If only!
We still don’t know for sure why some people are attracted to the same sex, but we do know that it is not a choice.
Many, many Christians have opened up in recent years about growing up attracted to the same sex even though they didn’t want to be.
See, for example, the Christian documentary Through My Eyes, about devout young Christians who feel isolated when no one understands what they’re going through:
As the documentary shows, even in the churches, families, and communities that are most opposed to homosexuality, young people still discover that they are attracted to the same same—often with a sense of horror and dread, feeling alone in what they’re going through.
As one young man in the film says about his experience, “I don’t see why people would choose to be ridiculed and stuff, and go through their days getting picked on and made fun of. I don’t know why someone would choose that.”
But if they didn’t choose it, where did these feelings come from?
No one knows for sure, but we know more now than we used to.
(A brief note: In the video above, you’ll notice that many of the young people use the word “gay” to mean “attracted to the same sex.” Some Christians prefer the term “same-sex attracted” instead, while others are strongly opposed to that phrase. For more on this debate, see “Is there a difference between being ‘gay’ and being ‘same-sex attracted’?” For the rest of this article, we will use the word “gay,” but you can mentally substitute “same-sex attracted” if you prefer.)
If it’s not a choice, why are some people gay (attracted to the same sex)?
For many years, a popular theory was that bad parenting or childhood trauma caused children to grow up gay. We now know this isn’t the case. Good parents can raise both gay and straight kids, and bad parents can also raise both gay and straight kids. Having a wonderful childhood doesn’t seem to make you any less likely to be gay as an adult.
Instead, the latest evidence suggests that gay people’s brains are wired differently from birth.
For parents, this means that there’s probably nothing you did to cause your child to be gay. This also means there’s nothing your child did to make this happen.
What we still don’t know is exactly why. In the late 20th century, some scientists believed there might be a “gay gene,” but that no longer looks likely.
Instead, many researchers now believe that our sexual orientation is determined by multiple factors before we are born, including both genetics and hormone levels during the mother’s pregnancy.
In his book Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why, researcher Simon LeVay writes:
Sexual orientation…emerges from the prenatal sexual differentiation of the brain. Whether a person ends up gay, straight, or bisexual depends in large part on how this process of biological differentiation goes forward, the lead actors being genes, sex hormones, and the brain systems that they influence.
So what does this mean?
Even if we don’t know exactly why this happens, we do know that people don’t choose it.
See, for example, Justin Lee’s book Torn. Justin grew up as a Christian, fully devoted to God, coming from a happy childhood with no abuse or trauma. But even though he dated girls and preached against gay people, he eventually had to admit to himself that he had never been attracted to girls, only guys.
He writes, “I had no idea where these feelings came from or why I had them… What I cared about more was finding a way to be rid of it and become straight.”
Many Christians describe having felt this way. But is it really possible to change someone’s orientation? And if not, how does God want Christians like Justin—or like the young people in that video—to live?
