Except... it is. It seems to be an epigenetic expression caused by the timing of hormone exposure in utero. This expression affects the development of certain brain structures. Those brain structures are similar in gay men vs straight women, as well as in straight men vs gay women.
Behavior is a choice. Sexual orientation is not.
If you're willing to open your mind, this fellow does a roundup of the neuroscience: https://youtu.be/QCX2PJJ-2BA
I am anecdotal evidence of this. I tried to "pray the gay away" for two decades, including voluntary celibacy. It didn't work. It wasn't until I'd developed my relationship with God sufficiently that we could converse that he told me to accept who I am, find someone to commit to, and be a good person. I'm working on the "good person" part, but being gay doesn't factor into it.
I've familiarized myself with the available evidence, and if you look past the official LDS position toward the original documents, it becomes crystal clear that Joseph Smith was indeed innocent of polygamy. Brigham Young executed a hostile takeover, then lied, altered history, fabricated revelations, and suborned perjury in order to pin the practice on Joseph. Young was a vile man.
"For example, your belief that you were "born gay"."
This discussion warrants getting a bit personal I think, so I'll tell you something. I tried to be straight for two decades. It's what my family taught, it's what my faith taught, it's what people I trusted told me that God wanted. But it didn't work. I prayed. I fasted. I studied scripture. FOR DECADES. If I had had the choice on not being gay, I WOULD HAVE MADE IT, a thousand times over. I wanted to lead that life of meaning. I deeply yearn, still, for the joy of fathering children. Loneliness sucks. But throughout all this struggle, I could not form meaningful relationships with women. And I eventually realized how cruel it would be to rope a good woman into that situation. That would truly be a sin. So I resigned myself to a life of loneliness and voluntary celibacy.
But the struggle did result in a close relationship with God. We converse daily. It's the most important relationship in my life, and I trust it beyond anything anyone in this mortal coil could tell me. It took me two decades to realize that I needed to trust him more than the people who claimed to know him.
So there aren't many people around who are better qualified through personal experience to say that one is born gay. It took me a lot of years to get it through my skull that I needed to ask God what he actually wanted instead of trusting what I'd been told he wanted. He told me to accept myself, showed me how and why the Christian tradition on the topic is false, and to look for someone to commit to and build a life with.
Your opinion on whether I'm right about this is irrelevant. I'm right about this. I will meet you before the great judgement bar of God and still be right about this; the knowledge is from him, in spite of all my struggles to "know" something different.
"But aside from all of that, you bring an anecdotal argument, which I think isn't really evidence."
Of course. I can't prove it to you, only God could prove it to me. Can you prove to another person that God exists with anything more than anecdotal evidence? Accept the anecdote or not, it's not important as to whether or not it's the truth. And frankly, so long as you treat everyone with dignity and kindness and fairness, it doesn't really matter whether you ever agree with me. God has already given me all the validation I need.
Thank you for the respectful conversation.
"Unbridled sexual lust."
Sure, that's a fair interpretation. But it still says nothing about homosexuality. It says something about evil.
"If you want to assert that scripture does not support X, well, it's easy to simply go to the scripture that serves your intent and ignore the scripture which doesn't!"
I agree with that. People do it all the time. Whenever we see a contradiction in scripture we can untangle it by studying the context, the translation, the culture of the time, etc. As far as I can tell from my studies of all the passages relevant to this discussion, the Christian interpretation of the Bible as being condemnatory of homosexuality (not talking about adultery, promiscuity, or fornication, gay or straight - that's all clearly forbidden) is based on tradition paired with incorrect translations or a lack of context.
Since I was born gay and didn't have a say in the matter, that's quite a comfort.
Christians can be guilty of a terrible thing in this matter. By pounding on the Bible and insisting that God hates gays, they drive gays out of worship. Many of these people react by saying "Well if God hates me, then I hate God." They turn their back on God entirely, and that's on those Christians. Wouldn't you prefer that a gay man loves God, finds a partner to whom to commit, stays faithful, and lives a good life with Christian fellowship? I think Jesus would prefer that. But the perpetuation of the false tradition hinders it, which is just sad.
Sure, Ezekiel 16:49-50. Nowhere is homosexuality mentioned. It was pride and gluttony and in the midst of plenty gave no help to the poor and needy, which was considered to be far more abominable than it is today.
If you read the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, no mention is made of homosexuality. Oh, they threatened to sexually abuse God's angels, which is certainly a problem. It was a common practice to show dominance over your enemy by raping their men, and it seems reasonable to assume this was the motivation behind the threat. It was certainly a show of a lack of hospitality, which was a grievous sin in that culture. But the idea that run-of-the-mill homosexuality was even a factor is an interpolation by Christian tradition and is not supported by scripture.
Hope that helps!
I get it, I have plenty of family and friends to observe. It keeps getting harder. Bad behavior by some gays definitely doesn't help, though it'd be a mistake to think of it as anything more than just a single front in the war on traditional values. Most of that war is fought among straight people, and the defenders of tradition have lost a lot of ground since the sexual revolution. Radical LGBTQXYZ ideology isn't much more than a supporting character in the overall story. Traditionalists would be much more effective by tackling the rampant fatherlessness than they would be by focusing on the gays.
The "genetic dead end" bit is plainly incorrect, as besides the fact that gays are perfectly capable of having kids (happens all the time where homosexuality is taboo), there have been gays for a long time, and we just keep showing up. Clearly there's some evolutionary purpose to it. I've come across some interesting theories on that front if you decide you're curious.
Yeah, the virtue signalers are the worst. They're not interesting in BEING compassionate and tolerant, they're interested in being SEEN as compassionate and tolerant.
The perfect way for the conversation to go: "I'm married, but have a husband." "Oh cool, love to meet him sometime. So how about this weather?"
Yep, that's pretty close to my experience though I think you're quicker on the uptake. Another part for me was, if I respect women (I have a mother and sisters and nieces whom I adore) then how is it fair to find a good woman and trick her into becoming a beard so that I comply with others' expectations? How is it fair to a woman to be married to a man who doesn't really want her? How cruel is that to everybody involved?
God wants us to be happy, and gay men are happy with men and happiest when in a faithful relationship. I suspect Paul was alluding to that when he spoke of "natural affections."
I'm not trying to defend the bad behavior we see among many gays, and I agree that a libertine attitude has serious emotional and psychological ramifications, gay or straight. But as for it being a "choice" or not, well... I know more about this than you do. The behavior is a choice. The attraction is most certainly not.
If you're willing to broaden your mind, this guy does a nice compact summary of the neuroscience: https://youtu.be/QCX2PJJ-2BA
I'm not talking about experimentation. I'm talking about an immutable attribute. If a kid who is not gay experiments, sooner or later he'll determine it's not for him and move on. You can't "make him gay." Agreed that sexualization of any type at too young of an age is profoundly destructive.
Trans is whole different topic. Here's some fun statistics: 90% of kids who experience gender dysphoria will accept their bodies before they turn 18. 80% of kids who experience gender dysphoria turn out to be gay.
The trans ideology is taking those kids and mutilating them, with gleeful accomplices in doctors and pharmaceutical companies who see dollar signs. It's really just a woke version of conversion camp.
I'm a bit more hard-headed. I spent two decades.
The good that came out was I developed a relationship with God. I was trying to not be gay because that's what people I trusted told me God wanted. It took all that time for it to occur to me that I'd never thought to ask God what He wanted.
I agree, 20% is ridiculous, but I think "rare" isn't an appropriate description. The best studies I can find on the topic center around 4-5% natural homosexual orientation.
That said, it's very dangerous to tell these kids they should be something they aren't, in either direction. The straight kids will snap out of it as they mature, I think, but there's no doubt that LGBTQ ideology (not gays - the radical ideology) is deeply dangerous.