Adam and Steve

My wife and I sat down in bed on Friday night. I propped myself up with her 2nd pillow she would soon discard and she opened her news issue of the week, People Magazine. In this week’s issue an article talked about how some former gay people were going back to being gay – in other words ex-ex-gay.

And, as always, this got me thinking …

Before we all tune me out thinking I’m going to start quoting Scripture on homosexuality or that I’m going to bash, hang on, because I myself wanted to get to the issue of the behavior.

Currently, my manager is gay, I have worked with other gay individuals and have a couple of gay friends. So to sit here and lash out and point my finger is totally counter productive. People are people and need love. We don’t bash the hallucinating drug addict because it makes us feel better or the gossip or the liar or the tax cheat. So … anyway …

My long time approach to homosexuality- from a clinical perspective ( I’m not going to differentiate between homosexuality and lesbianism as homosexuality covers them both as the media has defined a difference between the two. ) has been that it’s a sexual addiction. An addiction being something that we have trouble not engaging in. The reason I thought this way was because the heart of the behavior relates to sexual behavior. The root of homosexuality is the fact that some people like other people of the same sex. They may not wish to have sex with them, but they do want to establish a relationship with someone who has the same body parts as they do. Why?

I think there are a few reasons people want to engage in homosexual behavior.

1. People want to experiment with their sexuality
2. People have received conflicting messages about sexual identity
3. People believe they can receive or heal other hurts or relationships through same sex, sexual relationships
4. People are addicted to the “high” of the inappropriate relationship of a same sex relationships

My other approach to homosexuality is that it’s a gender identity disorder (GID) in some people. This, fits more of a real “diagnosis” of the problem. Briefly, GID requires that

1) “There must be evidence of a strong and persistent gross-gender identification, which is the desire to be, or the insistence that one is of the other sex.” and 2) “There must also be evidence of persistent discomfort about one’s assigned sex or a sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex.” ( DSM – IV 1994 )

These two criteria, I think, fit what I have experienced when I talk to my homosexual friends. Most of them have a strong tendency to another gender, not necessarily a transvestite, but they identify with females if male and males if female; and usually, they have a lot of stress about their choices. What I want to know is HOW they made this decision to have an attraction toward another person of the same sex. This can tell us way more about homosexuality than genetics or chemical balances.

I believe they make this decision influenced by factors in their environment. Plain and simple.

What I find interesting is that one of the first questions we as heterosexuals ask when we find out a couple is homosexual is, “Which one is the ‘man’ and which is the ‘woman’ in the relationship?” And isn’t it interesting that we find people who want to be with someone of the same sex still completing the roles of Male and Female in their relationship?

At risk of sounding biased, and I am, I think the design of one man and one woman by God the Creator is probably the way it should be as intended.