It’s hard to criticize Christian parents when they show a deep love for their children even when their children engage in sinful behavior.

Now we’re learning that a number of Christian parents are challenging evangelical doctrine regarding homosexuality. Instead of leaving the church, these parents are calling on their churches to change their teaching on same-sex sexuality even though same-sex sexuality is sinful. So is adultery. In fact, there are quite of few sinful behaviors mentioned in the Bible that children of Christian parents do.

Kids steal, lie, get drunk, take drugs, sleep around, abuse their wives and children, engage in sex with underage boys and girls, get abortions, rape, and even murder people. These are behaviors that the perpetrators want to engage in for any number of reasons. Many people will tell you that they can’t help themselves, that they were just born this way.

The Bible can’t be changed to accommodate our sinful choices or those of our children. Try going into a court of law with a defense strategy claiming that you did what you did because you had an innate desire to do so.

Does this mean that we should abandon our children? Not at all, but we can’t say that their choice to engage in same-sex sexuality is not sinful. If we can do it for one sin, then who is to say that we can’t do it for other sins?

But what if a child has a strong sexual attraction to people of the same sex? Since when does a strong attraction to some behavior make that behavior morally legitimate? Some (many?) married men and women have strong sexual attractions to men and women to whom they are not married. Should the church accommodate these attractions and be more accepting of people who succumb to those attractions?

Rob Portman is an Ohio Senator whose son engages in same-sex sexuality. His son is not the first person in history to adopt a homosexual lifestyle. But because his son has chosen to be a homosexual, Sen. Portman wants the law changed.

Since when are laws written and moral positions taken based on how our children feel and act? One of the reasons our government is in a fiscal crisis is because elected officials vote in terms of what people want and not what they took an oath to uphold. Theft is wrong, yet it’s seemingly OK to vote for legislation that takes money from some people so it can be given to other people. Why are we surprised when politicians repeatedly flip-flop all over the place because of how someone “feels”?

Are there no longer any moral standards? If Sen. Rob Portman’s son wants to live and love another man, no one’s stopping him. But to overthrow the moral order of the universe by having the State sanction homosexuality is a grave evil.

There is not a single law on the books that says it’s either a moral or civil wrong to love somebody. I love a lot of people, but it’s another thing to claim that love necessitates sexual relations with the objects of that love. Once you go down this road, there’s no way to stop.

Would Sen. Portman and the parents of children who engage in same-sex sexuality throw their support behind pro-pedophilia legislation if their children were pedophiles? There are young pedophiles out there who have loving parents. I would like to hear their responses.

Would they support adultery if their child was an adulterer? Would these parents give the same level of support to a child who was selling drugs to children?

These young people have made bad moral choices. There is no need to compound these bad moral choices by capitulating to them and softening the moral barriers for young men and women who are struggling with their sexuality by helping to pass laws that will affect millions of people and rewriting the Bible on an issue that is very clear.

Unfortunately, many Christians are getting bad theological support from Christian scholars who are trying to rewrite the Bible to fit their personal circumstances:

“James Brownson, a New Testament scholar at Western Theological Seminary, a Michigan school affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, last year published the book ‘Bible, Gender, Sexuality,’ advocating a re-examination of what Scripture says about same-sex relationships. His son came out at age 18.”

The Bible has been examined and re-examined on the issue of same-sex sexuality. There is no other way to read it than as a prohibitive ethic regarding same-sex sexuality. Not only are the texts clear, but our own biological makeup is a clear indicator that homosexuality is “against nature” (Rom. 1:26). For a detailed study of the issue, see Robert A.J. Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. Also take a look at Rosaria Champagne Butterfield’s story of how a committed lesbian was transformed by the redeeming power of Jesus Christ: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into the Christian Faith.

No one ever said that denying our desires is easy. But what would life be like if we always gave into them?