by Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

If you are reading this and consider yourself to be “straight,” I would like for you to do a little experiment with me. I want you to find a quiet place, calm your mind and think back. Think back as far as you are able. Try to recall your very earliest memories as a young child. What is the earliest birthday party you can remember? Perhaps your earliest memory is of a Christmas or a Holiday or some special event involving your parents. Were you given Pabulum as a young child? Perhaps you remember the slightly sweet taste of a teething biscuit?

While you’re time travelling through the memories in your mind, try and remember the day you decided to be “straight.” Can you do it? Was there some point in time where, if you’re male, you decided you were attracted to females? If you’re a female, was there some point in time you decided to be attracted to males? I have thought long and hard. I have plumbed my memories and I can remember events that happened before I was two years old. Try as I might, I cannot recall ever deciding to like females. Thus has it ever been. I have never been attracted to other men. I have always been attracted to females. It was never a choice. It was simply who I am.

When a person who is homosexual says to me, “I have always been attracted to the same sex,” I find it difficult to dispute them. My own personal experience doesn’t provide a foundation permitting me to make such an argument. No amount of fasting, prayer or restorative therapy will ever make me attracted to another man. Can’t be done. If your experiences are different, please leave a comment. I would like to hear from you.

Homosexuality In Nature

One of the main “non-Biblical” arguments against homosexuality is that it is unnatural. After all, in order to produce offspring, unless a species is capable of asexual reproduction, requires the mating of a male and female of the species. No argument there. Yet, homosexuality has been observed amongst a host of species. Mammals, Birds, Fish, Reptiles and Amphibians. If it occurs in nature, it must be natural. To wit: If you believe that God created all things, you have unimpeachable evidence that God created homosexual creatures. If not, who did?

Misunderstanding The Sodom and Gomorrah Story

Ask almost any “fundamentalist” Christian worth his salt, “why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed,” and you’ll get the answer, “because of their homosexuality.”  It is a Bible story usually introduced in Sunday School. We have Abraham bargaining with God to save the city because of his nephew Lot. You have God sending his “Angels” to get Lot out of the city. You have the men of the city spotting the Angels and wanting to “know” them. Took me some years to fully understand exactly what that meant. You’ve got Lot his wife and daughters being rushed out of the city in the very nick of time. Lot’s wife looks back and gets turned into a “pillar of salt” and so on.

All in all a very interesting story. The bottom line is, homosexuality is so bad, Almighty God came down to wipe not one, but two entire cities off the face of the earth. Even the act of looking back to see the devastation cost Lot’s wife her life. The term we use today for homosexual sex is “Sodomy” and comes directly from that story. Seems like case closed. God hates homosexuals and the Westboro Baptist Church is right! But what if our takeaway from that story is wrong? What if we’ve had it completely wrong for several 1,000 years?

“[KJV] Ezekiel 16:49 
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

What’s this? According to Ezekiel – he lived a lot closer in time than we do – says that homosexuality had nothing to do with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Were there homosexuals in Sodom? No doubt there were. There have always been homosexuals. There were homosexuals before the “Great Flood of Noah,” and there are homosexuals after the Flood right up to today. Homosexuality, at one time was a part of Greek culture. If God hated homosexuality, why didn’t he wipe out the Greeks?

Based on what Ezekiel says, God hates people who don’t show kindness and take responsibility for those less fortunate than them. In the Book of Matthew, Jesus gives his Disciples the “Cliffs Notes” for the final Judgement. He goes into quite a bit of detail on what all the nations will be judged on. You can read it in Matthew 25:31-46. Not once does a person’s religion or even whether or not they believe in God come up. In fact, none of the creeds or beliefs so important in distinguishing between the various Christian denominations seem to matter at all! What does matter is how you treated the poor, the hungry, the naked, the homeless, those in prison and the sick. Thus, according to Jesus, salvation is not based on saying “the sinner’s prayer.” It’s not based on joining a church or winning converts. It is certainly not based on how much money you give to a church!

Where Does The Hatred Of Homosexuality Come From?

“[KJV] Leviticus 18:22 
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Seems pretty cut and dried doesn’t it? Thus sayeth the Lord God! Case closed! Those who believe the Bible always follow whatever God decrees right? Well, it seems there’s some wiggle room. For example, every Sunday around 3 pm, you can go to any Red Lobster Restaurant and you’ll see families dressed in their Sunday finest enjoying a meal together after having attended Sunday morning service. There’s nothing like a hot succulent lobster tail and a side of crab legs with some drawn butter. The only problem is, according to your Bible, eating shell fish is also an “abomination.”

“[KJV] Leviticus 11:10 
And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:

If we work on the theory that an abomination is an abomination, is one abomination worse than the other? Unless your preacher suffers from an allergy to shell fish, I can pretty much guarantee that he or she has enjoyed lobster and crab. Matter of fact, you may have actually been present with him or her and partaken of these abominations right along with them.

There are a lot of things the Bible forbids that you do everyday and think nothing of it. Do you wear clothes that are made from blended fabrics? Cotton and Wool? Do you have a home garden? Did you plant more than one vegetable in it? These things are forbidden by God.

“[KJV] Leviticus 19:19 
¶Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.”

The same book in the Bible that calls homosexuality an abomination, also calls eating shell fish and abomination, forbids wearing garments made from blended fabrics and prohibits planting more than one type of vegetable in your garden. Go to your closet and check the tags on your clothes. More like than not, you’ve been sitting in church wearing fabrics that God forbids. You probably never gave it a second thought. However, when the subject of homosexuality is raised, you probably become righteously indignant! “Those people are going to Hell if they don’t stop what they’re doing and get right with God!” Question: “Are they going to the same Hell you’re going to for eating shell fish or wearing blended fabrics?”

Homosexuality In The Church

Where would the Church be without the contribution of Homosexuals? I spent the first 30 years of my life deeply ensconced in a fundamentalist, Pentecostal church. Let me add a bit of flavor to what that meant.

• If you weren’t baptized – you were going to Hell.
• If they didn’t say the right words when they baptized you – yep, Hell.
• If you didn’t have the charismatic experience (speaking in tongues) – Hell.
• If you went to a movie theater – you were going to Hell.
• Women who wore make-up, jewellery, pants – going to Hell. (Seems women had quite a few prohibitions.)
• If you didn’t pay your tithes (on your gross) – going to Hell.
• If you went to dances (like you school prom) – yep, Hell.
• If you listened to secular music (rock, jazz R&B) – ticket to Hell.
• If you didn’t confess all your sins (masturbation included) – Hell.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. So needless to say, for the first 30 years of my life, I didn’t like homosexuals… at all! As far as I was concerned, they were demon possessed deviants whom you should keep your children away from at all costs. Of course, this created more than a little conflict because most of those whom I suspected were homosexual and many whom were confirmed as being homosexual later, were in the Church.

They were in the music department. They played the church organ or piano like nobody’s business and could bring the congregation to their feet or move them to tears. They sung in the choir and could lead a song that would almost cause you to see the sky roll back and offer a glimpse of heaven. They served on the “Usher Board” and in later years I discovered that some were in the pulpit preaching.

Because these people were “in the church,” I was duty bound to accept them. After all, clearly God had forgiven them and their past lives were “Under The Blood.” All their sins had been washed away – not their effeminate ways… clearly – but the behaviours were gone. At least that is the way things were supposed to work. However, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck!

I knew of one gentleman whom if I called his name, some of my readers would know him. He got in church, married, raised a family, sung in the choir, was active on the usher board and then one year, he wrote his wife a 7 page letter and was gone. After years of being in the church, he had to acknowledge whom he truly was. The tragedy was, in his efforts to conform and become someone he was not, he took a wife and fathered children. They were devastated when he left.

That is the other thing we don’t seem to talk about. NBA player Jason Collins came out as being Gay. That doesn’t bother me. However, imagine the surprise of his ex-fiancée! She dodged a bullet there! This is what happens when society – the Church included – demand that people conform to what we consider to be normal. People do try to fit in.  In their effort to fit in, many times they will get married thinking that this will change them. It does not. At this point, they’ve now brought someone else into their lives under misapprehension.

Another example is Ted Haggard. Married with a family. Pastoring a thriving church and elected to lead the National Association of Evangelicals. Presumably he led many a person to Jesus Christ. Yet, he was living a lie. He was “bearing false witness” to whom he really is. It all fell apart and he lost everything when it came out that he had been having a three year sexual relationship with his masseuse who also had been supplying him with Crystal Methamphetamine. No doubt the psychological pain of trying to be someone he was not, caused the need to self-medicate.

Bishop Eddie Long is another example of a prominent preacher’s fall from Grace. Bishop Long could fire up his congregation and have people falling out, knocking over seats and running to the altar ready for salvation. The man is gifted. He built New Birth Missionary Baptist Church from 300 members into what at one time was a 25,000 member “Mega-Church.” Married with children yet, hiding his homosexuality. It all came crashing down when 4 young men came forward charging that Bishop Long had been having sex with them. He had plied them with expensive gifts, cash money and trips. Forget about his church and congregation for a moment, imagine how his wife and children must have been shattered. Again, another example of someone “bearing false witness” to whom they truly are.

Bishop Carlton Pearson is another example of how homosexuality can affect a ministry. I have heard nothing that indicates to me that Bishop Pearson is Gay or even has those tendencies. His problem is that after reading and studying his Bible, he concluded that the Church has had it wrong for 2,000 years. He was branded a heretic because he began teaching that nobody is going to Hell. He calls this “The Gospel of Inclusion.” What? No Hell??? How will the Church make any money?

After being kicked out of the church he had been affiliated with and losing everything, a church that ministered to homosexuals asked him to come. This church wasn’t ministering to homosexuals from the standpoint of telling them they were going to Hell or living in sin. They were ministering to them from the standpoint of validating their humanity and reinforcing to them that God loved them equally. Bishop Pearson’s ministering to them was equivalent to burning his bridges with the Pentecostal fundamentalist organizations he was a member of. Heretic for life! 

“[KJV] Luke 5:31 
And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.“

The peculiar thing is, if one believes that homosexuality is an anathema to God, shouldn’t the Church be reaching out to them in a loving and effective way? Clearly the Church hasn’t been real successful in curing homosexuality. Possibly because it isn’t a disease? Of course, they haven’t made much progress in getting Preachers to stop eating lobster and crab either.

“[KJV] Jude 1:24 
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,”

The case of Pastor Donnie McClurkin is interesting. Pastor McClurkin has shared his testimony of being healed by the power of God from being homosexual. In his youth he was the victim of homosexual sexual molestation. Evidently this caused him to become a homosexual for a period of time. Then, praise God, he met Jesus and Jesus cured him of his homosexuality. Pastor McClurkin is one of those people who can sing you into heaven. He even moves me and that’s saying something! One of his biggest hits as a Gospel Recording Artist is a song called, “We Fall Down But We Get Up.” He sings that song with the power and the feeling that in my opinion only comes from experience. When he sings about falling down, I have no idea what is in his mind as he sings it, all I know is he’s not singing from theory. He’s singing from the depths of his experience.

Pastor McClurkin at the time of this writing is not married. Perhaps being married is not his calling…

It’s Time For The Church To Come Out Of Its Closet

Homosexuality in the Church is almost guaranteed by the way the “Plan Of Salvation” is presented. I’m speaking from the perspective of a man. “Before you can get someone saved, you must first get them lost.” Not only lost, but you have to convince males of their own inadequacy to cope with life’s problems. Whether true or false, it is the nature of men to embrace at their core, the belief in their own self-sufficiency. A man in order to survive must believe in his own self-reliance. His ability to protect himself and those he loves.

In order to convince a man of the need for salvation, the Church must tear this down. It must convince a man that he is not self-sufficient, that he is lost and does not know the way to where he wants to go. In essence to get a man “saved” the Church must first emasculate him. The men most susceptible to this are those men who already possess a fragile sense of their own masculinity. The message of the Church resonates with this type of man more powerfully than it resonates with men who are comfortable in their own masculinity. Thus it should be no surprise that so many men in the Church – those who were not brought up in the Church – are often struggling with their sexuality.

When we attempt to suppress our nature, the pressure continues to build until we finally explode. Often this explosion causes much more damage and devastation than had we simply embraced whom we are in the first place. The Catholic Church is dealing with a veritable plague of paedophile priest. They’ve added to their problem by taking the position that their priest must remain celibate.  Thus they’re attracting men to their priesthood who are comfortable not being married. What could possibly go wrong?

“[KJV] Proverbs 19:9 
A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.”

When people attempt to portray themselves as other than what they truly are – no matter how well intended – they are bearing a false witness to those around them. They are lying in word and or in deed regarding whom they truly are. I have never even darkened the hallway of a medical school. If I went out and purchased a white lab coat and bought a stethoscope, I might look the part of a medical doctor. However, if you came to me for advice to cure an ailment, even though the advice I gave might be sound, you would still be taking your life into your hands. Eventually, my charade would catch up with me… most probably at the expense of some poor soul who put their trust in the fact that I looked like a doctor.

So, what can be done about homosexuality in the Church? First, let us admit that it is present. Denial is not a river in Africa. The Church only has two choices that I can see. It either must purge itself of all homosexuals – in essence launch a modern inquisition – or it must embrace them and allow them to be whom they are openly. The first option will undoubtedly result in the destruction of the Church. The second option leaves open the possibility that if God changes people, then God will change them in his own time and his own way. I can imagine little worse than a person who is homosexual joining a church and believing themselves to be “cured,” getting married and starting a family only to realize that they are actually still a homosexual.