On Homosexuality

This post will please no one. But it is where I am in my beliefs on the topic. I expect things will change – in high school, I had no opinion about the death penalty; now I do. It would not surprise me to have different views ten, or even two years from now.

I remember a snippet of conversation I heard between a pastor and one of his parishioners. They were laughing over how he had told her not to marry a certain man, but she did any way. The marriage didn’t last. Now, I'm not saying a pastor is the person to tell you who you can and cannot marry. The conversation put me on notice that some marriages are not ordained by God.

That is to say, there are some unions between a man and a woman that are not in God's will. Now, according to the government, a man and a woman who sign a marriage certificate (along with a witness) are married. But just because the state says so doesn't mean it's right in the sight of God.

I believe marriage, as granted by the state, is different than marriage as ordained by God.

Don't get me wrong. God can take a marriage that wasn't in His will, work on the couple's hearts, and turn it into a strong marriage that reflects His character. He has an amazing ability to take our mistakes, and the consequences of our sins, and turn them around so they do not harm us nearly as much as they could have.

But my point is that I believe marriage as granted by the state is not the same as marriage as ordained by God.

As such, I believe there is nothing wrong with homosexuals being married by the state. I lean toward the French model where state ordained marriages can only be performed by the state.

Now, do I believe homosexuality is a sin? I'm not sure.

Some of you are shouting, "It's in the Bible! It's totally clear! How can you not know?"

I believe that some people are born gay, while others choose it. Cynthia's Nixon made a comment some time back where she said she chose to be a lesbian. It caused an uproar, but I shrugged.

I have gay friends who, if you look at their upbringing, you would say 'there's no way he made a choice'. I always thought that for those who were born thusly, it was a part of them, just as being an introvert is a part of me. And since God created all people, then why would He create a gay person and then tell them not to be what He created them to be?

A fellow parishioner was talking about a co-worker, who is in-your-face gay. In response to an 'I'm born this way' comment, they had responded, 'we are all born in sin.'

It was a new concept to me. The idea that homosexuality was not a part of our godly creation, but a result of The Fall, a fragment of our sin nature.

So, yeah, I don't know.