An idol is anything that we make more important than having a right relationship with God and that includes our sexual orientation.

June is Pride Month, a time in which we are called to honor the lives of LGBT people and recognize their contributions to society. Considering that the Bible calls both homosexuality and pride sins, I choose not to participate in celebrating either. I have no problem valuing people and their contributions to society apart from their sexual preferences. It is not necessary to group the two together because we are not meant to make idols out of our sexuality.

It’s not that same sex desires are necessarily unusual. Sexual urges of all types arise in human beings. What has changed in the past 80 years in America is how we view actually acting on these desires and how we encourage ‘following your heart’ and ‘doing what feels good’ instead of doing what is right.

Pride month is not about ensuring legal rights for everyone. Laws have long since made discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal. It is about pushing public acceptance of the concept of sexuality as a very central part of our identity. This is something altogether new and different.

In the past one’s sexuality was very much a private thing and people were known by their character such as honesty, integrity, industriousness, compassion, generosity, kindness, selflessness, and other traits that emphasize how we live and treat other people. This was connected to the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character not their looks or race.

Christians should base their identity on their relationship with God. If you have been born again, you have been freed from slavery to the desires of the flesh. You are are free to obey God. You are no longer to live like an instinctual animal. The Holy Spirit can help you redirect your desires and thoughts to godly things. People are often born with certain tendencies to different types of behaviors, but that does not mean that we should encourage or normalize every preference.

Humans were not meant to be so consumed with fulfilling their sexual desires. After the fall, our physical desires became more powerful and our desire to please God was weakened. This brokenness is expressed differently according to our individual personalities and genetic makeup. Some of us might be fairly good at balancing our physical and spiritual needs. Others might be more controlled by greed, pride, lust, anger, or gluttony.

Eating is good, but gluttony is not. Sexuality is a gift from God, but lust is a sin. Emotions are a good part of being human, but should not overrule doing the right thing. The good news of the Gospel is that by God’s grace , through Jesus, our spirits can be freed from the tyranny of this control by our bodies. As long as we are in the body we will still have to deal with these tendencies towards sinful expressions of what were meant to be good things, but they will not rule over us like they did before.

In other words, because of our sin nature, unless we are born again, it can be very difficult to go against these inborn traits. Most people would not consider proclaiming ‘Anger Month’ a national holiday, but greed, pride, lust, and gluttony are all regularly celebrated in our culture. The point is that our flesh wants what it wants, but that doesn’t mean we always give it what it wants.

Because of moral relativism, normalization of all kinds of sin has increased. From adultery to swinging to promiscuity, people have become literally obsessed with sex thanks to people like Alfred Kinsey. The right to freely express oneself sexually was just another way of rebelling against moral restrictions of the past. The move to normalize homosexuality started way back in the 50s and each decade gained more ground. The emergence of AIDs brought more focus on the gay rights movement.

From wikipedia: “Henry “Harry” Hay Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002) was an American gay rights activist, NAMBLA activist, communist, and labor advocate. He was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States.” This article has a good timeline of the gay rights movement.

Quick Fact: The first time that June was designated as Pride Month was in 1999, when President Bill Clinton officially declared the month of June as “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month.” The Moral Majority had lost the culture war in the 80s and the country was officially becoming culturally progressive.

I love my gay friends and relatives, but I cannot celebrate behavior that the Bible calls sin.