A few years ago, a small thought experiment came to my mind. If you’re willing, I’d like to invite you to consider it yourself:

Imagine you’re on national television, and you’re being asked to share your views on homosexuality. Everyone you know, and many people you do not know, will hear and be affected by your words. What would you say?

Would you speak out with conviction, confident in your beliefs and eager to use the opportunity to share the light of Christ’s truth and love with those listening? Or would you say something non-committal or undecided, fearful of saying the wrong thing and causing unintended harm?

This is only a thought experiment; I sincerely hope you will never have to make such a difficult choice in front of thousands or millions of listeners. But still, when this question first came to my mind, it nagged at me for a very long time, because I knew the answer I would give, and it deeply disappointed me.

I knew I would have said something equivocal and ambiguous, trying to strike a balance between condemning and affirming, not actually committing to either. Perhaps I would have called for Christians to do a better job of loving our gay and lesbian neighbors, and to repent from the harm we have done by ostracizing and rejecting them; but I would have also been careful to stop short of saying we must accept or celebrate their same-sex relationships. And perhaps this cautious ambivalence would have made me feel like I was doing my part to promote love.

But something in my heart knew that wasn’t enough. Because, if homosexuality is truly harmful, then love requires us to be honest with our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers; to speak out against the harm they are causing themselves and others with their actions. And if homosexuality is not harmful, then love requires us to be honest with those condemning it; to speak out against the harm they are causing others by forcing them into celibacy and shame. In other words, the stakes are too high for ambivalence here. It’s absolutely true that we should not claim certainty when we are still questioning; but our responsibility as followers of Christ is to “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10), not to become comfortable in our ignorance. When we are faced with injustice and harm, we can’t allow ourselves to fall into apathy under the guise of humility; we must seek out truth and live in love.

The imagined interview is just pretense; regardless of whether or not we ever publicly share our views, our beliefs and opinions have profound effects on the lives of those around us. For those of us who have never felt same-sex attractions, these effects can be easy to ignore – we are not the ones who have to deal with the fear of ostracization, dehumanization, or vitriol simply for being honest about who we are and what we feel. But for those who do, being in a community that is vocal, honest, and diligent about questions of sexuality versus one that is silent or equivocal can be the difference between learning to love God, others, and oneself with the help of friends and mentors, and doing so in isolation. No one should have to seek God alone.

I am no longer disappointed in my answer, though I suppose I’ll have to make it a bit shorter if I want to give it in an interview – as is, it’s about a hundred pages too long for that. If you’re not sure of your own answer, I urge you to keep on searching and learning. It’s okay to not know. But on an issue with as much practical importance as homosexuality, it’s not okay to stop there. We must acknowledge that our ambivalence is not enough.

If, at this point, you don’t know what you think about homosexuality, don’t worry. Some moral questions are complex, and we are all still learning how to discern God’s will. Plus, changing one’s mind on sensitive issues can be incredibly difficult; in my experience, it is often easier to withdraw from reason entirely than to give up an old belief when new evidence has been introduced.

So, I want to offer my help. Often, taking the time to articulate your thoughts can be incredibly helpful in clarifying for yourself what you truly believe. And having an honest discussion with someone who sees things a little differently can be mutually beneficial. So, if you disagree with me for any reason at all, or have any interesting thoughts or questions, please take a few minutes to articulate your thoughts in writing and send them to me at the Letters section of this website. I can’t promise that I will respond to every letter, but I can promise to read them all. And if I have the time, I might respond to you in private or on my blog. Hopefully we can have a constructive dialogue that helps us both to learn and grow.

To this point, I would like to proactively address any concerns regarding what is often referred to as “the gay agenda.” Many Christians fear that the LGBTQ movement represents a threat to our social fabric – that gay and lesbian people aim to destroy the institution of the family, convert our children to homosexuality, and retain unfair legal advantages for those who identify as LGBTQ. I didn’t address this idea in the body of this book because it isn’t based in any sort of theology or science. It is instead based in fear, justifiably aroused by a swiftly changing culture.

Fifty years ago, people who were openly gay and lesbian were mostly confined to the shadows of American society; they were shunned by mainstream culture, and the idea that marriage could only ever be between a man and a woman was almost universally endorsed. Even fifteen years ago, the word “gay” was one of the most popular insults among American teenagers; it was considered synonymous with “lame” or “stupid.”

Now, a few short years later, gay marriage is seen as constitutionally-protected, major LGBTQ pride parades happen every June in cities around the world, and corporations are falling over each other in their efforts to market themselves as pro-LGBTQ. Rather than calling each other “gay” as an insult, many of today’s teenagers actually feel safe enough to come out as lesbian, bi, or gay without being ostracized, bullied, or kicked out of their homes, and so, not surprisingly, they are doing so in greater numbers than ever before.

For those whose opinions on homosexuality have remained largely the same over these few decades, this 180-degree cultural flip is understandably quite alarming. And when the change seems to have come from nowhere, it’s easy to look at today’s culture and conclude that LGBTQ-rights activists have pulled the wool over all of our eyes.

If these concerns strike a chord within you, I urge you to think about the current situation through an empathetic lens, rather than one clouded by fear. Because when we can think of gay people as people, with the same desires, needs, and concerns as anyone else, it isn’t hard to realize that their “agenda” is no different from anyone else’s.

As I wrote about in Chapter 4, the primary reason our culture’s view on homosexuality is changing so swiftly and suddenly is because we have finally come to the point where most people no longer take “it’s unnatural” as an answer when it comes to homosexuality. And without that justification, many of us see no reason to prevent LGBTQ people from having the same rights as everyone else.

Many gay people, like many straight people, want to be able to be married – perhaps even by a pastor, in a church. Many gay people, like many straight people, want to be able to raise children in loving, two-parent homes. And many gay people, like many straight people, want to be able to openly express their love for their partners, without fear of shame or punishment.

In the interest of empathy, try to imagine that you lived in a world where all of these things were legal for gay people, but not for straight people. Would you not petition your government for change? Would you not protest those laws in the streets? Would you not participate in social movements promoting the virtues of heterosexual love?

Now imagine that your political opponents dismissed your concerns as “the straight agenda.” Imagine that they claimed that you were seeking legal protections that you had no business seeking, and that you were going to destroy the institution of the same-sex family.

Of course, these arguments seem ridiculous. But if “the straight agenda” seems ridiculous to you and “the gay agenda” does not, that’s only because you see homosexuality as inherently wrong. LGBTQ people and their supporters do not. If you take a moment to empathize with those who don’t see the world as you do, perhaps you’ll see that they aren’t approaching these issues with any kind of nefarious “agenda” at all; they just want to live their lives with the same rights and freedoms as straight people already do. Disagree with them on what is “natural” if you’d like, but there is no reason to assume that they have malicious intent.

Frankly, it is incredibly easy to assume all sorts of negative things about people groups we don’t know very well, because empathy is built over time, through exposure. For this reason, I encourage anyone who fears “the gay agenda” to actually invest in one or more friendships with people who identify as gay or lesbian. I am not asking you to interrogate them about the sincerity of their beliefs and desires; that would be highly intrusive and counter-productive. To build empathy, it is enough to simply be a friend.

To be perfectly honest with you, I even suspect building these sorts of friendships will end up doing a lot more good for you than reading a book like mine ever could. Humans are relational, and we learn the most through our relationships, with God and with others; with Jews and with Gentiles. Truth, ultimately, is learned through love.