Procesos de Emprendimiento en el Municipio de Chía

Before  proceeding,  it  is  important  to  establish,  at  least  in  broad  terms,   how  I  understand  gays  and  gayness.⁸  The  nature  of  homosexuality  is  contested,   with  social  constructivist  interpreters,  like  David  Greenberg,  arguing  that                                                                                                                            

7  Andrew  P.  Marin,  Love  is  an  Orientation:  Elevating  the  Conversation  with  the  Gay  Community   (Downers  Grove:  IVP,  2009).  The  increasing  involvement  of  progressive  evangelicals  with  more   broadly  liberal  groupings  like  Inclusive  Church  is  associating  them  with  some  who  would  also   see  homosexuality  as  a  first-­‐order  issue,  but  one  on  which  the  Christian  position  is  

demonstrably  the  liberal  one.  

8  I  use  ‘gay’  to  refer  to  both  men  and  women  with  a  homosexual  sexual  orientation.  ‘Gay’  is  a   term  of  gay  self-­‐identification,  unlike  the  terms  ‘homosexual’  or  ‘homophile’  (used  frequently  in   evangelical  writings)  that  originate  in  medicalised  discourse  about  gays  by  straights.  I  will   continue  to  use  ‘homosexuality’  to  refer  in  the  abstract  to  the  condition  of  being  gay.  

homosexuality  in  the  modern  sense  did  not  exist  before  the  nineteenth  century,   whilst  essentialist  interpreters,  like  Rictor  Norton,  argue  that  despite  changes  in   language  the  same  sense  of  identity  has  been  expressed  throughout  history  (by   early  eighteenth  century  mollies  for  example).⁹  Although  the  nature  and  origins   of  homosexuality  are  beyond  the  scope  of  this  study,  implicit  in  my  argument  is   the  assumption  that  the  contemporary  cultural  expression  of  gay  identity  in   Western  gay  culture  is  a  relatively  recent  phenomenon,  acquiring  a  high  level  of   sociocultural  visibility  within  the  modernist  cultural  mood.  Its  rise  to  

prominence  parallels  the  rise  to  prominence  of  the  charismatic  movement   within  evangelicalism,  and  the  two  betray  common  cultural  roots.¹⁰  My  interest   is  not  in  the  homosexual  condition  itself  but  in  what  it  has  come  to  symbolise  to   evangelicals.  For  the  purposes  of  this  study  therefore,  it  suffices  to  note  that  a   group  of  self-­‐identified  gay  people  exist  within  contemporary  English  society,   and  that  others  (including  evangelicals)  have  accepted  (at  least  in  conventional   usage,  whatever  their  theological  quibbles)  this  use  of  self-­‐proclaimed  sexuality   as  a  key  marker  of  identity,  and  situate  themselves  in  relation  to  (and  

sometimes  in  reaction  against)  this  grouping.  

One  more  point  must  be  addressed  in  this  regard,  however,  which  is   Girard’s  understanding  of  homosexuality.  In  Things  Hidden  Since  the  Foundation  

9  Here  and  throughout  the  chapter.  David  F.  Greenberg,  The  Construction  of  Homosexuality   (London:  University  of  Chicago  Press,  1988);  Rictor  Norton,  The  Myth  of  the  Modern  Homosexual:  

Queer  History  and  the  Search  for  Cultural  Unity  (London:  Cassell,  1997);  Matt  Houlbrook  and   Harry  Cocks  (eds.),  Palgrave  Advances  in  the  Modern  History  of  Sexuality  (Basingstoke:  Palgrave   Macmillan,  2005);  Matt  Cook  (ed.),  A  Gay  History  of  Britain:  Love  and  Sex  Between  Men  Since  the   Middle  Ages  (Oxford:  Greenwood  World,  2007);  Jeffrey  Weeks,  Sex,  Politics  and  Society:  The   Regulation  of  Sexuality  since  1800  (London:  Longman,  2^nd  ed.,  1989);  Lesley  Hall,  Sex,  Gender  and   Social  Change  in  Britain  since  1880  (Basingstoke:  Palgrave  Macmillan,  2000).  

10  Their  valorisation  of  authenticity  and  close  inter-­‐relationship  with  consumerism  are  the  two   most  obvious  examples  of  this.  

of  the  World  he  advances  a  psychological  understanding  of  homosexuality  in   terms  of  mimetic  theory.¹¹  Girard  assumes  throughout  that  heterosexuality  is   the  biological  norm,  with  homosexuality  therefore  being  a  sexual  abnormality  in   need  of  explanation.  Girard’s  argument  essentially  is  that  ‘at  least  some’  forms   of  homosexuality  are  caused  by  a  distortion  of  the  normal  mimetic  triangle  in   which  the  model/rival  (through  whom  the  [sexual]  desire  for  the  [heterosexual]  

object  is  learnt)  themselves  becomes  object,  each  becoming  both  rival  for  and   object  of  desire  for  the  other  in  a  binary  rather  than  triangular  form  of  desire.  

He  suggests  that  all  sexual  rivalry  is  ‘structurally  homosexual’,  in  that  in  real   terms  the  most  significant  relationship  is  with  the  model/rival,  not  the  object.  In   discussion  he  elaborates  on  this  theory  by  reference  to  ritualised  homosexuality   and  temporary  homosexual  behaviour  amongst  monkeys.  Girard  sees  this   explanation  for  homosexuality  as  superior  to  that  of  Freud  in  that  it  is  simpler,   presupposing  no  difference  between  male  and  female  forms  of  homosexuality,   or  between  homosexual  and  heterosexual  eroticism.  He  is  (predictably)  strongly   opposed  to  the  idea  that  homosexuality  is  an  expression  of  some  sort  of  

essential  or  instinctual  drive,  or  that  it  is  a  form  of  ‘difference’.  For  Girard,   perceptions  of  difference  are  always  deceptive,  concealing  the  deeper  (and   more  threatening)  truth  that  we  are  in  fact  the  same  as  the  other,  and  mimetic   desire  works  to  break  down  difference  still  further,  propelling  us  towards   conflict.  

Girard’s  understanding  here  was  criticised  by  the  critic  and  social   theorist  Jonathan  Dollimore,  who  notes  the  reductionistic  tendency  to  use                                                                                                                            

11  Girard,  TH,  335-­‐51.  

homosexuality  simply  as  an  explanation  for  aspects  of  male  social  relationships   rather  than  allowing  it  to  be  understood  as  a  phenomenon  in  its  own  right.¹²  He   argues  that  in  fact  arguments  like  Girard’s  unconsciously  reveal  far  more  about   the  nature  of  heterosexuality  than  homosexuality:  far  from  homosexuality  being   (as  it  is  commonly  understood)  an  abnormal  expression  of  fear  of  the  other,   heterosexual  masculinity  is  revealed  to  be  structured  around  an  abnormal  fear   of  the  same  that  must  construct  homosexuality  in  terms  that  project,  disavow   and  legitimate  those  fears.  This  fear  of  the  same  is  what  structures  the  violence   of  sexual  difference.  

Clearly  Dollimore  has  misunderstood  Girard’s  intent  here.  Although   Girard  may  justly  be  criticised  for  his  unquestioning  medicalised  assumption   that  homosexuality  is  an  abnormality  to  be  explained  as  a  divergence  from  a   healthy  heterosexual  norm  (an  assumption  Girard  never  appears  to  see  the   need  to  justify),  the  points  Dollimore  is  raising  about  the  violent  relationship   between  heterosexual  and  homosexual  are  in  fact  inherent  in  the  deep   structures  of  Girard’s  own  thought.  Girard’s  understanding  of  the  monstrous   double  is  based  on  the  insight  that  the  increasingly  apparent  sameness  between   two  rivals  is  so  threatening  that  the  rival  must  be  perceived  as  a  monstrous   other  against  whom  violent  action  is  justified.  Likewise,  it  is  central  to  Girard’s   understanding  of  the  mimetic  nature  of  violence  that  rivals  have  an  inter-­‐

penetrative  and  reciprocal  relationship  –  any  attempt  to  see  one  as  primary,   with  the  other  as  a  perverted  or  abnormal  form  of  the  first  is  mistaken.  Neither   can  be  understood  in  isolation  from  the  other.  

12  Jonathan  Dollimore,  Sexual  Dissidence  (Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press,  1991),  267-­‐8.  

Dollimore  is  on  safer  ground  with  his  claim  that  Girard  demonises   homosexuality  as  a  drive  towards  undifferentiation,  but  here  once  again  fails  to   see  the  deeper  significance  of  Girard’s  thought.  Although  Girard  does  speak   clearly  of  homosexuality  as  an  example  of  a  drive  towards  undifferentiation,  it  is   clear  from  his  more  recent  work  that  undifferentiation  for  Girard  is  a  

profoundly  ambiguous  destination  –  describing  both  humanity’s  deepest  fears   and  its  greatest  hopes.  To  see  Girard’s  understanding  of  homosexuality  as  a   demonization  is  therefore  only  a  partial  truth  –  homosexuality  could  potentially   represent  both  the  demonic  and  the  angelic.  

Girard’s  understanding  of  sexuality  is  to  a  certain  degree  detachable   from  his  wider  theory.  The  gay  Girardian  theologian  James  Alison  demonstrates   that  it  is  perfectly  possible  to  hold  to  Girard’s  mimetic  theory  without  feeling   any  need  to  understand  homosexuality  as  potentially  demonic.¹³  However,   mimetic  theory  certainly  contains  a  predisposition  towards  a  social  

constructivist  rather  than  biological  determinist  understanding  of  

homosexuality.  Girard’s  understanding  of  the  inescapably  mimetic  nature  of  all   desire  leads  naturally  to  a  presumption  that  sexual  desires  are  learnt  rather   than  discovered  (even  if  rooted  in  a  biological  appetite),  however  much  they  are   experienced  as  individual  and  essential  to  the  self.¹⁴  My  commitment  to  mimetic   theory  therefore  encourages  me  to  assert  a  strong  social  constructivist  element   to  sexual  identity,  though  I  remain  agnostic  about  the  extent  to  which  this  may   also  have  a  biological  element.  

13  James  Alison,  Faith  beyond  Resentment:  Fragments  Catholic  and  Gay  (London:  DLT,  2001).  

14  EC,  74.