By Dr. William Tarbell
Recently, both the Nevada Legislature and the Washoe County School District have decided that they know best what constitutes sexuality and gender in human personality. On the one hand, they decreed, every person has a fixed orientation which tells them who they are and what they must do sexually. On the other hand, a person’s gender, while not identical with sexual orientation, is also biologically fixed. Furthermore, the way to certainly ascertain which of the several orientations, and which of more than a hundred gender states individuals carry within them, is to listen to and obey feelings. As soon as strong sentiment emerges, even in very young children, this must be taken as a sure sign that sexuality and gender have been set and must be expressed as a person senses them. That is why both legislature and school board have put into law and policy mandatory recognition of sexual orientations and gender fluidity. Anyone who refuses to accept their decrees on human personality will face various forms of punishment.
Whence come feelings? What is their value in determining identity and expression? Are they sufficient evidence to establish objective standards in law and policy? Are they simply physiological responses to various stimuli or are they imbued with meaning and purpose? After a lifetime of study and analysis of the workings of human personality, I offer the following observations, especially as they pertain to the phenomenon we call feelings.
First, personality is not a singular, monolithic state of being. It exists as a community of various centers of interest. Each center of interest is dedicated to specific tasks necessary to the health, well-being, and success of the host person.
Second, each center of interest, though grounded in physiological features, develops over time its own interpretation of events as they impact the host.
Third, centers of interest react to both internal and/or external triggers in a manner that incorporates both their physical setting and the interpretive understanding the center has developed to that point. Thus, each center generates feelings relatively independently from other centers in the personality.
Fourth, independent development of interpretation and resulting feelings leads to mixed feelings and, sometimes, to deep inner conflict. For example, a man meeting a beautiful woman dressed provocatively may sense within himself attraction, disgust, anger, and desire to punish simultaneously.
Fifth, the same independence can result in dominance by one center of interest over the others in personality. It can become a bully, insisting that the whole person accommodate its desires above everything else.
Sixth, feelings are pure raw data. They carry no moral or ethical considerations with them. Different elements, such as conscience, must review actions called for by emotion.
Seventh, feelings are purely subjective, arising solely out of the perspective of inner centers of interest. They have no connection to wider community concerns until they have been educated and tempered by ethical and spiritual principles.
Eighth, trauma often paralyzes centers of interest in a particular manner of response and a particular time in which the trauma occurred. Thus, childhood abuse can result in recurring moments of dread, fear, anxiety, or rage instigated at the time the abuse happened. Soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder experience similar expressions of emotion tied to specific events and time periods.
As evidenced by the actions of the Nevada legislature and the Washoe County school board, we are living in a precarious period which emphasizes feelings first at the expense of ethical and spiritual concerns. The above eight points make it clear that feelings cannot be the principal determiner of identity and action, especially in young persons. Putting into law and policy as fact that human sexuality and gender are predetermined and defined by feelings is tantamount to, as Scripture says, “sowing to the whirlwind.” For what is claimed for sexuality will be applied, especially by youth, to all human endeavors. For example, the increasing number of young persons committing suicide and adolescent boys seeking to kill fellow students are most certainly following their feelings.
Consider this. Should feelings predominate when a doctor performs surgery on an enemy, a parent arises at two in the morning to care for an infant, a police officer decides whether or not to shoot, or a president has a finger on the nuclear button? While our emotions may inform us of our inner landscape, they must not be the prime mover in life decisions, even small day-to-day duties. If feelings first philosophy prevails, social and spiritual chaos follows.
Christians cannot, must not, give in to law and policy that defines sexuality, or any other significant part of human existence, as dependent on the subjectivity of human emotion. Feelings cannot be measured or clearly analyzed. They vary in strength from person to person. They can change at any moment within an individual. They are wholly unreliable as guides into the future of humanity.
