Why do people think you're automatically sinning by being gay?

Question

I'm 16 and a Christian and I want to hear if there are actually sound religious reasons for treating homosexuals as blasphemous. I'm not gay but it's appalling to see the hatred there is out there for gay people, especially by Christians. First of all, I think homosexuality is not a choice. It's something you're born with and you can't help it. There have been gay persons who have tried to be heterosexual, but it couldn't work - can you still call it a choice then? So how then can God hate someone for being born that way - that doesn't sound like God to me. The father at my school explained to me that homosexuality is not a sin, it is homosexual genital acts that are sinful. So as long as homosexuals do not have sexual relationships, wouldn't God still love them? And shouldn't everyone stop hating them and treating them like abominations for the simple fact that they're gay.

Answer 1

Please read the following link. It will answer all your questions regarding God, homosexuality, and the Bible. It is written by a Christian minister and it covers everything for you and anybody else who cares to read it.

By the way, the author is NOT gay.

Answer 2

I'm not gay, but I don't think you're born gay or that it's genetic. I think it's a preference, like someone perfering redheads to blondes, only much stronger. It's not that they can't help being gay, it's that there's nothing to help. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay. It is not a sin. All the stuff in the bible that say that sex is a sin (gay or straight) was added hundreds of years after it was written by a guy named Augustine who didn't want anyone to have sex fro some reason. And I'm not making that up, it was on the histroy channel and any historian without a christian bias will confirm that. If someone is gay, that's there business and no one else's. There is nothing immoral about it. Most people who are against homosexuality are actually gay themselves or have had a gay experience but are afraid to admit it. God does not hate anyone. In fact, he says that no one should hate anyone. If you read the bible and actually believe it, you'd know it says to hate the sin and not the sinner. It also says judge not less ye be judged, so no one out there has any right to criticize or hate anyone just because they think that that person is a sinner for being gay. God created everyone (including gay people), and he doesn't make mistakes, so being gay is not any more of a sin than perfering redheads.

Answer 3

I don't hate gay people. I do hate the fact that if they don't make things right with God, - meaning forgiveness of the sin, (and it is a sin,) and then turning away from the acts thereof, then they will go to hell. But thats because their soul is important to God. He loves the sinner, not the sin. Since God loves them, we should too, but since we love them we should warn them. That wouldn't be fair for us not to warn them if they don't know.
There are those who know, they have been taught, but like you, they omit the verses in 1 Corinthians 6 (verses 9 - 11) that says, (not quoting the whole thing) " Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, ...nor adulters...nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor drunkards nor slanderers....will inherit the kingdom of God..."
So, tell me again that they were born this way??? Do you honestly think that God would create someone to do something that He hates? No, He is too kind and wise for that. He isn't hateful or vindictive. He loves us all. How small the mind of mankind is to imagine something that revolting. (That he creates people to be homosexual.)
I have been around tons of little kids, and not one of them showed homosexual tendancies. They are just innocent children, living to play.
I think is is a learned behavior. Whether from being forced as a child, or forcing someone else...??? Being made fun of because one is more sensitive?? Curiousity? Having done so much porn that there is nothing left to turn them on , so they go a step futher?? I am not sure of their reasons, but I am sure God is not downright mean.
About the acts - do they still have homosexual thoughts? Because having impure thoughts about anyone you aren't married to is a sin. Whether you are gay or not. It is said in the Bible, that if they had done it (committed adultery) in their hearts, they were just as guilty as if they'd done it. However - the consequences aren't the same. Thinking about it doesn't spread AIDS.
You asked "wouldn't God still love them..." Again, God loves the person, not the sin. He wants all to come to know Him. And He didn't create rules just to tick us off. He's not sitting up there saying, "Oh, what can we do today, lets make "Tommy" not be a homosexual, he wants to, and I just want to mess with his mind, lets make a rule against it..." No, God knew that it was unnatural, and could see the problems it would cause, and that there would be an AIDS problem, so He in His wisdom, warned people against it. Thats love, not hate.

Answer 4

Good question!!!

In this issue, I believe that it is of critical importance to distinguish between the following:

1. Having same-sex attraction but NOT acting on it

2. Acting on homosexual desires

It is SO important to find out what people REALLY mean when they talk about "being gay" or talk about "homosexuals". OTHERWISE, two different people can say the exact same sentence but it means very different things to them.

As for me, I am not religious but I have wrestled with the idea that having same-sex sexual relations is 'sinful'. If two men seem to be in love, is it really a sin?

This is a tough one but for me (and i speak ONLY for myself.. not for a "religion"), I believe:

1.That God has our best in mind...

2. That anything less than what God wants for us in actually sinful (sin may sound like a strong word here, I know)...

3. So if God has set the monogamous, lifelong heterosexual relationship (Man+woman marriage) as His best for us, then anything other than that is sinful in his eyes.

Now wait....
Before anyone jumps all over me for being intolerant or whatever, you NEED to know that I have never, ever treated anyone differently based upon their sexual orientation.
I believe that everyone has committed sins of some sort so we are all equal! Yes, God loves us all equally!

This makes a lot of "right-wing fundamentalists" Squirm because it ALSO means that NOBODY can judge anyone else for their "sins" AND that everyone can also equally experience God's love and grace thru Jesus (not a religion... I am not religious... I just have a personal faith).

And anyways, modern day "Religious Christians" should know from reading their Bibles, that Jesus was most passionately infuriated by the judgemental, Religious "holier than thou" people, NOT the average person who was struggling with sin!

Anyways, that's just how I see it...and it is just my two cents
:)

Answer 5

As a Christian you should know "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God". Do you really think God made an exception for homosexuals? not likely - being gay (while weird and abnormal) is a sexual sin, and like all sexual sins..., is a sin against the body (Apostle Paul said this). all other sins are committed outside the body but sexual sins (even heterosexual sins like infidelity, adultery, etc) are sexual sins and are against the temple that God has made.

Hate gay people? No. Hate their sin? Just like any other sin - Yes. Do not let the friendship with this world draw you into taking up their cause - because he (or she) who is friends with the world is an enemy of God.

The Bible said, Woe unto you when the world speaks well of you. The world hates what is light by nature - so if the world loves you whereby it hated Christ and his followers, then its good sign one is not walking in line with Jesus.

Answer 6

Well let's see as a Christian we are to use the Bible to guide our lives. The Bible in both the Old and New Testament states that it is a SIN to have sexual relations with someone of the same sex. Hmm that sounds like a pretty sound religious reason if you ask me. Actually Homosexuality is an ACT. Hetrosexuality is an ACT. Fornication is an ACT and a SIN. Anyone not marrying committing a sexual act is SINNING. If you aren't committing a sexual act then you don't have a sexual orentation as you are abstient. If you aren't committing a sexual act then you aren't sinning I agree. So you do you think a baby has a sexual orentation? They aren't attracted to anyone or commtting or wanting sex so they don't have an orentation correct? That is why it is wrong. That is why it is an ACT.

Answer 7

One of the many reasons I am no longer a Christian...all the bias against gay people. But think of it this way, since people are born gay, they don't choose it, who do you think made them that way? Even us Pagans would think it to be God/dess. (Or at least some pagans may explain it that...but you Christians have no choice but to admit it was the old guy himself...GOD!) And here's another good question to ponder...who do you Christians think made up sex? Now wasn't it again...GOD? So in effect nothing wrong with either , right?
For me, being Pagan makes so much more sense. We actually find things like sex Sacred! And homosexuals, we'd never ask if there was anything wrong with that as we accept others the way they are. After our Gods (and us since we too are Gods) actually invented all these wonderful Sacred things. Revel in it all!

Answer 8

God doesn't hate homosexual people. He hates the act of homosexuality. God loves everyone. Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice IMO. The act of homosexual relations is a sin.

Answer 9

Homosexuality is called a sin punishable by death in the old testament. God loves everyone whether they sin or not. I don't know too much about hell. The concept just doesn't make sense to me. I think hell is something man made up just to scare people into being good.. Who wants to burn in a lake of fire for all eternity?

Answer 10

people for some reason like to play God and declare others sinners and tel them they are going to hell. I think that is God's job and I treat everyone with respect, regardless of whether I agree with what they do or not. God gave us free will if you believe it's a choice (I don't, I didn't pick what I was attracted to, nor did I choose to be straight).

And God still loves everyone, no matter what the crazy people here who call themselves Christians say.

Answer 11

Leviticus 18:22...Do not lie with a man, as one lies with a woman; That is detestable." I don't see what part of that verse is hard to understand. I also think that the father at your school hasn't read the bible, since it is right there in plain print, but yet, he says "homosexuality is not a sin". It also states in the Bible... to hate the sin, but love the sinner.