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It is always a blessing to hear real-life stories of the struggles people endure.  To hold a belief with no concern for how that belief’s uses or abuses have impacted people shows neither compassion nor courage.  In particular, some who hold the “homosexuality is chosen” opinion would do well to listen to these stories with open minds and hearts.

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It’s refreshing and sobering to see a pair of parents who cannot approve of their daughter’s choices, yet cannot reject their daughter.  They will abandon neither their own consciences nor their own child.  Rather, they choose simply to live with the tension.  Doubtless every parent has come to that place at least once.

w	Those of us who believe the Bible’s clear teachings on homosexuality do not hate homosexuals or anyone else.  We are changed sinners who love all sinners and invite them all to the Christ who changed us.  It’s simply dishonest to say that we hate.  We do not, and never have.

w	The Bible does not condemn homosexuals alone.  It warns all of us in our sin, calls us all to repent, and promises forgiveness and renewal to all who will do so.  I know of no significant group of Christians at any point in history who would disagree that this is what Christianity teaches.

w	The Bible does not damn homosexuals or any other sinner to hell automatically or irrevocably.  There is always reconciliation for those who repent.  Again, nearly nobody has ever claimed otherwise.

w	The movie and the article point out that Old Testament prohibitions of homosexuality butt right up against restrictions on shellfish and other foods.  Since we all eat crabs with no problem, it is claimed, we have no reason not to accept homosexuality.  Yet this is simply not sound reasoning.

·	The New Testament clearly does away with the OT dietary restrictions (Mark 7:18-19; Acts 10:9-16).  By the way, if the OT’s dietary laws WERE still binding on us today, would our failure to live by them thereby invalidate them?  Or would it simply show us to be lawbreakers?

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The New Testament reinforces and extends the OT prohibitions of homosexuality (Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 5:9-13; 6:9-11), resulting in clear and repeated condemnations of both homosexual deeds and desires.  You can claim that the Bible or parts of the Bible are not the Word of God.  (I of course would disagree in the most strident of terms.)  You can claim the Word of God was never intended to tell us how to live.  (Ditto.)  But you cannot believably claim that the Bible approves of or does not address homosexuality.  Only by the most radical distortions of the Bible’s language and grammar could you reach such a conclusion.

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The film claims that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was their inhospitable ways.  No doubt their inhospitality and their violence were part of what brought the wrath of God down on them.  However, only one place in the NT interprets for us why the cities were judged: Jude 7.  There the brother of Jesus identifies their sins: sexual immorality and going after “strange flesh.”  Here again, you have options as a free-thinking soul.  You can claim that the author of Jude was not the brother of Jesus and/or did not pen inspired Scripture.  You can say it’s not binding for today because we no longer need to order our lives by Scripture.  (Naturally, I categorically reject those options.)  But what you cannot reasonably do is claim that the author of Jude thought the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was inhospitality.

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The genetic links of homosexuality are still hotly debated, contrary to how the film presents the issue.  Yet even if a genetic basis were clearly established, that would not address the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality.  There are several aberrant behaviors that clearly have a genetic component.  The truth is, everything we do and are has genetic roots.  The “How can the way I was born be sin?” line of reasoning is a red herring.  The whole point of morality is to control and redirect the way we were born.  And the whole point of Christianity is to save us from the consequences of how we were born.

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The film makes much of the supposed occurrences of homosexual behavior in the animal world, attempting to show that “unnatural” is a word that should not be used to describe homosexuality.  In reality, though, there are only a very few instances of same-sex pairing in nature… and even they are very clearly far outside the norms for their respective species.  Most of the examples given are really more about confused patterns of sexual or dominant behavior that never last more than one generation (for obvious reasons).  Often the genuinely sexual same-sex behaviors disappear as soon as a viable opposite-sex option becomes available. At other times, the behavior is more social than sexual in nature, and clearly motivated by confusion, boredom, or sickness.  Any of us who has watched a dog “hump” a chair has seen this sort of strange (and often hilarious) behavior.  The truth is, the animal kingdom knows little or nothing of what we call “a homosexual orientation.”

w	Without question the most heart-wrenching story in the film is that of the mother whose lesbian daughter was so distraught when her mother expressed disapproval of her lifestyle that she took her own life.  What an utter tragedy.  Who could possibly not feel that mother’s heartbreak?

But does it follow that a mother who does not approve of her grown daughter’s lesbian choices or feelings is somehow responsible for that daughter’s desperate reactions to that disapproval?  Should a parent always express approval of anything his child (small or grown) does, lest something horrible happen?  Of course not.  A man whose grown son is an alcoholic not only can but must disapprove of his son’s drinking – even though nobody chooses to be an alcoholic; even though alcoholics almost by definition are nearly helpless to change their condition; even though there is clearly a genetic disposition in some alcoholism; even though disapproving a behavior while at the same time loving the person is usually an agonizing high-wire act.  (Many would doubtless object that alcohol abuse is abnormal and unhealthy, while homosexuality is completely normal and healthy.  However, anatomy, physiology, and a few of the rest of us still politely disagree with that assessment.) Other counterexamples could be multiplied.

The point is that disapproving of a person’s lifestyle is not at all the same thing as condemning the person.  And it is sometimes it is the only right thing to do.

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The bottom line, as always, is love.  It’s claimed that traditionalists just don’t love people enough to accept them as they are.  We must lovingly disagree.  We believe that while God will accept us in spite of what we’re like, simply and only because of Jesus’ life and death, he loves us far too much to let us stay the way we are.  He changes us at the most fundamental levels.  He does that by the power of his Holy Spirit working through the truth of his written Word, the Bible.  And he does it precisely because he loves us.