Question: In the feature article of your Sept. ’03 newsletter you wrote: “‘Gays’ have managed to be categorized as a persecuted minority even though their ‘difference’ is by choice, not by birth. They have adopted this aberrant behavior voluntarily and now claim it as a badge of special privilege” (emphasis mine). In an otherwise extremely well written piece, this is where I believe you have erred. The vast amount of male homosexuals never “voluntarily chose” to become homosexuals. (Lesbianism is an entirely different issue.) Nor is it genetically encoded. Evidently, something happens in the early stages of the child’s development—long before a “conscious choice”....I work in an industry that is replete with homosexuals, and I have had long and candid conversations with some who have become my friends....I hope you will give the enclosed article by Prager a careful perusal.
Answer: Thank you for your letter and the enclosed articles by Dennis Prager. I respect his intelligence and careful reasoning and read what he said with interest. You fault me for saying that homosexuality is a choice, and you say that Prager refutes this. In fact, he does not refute what I said, but supports it.
Prager states that very few homosexuals have not had sex with women and that the vast majority have unquestionably chosen their lifestyle for one reason or another. He suggests that there is a very small percentage for whom this may not be true, but the full explanation for their homosexuality remains uncertain.
Your statement that homosexuals are created in God’s image is of no more validity to your argument than to say that criminals were created in God’s image. In fact, Adam is the only one created in God’s image, and that image has long been distorted by human rebellion and the effects of sin long practiced to the extent that it is hardly recognizable (Gn 1:27; 5:3).
But even if we accept your statement fully, what does it mean? Surely you are not implying that homosexuality is part of “God’s image” in which man was made! Couldn’t a shoplifter say that he or she is made in God’s image and has no choice because the urge to do so is too strong to resist, began at an early age, and has a name: kleptomania?
You express not only sympathy but an apparent acceptance of the very perversion that the Bible condemns in the strongest language, with no excuses allowed. Even Prager admits this and points to biblical condemnation (in contrast to widespread historic homosexuality in all cultures except among Jews) as one proof that God inspired the Old Testament.
We have two choices: to “accept” homosexuals as “normal” (which Prager, in agreement with the Bible, rejects), or to try to rescue all from this way of life. I think you would agree with me upon the latter course of action.