Some Responses to "Gays--No Easy Answers"

Hundreds of people have sent e-mail responses to "Gays--No Easy Answers." Here are some of them (names of people and places have been deleted unless permission was given to include):

While perusing the Internet today, I came across a link to your website and your sermon about homosexuality and the church (http://theparson.net/gays.html). What you had to say really interested me and peaked my curiosity. Before going into my thoughts about the sermon, let me introduce myself.

My name is James Deaton and I am a 25-year-old technical writer from the Chicago suburbs. I am a follow of Jesus Christ. I am also a homosexual. I have been on a spiritual journey (and, I am still on this journey...it will never end in this lifetime) the past three years. After graduating from a conservative Christian university (Cedarville College--www.cedarville.edu) with degrees in English and Bible in June of 2000, I moved to Chicago to accept a job at 3Com Corporation (as a technical writer). I also moved here to discover myself. I was disillusioned with the Church.....with myself.......with my direction in life....with my sexual orientation......with lots of things. I think college forces those things to surface...a person's worldview and belief structure begins to solidify in those years...from my experience. There's so much more to my story...and, when I have the time...I'd like to share more of it with you.

Also, in your biography, you say you graduated from Berea College. Actually, I went there for a semester and a half in 1996/1997. You can read about my experiences there (in regards to my "coming out" process) here... http://www.whosoever.org/v7i3/deaton.html

In regards to your sermon, I want to thank you so much for your voice of reason and compassion. When I got to the second paragraph... "The first thing, and the main thing, I want to say is that we need to forget about simple answers. There are none. We are fooling ourselves if we think there are."...I couldn't believe it. My heart began to resonate with your words. This is the voice I've been looking for...this is the voice of Christ...this is the voice of reason...this is exactly what I've been feeling. I get so tired debating the "biblical" and "medical" and "psychological" evidences, or lack thereof, for and against homosexuality. Is it compatible with Christianity? I believe it is. I believe wholeheartedly when you say "Our message is ultimately, 'I'm not okay, and you're not okay. But that's okay.'" We truly live in a broken, fragmented world.

I know in my own life......I've tried so hard to live a life pleasing to God. I know for a fact...since coming out...I'm am so much more honest than I was before. It was like a burden was lifted off of my shoulders. It was like a breath of fresh air came into my stagnant heart and soul. I know that I am loved by God...despite all of the imperfections in my life. This is definitely a difficult subject, but silence will not make it go away. I think this was the most tragic thing about growing up in a conservative, Baptist church (Free Will Baptist). Silence. It's probably deadlier than direct, verbal abuse. I think sex, in general, is a taboo topic, but homosexuality is the GREAT TABOO TOPIC. Yet, when I am honest with my coworkers...and my familiy......and my friends....they are all shocked by the fact that I'm gay. They say to me, "I wouldn't have known it in a million years." And, I tell them...."I try to live my life with integrity and honesty...I don't live it for anyone else but God. I just want to be myself.....and I am myself most of the time. This is the real James."

And, that should be our motto...honesty is ALWAYS the best policy.

One last thing (I appreciate your patience and willingness to listen, also), I am the coordinator/director for Soulforce here in Chicago. Soulforce is an interfaith movement seeking to end the spiritual violence caused by religious organizations. We hold fast to the teachings of Jesus, the Jewish prophets, Gandhi, M.L. King, Jr., Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, and many other spiritual sages and "voices in the wilderness." We hold fast to the nonviolent principles exemplified by the lives of these people. If you are interested in learning about Soulforce, check out our national website -- www.soulforce.org/. I think you would find it fascinating at least. And, like always...we certainly can agree to disagree...but always love the person for who they are trying to be.

I also enjoyed your article "A Raging Moderate." I loved your quote "We "raging moderates" embrace the path of tension, as uncomfortable as it is, because we recognize that many of the issues we face are too complex for simple formulation, even for the application of labels." I don't like to be labeled as "gay" or "Christian" or "liberal" or whatever is out there. I want to be known as James Deaton, a man searching for truth and attempting to live the life of true love.

I thank you, again, for your life and your message.

May the peace of God reign in your heart forever...

Peace to you, my brother...

--James Deaton
Schaumburg, IL

Thank you for your sermon! It is Christmas day and I am home alone feeling sorry for myself. I have few friends because I am afraid to get close to anyone. I have a loving family, but don't know HOW loving they would be if they knew about me! I am a 25 year old male that will probably remain in the closet all of his life. I have so many profound things I would like to say to family and friends that would surely change their attitude about homosexuality, but I cannot take that risk. It could mean losing some of them!

I guess your sermon did not give me any answers. I dont think it was supposed to. I do know it showed me that all the thoughts that go through my head EVERY DAY are not crazy and that I am not the only one that is aware of it. One thing you did not mention, ,unless I missed it, was the fact that we are constantly facing the thought of suicide. Days like today, especially, I think about it! I only wish I could go to a psychiatrist/hypnotist and get rid of these "evil" thoughts!

I don't know what will become of me tomorrow or the next day.... I only know it helped to come across your sermon. It shows me that SOMEONE knows the pain I am dealing with. I wish you could some how post that sermon on every front door in America and beg that everyone read it and really listen to what you have to say.

It is a shame that we cannot talk about what hurts us so... even with our families. I have tried to talk to my mom about it, but after 5 years it has been swept under the carpet and she is still waiting for me to introduce her to my next girlfriend and possible future wife. I have given up on talking to anyone about it! So, I continue to live my life a secret. I have a happy exterior, but a hurt inside that will not go away. One day, probably long after I have left this World, people will be more sensitive to this pain!

Again, thank you and I am sorry for "babbling" to you. Even that helps, even if you read it, delete it and never think about it again.....I got a little bit of it off my chest!

Merry Christmas!!

Its obvious you have a very low view of Scripture, in that case why use it for an "Appeal to Authority at all"?

Why not just continue with your humanistic pop psychology?

I ran across your sermon while cruising the internet, and sceptically thought I'd read it, just to reinforce my bias against religious sermons on homosexuality (I'm an ex-Seventh-day Adventist, still recovering after 15 years of being ousted from my church-related job, my religion, wife, etc.). What a pleasant surprise. I cannot say I agree with every nuance you express, but your overall tolerance and sense of the complexity of the issue is refreshing, and it uplifted me to hear that attitude coming from a Baptist minister. Thanks!

I read your thoughtful, well-written sermon with great interest. I am fortunate enough to have lived both in New York City and San Francisco, rather than the Bible Belt, and in my coming out did not lose the support of "friends, family, and the church," but that is not to say that I haven't had a hard time wrestling with my sexual identity. I find myself perpetually ill at ease with the compulsively promiscuous, appearance-obsessed, recklessly self-indulgent gay lifestyle in such supposedly "enlightened" cosmopolitan meccas, yet I am equally uncomfortable with the xenophobic, science-phobic, thinking-phobic, narrow-minded, bigoted culture of the conservative churches leading the crusade for "family values." I did try a Bible-thumping support group for gays who wanted to change, but apart from the odious othordoxy in their literalist interpretation of the Bible, the group was frequently attended by these aggressively cheerful, young, slightly overweight, "Christian" women who seemed excessively eager to hasten our deliverance into a "Christian" marriage. I couldn't help but see Hell on Earth.

To be totally honest, I know that deep down inside, what I am looking for in another guy is ultimately what I am looking for in myself, yet I am also driven by a passion to live in this world, to know what it is to love someone deeply, to have passionate sex, to experience joy and heartbreak, anger and grief and ecstasy, even at the risk of making a complete fool of myself, which I often do.

That is why I have chosen for now to be the way I am, because I so value the experience of living the way most Christian denominations don't. And maybe that has been the real failure of the American Church, Catholic and Protestant, moderate and Holy Rolling, to preserve so-called "family values" over the past thirty years. I mean, come on, if this piously puritanical anti-septic orthodoxy was so great to begin with, then why did it lose it's power and control over society?

I now live in a very conservative part of the country, though not to far from the cosmopolitan (deleted) nearby right across the border. What strikes me most about my conservative Christian neighbors is how materialistic they are, absorbed in television and shopping malls, as if this were what made up a real life.

Yet, once again, I can't honestly say the brutal meat markets of gay urban hangouts is much better.

So, maybe, Pastor, you can take a good long hard look at your religion and the lifestlye of your congregation and ask yourself:"Is this it?"

I just wanted to tell you I appreciate your sensitive treatment of the subject of homosexuality and the church. My husband of eight years recently left me because of struggles with his sexual identity and past behaviors I never even had a clue about -- even though we had grown up in an Assembly of God church together and always been active in church.

It is the most difficult battle of both our lives for sure. People don't understand how I could still care for him after what he has done. Sometimes I don't understand it, and we did go ahead and decide to get divorced. I wonder how many other people sitting in church every Sunday are living in the kind of torment he has lived in since age 11. Or how many women are married to good men with horrible problems.

Thanks for letting me vent. Please continue to write about this very difficult subject.

Pastor -- I don't know if I should be responding to the sermon on the web since I'm not of the same religious faith as you, and I doubt therefore that we'd be able to find much common ground underneath any points we might discuss.

I'd just like to take issue with what I believe is the core logical fallacy behind your thoughts on the matter. You say,

>The homosexual knows that in light of that most basic fact his or her sexuality is distorted, and he or she grieves over that.

Yet later you say,

>society needs to somehow express its clear preference for heterosexuality

The only reason for a gay person to grieve over his or her sexuality is if society expresses a preference for heterosexuality. If society would stop expressing this preference (what you call preference I call discrimination) -- that is, legalize gay marriage and encourage the stability of gay relationships and refrain from gay bashing and discrimination in jobs, housing, religion, community, politics, and other facets of life -- then gays would have no reason to "grieve." However, I would also point out that there are now plenty of communities of straights and gays together where such discrimination is disappearing (New York, San Fran, South Florida, New Jersey, Massecheusetts), and so most gay people I know are, on average, relatively as happy or happier than their heterosexual counterparts as they have done the extra work of reflecting on the purpose of their lives and taking their lives and spirituality into their own hands.

I think that what strikes me as particularly odd is your idea that sexuality is only for procreation. I know no actual people (regardless of their sexual orientation) who have actually felt this way about their sexuality in contemporary times. And historically, I know no religion that actually states this explicitly, although I conceed that it did seem to become a part of the Christian religion during monastic times. It seems to me that sexuality is also tied up with expressions of love and intimacy -- and surely the sexual part is just one small part of being either gay or straight. The larger picture is about primary love relationships that go well beyond and particular sexual acts. And clearly with the proliferation of fertilaztion drugs, artificial insemination, etc. this doesn't seem to be a real issue for the Christian church when it comes toward straight people. If it were, then I believe that the Christian church should picket infertal heterosexual marriages and make these illegal as well -- that's the only consistent position. Heterosexuals would have to be tested to make sure they were fertile before the state would allow them to get married. If they were infertal and tried to get married or have sex they should be arrested or at the very least fired from their jobs, banned from the military, etc. That's how gay people are treated in large measure now.

So tell me, if the reason that gay relationships are to be discouraged is because the sexuality of the relationship doesn't produce offspring, why doesn't the church also condemn infertal heterosexual relationships and make sure these are illegal and discouraged?

Dear David,

This morning I downloaded your article off the www (Gays--No Easy Answers) and the only thing I can think to say is BRAVO, BRAVO,BRAVO!!!!!

For lack of time, I will not go into an exhaustive explanation of my own thoughts and experiences but will tell you that as a 32 christian "gay" man who has never embraced the "I was born this way; its a gift of God" mentality......reading your article was very refreshing. The thing which I suppose I appreciate more than any other is the fact that you readily struggle with the issues involved and come to no simple solutions.

As a thinking individual I write and journal frequently and I must say (in an unpatronizing way) that your thoughts probably more closely reflect my own than anyone whom I've read. It is very annoying to me having only the two "simple minded" extremes---- either the right wing "homosexuality is wrong therefore we will not give them the same latitude which we have grown to show the divorce christian heterosexual population" and the other extreme which would make God and his Word irrelevant with a whole hearted embrace of homosexuality and all it encompasses. At times, it may become difficult to strike just the right balance but I agree that homosexuality is not natural.....(as you pointed out--just look at natural law) but by the same token it doesn't change the fact that if I didn't believe the Bible I could easily believe that "gay" is perfectly "natural" for me.

I was most appreciative of the eunach and the coorelation between his salvation and old testament "uncleaness".....I had never seen that before and it was really refreshing to see an old testament outcast (like the homosexuals) fully forgiven and accepted by God through the person of Jesus Christ.

I have been to varying degrees involved in ex-gay ministries and attempting to come to resolution of this issue for sometime now and I'm sure you've heard this before but I'll say it again......changing ones sexual orientation and/or the responces to it are probably the greatest challenge a person faces......for me some 5 years after first going to a councelor and revealing my deep dark secret, I wonder how much (if any) progress I have made. One thing is for sure, my false hope of easy solutions has long ago vanished!

I struggle endlessly between the hope that I can one day be at peace living my life alone , in that place outside of homosexuality, but I also want some very close male friends and for me the monogomous relationship thing is always in the back of my mind and then of course there are times when I end up acting out physically with another man (although thats the one area where some progress does appear clear --- from many years ago when I first began therapy and acting out numerous times a day was not uncommon;--- even as I was a well liked young man in my local PCA conservative church congregation).

For me there are no easy answers and so I don't know how my views will differ next year or ten years from now ;but at 32, I am human and very capable of very great sins .........I struggle, work through, scream, pray, go out to bars , almost give up, journal, struggle and know that I'm grossly insufficient and but for God's grace I'm doomed. Ultimately, I think its believing ,that in spite of a thousand things which I don't understand, God is good.

And in his grace I shall hopefully continue to struggle and wrestle ;but God willing, hopefully not give up.

Also please feel free to bounce any ideas or thoughts which you have off me....I would love to have a christian to coorespond with who is beyond the "simple solutions" mentality on a range of issues including but not limited to homosexuality.

I am a Catholic in Taiwan. Your sermon -"Gays--No Easy Answers" really touched my heart. Therefore, I ask your permission to tranalate this sermon in Chinese to share with my friends. Please inform me if it is possible. Thank you very much!

I am writing to you in response to your sermon which was placed on the internet "Gays---No Easy Answers; A Christian Response". I can only say, thank you for presenting information which is worth reading and is of quality material about this very complex issue.

I am a young college male who has struggled with my sexual orientation for a great deal of my life. I have never spoke with anyone about this "closeted" area of my life before. I know that I am a homosexual, but I have not had the courage nor the appropriate opportunity to speak about it with anyone. I have never felt confident about speaking about my homosexuality with another gay person because I have tended to have a lack of trust of the homosexuals which I know. I feel that the gay persons I have known are typical of the homosexual stereotype persons who have few religious and moral values. I find myself to be an individual who has a high standard of both religious and moral values. However, I currently have a friend who is gay whom I greatly admire. I know that he has moral and religious values. I have just had a difficult time bringing up the subject to him. Your sermon aided me a great deal with the means by which to approach him.

I have not yet spoken with him, but I hope to in the near future. Yes, homosexuality is the most difficult issue I have ever had to face in my life. Choosing a college and choosing a major were both difficult, but not nearly this difficult. Furthermore, I have consulted library resources written about the issue of homosexuality, and I have found that there is very little information with regard to Biblical interpretation. Many of the authors simply explain about how they "came out of the closet". Many of their reasons were based on feelings of pure lust and nothing more. I am looking for a loving and compassionate relationship, and this sermon reinforced the ideas which I have felt all along.

Thank you again for presenting this material. I feel that God works through people to reach others. Perhaps this is what he has done in this instance.

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