Gay to Straight?

[mkingdomlvr]

I simply cannot accept that sexual orientation is a mental illness or any type of illness that requires a “cure”. The medical community agrees and they’ve done a lot more scientific work on it than the “let’s cure the gay people” crowd.

If individuals believe that they’ve had some kind of miraculous cure, well, more power to them. I hope they live long and happy lives. I don’t question what they are feeling, I simply don’t agree with the premise that there was anything to “cure” in the first place.

 

[ladybri77]

I simply cannot accept that sexual orientation is a mental illness or any type of illness that requires a “cure”. The medical community agrees and they’ve done a lot more scientific work on it than the “let’s cure the gay people” crowd.

If individuals believe that they’ve had some kind of miraculous cure, well, more power to them. I hope they live long and happy lives. I don’t question what they are feeling, I simply don’t agree with the premise that there was anything to “cure” in the first place.

Except when you read the scriptures calling acting out in that way a sin. Of course, until you accept Jesus into your heart and the Holy Spirit, you probably won’t be convicted of this. Sometimes it takes awhile even for those who have accepted Him into their hearts to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of this. If you don’t believe Holy Scripture or us, ask for His guidance about it, and He will show you the truth of the matter.

Praying for you.

 

[CarlaOLS]

There is no third party objective data that these therapies are beneficial at all, not to mention that they do what they claim to do.

I would never recommend someone spend $$ and put themselves at the mercy of such a program without objective, third party confirmation that it worked.

?

What $$$ money? ? ?
Mking, these Christian groups help SSA sufferers join together in prayer and support. Many Christian counselors are free or work on donations or from what you can give. NONE are making money from helping people with unwanted same-sex attraction. Much of the healing is gained by self-analysis, education, prayer, sharing common experiences, and mutual support within organizations.
We have presented ad nauseum third party objective data, but for whatever reason you remain closed.

Of course one can only change if one wants to change. Since the SSA was originally triggered by sexualization of deep and varried emotional needs, a person can only change through discovery of these causes and finding new and legitimate ways to fulfill them.

In the end only God can fill all our needs.

Our souls are restless until they rest in Him.
I want to thank Florida Mom for all her excellent points in her posts. You are very intuitive.

And as Gert said:

But I will encourage you with all my heart to you unite your heart, soul, mind, and strength with Christ alone. This is the call of every human soul – to seek God. Regardless of our sins, our strengths, our needs, our circumstances… we are called to seek and unite ourselves to Christ.

AMEN! I would add you should read the Bible daily and have a little talk with God. His Word breathes Life, Spirit and Truth in the Bible. Amazing things happen when we open ourselves to His Word and experience Him talking directly to us personally, as the words jump off the page. Follow His will, obey His commands, and you will be truly happy.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

How dare you all decide that you know what my relationship with God is and how much Scripture reading I’ve done!

I would NEVER question your faith and where your faith has led you in your journey, yet you decide that I’m not Christian enough or I don’t believe enough because my journey has not led me to the same conclusions.

You have effectively proven my point about the “cure” crowd. If a person is not “cured” of being homosexual then they did not pray enough, read enough Scripture or don’t have a good enough relationship with God. This is why you people are dangerous.

 

[ladybri77]

?

What $$$ money? ? ?
Mking, these Christian groups help SSA sufferers join together in prayer and support. Many Christian counselors are free or work on donations or from what you can give. NONE are making money from helping people with unwanted same-sex attraction. Much of the healing is gained by self-analysis, education, prayer, sharing common experiences, and mutual support within organizations.
We have presented ad nauseum third party objective data, but for whatever reason you remain closed.

Of course one can only change if one wants to change. Since the SSA was originally triggered by sexualization of deep and varried emotional needs, a person can only change through discovery of these causes and finding new and legitimate ways to fulfill them.

In the end only God can fill all our needs.

Our souls are restless until they rest in Him.
I want to thank Florida Mom for all her excellent points in her posts. You are very intuitive.

And as Gert said:

AMEN! I would add you should read the Bible daily and have a little talk with God. His Word breathes Life, Spirit and Truth in the Bible. Amazing things happen when we open ourselves to His Word and experience Him talking directly to us personally, as the words jump off the page. Follow His will, obey His commands, and you will be truly happy.

Thanks for your insightful posts, Carla.

I think what mking is referring to are the “reparative” therapy groups that the Exodus ministry has been involved in in the past where they try preventative techniques or outward change therapy like changing mannerisms, telling them to do things that are opposite to the way they feel, and trying preventative behaviors when they are very young if the parents suspect their kids might be leaning that way. For instance, if a little boy is playing with dolls too much or wanting to dress up, they encourage the boy to play with more masculine toys, do more “guy” things, etc.

I’ve heard that they also tell young people things, if they are a guy, like “You really like girls, you’re not gay”, etc. I really don’t agree with this form of therapy as it can be confusing and damaging to the individual.

However, I’m fully in favor of the kind of therapy which you are referring to which is geared to finding the root cause of a person’s emotional pain or gender identity confusion and trying to work that out and resolve these issues which is really run of the mill psychotherapy but sometimes lead by Christian counselors who specialize in treating SSA strugglers.

There’s nothing wrong with it, and it can be very successful in uncovering things that might be hidden or bring to the surface repressed emotions so that the person can move on. Like the above poster, Florida Mom said, in this kind of therapy the cause for her anger was uncovered which helped her immensely toward the healing of it.

What you are referring to is what I was involved with in those support groups which do nothing but support the homosexual struggler with prayer and mutual sharing with fellow strugglers. At the same time we had book studies written by well-known Christian authors that reveal the truth about the origin of homosexuality and work to resolve and obtain healing for emotional and spiritual wounds.

 

[ladybri77]

How dare you all decide that you know what my relationship with God is and how much Scripture reading I’ve done!

I would NEVER question your faith and where your faith has led you in your journey, yet you decide that I’m not Christian enough or I don’t believe enough because my journey has not led me to the same conclusions.

You have effectively proven my point about the “cure” crowd. If a person is not “cured” of being homosexual then they did not pray enough, read enough Scripture or don’t have a good enough relationship with God. This is why you people are dangerous.

Sorry if I offended you. You have not really answered me as far as what you think about the scriptures that say homosexuality is a sin.

 

[ladybri77]

I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t believe in the Lord because I think you do. So why do you push His word aside regarding this?

 

[mkingdomlvr]

Sorry if I offended you. You have not really answered me as far as what you think about the scriptures that say homosexuality is a sin.

For the sake of all concerned-we probably shouldn’t get into a Biblical interpretation match. You won’t convince me and I won’t convince you. All I’ll say is that I do not interpret the Bible literally. I don’t believe Jonah was really swallowed by a while, and I believe cultural and other issues had a strong bearing on the writings.

I’ll put my opinion out there-and state simply that I have done extensive grad level work in theology at a Catholic university, as well as other sociological and historical study-not to brag, just to say that I have put the time in on this. I fully expect extreme disagreement-and I have no intention of trying to change anyone’s mind. I was asked my opinion and I will provide it.

I believe that most of the prohibitions about homosexuality came out of two issues-a lack of understanding about science and the need for two small and struggling cultures to do everything possible to encourage reproduction. If you’re a small struggling community as the Jews of the OT and the Christians of the NT were, the thing you need the most is more members of your “tribe”. The best way to get that is reproduction, and alternative conception methods simply did not exist then. Naturally, the early Church and the early Jewish community would need to create rules that would encourage reproduction. In fact if you read the OT, there’s a good bit of incest and polygamy, practices that we would consider an abomination today-but it is not considered so in the OT. It’s all about getting more members.

There is also the idea that the best way to unite a new community is to highlight the differences between that new community and the one that the people came from. It is a well known historical fact that homosexuality was prevalent in pagan culture at the time of Paul. His inclusion of that practice can be seen as his way of showing the difference in the new Christian community while also helping to set up a taboo that helps create more members.

I understand the Catholic church teaching-I’ve read all the pertinent documents. I am not in ANY way saying that people should not read and understand the Church’s position. I do not consider myself a practicing Catholic and I’m well aware I’m outside the community on this. It’s the reason that I left-but that choice came only after reading ALL the teachings of the Church and all the secular information I could get my hands on. I do NOT recommend that anyone make such a drastic decision without considerable thought, prayer and research and consultation with clergy-which is what I did.

 

[ladybri77]

For the sake of all concerned-we probably shouldn’t get into a Biblical interpretation match. You won’t convince me and I won’t convince you. All I’ll say is that I do not interpret the Bible literally. I don’t believe Jonah was really swallowed by a while, and I believe cultural and other issues had a strong bearing on the writings.

I’ll put my opinion out there-and state simply that I have done extensive grad level work in theology at a Catholic university, as well as other sociological and historical study-not to brag, just to say that I have put the time in on this. I fully expect extreme disagreement-and I have no intention of trying to change anyone’s mind. I was asked my opinion and I will provide it.

I believe that most of the prohibitions about homosexuality came out of two issues-a lack of understanding about science and the need for two small and struggling cultures to do everything possible to encourage reproduction. If you’re a small struggling community as the Jews of the OT and the Christians of the NT were, the thing you need the most is more members of your “tribe”. The best way to get that is reproduction, and alternative conception methods simply did not exist then. Naturally, the early Church and the early Jewish community would need to create rules that would encourage reproduction. In fact if you read the OT, there’s a good bit of incest and polygamy, practices that we would consider an abomination today-but it is not considered so in the OT. It’s all about getting more members.

There is also the idea that the best way to unite a new community is to highlight the differences between that new community and the one that the people came from. It is a well known historical fact that homosexuality was prevalent in pagan culture at the time of Paul. His inclusion of that practice can be seen as his way of showing the difference in the new Christian community while also helping to set up a taboo that helps create more members.

I understand the Catholic church teaching-I’ve read all the pertinent documents. I am not in ANY way saying that people should not read and understand the Church’s position. I do not consider myself a practicing Catholic and I’m well aware I’m outside the community on this. It’s the reason that I left-but that choice came only after reading ALL the teachings of the Church and all the secular information I could get my hands on. I do NOT recommend that anyone make such a drastic decision without considerable thought, prayer and research and consultation with clergy-which is what I did.

Thanks for explaining your viewpoint. I believe God’s original plan was to have us reproduce and continue the spieces. The only way to do that was obviously through heterosexual relations, as in having a heterosexual majority to get the best results to this end. Why would He approve of a relationship that went against that means, against nature, that is not possible of creating life within itself in its basic form?

 

[mkingdomlvr]

Thanks for explaining your viewpoint. I believe God’s original plan was to have us reproduce and continue the spieces. The only way to do that was obviously through heterosexual relations, as in having a heterosexual majority to get the best results to this end. Why would He approve of a relationship that went against that means, against nature, that is not possible of creating life within itself in its basic form?

There is a heterosexual majority-at best homosexuals account for 10% of the population. That leaves at least 90% of the world’s population perfectly capable of reproducing to their heart’s content, and judging by world population figures, they’re doing just that. I think the species is doing just fine, even with the existence of homosexuals.

 

[ladybri77]

There is a heterosexual majority-at best homosexuals account for 10% of the population. That leaves at least 90% of the world’s population perfectly capable of reproducing to their heart’s content, and judging by world population figures, they’re doing just that. I think the species is doing just fine, even with the existence of homosexuals.

Me too! But just think how it would have been if God intended for homosexuals to be the majority or the “natural” way.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

Me too! But just think how it would have been if God intended for homosexuals to be the majority.

Why bother considering a reality that doesn’t exist? It’s clear that wouldn’t have served humanity well.

Despite what many straight people believe, equal rights for homosexual people is NOT about “recruiting”. Yes, Harvey Milk said that-but what he meant was he wanted us to come out of our closets and show people that we were mostly like them and that they’ve lived along side us for years without being corrupted by the gay cooties. They might even be our friends. The movement isn’t about making more people gay, it’s about making the people that are gay safe. Nobody should be hurt, killed, lose a job, be denied housing or a spouse because they were created differently.

 

[ladybri77]

Why bother considering a reality that doesn’t exist? It’s clear that wouldn’t have served humanity well.

Despite what many straight people believe, equal rights for homosexual people is NOT about “recruiting”. Yes, Harvey Milk said that-but what he meant was he wanted us to come out of our closets and show people that we were mostly like them and that they’ve lived along side us for years without being corrupted by the gay cooties. They might even be our friends. The movement isn’t about making more people gay, it’s about making the people that are gay safe. Nobody should be hurt, killed, lose a job, be denied housing or a spouse because they were created differently.

I agree, no one should if they truly are “created” differently. However, I don’t think anyone was “created” gay, but no one should be treated with violence or be denied housing, etc. anyway.

I don’t think any movement could “make” more gay people, you either got the attraction or you don’t.

 

[ladybri77]

Why bother considering a reality that doesn’t exist? It’s clear that wouldn’t have served humanity well.

Which confirms my point about why God disapproves homosexual unions, it “doesn’t serve humanity well” and does not propagate the species as God designed.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

I agree, no one should if they truly are “created” differently. However, I don’t think anyone was “created” gay, but no one should be treated with violence or be denied housing, etc. anyway.

I don’t think any movement could “make” more gay people, you either got the attraction or you don’t.

That’s exactly why I believe we were created this way. I didn’t choose it, and I don’t know any straight people who can identify when they chose to be straight either. I couldn’t convince a straight person to be gay, and they can’t convince me to be straight. I’ve done the whole therapy route, worked with a spiritual director and everything I could think of-but I couldn’t find a “reason”. It is what it is, those are the cards I’ve been dealt and I have to live with it.

What I can choose to live with or without is subjecting myself to an environment where my very existence is considered diseased and requiring a cure.

 

[ladybri77]

That’s exactly why I believe we were created this way. I didn’t choose it, and I don’t know any straight people who can identify when they chose to be straight either. I couldn’t convince a straight person to be gay, and they can’t convince me to be straight. I’ve done the whole therapy route, worked with a spiritual director and everything I could think of-but I couldn’t find a “reason”. It is what it is, those are the cards I’ve been dealt and I have to live with it.

What I can choose to live with or without is subjecting myself to an environment where my very existence is considered diseased and requiring a cure.

We do have to accept ourselves as we are, with the cards we were dealt, etc, but we don’t have to give into it. It can be our cross to bear and by giving it up daily to the Lord, we can become spiritually stronger if we don’t give into it. We may fall at times, but the Lord is there to pick us up and forgive us.

Every suffering we have can be offered up to God for His glory and purposes, like perhaps to help others who are suffering through the same thing if we remain celibate.

Yes, we didn’t choose the attraction, but we can choose not to act on it.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

We do have to accept ourselves as we are, with the cards we were dealt, etc, but we don’t have to give into it. It can be our cross to bear and by giving it up daily to the Lord, we can become spiritually stronger if we don’t give into it. We may fall at times, but the Lord is there to pick us up and forgive us.

Every suffering we have can be offered up to God for His glory and purposes, like perhaps to help others who are suffering through the same thing if we remain celibate.

I understand where you are, and if it works for you that’s wonderful. It’s a very Catholic understanding.

 

[ladybri77]

I understand where you are, and if it works for you that’s wonderful. It’s a very Catholic understanding.

Regardless of the “why” we have this attraction, it really doesn’t matter if we want the feelings to diminish. The best proven way to diminish the attraction is to be celibate, spend much time with God, pray and ask Him to reveal anything He might want to tell you about your struggle. It’s also good to share your feelings with Him and a close friend.

The emphasis shouldn’t primarily be on decreasing the attractions but on learning how to get closer to God and doing His will in your life. Listen to what He has to say to you.

“Seek God and His kingdom first, THEN all these things shall be added unto you” is a good scripture to live by.

Remember, we aren’t “victims” because we do have a choice to act out or not, but if we truly have Jesus in our hearts, we are victorious in Him. “I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me”. I think that’s in Romans.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

Regardless of the “why” we have this attraction, it really doesn’t matter if we want the feelings to diminish. The best proven way to diminish the attraction is to be celibate, spend much time with God, pray and ask Him to reveal anything He might want to tell you about your struggle. It’s also good to share your feelings with Him and a close friend.

The emphasis shouldn’t primarily be on decreasing the attractions but on learning how to get closer to God and doing His will in your life. Listen to what He has to say to you.

“Seek God and His kingdom first, THEN all these things shall be added unto you” is a good scripture to live by.

Remember, we aren’t “victims” because we do have a choice to act out or not, but if we truly have Jesus in our hearts, we are victorious in Him. “I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me”. I think that’s in Romans.

Look, I realize you’re doing this with all good intention-but continuing to insist that I am not close enough to God or that I’m not “listening to what He has to say” is very insulting.

You’ve found the path that is right for you and I respect that. Have you considered the possibility that God’s answers for you might not be the same as God’s answers for others? After all, God has created all of us to be unique and it would seem reasonable that there really isn’t a one size fits all answer to every problem.

 

[ladybri77]

Look, I realize you’re doing this with all good intention-but continuing to insist that I am not close enough to God or that I’m not “listening to what He has to say” is very insulting.

You’ve found the path that is right for you and I respect that. Have you considered the possibility that God’s answers for you might not be the same as God’s answers for others? After all, God has created all of us to be unique and it would seem reasonable that there really isn’t a one size fits all answer to every problem.

Okay, but it seems like you’ve given up. You looked into counseling and spiritual direction without finding a “source” of the problem, so you’ve decided to accept the “gay” label arguing with people who are successfully celibate or have felt a decrease in their attractions, and have become a “victim” to the status quo. All I’m saying is that it is possible, and I wanted to share that with you. We are not victims.