Richard D. Dobbins Institute of Ministry

Is homosexuality right or wrong, good or evil?

This is not a legal question to be answered by some court. It is a moral question!

However, the homosexual community is attempting to use the legal and political process to normalize this unnatural way of life and impose it on our nation.  Morality is not defined by the courts.

We need the courts to define what is legal and illegal, but they are poor arbiters of morality.  Remember, at one time, the United States Supreme Court declared the buying and selling of human beings to be legal.  And today they make it legal to destroy the unborn.  There is a huge difference between what is illegal and what is immoral.  Changing the law may declare something to be legal that formerly was illegal, but you can’t make something moral simply by making it legal.

On what authority do we base our moral judgment of homosexuality?

As Christians, the infallible Word of God is to be the arbiter of all our moral judgments.  When it comes to homosexuality there can be no doubt about the Bible’s condemnation of it.  The following passages speak specifically to this issue: Leviticus 18:22; 20:13;I Corinthians 6:9-10; and, Romans 1:26-28.  We must turn a deaf ear to Biblical revisionists who seek to modify the meaning of these passages to accommodate the political and social pressures of the day.

Is homosexuality environmental or genetic in its origin?

Today, few people are aware of the fact that until the 1974 convention of The American Psychiatric Association, mental health professionals considered homosexuality to be a mental disorder.  The gay and lesbian movement, in their determined effort to change the public’s image of homosexuality aggressively lobbied that convention.  Nevertheless, the vote to remove homosexuality from the psychiatric Diagnostic Statistical Manual that year was far from unanimous.  About a third of those attending were opposed to making the change and still considered homosexuality to be abnormal.

I know of no respectable scientific evidence that proves homosexuality is genetic.  The so-called “Gay Gene” is a hoax being foisted on the public by pseudo-science, the liberal media and the aggressive political agenda of the gay and lesbian movement.  After all, if the origin of homosexuality were genetic would there not be a more even distribution of homosexuality across our country?  The higher concentration of homosexuals in our major cities suggests it is environmentally related, but not environmentally determined

Our sex is genetically determined.  Baby boys and girls are born with different genitals.  However, our gender identity, or sexual preference, is established by our choices over time.  Interacting with our environment we choose to become heterosexual or homosexual.  Homosexuality is a learned behavior that becomes obvious by the time a young person is in junior or senior high school.

This is good news to millions of gay and lesbian people who think they have been born homosexual and cannot help it.  However, any behavior that is learned can be unlearned and new behavior can replace the old.  The power of the gospel can not only change the sinful sexual behavior of heterosexual people, it can also change the sinful sexual behavior of homosexual people.  And, thousands of gay and lesbian people are discovering this every day.  Thank God!

However, the gay and lesbian movement is a strong political force in our society.  They are bringing pressure to bear on early elementary school education programs to brainwash our children into believing that it is normal to have two daddies or two mommies.  Children who grow up with these ideas create a social environment in which homosexuality can flourish.  The church must be aware of these efforts and do their best to keep our public school curricula free from this propaganda.

How should the Christian community relate to homosexual people?

First, parents who discover their children to be homosexual should not reject them.  Family love should be strong enough to maintain family bonds regardless of the sexual preference of a child.

Nevertheless, parents should not let their homosexual child mistake their love for their approval of homosexuality.  Acceptance and approval are distinctly different from each other.  For example, Jesus provided loving acceptance of the woman taken in adultery, but He did not approve of her adultery.  However, His loving acceptance of her enabled her to change.  This is the kind of relationship parents with a homosexual child need to establish with them.

However, parent’s values should be respected in the home.  For example, a homosexual child should not be allowed to bring their homosexual friend into their bedroom.  Of course, neither should a heterosexual child be permitted to bring their heterosexual friend into their bedroom.

The church should reach out to the homosexual community with love and acceptance.  However, pastors should make it clear that their loving acceptance does not imply approval of homosexual behavior.  So long as the homosexual person, by God’s grace, is living a celibate life they should be allowed to participate in the life and ministry of the church with few exceptions.  For example, a person who is known to be homosexual should not be permitted to be in ministry around children and young people.  Of course, not every homosexual is a child molester, but pastors should protect the children and the homosexual person from an environment in which something like this could happen.