Freedom to Sin, or Freedom from Sin?

A friend posted a link on Facebook referencing the following blog post from a Christian father offering four promises if he has a child coming out as homosexual:

1. If I have gay children, you’ll all know it.
2. If I have gay children, I’ll pray for them.
3. If I have gay children, I’ll love them.
4. If I have gay children, most likely I have gay children.

The first and third promises seem appropriate.  The author will acknowledge what is happening and not attempt to hide or deny it; neither will he stop loving them.

Promise two is also appropriate in form, but the intent is incorrect.  The author says that he “won’t pray for them to be made ‘normal,’” nor will he “pray that God will heal or change or fix them.”  He goes on to explain that he will pray that the child be kept from “ignorance and hatred and violence” and ungodly treatment from “His misguided children.”  Every parent I know would seek to prevent bullying, teasing, etc. for his or her child, so that aspect is all well and good, but something is dreadfully wrong.  He does not pray that they might repent from the lifestyle.  That seems a rather odd position to take, but these three promises are built on the fourth, which is the underlying basis for the post: homosexuality is a God-given condition.  If you do not believe my words, consider these from the post:

• God has already created them and wired them, and placed the seed of who they are within them.  Psalm 139 says that He, “stitched them together in their mother’s womb.”  The incredibly intricate stuff that makes them uniquely them; once-in-History souls, has already been uploaded into their very cells.
• Because of that, there isn’t a coming deadline on their sexuality that their mother and I are working feverishly toward.  I don’t believe there’s some magical expiration date approaching, by which time she and I need to somehow do, or say, or pray just the right things to get them to “turn straight,” or forever lose them to the other side. 
• [Emphasis his]

Do you see the problems?  First, this father has chosen to rationalize the sin of the child by blaming it on the Creator.  We have a problem though.  The very Creator being blamed established the heterosexual union of husband and wife as the only valid place for sexual relations.  Every other form is sin.  There is no valid argument to be made that will lessen the truth.  Second, if anyone disagrees, that person or group is misguided.  The natural parent-child relationship trumps all other law—biblical, natural, or otherwise.

About this time, the usual retort is, “There are people who have same-sex attractions but are celibate.  They‘re still ‘gay.’  What about them?”  Lust is a sin regardless of the object.  Whether I might lust after another woman or man, I am an adulterer; if unmarried, I would be a fornicator.  Men and women deal with lust, whether opposite-sex or same-sex attraction.  As with any other sin, the question remains: are we willing to mortify the flesh as the Apostle Paul says?

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  (Co 3:5)

Western society has a way of grouping individuals of aberrant intent or behavior in special classifications.  While in the past these classifications may have been used to assist the individual toward normalcy, we have chosen, rather, to consider any predilection to be normal for that individual and to change the classification in order to protect the right to engage in any resulting behavior, further enslaving the person in their sin, downplaying or dismissing potential effects on others.  Christians are not to condone this mindset whereby sin is coddled and given a free pass.  No, our call is much higher—to live in a new-found life in God won for us by Jesus:

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  (Ro 6:17-18)