It’s not fair to address homosexuality with a broad brush. Frat-boy lifestyle and lewd parades are an obvious blight on society. Those are very different from brilliant-creative people who have homosexuality as a lifestyle, not merely as a vulgar, in-your-face cause. We’re long over-due for an “American Christian Family Internal Discussion” about these matters..
Homosexuality makes me think of some of the most creative and talented gifts God has given to society and history. I think of people like Ian McKellan, George Takei, Elton John, Jennifer Knapp, and Ray Boltz.. Michelangelo?
Creative, intellectual, and talented people who love the Lord and live a quiet homosexual lifestyle cannot be written-off merely as “immoral.” There is a connection that Justice demands we acknowledge. So I’m told, gay men are “looking for dad,” while lesbians want to “run away from abusive men.” Given that anecdotal wisdom, respect may be paid to both genders by focusing on the common thread: men.
All boys and men have a God-given urge to rip everything off and run around. Jocks don’t think about it, they just “do” and “don’t do” stuff. Introspective guys may over-analyze and misinterpret that urge as being “homosexual” if they have picked-up a message that they are not masculine. Perhaps if their creativity were validated by their fathers they wouldn’t make that misinterpretation. Testosterone expresses itself in different ways for different personalities and talents. Scratching and racing may be what some men find to be “manly,” for THEM, but the same tenacity can express itself in art. If jocular fathers mislabel “art” as “gay” then their artistic sons may just say, “Okay, I am who God made me.”
Many open-homosexuals start out wanting to be like straight guys. It’s true in most other cultures of the world. In France, if you wear board shorts to the pool they’ll give you dirty looks. In Taiwan, a “swimming suit” is streamline-athletic, a “beach suit” is casual-social (board shorts), and you can wear either one to the beach. But in America, if a guy laps the city pool dressed like Michael Phelps, people will gossip about his sexual orientation—though when men pile on top of each other in tights and shoulder pads it’s the “opposite of gay” because, “that’s football.”
Crud analysis of sexuality creates crud sexuality. Some men want to act rough and tough gruff, work in the shop, and watch football. But don’t ignore the artistic guys in the marching band. We need both. I like puffing my chest out and body slamming my friends, but because it’s fun, not because I think it is the comprehensive definition of masculinity. All balls and no brains.. that’s something you turn into a steer.. and that’s exactly what comes in the next generation from such a parenting philosophy.
Fathers who say, “Crying if for girls,” may make themselves wholly incapable of identifying with brilliant-analytical sons. Why might such a son grow up to be repulsed by a woman’s body? It’s as if his inner instincts are saying, “I don’t want to be like my dad—who doesn’t appreciate my artwork because he has color-blinded himself to my gifting, but I don’t know how to get out of this mess either. If this is how life is going to be for me then I want to end my legacy and not perpetuate the problem by having kids who will only turn-out worse than I did.” Even though a gay man may want children, the repulsion that a lifestyle homosexual man feels toward a woman’s body may be his pure-survival instincts trying to tell him something: He hasn’t been appreciated for who he is.
Hence grows a desire for penetrating activity in unusual places to get an injection and stimulation in hopes to provide for the lack of life and substance because a creative-analytical personality was never validated by a bravado-jesting father. What the inner-heart needs is not a massage, but to recognize one’s self as already being valid and grow strong. This is what Christ offers us if we’ll accept it.
It is likely that the bravado-father, who is likely compensating for his own lack of identity—and won’t admit it to himself—may actually have been looking up to his creative-brilliant son from the beginning. If that’s the case, lifestyle homosexuality may be the “best compromise” as son can find.
Many dads are beside themselves when their creative sons “come out.” This reveals ineptitude. Fathers should be equally distressed when young men start jesting in bravado at the expense of others. Insensitive fathers just might be a factor in raising homosexual sons. Are we right to condemn one and not the other?
Not all dads, probably not most dads, with creative-analytical sons living lifestyle homosexuality are bad fathers. Many fathers do the best with what they have. It’s an honest and understandable oversight of details, if dad eventually admits those details. Nobody’s perfect and a son doesn’t expect his dad to be—especially if the son is introspective-insightful. Reflective people can be the most forgiving, but that’s not the main issue. Such a son may want validation of the his detailed worldview.
But what has American Religion done? —Either validated the sorrow without healing it or blasted people with messages about morality.. either way, ignoring the heart issues of both sons and fathers.
Lifestyle homosexuals often have a significant sense of honesty and openness. They don’t like to see problems ignored and they don’t like pat answers that mask symptoms and leave room for root-issues to grow. “REAL” men have intense, bold, gutsy, well thought-through, carefully-considered, skill-refined creativity.. not merely bravado. Jocular and distant parenting yields no substance, is widely accepted by the Church, and promotes the very things Pharisees like to judge: single-parenting, crime, and homosexuality. Are non-Christians wrong for thinking that Christians only want to condemn people when the Church promotes the things that promote the things that it judges? The solution to porn addiction isn’t an accountability circle, but toning-down our obsession with romance as an end to itself and remembering that sex begins a FAMILY.
I’m coming to the conclusion that lifestyle homosexuality is the greatest distress-signal sent to society on behalf of society from some of the most honest and competent voices.. and we need to give those voices our respect. Our first step to healing is helping that distress signal to be interpreted accurately by EVERYONE—distressors and distressed alike.
