Often times I’ll be asked a foolish, leading question that isn’t a query at all, but a way to deflect complicity and suggest that I put a sock in it. Atheists are famed for this: “How did Cain get his wife?” “Can God create a weight so heavy that even He can’t lift it?”
In the case of homosexuality it is: “What would you do if your son or daughter came to you and said they were gay?” The person asking this is usually expecting you to morph into Fred Phelps or at least one of the creepy authority figures from Footloose, and announce that you would take your child to the edge of the city and stone them or that you would call upon the ladies missionary committee to “pray the gay away” while your Pastor, the one who handles snakes, would cast the gay demon out of your son.
The truth is that there is nothing that my son or daughter can do or announce to prevent me from loving them. He’s not my gay son; he’s my son. He’s not my adulterous son or my alcoholic son or my shoplifting son; he’s my son. When you love someone, you want what’s absolutely best for them – body, soul and spirit. God has given them to me to raise in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They’re on loan and I’m accountable. With homosexuality, we’re not talking about a choice, an orientation, or even an alternative lifestyle here; we’re talking about a death style – a branch of sexual anarchy that’s so destructive that God and the CDC witness against it.
Dan Savage believes “it’s getting better”. He points to a chorus of voices from across the spectrum: judges, actors, and politicians, even priests, who push one another out of the way to get in front of the camera and sing their approval. He cites the frequent successes that “gays” have achieved in the courtroom, the classroom, and the living room; the parents who support and encourage; the churches and clergy that have joined the choir.
But is he right? Is society evolving? Are we shedding our prejudices and rising to a higher standard or have we just swung Pandora’s closet open, come what may?
Don’t Believe the Hype:
There is always a sense of euphoria when we give in to the desires of the flesh. The military recruit that drops on request feels elated that he is no longer bound by 4:30 AM wake-up calls for PT – no more restrictions on hair, dress and conduct. The adulterer once caught, his marriage dissolved, feels a sense of freedom because pressure that was there the day before is gone, the burden lifted – no more need to lie, to cheat, to come home to a nagging, suspicious wife. There’s a reason that a student athlete once bitten by crystal meth, will end up hocking his mother’s jewelry, stealing his father’s car and even alienating his friends to get that next high – to slake the darker angels of his troubled soul.
Quitting feels good, giving in feels good, “letting go” feels good. Then reality breaks in – the feeling doesn’t last. The pleasures of sin last for a season, then get bad – real bad. The drop-out ends in frustration and despair. The obese find out that comfort food isn’t so comfortable when you can’t bend over to tie your own shoes. Dying alone in an apartment because your kids can’t bear to look at you for what you did to Mom isn’t offset by the many sexual conquests you may have had in your “free” days. When it comes to sexual anarchy, freedom is not so free. The more licentiousness is indulged and encouraged, the heavier the chains get and the more jaded we become.
The Parent Trap:
The sin nature is a powerful force and when a parent encourages their child to indulge that nature … that is the ultimate expression of child neglect. To take pride in a sin preference is child abuse on the level of giving a heroin addict a clean needle or driving your alcoholic son to the bar or liquor store. To celebrate diversity when it’s killing your child and destroying a nation isn’t compassion; it’s surrender. If the rhetorical question came true in my case: I would continue to love the daylights out of my son but I wouldn’t be marching in the Pride Parade or letting him turn my basement into Caligula’s Den. That’s not love.
Savage is right about one thing – it has never been easier to come out as it is right here and right now and that’s part of the problem – not because anyone should live in a closet, closets are for clothes, but because some in the homosexual community are themselves the biggest of all homophobes. They fear their own community. The individual caught in the bondage of same sex attraction who doesn’t find pride in his sin preference and struggles daily with thoughts of doubt, confusion, even suicide, finds nowhere to turn; pressured by the movement to toe the line and castigated by a culture that celebrates perversion. It is extremely hard to repent and to seek help and redemption while everyone from your priest to your teacher, your soft drink, your political party and your parents are cheering you on. In California, a new law says that a child can’t seek help even if the parents want it but that same parent can give a boy, female hormones to havoc his gender.
I am not fearful of the homosexual but I am fearful of what homo-fascism and sexual anarchy will do to my country and the Liberty of the next generation. And to the social-gospel Christians who think that the gospel message is a group hug; the Lord called His followers to be salt and light not strobes and glitter.
Seeking help because someone you love is struggling with same sex attraction, start here: www.pfox.org; www.joedallas.com; www.josephnicolosi.com
Book suggestions: Gay Children, Straight Parents: A Plan for Family Healing (Richard Cohen); Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change (Arthur Goldberg)
Image courtesy of Marc Falardeau from toronto
