It is a tiresome truth that those of the world, both inside and outside the church, grumble that some of us inside the church make a big deal over other people’s private lives. The Bible is a big book, chock full of all sorts of things we’re not supposed to do that we do and things we’re supposed to do that we don’t. “Why,” these folks argue, “are you Christians always squawking about drag queens, gay ‘marriage’ and trannies? Why don’t you get your noses out of joint over greed, adultery or gluttony?” While a case could be made that some of these sins are more destructive than others, the key reason is that there are not great bands of the broader culture out marching and boasting about their adultery, insisting that some are just born greedy or hosting Aol You Can Eat Buffet Nights for kids at the public library.
The sexually confused find themselves caught on the horns of a great dilemma. First, they desperately want to be accepted. Second, they desperately want to offend. They want to be seen as mainstream, and they want to shock. The better the first goal is met the worse the second is met; the better the second the worse the first. The first goal is easy to understand, because it’s perfectly normal. We all want to be accepted, to be approved of. This is why the key tool of acceptance of choice for the sexually confused is to shame those of us who know they are confused. We are condemned as homophobes and bigots, as hopelessly out of touch, as close kin of Nazis.
The second goal, however, should not surprise us. The very heart of sexual confusion is the drive to act against that which is natural. It is to shake one’s fist at the very order of God and the very God of order, at the design of the Creator’s creation. Perversion, for the sexually confused, isn’t a bug of the lifestyle, but a feature.
As is so often the case with sin, there are those who struggle against it and those who give in to it. The former group are due our compassion, encouragement and prayer. The latter group are due our compassion, discouragement and prayer. The second group, by virtue of embracing their sin are not only calling evil good but demanding that we do the same. To do so is not only evil, but unkind. Homosexual behavior is not simply sin because God is a kill-joy. It is an intentional spitting in His face.
Why then the compassion and prayer? Because such once were we. It is one thing to recognize that sexual perversity is disgusting. It is another thing to act as though, apart from God’s grace, we are beyond such sin. Compassion is the acknowledgment of “there but for the grace of God go I.” Prayer is the response. Those parading down our streets claiming to be proud, though they hate this truth, are made in God’s image. And they are not beyond His grace.