If homosexuality is a sin, then it must be a choice and it must be reversible. But is it?

I don't think being homosexual is a sin. Homosexual acts are sinful. I have no idea why people are homosexual if acting on it is sinful any more than I understand why heterosexual encounters outside of marriage is a drive which is sinful until marriage.

There are many heterosexual people who do without sex because they don't have a suitable relationship in which to have sex.

Actually, the psychology and sociology courses I've taken haven't concluded that it is nature or nurture, but that the jury is still out on that one.

Even if it is nurture, people don't choose how they were nurtured....

I don't envy those with homosexual drives. It is something that is difficult for me to understand. I leave it between them and God, but I could not - in good conscience - encourage homosexual acts any more than I could encourage any premarital sex.

1) Sin doesn't exist, in my opinion. But I'm not Christian. 2) Sexuality is a major part of who a person is. Being religious or nonreligious is a choice that changes periodically throughout life. I put sexuality above belief because one has far more influence on life than the other, and one is more natural than the other. So, the statements that sacred texts make on sexuality have little to no meaning to me. 3) It is my belief that most homosexuals are born gay. As I'm agnostic, I have a very specific definition of what God is if God exists. So, if God exists, then God made everyone the way they are. If God does not exist, then I believe scientists will find that sexuality is wired into our genes. My personal and unscientific evidence is that every homosexual I know has at least one other relative who is gay. 4) SOMETIMES, homosexuality is a choice. I do know of one woman who chose to be a lesbian for a while, then she chose to be straight. I think she was going through a phase in life, and she did it out of curiosity and the need to get attention from someone. These people are usually poseurs. 5) The incentive of being gay is not having to deal with getting pregnant! Gay people also have a community that embraces them with open arms, and they are gaining more and more protection from the government. (All good things in my opinion.)

Just today i came across this perspective of homosexuality as a choice of the soul very early after or at the Fall// So not really a choice of behavior the way you talk about, but a choice in an earlier incarnation//

Wanted to share it here though it is not neccesarily my view.. In the past i have enjoyed some things of this site though..

http://www.askrealjesus.com/L_CURRENTAFFAIRS/HOMOS...

In there there is a cause of homosexuality link//

It basically says we all are lost souls trying to make our way home... I invite you to go to the site if u are interested, there are many pages on homosexuality...

A passage:

"It is a sad fact that millions of Christians have the same imbalances between the male and female aspects of their souls as many who are openly homosexual. Many of these Christians have simply suppressed the imbalances or gone into a state of denial about them. I see so many Christian men who vehemently condemn homosexuality, yet have not recognized their own hatred of women that causes them to suppress or even abuse their own wives. These people feel that because they lead an outwardly Christian life, they are not sinning. Yet the truth is that they have the same imbalance as many of the people they condemn"

My personal view is i like gays and dislike the ones that are prejudiced (there is a lot about prejudice on the site as well, but i gues u r supposed to pray for those that are prejudiced...)

This was just to give you another perspective than the answers already there,,//

Love

The latest psychology hypothesis regarding sexual preference that I'm aware of, is that homosexuality is not a preference: translated, it is not a choice.

Whether it is totally determined by genes, is still debatable. Some think that the cause may partially occur during gestation.

The only choice involved, seems to be whether to practice it or not; if it is ones orientation.

There are some people who live their entire lifes as virgins. I'm not suggesting that this should be the only socially approved way to resolve such a conflict: but it is possible.

Alberich

Homosexuality in not a sin, but gay lifestyle and acting out on your homosexual lust ) IS.

no one choose to be Blind or deaf or schizophrenic or bipolar.. but they cope with their situation and live and submit to the community norms.

pedophiliacs didn't choose to be like that, but can anyone say they didn't choose that and so pedophilia is not sin!!

in Christianity everyone was given a test or burden or cross in life, so if yours is Homosexuality then you try your best to not act out (if you do, you repent, and God forgives, no matter how many times, but as long as you really have the desire not to sin, God knows we are weak).

I believe homosexuality is a developemental defect during early childhood, related basically to disturbed relation with the male figure at that age (usuallt the father) either by missing his presence or by a traumatic relationship, but also each child has different perception of his father, so not everyone will be homosexual in similar circumstances (not everyone will become criminal if in need, not everyone will get the flu if exposed to it, not everyone will abuse alcohlol in comes from alcoholic family....)

by saying homosexuality in normal and forcing the gay lifestyle as natural and must (I am not judging anyone here, it is a personal choice), we abandon a lot of omosexuals out there who are distressed with their homosexuality and seeking help.

we may not cure homosexuality ( as many other psychological or behavioral or even medical conditions) but we can help to change the pattern by cognitive and behavioral therapy and support.

Look, this people just want an excuse to justify their homophobic behaviour. If it wasn´t religion it would be "bcuz they spread Aids" or some other rather retarded accusation.

They don´t take their beliefs from the bible, they use the bible to justify their beliefs: have you ever seen a manifestation agaist McDonalds led by a church? Isn´t gluttony a sin?

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, "Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags." Proverbs 28:7 declares, "He who keeps the law is a discerning son, but a companion of gluttons disgraces his father." Proverbs 23:2 proclaims, "put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony."

Isn´t being rich a sin? Aren´t all sins hated by god in the same way?

Then why when it concerns them they are so ready to interpret the bible methaphorically?

Fifty years from now they´ll be seen as we look at the white segregatonists.

Homosexulality isn't a choice. I know enough gay people to know that. My cousin has been lesbian ever since she can remember. When she was five years old, she would pitch a fit if anyone told her she was a pretty little girl. She'd always give them the same response, "I'm not a girl, I'm a boy!" Does anyone want to tell me that at five years old, she knew enough about her sexuality to choose to be lesbian? It had nothing to do with the way she was raised. Her parents always discouraged her dressing and acting like a boy, always told her "No honey, you can't like other little girls," and always wondered to themselves where they went wrong. She was not sexually abused as a child, nor did anything else happen that would "point" her in the direction of homosexuality. So can anyone here honestly tell me that she chose to be the way she is? I've heard this one a lot too, "I don't know why anyone would choose to be gay. It's so un-natural." One girl in my JROTC class said that to me, so I asked her if she believed her attraction to men was natural. She said yes. Next, I asked her if she believed she was born sraight. She said yes again. My question to those reponses is, why is it that you can be born straight, but you have to choose to be gay? How can you choose one sexuality, but not the other? When someone comes up with an answer to it without spouting off with verses from the Bible, e-mail me. And trust me, if you send me something with any reference to the Bible as your proof, I'll laugh at you. I'm Wiccan, and therefore do not believe in what the Bible teaches, so if you wish to try and refute my argument give me something I'll actually believe.

The fact that homosexuallity is punished by death in (for example) some Muslim countries and that any given year there are homosexual murdered by executions could tell you that it's defenitly not a choice.

Simon LeVay observed some deviations between the brain of straight and gay males. But that's still under debated to its exact meaning.

The men who wrote the Bible thought homosexuality was wrong and therefore made it a 'sin'. Those who still find it to be 'wrong' use the Bible as a weapon against gay people.

It is not a choice and it can not (and does not need to be) be 'cured'.

Homosexuals can't 'choose' to be straight any more than I could choose to prefer women.

Would it matter to the fundagelicals if homosexuality was genetically predetermined?

They'd insist on one or more of the following:

- that gays and lesbians HAD to be celibate

- that gays and lesbians were not "fit" to live with "normal" society

- that gays and lesbians had to submit to genetic therapy to "reorient" to "normal" heterosexuality.

For the fundagelical haters, the Bible is nothing more than a convenient excuse for them to *demand* that everybody else change to a lifestyle with which the fundagelicals feel comfortable, e.g., middle class, Republican, fundagelical heterosexuality -- and anybody else (liberals, Democrats, socialists, gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, the French, Middle Easterners) be *damned*.