A. For the tiny percentage of the population which much empirical data reveals to have an INBORN disorder, I believe these ought to be free to choose to live with a homosexual partner. I do not believe God condemns these in any manner. To me, they are like the deaf or blind: Just different.
B. For the far greater percentage of confused and psychologically misguided youth, being misled by someone like Dan Savage, who jumps from college campus to college campus, encouraging experimentation, sex games, early “coming out”, hanging out at gay bars and clubs, I have a different judgment: Cultural Decadence. Nihilism. Should be stopped. God does judge this.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN A AND B makes all the difference in the world. Let us forget A. Let us focus only on B. Houghton M would surely agree that NARTH is only concerned with B. Right, Houghton???
“For the tiny percentage of the population which much empirical data reveals to have an INBORN disorder, I believe these ought to be free to choose to live with a homosexual partner. I do not believe God condemns these in any manner. To me, they are like the deaf or blind: Just different.”
You do not grasp the significance of “nature” in us. Heterosexuality is the only natural form of sexuality. You are, in effect, saying that same-sex attraction is, for some small percentage of the population, “natural” (inborn).
You really, really, really, don’t want to go there, as a Christian.
We dare not give up on nature, natural, natural law. Your approach puts all the freight on “empirical evidence” of “inbornness.” Who decides that? Empiricality is a chimaera. It will reach around and bite you in the butt.
The same issues arises with regard to contraception. If one sticks with the position that the very nature of the sex act involves the reproductive system, thus, to remove the procreative aspect via a condom or the Pill is to be unnatural, one has a solid ground to stand on: out of respect of the way God made us, we will not use our sexuality in ways that deny the nature of our sexuality.
But if you start saying, well, there’s Nature 1 (heterosexual) and Nature 2 (homosexual, at least for a very few, inborn), then you have no natural heterosexuality left, really. Once you go there, you have no convincing argument that same-sex attraction, though not chosen, is disordered and unnatural and should not be given in to.
I expect you will think this is a distinction without a difference.
Natural law is the crucial issue of our day. A lot of Evangelical Christians don’t get it. Al Mohler had a good piece on this with regard to contraception. He mostly “gets it.”
The NARTH researchers do not think A exists. It’s your category, not theirs. They find no convincing evidence of it being inborn.
The NARTH researchers are open to evidence being discovered that shows that it is inborn. They are clinical researchers. As of yet, they see no evidence of inbornness. They see evidence of pyschosocial development. All the evidence is partial. They are the first to say,
we
just
don’t
know.
But also
it
is
not
simply
chosen.