Firday, 26 April 2002
I've been writing on a bulliten board lately hosted by Stephen Bennett Ministries. Stephen is a Christian singer/songwriter who also leads an ex-gay ministry. He claims to be an ex-gay. He's married with two kids. Anyway, I've been writing and resonding to people on the bulliten board. I want to record some of the things I've written so not to lose them. Here's one:

NoClosets wrote: “Anyway, why all the denial of what really goes on in the gay community. There is so much confusion among those in the homosexual lifestyle because on one hand they trumpet their openness and being so-called out, yet when their community is looked at critically, they close ranks and vehemently start shaking their heads no. No, not us! We, are NOT like that! Uhhhh, yeah, right. Can you say D-E-N-I-A-L?”

I don’t think anyone is denying that there are gay/homosexual (I’m going to use “gay” to refer to both) people who are messed-up and have a lot of problems. That is obvious, but the same is evident among heteros. When most gays challenge the assertion that ALL gays live selfish, self-destructive and addictive lives, they are not in denial but simply stating fact. Not all gays are screwed-up, just as not all straights are screwed-up. Prohibitionists like to portray all gays as diseased and self-destructive because it fits nicely into their anti-gay agenda, but it is a distortion of fact. Distortion is not becoming for those who claim Christ.

Many ex-gays come out of addictive and self-destructive lives, as Stephen did. God delivered him out off addictions to alcohol, drugs, bulimia, and sex. The problem is that many ex-gays want to assert that their experience is normative for all gays. It isn’t.

Another tendency I find common among prohibitionist Christians and many ex-gays is the attempt to hold non-Christian gays to the high Christian standards of morality and conduct. Often to a stan cdard they themselves cannot live up to. The same zeal and condemnation isn’t levied against non-Christian heterosexuals. They also will not give recognition to the fact that there are gays who claim Christ and do not live as those “in the world.” They have a very difficult time admitting that because it runs counter to their ideology and foils their arguments.


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