This letter is flying about on facebook amongst my IFB friends. I read it and was appalled. The woman who wrote it has chosen to believe that a fundamental aspect of her biological make-up – her sexuality – is a grievous sin.
IFB’s and those who are similar to them are notorious for making sex and sexuality out to be a great evil (unless you’re a man). I myself was affected by that teaching. But the woman who wrote this letter has to deal with more than “just” sex. She is a lesbian. A homosexual. As most IFB’s I know would say, she is a “pervert.” Such ideology makes me sick. This woman is expected to ignore her sexuality and never find pleasure in sex (because to have sex with another woman would be an abomination!). She will probably be expected to find a way to “fix” herself and rewire her brain to find men arousing, not women. She will be expected to either never find a companion to spend her life with, or to choose a man and marry him. For a lesbian (not a bisexual), being with a man, even if she loves him, can be unsatisfying, scary, and possibly feel more like rape than making love. And for that husband, how will he feel? What awkward, possibly awful place will he be put into? Both partners in a relationship deserve to find happiness and satisfaction in their sex life – it is a basic human need and one of the reasons we form such relationships.
Why is this woman having to write this letter in the first place? Why is her sexual orientation a sin? Because the writings of ancient Middle-Eastern men say so. Of course, these same writing talk about stoning witches, forcing rape victims to marry their rapists, and killing massive amounts of people because the Israelites “needed” their land. I’m speaking of the Bible, but you knew that already. Many, in fact most (in my experience), Christians are quick to pick and choose passages of Scripture to promote and preach on whilst conveniently ignoring the icky stuff. If you claim the entire Bible is perfect and inspired, why ignore any of it? Why aren’t you still calling for witches to be stoned? Why aren’t you preaching against clothing made of mixed fabrics? Why aren’t you segregating the menstruating women? Why aren’t you telling all women they cannot teach or be in any positions of leadership? Why aren’t you telling your women to stay silent during church? They can always just ask their husbands when they get home, like Paul said they should do. Ugh. The churches who hold to these ideas are few and far between, relatively speaking, and are considered crazy. As they should be.
Anything that demonizes something as basic and normal as sex needs to be reassessed. And anything that tells someone, “Nope, your body got it wrong. You can’t be attracted to that gender because that would be evil. You love them? Doesn’t matter. Why? Because an ancient text told us so. Get over it and get your heart right!” is the true evil here. If you don’t understand or like homosexuality, fine. I don’t see why you must proclaim it loudly and do what you can to make homosexuals (or their friends and family) feel dirty and like lesser people.
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