Were homosexuals born that way?

Well the question of whether to accept homosexuality as normal has come to Africa.

Wasn't so years ago.  I remember in the 80's in Congo an old pastor came over to me after talking with a group of other pastors.  "Mama," he asked, "is it true that in the U.S. a man can marry another man?"

"Yes, I'm sad to say, that is being done in some places in the U.S." I said.  He mouthed dropped open.  He turned and said to the others, "She says it's TRUE!"

Another time a young African woman asked me how homosexuals "do it", since they are obviously lacking the God-supplied equipment for sex.  I told her one way was through anal sex, explaining that in the briefest and simplest of terms.  She shook her head.  "Kitoko VE," she said.  "NOT pretty!"

That pretty much has been the attitude I've seen in Africa.  Although I met one representative of an NGO who said she was there to help "gays" come out.  I wasn't surprised she was finding some.  Most poor people in Africa would be anything you wanted if it meant they'd get some special kind of help.

One of the biggest arguments I'm hearing is that homosexuals were born that way, and God created us, so He must have created them as homosexuals and therefore approve of them being such.  It sounds very logical.

Let's think about that for a minute.  I, being an evangelical Christian, do subscribe to the belief that God created our first parents and gave to them the gift of being able to procreate (have children through sex).  So ultimately I agree that God is the Creator of us all.  Even homosexuals.  God made them and they are His beloved creatures just as much as me.

But those who believe the Bible enough to believe the acccount of Creation should believe it enough to believe the account of how that creation got spoiled.  It comes in the very next chapter after the description of Creation.  The short version is that God gave our first parents a test--an opportunity to choose to obey or to disobey, to choose their Creator's way or their own way.  They failed the test, choosing their own way over God's.  Some may argue about the details of the account (although I accept them), but you don't have to look around you very far in our world to see the far-reaching results.  Evil has come into our world and is still very much with us.  Even those who don't believe in God usually have some standard of good and evil, thus acknowleging that evil is very real.

God did not make us evil.  He made our first parents good.  But He also gave us another gift, without which we would not be fully human as we know and understand humanity.  He gave us the gift of freedom, of choice.  That was part of the dignity of being human.  We were not programmed with instinct like animals.  We were able to choose, and we were warned of the devastating consequences of choosing our own way over God's.

So according to Christian belief, the world is not as God created it to be.  Even the ground was cursed because of our first father's sin.  I know the reality of sinfulness in my own heart all too well, if I am honest.

When some argue that God created people, so if they are homosexuals, God must have made them such, they are forgetting or ignoring that the world is not now as God created it to be.  Much has been spoiled because of sin.  Now we are laboring under the effects/ consequences not only of the sin of our first parents, but all the wrong choices of generation after generation of ancestors, the wrong choices of human societies as a whole, and also our own personal wrong choices.  Things are majorly messed up.  I don't see how anyone can dispute that.  Look around you.

I am not at all convinced that there is sufficient evidence to support the claim (or more commonly, the assumption) that homosexuals are born that way.  We'll save that for another discussion.  For now, let's say for the sake of argument that they sometimes are.  Even if that were true, it only shows that our world is messed up.  People are born with cancer.  That was not God's intention for them.

More on this discussion to come