IF you have lesbian or gay friends and/or have done much reading on the subject, you likely understand same-sex attraction in most cases to be a natural biological variation and neither inherently sinful nor indicative of rebellion against or rejection of God. Many, many lesbian and gay persons and couples know and love Jesus.
(NOTE: I either own or used to own or have read many of the anti-gay books that churches, including some of our former churches, recommend or refer to on the subject. You won't find links to those here.)
BUT IF NOT:
Did you know that "The Mother of Contemporary Christian Music," Marsha Stevens-Pino, is a lesbian and continues (with her spouse/wife) to write worship songs (https://balmministries.net/home)? And that the late Lonnie Frisbee, whose ministry caused or jump-started the growth of Calvary Chapel and The Vineyard during the Jesus Movement, was gay or bisexual?
Some of the sordid depictions of the lesbian/gay "lifestyle" may in large part be a reflection and result of how society has viewed and treated lesbian/gay people. As the late Dick Gregory said: If you visited a concentration camp, you were not smelling Judaism; you were smelling Nazism. And if you visited an inner-city ghetto, you were not smelling Black people; you were smelling racism. Fifty years ago psychiatrists rightly stopped classifying same-sex attraction in the DSM as being a mental illness.
Justin Lee (author of Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate - second edition May 2024), who formed The Gay Christian Network, said that his father believed that lesbian/gay people should only be celibate or marry persons of the opposite sex—i.e., what's known as the "Side B" position. And then Justin‘s mother died. And Justin‘s father realized what loneliness and the desire for companionship meant. And then he changed his mind about same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, much of the church continues to say to lesbian/gay Christians, as this book by Patrick M. Chapman explains, "Thou Shalt Not Love."
With apologies to Bob Dylan:
You say you’re lookin' for someoneWho'll pick you up each time you fallTo gather flowers constantlyAn' to come each time you callA lover for your life an' so much moreBut we say "No, babeNo, no, no, you can't have that, babeWe don't care what you're lookin' for, babe"(Even though we have that for ourselves)
