Matt Moore, a blogger for The Christian Post, has posted a “Dear Gay Kid” letter that blogger Jeremy Hooper calls one of the most “reprehensible” advice columns ever. Moore’s letter falls into a category familiar to those who follow the ex-gay movement: the I-was-miserable-therefore-all-gays-are-miserable genre. Moore himself doesn’t claim to be ex-gay, but he does generalize from his own unhappy sex-and-alcohol-driven version of the “gay lifestyle” to tell young gays there is no love to be found there.
It’s hard for me to imagine that even young gay Christians struggling to reconcile their sexuality and their faith will find much appealing in Moore’s worldview and theology, which seems to boil down to this: I don’t know why God let me become gay, but since He is sovereign, it must be so that He can glorify himself through my struggle to resist the very nature of who I am. Ugh. (You can judge for yourself if this is an accurate characterization of Moore’s longish letter here.)
Here’s my own much shorter “Dear Gay Kid” letter, which I left in comments section of Moore’s post:
Dear Gay Kid,
Don’t believe everything you read—and don’t believe Matt when he says you can’t find friendship, love, loyalty, and happiness as a gay person. It doesn’t mean you won’t also find dating frustration and heartbreak, just like anyone else. But be true to yourself, seek friends who share your values, and you can find deep, meaningful, lasting relationships—and the love of a lifetime. I know—I have. And, if it is important to you, you can find Christian churches that will welcome you as a child of God, will celebrate your gifts, and will bless your relationship. Many churches don’t put God in the same box Matt does. Listen to your heart and follow where it takes you.
