Homosexuality when it isn't natural?

I went to university in Salford and lived in the precinct, which consisted of a slab of concrete that was a couple of miles square with concrete flats protruding from it. My flat was leaning at a rather jaunty angle which had caused it to be condemned and the council could no longer use it as social housing. However, that made it ideal for students, and the fact that the rain came in and the windows no longer fitted in their frames was just a trivial detail in the otherwise salubrious and luxurious accommodation that we had been blessed with(!)

I had a mixture of pity for and fear of the locals. (I did get attacked once and the same was true for many students). So I decided to volunteer to help in some way. I had Wednesday afternoons off and went to work in the local 'Women's Refuge'. This building was at a secret location somewhere in Salford, and I wasn't to tell anyone because it may threaten the lives of the women inside (in particular I wasn't to tell any men because they were the scum of the earth).

Now, within the refuge, there were three types of people and I am going to caricature them, but I promise that almost all of the occupants fitted the caricatures remarkably well. The first group were the children, and my heart bled for them on a weekly basis. They had pretty much all been beaten up by their father-figure and some had been sexually abused as well. Those fifteen children were looked after by myself and a friend for a couple of hours each week and it was like descending into Hell. A third of the children were violent and we had to simply hold them all the time. If we let go they would immediately beat up another child. A third were attention seeking and would do things like squirt the paints all over the wall, or strip naked or poo in the sink. The last third were terrified, they would sit in the corner mute or crying, and I longed to comfort them, but generally had my hands full.

The second group (keep up!) were the mothers, and I had actually gone to work at the refuge because I understood how it was possible to get into bad relationships, and I wanted to help them. However, I often found myself furious with the mothers. Their children had literally rags to wear, often their kids stank and it was clear that the child had wet themselves and been left in the clothes all day. The kids ate 'value' baked beans on 'value' bread toast everyday. However, the mums had enough money to buy cigarettes and alcohol, and to go out to the local nightclubs, and then smuggle home men through the windows. (No male over the age of eleven was permitted inside the building, because, as I have already mentioned, men were the scum of the earth).

The final group, and the place where I am actually trying to get to with this story, were the women who were paid to run the refuge. There were about five of them and they were all lesbians. They drank out of rather amusing mugs with jokes about men on them, they were part of a lesbian community, and they hated men with a passion. Why? Well because they had all been in several very, very abusive relationships with men. They had been raped and assaulted, dehumanised and subjugated. They simply hated men, that was why (for them) they worked in that place, and that was why (for them) they were lesbians.

Often, in Christian circles, there is a suggestion that no one is really gay, they just need love and healing. And I guess, in the case of  the lesbians I describe above, that is true. It would probably be better for them if they faced the multiple abuses, recovered and then perhaps they would actually be attracted to men. As ministers, we are far more likely to meet people who have become homosexual because of past agonies, than those for whom it is a natural choice. So if we look for evidence that homosexuality is dysfunction, we can find it quite quickly.

The other thing that people in Christian circles sometimes say is that homosexuality is simply a temptation, like any other, and if we give in then we sin. Again, I believe this is true for some, but not for most homosexual people. Sex addicts sometimes 'act out' in homosexual ways (or by flashing, or cross-dressing, or going with prostitutes), not because they are gay, but because their addiction drives them to compulsive habits that they themselves find repulsive. In these types of cases, I again think that the homosexuality is a dysfunction.

However, all this is a far cry from two people of the same sex enjoying a loving and faithful relationship. I think tarring these relationships with the same brush as dysfunctional ones is equivalent to saying that heterosexual sex is bad because sometimes men rape women. (Or indeed as bad as saying that religion is harmful because of fundamentalism).