Last fall I attended a conference on human sexuality at a local Christian college. I spent several hours after the lectures meeting with several gay Christians or those who were in support of same sex relationships and marriage. Some of the heterosexual newcomers to this subject kept coming back to this question:
Why should Christians care what gays do behind closed doors? If it’s a sin – it’s their sin. In any case, doesn’t affect you!
If you’ve heard that argument yourself, here’s why gay marriage and a gay lifestyle does matter to the rest of us! 1. Let’s be Clear: The gay rights movement is not content with the freedom to quietly exercise their rights and passions behind closed doors. The Holy Grail of the gay rights movement is legitimacy! They want to be able to show up at church or a family holiday with their partner and be just as accepted by everyone, as any other couple present. They want you to change your moral position on same-sex marriage and same-sex, sex and shame on you if you don’t! That has become the litmus test they apply to any Christian. “Do you love me enough to accept me?”
There was a time 50 years ago, when gays and lesbians would have been content to join quietly and privately, live out their lives behind closed doors. Today, they’re “out and proud” and want us to be also. In all fairness, very few gay Christians I’ve met with are that brazen. They’re not proud, but they are asking the rest of us to recognize the reality of homosexuals in the church. And they’re asking the church to remove the stigma of committed, monogamous same sex relationships and marriage.
2. Anyone who calls himself or herself a Christian, but behaves sinfully, hurts Christ’s reputation and that of the church. That being said, it is just as sinful for a heterosexual Christian couple to live together outside of marriage, as it is a homosexual couple to do so. But unless they’re celibate sexually, both are sin and an embarrassment to Christ and to the church. And both tempt others to live in sin as well.
“…each of you should learn to control your own bodyin a way that is holy and honorable.” 1 Thessalonians 4:4
(My personal position is that “being a homosexual” is not a sin, but a result of the fall. I fully embrace any born again homosexual, committed to celibacy as my brother or sister in Christ.)
3. Your children in public schools are being forced to learn that homosexual behavior is normal. Sex education in Massachusetts’s schools and other states have already been expanded to include sexual instruction on masturbation and oral and anal sex, in an effort to end taboos on gay and straight sexual behaviors.
Students are being taught that a homosexual family is normal and good and will be tested on their answers in the affirmative (I Am Daddy’s Roommate and Heather Has Two Mommies, are already mandatory reading in New York and California public schools.)
Christian teachers in many public schools are required to teach tolerance and acceptance of gay marriages, gay families and gay sexual behavior, as normative. So much for behind closed doors behavior!
4. To endorse same-sex marriage is to endorse same-sex, sex. Implicit in marriage is the understanding that married couples have the right to have God ordained sex. Christians who approve same-sex marriage, are defacto approving same-sex, sex. While the Bible does not explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage, God does call same-sex, sex a sin.
“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.” Leviticus 20:13a
5. Our freedom of speech will be in jeopardy. After legalizing same-sex marriage in Canada, activists there successfully passed Bill C-250, criminalizing public statements against both homosexuals and their behavior, punishable by up to two years in prison.
The ACLU has already filed suit to revoke the tax-exempt status of churches unwilling to perform same-sex unions.
6. Same sex “families” always deny children of either a father or mother. Sociologists have long known that the optimal environment for raising children is one in which there is a father and mother, committed to each other in marriage. A child adopted into, or raised in a same-sex union is always deprived of either a male or female influence and role model.
Even worse, I have personal knowledge of Christian couples divorcing after finding out their spouse was gay. The gay spouse began to live with their new gay partner and the children were forced by court order to live in that environment because of joint custody.
My Advice If you have children or grandchildren under age 35, they probably already believe the church needs to get a life and accept gay marriage and lifestyle as a reality.
However, I’m confident they’ve never even considered the unintended consequences I’ve described for society or for Christians. Talk to them about these issues. Teach them that Christians should not hate gays. We simply do not have the option to bless or accept behavior that God has specifically prohibited.
“…their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men.” Romans 1:26b-27a
Christians live in a theocracy, not a democracy. God’s vote is the only one that counts!
How following Jesus works in real life.
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