Dear Susan: Is My Gay Child’s DNA Messed Up?

Do we as parents look for reasons why we can “justify” our love for our gay children?? Does that kind of thinking sound a little off-track?

“We are all born broken as a result of the Fall… we all have tendencies we need to overcome… like alcoholism… like same-sex attraction.” Have you all heard this before? Do we actually need to find a reason to make it okay to love our gay kids?!?

Let’s address this issue today.

I write Dear Susan posts every Friday. Sometimes they are poignant, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes tender, sometimes funny… but hopefully always worth the read.

Dear Susan,

My thought goes like this: I wonder if as a result of the Fall, our DNA became corrupted. We’d probably not think twice about that if we were talking about someone born with no arms—result of brokenness and nothing to do with their character. We would not say, “Go out and grow arms!” or “If your parents had been better…” Nor would we say, “Hey, just love it because God made you this way.” No we would say the person is definitely not the way God intended but is fully loved and capable as a human being. We would say, “Live into the fullness of who you are and love Jesus, who loves you more than you can imagine.”

Would it be out of line to say as a result of the Fall ALL of us have a brokenness in our DNA that has a multitude of manifestations? e.g., I am broken with a genetic predisposition toward alcoholism.

Might we say that in the perfect plan of God, he created us for opposite sex attraction and for the propagation of the race? And as a result of the Fall, sometimes that gets messed up at a genetic level?

Hopefully you catch my drift enough here. You can imagine how well this goes over with conservatives (NOT). And I’ve been quite the coward to discuss this with my gay friends (who I have quite a number at least compared to my evangelical peers in ministry for 40+ years).

I would not tell my child she is damaged goods – at least damaged more than any of the rest of us. Theirs just manifests itself in a way that is very countercultural to the Evangelical mindset.

A Dad

Dear A Dad,

Yes, I get the idea – but it’s not as embracing as it sounds to you.

This idea has been passed around, and it does essentially say to LGBTQ people that they are messed up – and I hear you about “No more messed up than the rest of us!” – but it is still messed up in a way that does NOT apply (is not actively applied) to straight people.

I have witnessed that kind of talk — comparing being gay to alcoholism… a predisposition to explain this ‘aberration.’ And while the conclusion is different – they say to resist that temptation and you say live into it. Yours may be a little better, but it still echoes what we’ve been told: a same-sex orientation is not normal, not okay, not God’s ideal. It’s the result of brokenness, and even though we wholeheartedly accept you, you would be more normal if you WEREN’T that way.

You have avoid messages like that like the plague; they really do drive self-hatred and despair. Can you see that?

Because the fundamental, God-given part of a gay person is NOT going to change – people have literally died trying. So they’re left with this conditional kind of semi-acceptance by default.

I actually agree that we should accept people born blind, or without arms, etc, as fully as everyone. But to even begin to compare that with being born gay – or being born straight for that matter – is highly offensive and just wrong.

I do appreciate your heart in looking for a better way to frame this, but this kind of ‘third way’ has actually been proposed and found wanting.

Let me suggest something else for you…

Sometimes these ‘asterisks options’ are just ways we come up with to make us feel that it’s a way we can love LGBTQ people without somehow compromising our faith. But what more and more people are coming to realize is the truth… to NOT unconditionally love, affirm and accept gays, and all people, IS the compromise of our faith.

Dad, don’t try to find a more palatable way – just go for it.

Love as Jesus loved. Love as God loves you.

Susan