Originally Posted by Trapped
Yeah....see....there it is. I don't see his behavior as that of someone who has a choice.
What I write here may make some people mad, I have no idea, but this is my honest handling of what has gone on in my head about this topic that I don't have firsthand experience with. I think what makes the issue so complicated is that I don't think there is one "Aha! This one thing is why a person has same-sex attractions" answer. I think there are numerous pathways to it. (I started writing this before StG jumped back in, and he has already hit on a few).
I do believe one of those pathways is trauma. And I am saying that with a much broader view in mind than just homosexuality. I am of the personal opinion that the majority of humankind has endured or encountered some level of trauma (whatever kind) somewhere in their life, and many of those people are walking around without having faced it, maybe even without having even spoken of it, and certainly not having gotten professional help for it or processed it in any way. I had this same conversation with a physical therapist one time, not thinking that he would have much input, and he immediately told me a story of the patient of a medical doctor he knew. (The PT was in the MD's office visiting him and somehow saw this play out). The patient was known as a happy guy, joyful, exuberant, hilarious, everyone loved him. But that day, the MD told this patient he needed to get a scan to check for testicular cancer.
The patient blew his top in anger. Yelling, screaming, lashing out. Furious. No one knew why. They tried to calm him down, not understanding his reaction. Eventually, it came out that he had been sexually abused as a young kid, and hid it. He didn't want anyone touching anything down there. But if you didn't know that, you would think, "this guy is mentally unstable. One minute happy, the other minute furious, for no apparent reason. He has anger issues, etc...."
Nope. He had trauma that still haunted him.
And I honestly think most people have experiences in their life that cause their eyes to get haunted and make them turn inward to protect the pain still inside them if you try to get them to talk about it. And our complicated beings use some very difficult coping mechanisms sometimes to deal with it on our behalf.
One doctor/psych friend of mine told me about a patient who had been verbally and emotionally abused by a close partner for several years without a way out from the abuse. Anyone she went to turned a deaf ear and she couldn't get help from anyone. Finally once she was able to break free and the abuse was over, the coping mechanism the welled up to try to process and work through her feelings of helplessness was to .... sorry to be graphic here ... act out fantasy rape scenarios where she was also exactly that - helpless. But it wasn't for pleasure; it was a coping mechanism that just came out from within her. She was apparently horrified at what she did, but it was a physical manifestation of an inward feeling she couldn't handle having. The doctor said it provided her some relief because for that period of time her outward experience matched her inward feeling about what had happened that she hadn't yet been able to move on from.
Anyway, all that to say, I think some people were abused and/or traumatized, and their body deals with it via same-sex attractions.
But then you have people who say they knew at 3-4 years old. They had an awareness at a very early age. They freely say they had a wonderful childhood and there wasn't anything specific that would have affected their attractions. What's going on there? Is it the set of genes SerenityLives spoke about? Is it the presence of certain hormones in the womb? I see no reason to discount these experiences of people, and believe for some there is an "inborn" reason.
I know in some LC meetings they have mentioned demon possession or evil spirit or something like that as an explanation. This probably does account for a very minor % but I see no real reason to claim that homosexuals have a higher rate of demonic susceptibility than any other member of the human race. In other words, whatever % of people out there who are demonically influenced in some way is probably the same % whether gay or straight, so I don't think that's an explanation that gets us very far.
So with traumatized people, get help for the root trauma. For demons, pray to cast them out.
But regarding the "inborn" reason. This is the hardest. And what it seems to boil down to is fairness. And I don't mean this glibly. I mean this knowing that it is an anguished cry from deep within that Satan has twisted around to make you think that it is a value statement on you as a person. "It's not fair that I have these feelings I don't want to have. It's not okay to call it abnormal and make me feel like I'm abnormal. It's not fair I get cheated of xyz experience other people have."
I can understand the emotions and the pain behind those things, because it's not isolated to homosexuals only. Someone born with cerebral palsy or spina bifida or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome or no arms and legs can say the same thing. Someone who has a promising athletic career in front of them who gets sideswiped by a drunk and ends up a quadriplegic paralytic can say the same thing. Someone who gets lung cancer at age 23 and dies can say the same thing.
"Why me?"
It's not fair I was born this way. It's not fair I didn't live long enough to get married. It's not fair my life was cut short prematurely. It's not fair my spine is irreparably crooked and walking causes me excruciating pain. It's not fair you get to run and jump and catch a ball, and I can't because I was born without arms or legs to do those things. It's not fair I can't feel anything from the neck down and will never know the pleasures of sex.
It's not fair I have same-sex attractions I don't want to have.
But those things aren't normal. Cerebral palsy isn't the normal condition of a human being. Spina bifida isn't the normal condition of a human being. Paralyzed from the neck down isn't the normal state of a person. But it is strange to me to have a problem with calling something that isn't normal "abnormal". If someone is born that way, or something happens TO a person outside of their control, it is certainly not a judgment on who they are as a person. We can say someone suffering from cerebral palsy, who was born with it, was born abnormally, and it's a truth that has nothing to do with the value of their person. They did nothing to have the condition, so why would we think less of them in any way, rather than have compassion on their situation? What it means is they are suffering in a certain way, that's all. It doesn't determine their worth in any way. And same-sex attractions, to me, can be described this way too. I don't think it's a "normal" state of affairs. I do think you can be born with it. I don't think it is a statement on your worth and value as a person. And no, I don't think it's fair. And this is why there should be compassion. Because it's a suffering, just like many others are born suffering in other ways. It's just very, very personal kind of suffering.
And just as being born with the conditions I provided as an example isn't a sin, so being born with same-sex attractions isn't a sin either. It's what you do with them that determines whether you step into sin.
I may be wrong here, but I don't think God judges someone for how He makes them. He's a righteous judge. He's the Holy One. That wouldn't be a righteous judgement. One of the apologists says it this way: "at the judgment seat no one will think they got an unfair judgment". God is a just God. I think, in contrast, He judges someone for what they do with how they were made. This is why I tried to delineate on the previous deleted thread between simply having same-sex attractions, and actually acting on them.
Am I saying any of this is easy for those dealing with them? Not on your life. I understand when people say "I felt so free" once they came out or gave in. It makes sense, because it would certainly feel free to stop fighting distressing internal things. There is definitely a freedom when anyone who has been fighting nonstop for a long time finally decides to stop fighting. To me it's the same type of thing going on internally inside someone fighting depression. At a certain point they can't fight anymore, it's too much, too hopeless, nothing's changing.....and so they give up and commit suicide to escape the torment. And there is a freedom there; a freedom from the struggle and the fight and the pain. Same thing with same-sex attractions.
The pain we are talking about is immense. The reaction of many people to someone with same-sex attractions usually increases their pain unbearably. This is why there has to be compassion.
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