orientations and gender identity or expression.[1]
The article on Sexual Orientations and Gender Identity addresses an examination conducted on legal, ethical, and practical ramifications of discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity, discrimination in the workplace as to enact federal, state, and local government laws, discussion concerning company policies covering discrimination against sexual orientation and gender identity, raised questions of debates on morality and ethics expanding the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, sexually transitioning, and transgender people, provided an analysis expanding employment protection based on sexual orientation and gender identity, provided practical implications for employers based on current state of sexual orientation discrimination law, and finally based on legal and ethical analysis, furnished herein and made appropriate recommendations to employers. After the thoughtfulness, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was amended to encompass protection against discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, sexually transitioning, and transgender individual to ensure that all people have access to the same employment opportunities, benefits, and protection including unbiased treatment in the work environment.[2]
The article on Sexual Orientation and Reason discusses the falsehoods religious and social conservatives prone to believe concerning homosexuality, sexual orientation, and sexual identity. They believe that homosexuality is believed to be mental illness; therefore, homosexuals are psychologically disturbed and are capable of hiding their pathology. Homosexuality is a choice and it is not a causation as the result of biological or genetic influence as supported by Pseudo-science, all homosexual persons could change their sexual orientation and embrace their intrinsic heterosexuality if they willed the choice and repent and open to spiritual healing, and homosexual relationships are always disordered, unstable, emotionally abusive, or worse and homosexual parenting is always distorted, abusive, predatory, and narcissistic.[3] The article concluded that according to Hooker’s seminal study and her physical and psychological investigation of homosexual men indicates and proves that homosexual men are as just as psychologically healthy as heterosexual individuals and this is profoundly misunderstanding of her research. The expert diagnosticians rated the psychological adjustment of the homosexual sample as equivalent to the heterosexuals. It was clear in the data from this select sample that sexual orientation had no direct bearing on psychological adjustment with respect to people mental state.
The article on 2011 Addressing Sexual Orientation and Sex/ or Gender Identity Discrimination addresses an issue and conducts interviews on a public consultation on October 2010 by the Australian Human Rights Commission as to canvas the experiences and views of people who are discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The voices of those who participated in the consultation revealed that many people were denied equality and freedom as the result of discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. As the result of the revealed, the Australian Human Rights Commission released a research paper on October 1, 2010 discussing and informing participants of current legal protections from discrimination for them and providing questions for response.[4]
The article on Scriptural Perspectives on Homosexuality and Sexual Identity examines and addresses specific themes from scripture and theology that might be helpful for Christian psychologists and consequently explores the relationship between Christian identities to that of biologically based orientations. At the conclusion of the study, theologically, the article indicates that exclusive same-sex attraction can not be given greater weight than the commands of God and should not be integrated into a homosexual identity. Scripture never teaches that our God-ordained identity is the sum total of our biological impulses, but it teaches that our true identity that God has given us is often significantly at odds with our most intense, innate urges and the cross of Christ provides Christians with the ultimate paradigm of self-denial, not of self-gratification and self-preservation, and finally scripture teaches that same-sex intercourse is a great affront to God’s deliberate creation of male and female as complementary sexual counterparts.[5]
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Amongst the literatures reviewed, three-fifth or 60% of them actively support LGBT and therefore enact regulations which prohibit discrimination against sexual orientation people in the hospital settings and work environments including patients and staff members while one-fifth or 20% of them passively or indirectly support LGBT people without creating non-discriminatory standards for them and one-fifth or 20% actively speak against LGBT providing scriptural or theological rationale to substantiate and to prove the arguments.
It has been proven historically, scripturally, and practically that when people decide to become their own bosses or self-centeredness thereby rejecting God’s sovereignty and his rule over their lives, they produce themselves religions which become oppositions to God’s commandments and his will and people who are not part of the original attempt sometimes join the minority or the majority fools in order to gratify their desires based on some political agenda, sectionalism, or nepotism. This is historically, scripturally, and practically proven as recorded in Romans 1:21-32. It records that the children of Israel made themselves gods as they dissuaded Aaron to allow them do so; as the result, they committed indecent acts which included homosexuality and lesbianism. The bible says that they were inflamed with rusts; therefore, God gave unto them a reprobate mind which made them do those things that were not natural and ethical. The men exchanged the natural affections with men and so the women too.[6]
There is nothing new under the sun. The issues of sexual orientation, advocacy, and enacting of non-discriminatory standards to protect the LGBT people in our today’s societal environment are the repeats of history. Government of nations or politicians or interest groups have been created to advocate for these groups not on the basis of looking at ethics and morality, but they do so to satisfy political agenda because they have rejected God and set themselves up to be gods of their lives. Lesbianism, homosexualism, bisexualism, and transgenderism are religions of self-gratification of today’s generations who have rejected God and his identity and have decided to allow non-moral biologically impulses to control them. Sexual orientation or biological impulses that control today’s minority society (LGBT) is the result of sin in humanity. God created male and female to be complementary sexual counterparts; therefore, any sexual orientation which exists contrary to what God has ordained in the genesis is affront to God’s ordained sexual orientation and sexual identity. Gagnon in his article states that scripture makes a distinction between intense biological “orientations” people experience and the identity that is available to them “in Christ.” Indeed, Christians have in the cross the ultimate paradigm of self-denial. A person’s experience of homosexual orientation is no exception to the distinction made between biologically-based besetting conditions and self-identity revealed and constructed by God in Christ.[7] On the contrary, the unregenerate man is contagiously at risk to be prone and to be actively controlled by these impulses as the result of the sinful nature. What can the Christian psychologists or counselors do to minister to the regenerate and the unregenerate individual? The Christian psychologists or counselors should use scriptures to differentiate between Christian identities constructed by God in Christ to that of the biologically besetting conditions impulses which tend to control the regenerate and the unregenerate individual in Christ and outside of Christ. These cases are handled differently based on their uniqueness; therefore, approaches varied on counseling methodology.
There is the common saying which states that the voice of the people can be the voice of God. If the LGBT sexually orientation minority people can be discriminated against in various settings by the majority groups as seen in these articles, it indicates that such lifestyle is not natural because it was not so from the beginning as God has intended it to be; therefore, the advocates or sympathizers of these groups are in the wrong because they compromise and support the wrong doing in society. In my opinion, anything that is not normal for human to carry out, if carried out as in the case of the children of Israel and today sexually orientation minority group (LGBT), can have spiritual psychological bearing because people who commit sin, do so from their mindset. This is the reason; scripture encourages us to renew our mind according to Romans 12:2. If the social and religious conservatives say that homosexuality is a mental illness, they could not be wrong because it is an abnormal lifestyle for anyone to indulge into. If Hooker’s seminal study of physical and psychological investigation of homosexual men to that of heterosexual men presented similar empiricism of data, the creditability of this research study is questionable and if credibility still exists according to study, such empirical data should not be used to present homosexual sexual orientation similar to heterosexual sexual experience.
Considering homosexual sexual orientation to be similar to heterosexual sexual experience is the direct attempt to say that homosexuality is normal lifestyle and nothing is wrong with it morally.
THE CHAPLAINCY MINISTRY
The chaplaincy ministry is dedicated to ministering to diverse groups of people in regardless of religions, creed, geographical origin, nationality, ethnicity, social economic status, sexual orientation etc. Chaplains are called to all people (Muslim, Christian etc.); therefore, they are called to minister to sexually orientation minority group without discriminating against them relative to their sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender identity and many more. The call to minister to sexually orientation does not allow the chaplain to compromise with this minority group as to encourage this behavior, drives, and desires. Chaplains are to love them without pre-condition. Jesus was sent to minister to sinners; similarly, chaplains are called and sent to minister to all diverse populations including lesbians, gays, bisexuals, sexual transitioning, and transgender. Chaplains can target such population in the health care setting by loving and showing concern for them without condemning, but giving the truth about God and explaining to them who they are in God and the original sexual orientation God has intended for mankind in general and they are inclusive in the original sexual orientation plan.
CONCLUSION
The human biologically besetting condition called sexual orientation or impulses for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender can not outweigh the commandment of God; therefore, God has made provision through the cross of Christ for these groups to return to their God’s ordained sexual orientation (heterosexuals) as to fulfill ordained sexuality. Any sexual orientation other than what God intended for humanity is self-gratification of the sinful nature and it should be rejected by society because it is unnatural, unethical, and immoral.
REFERENCES:
Cavico Stephen J, Muffler, & Bahaudin G. Mujtaba.Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination in the American Workplace: Legal and Ethical Consideration, Vol. 2 No. 1; January 2012
Gagnon, Robert A. J Gagnon.Scriptural Perspectives on Homosexuality and Sexual Identity: Journal of Psychology and Christianity, vol. 24 no. 4, Christian Association for Psychological Studies, 2005
Jones, Stanton L. SexualOrientation and Reason: On the Implications of False Beliefs about Homosexuality, Wheaton College (IL)
The Australian Human Rights Commissions.2011 Addressing Sexual Orientation and Sex/or Gender Identity Discrimination, October 2010
The Joint Commission’s
Advancing Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient and Family-Centered Care: A Roadmap for
Hospitals, Provisions Related to the Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender (LGBT) Patients and Their
Families, June 4, 2010.
[1]The Joint Commission’s Advancing Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient and Family-Centered Care: A Roadmap for Hospitals, Provisions Related to the Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Patients and Their Families, June 4, 2010, pp. 1-7.
[2]Frank J. Cavico, Stephen C. Muffler, & Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination in the American Workplace: Legal and Ethical Consideration, Vol. 2 No. 1; January 2012, pp. 1-20.
[3]Stanton L. Jones, Sexual Orientation and Reason: On the Implications of False Beliefs about Homosexuality, Wheaton College (IL), pp. 1-20.
[4]The Australian Human Rights Commissions, 2011 Addressing Sexual Orientation and Sex/or Gender Identity Discrimination, October, 2010, pp. 9.
[5]Robert A. J Gagnon, Scriptural Perspectives on Homosexuality and Sexual Identity: Journal of Psychology and Christianity, vol. 24 no. 4, Christian Association for Psychological Studies, 2005, pp. 293-303.
[6]Romans 1:21-32.
[7]Ibid.
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