Hello!!!!
I was reading the message board and came across your question and it is a great one!!! I hope you don't mind a long and in-depth answer but it is necessary to pay a lot of time and attention to your question in order to give it the answer it deserves.
To understand what is considered wrong about homosexuality and consensual sex in general, we must examine first who is saying it is wrong and why. First of all, God, the God of the Bible called Yahweh or YHWH in Hebrew, says that it is wrong. Because He has said this, people that believe in Him and His Word and follow Him are called Christians and also believe that it is wrong. The term Christian means Christ-like. It describes an individual who has given his/her life fully to Christ and declared His lordship over them. As a result of this declaration, this person's highest life's mission is to become like Christ in his/her inward spiritual condition as well as outward behavior. Christ lived His life with intergrity, love, genuiness, humility, and kindness. He stood for both love and justice. Now with regard to Christians, we must realize that not everyone who says they are a Christian really are. Not everyone that says they are Christians live their life like Christ did. And they are the one's that make people who live homosexual lifestyles hate God and what He stands for. They feel that Christians want to discriminate against them and treat them badly.
Now, if you've read the Bible, you have found that Christ neither ridiculed nor rejected anyone based on their gender, race, creed, age, or socio-economic status. As a matter of fact, He came to break the societal and cultural rules set forth by the religious leaders, the Pharasees and Sadusees, who were not really religious and were discriminating against people. The only time we see Jesus angry (and this anger was righteous) was when He sees the Pharasees and Saducees treat people in this way by twisting God's word to fit their racisms and prejudices!!! Having said this, if a person claims to be under the Lordship of Christ, he will not do the very thing that Christ himself hated--twisting the word of God to discriminate against people. Bottom line: people who have twisted the bible to deny people rights or even kill people cannot, by definition, call themselves Christian!
Why homosexuality is wrong:
As far as speaking out against homosexuality... We must first understand who God is before we can understand His rationale for His stance on homosexuality and other things that He says is sinful.
God is a God of Love! In fact God is Love (1 John 4th Chap Verse 8). As much as God is love, God is EQUALLY Just. That is to say, He is also a God of Justice (Psalms 9th Chapter Verse 16).
If God were only Loving and not Just then He could not be God because He would be unfair. Because He is loving and loves all His creation equally, He has to be fair in His justice.
Let's Look at His Love: Because God/Christ/Holy Spirit LOVES His creation so much, he lovingly set forth rules into the universe and in His Holy Word to govern the universe by. He did this because He knew that there would be things that people would do that would be harmful to themselves and others. God did not want people to harm themselves and/or others because He is the perfect Father. Just like any good father and mother sets rules that govern the household in order to protect their babies, toddlers, children, pre-teens, and teenagers from themselves. As we know from watching good parents structure their households and the legal structure that governs America, rules are good. We need them for order. And God is a God of Order.
Let's Look at His Justice: A God of Love that sets forth rules for the benefit of His creation must enforce these rules or the rules don't stand and if they don't stand then they don't protect the people they are intended to protect. So God has to make sure that the rules are followed and anyone who does not follow the rules have hurt themselves and/or someone else and must be dealt with. Now all of mankind can identify with God's desire for justice because we follow a legal system that sets up laws and punishes those who do not follow. For instance, if a person sees a woman on the street and assualts, rapes, and kills her everyone (hopefully) that heard the story would be outraged and cry out for justice. They would want to see to it that that person be charged and punished for his crime against her. The family of the woman would particularly feel this way. Well, God agrees. He punishes atrocities done to the innocent too. Now if God were only loving, He would see what happened to the woman and then say, well what the man did was wrong, but because I love him, I'm going to let him go scot free without any consequences to his actions. Would that be a good God? Of course not because that woman, her family, and the rest of the world needs to know that that kind of behavior will not be tolerated. Because He loves them He gives justice to the victim and also because He loves the offender, He does not let him get away with his wrong doing because that would not be good for him either. He would learn nothing and continue to do what he had done and hurt more and more people.
So now we see that God does not advocate people calling themselves Christians and at the same time discriminating against people. We also see that God is both and equally a Loving God and a Just God. So we see that He has given us rules that are for our own good. These rules include the 10 commandments (Deuteronomy 5th Chapter 6th-21 Verses), and other commandments. Included in the rules is the rule against sexual immorality as defined by looking upon someone with lust, masturbation, pornography, fornication (sex before marriage), adultery (sex with someone other than husband or wife), homosexuality and even beastiality (having sex with animals). While this definition may not be exhaustive, these behaviors are considered sin becuase they are committed against one's own body and God created the body as a temple for Himself ( 1 Corinthians Chap. 6 Verses 18-20).
The first reason that homosexuality is wrong is because it destroys our relationship with God. If we are living in sin (homosexuality or any other sin) we cannot have fellowship and intimacy with God. So the first person that is being hurt as a result of our sin is ourselves. No relationship with God means no happiness, no peace, no sense or a false sense of safety and security, continual worry and stress, and eventually death. The only way for us to avoid these bad things is a relationship with God and He knows that and does NOT want us to have terrible lives so He does not want us living in sin.
He also considers sexual immorality sin because it has horrific consequences for the doer and people around him/her. Lust is disrespectful towards the object of the lust and can be the motivational factors in acts of rape and child molestation. We know that rape and child molestation hurts and destroys other people and God does not want this. Masturbation is sinful because it is virtually impossible to masturbate without the element of lust. Lust hurts you because it breaks your relationship with God, but it can also be harmful in marriage because if a person is being sexually satisfied by someone other than the spouse including himself, it creates feelings of inadequacy and insecurity for the spouse and also leaves the spouse sexually unsatisfied. As a result, the spouse is likely to cheat (adultery) which is also considered sinful. Now masturbation that was thought to only affect the person who is masturbated has over time caused the person's spouse to sin by having an affair. Also, if you think back to your first experience with masturbation I'm sure there were feelings of guilt and/or discomfort after it was done. God doesn't want us living in guilt so He doesn't want us living in sin. Pornography also utilizes lust and masturbation and can have devistating effects on the spouse of the person engaged in pornography. The person is left feeling betrayed, hurt, angry, and insecure--all of which are damaging to the marriage relationship. Trust is disolved and the marriage is left in shambles. Fornication is sinful again because of lust and the misuese of sex. Sex is beautiful and was given by God as a gift between husband and wife to bond them together and solidify the commitment and emotions within the marriage relationship. Outside the context of the marriage relationship, sex still has bonding effects, however, it usually only bonds one person to the other and pushes the other person away. It can be used to manipulate people or to destroy a peson's self worth. There are terrible consequences for people engaging in the powerful act of sex before marriage and God does not want us to have to deal with them so he tells us not to do it. Similarly sex with someone other than one's spouse has dire consequences that destroy relationships and God does not want this because he is the universe's Biggest Advocate of Relationships!!!!
As for homosexuality (men engaging in any sexual activity with men and lesbianism, women having any sexual activity with women) it is sinful because God created man for woman to be married because God loves marriage and the intimacy it brings. To be with someone of the same sex is to decide to not have the type of relationship that God has said was good. As a result of homosexuality in both the early Greek and Roman culture woman were made to be second class citizens and were discriminated against. It was not God's desire that women be treated this way. We can still see how homosexuality and lesbianism causes rifts between the sexes. Feministic lesbians bash men and are disrespectful and mean towards them in the same way that homosexual men of the past were mean and hurtful to women. So homosexuality causes devision between the sexes, uses lust, masturbation, and pornography, and has broken up marriages after one spouse has found out another has had homosexual or lesbian sex. When these marriages break up, children are hurt and brokenhearted in the process. Furthermore, it makes the marriage relationship between a man and woman impossible. And if a person is in a heterosexual marriage but chooses to engage in homosexual sex, that is still sex outside of marriage (adultery, and we know how hurtful adultery is) and is still sin! Can you see now why God declares sexual immorality or sex outside of marriage sinful? Do you see how it hurts people? Do you see how it hurts God?
This type of behavior hurts God's feelings because His greatest desire is to have an intimate relationship with all of us. But our sin has broken our relationship with Him. He knows that a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ is the only way for us to break free of these sexual sins as well as any other sin. Jesus Christ gave His life up so we don't have to continue living frustrated and sad lives as a result of our sin. If we believe in Him and accept Him as our Lord and Savior and confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and restore us to our right positions in His kingdom. We will no longer only be His creation but we will be His Children.
There is a huge debate going on that says that homosexuality has its origin in either nature (biology or genetics) or nurture (learned behavior). I attest that it is neither!!! While there are behavioral implications associated with homosexuality ie. having sexual interactions with someone of the same sex, the origins of homosexuality is SPIRITUAL. It is a spiritual condition that millions of people deal with everyday. So many people who struggle with homosexuality have been hurt and frustrated in trying to come to terms with what they feel is a part of themselves. They often go through periods of denial and try to live a life absent of homosexual behavior to no avail. It is not surprising that people try so hard to stop having homosexual feelings and finally give up and decide to accept the feelings. The Bible tells us that we have no power over sin and if homosexuality is a sin then it stands to reason that we have no power over homosexuality. So it makes no sense to try to stop living a homosexual lifestyle on our own.
There is still hope!!! God knew that we could not defeat homosexuality by ourselves and He does not expect us to! So in the most loving act ever done, He made Himself into flesh, was born of a virgin, and lived a perfect life among us to show us how. He was Jesus Christ and Christ was God in the flesh. If that was not enough, he was beaten, brusied, ridiculed, embarrassed, harassed, and ultimately killed so that we no longer have to be slaves to sin (homosexuality). Guess what? God knows exactly how each person struggling with homosexuality feels. He too has been made fun of, been outcasted, talked about, not accepted, and even brutalized. Even still, He willingly gave His life so that none of us would have to experience the tragedy of a life marred by sin (homosexuality) because it is so painful. A person struggling in this way and wants to be free must give his life to Christ. I can tell you exactly how this works but that was not your question and I have written extensively already. But if you are interested in know how this works and how a person can be free from homosexuality and the pain associated with it, please e mail me or respond to this response. My e mail address is intense1913@yahoo.com.
I hope I have illustrated what it is about homosexuality and consensual sex that is "terribly evil", who exactly is being hurt, and where the harm is.
(Original Air Date: 10/19/05) Sexual orientation used to be something kept hidden from family and co-workers, but now more and more people are "coming out" and finding acceptance. Anjela says her mother and sister don't support her sexual orientation, and feel she can't be Christian and gay at the same time. Can they reconcile this touchy issue? Then, two men debate whether a person can go from gay to straight, and parents of a 4-year-old boy fear their son's desire to play with dolls and wear heels means he'll grow up to be gay. Are they overreacting to his wishes to be a princess instead of a prince? Talk about gender and gay issues here.
