No One is Born Gay
I used to struggle daily with unwanted same sex attraction – unwanted homosexuality. From my earliest recollections I felt drawn to other males. Many circumstances came my way that only seemed to reinforce those feelings. When I was five years old an adult male confronted me in a sexual manner. As a child I was very emotionally sensitive, artistic, and musical…and the other boys at school in my formative years seemed to relish in reminding me how much of a fag I was. In my college days, a friend and mentor – married with children, Christian, and community leader – made a sexual advance…and I was convinced this was my lot in life. The only problem with that is that I became more miserable than ever. When I got to the end of my rope, God met me there with a new identity and the power to change my way of thinking. To my great dismay (but not to my surprise), the world has begun to think in an upside-down manner, calling what is righteous ridiculous and what is perverse normal and acceptable.
Once I began to understand God’s true plan for my identity, I began to think in a way I had never thought before. No longer was I one trapped in bondage (homosexuality). Now I was a NEW CREATION with the power to put off my old way of thinking and the power to receive and PUT ON a new way of thinking. This statement will probably produce a lot of controversy, but this is how I think of myself: I do not consider myself a recovering/former/ex gay. I consider myself a new creation. The slate of my mind is being erased and the old thoughts are being replaced with new thinking. What I have discovered in the process is that when I change my thoughts, my attitudes change. When I change my attitudes, my behaviors change. When I change my behaviors, my perspectives change. When my perspectives change, I see life from a vantage point that homosexuality NEVER afforded me. The bottom line for my recovery? God loved me right where I was…but loved me enough to not leave me there! Oh, and by the way, I have been married over 27 years and have been blessed with nine children…and have never once delved back into my old life…(my story in its entirety follows at the end of this chapter).
Until 1973, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). In the early 1970s – after many years of protests by the pro-gay movement - homosexual activists campaigned against the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder, protesting at APA offices and at annual meetings from 1970 to 1973. In 1973 the Board of Trustees of the APA voted to remove homosexuality as a disorder category from the DSM…and thus began our slide down the slippery slope toward a Romans 1 mentality. With that one decision by such a powerful group of therapists, man became the central focus in the matter of homosexuality and effectively began to remove hope for change from the realm of possibility for many men and women.
Let’s cut right to the chase. My belief (and experience) and my observance (having personally talked with HUNDREDS of men and women desiring to walk away from unwanted same sex attraction) is that the facts of truth do not bear witness to the current and popular conventional wisdom of this age concerning homosexuality. Let’s look at truth for a bit.
