Q&A: The Evil Inclination
The Evil Inclination
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I saw in one of your responsa on male homosexual relations that you distinguish between doing the act because of the evil inclination and doing it because of a natural inclination. But it is well known that what is meant by the evil inclination is desire, which is also a natural matter—like a person whose inclination attacks him and he looks to be with a woman. Or his inclination attacks him and he steals something. Clearly the intent is the natural inclination itself. So where do you see any room at all to distinguish?
(The very distinction contradicts the principle of the prohibition of male homosexual relations—that it has nothing to do with natural inclination, just as we would not permit a bloodthirsty person to murder. Maybe we would send him for treatment and not relate to him like a murderer out of malice, but the prohibition still stands.)
Answer
I am not distinguishing. I wrote that I am suggesting a possibility that may perhaps be viable, but I am really not sure about it: that the prohibition applies only to someone who does this because of his inclination, and not when it is his nature.
I did not understand your objections to this. Try to phrase them more clearly.
Discussion on Answer
Nobody disputes that the prohibition is on the act, not on the inclination to do it. That is not my innovation. My claim is that there is room to distinguish between a person for whom this is his nature (he is gay) and a person who does it because of a one-time urge.
You are claiming that the urge is also part of nature, but you did not understand my claim. This is not a distinction between urge and nature, but between a fixed nature and a one-time eruptive impulse. I am not a determinist, and I do judge offenders; I do not assume that if they did it then it must have been forced on them. In the case of the gay person, however, it is forced on him, because he has no other option.
The first builds a pair-bond according to his nature, and fighting against his nature is impossible, because this is a struggle to suppress the inclination all his life, at every moment, with no alternative of permitted sexual relations (in this context I cited the Talmud in Ketubot 33b: “Had they flogged Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, they would have worshiped the idol”—we see that ongoing and constant suffering at every moment, even if small, cannot be withstood). The second commits adultery because of his urge, while his nature also allows him to act properly (heterosexual relations). That is what the Torah prohibited.
In your answer now you actually are distinguishing—meaning that the prohibition is only about his inclination and not about his nature. You are distinguishing between the act as driven by the evil inclination and sexual orientation, which is supposedly one’s nature. My point is that you cannot separate nature from inclination. It is the same mechanism. Meaning that even about a straight person who slips up with a woman, we say that he gave in to the evil inclination, even though he is doing it because of his nature. That is certainly a reason to judge him somewhat favorably, since it is his nature. But it seems to me that the very suggestion of this distinction is illogical.