Samesexattraction
Keys to Recovery from Queer Attractions
by: LHM Board
[Note: while we are confident that the following list is accurate, we are alert that it can be overwhelming. It would be like handing a newborn baby a list of all the things he will have to understand in the next five years: everything from knowledge to turn over, study to walk, becoming potty-trained, learning to talk, revealing hes not a part of his mommy, education how to obey, getting ready to read, going to school. . . like we said, overwhelming! This is the massive picture of how to walk out the target of recovery. Allow us to encourage you to continually ask the Lord, What one thing act You want me to do next? and then do it.]
1. Accept that its not going to be easy. Change that challenges our known comfort zone is difficult and painful. You are modifying not just one isolated habit, but a collection of thoughts and behaviors that have made up your relational pattern for a lifetime. An essential component of recovery is changing the wrong conviction about your identity, that this is me. This will take an astonishing amount of effort, but you don’t have to do it in your own strength: the alike power that raised Christ from the
I often hear Christians say that the phrase “gay Christian” is an oxymoron. To be a Christian is to not be homosexual, they say. Or, even if you still struggle with being gay, it’s just that—a effort, not an persona. “I don’t ring myself a lustful Christian or an adulterous Christian,” the argument goes. “Why would any authentic Christian say they’re a gay Christian?”
Should Christians who accept in a historically Christian sexual ethic call themselves gay? Is the designation gay too loaded, too secular, too unchristian to be a helpful identity? If our individuality is in Christ, then why should anyone ever name as gay? Shouldn’t we just declare we struggle with same-sex attraction? Is using a queer identity just a slippery slope toward affirming gay marriage in the church? God doesn’t detect us by our sexual desires or temptations, so why should we?
These are all good questions. (Well, some of them are good; others are quite tone-deaf to the conversation people are actually having about these terms and identities.) And Christians are divided over how to retort them. Some Christians are adamant that using the phrase “gay Christian” is an affront to the gospel—even when gay Christians accept in
Same-sex attraction to those who experience it feels like a natural instinct. Indeed, global statistics display at least 2% of the male population and 1% of the female population primarily life same-sex-only attraction; their compass points in that direction. Even more so, 5-6% of the population experiences mixed attraction. For example, they may experience primarily heterosexual attraction but, on occasion, exposure same-sex attraction towards a particular person.
The question becomes, what does the religious community do with that reality, and how does Christianity continue to educate that it’s morally wrong if homosexual attraction appears to be an innate desire? These are interesting questions. My intention is to help Christians who desire to march out their faith and follow the teachings of Jesus but don’t recognize whether to provide in to queer attraction as something innate and God-given or resist it as an impulse of the debased human nature.
Attraction v. Behavior
Often, those who struggle with queer attraction within church communities feel a range of emotions, such as confusion about why they struggle with this, embarrassment, fear of exposure, isolat
Same-Sex Attraction
Same-sex attraction refers to passionate, physical, or sexual attraction to a person of the similar gender. The intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation is biological sex at birth. The experience of same-sex attraction is not the same for everyone. Some people may sense exclusively attracted to the alike gender, while others may experience attracted to both genders.
The Church distinguishes between same-sex attraction and homosexual behavior. People who life same-sex attraction or identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual can make and keep covenants with God and fully and worthily participate in the Church. Detecting as gay, lesbian, or attracted to both genders or experiencing same-sex attraction is not a sin and does not prohibit one from participating in the Church, holding callings, or attending the temple.
Sexual purity is an essential part of God’s plan for our happiness. Sexual relations are reserved for a man and woman who are married and promise finish loyalty to each other. Sexual relations between a man and woman who are not married, or between people of the same sex, violate one of our Father in Heaven’s most important laws and get in the way of our