Despite the potentially inflammatory title, this blog is not intended to be incredibly controversial. It is personal. I am not speaking for my employer, my denomination, or even my Christian faith in particular. I am speaking as a man who works daily with young adults struggling with their sexual identity in a world that is not making it any easier for them to do so. I am speaking as a member of humanity who wants to point out an important observation; with all the attention that has been put on peoples’ “rights” to choose their marriage partner, their sexual identity, and their personal ethics of sexuality, I am finding a subtle, and not so subtle, pressure on young adults to bend to particular political and social agendas regardless of their personal convictions. What I am saying is that our culture has so emphasized the need for people with same-sex attraction to be treated fairly and with equality that they have made it increasingly difficult for people who want to change to do so without fear of marginalization. To put it another way, many young adults feel that if they find themselves attracted to the same sex that they should feel guilty if they don’t want to embrace that attraction.  Many are asking, “what about my rights to choose NOT to be gay?” Inasmuch as our society wants to raise the issue of homosexuality to a civil right on par with issues of gender and race, many young adults are wondering if their freedom to choose their sexuality is really on the table at all, or if the push for most of them is to simply embrace whatever desires they currently have, regardless of whether or not they agree with them, want them, or believe they are wrong, sinful, or unnatural. Where are the rights for those who don’t want their same-sex attraction?

Yesterday, a courageous young woman from our community stepped boldly to the podium of our chapel and shared her personal story of struggle with same sex attraction, and her long road to freedom. And, sadly, I couldn’t help but wonder the whole time whether ours was a culture in which it is becoming increasingly more risky to publicly declare that you have chosen to be straight rather than gay, instead of the other way around.

I am not particularly interested in debating same-sex marriage; there are plenty of other blogs you could read if you are looking for a good fight in that arena. But I am interested in engaging with people who want to suggest that the only rights worth fighting for are THEIR rights. If the right to choose your sexual partner is a right our country wants to defend (again, regardless of whether I agree or don’t agree) then I am willing to stand for equality on the issue for those who still believe that sexuality is a choice and are desperately searching for freedom from desires they didn’t ask for, and no longer want. I am also willing to be a public voice that encourages those, even if they are a small minority, searching for the courage to change and looking for a friend to travel the road with them so they don’t need to go it alone. My hope is that the true Church can be the kind of community that you are praying you will find.  

I am not going to talk about politics today. I think the nation could use a little detox. Instead, I do want to talk about the leaves outside my office window. Fall is, without any shred of doubt, my favorite season. And I have had the amazing privilege of living in four entirely different states whose hillsides each come alive with blazon color when the nights of October come quicker and colder. In New Hampshire, Oregon, Western North Carolina, and now, North Georgia, fall comes every year like a best friend visiting from a distant country. We have not talked much throughout the year, but we are so comfortable with each other that the conversation can simply pick up where it left off as if no time or distance has ever passed. Fall causes me to become contemplative. I slow down. While summer fans adventure, activity and long nights that extend well past bedtime, fall ushers in a season of quiet for me. When I get the first glimpse of color something almost spiritual ignites within me and I feel as if most days I long to be walking, intentionally slow, along a path in the woods with no destination in mind, and no clock to obey. But I also love fall because it is a reminder to me that time is not standing still and that change is possible. There have been seasons of my own life that have felt quite endless. Struggles, fights, battles and wars that appear to have no end in sight; wounds that feel as they will never heal; addictions that look like they will never shake free; attitudes that haven’t shifted in months; bitterness that is only getting more bitter; depression that is only getting darker, and a loneliness becoming increasingly lonely. Then I find one morning that as I peer across the steam lifting off my mug of coffee that out the back window I can see the faintest hint of orange, or yellow or crimson red gathering around the edge of a tree on the boundary of the property. That night as I sit on the back porch I recognize that it is darker at this hour than it was the night before. Maybe later in that same week my wife suggests we turn the heat on. My kids spend the weekend sorting through boxes in storage to look for their favorite sweatshirt that has been packed away for the summer. Windows spend more time closed. And soon, very soon, I will see my breath in the air as I drive to work amidst a dazzling display of forests on fire with color that stands even more brilliant against the crystal blue sky hovering overhead. Fall is the glorious and gracious annual reminder for us that you will not always be who you are today, that this too shall pass, and “that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Phil. 1:6). In you…in me…in our country…in our world. Amen.