Is It A Sin To Be Same Sex Attracted, Or Is It Only Sin To Act Upon Those Desires?

Q: I know that homosexual sex is a sin. But is it a sin to be gay/same sex attracted?

A: Well, sinful attractions are themselves sin. It’s not good or right or even morally neutral for me to be attracted to a depraved act.

There is a significant difference between the attraction and the fulfillment of that attraction. Absolutely. It’s fine to make that distinction and keep that distinction. But there are some Christians who are so foolish that they promote the idea that it’s fine for Christians to celebrate these attractions, to indulge them on some level, and to call them wonderful, beautiful things when they’re not. In reality, they should be suppressed. They’re part of the sinful nature in a person that needs to be put to death through faith in Christ. It’s probably true of nearly every adult human being has sinful attractions related to their sexuality. Each person must die to their sinful desires, whether they be expressed heterosexually or homosexually. Those things just need to be recognized and crucified with Christ.

These attractions themselves are not morally neutral. Some people want to try to blur the line by noting the legitimate distinction between a temptation and yielding to the temptation. But if I accept and celebrate and entertain a temptation, that’s still a way of giving into it. Now it might be admittedly a minor way of giving into it, but it is nevertheless still yielding to that temptation in some way.

There is a movement in the evangelical church to accept what is known as “Side B” sexuality. “Side A” would be a full acceptance of homosexuality. They would say there’s nothing wrong with it. Side B would say that you can’t engage in the act of homosexual sex, but you can identify and be quite at peace with the idea that “I’m same sex attracted and there’s nothing wrong with the same sex attraction itself. I’ll never act it out. I’ll never engage in any kind of homosexual behavior, but it’s okay for me. I am a gay Christian.”

My response to Side B Christianity is that it’s just wrong. There is something wrong with an attraction to someone of your own sex. It is a sinful desire, and sinful desires should be crucified with Christ. They should be laid down at the cross. They certainly should not be celebrated. They certainly should not be nourished or cherished in any way. They should be regarded as something to battle against in the Christian life.

There may be some Christians who have mistakenly promoted Side B Christianity out of a misguided sense of compassion. I can’t speak to people’s motives. I can just speak to the actual effect of it. The effect is something that’s very damaging for Christians who should be following Jesus Christ in obedience and honoring Him with their lives.

Here’s an illustration. Is it okay for a married heterosexual man to lust for a woman other than his wife? No, that’s sin. There’s no way around it. He doesn’t have to fulfill that action in order for it to be sin. Nourishing and cherishing the desire for it is sin. That would be sort of a Side B heterosexuality. By analogy, the same thing is true with homosexual desires. For a person to say, “It’s okay, I celebrate it, and I accept that I am a gay Christian or a same sex attracted Christian” would be like saying, “I celebrate that I’m a heterosexual lustful Christian.” It’s the same thing. It’s a disordered desire.

We find ourselves in a weird philosophical environment for the last 50 or 100 years. It used to be understood that homosexuality was something that you did. But now it’s widely preached in the culture that homosexuality is something you are. It’s not just something you do. Because of this new cultural understanding, a person who is steeped in that environment will hear us say, “Homosexuality is sinful, and even the desire is sinful,” and will likely view it as a repudiation of the whole person.

We’re trying to destroy them. We’re trying to erase them. They need to realize the truth that they are a person made in the image of God who is more than their sexual desires.

It’s actually dehumanizing to identify your being primarily through your sexual desire. You have a higher level of existence given by God than being a slave to your sexual desires. Everybody needs to be free from that false idea and realize that it’s wrong to define who you are as a person by your sexual desires. This ideology is so steeped in us by the culture that it’s hard for people to think otherwise.