I would propose that some Christians think that gays are trying to convert them because they feel attracted to people of the same gender. If you have no sexual attraction to people of the same sex, then the idea that you could ever be converted to being gay is going to seem ridiculous. I’m straight; I’m simply uninterested in being people with male bodies or male genitalia. On the other hand, if I was bisexual–or simply gay–and believed that homosexuality was sinful, then I might feel like depictions of homosexual people in media was an attempt to change who I “am”.
As someone who was raised in the church I think this completely misses their perspective.
They believe that God is completely fair and just, and wouldn’t make someone in a way that was contrary to how he wants people to be. So it’s impossible for being LGBT to be something innate and unchangeable, since that would require God created people specifically in a way that he says is wrong.
So instead they go with “it’s a choice, they were ‘converted’ and it’s possible for them to mess up everyone else too.” It’s just to stave off cognitive dissonance, essentially. You can’t believe in a God that says being gay is sinful and then creates people to be gay, so you have to believe it’s like alcoholism or something and can affect anyone.
There’s no logic behind it and clearly no scientific data, but that won’t stop them because they arrived at the conclusion based purely on it being the only thing they can believe and not change the way they understand the nature of their God claim.
They believe that God is completely fair and just, and wouldn’t make someone in a way that was contrary to how he wants people to be.
This simply can’t be supported though. Christians tend to be gender essentialists, but there are a wide range of genetic defects where people appear to conform to one gender while not having a genetic makeup that conforms to the assigned gender, e.g., androgen insensitivity syndrome. So if people are made exactly how god intends them to be, and sex is an essential part of that, how can people exist that do not genetically conform to their assigned gender, or any binary gender? You can’t say that god doesn’t make mistakes and say that sex must be binary, when genetic errors prove that at least one of those propositions must be false.
You could say the same thing about psychopaths, since they believe that everyone has the ability to understand that they’re sinful, etc.
That’s why I said there’s no real logic, it’s all just cherry picking the parts they want to believe and ignoring the real world aspects that don’t conform to their presuppositions.
I would propose that some Christians think that gays are trying to convert them because they feel attracted to people of the same gender. If you have no sexual attraction to people of the same sex, then the idea that you could ever be converted to being gay is going to seem ridiculous. I’m straight; I’m simply uninterested in being people with male bodies or male genitalia. On the other hand, if I was bisexual–or simply gay–and believed that homosexuality was sinful, then I might feel like depictions of homosexual people in media was an attempt to change who I “am”.
As someone who was raised in the church I think this completely misses their perspective.
They believe that God is completely fair and just, and wouldn’t make someone in a way that was contrary to how he wants people to be. So it’s impossible for being LGBT to be something innate and unchangeable, since that would require God created people specifically in a way that he says is wrong.
So instead they go with “it’s a choice, they were ‘converted’ and it’s possible for them to mess up everyone else too.” It’s just to stave off cognitive dissonance, essentially. You can’t believe in a God that says being gay is sinful and then creates people to be gay, so you have to believe it’s like alcoholism or something and can affect anyone.
There’s no logic behind it and clearly no scientific data, but that won’t stop them because they arrived at the conclusion based purely on it being the only thing they can believe and not change the way they understand the nature of their God claim.
This simply can’t be supported though. Christians tend to be gender essentialists, but there are a wide range of genetic defects where people appear to conform to one gender while not having a genetic makeup that conforms to the assigned gender, e.g., androgen insensitivity syndrome. So if people are made exactly how god intends them to be, and sex is an essential part of that, how can people exist that do not genetically conform to their assigned gender, or any binary gender? You can’t say that god doesn’t make mistakes and say that sex must be binary, when genetic errors prove that at least one of those propositions must be false.
You could say the same thing about psychopaths, since they believe that everyone has the ability to understand that they’re sinful, etc.
That’s why I said there’s no real logic, it’s all just cherry picking the parts they want to believe and ignoring the real world aspects that don’t conform to their presuppositions.