This week it became illegal in California for mental health professionals to counsel young people that same-sex attraction is wrong (The News Tribune, October 2, 2012, A5). Signing the new law, Governor Jerry Brown called counseling challenging a young person’s homosexuality “quackery”—this from a man whose nickname has been “Moonbeam” for 30 years.
How far we have fallen! Prior to 1973, the American Psychiatric Association’s “bible” (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) recognized and labeled homosexuality a mental health disorder. Homosexuality once was a word that described what one did; but now it has become a word that describes who one is. It evolved from sodomy (the Bible calling it a sinful act) to “sexual preference” to “sexual orientation”—implying one has no choice in the matter (“This is who I am”). By doing so, they invented a third gender; male, female, and homosexual. But God said He created only two: “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). So trace the etymology; homosexuality went from being a sinful act, to a disorder, to a choice, to who I am. And when we get to this latest evolution, “who I am” has rights—it’s illegal to counsel youth with Biblical truth.
I guess we are to ignore the fact that First Amendment rights are being stomped on. I guess we are to look the other way that equal protection rights of individuals to give and receive information matching one’s personal, religious, and professional beliefs are being ignored, as well. But what is even more glaring and galling is man’s arrogance in all of this.
In Genesis 19, God’s two angels arrive in Sodom to warn Lot of the city’s impending doom. Lot houses them as his guests. The men of the city surround the house and demand: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Lot stops them. The Sodomites aren’t happy, they say of him: “[Lot] wants to play the judge” (v. 9). Actually, it was they who wanted to play the judge; ignoring God’s natural law and His command regarding marriage and sexuality: “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24)—there is nothing in there about two men or two women becoming one flesh; it is spiritually and physiologically impossible.
The California governor, however, signed a bill making it illegal to communicate biblical truth to youth; the governor saying such counsel has “no basis in science or medicine.” The Apostle Paul asks: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age?” (1 Corinthians 1:20). Sadly, men’s hands have been going up all over the world for centuries, “I’m right here.” The Corinthian verse doesn’t think so. It continues: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20). He sure has. The guy in the governor’s chair in Sacramento just proved it again.
Pastor Rich Hamlin October 4, 2012