Brave? Nah!

Yet another celebrity (that I've never heard of) has come out as 'gay' and been lauded in the media as 'brave'.

No.

• There's nothing brave about marrying a woman when you know you prefer men.
• There's nothing brave about being unfaithful to her with men.
• There's nothing brave about taking solemn vows that you know you're not likely to be able to keep.
• There's nothing brave about telling your teammates when you know that if any of them express disapproval, warn you of the serious health consequences or even crack a joke they'll be visited by the police and accused of a hate crime.
• There's nothing brave about breaking your wife's heart.
• There's nothing brave about saying you've always been in love with her and are still in love with her when you plainly don't understand what it means.
• There's nothing brave about putting 'the way I want to live my life' above everybody else's hurt.
• There's nothing brave about treating sex as if it's the most powerful thing in life that cannot be resisted and somehow justifies whatever you want to do.

There are loads of brave men and women in our land today - men and women in marriages that are not all they hoped for, coping with stress they'd never expected, remaining faithful and working hard at what they have. They don't leave, they don't pout, they don't expect anyone to give them a medal. And no-one does: the BBC doesn't laud them for their bravery, they don't have articles written about them. And they don't hurt anyone by their selfishness. And there are others who bravely cope with betrayal from those they loved and should have been able to trust. They rebuild their lives; they seek new partners. They raise their children, refusing to teach them any bitterness towards the mum or dad who left. There are single men and women who are also sexual beings with powerful sex drives who yet practice long-term abstinence because they believe it to be right and proper and good.

They're brave - and this unknown blogger salutes them.

I wish Mr. Thomas well. And that means I wish him genuine repentance and faith in Christ - not because he's gay but because he's a sinner. I wish him to see how wrong his unfaithfulness and lying has been - not 'wrong to his sexuality' but wrong to his wife and to God. I wish him to see it not so that he can endure further years of torment (which is a strong word to describe 'not being able to have sex with who I want, or having to lie about it when I do', don't you think?) but because without seeing, and feeling, his wrong there's no hope for repentance and no hope for forgiveness. There is hope, for while 'neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who preacise homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God', the Scriptures can say 'And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.'

There's hope for all of us.