The Pink Swastika authors, Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, would have us believe that homosexuality was the driving force behind the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich. Near the beginning of chapter three of The Pink Swastika, “The Homosexual Roots of Fascism,” Lively and Abrams state this thesis:

In seeking the roots of fascism we once again find a high correlation between homosexuality and a mode of thinking which we identify with Nazism.

The chapter then traces the roots of German fascism from Plato, through Frederick the Great, and Friedrich Nietzsche - all gay by the author’s reckoning. My point is not to contest this even though one could. For instance, historians and philosophers are divided about Nietzsche’s sexuality, although few think he was a homosexual. However, my point here is to propose a problem for the thesis that homosexuality and fascism have a necessary causal link of some kind.

In chapter three, Lively and Abrams guess at the sexuality of many Nazi and related people but with the following figure - Thomas Mann - they are probably accurate in their assessment. About Mann, they write:

Thomas Mann’s identification with Nietzsche may also have had some thing to do with the latter’s homosexuality. Among other works, Mann is famous for a 1912 novella called Der Tod in Venedig (“Death in Venice”), in which “an aging writer risks life and reputation in his attempts to gaze on the Apollonian beauty of the 14-year-old Tadzio” (Reiter in Grolier). Homosexualist historian A.L. Rowse called this novella “the most publicized homosexual story of the century” (Rowse:212). A recently published biography, Thomas Mann: A Life, by Donald Prater, establishes the novelist’s homosexuality. A review of this book in The San Francisco Examiner (December 23, 1995) states that the book is based in part on Mann’s private diaries, which reveal a “secret homoerotic life.”

Mann was married and had six children for whom he was “a remote and some times terrifying figure.” The article reveals that two of these children, Klaus and Michael, committed suicide. Two of his children became homosexuals (Rowse:212). Mann confesses in his diary that the character Tadzio, the 14-year-old boy in “A Death in Venice,” was actually modeled after a boy on whom Mann “developed a crush while holidaying in Venice.”

Now just as the uninformed reader might think that Lively and Abrams are about to suggest Mann’s positive relationship with Hitler and fascism, the authors write:

We must be clear, however, that Mann’s contribution to Nazism, his role in popularizing Nietzsche, was unintended. Mann was personally anti-Nazi, and was persona non grata with Hitler’s government.

Lively and Abrams vastly understate the case. Mann was openly anti-Nazi and while influenced as a writer by Nietzsche, did not come to the same political or personal conclusions. On the contrary, Mann actively opposed Hitler. He used his considerable popularity with the German people in a series of radio broadcasts designed to cause common Germans to question and oppose the regime. Here is an excerpt of one of Mann’s speeches to the German people, broadcast in July, 1942:

I know well that I don’t have to warn you against exuberance now that Hitler is once again winning and has conquered Rostov, the city on the Don, which he had conquered once before. It is well known that such things do not plunge you into exuberance, that the blare of radio trumpets which accompanies the announcement is odious to you, that you are by no means overjoyed. It is not necessary to dampen your enthusiasm; rather, you have to be consoled. Not we, out here, are in need of consolation when the war looks as it does at present. If you only knew how sure we are of our cause, which to begin with, and as premise for all that is to come, is the cause of destroying Hitler! His destruction is sealed, believe me and don’t be afraid! It is a world necessity, wholly inevitable, and will be accomplished one way or another; and because it is decided, the victories of that wretch are merely bloody nonsense. You are bewildered and depressed. You are thinking: “Will he triumph after all? And shall we never get rid of him? And will the world be German, in that desperate fashion in which we are now German?” Be of good cheer! Hitler’s victory is an empty word: there is no such thing – it is not within the realm of the acceptable, permissible, thinkable. It will be prevented; rather, he himself will always prevent it, the sorry scoundrel, because of himself, simply because of his nature, because of his impossible and hopelessly deranged disposition, which does not permit him to think, want, or do anything which is not false, mendacious, condemned beforehand. One speaks of the betrayed devil. But nobody betrays the devil; he is betrayed, because of himself and to begin with. Not with Faust’s soul, the soul of humanity, will this stupid Satan go down to hell, but alone.

From Thomas Mann, Listen Germany! Twenty-five Radio Messages to the German People Over BBC by Thomas Mann. New York, 1943, pp. 102-07.

Please read the entire address on the German Documents website.

First, it is worth noting how Lively and Abrams’ devotion to their thesis leads them to treat Thomas Mann. Apparently the primary reason he is mentioned at all is to make a stronger case that Nietzsche was homosexual. Mann was a great writer, one of the best fiction writers in modern history. He was a resolute opponent of Hitler and the Nazis. He left his homeland in service of his convictions and used his fame and gifts to try to bring down Hitler. In The Pink Swastika, his personal life is disparaged and he is discounted as an apologist for Nietzsche and thus an unwitting contributor to Nazism.

Lively and Abrams thesis collapses into absurdity when one considers the vigor of Mann’s opposition to Hitler’s fascism. People of all orientations and worldviews supported and opposed Hitler. The Nazis used anyone, gay or straight, religious or not, to get to power. And once they attained power, they systematically crushed opposition both gay and straight, religious and not.

To close this post, read the closing argument offered by Mann to the German people in his July, 1942 broadcast. Note his utter contempt for the intellectual foundations of Nazism. And then recall that the speaker was attracted to the same sex.

The end is near, Germans, believe me, and be of good cheer! Just at this moment I tell it to you when once again it looks like success and victory and conquest for you. The end is near – not yours, not Germany’s. The so-called destruction of Germany is as empty a word, as non-existent a thing, as the victory of Hitler. But the end is approaching; in fact, it will come soon – the end of the repulsive system, the robber, murder, and liar state of National Socialism. An end will be put to its trashy and disgraceful philosophy and all the acts of trash and disgrace which have sprung from it. Accounts will be settled, disastrously settled, with its bigwigs, its leaders and helpers, servants and beneficiaries, its generals, diplomats, and Gestapo hyenas. Accounts will also be settled with its intellectual trail-blazers and shield-bearers, the journalists and pseudo-philosophers who licked its boots, the geopoliticians, war geographers, teachers of “Wehrwissenschaft” and race professors. Germany will be cleansed of all that ever had anything to do with the filth of Hitlerism and all that made it possible. And a freedom will be established in Germany and in the world which believes in itself, respects itself, knows how to defend itself, and which takes not only the deed but, before that, the thoughts into the control of those ideas which connect man with God.

Those inclined to accept the thesis in The Pink Swastika might complain that one bisexual opponent to Hitler is not disruptive to Lively’s proposed link between fascism and homosexuality. However, I submit that Mann’s experience is one relevant resbuttal to the idea that the experience of same-sex attraction necessarily leads to fascist beliefs and tactics. Throughout The Pink Swastika, Lively and Abrams play fast and loose with the historical record in order to find links between homosexuality and fascism.

Evangelical Christians as a group do not endorse any sexuality outside of heterosexual marriage. However, I believe it is a significant error to appeal to Christian teaching as a basis for shrill rhetoric and implausibly simplistic theories about homosexuality and evil in history. In fact, the effort of The Pink Swastika to link fascism and other historical evils primarily to the homosexual impulse could easily distract from the inherent chaos of our shared human nature. Reducing the Nazi atrocities to one strain of human experience could lead to the mistaken idea that non-homosexuals are in some way less prone to the path of evil. In fact, one of the great puzzles and tragedies of Nazi Germany was how so many good people, straight Christians among them, could participate in such great evil. We must not lose the awareness that humans are deeply susceptible to inhuman responses. We cannot allow a kind of 'straight pride' to numb us to the reality that the human heart is 'desperately wicked', in the words of Jeremiah, and in need of redemption.

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Self-styled pro-family advocate, Scott Lively, has made a career of drawing parallels from Nazi Germany to modern homosexuality. Director of Abiding Truth Ministries, Lively has gone around the world with the message that homosexuals were responsible for Nazi totalitarianism. On the contrary, my research leads me to believe the more common view that homosexuals were indeed victims of Nazi oppression.

In this post, I point out that anti-gay groups in places like Uganda (encouraged by an American led conference in March, 2009 where Lively was one of the speakers) use rhetoric that is disturbingly akin to rhetoric used by Nazis regarding homosexuality. First, examine these developments in Uganda. From an Ugandan news report Sunday:

‘Investigate homosexuality’
Sunday, 31st May, 2009  KAMPALA - The Peoples Development Party (PDP) wants the Government to establish an independent commission of inquiry on homosexual activities to eliminate the practice.  Addressing journalists on Thursday, party president Abed Bwanika said the evil is spreading to every section of the public and that the Government needed to make critical intervention.

He called upon church leaders to guide the country on the matter and said some NGOs were supporting people involved in the act.

This call for an “independent commission” is similar to the kinds of recommendations made back in March by a group led by Stephen Langa, director of the Christian pro-family group, Family Life Network. At a meeting following up an ex-gay conference in Uganda, sponsored by Langa’s group, with presentations by Scott Lively, Exodus International board member, Don Schmierer and Caleb Brundidge staffer with both International Healing Foundation and Patricia King's ministry, Xtreme Prophetic, the following ideas were considered:

• The laws on homosexuality are weak, hence the need to strengthen these laws.
• Parents were encouraged to participant in law making decisions in Uganda so that to strengthen the laws on homosexuality.
• To establish a unit at Police to deal with homosexuality.
• Homosexuality is an abomination; it is evil and should be dealt with strongly.
• During the reactions a prominent pastor also said that they have been talking with an ex-gay activist who has given them a five year plan for dealing with the gay agenda in Uganda. And they have submitted this plan to the ministry concerned, that they await reactions.
• Another participant told the audience that parliament is drafting a new law that will be tough on homosexuals.

The message is clear from these "Christian" anti-gay groups: laws should be passed “that will be tough on homosexuals.” Homosexuality is already a crime in Uganda; these people want to make it even more difficult.

At any rate, there is a disturbing parallel with the Nazis, but it is not with the homosexuals. Rather, it is more apparent with the manner in which the Ugandan government with assistance from Christian ministries is responding to homosexuality. Note the rhetoric, I have cited above, by Ugandan groups to describe the crack down on open homosexuality. Then read this report from The US Holocaust Memorial Museum which describes the Nazi approach to homosexuality.

On June 28, 1935, the Ministry of Justice revised Paragraph 175. The revisions provided a legal basis for extending Nazi persecution of homosexuals. Ministry officials expanded the category of “criminally indecent activities between men” to include any act that could be construed as homosexual. The courts later decided that even intent or thought sufficed.

On October 26, 1936, Himmler formed within the Security Police the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality. Josef Meisinger, executed in 1947 for his brutality in occupied Poland, led the new office. The police had powers to hold in protective custody or preventive arrest those deemed dangerous to Germany’s moral fiber, jailing indefinitely–without trial–anyone they chose. In addition, homosexual prisoners just released from jail were immediately re-arrested and sent to concentration camps if the police thought it likely that they would continue to engage in homosexual acts.

From 1937 to 1939, the peak years of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, the police increasingly raided homosexual meeting places, seized address books, and created networks of informers and undercover agents to identify and arrest suspected homosexuals. On April 4, 1938, the Gestapo issued a directive indicating that men convicted of homosexuality could be incarcerated in concentration camps.

In Uganda, lists of people suspected to be gay have been included in tabloids, various ministers have accused other ministers of being homosexual, and Christian groups are calling for the government to create a commission to eliminate homosexuality - all supported by American Christian ministries. In Nazi Germany, the commission was called “the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality.” What will it be called in Uganda?  

The head of the Reich office charged with eliminating homosexuality was war criminal Josef Meisinger. In a speech in 1937, he had this to say about the political reasons to combat homosexuality.

If one is really to appreciate the hidden danger of homosexuality, it is no longer enough to consider it as before from a narrowly criminal viewpoint. Because it is now so enormously widespread, it has actually developed into a phenomenon of the most far-reaching consequence for the survival of the nation and state. For this reason, however, homosexuality can no longer be regarded simply from the viewpoint of criminal investigation; it has become a problem with political importance. This being so, it cannot be the task of the police to investigate homosexuality scientifically. At the most it can take account of scientific conclusions in its work. Their task is to ascertain homosexual trends and their damaging effects, so as to avert the danger that this phenomenon represents for nation and state. No one says to the police: you shouldn’t arrest this thief because he might have acquired kleptomania. Similarly, once we have recognized that a homosexual is an enemy of the state, we shan’t ask the police—and much less the Political Police—whether he has acquired his vice or whether he was born with it. I should mention here that experience has shown beyond doubt that only a vanishingly small number of homosexuals have a truly homosexual inclination, that most of them by far have been quite normally active at one time or another and then turned to this area simply because they were sated with life’s pleasures or for various other reasons such as fear of venereal diseases. I should also say that, with firm education and order, and regulated labor, a great number of homosexuals who have come to the attention of the authorities have been taught to become useful members of the national community.

In Uganda among Christian groups and government leaders, and encouraged by Mr. Lively, homosexuality is considered the root of society’s evils. Two of the American “experts,” Lively and Brundidge supported the notion of toughening laws against homosexuality with compulsory “treatment” considered an option. Treatment protocols are being readied now.

Scott Lively encouraged the Uganda church leaders to view the tiny gay movement in Uganda as related in some way to the same movement that propelled the Nazis to power in Germany. However, if one looks for similarities in rhetoric and policy positions, one can more readily find them by noting how the government in power then in Germany and now in Uganda regarded homosexuality. In The Pink Swastika, Lively discounts the Nazis’ public rhetoric and policies as a means of distracting attention to the homosexuality in the ranks of Nazi leaders. What might the same rhetoric and public policy objectives mean in Uganda?

I think any parallels between Nazi Germany then and homosexuality now will lead to mostly inaccurate conclusions, including the similarities in rhetoric I point out here. Many groups, including gay and Christian activists, have used Holocaust metaphors to frame rhetoric in a way that will sway public sentiment. In truth, gays were not victimized to the same degree that the Jews were, but they were victimized. Christian advocates such as Mr. Lively, who want to make sinister linkages between Nazi Germany and gay people must be prepared to explain why more obvious rhetorical and policy similarities, such as noted above, are not indicative of equally nefarious intents.

This rhetorical sword cuts two directions and without any benefit to the Gospel. These analogies are not only factually challenged but have the woeful effect of hindering the Gospel.  When Christians make spurious comparisons to the Nazis, they should not be surprised when the targets of those comparisons lash back and consider them hateful. There should be little wonder why they don't feel the Love. 

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During the first and arguably only real substantial candidate forum of the 2008 presidential election at Rick Warren's Saddleback forum, Barack Obama said that the number of abortions had not gone down during the Bush administration. In fact, the number of abortions decreased during the Bush years. Either Barack Obama was ignorant of fact regarding abortion trends or he was quite aware of those trends and misled the audience. My money is on the latter explanation. I say this because Obama has consistently said he wants to reduce abortions but pursues policies which will almost certainly increase them. The Saddleback distortion promoted one side of a mythology regarding his abortion stance which has served to lull moderate, pro-life Christians into complacency. If you can use Jedi mind tricks to get people to believe stricter regulation does not reduce abortions, then perhaps you can get those same people to believe increasing access to abortion will reduce the numbers. The mischief continued this past weekend at Notre Dame University.

Yesterday, my friend and colleague, Paul Kengor, provided an historical perspective on President Obama's recent commencement address at Notre Dame. Published on the Weekly Standard website, the article is titled "Duped at Notre Dame" and reviews Obama's stated position on abortion and compares it to his practice and policy decisions. I think his analysis is on the mark and want to share portions here. He begins (Kengor's article is in italics):

For a long time in America, the Religious Left, Catholics and Protestants alike, have been duped, played like fiddles. It happened again at Notre Dame yesterday.

President Barack Obama received an honorary degree amid a firestorm of controversy generated by his unprecedented extremism on abortion--an issue where he stands further to the left than any president in history, and in crystal-clear opposition to core Catholic Church social-moral teaching. Not one to back down, Obama addressed the matter head on at Notre Dame, feeding the faithful the left's standard abortion canard. He explained that he wants to "reduce the number of women seeking abortions."

This should have elicited gasps from an educated audience. After all, one of Obama's first acts as president--on January 23, the day after the annual March for Life in Washington--was signing the Mexico City policy. That means that groups like International Planned Parenthood will be subsidized with taxpayer dollars to perform and promote abortion overseas--to vigorously push for legalization, at all stages of pregnancy, in countries that have banned the procedure. Under relentless assault are nations like Mexico itself, home of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an image every faithful Catholic knows.

Obama's approach is to speak softly with moderate phrasing but govern on the hard left. As Kengor points out, those lauding Obama have to ignore the sweeping set of policies he has implemented which will increase abortions.

This unique form of American "foreign aid" was notably excluded from President John Jenkins' reverential statement glorifying Obama's commitment to human rights.

Recall, too, that on March 9, only a few weeks after rescinding the Mexico City policy, Obama authorized federal dollars to promote the deliberate destruction of human life at its earliest stage of development (as embryos) for research purposes. To borrow from Pope John Paul II, the state will thus deny its unborn this "first of freedoms," this most fundamental freedom, from which there can be no other freedoms--with your tax dollars.

Yes, yes. And so the crowd, en masse, let out a collective gasp, right? No.

When President Obama declared that his goal is to reduce abortions, the "social-justice" Catholics at Notre Dame clapped and cheered.

They were taken--hook, line, and sinker.

As a writer, Kengor is at his finest when he reviews the Reagan presidency. He notes that Reagan spoke at Notre Dame on the same day, May 17, in 1981.

As I struggled to absorb this bewildering spectacle, I tried to think of a scenario more absurd. I thought of other presidents who spoke at Notre Dame: George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter. Obama's speech came close to one of his predecessors--Reagan--but only by reversing the terms; and then the absurdities snowballed into an avalanche.

Reagan, coincidentally, did Notre Dame's commencement the exact same day, on May 17, in 1981. It was one of his finest speeches, written by a Catholic speechwriter, Tony Dolan. It is most remembered for this passage:

The years ahead are great ones for this country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West won't contain communism, it will transcend communism.... It will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.

It was one of Reagan's first presidential predictions of communism's demise, and a prophetic one, dismissed by elites. Indeed, those last pages were being written, though no one else sensed or said it. Communism would not survive the decade.

It was a stunning declaration, both at the time and especially in retrospect. Notre Dame's graduates were treated with a historical gem, a truly special send-off. They witnessed a statement they now understand was profound.

And that was for reasons beyond that declaration, as Reagan challenged the graduating seniors to join him in this great cause. He drew on remarks by Churchill during the Battle of Britain: "When great causes are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

To Reagan, their shared duty was to fight expansionistic, atheistic Marxism. Were they worthy of that challenge? He hammered home the theme with other quotes and metaphors, including a personal story from his movie, Knute Rockne, All-American.

Think of all this in light of Obama's comments. In Obama's speech at Notre Dame, the salient issue was abortion. For Reagan, it was communism. But unlike Obama with abortion, Reagan spoke with moral clarity--with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, as Lincoln once said--and then proceeded to do everything he could to halt the evil of communism, to reverse it, to stem the tide.

Reagan's topic was communism; Obama's abortion. Obama said he wanted to reduce abortions. However, his plan to reduce abortions includes increasing funds and opportunity not just here but around the world. Kengor outlines the absurdity of Obama's rhetoric in light of current administration policies.

In a July 2007 speech, Obama described Planned Parenthood as a "safety-net provider." He believes that abortion services constitute a "safety net," and views abortion as a fundamental human right, one that he would like to sanctify with taxpayer funding. If Barack Obama got everything he ever wanted on abortion, we would face taxpayer funding of unlimited, unrestricted abortion at all stages of pregnancy at home and abroad.

That would not reduce the number of abortions.

Like many pro-choice politicians, Barack Obama says he wants abortion to be safe, legal, and rare, while doing everything in his power to advance it. He pays lip service to these canards when he needs political cover. Not surprisingly, that's what he did at Notre Dame on Sunday. Shame on Father Jenkins, the trustees, and the faculty, for giving Obama a podium--and honorary degree--to make fools of a sea of undergraduates at America's most celebrated Catholic college.

It would be like Ronald Reagan at Notre Dame saying that he wanted to take down Soviet communism while simultaneously subsidizing it with taxpayer dollars throughout Eastern Europe and the USSR. It would be like Reagan calling on Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall while sending in cement trucks and rolls of barbed wire.

What was done by the American president at Notre Dame on May 17, 2009, as opposed to what was done by the American president at Notre Dame on May 17, 1981, was not fact but farce, not history but dupery. And yet again, the Religious Left has offered up itself in the ignominious role of sucker.

Religious conservatives must think clearly on this matter. Clearly, the President is appealing figure and possesses admirable rhetorical gifts. But how long will the honeymoon last? How long will those with pro-life intuition be satisfied with a President who says one thing and pursues policies which do another thing? 

Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His latest books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperPerennial, 2007) and The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007).

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The causes of homosexuality continue to both fascinate and divide people. Recently, in London, a conservative group of Anglicans, called the Anglican Mainstream hosted a conference to discuss the causes of homosexuality and promote change from gay to straight. Featured at the conference was American psychologist, Joseph Nicolosi. Dr. Nicolosi stirred much controversy when he said, without research support, that most of his clients show some degree of change in their sexual orientation.

Nicolosi’s views regarding causes of homosexuality are also controversial. In response to a question about the existence of a gay gene, Nicolosi said:

In other words, that fact remains that if you traumatize a child in a particular way you will create a homosexual condition. If you do not traumatize a child, he will be heterosexual. If you do not traumatize a child in a particular way, he will be heterosexual. The nature of that trauma is an early attachment break during the bonding phase with the father.

In a book written with his wife, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, Nicolosi pegs the “crucial period” for bonding between father and son at “between one and a half to three years.”  Elsewhere, Nicolosi argues that fathers of homosexual sons are unavailable, detached and/or hostile. To fathers in London, he advised, “If you don’t hug your sons, some other man will,” suggesting that male homosexual attraction is a search for a father’s love.

The father-deficit theory is not held by mainstream sexuality researchers, but is popular among conservative Christians.  This has always puzzled me because Nicolosi’s statements regarding the origins of homosexuality can be discounted not only by research but by common experience. His theory is contradicted in at least two ways. The first way should be quite obvious to Nicolosi’s audiences: there are many men who experienced poor fathering not only during their formative years but throughout life and are nonetheless, exclusively heterosexual.  

Since many in Nicolosi’s audiences are either unhappy with their homosexual attractions or do not know many gay people, the second problem might not be so clear. In contrast to Nicolosi’s depictions of the typical family of gay males, many such men experienced loving, close relationships with their fathers throughout childhood with no break in attachment. Listen to one such father who spoke to me recently about his gay son.

When my son was 18 months to 3 years old (and on into childhood), we enjoyed a wonderfully close relationship. We explored the world behind the YMCA and called it travelling, looking for creatures in nooks and crannies. When it would snow, we bundled up and follow the same path. We hunted for snakes together in the creek, built a swamp world for various amphibians and generally loved each others’ company. Wherever I was, there was my son; as my wife would say, we were like “Peel and Stick.”

As he got older our relationship changed, but in a way that it should change. It matured into a friendship as father and son. After our son came out to us, our relationship did not change.

Does this sound like an uninvolved, detached father? This man’s son concurs with his dad’s assessment of the relationship. They were and are close, with no breaks during the period Nicolosi theorizes should cause homosexuality.

Devout Christians, the family attended conferences put on by conservative Christians who believed parental deficits were responsible for homosexuality. The answers they heard were very much like what Dr. Nicolosi promotes.  These parents also took their son to a reparative therapist (i.e., counselor who holds to Nicolosi’s theory) who evaluated the potential for sexual orientation change.  The father reported that it wasn’t helpful.

Not understanding the nature of his condition, we did take our son to a counselor. After several weeks of “therapy,” our counselor told our son that he didn’t know what to do. None of the stereotypes fit. Our son told his counselor that he had a wonderful and close relationship with his father and mom.

Although the parents maintain the traditional Christian, non-affirming view of homosexual behavior, parents and son have maintained their relationship. What they all do much less often now is become preoccupied over causes and self-blame. The father sees a bigger picture.

Dr. Nicolosi gets it wrong to reduce the thorns in our sides/lives to a human event where we have but one chance to get it right. Does that sound like the relationship we have with our heavenly Father? God has allowed all of us to experience thorns, some painfully obvious, others less so. No doubt the thorns God allows are refining our character and leading us back to Him.

In fact, sexual orientation is quite complex. Most likely, multiple pre-and post-natal factors are involved in different ways for different people. One size does not fit all.  What this means for Christian groups, however, is the stuff of controversy. For some, it means that homosexuality should be affirmed and Scripture reframed. For others, it does not lead to a change of orthodoxy, but rather to greater humility regarding the need for spiritual support to live a different and often difficult calling. What is not needed is adoption of simple, but misleading, answers.

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