Governor Richardson and Melissa Etheridge-Missing the Mark (But Melissa's Closer)

“Do you think homosexuality is a choice or is it biological?” That’s the question Melissa Etheridge asked Governor Bill Richardson the other night as Democrat Presidential candidates met to debate the issue of homosexuality.

I came across the issue on Hot Air,(see video here) and while listening to the Phil Hendrie show while driving home in the wee hours this morning. I’ve read and listened to numerous discussions on the issue, and I’ve not heard anybody address the issue with any truth or compassion. On the truth side of things, Melissa Etheridge is closer, but still ends up missing the mark significantly.

When asking the question of Governor Richardson, Melissa said, “Your Creator made you that way…and there’s a document that was written 200 years ago that says you are entitled to certain rights.”

Melissa’s right. Our Creator did make us a certain way. Furthermore, there’s a document written 2000 years ago that speaks not only to our rights, but to our sin and brokenness as well.

The Creator made the world a certain way. We were made to be satisfied completely in God. But Sin entered the world, and we decided to go our own way, apart from the way we were created.

As part of the brokenness, much of our wiring is haywire since birth. More than likely there are pre-dispositions towards same-sex attraction, or alcoholism, or over-eating. That coupled with all of our experiences in childhood cause us to think and feel that this is how we were created, or meant to be.

Say I have big hurts (though I may not be cognizant of them) that I need fixed. So I run to sexual experiences; pornography or one-night stands (or a million other bad behaviors). All of my experiences, plus my brokenness, and hurt, is so bad that I feel a strong bent that way. Try as I might to do anything else, something akin to powerful locomotive power is pulling into whatever my particular bent is.

So when Melissa Etheridge says, ‘Do you think a homosexual is born that way or do you think that around 7th grade we go, oooh, I want to be gay?’, she’s obviously referring to the pull of that train; that for all she can tell all of her ‘being’ is being pulled into homosexuality. But that is not her true self being pulled, it’s the bent of her broken self.

Her true self was created to be satisfied in God. And it is as we fight for, and joyfully delight in, our true selves that we fully see the emptiness and darkness that we gave way to in living in our false self. But seeing our brokenness and bent for what it is requires that we go to our Creator for healing, and not try to fix ourselves by ourselves…..as that’s part of how we continue to be broken in the first place.