Read this if you wonder why (some) Christians "oppose" homosexuality:

I don't believe in free will. Our will is partially free but people are also partially incapable of carrying out their own wishes. I have found this true in my own moral struggles against my personal vices. Alcoholism, lust and gluttony are real forces that overrun the freedom of the will.
I do believe in original sin. When each person is born, within them lie the seeds of vice because every person, even if they wish it, is unable to acheive moral perfection, which could be defined as perception of the truth and the freedom of will to live that truth. Gluttony, lust and other sins are sins precisely because they overcome the freedom of will and then enslave a person and pervert that person to passions that are harmful and unnatural and unfree. This is the idea of original sin. Desire as I may, I will never of myself be able to overcome vice. Even if I one day was no longer a horny teen and had conquered lust I would still be enslaved to other vices, and lust would be barely suppressed. This truth is beautifully illuminated by homosexuality. The nature/nuture debate is not really a debate. Many gays want to be straight but despite intensive religious indoctrination and forced heterosexual sex and their own will to be straight, they remain gay. So conservatives are wrong when they say people choose to be gay.
This fact that there is often choice doesn't immunize homosexuality from being sinful. As a Christian I believe that homosexuality, natural as it is to gays, is sinful, just as lust is sinful in someone straight.
You're probably thinking, well why isn't being straight sinful? I believe heterosexuality (notice I do not say lust) was how people were designed to interact, yet because of the fall of man each man has becom perverted in many ways, for some, these perversions include homosexuality. I do not deny that their love is genuine, (for they do love) i contend only that the erotic element of that love, genuine as it is, is sinful. This sin is their participation in a universal sinfulness all men share.

In the end, Xianity is not about condemnation, thought that is an element in all redemption. No person will ever be able to overcome their own sin, but by coming into contact with the Truth that is Jesus they can repent of even inescapable sins and thereby justify the lie and perversion that is each human life. In other words, being gay is fine, so long as one realizes its immorality and strives to turn from it. A gay man stands no better chance of becoming hetero than I do of becoming chaste. This is not in man's power but in God's. There should be no peculiar condemnation on gays besides this general condemnation on all people and their innate sinfulness.
So, in summary, to say that homosexuality is moral because it is natural betrays a naive ignorance of the fact that immmorality is often natural and inescapable, just as singling out gays for special condemnation beyond that directed at any person is equally ignorant of this truth. My point is gays are people too.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [6:06 PM]

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