[Email to Marsha] I don't know the "causes" of homosexuality. I’m genuinely interested because I am, like you, a Christian singer/writer/poet, and I do read the same Bible and unless your Romans is missing Chapter One, then you're trying to fit God into your lifestyle. It doesn't negate or discount anything God has done through you or will do through you. The fact that He uses any of us is a miracle and a mystery. None of us deserve it. But we can’t call our sins anything but sins if we're being honest with ourselves and God. You, I am sad to say it, are a despiser of God and you’ve been given over to a reprobate mind. God wants you to repent. You're Simon Peter warming your hands at the camp of the enemy. Read Gen. 18:16-22; I Kings 14:24, and Romans 1:26,27. I didn't write or create any of these principles. But if you can read the Bible and not believe God sees homosexuality as sexually perverted-- as sin, then Satan has blinded your eyes and heart, and I definitely will pray for God to open them. [Email end]

Well, I absolutely agree with you on the "good" philosophies and reasons - the heart is desperately wicked! I think probably you and I are going to have to settle with not seeing eye-to-eye on this one thing. The ONLY master I serve is Christ, but like you said, I do struggle with temptations. For me, that's stuff like not honoring my body as the temple of the Holy Spirit (I can't count how many times I've been up and down the scale or how often I eat things I clearly KNOW aren’t God's plan for me or my health), or being horribly impatient in traffic or waiting in lines. I mean, I don't scream, curse or threaten anyone - I'm just rude, uncaring and ungracious.

My take on homosexuality, of course, wouldn’t be that I "journeyed into" it. Raising heterosexual kids has made me even more aware of how basic being gay is to my being.  I do NOT mean to indicate that simply because it’s "natural" for me makes it right. All kinds of things are "natural" to us that are sinful. But when you ask when it began, I sort of have to clarify that. I feel no need to "justify" it. I'm sure you agree none of us is "justified" by ourselves - the end of Romans 3 and the beginning of Romans 5 are pretty clear that we’re only justified by Christ and His atoning death.

If the goal of your searching questions earlier were to bolster your case that my dysfunctional family caused my homosexuality, then I feel badly I mistook your questions for genuine interest. Your case not withstanding, that sort of stuff only matters if you come to it with the presupposition that homosexuality is bad. I mean no one’s doing studies on why some women like redheads or some men like tall women, right?  No one cares because no one feels that’s innately wrong. So, whether they were born liking redheads or whether some childhood trauma caused them to dislike blondes is of no interest. 

I'm not really sure which Scriptures you feel are relevant, so it's hard for me to address your concerns. Some people have the "Adam and Steve" thing going - which presupposes that the first relationship was the ONLY godly one. Some people have the Sodom and Gomorrah thing, which just boggles my mind. There are so many things wrong in that story, the idea someone extracted homosexuality from it is astounding. They raped and murdered women, abusing the gifts and messengers of God, turning strangers out into the desert to die, offering your DAUGHTERS to be killed, being a mother who seemed not to want to leave a place where such horrors had occurred and looking back longingly at it? Golly! If the angels had been female and all the same things had happened, would anyone have extrapolated that heterosexuality was wrong? The Leviticus team has the one "abomination" line people use the most, conveniently overlooking that none of us regards any of the other proscriptions in Leviticus (wearing wool with cotton? drinking milk with beef?) as applying to us today. It also overlooks the other "abominations" listed in Proverbs 6, too.

Rather than go on guessing why you believe homosexuality’s a sin, let me just share my hope with you. When God came to Peter on the rooftop with a vision to eat unclean food, Peter had Scripture to stand on when he said No. [Editor note: Story repeated above. Removed for space.] The apostles finally said, "I guess we have to baptize them and let them in."

That's where I aspire to be. Letting the Holy Spirit fall on me, use me, work through me.  Hopefully letting my light shine so others will see it and glorify God who is at work in me.  I don't think I surprised Jesus or had to come out to God. I can't picture Jesus saying, "Oh darn, look at this. Give her this nice song, these precious gifts and look what she turned out to be - who knew?" I greet every morning with praise for the ministry that God has given me. I am in the Word every day. I pray constantly that my life will please Jesus.  I trust that God really will complete the work that has begun in me. I hope this gives you some kind of answer for the hope that's within me. In the meantime, I really do appreciate your concern. Let's keep one another in prayer. Yours in Christ's Service...still!