It is our belief that the idea that a person chooses to come out as "gay" before he chooses to engage in homosexual behavior is highly illogical. (We are thinking of the rampant naivete of parents and leaders and the change made in the BYU Honor Code in 2006, apparently through pressures from gay activists and input from gay students, which allows students and faculty to openly identify as gay as long as they don't act on it or advocate it. Incidentally, we think self-identifying is a form of acting and advocating.) It seems more realistic that a person, especially a young LDS person, would not risk announcing he is gay unless he has experimented with it extensively and decided to embrace it, come what may.
Experimentation with homosexuality can take many forms and degrees. We think the most common form is same sex pornography, a huge and fairly recently established internet industry. As one young man related, he looks at porn just to confirm that he is gay, in other words, if same sex porn turns him on he decides he must be gay. Too bad he doesn't know that human sexuality is highly subject to suggestion and stimulation and can take all kinds of bad directions.
Homosexual experimentation can also include fantasizing, participating in on line chat rooms, immersing oneself in gay-affirming literature and entertainment, frequenting gay society and clubs, and more. It seems highly improbable that any young LDS person would claim gayness without first acting out in any of these ways or others short of committing sodomy. Granted, an individual who has been abused as a child or young person (through sexual abuse, pornography, labeling, peer abuse, bad teaching and example, our gay-affirming culture, etc.) may begin to believe they are gay before experimenting. But the actual public embrace of the political and social gay identity is self-determined and quite advanced. Therefore, we submit that homosexual behavior generally must come before private or public declaration of gayness.
To put it simply, given that most people have been conditioned to believe the falsehood that homosexuality is innate and permanent, a young LDS person is not going to say, "I'm gay," or even "I'm same-sex attracted," without trying it out in some way. There's too much at stake. Acting out comes first. To think otherwise is to deny reality.
So, so true. One who is struggling with SSA does not identify themselves as "gay". It is after the completely embrace the idea of living the gay lifestyle that they choose to spread the news around. Especially at BYU you have to be pretty bold to contradict the church's teachings and proclaim your sexual behaviors around (since when is it anyone's business at a college who you prefer to engage in private activities anyway?) I think it is ridiculous BYU is conforming to new-age, unproven sexual behaviors. I mean, seriously. We are trying to coddle to people depending on who they prefer to have sex with?? This is madness!
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