Bad Morals

Let me start to answer the question about being gay with a broader description of any sin, then focus in on that one in particular.

First, let me mention that there is a balance in Christianity between 'good deeds' and 'being saved by God's grace alone'. I mentioned earlier that having trust in Jesus' sacrifice is all you need to get to Heaven, but how does a person trust in that? It's not just empty words and not just a warm fuzzy feeling inside, it is faith. Faith, as I defined earlier, is an action, not just an emotion or intellectual agreement or empty words. If a person actually has faith in Jesus, they will act like they do. With the help of the Holy Spirit, a Christian will attempt to abstain from sinful behavior and will do other good things. I want to make this clear because the Bible is full of 'do this' and 'don't do that'. For the most part, these commands are dealing with the moral principles (I'll tell you about the exceptions some other time). As I'd written before, God sets up the fundamental principles of morals deep within our hearts or every person should know them, but that's not the most reliable method of getting people to do the right thing. The Bible is God's way of being very clear on exactly what He expects of His people and how we ought to go about it. 

God set morals up within people, but there are multiple things that can go wrong with that. The most common problem is a 'seared conscious', which is what happens when someone is exposed to something nasty often enough. It's kind of like calluses on your fingers. You grow hardened skin in areas that you rub frequently and as the skin toughens, it loses sensitivity. When a person is exposed to sin frequently enough, whether through their own choice or the choices of someone else, they end to become numb to the experience. This is why some people are horrified by the level of violence in movies and games. A person who is 'used to' that kind of thing doesn't see anything wrong with it, but for someone who isn't used to it, it can be shocking how strong the gore is. Or how some people have no problem with swear words - they hear or use them so often that they don't even register it any more, but someone who isn't used to that kind of language hears it right away and it makes them uncomfortable. It's the same idea with sin. A person may start out making excuses to themselves about how their particular sin is okay, but if they keep on doing it and refusing to listen to their conscious or God's whispered rebuke, after a while, they can't hear either and it becomes easier and easier to slip deeper into worse sin. A good example might be drugs. I don't think too many people start out on the really hard-core major drugs. They start with perhaps smoking and alcohol, then some of the 'lighter' drugs and then... you get the idea.

In addition to a seared consciousness, people can also dispute things that are...well...silly. Like drinking caffeine. Some people argue that, because it isn't really healthy to drink caffeine, it is violating God's command to 'treat our bodies as a temple of God'. Now, I'll freely admit to being on the side of things that disagrees with this idea, but I do see why those who believe it feel the way they do. The Bible gives humans a whole lot of leeway when it comes to a huge range of things. There are lots of grey areas - lots of room for people to have different opinions. That's one of the reasons that there are so many different types of Christian churches out there. One group finds something and is convinced they are right, but another group of people disagree. They still both believe the same basic fundamental truths, but in a minor area, they have a disagreement. So one church group may think that very loud and active singing is okay and another thinks it should be quiet and meditative, and neither group is non-Christian because of that.

So, while there is a lot of room for disputing things that the Bible doesn't specifically address, some areas are totally clear. An example of this would be homosexuality. Your assignment today is to read Romans 1, which is probably the best chapter for this idea. Let me also write out the Old Testament verses for this:
"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination." (Leviticus 20:13).
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you." (Leviticus 18:22-24).
As you can see, there's not exactly a whole lot of wiggle room in these verses. God pretty much says 'No!' and for a Christian, that's pretty much that. Why would anyone dispute that? Well, there are several reasons - the strongest being that the people who are arguing about it are the ones wanting to practice this sin! If people are not Christian, then they don't care what the Bible has to say about a subject either.

There are two main arguments that people use to support 'gay-rights', one of which is: People have been shown to be genetically predisposed to being gay. The argument then goes, if a person is born that way, then it isn't their 'fault' and thus we shouldn't condemn them for it any more than we should condemn a man for having different color skin. It equates gays with other minorities, which is a smart move since that's still a hot topic in this country and swings a large segment of the population into their camp. The problem with this argument is that it ignores the fact that humans can be predisposed to all sorts of things, but that ultimately it it still a CHOICE. For example, in my family, I probably am genetically at risk of being an alcoholic. I have several family members that were (before they died from it). But would that be a good excuse if I became one myself? No it wouldn't because it would still be my choice to drink. Lots of people are genetically predisposed to be obese, but no one claims that they are FORCED to be that way. The genetic predisposition increases the likelihood of a person going a certain route, but only if they choose to make the steps down that path. The same thing with being gay. A person may have a genetic tendency to go that direction, but it is still a choice and as such, not the same thing as being born with dark skin.

The second argument is the one you brought up which was 'but they love each other'. The problem with that is that it tries to side-step the whole choice issue by bringing up an emotional argument. If a person says 'well, I love my thirteen-year old daughter and she's old enough to know what she wants', is that a valid reason for accepting incest? (Yuck) Or what about a person who 'loves' their dog? (again, yuck). Are either of these people forced to act on their emotions? No, they still have a choice. Or, to put it perhaps in a different way, by saying that emotions are more important than anything else, you could then argue that anyone who is angry has a legitamate right to kill whoever they are angry with. Anger and hate are just as real as love, so why don't they get to express their feelings through actions? It's because we know that sometimes people feel things that they should not express and should actively work to oppress.

So the over-riding issues with homosexuality is that the 'pro-gay' people are doing their best to side-step the fact that such a life-style is a choice - one which they very much want everyone else to agree with so they can justify their sinful actions. The vast majority of people who agree with this stance probably haven't thought through what this actually means and don't care what the Bible has to say about the issue. God call it sin and tell us not to do it.

Whew, long post on this one! Hopefully this helped. Feel free to ask for clarification if it didn't.