Encyclopedia Britannica Article
……… in human sexuality, sexual interest in and attraction to members of one's own and the opposite sex. A bisexual is thus a person with both heterosexual and homosexual desires. Some clinical surveys suggest that a significant number of persons experience bisexual desires and engage in bisexual activity. As the tolerance of homosexual behaviour increased in many societies in the late 20th century, the number of people identifying themselves as bisexual also increased.
Britannica style: "bisexuality" Encyclopedia Britannica from Encyclopedia Britannica Premium Service. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=15602
Nolan Commentary
In teaching units on human sexuality within my ethics courses, the topic of bisexuality seems to cause the most discomfort among students of all ages. Many people assume that bisexuality refers to individuals who have not yet fully accepted their homosexual orientation. Also, most people prefer to have the neat categories of "gay" and "straight."
For those individuals who prefer strongly to categorize themselves as heterosexual and also admit to their same-sex inclinations, "bisexuality" is confusing. It raises many questions, including whether a commitment to one person will be sufficiently fulfilling.
In a search for many vocational positions, including parish clergy posts, many committees insist on a married man or woman. How naïve! The relationship may be "a marriage from hell," or, one or both may be bisexual. Some couples live in monogamous relationships; many have an "arrangement" for same-sex liaisons consisting of one-night stands or an ongoing "lover" relationship on the side. Some marriage partners cheat by means of same-sex encounters of short or long durations.
A True Case Study: In the 1960s Thomas was in his late 20's with a same-sex partner in a committed, monogamous relationship. A married rector (with children) of a fashionable Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York (where he had built an excellent reputation as a pastor, preacher, and diocesan committee participant) offered Thomas (who had disclosed his family life to the rector) a position as curate with the provision that Thomas would be available to him for sexual companionship now and then. The rector (deceased at this writing) told Thomas that the Bishop of Massachusetts had informed him years earlier that if he wanted to go anywhere in the Episcopal Church, he must marry - which implies that bachelor Jesus would be unable "to go anywhere in the Episcopal Church." So, the rector did just that. He cared for his wife and children, but something significant was missing from his life, namely, a relationship with a man, a relationship including emotional, sensual, and genital qualities. Reminding the rector that, were he to accept the position, it would entail adultery, vow and promise breaking, and the making of Thomas into a prostitute, the young clergyman declined. The rector found someone else eager for a prestigious entry level job.
To whatever degree the rector was bisexual is uncertain. Whatever his inclinations toward women and men, he was in a difficult situation. His sexual orientation was not chosen, but his behaviors were. His choices were inconsistent with his public face and Jesus' Summary of the Law.
As of 2003, churches have not yet begun to deal with bisexuality and effective pastoral care of bisexual persons. This state of affairs mirrors American society as well. In so many ways the bisexual dilemma is more problematic than most of the homosexual issues contentiously preoccupying many religious institutions. It is more than likely that Jewish and Christian leaders will take the predictable superficial and simplistic route: affirm familiar slogans which originated in eras of ignorance about human diversity. And, search committees will continue with their naïve ways.
An illuminating 1994 article follows.
Era of Frankness Puts Issue of Bisexuality on the Table
(Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)More and more, it's clear that couples in the '90s are faced with dating questions our grandparents never even considered. Or, if they did, they never told us.
For example, you've met someone you like, you've had a couple of promising dates, and then he or she gently takes you aside: "By the way, I'm bisexual."
In the era of sexual frankness, with discussions of sexuality coming out of the closet and onto the table, bisexuality has become part of the dating scenario. As a result, people who are straight or gay find themselves in relationships with people they know are bisexual.
To many, dating a bisexual can be a scary position, fraught with insecurities.
What's more scary is not knowing the truth. Because of AIDS, that can be dangerous. You're a straight woman and your boyfriend has sex with men. You're a lesbian and your lover sleeps with an ex-boyfriend.
Dating a bisexual can be an emotional risk, too. Many people crave monogamy, and fear that that won't be possible with a bisexual. They think their partner's head will be turning every which way but loose.
Not true, says Luigi Ferrer, a national board member for Bisexual Network of the USA, a Maryland-based support and information organization. Ferrer, who lives in South Miami, is former president of the South Florida Bisexual Network, a support and activist group.
Ferrer says bisexuals are no more inclined to be non-monogamous than what his girlfriend calls "monosexuals,"' people who identify themselves as straight or gay.
Larry Harmon, a Miami psychologist who specializes in relationship issues, agrees: "It's a myth that bisexuals cannot have a monogamous relationship. It depends on the individual."
Ferrer, 35, considered himself gay until the early 1980s, when he developed strong feelings and attraction for a straight woman. He'd always assumed people who called themselves "bisexual" were just afraid to come out of the closet, so he told the woman he was gay. They married anyway, and stayed married for 6 years, when they grew apart and she left him.
Afterward, Ferrer had a relationship with a man for three years. When they broke up, he began dating his current girlfriend of four years, who is also bisexual. They have discussed the idea of seeing other people, but haven't had much time or interest in going outside of their relationship, he says.
Ferrer knows from experience that bisexuality can scare off potential romantic partners. Once he went out to dinner with a gay man who walked out of the restaurant when Ferrer told him he was bisexual.
"There are gay, straight and bisexual people who are relationship material and there are gay, straight and bisexual people who are not relationship material," Ferrer says. "The assumption is always made that bisexuals are always out there panting."
Harmon says that if your partner tells you that he or she is bisexual, you should find out what their definition of bisexuality is.
Was it one sexual experience five years ago? Are there impulses or feelings that have never been acted upon? Does he or she seek simultaneous companionship from both men and women? Does your partner expect to date other people while dating you? Clarify what it means to your relationship.
And don't, for a moment, forget about safe sex.
"People should practice safer sex with everyone - and keep in mind that male bisexuals may be at higher risk," Harmon says. "But I have to stress that just because someone is bisexual doesn't mean they are at risk, and it doesn't mean that if someone is not bisexual, you should have unsafe sex."
Once these issues are on the table, Harmon says, a soul-search must begin. "Ask yourself, 'Can I live with this?' If you're always worried that your partner is going to leave you for someone of the same sex, then you may be better off finding a partner who's more sexually traditional."
But the reality, unfortunately, is that some lovers will meet other people and leave no matter what their orientation. It always hurts.
Beth, a 27-year-old computer consultant who lives in Fort Lauderdale, learned that lesson firsthand. She thought she was strictly heterosexual until she was 25, when she realized she was strongly attracted to a female friend. The crush turned into a brief relationship.
Ironically, the woman, who was supposedly a bona fide lesbian, broke off their relationship to marry a man.
Beth says bisexuals get a bad rap.
"There are so many people who have been burned by people who don't know what they want," says Beth. "They identify an emotionally unstable person and blame it on the whole subset of bisexuals. They don't acknowledge that there are bisexuals who know exactly what's going on, who aren't confused."
She realizes now that she is not heterosexual, nor is she homosexual. She is bisexual, and she has to see where that will lead her romantic life. Like Luigi, she's endured an occasional cold reception; some prospects have not returned her phone calls after learning the truth. She wants a partner, male or female, who will accept and understand her.
"To me, it's the person first," Beth says. "I'm looking for a significant other right now, and I really don't care if it's a man or a woman."
RESOURCES:
Bisexual Resource Center, Box 639, Cambridge, Mass. 02140. Call: (617) 495-8476. Director: Robyn Ochs. Center publishes International Directory of Bisexual Groups.
Bisexual Network of the USA (BiNet), P.O. Box 7327, Langley Park, Md. 20787. Call: (202) 986-7186. Has national newsletter.
Bishop Sisk responds to New Yorker's story on Paul Moore
To the clergy and people of the Diocese of New York
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It is with sadness that I write to you.
The March 3, 2008 issue of The New Yorker contains an article by Honor Moore which is drawn from her forthcoming book A Bishop’s Daughter (prepublication copies of which are in circulation). While the book is, in the main, autobiographical, Ms Moore goes into considerable detail about the private life of her father, Paul Moore, Jr., the 13th Bishop of New York.
Her description of him comes as a shock to many of us. The man that so many of us knew and admired was a man of enormous personal courage, a passionate, articulate, and tireless champion of the poor, the disenfranchised and the most desperately helpless in society. He was all that, but as Ms Moore tells us there was another side to him, a man who led a secret double life. While on the one hand he inspired people to work for, and hope for, a community that could stand against the powers of oppression and exploitation, on the other he was himself an exploiter of the vulnerable.
Ms Moore’s article brings to light what appears to be her father’s decades long violation of his wedding vows. This was an offense of the most serious nature. Any person who has extra-marital relations commits an offense. This is true whichever party is married: whether clergy or lay, same-sex or heterosexual. Whatever the circumstances, it is family relationships which are broken. And, indeed a point of Ms Moore’s article would seem to be just that: the relationships between Bishop Moore and Ms Moore and her mother indeed were evidently severely damaged. The preservation of those relationships is an important aspect of the Christian life and of course of the life of its ordained ministry. Actions such as those which Ms Moore reports are wrong and could quite conceivably result in the most severe penalties that the church can apply to an ordained person.
But there is more. It appears as well that Bishop Moore violated his ordination vows in another respect. The long term extra-marital relationship that his daughter describes was begun, according to her account, with a young man who had come to the Bishop for counseling. That inappropriate relationship is a fundamental violation of an ordained person’s vow to minister to the needs of those entrusted to his or her care; never is this more so than when working with the vulnerable who have come seeking pastoral care. Sadly the violation of trust that Ms Moore reports is consistent with behavior recorded in complaints about Bishop Moore’s exploitative behavior received by the office of the Bishop of New York. As Canon Law required, the concerns of those complainants (who wished their identities held in confidence) were duly conveyed to the then Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning for disposition.
Though A Bishop’s Daughter reveals Paul Moore to have been a vastly more complex man than many of us who admired and respected him ever knew, and though there can be no excuse for the enormity of the betrayal of personal trust that he perpetrated in his private life, yet similarly there can be no diminution of the greatness, the nobility even, of the purposes and goals of his public life. We are left seeing a deeply flawed man in desperate need of God’s merciful grace. As are we all.
Faithfully yours,
+ Mark