Scaughdt:    I think I just realized the primary problem with this thread – and I think I am more than partly to blame … We have been covering so many points and I have been asking so many questions at once, that the VAST majority of them have gone completely unanswered … So let’s just tackle one issue at a time from now on, shall we?   Maybe we could even trade questions like “civilized people” … Does that sound reasonable?

I have faith that it does, so how about I go first:

 

 

Question #01 (for Lucy & Bart):

When did you choose to become straight?

 

Lucy:   We did not choose to be straight … He is male and I am female … We fit!  I never claimed to have all the answers, but you can find them in the Word of God.

 

Scaughdt:   Hmmm … And yet you claim that gays DO choose to be gay?  Where do you get that (quite convenient, and scientifically unfounded) belief?

 

Lucy:   There is nothing you can do to change being born male or female.  Our gender says who we are.  It becomes a choice once you give in to the lustful tendencies of wanting to be with the same sex!  I don’t have all the answers, and I have much compassion for these people, but I do not believe God made them this way …

 

“If God had intended homosexual behavior to be a viable sexual alternative for some people, then He would not have condemned it as an abomination. [Homosexuality] is never mentioned in Scripture in anything but negative terms, and nowhere does the Bible even hint at approving or giving instruction for homosexual relationships … Homosexuality is a manifestation of the sin nature that all people share. At the fall of man (Genesis 3), God’s perfect creation was spoiled, and the taint of sin affected us physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually — and sexually. Homosexuality is a perversion of heterosexuality, which is God’s plan for His creation. The Lord Jesus said, ‘In the beginning the Creator made them male and female. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ (Matthew 19:4-5) … Homosexual activity and pre-marital or extra-marital heterosexual activity are all sinful attempts to find sexual and emotional expression in ways God never intended.  God’s desire for the person caught in the trap of homosexuality is the same as for every other person caught in the trap of the sin nature; that we submit every area of our lives to Him and be transformed from the inside out by the renewing of our minds and the purifying of our hearts … Current popular thinking says that our behavior is determined by our environment or our genes, or both.  God has invested us with free will — the ability to make real, significant choices. We can choose our responses to the influences on our lives, or we can choose to let them control us.”

Scaughdt:   Lucy, what does being born male or female have to do with the different sexual attractions people feel thereby?   Are you actually saying that gays start out straight and then consciously choose to be gay?  If you are, then you are also saying that you could at any moment choose to be gay as well?  Are you actually going to go public with a belief that you could indeed choose to be attracted to women – that you are actually tempted to be with other women sexually, but don’t do so merely because it is “a perversion”? … Surely you aren’t.  Indeed, I doubt very much that you have any “lustful tendencies of wanting to be with” the same sex at all, my Friend.   Maybe it is so – maybe you are challenged in this way, and yet this makes absolutely no sense to me, nor to most of the rest of the human population, I would warrant.   Personally, even if I wanted to be sexually attracted to men, I simply could not force myself to feel that way about them … There simply is no way I could ever choose to be sexually attracted to another man.  And yet you claim that homosexuals somehow have this ability, and that in all fairness you must somehow have it as well.   Is this truly the case, my Friend?  If so, why have you been given this ability to choose your sexual orientation while I (along with most of the rest of humanity) have not?  … And if not, how can gays be “blessed” with something that you & I were not – namely, the ability to choose which gender they find sexually attractive or for which gender they sexually yearn?  (Seriously?!?!)

 

Lucy:  Yes, Scaughdt!  People choose all the time to have sex with the same sex!  That is called being bisexual, and it is a choice some make when they just want to experiment with the same sex for fun.  No LOVE there at all; just lust — all of it sinful in God’s eyes.

 

Scaughdt:   So you are saying, in all fairness, that since gays have the ability to choose to be sexually attracted to the same sex, that you personally have similar bisexual tendencies as well; tendencies that you have merely suppressed because you feel the Bible claims that they are a perverted? … Hmmm … That is interesting.

 

Well, if these innate desires are a perversion, why do gays (and bisexuals – like yourself?) have them from birth?  If they are “unnatural” as you claim, then why would we have to suppress them at all?  I must say that I am feeling a tad confused, possibly because I have no sexual desires for anyone of the opposite sex at all, just like the gay men I know who simply have absolutely no sexual attraction for women … Again: Hmmm

Lucy:   As usual you love to put words in my mouth.  I am by no means bisexual.  I have NO desire for anyone other than my husband, as if that is any of your business!  You can try and turn this around all you want, Scaughdt, but it will never change what God considers sin … Nice Try!

 

Scaughdt:   I’m not trying to do anything here, Lucy … I am simply attempting to understand where you are coming from.

 

So, what I’ve gotten so far is that A) you are not bisexual, B) you did not have to choose to be straight at all (i.e. that you were therefore “born straight”), and yet C) gays, who were also apparently “born straight” just like you were, somehow have chosen to desire same sex partners – that they have somehow chosen to suppress their innate straightness and have chosen to become gay, and that they therefore must now choose to be straight again; that they must now choose to go back to desiring opposite sex partners … So, if this is an accurate assessment of your personal opinion (and it is only that – your personal opinion), then it must also be true that you could choose to be attracted to women whenever you wished (just as male homosexuals, as you claim, apparently chose at some point to be attracted to men).

 

Now it is clear that you wouldn’t ever make such a choice (because you earnestly – and errantly – believe that the Bible says homosexuality is a “perversion”, which it doesn’t), and yet I am left with almost no alternative but to ask you again:  HOW could you choose to be attracted to women if you were born straight?   And thus a similar question that follows:  HOW can gay men (like Oliver Clyde Allen) choose to be attracted to men if they were born straight as well?   I mean, even if I wanted to be sexually attracted to men, it just wouldn’t work for me – I simply do not have the necessary programming to gain an erection when looking at a naked man, much less desire him in any sexual way, so I am understandably a bit confused by your claims …

Please explain!

Lucy:   I don’t know why you can’t understand.  People choose all the time to sleep with the same sex. Our society says it is OK to do so.  It is all about the lust act; if it feels good, then do it.  There are no boundaries when it comes to sex.   I have the right to choose to do so, but I have no desire to do so.  And yet some others do, and it is a choice when they do!  They don’t see it as sin and that makes it OK in their eyes – but not in God’s!  He set the boundaries for what is sin — not me, and I think He knows best!!!

 

Scaughdt:   Why are you not answering the question, Lucy?  You claim that you were born straight, and you claim that all gays are also born straight, and you claim that all gays chose to abandon their desires for women and switch over to desiring men, which means, quite obviously, that you could do the same thing if you wanted to … All I want to know is HOW you can do this, because for me it is simply not possible.  I couldn’t anymore get sexually aroused for a man than I could for a hippo, so how can you claim that you & gays can do such a thing (even though you note that you never would)?

Lucy:   That is you, Scaughdt!  … I have No Desire for sex with any woman!!!  But some do, and that makes it a choice — plain and simple!  Some don’t care if you are male or female, because sex is what they are interested in, and they therefore don’t care if you are of the same sex.  Gays have a lust for same sex — that is what this is all about!  First comes the lust for sex, and then comes the act.  Take it up with God — He is the one that has condemned all lust that is outside the marriage bed; and by “marriage bed” I mean marriage between a man & a woman!!!

 

Scaughdt:  THAT is actually my point, my Friend – You are trying to have it both ways, and that simply will not do! (pun intended …  ) … Look Lucy, if your God is a just & impartial God, then He either made us all either straight or gay from birth, or He simply made us all (including you!) straight with the ability to choose to alter the object of our desires … It is clear that you have chosen to reject the former alternative (otherwise your God would be abjectly evil for punishing gays for His own “mistake” of making them gay), so you pretty much have to adopt the latter … The problem is – as you have almost certainly discovered over the past few minutes of this conversation – it is not possible for you to choose to feel lust for women, right?  Right!  Just like it is not possible for gays to sincerely choose to feel lust for the opposite sex either!

 

 

But enough of this back & forth silliness … You have chosen to burn both ends of the candle on this one, Lucy – claiming simultaneously that you were born without a desire for both sexes (and thus have no need to choose) while gays somehow are, and that because gays have (in your eyes, not the Bible’s) somehow chosen poorly, this makes it OK to punish them for giving in to a “temptation” with which you yourself were never challenged.  The former shows your God (and you, by proxy) to be bigoted, and the latter shows your God (and you, again by proxy) to be immoral – both characteristics worthy of outrage, not worship!

 

Of course, as Jesus pointed out on many more occasions than one, these are not characteristics of his all-Loving (Matthew 5:48 + 1 John 4:18), all-Forgiving (Matthew 18:22) and all-Merciful (Luke 6:36 + John 5:22) Father at all ………

Lucy:    What you don’t understand, Scaughdt, is that if they give it to Jesus, and turn from their sin, then they will be Justified — and their sins will be forgiven.  If they continue in their sin, then there is no such forgiveness – and this is their choice!  They want to give in to the flesh and live in sin because of their lust for the same sex!  We love them, and that is why we speak from the Word to forewarn them — not because we hate them, but because we love them, and we know the love of God.  We are not perfect, but when we accept Jesus as our Lord & Savior, the Holy Spirit convicts us of wrong-doing and we straighten up and act accordingly! … It is all about raising a child in righteousness — to prepare us to spend eternity with the Father!

 

Scaughdt:   I get all that, Lucy – other than your obviously bogus claim that the Holy Spirit punctually “convicts” you of your sins and that you “straighten up” soon thereafter.  I mean, you have remained arrogantly bigoted against homosexuals throughout this thread (or at the very least have chosen to continue to worship & adore a God who is arrogantly bigoted against them) and I haven’t seen your Holy Spirit encourage you a single time to “straighten up” from those sins, my dear – not even once!

 

What I also don’t get is how you can actually believe that homosexuals have a choice to be sexually aroused by the opposite sex, when neither you nor I (nor anyone else I know) have a similar, innate ability.  Indeed, most – if not all – other “born-straight” people like yourself clearly have no ability at all to choose to be attracted to the same sex … And yet you conveniently maintain that homosexuals somehow do have this ability – a claim that is as unfounded as it is absurd.

 

Maybe you simply never learned differently … Maybe you actually do believe that all humans with penises are automatically sexually attracted to all humans with vaginas (and vice versa).  I do not know how old you are, and yet if you are over – say – 60, such ignorance is understandable.  And yet just because we have been taught a myth in our childhood is no excuse for continuing to cling to it in our adulthood – especially after we are exposed to scientific evidence & sound reasoning (& biblical scholarship!) that proves otherwise; and especially when our original ignorance is causing innocent people very real emotional, very real mental and in some cases even very real physical harm!

 

Lucy:   I know a person who is heterosexual who has experimented with the same sex!  It was a choice that she made to do so, because she wanted to see what it was like. There are people like that in both sexes — They don’t care if they are of the same sex or not — It does not matter to them.  That is a choice!  It is about lust and the act of lust!!!

 

Scaughdt:    Lucy, I have no doubt that there are exceptions to every rule … Heck, science might even “help” you one day by proving that there is not only a “homosexual gene”, but a “bisexual” one as well – where some folks are indeed born with the ability to sexually desire both sexes and choose between the two … And yet, THAT IS NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT … In this conversation, we are talking about straight people in general – and thus gay people (like pastor Oliver Clyde Allen) in general … Are you sincerely trying to tell me that you actually believe that people can choose to lust after the same sex if they are born straight, and as such can consciously choose to sexually desire the opposite sex if they are born gay?!?!?  Can you do this, Lucy? … Can Bart?  … Can anyone except people who are born bisexual?  Of course not!

 

 

Lucy:   LOL ….. Scaughdt, you can’t win so you resort to calling me bisexual … You distort my words just like you distort the Word of God!

 

Scaughdt:   no – No – NO … I am not calling you anything, Lucy (and besides, “bisexual” isn’t an insult anyway) … I am merely pointing out the FACT that either God made gays gay or God made gays straight and they choose to be gay … If the former is true, then God has no standing to punish homosexuals at all (since He is the one who created the inborn “sin” in the first place) … And if the latter is true, then it must be true for all of us; if the latter is true then everyone must have the ability to choose to lust after members of the same sex (if born straight) – an ability which almost every single person reading along (including you) does not possess!

 

And hence the question that you still have yet to answer: namely – even though I know you don’t lust for women (because you believe it is a sin to do so) could you choose to do so?   If so, this would indeed mean that you were born bisexual, and if not, it begs the all-important question:  Why did God not give you a choice that He (according to you) did give to all gays?

 

You see – either you are a closet bisexual or you are worshiping an unfair, capriciously bigoted God … Those really are your only two options.   And that’s no distortion from me at all, my Friend … I simply sincerely want to know where you stand on this issue … But I think you have made your actual beliefs (albeit inadvertently) clear enough already.

Filed under: Burnishing Bigotry by Scaughdt