The Non-Religious Case Against Homosexuality

My North Star Writers Group colleague Jessica Vozel today responds to my column of last week responding to yet another piece by Newsweek’s Lisa Miller on “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage.” (We have to stop responding like this.) She claims that there is not only a strong religious case but an even better non-religious case for gay marriage.

Jessica, are you sure you really want to get mixed up this? OK, strap yourself in.

First of all, as indicated in my column, I’m not even going to engage on the subject of “gay marriage” because it’s self-evident: marriage is between a man and a woman.

I will, however, take on the case, religious and non-religious, against homosexuality.

On the religious side, here’s the problem, and it’s not limited to homosexuality: adherents want to tell God what He should think instead of simply reading what He actually says.

They refuse to focus on what God plainly and objectively states about, and how He handles, homosexuality in the Bible from the beginning (why do think it was called “sodomy?” I’ll give you a hint: “fire and brimstone”) to the end (the statement in Revelation that the “sexually immoral” will not enter Heaven). Instead, they zero in on verses that point to “love” and “equality,” and worse yet, move on to human experience and project that onto Scripture.

Both of which Jessica does in relating the story of Carlton Pearson and the gay man “saved” from suicide. Perhaps there is a reason small-o orthodox Christians labeled Mr. Pearson a heretic. “No hell?” Is that why a search yields 12 references of that term alone from Christ’s own mouth?

And it’s very nice that the young man decided not to kill himself (an action which, by the way, is far more common among homosexuals than the general population) because of Pearson’s accepting words. But the job of religion – and the truly “loving” thing to do – is not to make people feel better for the short term about their sins. It is to apply the “tough love” of getting them to turn from their patterns of wrong behavior (“repent”) and toward Christ, who frequently admonished repentant wanderers to “sin no more.”

Would a surgeon be doing his job – and showing “love” – if he gave a cancer patient an aspirin that temporarily relieved his pain? Of course not. The young man was “saved” from nothing. It’s very likely that as he returned to his homosexual lifestyle, he also returned to the depression that was leading him to contemplate ending his life.

But like arguing about gay marriage, arguing about the Biblical case against homosexuality is pretty much a waste of time. The Bible says what it says, whether the sophists want to accept it or not.

The non-religious case against homosexuality is much more interesting.

Let’s take the favorite refuge of the non-religious, evolution, elements of which I accept in its “micro,” intra-species form. Evolution is supposed to be about natural selection and the propagation of characteristics that ensure species survival. Homosexuality is exactly the opposite case – it’s a trait that two people who can’t procreate could not, by definition, pass on.

So the idea, which I have heard directly from homosexuals, that “I was made this way” is silliness or worse. God said exactly how He made people – “male and female.” And “natural selection” would never “make” a creature who could not reproduce.

Then there’s the fact that homosexuality is a public-health nightmare. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 64% of the primary and secondary syphilis cases reported in 2006 were among so-called men who have sex with men (MSM).

According to the Food and Drug Administration, “Men who have had sex with men since 1977 have an HIV prevalence … 60 times higher than the general population .… (I)nfection with the Hepatitis B virus is about 5-6 times more common and Hepatitis C virus infections are about 2 times more common in men who have sex with other men than in the general population.” Not to mention a whole range of gastrointestinal diseases too disgusting to mention.

Safe sex, you say? As if. Says the FDA, “(T)o date, no donor eligibility questions have been shown to reliably identify a subset of MSM (e.g., based on monogamy or safe sexual practices) who do not still have a substantially increased rate of HIV infection compared to the general population.” They said it, I didn’t.

Homosexuals just want to be made “equal,” you say? Ha. They really want just the opposite – they want special treatment. If any other practice were to constitute a virtual death sentence, the rational public health response would be to attempt to dramatically reduce or eliminate it – not to sanction or elevate it. And they want to share with me, my wife, and my family in our pool for health benefits and insurance as “domestic partners” or even “married” couples, even though their risk of disease and dying younger is far greater than mine.

And love, you say? Love may or may not mean never having to say you’re sorry, but it certainly doesn’t mean habitually exposing the object of one’s love to uncomfortable, painful and even deadly conditions.

No, homosexuality is about purely about lust, not love, about gratifying immediate desires, no matter the risk. It’s not about love for men or women, and in disdaining His creation and His commandments, it’s definitely not about love for God (see John 14:21), which is a prerequisite for expecting His love in return.

Jessica, give it up. Because there are religious and non-religious cases to be made, all right. But neither is for homosexuality, much less gay marriage.

UPDATE: Standing up on issues relating to homosexuality, not just so-called “gay marriage,” is more critical than ever because of stories like this.

Tags: gay marriage, homosexuality