We are hearing all types of defenses as to why people do what they do. For example, Christian singer Vicky Beeching has said that she is “gay.” I have never heard of her. “She joins other well-known Christian artists such as Ray Boltz, Jennifer Knapp and Clay Aiken who came out of the closet.”

I had never heard of them until they announced to the world that they engaged in sex with people of the same sex.

I don’t understand why people who engage in certain sexual practices are compelled to tell the rest of us about their sexual proclivities. I wonder how many people who are sexually attracted to little boys and girls are as open. Not many. It’s my guess that they could offer a similar defense for their actions. In fact, many of them do.

There’s the Australian judge who “has incurred the wrath of child protection and gay rights advocates after stating that incest and pedophilia may no longer be considered taboo – just as gay relationships are now more accepted than they were in the 1950s and 60s.” There was similar outrage 25 years ago when it come to same-sex sexuality.

Check out the logic in the Law and Order episode “Hardwired.”

Beeching says that she knew she was “gay” when she was 13. What if some 30-year-old plumber argued for the support of pedophilia because he knew he wanted to have sex with children when he was 13?

It would be more honest if Beeching had said, “I knew I wanted to have sex with other girls when I was 13” rather than “I knew I was gay when I was 13.”

Put that same admission into the mouth of a pedophile and the entire dynamic changes.

She went on to say, “God loves me just the way I am.”

Put those same words in the mouth of a thief, murderer, slanderer, child molester, or a jerk, and they don’t sound so effective.

God may love us the way we are, but that doesn’t mean he loves everything we are. Did God love Paul the way he was when he approved the killing of Stephen? (Acts 7:55-8:1) My reading of the biblical record is that he stopped persecuting Christians. Did Jesus love the woman caught in the act of adultery just the way she was? If He did, then why did he tell her to “stop sinning”? (John 8:11; also see 5:14) What about the Samaritan woman who was a serial fornicator? (John 4:7-39) Did God love the man who was having sex with his father’s wife “just the way he was”? (1 Cor. 5:1-2) What about King David and his relationship with Bathsheba? (2 Samuel 11)

If same-sex sexuality is morally wrong, then the “just as I am” defense is defective. People have argued for a very long time that they were born a certain way as justification for their behavior. Without a moral standard there would be no way to determine if Vicky Beeching’s same-sex sexuality is any different from a man who is sexuality attracted to children and acts on it.

The following is from the 1931 Fritz Lang film M. It stars Peter Lorre as a child killer. Listen to his defense as he stands trial before a room of criminals:

“I can’t help what I do! I can’t help it, I can’t… What do you know about it? Who are you anyway? Who are you? Criminals? Are you proud of yourselves? Proud of breaking safes or cheating at cards? Things you could just as well keep your fingers off. You wouldn’t need to do all that if you’d learn a proper trade or if you’d work. If you weren’t a bunch of lazy bastards.

“But I… I can’t help myself! I have no control over this, this evil thing inside of me, the fire, the voices, the torment! … It’s there all the time, driving me out to wander the streets, following me, silently, but I can feel it there. It’s me, pursuing myself! I want to escape, to escape from myself! But it’s impossible. I can’t escape, I have to obey it. I have to run, run… endless streets.

“I want to escape, to get away! And I’m pursued by ghosts. Ghosts of mothers and of those children… They never leave me. They are always there… always, always, always!, except when I do it, when I… Then I can’t remember anything.

“And afterwards I see those posters and read what I’ve done, and read, and read… Did I do that? But I can’t remember anything about it! But who will believe me? Who knows what it’s like to be me? How I’m forced to act… How I must, must… Don’t want to, must! Don’t want to, but must! And then a voice screams! I can’t bear to hear it! I can’t go on! I can’t… I can’t…”

Some will say that I’m comparing fire and ice. It’s the argument I’m attacking. People need to stop arguing that they do what they do because God made them that way or I was born that way.