Since the turn of the century, homosexuality has gone from being controversial to being almost completely unremarkable [1]. Any attempt to express even the slightest dissent from this metamorphosis of homosexuality into a normalized, even staid, lifestyle is met with outrage. Dinner parties come to a screeching halt, and complete social ostracism is the result. The toleration, nay the celebration, of homosexuality is a new litmus test for ideological rectitude. Pride must be celebrated and flaunted, gay stories foregrounded, and inclusion mandated.
Such attitudes also affect the Lord’s Restored Church. In some circles among the Church membership, the commandments deeming homosexual behavior as a sin are seen as hateful and harmful, restricting authenticity and pride in homosexuals’ true selves. For those in such circles, it’s cruel to demand that anyone restrain their sexual desires, bridle their passions, and conform to moral law. The real laws are kindness and love and acceptance, all carefully defined to conform to the tenets of modern progressivism. And it is assumed that a revelation will eventually come, bringing the bigoted Brethren (finally!) to the timely tapestry of tolerance. In yet other social circles within the Church, members fear to stand up to this incessant drumbeat, fear to be seen as unkind or unsophisticated, and so do not raise their voices to counter this false narrative.
I don’t. As a lapsed homosexual who has been through the looking glass of liberatory ideologies (and self-pity) and miraculously found his way back to faith, these attitudes strike me as paper thin. They dodge crucial distinctions and avoid hard questions. They treat Jesus as a teddy bear who approves of all we do out of love for us, and our Heavenly Parents as senile Heavenly Grandparents who just want their posterity to have fun. I fear, however, that if we don’t stand up, if we don’t provide a rational, coherent critique of Pride, then many members will be deceived and fall into forbidden paths.
Pride, that’s what strikes me as odd. To be proud of what, wanting to have sex with another man? This is an accomplishment? We are to celebrate this? All hail the holy month of Pride! It sounds ridiculous to me, frankly. If we are to believe that homosexuality is innate (a very dubious proposition, but let’s move on from that), then it can no more be celebrated than the color of your eyes or your height or your facial hair. It is no accomplishment; nothing has been achieved. And frankly, the passionate insistence on Pride make me wonder whether the ladies and gentlemen don’t protest too much. I know I protested too much.
No doubt, many defenders of sexual liberation will lob the charge of “self-hatred” or “internalized homophobia” my way. There is no way for me to dissuade them from this, so I won’t even try. I will only say this. The cultural revolutionaries of the 1960s used to argue that we should “think different,” that is, to get outside the box, and consider the world from a new angle. In time, as their triumph over American culture grew, they became satisfied and complacent. Their ideas became the new orthodoxy that none could question. I think it's time to “think different” again. The sexual revolution is so hegemonic that the only way to think different is to sharply question its ossified dogmas and tired slogans. And in that process, we shall return to where we started and know it again for the first time.
I want to move beyond that anodyne Pride proposition into dangerous waters. I want to share with you how I, a lapsed homosexual, think about these things now. I’ll assert the following.
Proposition 1: It is undesirable to be a homosexual. It is preferable to be straight.
Proof: Beyond the Church’s doctrinal position that homosexual behavior is sinful, there are good temporal reasons to hold this position. Homosexuals have a restricted dating pool, making it much harder to find someone to spend the rest of their life with. Homosexuals have higher rates of STDS because the gay male lifestyle inculcates mass promiscuity [2]. Homosexual acts are also prima facie unnatural in the sense they use orifices that are not intended for those purposes. These acts also cause pain, as opposed, generally speaking, to the normal act of heterosexual coitus. Homosexual acts are not procreative, in that they cannot produce pregnancy. Any children that are raised by a gay couple must, by necessity, not be raised with one of their biological parents. However, research tells us that intact biological families are preferable to non-intact families [3].
Commentary: All these points are straightforward and common sense. I’d like to look, however, at a deeper paradox of homosexual desire. The flamboyantly gay writer, Quentin Crisp, disdained “gay liberation.” He disparaged homosexuality as an illness and an abnormality. And in The Naked Civil Servant, he puts homosexuality on the couch. Gay men, he claims, are perpetually in the search of the “great, dark man”-- a real man who desires other men, a straight man who desires other men [4]. As Camille Paglia observed, the seduction of the straight stud is a common trope in gay erotica [5]. And I don’t think my experience of falling in love with the basketball team captain in high school is out of line with other homosexuals’ experiences. The desire for me, a bookish, neurotic, and slightly effeminate man, to be loved by the leading jock of the school, is as cliche as the freshman loving the cheerleader. But the fantasy wouldn’t work if the object of desire actually was gay. No, I needed him to love women, to be a real man, and to love me back all the same. I think this is why some gay men act so effeminate and others become so butch. They are choosing which side of the divide to partake in. Are they going to try to be the woman their desired man desires, or the desired man himself? This question underlies the contradiction of gay desire. No hard-charging, testosterone driven, women-loving man is going to love another man back. Such desire is doomed to disappointment.
With that doom in mind, I believe it's defensible and reasonable for parents not to want their children to be gay, any more than not wanting them to have a chronic illness or a mental handicap. Parents love and support their children regardless, but they can be forgiven for wishing their child did not have to face such affliction. Of course, in some instances, people are born predisposed to homosexuality, and love and empathy from parents are crucial to know that each child of God is loved and valued despite the challenges in their life. But part of recognizing each person’s intrinsic value means separating desires and inclinations from the core person. We are not just a bundle of desires. We have agency and ends, by which our desires should be oriented and ordered.
On a societal level, homoeroticism is detrimental as well. Consider if every man was gay and every woman a lesbian. Society would quickly collapse, as no children would be born. Imagine the opposite: a society where everyone was sexually attracted to the opposite sex would have the ability to sustain itself over time through natural procreation. There seems to be a natural limit, then, to the prevalence of exclusive homosexuality in a sustainable society.
It is also interesting to note the extraordinary rise in LGBTQIA+ identification since the legalization of same-sex marriage [6]. This phenomenon, combined with research establishing the fluidity of sexuality [7], indicates that the social environment, in part, shapes sexual orientation. If the social environment celebrates homosexuality, this will influence the overall population’s procreative capacity. Since the central task of any society is to ensure its own survival, I argue that anything that endangers that should be discouraged.
Ordinarily, that would be heresy enough for one author to express. However, I feel I must press on, for there is more that needs to be said.
Proposition 2: Society should privilege heterosexual relationships more than homosexual relationships, and it might even be reasonable to restrict marriage to a man and a woman.
Proof: Such an outrageous assertion will surely be met with chants of “love is love” in order to shame whoever suggests it. Unfortunately, in my case, this falls on deaf ears. I concede that if the whole purpose of marriage is to honor romantic love, then homosexuals should be granted the right to marry. So should polyamorous people, along with groups of any size or configuration, and soon we’re on the way to totally abolishing marriage as any type of meaningful social institution. After all, you can love many people at once and “love is love.” But perhaps romantic love is not the whole purpose of marriage. Romantic love, that bastion of chthonic irrationality, stands as one of the great artistic themes of the West, but its depiction doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Remember Cupid being painted blind, as love sees not with the eyes but with the mind? Or Anna Karenina throwing herself in front of the train? Even Sappho in her famous fragment 31 portrays love as partially disturbing and frightening. And let's not start on poor, silly, insipid Emma Bovary.
I want to be clear: romantic love is not intrinsically bad. It’s beautiful to watch a young, handsome couple fall in love, get married, and build a family. And part of the joy of marriage is physical union. However, romantic love is not the summum bonum of life, despite what many young women believe. And sex is not the summum bonum, either, despite what many young men believe. Sexual desire can mislead and misfire. It can direct us down paths we should not go. As many older people have informed me, relationships built on nothing but romantic love, infatuation, and sex tend to implode. As Christ informs us, only God is good. The summum bonum of life is qualification for salvation and exaltation in the kingdom of God. And God has put boundaries on love and sex and their expression for our benefit. Romance is unstable, and lust is destructive, and therefore we need to look elsewhere for the basis of marriage.
Let’s start with an institution capable of containing the chthonic irrationality of romantic love and sexual desire and directing them to felicitous social ends. That institution is marriage between a man and a woman. Such stable and committed couplings provide the optimum context for children to be born and raised. After all, the lack of such a marriage can actually endanger children who are at risk from stepparents or mom’s boyfriend [8]. And also, promiscuous sex breeds jealousy, resentment, hurt, exploitation, and STDs. If you doubt me, think of the prostitution industry where men rent other human beings for sex. If that’s not exploitative, I don’t know what is. Homosexuals show practically no interest in containing their lifestyles within the sturdy framework of sexually faithful marriage [9] (which begs the question why they want marriage rights in the first place). And thus, these lifestyles undermine the values that marriage intends to promote. Marriage harnesses sexual impulses to ensure the continuity of the human species and society. If sex is cheap, or marriage redefined to just be about me and my love, then the future of society is in jeopardy. And make no mistake, we see that across the Western world.
Marriage also exists to hedge the structural conflict between men and women. Men and women have different reproductive strategies and interests. The place of intersection between those differing strategies and interests is sexually faithful marriage. The institution of marriage provides an orderly harmony to relationships between the sexes, making it possible for children to be conceived and raised in stable circumstances. Of course, it doesn’t always work, but no institution does. There is no other workable blueprint for accommodating the varied needs of men and women and children than marriage.
Marriage also exists to build a civil society and community separate from the state. After all, meaningful communities are formed when families come together to promote the common good. When the state asserts the ability to change these connections at whim, say, by redefining marriage, it asserts its total control over society and dissolves the boundaries that keep tyranny in check. As theologian John Milbank observed: “Therefore the abandonment of this grammar [of married, heterosexual life] implies a society no longer primarily constituted by extended kinship, but rather by state control and merely monetary exchange and reproduction. The diminution of the role of kinship would here be of one piece with the decline of the role of locality and mediating institutions in general.” [10]
Of course, from a pure theological point of view, the Church teaches that the ordinance of marriage is a covenant with God. It is where man and woman are joined together, where the two halves of power in the universe are joined together in a new and everlasting covenant that allows them to become far greater together than they would be apart. They become as God, as their Heavenly Parents are now. The whole telos of the gospel and the purpose of human existence is tied up with this institution--so tied up, that mere assertions of “love is love” pale in comparison to the majesty of the institution they are trying to redefine. There is so much more at stake here than the injunction “just be kind” can preserve.
Commentary and Conclusion:
I have not even touched upon one of the gravest consequences of the widespread normalization of homosexuality: the normalization of surrogacy. Surrogacy, a great evil actively discouraged by the Church, involves impregnating a woman, purchasing her child, and then ripping it from her arms. The grotesque commodification of our society reaches its zenith in this unholy and impure practice. It treats children, the most innocent and defenseless among us, as commodities to purchase to satisfy adult desires. Of course, homosexuals alone are not responsible for surrogacy. Many heterosexual couples use it as well, including even members of the Lord’s Restored Church. But the homosexual lobby pushes for it hard, in the guise of a right to “start a family.”
Looking again at all the ground we have covered in this essay, it is clear that in some ways, the Pride movement is not a product of the 1960s. It’s as old as humanity itself. When Satan told Eve in the garden that we would be as gods, he meant it. Though Eve’s courageous choice, we will be as gods, but Satan had something else in mind. His “deification” as “the god of this world” was not exaltation, with its commandments, rigor, and mutuality. Rather, it meant power and to be whatever we wished to be, no matter the harm done thereby. The whole law would be “you do you.” This temptation is always there– to worship something other than the true God and His Son, to burn a pinch of incense to the idols of the age, particularly when the great and spacious dinner party is cheering you on. In Christ, we find something different. Yes, we find mercy, kindness, and love, hitherto unimagined. But we also find justice and law. Christ is good; He isn’t nice. And He expects us to change and conform to His laws, so that we can be exalted.
It's comforting to believe that we are perfect just the way we are. But it isn’t true, and the truth will set us free. Homosexuals in the church must find a way to conform their lives to God’s will. They must beware of Pride, and set Christ as their model. It won’t be easy. But mortality is never easy for anyone, regardless of the particular nature of the challenges faced. And from great difficulty emerges great spiritual strength. Our choices really do matter, because we can destroy ourselves by separating from Christ just as easily as we can find ourselves exalted through the power of joining with Christ.
Choose humbly.
NOTES:
[1] The same cannot be said of the TQ in LGBTQ+. [Back to manuscript].
[2] Judson FN, Penley KA, Robinson ME, Smith JK. Comparative prevalence rates of sexually transmitted diseases in heterosexual and homosexual men. Am J Epidemiol. 1980 Dec;112(6):836-43. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a113056. PMID: 6893897.
[Back to manuscript].
[3] Anderson J. The impact of family structure on the health of children: Effects of divorce. Linacre Q. 2014 Nov;81(4):378-87. doi: 10.1179/0024363914Z.00000000087. PMID: 25473135; PMCID: PMC4240051. [Back to manuscript].
[4] Stephen G. Adubato, "The Impossible Object of Queer Desire," First Things, January 27, 2025, https://firstthings.com/the-impossible-object-of-queer-desire/
--- [Back to manuscript].
[5] Camille Paglia, Vamps & Tramps: New Essays (New York: Vintage, 1994), 87.
[Back to manuscript].
[6] Pew Research Center, "5 Key Findings About LGBTQ+ Americans," Pew Research Center, June 23, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/23/5-key-findings-about-lgbtq-americans/ --- [Back to manuscript].
[7] Lisa M. Diamond, "Sexual Fluidity in Males and Females," Current Sexual Health Reports 8, no. 4 (2016): 249–256, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-016-0092-z.
[Back to manuscript].
[8] Marinus H. van IJzendoorn et al., "Elevated Risk of Child Maltreatment in Families with Stepparents but Not with Adoptive Parents," Child Maltreatment 14, no. 4 (2009): 369–375. [Back to manuscript].
[9] Ethan Czuy Levine et al., "Open Relationships, Nonconsensual Nonmonogamy, and Monogamy Among U.S. Adults: Findings from the 2012 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior," Archives of Sexual Behavior 47, no. 5 (2018): 1439–1450
[Back to manuscript].
[10] John Milbank, “Gay Marriage and the Future of Human Sexuality,” ABC Religion & Ethics, June 19, 2012. https://www.abc.net.au/religion/gay-marriage-and-the-future-of-human-sexuality/10100726 --- [Back to manuscript].
Full Citation for this Article: Anonymous (2025) "Not Proud to be Gay," SquareTwo, Vol. 18 No. 1 (Spring 2025), http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleAnonomysNotProudGay.html, accessed <give access date>.
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