We met each other under innocent enough circumstances, but then one day I realized how much I wanted to spend every day of my life with her.
Let us call her Helen (not her real name). If we had ended up together, would it have been right in God's eyes? Suppose for the sake of argument we would have been definitely happier together, like a hungry man eating stolen food -- there is not any doubt in terms of biology that the stolen food would be nourishing. I don't think any amount of spiritual exercise would have changed the fact I was attracted to an athletic blonde who was an engineer as well as a concert pianist who was also soft spoken and sweet tempered. I remember the tears in her eyes when she confessed she was married (but separated) to me. I don't think it was my choice to like women like Helen. I just did. And there is most certainly roots of my attraction based on biology.
I think the problem of homosexuality is under a similar biological imperative due to either genetics, epigenetics, developmental and environmental factors. Even supposing someone isn't born gay, but developed that way, it does not mean the desires are necessarily reversible biologically. For example, I have friends addicted to nicotene. They weren't born addicted to nicotene, but there is now a biological imperative in their bodies that they'll have to live with. Whatever the mechanism of homosexuality, I take it on face value the gay lifestyle is what will make some people happy (at least in this life), and what some people might be biologically "addicted" to. But a gay lifestyle doesn't necessarily make it right.
Does God necessarily want people to be happily married? I'd say no.
There is an obscure passage in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, if a man’s brother dies, he is to marry his brother’s widow. It was then possible to have more than one wife because of this requirement in OT law. And the Lord had certain instructions for the man how to treat his wives, but the instruction belies a certain truth about human nature:
So we have one woman unloved in a marriage that God commanded (a levirate marriage). It's not a stretch to say the unloved wife is not exactly a fulfilled wife.....15 “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved,
Deuteronomy 21:15
This episode in my life were I fell in love with a married woman raised other questions such as those epitomized by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter where a young beautiful girl, Hester Prynne, got married to a fiendish old man, Roger Chillingworth, because of her poverty and his wealth. She travels to the United States before her husband arrives and while there she falls in love and has a child with Rev. Arthur Dimsdale.
Amazing that probably lots of Christian girls will think the moral thing to do would be for Hester to dump Roger the fiend and run off with Rev. Dimsdale for a new life. When I first read the story, I had to confess I was rooting for Hester and the Reverend to run off together and live happily ever after.
And there were fiends and villains married to members of my family. It was hard not to root for the separation. It was hard not to think, “surely a loving God wouldn’t want a life of misery for someone with a lousy partner.�
If one thinks the barometer of good and evil is personal happiness and loving happy relationship, then there seems little reason to prevent people from joining with those that will make them happy. If on the other hand, God is less interested in us living happily ever after on Earth, but keeping faith with a law (the justification of which we may not understand), then that's what we should do.
That was the decision Rosaria Butterfield made.
http://rosariabutterfield.com/
