Why would a person choose to suffer as a homosexual? It can’t be a choice

Answer:

From your note I derive:

• An agreement that there doesn't exist evidence of a genetic predisposition to homosexuality.
• A willingness to classify homosexuality as a psychological disorder, or at least to compare it to such.
• An agreement that the Bible condemns homosexual relations.

I find it a strange position to be in, but I have to agree with the American Psychological Association that homosexuality is not a disorder of the mind.

"Karen Hooker executed the first psychological test done to test for biological determinism in 1957, on a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.  The study was meant to explore the relationship between homosexuality and psychological development and illness.  Hooker studied both homosexuals and heterosexuals.  Both groups were matched for age, intelligence quotient (IQ) and education level, and were then subjected to three psychological tests.  These three tests, the Rorschach, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the Make-A-Picture-Story Test (MAPS), were then analyzed by psychologists, and the results were tabulated.  The results of Hooker's experiment yielded no significant differences in answers on any of the three tests.  Because both groups' answers scored very similarly, she concluded a zero correlation between social determinism of sexuality. As a result of Hooker's finding, the APA removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychological Disorders in 1973.  In 1975 it then released a public statement that homosexuality was not a mental disorder" [Ryan D. Johnson, "Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture," AllPsych Journal, April 30, 2003].

Where the APA failed is to take further steps to declare that it wasn't immoral (they don't have the ability to judge morality) and that it isn't a choice, yet adequate evidence exists to show people making such choices.

That is really where you and I disagree. You say that it cannot be a choice because people don't choose to suffer. I've always found this line of argument interesting because at the root of the argument is the claim that those who practice homosexuality are miserable. And the question is that no one chooses to be miserable. But that isn't true. I know a man who curses out neighbors when grass from their mowers lands in his yard. If a child's ball lands in his yard, he takes it. He greased his fence to keep kids from entering his yard to get their balls. He lives a miserable, lonely life but that is because he chooses not to connect with people. I know of people who remain in an abusive relationship even though they are miserable. I've offered to help some young teens get out of abusive family situations, but they choose to remain. Experience tells me that people will select poor situations because other motivators are seen as more important.

Ironically, you argue with Christians that suffering is not something a person would choose. "Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter" (I Peter 4:16). Christians often take the harder road because we see there is something more important than acceptance by worldly people. We rather live righteously and suffer for it than jeopardize our relationship with God.

That a choice exists is seen in the Scriptures: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (I Corinthians 6:9-11). Among the sins listed were two categories of homosexuality (active and passive participants); yet, the Holy Spirit through Paul tells us that this was the former state of some of the Christians in Corinth. They had changed. While you deny that such is possible, God states that it does happen.

Of course, there are groups, such as Exodus International, which also claim to help people change. The empirical evidence does exist. I've known people who left their marriage and children to take up homosexuality. I know of people who have left homosexuality to take up either bachelorhood or marriage. People alter their course in life in both directions. The fact that there are people who openly claim to be bisexual gives evidence that sexual attraction is not necessarily locked on one gender.

By the way, I don't accept the claim that homosexuality is when a person finds one gender or another sexually attractive. Fornication is an act that is a sin -- it is having sex outside of marriage. It isn't about whether someone finds a person of the opposite gender attractive. There are people who are sexually attracted to slim people, others to people of more ample proportions. There are even people who find certain objects or smells sexually attractive. Sexual attraction has nothing to do with a Christian's position. (And here I distinguish attraction from lustful wanting of something that is morally wrong.) It is the act of people of the same gender having sex with each other that is a sin. "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due" (Romans 1:26-27).

Hence, I do not argue that because there isn't a genetic basis for homosexuality that there must be a choice. Instead, I argue that the claim of a genetic basis doesn't prove there is no choice because there is no genetic basis. I argue that there is a choice because people have and do change -- and I have God's word on it.