Christians, how do you explain homosexuality to your children?

[fartmeistergeneral]

I presume you think it is 'wrong'? What is it in the Bible? 'God hates that'? (may have got that quote wrong!). Am just interested in how you explain to your children that some people are gay without engendering hate and mistrust?

Am not a christian by the way but was just interested cos my friend is, and by implication so are her children. I overheard one telling my ds1 that John Barrowman is bad, just wondered if he meant Captain Jack is bad or John Barrowman is bad cos of being gay!!!! It just got me thinking.

getorfmoiland- thank you so much for your post, it brought tears to my eyes.

I think your Mum must have been very special and I agree that it is so important to be open and honest with children and that often didnt happen in the 80s.

In Devon too- wow! We are in Hackney, so hardly an oddity. I just worry sometimes as children can be cruel, but am heartened by your resilience.

Yes we have a little boy and we are a very happy family. Grandparents are supportive as well, which is lovely. I am pregnant too!

Thanks again.

Oh, I know what a wishy washy liberal does with them - it's the only thing I've managed to do to stop being consume with self-loathing

Well, if you can keep hold of the idea that God is not asking you to be filled with self-loathing, and work from there, it's a good start

getorfmoiland- thank you so much for your post, it brought tears to my eyes.

I think your Mum must have been very special and I agree that it is so important to be open and honest with children and that often didnt happen in the 80s.

In Devon too- wow! We are in Hackney, so hardly an oddity. I just worry sometimes as children can be cruel, but am heartened by your resilience.

Yes we have a little boy and we are a very happy family. Grandparents are supportive as well, which is lovely. I am pregnant too!

Thanks again.

Gosh, what an interesting thread.

Daftpunk [takes deep breath]: I am a lesbian mother (yes, we can propagate the species!). I don't know where to begin with your assertions. But if you'd like to actually ask some questions, rather than making statements about things you clearly don't understand, I'm happy to help.

sorry about all the posts-dodgy phone!

getorfmoiland- thank you so much for your post, it brought tears to my eyes.

I think your Mum must have been very special and I agree that it is so important to be open and honest with children and that often didnt happen in the 80s.

In Devon too- wow! We are in Hackney, so hardly an oddity. I just worry sometimes as children can be cruel, but am heartened by your resilience.

Yes we have a little boy and we are a very happy family. Grandparents are supportive as well, which is lovely. I am pregnant too!

Thanks again.

So hang on. Someone said a little while ago that some of these laws were thrown out at a certain point after the publication of the bible. So I presume it being OK in God's eyes to be gay was one of the ones that was thrown out along with touching pigs etc? It's just that some churches think it wasn't thrown out? Is that right?

fartmeistergeneral, no. I'll try and explain.

In the oldest scriptures we have, homosexuality was forbidden, along with a whole lot of other stuff that seems pretty trivial now, but was all to do with the national identity of Israel.

Christians call these the Old Testament, or the Hebrew Scriptures.

Once Christ came, Christians began compiling their own additional scriptures, which are termed the New Testament or Greek Scriptures. The teachings within these - teaching of Jesus, Paul, Peter and a few others - explain that the law of the Old Testament had a specific purpose, much of which had been fulfilled by Jesus when He was on earth, and what is more significant in terms of relevance now is the New Testament.

In these newer Scriptures, the focus is much more overtly on our hearts and motivations, and there are long passages on love etc. There are some sections which mention Homosexuality, and they forbid it, but not in the same context as the Old Testament did - the word abomination isn;t used, for example. The key difference is that these references aren't a national legislature, they are moral exhortation.

Now, modern Christians who accept the bible tend to fall into two camps - one explains those passages as referring to something very specific, like prostitution and not meaning homosexual activity in a committed relationship equivalent to heterosexual marriage.

The other sees those passages as referring to the orientation itself, although some make a very clear distinction between desires and behaviour, and they believe it means it is sinful full stop, without qualification.

The thing you have to remember about Christianity is that there has never been a written set of rules which people had to agree to. The beliefs of the church(es) have always been a "work in progress", based partly on what the Bible says, partly on the practices of the early church, partly on how the church has developed and changed over time. Add to that the splits into different denominations, and it becomes very hard to say "all Christians believe X is wrong".

About the only things which all (most?) Christians have in common are the Nicene Creed link here and similarities of the wording of baptism, confirmation, and communion services. None of which gives a set of rules which you have to agree are the correct way to live your life.

The closest thing to a set of rules is the 10 commandments, which Jesus summarised as "Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself"

The 10 Commandments are -

I am the Lord your God: you shall have no other gods but me.
You shall not make for yourself any idol.
You shall not dishonour the name of the Lord your God.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honour your father and mother.
You shall not commit murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not be a false witness.
You shall not covet anything which belongs to your neighbour.

None of which mentions sexual behaviour at all.

So, although there are NT passages which are negative about homosexual acts, and all sex outside of marriage, the way you view the authority of the Bible affects how you think you should approach those passages. A Biblical fundamentalist approach says that every word of the Bible is there because God wanted it to be there, and therefore it has a huge amount of authority over how we should live our lives.

But a liberal Christian approach (of which I'm definitely an example) says that the Bible was written by humans as a response to their relationship with God, and is affected by the history and culture of the people writing it. So, wjhile it is very important, we should not be blindly ruled by it, but treat it as full of examples of what people have done before, and try to take the imporant and relevant parts of their example rather than assuming we must follow it exactly.

just need to answer a few questions before i disappear for the weekend...

1. what would i do if any of my dc told me they were gay?.....i would be dissapointed and try and talk them out of it, i dont think gay people have a brilliant life tbh.

2. why do lesbians scare me?...not sure really, but they do...gay men dont so much. with women i just don't understand them at all, how can they not like men?..it just isn't natural....i can look at a woman and think, she's pretty or whatever..but i would never think anything sexual.

3. re; children being brought up by gay couples...ok, i really am against that, i know the child can be happy etc but it must be very awkward for them...i'm 35, i have met one lesbian in my life, i've never met 2 bringing up children...so it can't be that common.

i know i'm ignorant and blinkered..i'd admit that before anyone...but i think most people would admit that the best place for children isn't with a gay couple.....and of course most homosexuals have come from male/female parents...statistically gay parents probably account for 1% of families.

If my child announced they were gay I wouldn't be worried at all.

However, if they announced they were going to become a Catholic I would feel I had completely failed as a parent - I would be disappointed and try and talk them out of it, I don't think Catholics have a brilliant life to be honest.

And if they announced they were ignorant and blinkered and really didn't seem to think that was a problem, well . . . words fail me.

Er, sorry, unless you live in a box you've met more than one lesbian in 35 years.

Has it crossed your mind that you might not be the sort of person with whom people burst to share the details of their lives?

Okay, I realise that most modern christians have scrapped the Old Testament and it does get you out of the requirement to stone gay people, but that's the bit that tells you god created the world and man, explains the original sin, has the flood etc. Is all that scrapped too or is this scrapping selective?

There are probably some other vital bits in the OT too. If you just have the NT then you mostly have a story about a preacher who said/implied he was the son of god and got executed. Then it was rumored he came back briefly, said he'd be returning and hasn't been seen in 2000 years. It's a bit thin on it's own is what I'm saying.

We don't throw out the Old Testament, we respect it as an important record of humanity's relationship with God over time. But that doesn't mean we have to do things the same way as they believed they had to at that time and place.

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Dear Fartmeistergeneral (cool name)
I have been following this thread and I was just reading your post again, and i thought perhaps you could say to your friend about some of the lesbian and gay christian websites e.g. www.lgcm.org.uk.

Charliegal - I am really pleased that you found my post helpful. Good luck in your pregnancy and hope your little boy is excited about a brother/sister coming along !

Daft Punk - obvioulsy you won't change your mind but I think it is a little sad that your views are so entrenched. You do not have any personal experience of viewing at close hand a child being brought up by gay parents, so how can you be so firm in your belief that it is wrong? I think it is very sad that you dismiss gay parents as wrong, and the children of those relationships as 'awkward'. I'm not awkward, my mum wasn't wrong, and the gay mums and their children on this thread aren't wrong or awkward either.