by Michael Joseph Brennan

In response to my support for Thomas Oord, a friend asked, “Why do you stay in the Nazarene denomination rather than find an affirming church? Why do you fight the denomination?”

I replied, “I don’t fight the denomination; I support queer people. If Nazarenes stop having gay babies, then no one will need me to stand beside them.”

My friend didn’t like my answer, and I had obviously struck a nerve. My answer had provoked too many questions and created a glitch in her matrix.

1. Do I think babies are born gay? Is sexual attraction developed by nature? Nurture? Both? Maybe I was born straight, maybe I was raised to think I should be attracted to females. My attractions and preferences haven’t changed. What if I had been born or nurtured to be gay?

2. What does it mean that Nazarenes have queer babies? Some people have the notion that if a baby is raised by straight parents, then the baby won’t grow up to be gay. But my friend knows this is false because she knows gay people that grew up in healthy, loving, heterosexual homes.

These questions point to the question of choice. I hear people talk about a person’s “decision” to come out? “When did you know that you were gay or trans?” An intersex/trans friend told me she was raised male because her anatomy was a bit more obviously male. At puberty she was given testosterone to counteract her body’s production of estrogen. The testosterone changed her physiologically, giving her typical male characteristics, and also affected her sexual preferences–her feelings of sexual attraction were that of a straight man. She married and had children. However, she eventually stopped taking testosterone and noticed a change in sexual feelings in the direction of “demi-sexuality” (where there are no sexual feelings without a close emotional bond). Her sexual preference and feelings were not a matter of choice. To the extent there was a decision, it was to live intuitively in response to her experience in each moment.

Being gay or trans is not a decision—it’s a complicated result of myriad responses to nature and nurture. Our identity, orientation, and preferences are things that we negotiate as we interact with God and with the people that love and affirm us. 

But isn’t homosexuality a sin? By any definition, no, healthy same-sex intimacy is not sinful because sin is the opposite of love. Love is mutual and consensual and seeks well-being. Rape therefore is not a loving act; therefore it is sinful. Children and animals cannot consent to sex, so pedophilia and bestiality are unloving and therefore sinful. Two consenting men that want to express their healthy love in sexual intimacy seek the well-being of both partners. This is love; therefore it is not sinful.