What I Think about Homosexuality

I think a lot of things, actually. But I don’t feel particularly qualified to say them. The world is broad and experience varies widely. What do I have to qualify me to share an opinion but a single lesbian friend and the questions and confusion I waded through as a young person? 

That’s why, when I wanted to write about homosexuality, I reached out to godly individuals who have themselves experienced same-sex desires, wanting to share from their wider wisdom. You can read that post here. 

But I received a letter in the mail a week after I’d published that post. The letter was kind and respectful, but full of concern. “In this last post, I’m left wondering what you believe and how it’s supposed to help someone find answers,” she said. 

So that’s why I’m writing this post. Not because I think I have all the answers, but because I feel I owe it to you, my readers, to clarify where I stand. 

1. I think homosexuality is NOT the worst sin. 

Recently, some ladies whom I love talked about abandoning a local you-pick strawberry patch because it was now owned by a gay couple. I think this attitude is wrong. Would they patronize the patch if it was owned by a divorced and remarried couple? What about a live-in couple? What about a single person who is known to sleep around? 

While I believe the Bible teaches that all of these lifestyle choices are wrong, I don’t think there are very many of us who refuse to do business or to associate in a kind and respectful way with people who do these things. If we did, “we would then have to go out of the world,” Paul says. (1 Corinthians 5:9-11)

At one time in my life, I thought of homosexuality as a special perversion of its own, a notch grosser than “normal” sexual sins like a man lusting for a woman or a woman posing in a skimpy swimsuit on the cover of Playboy. Homosexuals were angry people. Lustful. God haters. 

Then I met Charlene. She wasn’t lustful. Didn’t hate Christians. Loved God with all her small soul. And yes, she had lived as a lesbian for 17 years and slept around with both men and women in the years before that. She wasn’t proud of that part of her life. Both of us believed her lifestyle had been wrong. 

But Charlene herself, her whole vibrating body….she was magnificent. Her desire for God was evident.

And yet–she told me she’d been born homosexual. I believed her, or at least believed those feelings had developed within her at a very young age. 

After meeting Charlene, I sat in a conservative Mennonite church one day and heard the pastor say that homosexuals live like animals. And I was angry. Charlene had made sinful choices, but she wasn’t an extra class of lustful in the way he was implying. She was no more animal-like than the pastor himself. 

I read a letter that came in the mail from a conservative Christian organization that said homosexuals were out to destroy Christianity. And I was angry. Charlene wasn’t out to destroy Christians. She was open, receptive to love given to her from any quarter. 

Negative comments and attitudes towards homosexuals smack more of prejudice than they do of a genuine godly belief that homosexuality is wrong. Probably these comments do not always signal a lack of love, but they do signal a lack of understanding and familiarity. The speaker thinks of homosexuals not as human, but as “other.” An evil other which we must avoid. 

Jesus didn’t react to the other–not the Romans, not the prostitutes–in that negative way. 

2. I think sexuality is both learned and inherent. 

Some of us are born with strong sex drives. Maybe when we are very young we experiment with ourselves or with friends sexually. Others of us are born with a less strong desire for sex. We may never think much about sex. Or maybe we fear it. Or maybe we think of it as bad because we’ve only ever heard it talked about in contexts where it was bad. 

All of us also learn sexuality to a degree. 

On the negative side, sexual abuse or a distant parent can put a damper on my sexual desire because they cause me to associate sex with pain or to fear the intimacy that comes with sex. Or sexual abuse or a distant parent can influence me toward promiscuity, because I de-value my body or because I am always looking for love. 

On the positive side, if I am blessed with a partner who loves me, who honors my sexual preferences and treasures both my body and my heart, that experience will open in me a well of emotional connection and intimacy and good feelings about sex. Even if I am not a strongly sex-driven individual, for this one person, my sexual desire will come alive. 

Culture, early exposure to sex, frequent exposure to sex, the type of exposure to sex, and many other things might influence a person’s sexuality. 

When I came to love Charlene, a window in my mind opened. For the first time I understood why a woman might be attracted to a woman. And through that window poured all sorts of questions and confusion. Was I homosexual? Was I bad? I knew that I didn’t have an especially strong sex drive myself. And I’d never felt such a strong magnetic attraction to any individual, woman or man. Not a sexual attraction, exactly…but maybe it could be. 

As a somewhat-older person with a somewhat-greater understanding, I know that I was neither homosexual nor bad, but simply confused. 

Perhaps, if I had answered Charlene’s early advances (she was also confused about my intentions), my sexuality would have opened and blossomed. Maybe I would have learned to love having sex with a woman and considered myself homosexual. Or bisexual. Or pansexual.

But I didn’t. Eventually, I got married and learned to love having sex with my husband. 

My blog post on homosexuality as an identity was intended for people like me. The confused ones. The not sure ones. The ones who think that maybe homosexuality is something you either are or you aren’t, and if you are, then you’re bad. 

I think that we as Americans like to label other people and label ourselves altogether too well. “I am homosexual.” “I am heterosexual.” “I am pansexual.” 

How about just, “I am sexual.”

Sexuality is too magical and mysterious to be put in a box. 

3. I think there is a difference between same-sex attraction and lust.  

I know a number of young girls who think they are really boys. I don’t think they are sinful. And I don’t think they are actually meant to be male. I think a combination of their inherent natures and their early experiences have shaped them to have these sorts of feelings. 

In the same way, I think that our sexuality is formed through a combination of inherent nature and early experience. Someone who experiences same-sex attractions is not necessarily more sinful than someone with opposite-sex attractions.

However, someone who lusts for another person of the same sex or someone of the opposite sex whom they are not married to, sins. Jesus said if you lust, you are committing adultery with that person in your heart.

Charlene and I talked about what the Bible says about sexuality several times and both came to believe homosexuality was wrong. Charlene made the conscious decision to limit her desires toward me to friendship and stayed well away from lust. I respected her for that. 

I think that a person generally knows if they are lusting, but if you are confused about your feelings and not sure, Ken Brubacher gave a good guideline. He said that every lustful thought would, if it could. 

Also remember that lust isn’t limited to sex lust, though we generally think of it in that context.

4. I think homosexuality is wrong. 

Jesus said, “From the beginning He made them male and female. For this reason shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and they two shall be one flesh.” 

In a literal, physical sense, our bodies were not designed to be one flesh with a person of our gender. A man fits with a woman in a way he cannot with a man, and a woman fits with a man in the way she cannot with a woman. 

In other ways, emotionally and mentally, sometimes men and women feel like foreign species to each other. But I believe they are stronger together than apart when they learn to step across those differences with love.

A man and woman together complete a picture of God that two people of the same gender cannot. Remember that He created them both in his image. Not a man alone. Not a woman alone. But both together. A man’s body is stronger. He symbolizes God as protector. A woman’s body bears children. She symbolizes God as nurturer. Alone, the picture of God is less complete. 

Also remember that as part of a broken humanity, you may desire to do things that God’s Word says are wrong. For example, when my dad was a young boy, he had an inherent desire to steal. Every time his parents took him visiting, he took something. Didn’t matter what. He just wanted to steal. 

You may also experience emotions that aren’t part of the ideal human experience you were created to enjoy. For example, I sometimes feel impatience or hurt or distrust toward my husband instead of the love and trust God wants me to have. 

Your broken emotions and desires, whatever they are, don’t make you abnormal or especially bad. They do signal your brokenness and need of Jesus. 

That’s what I think.

P.S. A few of you made anonymous or fake-name comments on my last post about homosexuality which came across to me as less than respectful towards one side or another and which I deleted. I am not fond of online debate, especially on a subject that involves real, living, loving, breathing people. Also, it makes me question your motives in commenting if you are not willing to share your name. Please feel free to comment, but on such a sensitive subject, be careful to keep your comments kind and do use your name. If you don’t feel comfortable commenting in public, feel free to email me personally at lucindajkinsinger@gmail.com.

I will always be grateful for my friendship with Charlene and for all that I learned from her. Turtle Heart, the story of the friendship that changed us both, is coming out this summer. If you are already subscribed to my blog, you will hear about launch day details as they develop. If you are not subscribed and want to be, drop me your email address below.

*Feature photo by MacKenzie Zimmerman.