Compassion or Naivety?

The following is a comment we received after posting "The Pursuit of Happiness and the Fatal Principle." From what appears to be another Anonymous to whom we cannot reply directly, it looks like more of a general reaction to our efforts at SoL than a comment on the post, but we felt it was a sincere and somewhat respectful comment and wanted to respond.

These "immoral" people may be acting selfishly, but most of them are doing so out of a deficit of self usually stemming from woundedness from childhood. The deficit has kept them from coalescing a whole personality and kept them fixated at an early stage of emotional development focused on their genitals and gratification thereof. How do you ensure that children grow up unwounded and whole? You cannot legislate it. You describe it as it is...a tragedy, an incompleteness, a wound. You describe it and describe and keep describing it. Then maybe they will stop seeing it as a hateful attack on their selfhood which gets you nowhere. You can work hard or you can work smart and actually accomplish something besides getting validation from the people who already see what you see.

Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. Here is our response.

Homosexuality is immoral and harmful, no matter what the causes. While we can't and shouldn't judge people as immortal souls, we can and should judge between good and evil. Homosexuality is a symptom of what may be a myriad of numerous larger problems and sins, from the tragic early sexual abuse you mention to a prideful rebellion against goodness/God.

Especially if homosexuality is a symptom of emotional/mental illness, or if it is specifically unwanted, it follows that we should at least offer help so it is available. Despite great success in this area, cutting-edge reparative or re-orientation therapy is now highly politically incorrect, discouraged, dismissed, and denigrated. The APA compromised its professionalism by removing homosexuality from its manual of disorders back in 1973 due to pressure from gay activists, and now there is actually a movement to prevent professional therapists from treating people who specifically wish to get to the roots of and overcome homosexual tendencies. Increasingly and in all facets of our mainstream society and institutions, no opposition to homosexuality is allowed.

You should know that, according to widespread gay activism standards, your comment about gays being "wounded," possessing "a deficit of self'," being "incomplete," "fixated," or a "tragedy," would be considered highly homophobic, intolerant, bigoted, and hateful, truly an "attack on their selfhood," the very thing you have accused us of. Having achieved mainstream acceptance, this movement now demands celebration and nurturance of homosexuality (and all related identities and corresponding behaviors) as normal, natural, and good. And many young, vulnerable, rebellious, damaged, or confused individuals are being recruited and exploited to further this cause.

Here at SoL we have come to recognize the "compassion" you show as counterproductive. One of the travesties of our modern age is that the devil is being mistaken for this or that psychological tendency. People deeply involved in sinfulness (for whatever reason) who are flattered and coddled, who are not taught about human nature and the nature of God, will make no lasting or significant progress, at least not that kind that followers of Christ should be concerned with. Merely describing a malady ad infinitum as woundedness is like wallowing in the mud. It gives no guidance or help or ideal. How can people transcend their troubles without hope for something better? In addition, we see your suggestion to refer to homosexualism as damage or deficiency while hoping for a different response from the gay community, as the definition of insanity. Not only is this viewpoint considered homophobic, it is extremely naive to hope these people will understand another point of view or change just because you keep saying how sorry you are for them. They are taught to hate pity, but are patient, knowing that it is just a step toward embrace.

As with alcoholism, pornography and drug addiction, people focused on homosexual lust have to want to change. Many don't want to see things another way and obviously don't want it known that change is possible, or all their justifications for homosex would fall apart. However one gets into it, sin is pleasurable both in thought and deed, at least for a time. To borrow from C. S. Lewis, real love seeks to offer eternal truth and divine repentance, rather than shallow, self-serving, and misguided human comfort and sympathy. To borrow from Flannery O'Connor, real charity is hard and endures.

Our goal at SoL is to educate on what is happening in our society in order to counteract these trends in one's own sphere of influence and responsibility, and to point out the best resources for families and individuals confronted with unwanted sexual problems, all with a timeless Christ-centered approach. We do the work as best we can for the best reasons we know, and leave it up to God whether we "accomplish something"or not.

Hung Up on the Gay Thing

"I'm worried about you; you're so hung up on the gay thing."

"Why this particular issue? There are more important problems."

"For your own sake, you shouldn't be so involved in this."

"Everything you say is colored by your stance on homosexuality."

When people make disparaging comments like these about our involvement in fighting the gay movement, we think they are saying more about themselves than about us. The truth is, our efforts make them uncomfortable. Perhaps they feel a twinge of guilt because they aren't doing something. They would rather nobody spoke out against this particular evil, or perhaps against any evil at all. These types of issues are too divisive, too controversial, too difficult. Can't we just ignore it?

The answer is no, we can't ignore it. You're either on one side or the other of this war between good and evil, and right now the evil side is winning. Guess which side the sleepy, unwitting people who say the above things are on, whether they realize it or not? Yes, the evil side. Case in point: read those opening comments again. The same people who say these dismissive things to us would never say them to a determined openly gay person (that is, anyone claiming to be gay, sympathizing with or advocating gayness). Could be they are afflicted with that spineless fickleness that causes people to side with the winner just because they're winning.

Of course SoL is not just about the gay thing at all. There's a much bigger picture we try to keep foremost in our minds. We're about human nature versus the nature of God, the Lord versus the Devil, truth versus error, great spiritual goodness versus great spiritual wickedness. The cultural embrace of sexual immorality of all kinds is just one of the symptoms of a debauched and anti-Christ society that no longer believes in such things as sin and the need for divine redemption. Exposing the insidious gay agenda, so stealthy, so ubiquitous, and so harmful, especially to the souls of youth, to health, to posterity, to marriage, to the family, and to religious freedom, just happens to be the corner of the battlefield in which we find ourselves.

Christianity isn't for the faint of heart. First you have to be on the right side and stay there, which is a continuous personal struggle. And then you have to fight evil, wherever it rears its head, come what may.  Some may call it being hung up.We call it speaking up for truth and goodness and Christ in our own small way with the resources we possess. We can't be everywhere in the war against evil, but at least we're somewhere.

In what corner of the battlefield are you?

Sinned Against? Or Sinning?

People today don't like the word sin. It denotes that there are absolutes, as in right and wrong. This is strange because these same people do not hesitate in using this concept of sin, of right and wrong, to describe others. Oh, they might use different words like un-Christlike or unkind or bigoted or hateful or intolerant. But they mean the same thing: You are doing something wrong; you are sinning against others.

The question we must all ask ourselves when we feel we have been sinned against is: Is there anything I have done wrong myself? But this charitable self-examination is especially absent among, for example, the gay community. Self-identified gays are always the sinned against. Why? Because it's a big part of the gay movement to make everyone believe they are victims of an evil, unaccepting society, that it's all about love and wholesomeness, and that anyone against gayness is evil, the real sinner. (This tactic is undeniably documented in dozens of gay organizations' written materials. A great resource is A Queer Thing Happened to America, by Michael L. Brown, 2011.)

It's interesting that you never hear gays decrying pornography of any kind, even though most people still think pornography is at least sleazy. That's because it is a staple of gay sexual orientation and the gay lifestyle; you have to feed the dragon for it to stay alive. And you never hear anybody asking gays about using pornography, either, or about what they think about and where they go and who they hang out with and what they do. That's because nobody dares ask them anything. They get a wink and a pass for all kinds of really bad ideas and really bad behavior and the advocating of it to others, even youth.

Christianity is about working to overcome our own wrongs through the grace of Christ rather than dwelling on the wrongs done us. On this basis alone, when so-called mohos (Mormon homosexuals) come out in testimony meetings, claim victim mentality, write books and blogs, proclaim that God has called them to lead the rest of us to enlightenment, and are in all ways loud and proud about their sexuality ("celibate" or not, at the moment), they are not being Christian at all, but rather thumbing their noses at God and Goodness.

But let's take this thought even farther. We submit that though we are all sinned against in a myriad of ways, we are all sinners, too. Giving a free pass to those who claim immunity from the sin of sexual impurity because they are "same-sex attracted" and allowing them to pass the blame to others is just another of our sins. It's the sin of enabling, even encouraging, souls to sin. When we do this we show we don't care a pin for their immortal souls. They are indeed sinners, and in a different way so are we. Who is to say which type of sin is worse?