Sexual Rights are Human Rights

* * * By Dr. Michael Ra Bouchard, Board-Certified Clinical Sexologist * * *

(1771 words, 5 minute read)

April 6, 2019

Dear Friends,

This past Monday the United Nations decried new “cruel and inhuman” laws set soon to take effect in Brunei which impose death by stoning for adultery and gay sex, 40 lashes for lesbian sex, and amputations for theft.

Since the country of Brunei recently announced their strict enacting of draconian anti-gay laws, people from around the world have expressed concern and outrage over these gross violations of human rights. But Brunei is not alone. In addition, twelve other nations with large Muslim populations have laws providing for the death penalty for gay sex or otherwise allow such executions.

According to Amnesty International, there now total thirteen countries in the world where it is possible to be killed for having sex with someone of the same gender: Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somali, Sudan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and part of Nigeria.

No one should be punished for being who they are.

Described as an “invisible minority” in many countries, gays and lesbians worldwide are subject to being indiscriminately arrested, beaten, and terrorized. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals around the globe are routinely denied equal protections under the law, and are frequently stigmatized for their sexual orientation and gender expression.

Some 76 countries now enforce vile laws against same-gender sex, with punishments including prison, flogging, torture, and execution.

The spirit of love is all-compassionate and all-forgiving, not righteous or judgmental.

By the laws and standards we judge others are we ourselves judged. Therefore beware, for by putting your trust in unforgiving laws so, too, are you unforgiving. Likewise take heed: Rigid and inflexible sets of laws—designed to make you righteous—actually make you unrighteous.

Refuse to allow religion to dull your spirituality; rather believe in the holiness of love that God has given to you. Fear-based ancient laws cannot keep you alive spiritually, only love and the spirit of godliness can do that, for love is the unifying force that blends divinity with humanity.

Fear is the only enemy.

Love and fear are opposite polarities. The desire to control arises not from love but from fear—as the need to control always does—and from the arrogance of wanting to “play God.” Amongst many other things, love is a sense of unity, whereas fear is a sense of separation. Love expands, fear contracts. Love is other-centered, while fear is self-centered. Love forgives, while fear clings to wrong. Love does not judge, while fear judges with a vengeance.

Love cannot exist in the presence of judgment, as the latter is a form of fear, and fear is the ultimate love blocker.

Fear produces outer laws and legal systems with all their threats of punishment. Those who seek to legislate morality and deny others self-determination and individual responsibility are attempting to compensate for their own fears and deep-seated sense of impurity and insecurity. Yet those who are guided by unconditional love do not yield their free will choice and sovereignty to others.

It's for this reason that free will choice and self-responsibility, which comprise the essence of spirituality, are seen as the enemy of organized religion by those who unwisely view themselves as self-styled “defenders of God” and believe they alone are “right” and can do no wrong. Such self-serving madness provides ample cause for us to become keenly watchful lest we fail to recognize when abstract ethical judgments and religious precepts are being put in the place of the will of God.

When we view religion as an instrument for developing a good and kind heart—filled with love and respect for everyone—it makes us into better human beings through the necessary spiritual development of true compassion benefitting humanity. To that noble end, those on a devout spiritual journey should not hesitate to challenge the beliefs and conventions of institutionalized religion when encountering rigid ideas and fixed religious laws at odds with their spiritual path.

In the name of basic human decency, spiritual truth-seekers must incessantly guard against and speak out about injustice and cruelty inspired by religious fanaticism and personal insecurity if we are to protect society as a whole from going slowly insane.  

It is impossible to morally label and love simultaneously.

The ancient laws of accusation and condemnation succeed in controlling people precisely because people fear to even mentally question let alone dispute them aloud. And yet anyone who submissively consents to cruel and wrong-headed archaic laws of any grim dogma or doctrine, rather than trusting in universal love and their own conscience, is terribly ill-advised. An all too common human failing today has many so ready to look down upon and destroy others because of their own imperfections and pervasive sense of personal unworthiness.

Whoever would judge and punish others for moral infractions does so because deep down they do not trust themselves and feel the need for self-punishment. Those who speak the most loudly of righteousness and God are often those who most hate themselves and others. For in actuality, the spirit of love is neither righteous nor judgmental, but rather all-compassionate and all-forgiving.

Most important of all: 

Divine love is unconditional and never rejects anyone.

In regards to understanding and respecting natural sexual diversity, humanity as a whole has been painfully ignorant and discriminatory throughout most of history.

To help reduce the prevalence of hate and contention, allow me as a sexual scientist to now factually set the record straight once and for all by clearly and unequivocally stating the honest truth:

?Sexual orientation is not an issue of morality, but rather of biology.

There is no denying that our sexual nature is a biologically built-in, hard-wired fact. “Biology enables, culture forbids.” Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is “unnatural,” yet from a biological perspective nothing is unnatural. Thus whatever is possible is by definition also natural.

Being gay is a human reality, not a crime.

Scientists from many diverse disciplines have discovered an abundance of solid evidence that sexual orientation is innate. First and foremost, research has shown that the gender of the person we fall in love with, male and/or female, is overwhelmingly determined and driven by our particular brain’s wiring for sexual orientation.

It's simply absurd, as some continue to wrongly insist, that homosexuality is a thing one “chooses.” No one wakes up one day and “decides” to fall in love with a man or a woman, it just happens to every person according to his or her uniquely wired individuality as a human being, a natural product of that individual’s particular genetic nature and environmental nurture.

While we all have personal preferences within our God-given orientation, we don’t “choose” the gender of those we fall in love with and find sexually attractive, rather—

It chooses us.

For the record, being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered (LGBT) is no more a choice than is being straight, or for that matter, than is having white, black, brown, olive, red, or yellow skin.

Make no mistake about it—homosexuality is an inherent trait, not an immoral behavior.

Even so, let’s keep it in perspective: While our sexual orientation is a part of who we are, it is most certainly not an all defining statement of our character.

Fundamentally, we are each born with a sexually predetermined hard-wired brain and corresponding—and sometimes not so corresponding—issue of “genital hardware.” Yet it remains up to our family, society, religion, and every individual themself to see that we learn about and understand our sexuality, so that we can program it to run with accurate, comprehensive, up-to-date, moral, and positive “sexual software” that respects ourselves and everyone else.

Love is about accepting people and not judging them.

Being accepting and nonjudgmental requires us to stay on the lookout for any prejudicial, misinformed, or otherwise malicious “malware” programs running within the inner narrative of our own mind that need to be quarantined and deleted before causing further damage to ourselves and others. It further requires us to help raise consciousness planet-wide by our own nonjudgmental and compassionate personal example, and for our social systems to provide everyone with easy access to factual sexuality education resources so as to eliminate ignorance and eradicate discrimination of every kind.

Public acceptance of our human diversity begins with every one of us developing and honoring a healthy self-acceptance of who we are—no matter our age, sex, race, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, ancestry, and disability, marital or familial status—while extending the same grace and decency to everyone else, no matter theirs.

It is simply a matter of inclusivity and enlarging the circle to include everyone.

While the potential results of this approach are tremendous, it requires a critical mass of people; all of us doing it together. When enough of us think similarly by respecting natural human diversity, a “tipping point” will be reached, triggering global consciousness change so that tomorrow’s world will be one that is gentler, more accepting and less judgmental.

Once we drop our judgments, respecting and accepting others despite our differences isn’t hard to do. On the contrary, as the Master Counselor Jesus instructed, we need merely “love one another,” exactly as we are without trying to change anybody.

The choice is yours.

In the meantime, for anyone caught in the crossfire, the intelligent approach is to ignore the haters and embrace the love.

Sexual rights are human rights.

Knowing when to stand up for yourself and your fellow beings can be a lesson in courage. It's encouraging that every day around the planet more and more people of good conscience are awakening to the fundamental reality that sexual rights are human rights and taking a stand by speaking out against sexual oppression and persecution. In truth, since it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience they can do no other; for as famously declared by philosopher Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Therefore let us all band together in spirit with positive intention to envision and champion a world where all have the freedom to love openly and the liberty to marry with human dignity, each according to their own God-given nature and self-determined choices.

For above all else, it's about practicing compassion. And it all begins with love, unconditional and unbounded love, as love is the key to everything. In the final analysis, love is all that really matters anyway.

Thank you for taking the time to consider these thoughts,

Dr. Michael Ra Bouchard

Board-Certified Clinical Sexologist

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* Dear Reader, please feel free to repost this essay anywhere online you see fit.

And now, for anyone wishing to gain an accurate and comprehensive understanding of human sexuality and its natural diversity, please click on the link below to read my full and detailed long-read article posted on my Linked-In page, entitled “Am I Normal? Rethinking the Sexual Politics of Normalcy.”

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/am-i-normal-rethinking-sexual-politics-normalcy-bouchard-ph-d-/

Michael Ra Bouchard, M.A., Ph.D is a professional mental health counselor specializing in sex therapy and marriage counseling for all sex, relationship and intimacy concerns. You may reach him at [email protected] or 808. 965. 8800  

Visit his webpage at www.lovekindly.com