Posted on 12/01/2004 10:29:18 AM PST by presidio9
My sympathies and prayers are with you. Your story is very similar to that of my now-deceased best friend. We were extremely close most of our lives. He moved to North Carolina and even briefly married another girl we both went to school with. They had a daughter, Rianne. They struggled to make ends meet but seemed happy.
Something happened down there...suddenly he left his wife and was making big bucks as a real estate broker, a job he was not qualified for. He abruptly moved to Oregon and loved it there...he could really wax poetic about Oregon. Now Oregon IS a lovely state, but it's the state where he came "out of the closet", so he and I weren't seeing the same "scenery" when we were looking at Oregon. He stopped talking about his beautiful little girl, too...I didn't push him, figuring the divorce was still too sensitive a subject.
A year later he was HIV positive. He moved back to North Carolina with his equally HIV positive male partner. 3 years later he was dead. His mother and father went through hell. None of us have ever been able to forgive him for the selfishness and STUPIDITY that cut his life so short.
As a side note, so as not to get off the topic of the thread, he was NOT bullied.
LOL!
I am so sorry. you are in our prayers. This story and other friends who have been caught up in this lifestyle is what makes me so passionate.
Not to minimize your pain, but G-d often doesn't talk to us about why. He talks to us about our choices given the reality that we face. Why did the Jews face the Holocaust? G-d may never say. But He was very clear on what He expected His people to do about it, and thanks be to Him good Christians and Jews did what they could to help out those who would be doomed - often at the risk of their own lives.
I must admit that sometimes it frustrates the h - er - pants off me. But the Bible is much more clear on how we are to behave than it is on why things are the way they are. Job cried out, "Why?" and G-d replied, "Who is it that darkens my door without knowledge?"
Why do some men want to kill others? It's not about the why, it's about the commandment: "Thou shalt do no murder."
Why do some men want to sleep with other men? It's not about the why, it's about the statement, "For a man to lie with a man as with a woman is an abomination."
Why has G-d allowed men to be born in a fallen state for well over 6,000 years when He could just create the new Heaven and new earth today and be done with it? Why did He choose to allow His own Son to die to redeem us rather than simply casting us into the pit as we deserve?
He doesn't say why. He just says, "Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest."
Shalom.
Everyone is individual, like snowflakes. We each have our particular failures and weaknesses, and strengths.
There are many ways to look at it; those who have been forgiven much (and repented much first!) often love much.
I'm no expert on original sin but, That's what it is. "Where do evil desires come from," is the wrong question. Our desires are inherently evil, selfish, etc. It is the heart (the desirer) which must change or, more precisely, be exchanged. After salvation, the flesh still tries to decieve the spirit...and so on.
Good Answer (you type too fast:)
The only thing I would disagree with you on is that I believe that homosexuality is an emotional disorder, not a mental disorder.
Most of the people I know who are homosexual tend to very intelligent (i.e. there is nothing wrong with their mental capacity). It's just their emotions that are screwed up (no pun intended).
From my anecdotal observation, homosexual males tended not to have had their father (or a close male role model to emulate) living with them or participating in their daily lives, leaving their mother to become their person to emulate and pick up their traits---hene, the effeminate personality and mannerisms.
By the same token, I have noticed from anecdotal observation, that homosexual females tended not to have their mother (or a close female role model to emulate) living with them or participating in their daily lives, leaving their father to become their person to emulate and pick up their traits---hence, the "butch" personality and mannerisms.
Since your personality is basically developed from 0 to 5 years, the person would not remember ever feeling/acting anything other than the way they have learned from example. They would tend to believe they were "born that way" even though it was a learned behaviour.
My point is that it is my anecdotal opinion that those who grew up without the benefit of a same-sex role model from early life, didn't choose to be homosexual, but they were not "born that way."
Also, it is not what a homosexual person does in their bedroom that is the problem. Indeed, if they never told us, we would never really know! It is the behaviour they choose to exhibit in public that is the problem.
There was a kid like that in my elementary school classes. Big fella, kind of pudgy, effeminate and not very attractive. He became a priest. :-/
Sorry to hear about your son. We do have former homosexuals on the FR forum - perhaps they'll offer some help. I now have a note on my computer to pray for you, your wife and your son.
Do not lose all hope. If it was caught early enough, he may be able to kill off the virius with the new drug cocktails and lifestyle and diet change.
It seemed to work with Magic Johnson.
When I was in high school, I knew a young man who was always getting picked on, shoved into lockers and occasionally getting beaten up by a group of bigger guys. My older brother was one of them. The little guy would never back down, no matter what they were doing to him. He had an admirable amount of spunk, he did.
I never knew WHY they singled him out...sure he was very short, about 5 feet 4 in the 10th grade, but he was spunky, raced dirt bikes and odysseys and was even a fair basketball player - better than my brother's friend John, the ringleader, so maybe that was the problem.
Anyhow, this little guy shot up a foot in one year. When he returned to school for 11th grade, his first act was to find John's homeroom, walk in and knock John butt over teacup across the teachers desk. He told John that was for the last 11 years.
Oddly, despite all physical and mental grief he suffered over the years, he never got to the point of being emasculated...not even when that accident left him comatose, paralyzed from the waist down and with one testicle that had to be surgically removed from it's new resting place in his abdominal cavity, but I digress.
Anyhow, he never fell for gay propaganda, and he went to the same school as my deceased best friend. In fact, years later I married him (the formerly short guy, now 6', 8" tall, not the deceased best friend)
Most people with AIDS in the world, and in countries outside the U.S., are straight. Within the U.S. it's more of a homosexual/drug-user disease. The proportion of AIDS victims in places like South Africa is far higher than it is in the U.S.
logging out
Right!
:)
I know what you mean.
You might want to read up on the cultures of some of the African tribes with the highest proportion of HIV in the straight population. The majority of the straight victims are women, who are also victims of certain cultural practices which involve homosexual behavior.
In either case, it is recreational sex with multiple sex partners where at some point at lease ONE person in the mix had homosexual sex.
Outstanding commentary, ArGee!
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