Faith/Spirituality Forum: gays going to heaven
gays going to heaven QUESTION from Ernie on December 29, 2001 I have been told by a nondenominational preacher that you can not be born gay because god does not make abominations. Also that gays made a choice to be gay and they can not enter the kingdom as a gay. Could you please shed some light on this statements for me I personaly do not belive what he is saying.
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on March 11, 2002 Dear Mr. Ernie:
The preacher is wrong.
First off, people are born with all kinds of birth defects. God does not make birth defects either.
Birth defects and other genetic problems are a result of mankind's sin.
Ad far as whether homosexuals are born that way, we do not no for certain. From my personal experience with homoseuxals (I use to live with and be around homosexuals and their community) there seems to be three possibilities:
1) Indeed, many homosexuals if not most have psychological histories going back to childhood that may account for their inclinations.
2) Others homosexuals purposely and consciously decide to be so for political or ideological reasons. I personally know a few in that category. 3) Other homoseuxals do not become homosexual until adulthood and had no inclinations in children may become homosexual after an adult trauma such as rape or domestic violence. Most often these vulnerable individuals are recruited.
4) Some homosexuals are this way by choice of hedonistic desires and lifestyle. They may be addicted to sex of any kind, or choose to live a reprobate lifestyle and most often are bi-sexual.
In any event, regardless of why they are what they are, homosexuals may go to heaven. As it is with all of us, our eternal destiny is determined by the state of our soul at death.
Being a homosexual is not a sin. But homosexual sex is a sin.
There Catechism says this:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, 141 tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. 142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
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By the way, the term gay means joyous not homosexual.
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