Alternate Lifestyle Acceptance

There is so much talk about LGBTQ and how we need to accept and love them. I agree, but I think too much emphasis is being put on their rights and their being accepted. A lot of us would like to just avoid any talk about this issue. I, for one, don’t think people should be labeled for what they do in private.

Sexuality is a delicate subject. When we got married, my stepdaughter was a teenager. She was curious about what we did in private. I told her, “My parents had six kids and I am sure they never did “that” so just assume we never do “that” either." 

A friend mentioned an intimate item about her and her husband once. I had difficulty not feeling uncomfortable around her for a while. A man from our church had a son who was getting married to another man. The dad said he liked the man his son was marrying, but it was the act that he was most disgusted with. I thought about it and realized that most of us do not like to think of any two people doing “the act.”

Our churches are struggling with how to love and accept people who have different sexual preferences. I struggled with it too. Three wonderful people who I know are in this category. So I went to my loving Father and asked him what he thought about it. It took time, and studying about him and his love, but this is what my loving, gracious Father told me:

Treat it as a disability. Call it a sexual disability.

What? 

But the more I looked into it, the more it made sense. Even animals are created male and female. They are naturally attracted to the opposite sex. It is a biological thing where different parts meet and procreation is possible. Sometimes something goes wrong before birth, or in their lifetimes, where this natural attraction is damaged or changed.

Isn’t it the same way with people? We live in a broken society where people get damaged and hurt. If they turn to a “different lifestyle” we condemn them.  But it is the evil in our society that started this in the first place. For generations there has been brokenness that contributes to mental, physical, and psychological disabilities. Our brokenness also contributes to sexual disorders.

The friend that I met years ago calls it an identity issue. Would that also not make it an infirmity? Can we compare it to the eunuchs mentioned in the Bible? Jesus says in Matt. 19:12, “There are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

I am yet unable to see homosexuality as for the sake of the kingdom, but if they are trapped in this situation, should we not welcome them into the kingdom of heaven?

My daughter insists that her desire to marry her girlfriend is normal. But that is like a person in a wheelchair saying that he does not have a physical disability and that using a wheelchair is really a different way of walking. He would be trying to be like everyone else by insisting he is walking as he rolls along in his wheelchair. 

My daughter would also be horrified that she could be considered sexually disabled. She is very proud of her “lifestyle” and waves it around like a flag. I am very proud of my daughter, but my pride is in her whole person, not the part that I see as broken. No one likes to be disabled. My nephew knows he is a person with a mental disability and he accepts it. He also does so much to show that he is not defined by what he cannot do.

If the church identifies homosexuals as having a sexual disorder, they are removing the immoral slant from it. It is a more accepting and empathetic approach that still recognizes that it is not natural. The moral elements of the church will not judge or pressure these people to change. There would be more acceptances between believers. 

Like being a person with a intellectual disability or a physical disability, having a sexual disability is a reality in our sinful world that no amount of preaching or judging will alleviate.