Born Gay

Wow! haha…I can only imagine the looks on people’s faces & the thoughts shooting through their minds right now thinking “What is he about to say!?” The topic of if a person is born gay or not is a heavily debated topic in both secular & Christian realms and is one that legitimately needs to be addressed. I would like to set the record straight from the start and say boldly I DO NOT believe that a person is born gay by way of genetics!!! There has been extensive research in the scientific community that has taken place in order to understand if a person’s sexual preference is influenced through genetics. However, without trying to present an exhaustive amount of information, studies, & findings from various articles, up to this point the scientific community has NOT been able to link homosexuality to genetics. Nevertheless, there are quite a bit of environmental & psychological factors that can influence a person’s choice to engage in the homosexual lifestyle or that cause a person to develop same sex attraction.

In the book “Craving for Love” Christian author, Briar Whitehead, shares a definition for homosexuality developed by Frank Worthen (an ex-gay man & founder of one of the world’s first ex-gay groups), who depicts homosexuality as meaning “If a person has a visual sexual response coupled with active same-sex oriented fantasy, then even without sex acts, a homosexual problem exists.” Homosexuality, initially has nothing to do with sex, but largely centers around two major human needs 1. identity 2. love (Craving for Love pg. 97). Michael Saia, a counselor for homosexual men, asked a number of his clients what they were searching for when they decided to have their first sexual encounter and oddly enough none of them said sex. Instead, the majority of the men said they were desiring emotional strength, security, acceptance, sensitivity, friendship, companionship, comfort and so on. All the roots of homosexuality are in fact non-sexual and include lack of affirmation, insecurity, & overall an attempt to fill the void of a father and/or father replacement. According to Frank Worthen the components that make up homosexuality “are the lack of unconditional love, unmet need, the lack of a gender identity transfer, a search for fulfillment, a longing for acceptance and attention, wrong choices, a large dose of self pity, rebellion, admiration, and isolation.”

Briar’s book goes on to explain how a lack of fathering is only a portion of what leads to homosexual attraction/behavior and is not alone the root cause. According to Dr. Moberly (who spent 7 years studying into the psychoanalytic data on gender identity) she concluded that the homosexual at some point experienced some deficiency in their relationship with the parent of the same sex & in an attempt to compensate for this deficit they seek after homosexual relationships. Dr. Moberly goes on to explain that during the early stages of childhood (and possibly into the latter years of childhood) something of a “defensive detachment” occurs in which the child inwardly rejects or shuns the parent of the same sex at a significant enough level to where it ends up disrupting the gender identification process, or the process by which a child learns how to properly model themselves according to the qualities native to their gender. Essentially, defensive detachment results in gender detachment. Yet, that child still has a need to identify and gain acceptance from peers of the same sex. However, the problem arises when let’s say a boy tries to gain acceptance with other boys in his age bracket and they end up rejecting him because they may find him to be too much of a sissy, then being a boy becomes a big problem, but the need for acceptance remains. As time goes on, and with the young man still having a gapping void, his need for affirmation begins to intensify as he enters puberty. Now, the young man’s desire to bond is hooked up with his sex drive & his primary focus is on men who promise to fulfill his longing as intensely as he feels it.

Overall, the outcome of whether or not a young man ends up getting involved in homosexuality is circumstantial. Many heterosexual men lacked fathers or were rejected by their male peers and were able to move on unaffected in their sexuality. If the young man has an uncle, grandfather, brother, youth pastor, mentor etc. who takes them under their wing and acts as a surrogate then the boy can be able to continue developing normally psychologically & emotionally. At the base of it all the main word in homosexuality is “separation”, whether that is physical or emotional, between parent and child says Dr. Moberly.

I explained all of that to say that people are misinformed when they so simply try to reduce homosexuality to genetics, when in fact it has NOTHING to do with that, but is is much more complex. Homosexuality is an emotional deficiency but it is also SPIRITUAL! Recently , I was speaking with a friend of mine and we were discussing “Are people born gay?” My answer to them was, the Bible tells us in Psalm 51:5-For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me. Essentially the psalmist is saying that when we are conceived we are placed into a body that has a proclivity towards sin and our spirit is un-redeemed & un-protected . So, what I explained to my friend is that in the realm of the spirit from the time you are conceived and when you are born, until the day that you give your life to Christ and are purified and come under the guardianship of His blood, sin has a LEGAL right to latch on to and infect your life with any manner of impurity, whether its a stronghold of alcohol, drugs, homosexuality etc. So, in essence a person could potentially be born with a spiritual stronghold of homosexuality on their life and until the blood of Christ comes and is able to sever that stronghold off their life, giving them new life in Him, satan has a legal right to bind them! Romans 6:6 says-For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Basically, this verse explains that our body of sin (that which was formed in iniquity) is NOT done away with (being brought under subjection by the Holy Spirit) UNTIL we receive salvation! Salvation has the power to break off slavery to sin! However, as long as we remain unredeemed, sin (of any kind) is effectively able to bind our lives influencing & dictating the lifestyle we live!

Now, I can hear someone asking “Well, what about those who are saved, but still deal with homosexual attraction?”A very basic example I can give to help explain is if a person lays out in the sun for a long period of time and ends up getting darker as a result, it is going to take some days of not being in the sun so much to cause that tan to wear off. Similarly, if you have had a stronghold of homosexual attraction on your life for years & in the midst of that bondage end up getting saved there is a purification process that God will take you through in order to purge that thing out of your life, and that time frame is different for everyone depending on the depth of bondage they have to it. As a Christian, homosexuality technically has no dominion in your life and you have a responsibility to live in holiness. The Church has been making the grave mistake though of accommodating & justifying the practice of the homosexual lifestyle instead of helping people to begin living as a new, transfigured creature in Christ! Do not accept the lie that you were born gay, instead realize that you were predestined to be conformed into the image of His (God’s) likeness (Romans 8:29)! Well, this pretty much sums up this blog! hahaha…thanx for reading and I hope this helped someone! Love u!