Theres no such thing as a little gay your gay
No One is Born Gay
I used to battle daily with unwanted identical sex attraction – unwanted homosexuality. From my earliest recollections I felt drawn to other males. Many circumstances came my way that only seemed to reinforce those feelings. When I was five years old an adult male confronted me in a sexual manner. As a child I was very emotionally sensitive, artistic, and musical…and the other boys at school in my formative years seemed to relish in reminding me how much of a fag I was. In my college days, a friend and mentor – married with children, Christian, and community leader – made a sexual advance…and I was convinced this was my lot in life. The only issue with that is that I became more miserable than ever. When I got to the close of my rope, God met me there with a new identity and the power to adjust my way of thinking. To my great dismay (but not to my surprise), the world has begun to think in an upside-down manner, calling what is righteous ridiculous and what is perverse normal and acceptable.
Once I began to understand God’s true plan for my identity, I began to think in a way I had never reflection before. No longer was I one trapped in bondage (homosexuality
by Fred Penzel, PhD
This article was initially published in the Winter 2007 edition of the OCD Newsletter.
OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing drastic and unrelenting question. It can lead to you to suspect even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A 1998 research published in the Journal of Sex Research found that among a collective of 171 college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. 1998). In direct to have doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer need not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual experience at all. I have observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as adv. Interestingly Swedo, et al., 1989, establish that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.
Although doubts about one’s hold sexual identity might seem pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most obvious form is where a sufferer experiences the idea that they might be of a different sexual orientation than they formerly believed. If the su
March 02, 2017
The Epidemic of
Gay LonelinessBy Michael Hobbes
I
“I used to get so eager when the meth was all gone.”
This is my ally Jeremy.
“When you own it,” he says, “you have to keep using it. When it’s gone, it’s like, ‘Oh good, I can go back to my life now.’ I would remain up all weekend and go to these sex parties and then perceive like shit until Wednesday. About two years ago I switched to cocaine because I could work the next day.”
Jeremy is telling me this from a hospital bed, six stories above Seattle. He won’t tell me the exact circumstances of the overdose, only that a stranger called an ambulance and he woke up here.
Jeremy is not the buddy I was expecting to have this conversation with. Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea he used anything heavier than martinis. He is trim, intelligent, gluten-free, the gentle of guy who wears a serve shirt no matter what day of the week it is. The first time we met, three years ago, he asked me if I knew a good place to do CrossFit. Today, when I ask him how the hospital’s been so far, the first thing he says is that there’s no Wi-F
Hollywood actor Luke Evans writes candidly in his memoir about his experience growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness – and having to deal with religious and homophobic prejudice.
Evans describes a childhood where he was taunted by peers as a “Bible-basher”, and how he endured homophobic bullying. He writes:
I was bullied for existence gay before I even understood what it meant. The worst nickname was “Jovey Bender”, because it combined two aspects of my identity that could never be reconciled. It wasn’t possible to be a “Jovey” and a “Bender” because being lgbtq+ was strictly forbidden by the religion.
As an academic who works on religion and sexualities, my latest research focuses on male lover ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses, known for their door-knocking evangelising, pique interest because of the closed nature of their organization. They are a fundamentalist and apocalyptic religious team organised into congregations, overseen by male elders – women are not permitted to be elders.
They refer to their values and teachings as “the Truth”. There is a governing body, known as The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, which establishes all doctrine.
Condemnation
The Jehovah’s
The Bible and same sex relationships: A review article
Tim Keller, 2015
Vines, Matthew, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same Sex Relationships, Convergent Books, 2014
Wilson, Ken,A Letter to My Congregation, David Crum Media, 2014.
The relationship of homosexuality to Christianity is one of the main topics of discussion in our culture today. In the fall of last year I wrote a review of books by Wesley Hill and Sam Allberry that take the historic Christian view, in Hill’s words: “that homosexuality was not God’s original resourceful intention for humanity ... and therefore that gay practice goes against God’s express will for all human beings, especially those who trust in Christ.”
There are a number of other books that take the opposite view, namely that the Bible either allows for or supports same sex relationships. Over the last year or so I (and other pastors at Redeemer) have been regularly asked for responses to their arguments. The two most read volumes taking this position seem to be those by Matthew Vines and Ken Wilson. The review of these two books will be longer than usual because the topic is so contested today and, wh