Some Incongruities and Dangers of Religious Homophobia ...... Personal Urges and Actions

Contributed by the Rev. Dr. Jerry S. Maneker and cross-posted at: http://www.christianlgbtrights.org/

A Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis who opposes homosexuals being allowed to lead congregations said Monday he is attracted to men, but that he’s not a hypocrite because he never acted on his urges. 

The Rev. Tom Brock told The Associated Press he has known for years he is sexually attracted to men, but doesn’t consider himself gay because he never acted on it….
“You can have this struggle with same-sex attraction, say no to it, and still follow Christ.”
…Brock said he does not believe people are born gay. “I think we’re all born heterosexual actually, and then stuff goes wrong,” he said. 

He said he can’t conclusively identify the origin of his own attraction to men, but said he believes it’s related to a distant relationship with his father, who is now deceased, as well as having an older brother who was more athletic and, Brock felt, got more affection from other family members.
Brock said even if scientists were to establish definitive proof that homosexuality is genetic, that wouldn’t deter his views. He said he believes people who engage in homosexual acts will go to hell, but he doesn’t believe that makes him a bigot. 

“My message doesn’t change at all. I still think homosexual behavior is a sin,” Brock said. “Because I struggle with it doesn’t make it right.”

[For the full article, see here.]

Deeply ingrained prejudice can often lead to tremendous self-loathing and suppression of the truth about one’s very sexual/emotional nature once one comes to realize that he/she is Gay.
Indeed, even the status of being Gay that has not come to consciousness can, through prejudicial belief, rhetoric, and actions, wreak untold havoc upon one’s emotions and emotional/sexual makeup, as well as wreak havoc in the lives of others who give that person credibility in informing the religious and moral dimensions of one’s life.
Rev. Brock even goes far enough to say, “I think we’re all born heterosexual actually, and then stuff goes wrong.” Where does he get that notion from; where is his data to back up his dogmatic assertion that we are all born heterosexual? A lot of “stuff goes wrong” in people’s lives and they are heterosexual!

Regarding his “analysis” as to the reasons for his same-sex attraction being due “to a distant relationship with his father…as well as having an older brother who was more athletic and…got more affection from other family members,” which, if true, would have most people in any society turn out to be Gay.
What’s even more remarkable is that Rev. Brock’s prejudices extend so far as to encompass the belief that “even if scientists were to establish definitive proof that homosexuality is genetic, that wouldn’t deter his views. He said he believes people who engage in homosexual acts will go to hell, but he doesn’t believe that makes him a bigot.”
He believes that engaging in same-sex activity will send people to hell, but “he doesn’t believe that this view makes him a bigot.”

Then what else does this view make him?

All too many professing Christians, even those Christians who are self-loathing Gay people, impose their bigotry and hateful rhetoric onto others, just as they impose their views on themselves. They very often create a living hell for themselves and, thereby, seek to impose that hell onto others, many of whom, unfortunately, believe that they will go to hell if they act on the very urges that God gave them.
Rev. Brock, and others like him, seem to think that God makes mistakes when God creates Gay people; they commit the sin of idolatry by worshipping their own prejudices, and their “justifications” for those prejudices, over and above their worship of God and the yielding to God’s sovereignty.

And they cap their idolatry by claiming not to be bigots when they have the temerity to consign people who engage in same-sex activity to hell, thereby usurping the role of God Who has chosen those who belong to God before the worlds were formed; before we were even born; before any of us ever had a chance to act one way or the other. (e.g., Ephesians 1:4)
And notice, “The Rev. Tom Brock told The Associated Press he has known for years he is sexually attracted to men, but doesn’t consider himself gay because he never acted on it….” The fact is that one is Gay whether or not he/she engages in same-sex activity!
Like most all homophobes, Rev. Brock seems to merely equate Gay with Sex, and doesn’t see (or doesn’t want to see) that being Gay comprises an emotional component which, along with sexual activity, fulfills the person every bit as much as the emotional/sexual components of heterosexuals fulfills their lives.

Despite his rhetoric to the contrary, Rev. Brock is a gay man, whether or not he acts on his God-given sexual desires!
Rev. Brock speaks from ignorance, a prisoner of his preconceived prejudices that even contradict his own inclinations that he has willfully (or not) denied himself so as to feel “comfortable” in not defining himself as a gay man, for to do so would undoubtedly violate his notion of what a “Christian” is supposed to be and do.
Hence, his record of homophobia that could be reconciled in his mind with his same-sex attractions, as he does not view himself as a gay man since, by his own account, he is presumably a virgin.

One can be out, be he/she outed or not, and still be closeted at the same time: closeted by prejudice; closeted by self-loathing; closeted by ignorant biblical exegeses; closeted by the desire to be accepted; closeted by fear of rejection; closeted by career aspirations; closeted by fear of one’s deepest and hitherto repressed and suppressed feelings of which one may or may not be conscious.
I have pity for Rev. Brock and the internal struggles he is undoubtedly facing after having been outed.
However, I have even more pity for people who take seriously what the Rev. Brocks of the religious world say about Gay people, and who take seriously those who presume to usurp the role of God and pronounce with oracular authority the eternal destiny of anyone’s soul!
As my friend, Rev. Troy Perry has said on more than one occasion: “God didn’t create people whom He could sit around and hate.”

God creates Gay people just as God creates Straight people! God specializes in diversity!

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15) 

http://www.christianlgbtrights.org/