This MLP post is disingenuous at best, and I hardly see how the group thinks it will advance their cause. First, it is a bit duplicitous to argue that a conservative Session has elevated the "fidelity/chastity clause" to become, in my words, a super-essential. That clause only exists in response to pushes for gay ordination. And it is that clause in particular that has been targeted myriad times by the gay ordination caucus for removal from the Constitution. The idea that we can gauge our character by that on which we concentrate is indubitably correct in the abstract; however, when one group asserts its cause on another and then indicts that group for being 'narrow' or 'anti'-whatever based upon an elevated response, then the argument falls apart. I can't put broccoli on the dinner table every night and then accuse my daughters of being anti-vegetable when they finally revolt.

But second, and more importantly, is the issue of saying that the "fidelity/chastity clause" is "anti-gay". Such a statement is deceitful at the worst and only confused at the best. A significant problem in the sexuality debate--whether in culture or church or families or wherever--is the metonymizing of one aspect of a person's behavior for the entire personhood of that individual. No one in informal environs introduces me as a heterosexual, a poet, a beertaster, or a gardener. I am perhaps introduced as a friend or a relative, but those are not ascriptions of behavior; those are ascriptions of relationship. In the sexuality debates, however, one behavior is blown up into the entirety of an individual's personhood. One is not a member of the homosexual community--they are gay or they are lesbian. Such confusion makes it possible for the gay advocacy community to liken itself to the women's suffrage and Civil Rights movements. If one behavior is metonymized into personhood, then it makes sense to proclaim solidarity with those who fought for equality in gender and race. Such confusion also makes it possible to silence critics. If being gay is an ontological statement, then opponents of gay advocacy cannot criticize the behavior without attacking the person. But being gay is not an ontological statement; it is a behavior. This is not even an evaluation of whether it is a helpful or harmful behavior; for whatever reason, the behavior exists, but it is just that--a behavior. The sexuality conversations will move forward much more productively when behavior is no longer confused with being, and when articles such as this one discontinue their demonization of opponents based upon such confusion.