Born This Way: Explanation or Excuse?

                A common argument that the gay community uses when one calls their lifestyle sinful is that they were born this way, so no choice is involved. Why would God make someone a certain way then call that way wrong? While this argument seems to hold water at first glance, I believe it falls apart once analyzed. Before I go to far into this article, I want to emphasize a few things. I hold no hatred towards the gay community; believe it or not, I love you equally to everyone else. I just happen to disagree with your lifestyle choice and believe it to be spiritually and psychologically harmful. What I present here is not supposed to be hate speech, though if anyone quotes me in an attempt to promote hate speech toward the gay community, let me say it right here that this is not my intention. My intention here is to examine the “born this way” argument and see if it is the end-all argument for this subject.

                To start off, let us examine the evidence involved in the claim that being gay is purely genetic. A study I would like to quote here would be the twins studies. What I am talking about when I refer to these studies are 8 studies done in the U.S., Australia, and Scandinavia. These studies followed select groups of twins for two decades and produced these results: “If an identical twin has same-sex attraction the chances the co-twin has it are only about 11% for men and 14% for women.” Dr. Neil Whitehead states from these studies that outside factors that the twins do not partake in equally, such as sexual abuse or exposure to pornography. These conclusions and studies seem to be strong evidences themselves to knock down this genetic argument. Now maybe there is some genetic component, since there is a small percentage of both twins being gay, but since the numbers are so low I would say that this component is not the major player in a person’s sexual orientation. Now there are plenty of high-profile studies that argue in the affirmative of homosexuality being linked to one’s genetics, but a number of these studies have been discredited due to intentional bias involved in the study. One such example would be the study done by Dean Hamer in 1993. In 1995 it was reported than Hamer had selectively chosen his data to put into his report.

                There is another avenue that I could pursue, which is what is found in the Bible, but for you to take this as evidence one would have to recognize the Bible as an authority in their lives. Before I get into the verses I would like to quote, I would like to comment to people who like to say that it isn’t sin if you aren’t religious. While this isn’t a very rigorous argument, I would like to use something close to Pascal’s gambit. If there is a God who made the universe and wrote the moral laws on the hearts of men, then those laws are applicable even if one is ignorant of God or these laws. A more light-hearted version would be a quote from the New York City Judge “Ignorance of the law is no excuse!” Coming back from the tangent to what the Bible says on the issue. One can look to the book of Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Other translations say that the heart is deceitful about all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (ESV) From this, the human heart will lie to itself and its owner and make us think that what the heart wants is innocent and pure. Our hearts will lie to us and make our desires seem natural, be they homosexuality, inclinations for pornography, revenge, or anything that does not coincide with the moral law God laid down for man to follow. It is our job to know the law as dictated by the Bible and to try and follow it to the best of our ability and pray that God helps us when we fall short.

                There we go, a very condensed version of my thoughts on this whole argument. Once again, I bear no hatred toward the gay community, I just happen to disagree with this statement and your lifestyle. We are more than our genes; we are beings with consciousness that decide for ourselves what our lives are going to be. I would hope that all men and women would choose Christ and allow God to transform them in such a way that true good can happen on this world and that all of us may fellowship with one another one day when the new kingdom is established. May God bless you and have a great weekend.