Something that concerns me about what this article reports is all the kids who come out at twelve and thirteen years of age are embracing an identity based on their feelings.  I don’t know about you, but I know when I was a middle schooler, my feelings were all over the place.  They weren’t a trusted source for my identity.  But that is what these youth are going by – how they feel towards others of the same-sex.  They label and trap themselves in a sexual identity.  Being gay becomes who they are entirely.

The article discusses how the climate has changed over the years, making it “easier” for middle school youth to come out.  Popular culture has most certainly paved the way towards affirmation and acceptance with positive portrayals of gays and lesbians.  But does that make it ok?  I believe it pushes youth to an even greater identity crisis, urging them to accept an identity they may not even fully understand at the age of 11 or 12.  With the glamorizing of bisexuality in the media with pop songs such as Katy Perry’s infamous “I Kissed a Girl”, it has become trendy and even posh for girls to be bisexual.  Many of the students in the article mention a larger population of bisexual girls who seem to become more popular after they’ve divulged their sexual preference.

When there is positive reinforcement by peers, it’s hard not to embrace a label.  Instead of encouraging the expression of their sexuality, we need to be concerned with the motivation of girls who claim to be bisexual.  The media is saying it’s cool and hot.  But it really only musters up more gender confusion.

Another thing that stuck out to me was when the author mentioned fluidity in sexuality.  So many in the secular world agree with the idea that sexuality is a fluid thing.  But how is it so hard to embrace the idea of people moving from a homosexual identity to a post-homosexual identity?  That’s just another “expression” of sexuality being fluid.  But, yet, it is scorned and ridiculed for being absurd.

Why is popular culture the most influential medium on youth today?  It certainly does not have any moral compass.  The message of pop culture is “be who you want to be/you are how you feel/do what you want”.  Where it seems from this article that these middle school youth have found clarity in who they are, I believe it has only brought more confusion.  Middle School could be described in my life by this one word: chaos.  Feelings are swirling around, hormones are going haywire, and we’re desperately looking for an identity.  This is the time in a young person’s life to not jump to any conclusions, and embrace an identity they don’t even quite understand.  We are more than just our feelings.  We are more than just who we are attracted to.

Instead of celebrating the earlier embrace of a gay identity, we need to be cautious and concerned.  Embracing an identity based on feelings as an 11-13 year old child, whose brain is still developing and hormones are raging, is jumping the gun.  Pop culture is steering the trends in our youth today, without a moral compass.  Are we going to allow pop culture to be the only wisdom our youth hear?

My friend and I may not have had a lesbian relationship, but we had an emotionally dependent relationship that was unhealthy and stifling.  It left no room for any other friendships.  We depended on each other to the point that we became possessive and jealous if anyone else tried to join our exclusive group of two.  The nature of our friendship became a pattern of idolatry – nothing in our lives mattered more than each other.  When eventually something did matter more than our friendship, namely my college education, our friendship disintegrated into a pile of hurt feelings that led to petty acts of revenge.

Friendships are beautiful when they are meant for the uplifting and edification of each other.  When we want what is best for the other person and are not just trying to get our own emotional needs met, then we are truly a friend.  But often, we aren’t looking out for the best interests of our friend, we are looking to get from them whatever is lacking in our own lives.  We want the other person to be there for us no matter what.  But what if someone else comes along who wants to form a friendship with our friend and spend time with her.  How do we respond?  Are we generous and giving?  Are we willing to spend less time with our friend so she can pursue her dreams and have more well-rounded and healthy relationships instead of focusing on just one, which can be stifling?

I have no doubt that you love your friend.  I love my sister and consider her to be one of my best friends, but that doesn’t mean that we’re lesbians.  Gay activists have tried to say that Ruth and Naomi in the Bible were lesbians because Ruth was dedicated to her mother-in-law and wanted to accompany her back to Judah.  But there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that Ruth’s love for Naomi was sexual, and there is nothing to suggest that a deep friendship that includes self-giving and sacrifice for the sake of your friend’s well-being is the result of homosexual feelings.

God intended for us to have friendships to support one another and see each other become the people that God intended us to be.  This goes wrong when we sexualize our feelings for our friends, when we expect them to meet our every need or when we attempt to meet their every need.  As a community of believers and the body of Christ, we are to freely give our friendship to a variety of people and accept the friendship of others in the same way.  When a friendship becomes exclusive and limiting, it can no longer be called “friendship,” no matter how you “feel” about your friend.  In the end, this type of “friendship” is nothing more than bondage.

Resources

You might want to check out one of these resources about emotional dependency – they explain the problem, help you see if this is a problem in your life, and provide practical advice on getting out.

Emotional Dependency

Emotional Dependency for Guys

LiLo and her friend Samantha

What happened to the cute freckle-faced girl from The Parent Trap?  I don’t know Lindsay Lohan or any of the interpersonal dynamics that shaped her life.  My knowledge of Lindsay is limited to what I’ve learned through the media.  From that perspective, I will offer my point-of-view on LiLo’s chaotic life leading up to her relationship with Samantha Ronson.

Lindsay’s father was in jail for a significant portion of her childhood.  She’s now seeking a protective order against him.  It’s clear that LiLo doesn’t like MiLo.  And, although Michael Lohan now professes faith in Jesus and works with Teen Challenge, being a convicted felon didn’t make him much of a role model, at least not from Lindsay’s viewpoint. Parental role models are crucial in helping us develop into secure adults.  They provide boundaries for us and teach us how to relate to the outside world.  When those role models are insecure with themselves (or absent altogether), it is difficult for them to provide us with the direction we need. 

Dina Lohan, Lindsay’s manager-mom has issues of her own.  On the television show “Living Lohan,” Dina allows her 14-year-old daughter Ali to spend time alone in her room with a 21-year-old man, because they need to talk.  When Lindsay recreated Marilyn Monroe’s last nude photo shoot, Dina said they were “honored” for the opportunity.  She commented on the photos to People magazine, “So I don’t look at them like it’s Playboy; she was being a character. So if you look at it that way, you can look at it as a mother.”  Those are not exactly the actions of a mother who is concerned about the dignity of her daughters, or their sexual purity.

Whether we admit it or not, we all know that LiLo has been in and out of drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers several times – three times prior to her twenty-first birthday, to be exact.  She’s been arrested for DUIs and cocaine possession, sent to jail, had numerous car accidents and she’s only twenty-two.

We’ve heard through the entertainment media that Lindsay has had relationships with at least 5 young men.  The last being a skateboarder she met at rehab who, when they broke up, proceeded to sell personal photos of her to British tabloids.  Prior to their break-up, Lindsay’s father described him on Extra as, “… a good kid.”  He elaborated, “I don’t think anyone has the right to judge Riley. They [Lindsay and Riley] keep each other in line. They go to meetings with one another.”  Again, more lack of positive parental influence.

When everything is going wrong in your life, supportive people need to rally to your side.  Ideally, those people should be your parents (or your spouse, if you’re married).  In the absence of parental support, it is easy to lean on anyone who will to be there for you. When that friend is compassionate in the midst of your pain, it is natural to want to spend more and more time with her.  An attachment bordering on dependence can form during emotionally trying times.  We all need understanding and support.  When that seems to be missing from our lives, we hunger for it.  We become motivated to seek out the type of understanding we crave.  When the provider of support, who gives us a sense of security, happens to be a lesbian-identified woman, it isn’t surprising that we could think about becoming sexually involved her.  After all, she makes us feel good.  We’re close to her and we’re stimulated by our emotions.  I know of numerous women who have become involved in lesbian relationships with supportive friends.  Not every woman who has a supportive friend becomes sexually involved with her, but it happens often enough to bear mentioning.

I don’t blame Lindsay for her lesbian sexual involvement, if that is indeed what is happening.  Her publicist was quick to say that Lindsay did not say she is a lesbian.  According to her publicist, LiLo was just playing along with the DJ from Loveline when he questioned her about how long she and Samantha have been together.  In any case, it would be easy to understand how she became involved in that sort of behavior.  For Lindsay, her sexual appeal has been a valuable marketing tool.  When your sexuality is a commodity rather than a gift reserved for your spouse, it loses its worth.  It becomes common, even base.

The sad part is that the lines have been blurred between right and wrong in our society.  Few people understand the true meaning of love and sex.  Sex has become a past-time instead of a life-long commitment.  Young girls are sexualized at younger and younger ages.  Just look at how little girls are “made-up” to look like grown-up women for beauty pageants.  Or how Bratz dolls are pressed into skimpy clothes and painted to look like drag queens impersonating Cher.  How many little girls have you seen walking around with “Juicy” and other inappropriate slogans written on their backsides?

There is a disturbing cultural trend to push children and teens into becoming sex objects.  At the MTV video music awards, British comedian Russell Brand scoffed at the Jonas Brothers for wearing purity rings that represent their commitment to remain sexually abstinent until marriage.  The in-your-face message to teens and young adults is that you are “uncool” if you don’t have sex.  Thank God for 18-year-old American Idol winner Jordin Sparks who gave an impromptu defense of the Jonas Brothers after Brand’s off-color remarks at the VMAs, “I just have one thing to say about promise rings. It’s not bad to wear a promise ring, because not everybody – guy or girl – wants to be a slut.”  A few people in the crowd seemed thankful for her comments.  Brand later reappeared on stage to spew more words of home-spun wisdom, “Promise rings, I’m well up for it. [But] a bit of sex, it never hurt anybody.”  In a world ravaged by the AIDS pandemic, mounting STD rates and serial relationship woes, Brand comes across as offensively ignorant.

Like LiLo, we don’t all have picture perfect lives.  In fact, none of us do.  The best we can do is to spend our time pursuing activities that are worthwhile.  Youth groups offer opportunities to develop solid friendships while learning about God and serving the community.  We can add perspective to our lives by meeting the needs of people less fortunate than us.  Surrounding ourselves with people who want the best for us and are determined to uphold Biblical standards of behavior will allow us to develop into the people God intended us to be, with as little drama as possible.

Throughout childhood and adolescence I steered clear of everything “girly.” No dolls or dresses for me. Instead of sweet nicknames like “Princess” I was the Great Green Frog, Sausage Legs, Lester, Pack Mule, and best of all Lumpy when I was going thru that awkward stage of early adolescence. The last time I was mistaken for my mother’s son was when I was a sophomore in college.

I think part of my problem has been that I am competitive by nature. If I didn’t have a shot at being the best, why play. As for beauty, brains and brawn: I did well in school. I was strong as an ox, some said, and did well in competitive swimming. Yet, I knew I was never going to be pretty so why even try. In fact it made me feel better to degrade anything feminine. I was strong and confident on the inside and it did not matter what I looked like on the outside. I was not going to make a big fuss just to please others who might be looking at me.

This attitude affected me into adulthood. During the first of years our marriage whenever Alan and I had to attend a social event fancier than church I freaked out. Where he enjoyed dressing up I feared being overdressed. Translated: I hated the thought of trying so hard at something I was destined to fail. And equally horrifying was the prideful thought that everyone would know I tried and see that I failed. As we contemplated having children I thought it would probably be best if we had boys because I had no idea what to do with a little girl.

Last fall I began a Beth Moore Bible study called Breaking Free. At the beginning of the series Beth said that we would be more beautiful by the end of the study and wouldn’t that be great. “NO!” cried everything within me. Promise me that I will be wiser, more discerning, stronger, more patient, more loving, anything but more beautiful. Why would being more beautiful be important or even desirable? Ever so softly God spoke to me and said that to be more beautiful was to be more like Him. He is beautiful.

I don’t for a second think He was telling me to keep up with the latest fashions. He was asking me to be ok with being more like Him. Femininity is not what our culture has made it to be. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Lucifer was a beautiful angel and that our culture has a distorted view of feminine beauty. Remember in Genesis God says that He created us, male and female in His image? He is as beautiful as He is strong. He is as full of grace as He is truth. He wants us to reflect His perfect beauty. Being a woman of God, being feminine is not just about being beautiful. It is simply one aspect of it, but if I reject that aspect I am rejecting something of God Himself. I don’t know the full extent of what this means but I do know I need to be okay with letting Him make me into a beautiful woman.

It makes sense that music is about harmonies and rhythms.  That is what makes music different from poems and novels.  But that is not all music is about.  I remember loving a song about suicide.  It was not a gloomy song.  It had a gentle, ironically chipper melody.  In the weeks leading up to my Christian conversion, I listened to that song every day.  I was not suicidal.  I did not hate my life.  I liked the sound of the song.  But listening to it made me think about what circumstances would lead someone to take his own life.  I wondered what circumstances would lead me to consider taking my own life.  I did not consider actually killing myself, but I thought of how I would commit such an act if I ever decided upon that course of action.  I had a lot of thoughts about suicide. When I became a Christian, that song went in the trash.  There was no good reason for me to continue listening to a song that made me think of useless, violent acts against myself.

But back to Katy Perry and her song about lesbian kisses.  According to the lyrics, she lost her discretion with a drink in her hand.  Her drink made her brave.  She saw a girl that made her curious about what it would be like to kiss a girl, and she decided to find out.  Apparently, she liked it.

It is perplexing to me that she spends the entire song defending her actions with lines like, “Don’t mean I’m in love tonight,” “I kissed a girl just to try it,” “Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent.”  If it is no big deal, why worry about it?  But worry is what Katy does.  She tells everyone who will listen that it does not mean anything that she liked kissing a girl.  It sounds as if she is trying to convince herself that it is “no big deal.”  That is what happens when you do something you know you shouldn’t do.  You try to fight off the guilt by making excuses for yourself.  The guilt, however, does not go away, “It’s not what / Good girls do / Not how they should behave / My head gets so confused / Hard to obey.”

What she does not worry about, as she bemoans her confusion, is what the other girl thought of being kissed by a stranger.  Katy sings, “Just wanna try you on / I’m curious for you / Caught my attention.”  Imagine you are the object of Katy’s curiosity.  Suddenly, an unknown girl approaches from across the room and kisses you.  She then continues her song, “No, I don’t even know your name / it doesn’t matter / You’re my experimental game.”  Katy is worried about herself, but she sure isn’t worried about you.  You are just the pawn in her game.  That sums up the narcissistic, self-centeredness that typifies sexual experimentation.  It’s all about me.  The other person is just an object I am using to satisfy my own curiosity.

The purpose of physical intimacy is not to figure out what feels wrong and right, as Katy seems to think.  It’s not about discovering what works for you.  The purpose of physical intimacy is to bond husband and wife together in a life-long union that will strengthen their marriage and create a stable home-life for the children they may have.  When you use physical intimacy for any purpose other than that, it is bound to lead to undesired effects, such as confusion in your sexuality and emotional turmoil.

Am I saying that kissing a girl made Katy Perry a lesbian or bisexual?  Not necessarily.  The lyrics don’t elaborate on what happened after the drink-induced kiss.  Listening to “I Kissed a Girl” probably will not make you a lesbian or bisexual, either. It could, however, fuel a sexual identity struggle that may or may not already exist. It could make you curious about kissing a girl, and bring you face-to-face with a temptation you wouldn’t have dealt with otherwise.

Our combined experiences and the cultural influence we receive through music, television and movies all can have a collective influence on the direction our lives end up taking.  To think that the music we listen to will not affect us is to discount the power that art has to stimulate our emotions and our minds.  That is what artists strive to accomplish every time they produce a piece of art.

Rather than entertain thoughts about sexual experimentation and planting kisses on unsuspecting strangers, it would serve you better to spend your care-free years hanging out with your friends and just being young.  That way, you won’t have to explain to your fiancé about the years you spent kissing girls and experimenting with your sexuality.

Men, just like women, want to feel special on their wedding night.  They do not want you to give them what lots of other people already have, but what has been reserved especially for them. Then when you’re an adult, you won’t hear songs from your younger years that remind you of the poor decisions you made.  Instead, you will hear familiar songs that remind you of your old friends and how much fun you had together.

The answer is, you can probably relate to those who struggle with SSA a lot more than you think!

If you look at homosexuality on a surface level–simply as sexual and/or romantic desires for the same sex–it’s probably not something you can relate to at all. It’s important to realize, though, that the attractions are not what this struggle is all about. In truth, the underlying issues that someone with SSA needs to deal with are a lot more universal than even they realize.

There are some great resources that thoroughly lay out what the homosexual struggle is all about, but let’s take a quick look at what we’re really trying to understand.

Say you’re a male youth leader who’s never had a same-sex attraction issue in his life. How on earth can you understand a young man who thinks he might be gay? Well, he’s not just dealing with SSA. For years he’s probably been wrestling with:

• a long unmet need for an older man to love, challenge and affirm him in the way dads should.
• a crippling fear that he doesn’t measure up to what a boy–and a man–is supposed to be.
• shame from moments in life when his perceived inadequacy seemed to show.
• negative ideas about women taken from unhealthy examples in family and/or society.
• negative ideas about the masculine role in family and other relationships.
• a need to be accepted as just one of the guys.

Isn’t that stuff you can relate to? The reality is that guys struggling with their sexual identity on a surface level are really dealing with these issues on a heart level. Most guys get lost to some degree on the journey into manhood, and the result is all kinds of sin and struggle. Guys with SSA are the same; they just hold many of those inadequacies a little more deeply in some ways.

Ladies, you may never have considered yourself lesbian or bisexual, but the root issues that sexually confused teen girls face might not be that unfamiliar to you.

• longing for a nurturing, affirming mother-figure
• desire to be beautiful, yet scared of unwanted or dangerous attention that may come as a result
• struggles with healthy boundaries in friendships
• negative feelings about what it means to be desired by a man
• negative feelings about a perceived “role” imposed by society, the Church, etc.

While or brokenness may bear different fruit, it often shares a common root. You may or may not be able to understand how a particular student came to struggle with SSA, but that isn’t what they need most from you anyway.

Exodus ministries, counselors and resources can help young people delve into the deeper issues underlying homosexuality in an effective way. They can also help you become more knowledgeable and comfortable in your role mentoring and teaching these students.

What’s most important, though, is not what you know about their struggle–it’s simply that you know, and that you love them and will walk with them through these first years of their journey, which isn’t even mostly about homosexuality, anyway.

When they need to talk about it, listen. And if they ask a question, “I don’t know” is often a perfectly fine answer. An even better one is, “I don’t know, but let’s ask God, and trust Him, together.”

First, you can pray for an unsaved homosexual person and share the gospel with them. If you are relating with a Christian struggling with this issue, you can pray for them, too. Pray God will give them the courage and perseverance to achieve sexual abstinence. Sexual activity usually covers deep wounds. Once activity stops, the “pain-killer” of sex wears off and underlying emotional pain can surface. Be there to listen and support them in this process.

Pray God will help them see and find biblical resolution to underlying issues that led to a homosexual orientation. Learn what you can about these problems, and find someone with expertise that can counsel your friend. Pray the Lord will help them re-connect with His original design and purpose for them as a man or woman. If you are the same gender as your friend, you can play a tremendous part in his or her healing just by being a role-model of what a godly man or godly woman is like. That means being vulnerable about your weaknesses, aggressively pursuing personal maturity, and above all, seeking to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ.

Don’t discount your ability to help someone leave homosexuality and into all that God plans for their lives. Be a friend: encourage, confront, listen, share. Go side-by-side with them through the challenging adventure ahead.

Everyone’s body is sexual. Once puberty hits, there are parts of the human body designed to react to stimulation by experiencing pleasure. These body parts–called “erogenous zones”–don’t have a mind of their own. They don’t know who or what is touching them, whether it’s a male or female, or if the situation is right or wrong; they just respond to physical touch the way they are designed to, regardless of circumstance.

If you are exposed to sexual activity in a way God didn’t intend–such as through abuse, or with someone you’re not married to, or someone of the same gender–and your body experiences some degree of pleasure, that does not mean that you are gay, bi or anything else. It does not mean that that sexual experience was right for you. It simply means that your body is working, and that’s all.

Sometimes our emotions can get caught up in these experiences, too, and we have confusing feelings toward people or circumstances when we begin to associate them with sexual pleasure. This is natural because we’re supposed to associate sex with a very special kind of intimacy, the intimacy we have with our life-long spouse. God made us so that our mind and heart would naturally form a special bond to the person with whom we share a sexual connection. This is why God is so adamant that we save sexual activity for marriage, the only kind of relationship where we can safely enjoy that kind of closeness (check out 1st Corinthians 6:15-20).

Not every gay-identified person participates in these often militant efforts, but the efforts are very real and they have specific goals when it comes to youth. Those goals include:

• Promoting homosexual, bisexual and transgender lifestyles as healthy, positive and normal.
• Disintegrating all meaning of gender.
• Silencing and vilifying any different point of view.
• Undermining parental authority to indoctrinate kids.
• Rewriting Christian principles.
• Polarizing students, so that anyone who is not “gay-affirming” is labeled a bigot.

These may seem like pretty extreme statements, but there are several organizations and tens of millions of dollars a year dedicated to these goals.

GLSEN and GSA’s

Most notable among these organizations is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), an educational lobbying and activist group that is the primary force behind the promotion of Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs in high schools, middle schools and universities nationwide.

Their ‘resources’

A quick browse through the books GLSEN recommends for 7th through 12th graders will give you a glimpse into the value system they want the next generation to adopt. Here’s a look:

Free Your Mind by Ellen Bass and Kate Kaufman, for instance, is a comprehensive guide-to-life for youth who think they may be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. In truth, this book is full of deceptive, dangerous advice. Teens are encouraged to find “meaningful new relationships” via gay and lesbian chat rooms on the internet. The book also greatly overstates the protection offered by condoms, and lists “bathing together” and mutual masturbation as “safe” sexual practices.

Furthermore, Free Your Mind attacks the faith of teens. Throughout several chapters, young people are repeatedly urged to leave their churches if they do not embrace homosexuality. A whole chapter is devoted to “debunking” the Bible.

“…there isn’t any single truth…The one thing you really should beware of in life is when any human being tells you that they have the truth. Run as fast as you can. No one has the truth.” (Free Your Mind, p. 274)

Another book GLSEN recommends for teens, Revolutionary Voices, portrays dangerous lifestyles as positive forms of “diversity.” In the book, one young man shares his story of doing “sex work” involving cross-dressing and sadomasochsim. Revolutionary Voices calls these things an “empowering experience.”

The GSA Network also produced Beyond the Binary, a “gender activism” guide that encourages students to fight the notion that we are made male and female. The booklet teaches that gender is arbitrary, that one can move back and forth between genders, be both at the same time, or invent a new gender altogether–and that schools and other individuals should be forced to recognize these assumed “genders.”

Other controversies

The state of Massachusetts has always been at the forefront of homosexual activism. At least two years in a row, GLSEN (funded by state tax revenue) hosted workshops on school grounds, in which students received graphic instruction on how to perform different homosexual acts. Sex “kits” were passed out, and after a sweeping public outcry, parents were banned when the event was repeated.

More recently, the GSA Network in California elected a man to its Board of Directors who was widely known as a pornographer who peddled pictures of young men to x-rated magazines. When contacted and asked whether they were aware of this individual’s activities, no one from the GSA Network responded. The board member, however, subsequently stepped down.

The actions and attitudes of those who run these organizations don’t quite reflect those of the kids who actually take part in the clubs themselves. Most teens who join GSA’s (who are not all gay-identified) are drawn to the ideals of safety, equality and tolerance that these organizations espouse. What they get, though, is a deceptive and destructive crash-course in immorality.

School Policies

Gay advocacy groups spend millions lobbying every level of government in order to have an impact on school policies and curriculum. California is an example of where they’ve had the most success. The State Senate there has passed bills requiring schools to portray homosexual, bisexual and transgender lifestyles positively through “Tolerance Training.” Other legislation would force schools to allow transgender-identified students to use opposite-sex bathrooms and locker rooms.

As a matter of course, these activists seek to shut parents out while they are changing the educational system. The legislation mentioned above explicitly states that parents are not to be notified about “Tolerance Training” courses, and are not allowed to opt their children out of them.

So What Can You Do?

It’s so important for Christian parents to be involve themselves and communicate with the school. Make sure you know about meetings with school board and faculty members that parents can have access to. Find out the best way to stay up to date on changes in curriculum and policy in your district.

Christian legal groups like the Alliance Defense Fund can advise and support parents facing legal issues with their local districts and governments.

The most effective response to this growing movement, though, comes through Christian students. More than anyone, they have a greater freedom of opportunity to share the truth and love of the Gospel on their campuses. So make sure your youth pastor is educating and equipping students with the truth about these issues. We’ve got some great resources available to help them do that.

Students also have the most freedom (legally speaking) to bring Christian-themed information and resource onto their campuses. Through special campaigns like Allies, Too and the Day of Truth, young Christians can have a huge impact on public schools.

Related Links:

The World According to PFLAG: Why PFLAG and Children Don’t Mix from the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)

Help Them Open Up

The best way to make it more likely your child might share a sexual struggle with you is to respond with an attitude of compassion and understanding whenever these types of issues come up. Your reaction to the subject of homosexuality when it comes up in conversation, on TV or through other relationships sends your children a message about whether you are a safe person to confide in.

Reacting with a grimace and saying, “That’s disgusting!” communicates hostility. Just consider: would you feel comfortable sharing a personal temptation with someone you knew thought “those people” were a disgusting abomination? Probably not.

Usually, people respond with hostility or anger to this issue because it seems so confusing and overwhelming. It’s not difficult, though, to overcome our fears of this issue by educating ourselves with a compassionate, Biblical standpoint. Exodus has some great resources to help you do just that.

When you can talk about homosexuality with calmness, knowledge and compassion, your children are more likely to talk to you about it. Basic truths to stick to are understanding that 1) nobody chooses to struggle with homosexuality, 2) a person isn’t guilty just because they’re tempted, 3) homosexual behavior is no worse than any other sin, 4) people can find freedom and healing in Christ.

Still, there is no way to guarantee that they will be confident enough to come directly to you. So you do want to know what to look for.

Sure Signs

If your son or daughter has been viewing homosexual pornography or visiting gay, lesbian or bisexual chat rooms online, that is a pretty solid sign that they are dealing with serious sexual identity issues. When confronted about this kind of involvement, most teens will try to dodge with an excuse like “I was just curious” or “I was trying to understand a friend better.”

Please understand that your child probably feels a deep sense of shame about their struggle, and whatever level of behavior they’ve become involved in. Whenever their struggle “comes out,” it’s crucial to reaffirm how much you love them, and that you do not see them any differently.

Other signs you ought to be concerned by include consistent and overt gender-atypical behavior (opposite-sex clothing, mannerisms, etc.), and unhealthy, overly-emotional attachments to a single friend of the same sex

Addressing It

When you observe these types of things, don’t be quick to label it as homosexuality. Simply address what you have observed and ask them questions about it. Don’t assume something is there if it is not plainly true–that can make things worse.

For instance, don’t say: “You and Sarah act like a couple of lesbians. You aren’t doing that, are you?” or, “Son, why do you act so feminine? You don’t want people to think you’re gay.”

Addressing without assuming would sound more like this: “I’ve noticed you and Sarah spend so much time together, you’re neglecting your other friends. Do you think that’s a good idea?” or, “Son, it seems like you aren’t really into hanging out with the guys. Did something happen?”

It is best for your response to communicate that you care about their well-being, and offer them opportunities to share their feelings. Plus if they already know that homosexuality doesn’t make you totally blow up, you’ve created a much more positive environment for them.

Not So Sure Signs

There are also sometimes “yellow flags” that go up for parents, but aren’t necessarily a sign your child struggles with SSA. For instance, if they come home from school with a book, flier or brochure mentioning homosexuality; that’s not necessarily a sign.

Material addressing homosexuality is becoming more and more common in the public school system. Your children will most likely receive information or materials on the subject more than once. Don’t assume they are struggling just because of something like this (pornographic material is another issue altogether) but take the opportunity to talk openly with them about issues of sexuality and see what they’re thinking.

Gay clubs (commonly called “GSA” or Gay-Straight Alliance) are also common on public school campuses. These clubs are not only geared towards students who are gay-identified, but they also encourage non-gay students to become “allies,” or people who are supportive of gay issues and/or making schools safer.

If your child joins the local GSA, it doesn’t necessarily mean they struggle–but you may want to have a talk with them and find out where they’re at in their understanding of sexual morality. These clubs, while exemplifying some good motives like stopping bullying, also promote materials and morals you will be strongly opposed to (see the article GLSEN and Its Influence on Children).

Try not to get into a confrontation with your child, but do your best to have open dialog about what they’re hearing about these issues and what they think.

They probably just want to show their support for making schools safe. Let them know there are great ways for Christian students to stand against bullying and harassment while still speaking the truth about sexuality, like the Allies, Too campaign.