First and foremost, I want to start by noting that we are all imperfect creatures. Whether our imperfections be pride, hatred, arrogance, self indulgence, self harm, abusing others, sexuality, or some other sin, we need to love and accept all people. Certain sins do not make us better or worse than others. This is something we must all make a better effort to remember.
I personally do not care one iota whether you are L, G, B, T, Q, Straight, Asexual or something else. And although I will state that there are definitely sins of sexuality, I am not going to judge you. Only two judges make any difference. You and God are the only judges whose opinion really matter. If you are truly happy with the way your life is, and God is truly happy with the way your life is, then my opinion means nothing.
That said, and please keep that in mind as you keep reading, I am going to state emphatically that our society puts way too much emphasis on sexuality, to the point that it ruins much of life. From TV shows, to books, to movies, to the way we dress, sex is a constant message we are bombarded with. And we let our children get exposed to it way too early. Women’s clothing is often designed to emphasize their bodies and their sexuality. It is difficult to find woman’s clothes that are not designed this way. You can argue till you are blue in the face that for you it is about comfort. And many of you WILL argue till you are blue in the face, but the fact is, most women’s clothing is designed to direct the attention to, and emphasize the curves of, the female figure in a sexual way. And if it was truly that much more comfortable, guys would be wearing the same thing. Because believe me, guys are at least as much into comfort as girls are. We are a society where it is almost impossible to avoid messages of sexuality. And those messages, like the Nike slogan, are along the lines of Just Do It.
All this overemphasis of sexuality is having negative effects on both our relationship with others and our relationship with ourselves. It makes it much more difficult to see each other as human beings instead of sexual objects to be used. It is also easy to get a negative self image when our bodies do not match up to the unrealistic expectations set by media. That is negatively affecting our thoughts about what our sexuality should be. I saw a recent article that quoted a poll saying that 20% of youth do not identify as straight. I don’t trust polls, but if this is even close to correct, that is an exceptionally high number. And as we increase our emphasis on sexuality, the higher that number seems to go.
Let me address one of the real pressures being put out to get the church to accept all sexuality as holy, instead of accepting all people but keeping to a sexual standard of modesty, monogamy and matrimony. The constant message is that if you are homosexual, transgender or something else, you were born that way. And of course, the claim is that science proves it. Let’s look at what science actually says on this subject. Science has found some limited correlation between some genes and homosexuality. This is only a limited correlation, meaning that having any or all of the identified genetic material does not mean you will be homosexual. The chances are just slightly higher. Also, always remember that correlation, even if it is a strong one, does not prove causation. Add to that the growing number of people who do not identify as straight, and we can fairly well prove that genetics, which does not change that rapidly through a couple generations, is not the only driver of sexuality.
The experiences we have during our life is likely to affect our sexuality regardless of genetics. Negative role models, sexual abuse, or simply being labeled based on stereotypes have a major effect on our view of our sexuality. Boys who are not masculine enough and girls who are tomboys are often labeled homosexual. They become pressured by society to be homosexual. If I were growing up now, I would probably be expected by society to be homosexual. I am sure that I met a lot of the criteria that now would automatically result in assumption that a guy is homosexual. But I can assure you that I am not. These experiences leave lifelong impacts to our personalities that we cannot expect salvation to simply remove. While salvation should put us on a better path, it is unreasonable to expect people to suddenly become perfect just because they accepted Jesus as their savior. We can only expect that people will do their best to love God and their neighbor from where they are already at in life.
With all this going on, it is easy to see why lifelong monogamous relationships raising families with solid ties are so few and far between now. It seems to be more common to have divorced parents, than to have a loving example to follow. While divorce happens, I would contend that lifelong marriages are a much better way of living than the lives we live now. The church teaches us to love everyone, and want the best for them. Emphasizing the moral teachings that have done well for centuries, and holding up a disciplined standard for us to strive toward, while still accepting us when we fail to meet that standard, is the best way to accomplish this.
So we must accept and love all our neighbors, including those who have chosen sexual lifestyles that differ from the message of modesty and lifelong monogamous relationships that emphasize the creation aspect of sexuality over the recreation aspect of sexuality. But church teaching, and the God blessed church marriages, must follow that message. We must fight against the over sexualization in our media. We must fight against sexualization of our kids. We must fight to stop abuse, in whatever form it comes. We must try to provide good role models of loving couples and families that are striving toward a lifelong relationship. While sometimes divorce ends up being the only real option for some couples, we must still make divorce a last option, because when divorce becomes an easy option, it is almost certainly an option that will be exercised. We must do all these things because to shoot for anything else is to tell God’s people that you just want them to have a convenient life, not the best life God has planned for them.