BULLIES, GAYS AND OTHERS

     It was the first birthday party for me that I can remember.  Mom invited five or six other boys for my tenth birthday.   The highlight of the day was the blowing out of the front tire on my newly acquired, but somewhat old, bicycle.  I believe I had put too much air in the tires and one of the boys rode it against a tree and . . . bang!   Getting that bike was at least as memorable as the birthday.  A week each summer was spent with an aunt and uncle in Akron and one evening a visit to some friends of theirs resulted in their friend getting his boyhood bike out of an old garage beside the house and giving it to me.  It had been a deluxe bike in its day and in the following four years I rode it many, many miles.
     Something else was memorable that summer.  It was the first time I recall being bullied.  I practically lived to go fishing that summer, usually at the town reservoir not far behind our home.  One morning at sunrise I hooked a good sized bass on a Johnson Spoon and almost had it landed when it came off the hook.  (There has to be a spiritual lesson in that somewhere.)  On another day at the reservoir I was fishing later in the morning for bluegills or whatever else would bite on a worm.
     There was a family in town with three boys.  I believe the parents were separated and the boys more or less ran wild.  Two of them were at the reservoir that morning and the older urged the younger to go after me.  He kicked my can of worms into the water.  It was simply not in me to fight back.  It was truly alien to my nature.  So I took my rod and reel and headed for home.  The younger brother ran after me and when I turned around to speak to him he hit me in the face.  Funny, but after all these years that moment is as vivid as if were yesterday.   The sequel is that four or five years later that younger brother and I were fairly good friends.  He died about a year ago, gasping for oxygen after a lifetime of smoking.  I can stand beside his grave and wonder how as a 10 year old I could have felt so terrorized by him and his brothers and cousins, several of whom are deceased also.  There are other graves in that cemetery where I could think similar thoughts.  In the first year of high school I was bullied by others and that led to me fighting back for a change.
     Bullying has become a target of the social improvers in recent years.  There were ways that adults could have been much more of a help to me back then but fighting my battles for me was not one of them.  Sooner or later life must be faced on your own.  One type of bullying in particular has been targeted in recent years -- the bullying of young people who, in the 20th century, came to be called gays.  The use of that word in this way is, of course, a euphemism, meaning "the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensively harsh or blunt".  As a boy I did not know anyone who would today be designated as such.  I did not even think about that subject until I was in college in Chicago when one evening on a major street I heard two men in a convertible cursing such a person for attempting to solicit them.
     Bullying (and in a couple instances murder) of some young people called gay is indefensible.   Similar things have happened to young people who have taken a consistent stand as Christians and to other young people for other reasons.   Here then is the dilemma.  How shall a believer, like myself, stand against any cruelty directed against those called gay without giving either tacit or direct approval to same sex erotic acts? 
     To answer this we must face some unpleasant facts.  The effort to stop cruelty to such young people has been hijack by those with a larger and sinister agenda.  Since its beginnings in 1969 the gay rights movement has come to stand for a series of lies.  Among those lies are :  1) same sex attraction is genetically determined;  2)  your feelings and inclinations sexually determine your identity; 3) opposition to and refusal to approve same sex eroticism is a phobia, an irrational fear;  4) humans have the inalienable right to determine their own sexual identity regardless of their physiology.  
     Since when is dishonesty the best opposition to cruelty?  I thought that TRUTH was the best weapon against cruelty and all other sins!
     Consider the following:  1) the mapping of the human genome found no such thing as a 'gay gene';  2) the causes of same sex attraction are not certain and are irrelevant to whether or not it is right in the sight of God to act out those inclinations; 3) opposition to acting out same sex eroticism is, far from being a phobia, a principled, rational position based upon the total teaching of Scripture and the consensus of moral and civilized people since Creation; 4) denial of our physiological identity because of our feelings is neither rational nor scientifically supported;  5)  a person's identity is either a man or a woman made in the Image of God and nothing else;  5) the consensus of virtually all civilized people from time immemorial witnesses to the fact that marriage is defined by God in Creation and not by man;  6) to redefine marriage is to render it meaningless since any combination of people or even of people and animals can then be arbitrarily called "marriage";  7) affirming any of the 4 lies listed above can potentially be a form of cruelty to people with same sex attractions, a cruelty with eternal consequences that will prove much worse than any bullying.
     Now, on the basis of truth, how can I as a believer in the Lordship of Christ, help you in your struggle with your temptation to one form of sexual sin and affirm your dignity as one who is made in the Image of God?  Maybe you can help me in some of my struggles also.  Contrary to what you may think, I am not at war with you.  "Faithful are the wounds of a friend" says the Scripture in Proverbs.  If you disagree totally with me I will still affirm you as a person made in the Image of God who is worthy of respect.  Comments either pro or con may sometimes reveal more about the commentator than about the blog.  If someone tells me to "judge not that I be not judged" I remind them of how misused that statement is and how it refers to judging hidden motives.   "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord . . . ." 
     If we think that we can stop cruelty toward people with same sex attractions by claiming that there are no moral absolutes then we have destroyed the basis for saying that cruelty itself is sin!