The Answers

The Answers to the 10 key questions-
to decide which teaching about same-sex marriage meets the ultimate test of Christ’s love

Case Opening

We’re now looking for answers to those 10 key questions I believe should determine whether it’s the traditionalist or revisionist teaching about same-sex “marriage” that meets the ultimate biblical test of Christ’s love: do such relationships overall do good and prevent harm or do they do the opposite and cause harm rather than good?

We will be seeking to be reasonable, impartial judges, carefully examining and weighing the available evidence to answer these questions and then reach our Verdict about those questions in our final section.

This section comes in three different sizes. This main one is the medium length version (say 10 miles for my fellow runners!). But if that’s too long for you click here for the short sprinter’s summary. And if you’ve really got the miles in your reading legs click here for the long version – the full 26.2 mile marathon!

Because I’m covering a lot of material here, I generally won’t give citation for supporting evidence – for that please click onto the long version.

I will also generally refer to same-sex “partnerships” rather than marriage – partly out of respect for traditionalists, but mainly because legal same-sex marriage has only been possible in the UK since 2014. So we’ll often need to include evidence about long-term same-sex relationships where partners aren’t legally married.

The evidence we’ll look at it in turn focuses on the following seven key areas:

1. The success or failure of same-sex partnerships compared to heterosexual marriages

2. The physical health of same-sex relationships – is gay sex “unhealthy”?

3. The health and well-being of children of same-sex partnerships

4. What good or harm does the traditionalist teaching do for LGBTQ+ people?

5. What good or harm does the revisionist teaching do for LGBTQ+ people?

6. What good or harm does the traditionalist teaching do for the gospel’s reach?

7. What good or harm does the revisionist teaching do for the gospel’s reach?

If traditionalists are right, we should expect most same-sex partnerships to fail, with much higher rates of break-ups and unfaithfulness, and generally a source of grief and unhappiness rather than love and support. And so same-sex partnerships should generally be unsuitable places to bring up children whose outcomes should generally be significantly worse than children of heterosexual marriages.

And since “homosexual” sexual relationships involve a serious sinful rebellion against God, even if it were possible to be a Christian in a “homosexual” relationship, you would expect little spiritual fruit in such a believer’s life. And churches who actively supported such sinful lifestyles should be spiritually decaying.

If traditionalists are right, you would also expect the considerable efforts put into “saving” people from homosexual “lifestyles” would result in many being turned from gay to straight or happy celibates. What you wouldn't expect is large numbers of gay Christians desperately trying to pray away the gay but finding they remain as same-sex attracted as ever, still deeply needful of a same-sex life partner and feeling rejected, isolated, depressed, even suicidal.

If revisionists are right, you would expect to see same-sex partnerships offering similar benefits to heterosexual marriages. They should mostly be places of mutual love and support for themselves and any children and a good channel for sexual desires. You would also expect to see some gay Christians in such relationships showing God’s fruit in their lives and some thriving churches supporting same-sex couples.

Part 1 - The Success or Failure of Same-Sex Partnerships compared to Heterosexual Marriages

The same-sex couples I’ve encountered over the years all seemed to have loving, stable relationships. I’d always found this rather puzzling when I’d held a traditionalist view. But personal experience may be unrepresentative and subjective. So, what does the objective evidence tell us about the quality of these relationships? Do gay people generally even want permanent monogamous partnerships? And how stable and successful have same-sex partnerships been compared to heterosexual marriages?

Certainly the numbers show many gay and bisexual people do want a same-sex life partner. Only 3.2% of the population of England & Wales over 16 identified as LGB+ in the 2021 census , approximately 1.5 million people. Civil partnership had only been possible for same-sex couples since 2005 and marriage since 2014. Yet as of 2022 there were about 234,000 people in formalized same-sex couplings: 167,000 married and 67,000 civil partners - 57% female and 43% male.

One of the best objective measures of the success or failure of long-term relationships must be the divorce rate. We need to bear in mind that more than half of all divorces happen within a marriage’s first seven years. Yet same-sex marriages have only been possible in the UK for 11 years. So, you would expect same-sex divorce rates currently to be higher than the average. As of 2022 the overall annual divorce rate in England and Wales was 6.7 per 1,000 married people. As you’d expect, the same-sex marriage divorce rate in England and Wales was higher, but not very much - 7.8 per 1,000 . However, as with other countries, divorce rates in female same-sex marriages are rather higher than all-male marriages – currently 9.4 per 1,000. But female couplings make up most same-sex marriages, so this means current male same-sex marriage divorce rates are only 5.6 per 1,000– 16% lower than the 6.7 average.

The experience of other northern European countries is very similar.

One reason why all-male partnerships may be slightly more stable than heterosexual ones is that they don’t involve any gender role conflicts. But, if so, why is the all-female divorce rate rather higher?

Sociologists believe the higher divorces rates of all-female unions may reflect a tendency for women to commit sooner and have higher expectations of their relationship, whether it’s a lesbian or heterosexual relationship. Also, evidence suggests women tend to be less forgiving of marital unfaithfulness than men. This is certainly borne out by divorce figures in the UK. Even in heterosexual marriages, in 2021 63% of divorces were started by women. So the higher breakdown rate of lesbian marriages seems to be because women generally have higher relationship standards than men, whether it’s a lesbian or heterosexual marriage.

Another possible factor increasing the female same-sex divorce rate may be that in many all-female relationships at least one of the partners may be bisexual. According to the last census, it’s more common for women to be bisexual (1.9%) than simply lesbian (1.1%) (and the opposite for men - 2.7% gay, only 1.1% bisexual). This may increase female same-sex divorce rates because relationship quality studies indicate bisexual individuals tend to have lower relationship satisfaction ratings than gays or heterosexuals – possibly due to their partner’s greater insecurity because of the potential for unfaithfulness with either sex and suspicions they would prefer to be with someone of a different sex.

So, overall, the statistics show that, contrary to some traditionalists’ prophesies of doom, most same-sex life-partnerships do not end in divorce and overall enjoy a broadly similar divorce rate to heterosexual marriages. In fact, male same-sex partnerships have a slightly lower divorce than heterosexual ones, but female same-sex partnerships have somewhat higher rates - probably for the reasons identified above.

This suggests many same-sex partnerships must fulfil the essential purposes of marriage or else far more of them would end in divorce.

But divorce rates can’t be the only measure of how good a relationship is. The widest based research into relationship quality to date was a UK/Australian study, Sexual Identity and Relationship Quality in Australia and the United Kingdom . Published in 2018, this studied 35,000 people in long-term cohabiting relationships in the UK and Australia. The results were based on answers to standard national relationship surveys. These included questions like how often they worked together on a project, how often they quarrelled or kissed, how well does your partner meet your needs, how many problems does your relationship have, how much do you love your partner? The answers were then translated into overall scores out of 10 for the relationship

Across the different sexualities, averaging out the UK and Australian scores, gave the following results:

Gender/sexuality

Lesbian women 8.01
Heterosexual men 7.85
Gay men 7.72
Heterosexual women 7.63
Bisexual women 7.26
Bisexual men 7.09

Overall average 7.60

So, overall, this study found that people in same-sex partnerships had very similar levels of satisfaction with their relationship to those in heterosexual couples. In fact, on average lesbian couples reported the highest satisfaction levels, closely followed by heterosexual men. As noted above, bisexual men and women were the least happy, regardless of whether they were in a same-sex or opposite sex couple. Other studies have produced similar results.

The divorce statistics already suggested many same-sex partnerships must fulfil the essential biblical purposes of marriage. But the surveys of relationship quality pose questions that directly touch on those purposes, including compatibility, close bonding, help and mutual support. Same-sex partnerships are there found to meet these essential purposes just as well as heterosexual ones. And even though female same-sex partnerships have higher failure rates, whilst those relationships last, their average quality is rated more highly than heterosexual or all-male relationships.

Part 2 -The Physical Health of Same-Sex Partnerships – is Gay Sex “Unhealthy”?

A warning here, it’s impossible to properly examine this topic without discussing sexual activities openly and honestly!

Many traditionalists argue, even if some same-sex partnerships do seem to be good and stable, in the longer term many are storing up physical harm for each other by practicing “unnatural” forms of sex. Some argue that in same-sex couplings sex happens only through an “act of violence”, rather than the parts “fitting together beautifully” as God physically designed them to between a man and a woman. Consequently, “homosexual” sex often leads to serious harms to physical health.

We know from experience that sex between two people is capable of helping cement the bond between them. Whilst good sex does not have to involve orgasm, orgasm naturally releases large amounts of “feel good” chemicals with their potential health and relationship benefits. Yet most women cannot experience orgasm through intercourse alone and require other external stimulation. And obviously men don’t need vaginal intercourse to achieve orgasm.

Since these divinely gifted benefits of sex are experienced as much (if not more) through non-coital sex, they can be just as easily experienced between two female or two male partners. Hence the statistics above do not suggest any sense of sexual frustration leading to serial unfaithfulness and high divorce rates in same-sex partnerships.

Virtually all the focus of traditionalists on the physical harms of gay sex has been on the “unnatural” act of anal intercourse between two men. But the anus itself is designed to have a role in sex, as it contains its own erogenous zones. If we object to it as “unnatural” because poo comes out of the anus then we should also object to all other forms of sex, because they either involve a part of the anatomy from which bloody human waste comes once a month or through which urine is passed several times a day! Nowhere does Scripture ban heterosexual anal intercourse, even though it likely regularly happened when Scripture was written. Yet the process of heterosexual anal intercourse is identical to gay anal intercourse. So, biblically it’s difficult to argue that anal intercourse itself is “unnatural”.

However, frequent anal intercourse does come with greater risks than vaginal or oral intercourse, mainly because of the rectum’s thinner lining. This increases the risk of anal fissures, bacterial infections, fecal incontinence and STDs. This was one of the reasons why in the 1980s the AIDs pandemic was particularly rife among gay men who had promiscuous anal intercourse without a condom. These increased risks still apply today.

However, research shows on average anal sex is the least common of any sexual activities regularly practised by gay men. Just as with heterosexuals, the most common sexual activity shared by gay men is kissing! This fact alone should give us a very strong clue that most heterosexual and homosexual sex between regular partners are actually very similar. Just as they involve the coming together of mouths in kissing and other body parts in more overt sex, they involve the coming together of hearts and minds in union, driven by sexual attraction, but which are also about so much more than sex.

In fact, recent research confirms the majority of anal intercourse going on in the world today is not between gay men but younger straight couples! And yet for anatomical reasons woman regularly receiving anal intercourse may be at greater risk than men receiving it.

Evidence does indicate gay men are on average a little, but not a lot, more promiscuous than straight men and women. Also, whilst anal intercourse is the least common sexual activity for most gay men, most sexually active gay men do practise it on at least a semi-regular basis.

The increased risks for those regularly receiving anal sex alongside slightly higher promiscuity, means gay men are overall at somewhat greater risk of sexual injury and disease. This largely explains why so many gay men fell victim to AIDs in the 1980s and '90s. But most of the risks result from when gay men carelessly engage in promiscuous anal intercourse, without condoms. The evidence shows most gay men do not suffer harms to health from their sex lives and harms can be mostly avoided when sex is practised carefully within a monogamous relationship.

There can also be significant health risks and issues with vaginal intercourse, which does not always involve parts “fitting together beautifully”. Even within faithful married relationships vaginal intercourse carries risks - of thrush and urinary tract infections. And, whilst vaginal intercourse generally involves less risk of pain and health problems than anal sex, many women experience pain and difficulty with vaginal sex (especially as they get older). For some women, e.g. with endometriosis, anal intercourse can sometimes be less painful than vaginal intercourse and may therefore even be suggested by gynaecologists as an alternative. Also, unlike anal intercourse or other non-coital sex, of course, vaginal intercourse alone involves the significant risks of unwanted pregnancy. Furthermore, occasionally even consensual vaginal intercourse involves physical “violence” through penetrating vaginal injuries.

It is very difficult to see how lesbian sex could be described as an “act of violence”. By definition, unlike heterosexual sex, it never involves anal intercourse. Lesbian sex usually involves most of the same sexual activities as heterosexual and gay male sex, albeit obviously minus a penis. But it’s that lack of a penis that makes the overall health risks of lesbian sex substantially less risky than heterosexual or male gay sex, as the evidence shows.

Part 3 - The Health and Well-being of Children of Same-Sex Partnerships – Are they a suitable place to bring up children?

If the evidence shows that overall same-sex parenting is more damaging or less beneficial to children than heterosexual parenting then, however good same-sex partnerships are for the couples, it would be clearly wrong to accept same-sex partnerships as equivalent to traditional marriages.

But it’s very easy to come at this issue based on assumptions derived from pre-conceived bias. We need to look at the actual facts about the outcomes for children of same-sex parents compared to heterosexual parents. There’s now a mountain of research studies from both Northern Europe and the USA comparing these outcomes over several decades.

The most definitive and recent evidence is from the British Medical Journal’s Global Health study, published February 2023. This found the mental (and physical) health of the children of same-sex couples on average was at least as good as children raised by heterosexual couples. And academically, on average children of same-sex couples did at least as well as, if not slightly better, than children of heterosexual couples.

But don’t gay couples turn their children gay?

Over the last five decades numerous studies looked at this very question. The overwhelming conclusion was there is no more chance of a child of two gay parents turning out gay than a child of heterosexual parents. An extensive review by two leading social scientists was published in 2019, looking at 72 social science research studies over 16 years. They concluded that over 90% studies had found no association between parent and child sexual orientations. The small minority suggesting otherwise had methodological shortcomings that made their findings unreliable.

Part 4 - What Good or Harm does the Traditionalist Teaching do for LGBTQ+ people?

Over several decades traditionalists have taken the following main approaches to how they “help” gay and bisexual people live their lives to conform with their teaching:

“Healing homosexuality” - medical interventions
“Pray away the gay” - conversion therapies
Just marry an opposite sex partner anyway
Accept you’re gay but keep single and celibate
Celibate partnerships

As we’ll see, the evidence now conclusively shows that each of these strategies has failed and has done no good but great harm for gay and bisexual people as well as others caught up in their relationships.

“Healing homosexuality” - medical interventions

Medical interventions to try to “cure” people’s “homosexuality” were widely practiced in the UK from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. It was then abandoned because it was found to be a complete waste of public funds - no one got “cured” but many were seriously harmed or even died as a result. In February 2021, the British Medical Journal published Treatments of homosexuality in Britain since the 1950s—an oral history: the experience of patients. The most common treatment was behavioural aversion therapy with electric shocks administered whilst the patient watched photographs of nude men and women. A shock was administered with same-sex pictures, no shock with opposite sex pictures. It was hoped the electric shocks would reduce arousal to same-sex photographs while relief from shock avoidance would increase interest in opposite sex images. Not a single participant interviewed considered the treatments had changed their sexuality or had any direct benefits. Most were left feeling emotionally distressed and half were continuing to receive psychological help. Many still found later happiness in same-sex relationships. Four stayed single but all (save one) unhappily, describing it as an unwanted result of the treatment. Some male participants married women in the hope this would complete their “cure”. All except one—essentially a sexless marriage—ended in divorce on the grounds of sexual incompatibility. The study concluded that defining and treating same-sex attraction as a mental illness had been completely ineffective in changing sexuality and caused great harm.

“Pray away the gay” - Conversion Therapies

Conversion therapies call on Jesus to perform miraculously what the healthcare system had failed to do medically – turn gay or bisexual people straight. Their typical methods have involved prayer or exorcism of “demons”, pastoral counselling and pseudo-scientific religious counselling combining spiritual and psychological techniques. Sadly, these conversion therapies have been just as unsuccessful and damaging as the failed medical interventions.

In 2013, the then world’s leading anti-gay evangelical group, Exodus International, collapsed after recognizing that of the thousands it had attempted to convert from a same-sex orientation they had changed virtually none. This included a number of its leaders whose own “heterosexual" marriages had collapsed. A few had happily accepted a life of celibacy and some bisexuals without difficulty had married a person of the opposite sex. But their former chairman, Alan Chambers, conceded that of the thousands they had tried to help “99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their [sexual] orientation.” Of the very small numbers who had apparently changed, he observed, nearly all had been women (whose sexuality is known to be slightly more fluid than men’s). For further insight watch the Netflix documentary, Pray Away. For a powerful individual account of the futility and damage of “praying away the gay” I’d also recommend Vicky Beeching’s moving autobiography, Undivided. (There are links to both in my Further Resources section)

Numerous studies have looked into the effectiveness of conversion therapies in altering people’s sexualities. This has included a recent major study sponsored by the UK government, Conversion therapy: an evidence assessment and qualitative study, published in October 2021, which assessed the evidence from all previous studies published in the previous 20 years.

Their review of those studies found “no robust evidence” that conversion therapy is ever effective at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. In some studies participants reported having experienced temporary perceptions of change due to their expectations and being in denial – a placebo effect. Many had been told they must have “faith” for it to work, so tried to persuade themselves they had been “healed” before eventually recognising there had been no change. This placebo effect invariably wore off – but sometimes not for several years.

Various studies have also found much evidence linking conversion therapy with poor mental health outcomes, including attempted or actual suicides. (Something Vicky Beeching describes in Undivided as coming very close to some years after such failed “therapy”). One major study from 2020 found that LGBTQ+ adults who gone had undergone conversion therapy (compared with those who hadn’t) :

were twice as likely to have had suicidal thoughts
had 75% increased odds of planning to attempt suicide
had 88% increased odds of attempting suicide resulting in minor injury
had 67% increased odds of attempting suicide resulting in moderate or severe injury

Given this overwhelming evidence, unsurprisingly, in the developed world health professionals almost unanimously strongly oppose “conversion” therapies and most developed countries now ban them.

Marry “straight” to lose the “gay”

An alternative traditionalist response has been to advise LGBTQ+ people to enter an opposite-sex marriage. There has been no research directly focusing on this, but it's often reported as part of other research. There’s also plenty of personal experience of this approach, including by numerous celebrities – most famously Elton John. This has been just as ineffective as conversion therapies, even if slightly less damaging. The true sexuality of these individuals couldn’t help breaking out eventually and often through gay love affairs or more squalid encounters.

That 2021 BMJ-published study interviewed several men who had married women in the hope this would cure their “homosexuality” when medical interventions had failed to. All except one (a sexless plutonic marriage) ended in divorce on the grounds of sexual incompatibility.

One stand-out example of this approach's failure is the once leading evangelical preacher and writer, Dr Roy Clements. In 1999 he left his wife for another man. The sad truth was he’d always been gay but grew up in a time when active “homosexuality” was a crime and long before any evangelical Christians accepted same-sex relationships. What brought his sexuality into the daylight was falling in love with another Christian man. They are still together to this day.

Roy shared with me some of his experience:

“I was in complete denial about my gay feelings until the mid-1980s. I accepted the view of my older evangelical mentors that homosexuality was a sinful act, like theft or murder. If you didn’t do the act, you were not a homosexual. I married because I knew I didn’t have the gift of celibacy and I wanted a Christian family …. It was only after 10 years of marriage that I accepted my gay feelings as something more than a ‘temptation’ - this was partly as a result of counselling training and partly as a result of falling in love with [another] man.”

Another prominent gay evangelical who can testify to the foolishness of this approach is Roy’s friend, Jeremy Marks, who helped start the charity Courage. They initially tried to “heal” gay people straight, including by encouraging them to marry opposite sex partners. All these marriages failed, including Jeremy’s own.

Jeremy observed that of those they’d worked with only those who later accepted they were gay and found a same-sex partner were happy.

Stay gay but keep celibate

The main current advice of traditionalists is that gay people should accept their sexuality but avoid sexual sin by keeping celibate. For a few this can be positively beneficial. But for most it’s a prison, as Jeremy Marks can testify (see above). And revisionists are not anti-celibacy. We just want to give gay Christians the same genuine choice as straight ones – marriage (to someone you're sexually attracted to) or celibacy.

Compelling celibacy on anyone also risks opening up the vulnerable to abuse.

This has been a major factor in widespread child sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Many of those priests were sexually repressed gay men. A major study published in 2017 found that mandatory celibacy for priests was “the major precipitating risk factor for child sexual abuse.”

But most evangelical churches today effectively set the same rule for any gay church leaders. Inevitably, this has also led to secretly gay evangelical leaders sexually abusing vulnerable young males under their charge. Men like the late Eddie Long, senior pastor of the megachurch, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

Not long ago many evangelicals were shocked to learn of the revelations about Mike Pilavachi, leader of the Soul Survivor Christian charismatic movement. Sadly, Mike misused his spiritual position “to control people and … his coercive and controlling behaviour led to inappropriate relationships”. He formed intimate, inappropriate relationships with young men, who lived with him for periods, and with whom he indulged in full-body massages or wrestling bouts. I don’t know what Mike’s sexuality is, but if he is gay one must wonder whether this abuse could have been avoided if church teaching had allowed Mike to fulfil any need for male sexual intimacy through a faithful marriage to another man?

When my son came out to me as “gray”!

A reason why some gay traditionalist Christians have happily embraced compulsory celibacy is that as well as being gay they’re “gray”. I was completely ignorant of gray sexuality until my son recently challenged me.

Unlike me, he’s “gray-ish” - very happy with his single life, connected to plenty of friends but without any great need for a life-partner. Yes, he’s heterosexual and he’d had a girlfriend before and might do so again, but it wouldn’t bother him if he never did. Unlike me, he didn’t need a partner to feel fulfilled.

Celibate same-sex partnerships?

For a few gay people leading a celibate life but in a plutonic same-sex partnership seems to have worked in meeting their need for a life partner whilst keeping sex off the menu. But for most keeping partnerships celibate has caused great unhappiness. As one man testified to Matthew Vines (see his God and the Gay Christian listed in my Further Resources) their relationship became like “torture … like being told to paint a picture, then having my eyes removed.”

It should really come as no surprise to evangelical Christians that compelling all gay people to be celibate doesn’t work out so well, because it directly contradicts Jesus and Paul’s teaching in Scripture (See e.g. Matt 19, 1 Cor 7:7-1 and 1 Tim 4:3).

They were clear that marriage was God’s normal pattern for most people and celibacy should be a matter of choice for those who had no innate need for sex and marriage or those with the gift of celibacy.

So, the evidence is now very clear - gay people are no more healed straight than the introverted are healed extrovert or white men healed black.

But if God thinks to be gay is to be so broken that you can’t enjoy the sex and marriage he intends for most people, why does he never mend this “condition”? What sort of God would do that? Not the one I’ve met in Jesus in the gospels or in my own life!

Surely, isn't the reason why LGBTQ+ people are not healed straight is because Jesus does not see them and their sexuality as “damaged goods” but part of the rich diverse ways it's possible to be a human being made in his image? Black, white, introvert, extrovert, male, female, neuro-normative and neuro-diverse, gay, straight and every shade in between. Doesn’t God accept us as we are without any need to change these essential parts of how we're “fearfully and wonderfully made”? So, unless gay people are gifted to be celibate, as part of enjoying life in all its fulness, doesn’t Jesus want the blessings of marriage and sex within it to be just as available to gay people as the rest of us? And in their case mustn't this mean same-sex marriage? Is this not just spiritual common sense?

Part 5 - What Good or Harm does the Revisionist Teaching do for LGBTQ+ People?

Encouraging gay people to marry a same-sex partner unless they’re gifted to be celibate

The statistics above show that same-sex partnerships offer LGBTQ+ couples just the same benefits as heterosexual marriages do for straight people.

That was certainly the experience of Jason and Ben, the Preston Christian gay couple, among the first to be married in a Methodist church in June 2022.

Jason said, “I really believe that this day means the start of something new for my relationship with the whole Church - being recognised and affirmed in my wholeness. This day has been the best of my life, and I can't wait to share the rest of it with Ben as my husband!”

I believe their wedding day pictures speak far more eloquently than my words ever could about the God-given goodness and love of their relationship.

A rather more famous example of how well same-sex partnerships can work is Elton John’s very successful 30-year partnership with David Furnish with whom he shares two adopted children. What a contrast to his ill-fated four year marriage to poor Renate!

And let’s learn from the experience of the ex-ex-gay evangelical, Jeremy Marks. During the 1980s & '90s members of his organisation, Courage, faithfully tried all the traditionalist approaches recommended to help gay people deal with their sexuality. By 2000, Jeremy had observed that of those they worked with only those who accepted they were gay and found a same-sex partner were happy. (You can read Jeremy’s story on Kindle in Exchanging the Truth of God for a Lie - One Man’s Journey to find the Truth about homosexuality and same-sex partnerships – see my Further Resources)

In 2002, Courage quit the huge ex-gay organisation, Exodus International. But it took another 11 years for the parent organisation to recognise its own failures after some of their supposedly "ex-gay" leaders realised they were as gay as ever and their heterosexual marriages were part of their failed experiment. Many of them too have since found peace and happiness in faithful same-sex partnerships. Jeremy eventually found special covenant love himself with his husband Paolo whom he married on 24 October 2020.

And let’s not forget the survivors of the failed medical “conversion” interventions from the 1950s to 70s. Most were left permanently scarred by this “treatment", but where many did later find happiness was in same-sex partnerships.

There were over 55,000 same-sex marriages in England & Wales in the first 7 ¾ years since they were legalised in March 2014. As we have seen, the statistics show divorce rates of same-sex unions are overall similar to heterosexual marriages. Meanwhile, relationship quality surveys have found same-sex partnerships overall are at least as happy and enriching as heterosexual ones.

Gay male sex on average carries greater risks than other forms, but men avoid the large majority of those risks if they keep sex within a monogamous relationship. By contrast, where church and society have rejected their sexuality this has often encouraged them to reject God and his moral boundaries, leading them into risky promiscuous gay sex. How many gay men growing up in a supposedly Christian environment might have been saved from AIDS if, instead of being made to feel their every sexual or romantic desire was a sin, had been encouraged to find a husband and practise loving, safe sex with him? After all, we now know gay men on average actually do marriage very well!

It's difficult to see much harm for LGBTQ+ people from teaching that supports same-sex marriage. Of course, entering any marriage is a risk, but this can no more be used as a reason against same-sex marriage than heterosexual marriage.

Part 6 - Does the Traditionalist Teaching Help or Harm the Gospel’s Reach?

Undaunted by revisionist explanations of the gay “clobber” texts, many traditionalists argue that:

For LGBTQ+ people to be saved they must be taught to resist the desire for gay sex because it stems from sinful human pride totally at odds with the repentant heart required to become a Christian
The church particularly thrives and the gospel reaches where the traditional view of sex and marriage is promoted

Does pursuing any same-sex relationship amount to a refusal to repent of sin?

The standard traditionalist line I myself used to argue is: yes, it’s tough if you’re born gay, but in our fallen natures many of us are born with desires and weaknesses for certain types of sin, like alcohol, drugs or gambling addiction or even incest and paedophilia. The fact we’re born with a desire for gay sex doesn’t make it any less sinful to act it out than for a natural alcoholic or paedophile to act on their own desires.

Some traditionalists even add - if rejecting our natural sexuality damages our human dignity and sense of self-esteem that’s good not bad fruit, because, these things are really human pride which gets in the way of our repentance.

But in my experience traditionalist teaching generally produces bad fruit not because it causes a loss of self-esteem and dignity, but because, generally, it has those effects without leading to repentance and saving faith. Instead, it mostly just leads to a loss of faith, permanent unhappiness or worse.

Also, this damage done to gay people by traditionalist teaching happens to plenty of gay people who haven’t even “sinned” as most traditionalists would see it. It wracks many gay people with shame and self-loathing just because they know they are same-sex attracted. Many also feel sentenced to a lonely single life with no hope of ever finding a marriage partner (and the sexual union that naturally goes with that). It’s not so much the sex they crave but the “one flesh” relationship. (For a personal insight into this, again, I’d highly recommend Vicky Beeching’s Undivided).This is a very different situation to alcoholics or drug addicts who will have sinned already by drinking excessively or taking drugs.

And the desire for incest or sex with children usually ends up with extreme abuse and harm to a vulnerable child or relative, whereas (as we've seen) same-sex attraction frequently leads to committed relationships that enrich people’s lives.

Does the church thrive and the gospel reach where the traditional view of sex and marriage is promoted?

Yes, but, I believe, that’s the wrong question … I've been part of churches and missions where the whole leadership team have held traditionist views about sex and marriage and we certainly saw new people having their lives transformed by Christ – even, to my astonishment, a gay man partnered with another gay man! But I’m now part of an affirming church community that has seen new people coming to Christ. If God only worked through people who got everything right then the gospel would have died out straight after Jesus’s ascension! Think of Moses, Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon, or Simon Peter.

Whether we’re revisionist or traditionalist, we are preaching the same gospel: repent, believe in Jesus, accept his forgiveness, receive the Holy Spirit and start living for him. (See e.g. Mark 1: 15, Acts 2:38, Romans 10:9). That’s what Nigel did in that Alpha course 21 years ago. As a gay man in a same-sex partnership he didn’t become a Christian because our church had a traditionalist view of sex and marriage. He became a Christian despite it.

It's not true that the only parts of the world where the church is growing take a traditionalist view.

Most churches in all parts of the world still hold traditionalist views about sex and marriage, because it usually takes centuries for church orthodoxy to change. However, in all parts of the world, including in Africa, Asia and South America, there are also a significant and growing number of churches either affirming gay marriage or reviewing their positions, including evangelical and charismatic churches . See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_affirming_LGBT_people

There are also plenty of apparently thriving and growing traditionalist churches, especially Black Majority churches. But how many of their congregants are new Christians who hadn’t grown up in similar traditionalist churches? And the sad truth about black churches’ predominant opposition to gay marriage is that the position they take, almost invariably, came originally from what they were taught by white western missionaries, which they then stuck to.

So the real questions, I believe, we need to ask are: does the traditionalist view of sex and marriage actually help the gospel’s reach or does it reach people despite that view? Could we reach more people if that traditionalist view were changed for an affirming one?

One harm, I believe, we’ve seen traditionalist teaching do to the gospel’s reach is the waste of gifts of many Christians who happen to be born LGBTQ+. People whose divine gifting had so much potential to bring people to Jesus or deepen their faith. Many we’ll never know about because, paralysed by fear of hostile church reaction to their sexuality, they’ve kept their light under its bushel. In other cases we’ve seen amazing ministries blessing so many cut off in their prime when they’ve come out as gay. I think of the ministry of Roy Clements, one of the leading evangelical teachers of the 1980s and '90s. I think too of the wonderfully gifted worship leader and musician, Vicky Beeching. (See the link to her autobiography, Undivided, in my Further Resources section).

Nearly all evangelical Christians used to sing Vicky's great songs – until 13 August 2014. That day, still aged only 35, she announced to the world, “I’m gay. God loves me the way I am.” Then they stopped singing her songs. Despite her widespread cancellation, God re-purposed her life for good. But how much more good might God have done for her and for the Kingdom through her if the Church had simply accepted her sexuality?

One major factor in my brother Frazer losing his fervent faith aged 20 was seeing how the church mistreated people just because they happened to be born attracted to people of the same sex as them. He saw the serious contradiction of a message that preached universal love and mercy in one breath and in the next condemned people to eternal damnation just because they happened to be born same-sex attracted. I longed to bring my brother back to faith. 14 years later I thought it might help to share with him how our Alpha course was bringing to the Lord Nigel, despite being a gay man in a same-sex relationship. Of course, we couldn’t accept Nigel into any ministry role unless he gave up his relationship with Adrian, but in the meantime we’d be happy for the Bishop to confirm him as a member of our flock. I shared this with Frazer at our sister’s wedding.

Frazer was just bemused, but his 20-something old girlfriend was horrified. “That’s just evil!” she said. She’d grown up in a post-section 28 society where acceptance of different sexualities was the norm. So to her generation, our discrimination of people based on their sexuality was pure homophobia - no better than racism. My “homophobia” was like a pair of huge ear plugs that blocked out any gospel message I wanted to share.

The annual British Social Attitudes Reports chart how over 40 years this country has increasingly moved from overwhelming opposition to same-sex relationships to overwhelming acceptance. Back in 2004, my brother's, girlfriend was among the large majority of younger adults who unequivocally accepted there was nothing wrong in same-sex sexual relationships. But 20 years later the large majority of all ages take the same view.

Outside the church, the overwhelming majority now fully respects and accepts the sexuality of gay and bisexual people. So, as they see it, why should they have to put up with discriminatory treatment within a church that they don’t suffer elsewhere?

So, when the church today teaches that gay people must choose between damnation or compulsory celibacy this makes it much harder for our gospel message to reach the country’s unchurched majority. Such a “homophobic” message, tragically, tunes many out of reception to the good news of Jesus. It is seen as hypocritically opposite to “loving your neighbour as yourself”. In their eyes it also just makes the church look very foolish.

I firmly believe that this teaching now brings the gospel into disrepute with society's unchurched majority we are trying to reach.

It’s hardly surprising that with such a long church history of exclusion of gay people, so many LGBTQ+ individuals have turned against the Christian church – much more so than the general population. The 2021 UK census found that Christian belief amongst LGBTQ+ individuals was barely half that of the general population.

Despite this, some gay people do develop a faith in Jesus. But for many their experience of church is far from the love Jesus said should characterise his followers’ relationships. A Church Times on-line survey published in January 2022 found that just over two-thirds of LGBT+ Christians do not “feel safe to be themselves” in their place of worship.

Tragically, this inevitably causes many to feel hurt and excluded and some even lose their faith, or take their own lives.

Part 7 - Does Revisionist Teaching Help or Harm the Gospel’s Reach?

In his ministry amongst LGBTQ+ folk in Chicago, Andrew Marin never preached about whether same-sex relationships are right or wrong. He just left the Holy Spirit to do his job of convicting people of any sin. His ministry is a powerful test of whether it’s possible to be “saved” whilst continuing in a same-sex partnership.

I believe we see that answer in the pages of Andrew’s book, Love Is An Orientation. It’s a few years old now, but I believe the lessons it teaches are just as relevant today. He there testifies that many gay people he’s worked with have come to or returned to a relationship with Jesus without abandoning intimate same-sex relationships. To my mind, that’s a pretty positive test result that being in a same-sex relationship is no barrier to being a Christian.

I haven’t had an amazing ministry like Andrew Marin, but his experience does chime with my own. On that Alpha course 21 years ago, despite my traditionalist views, I could not deny what I saw and heard with my own eyes and ears: Nigel, a gay man in a committed relationship with another man, publicly testified to accepting Jesus as his saviour and being healed of his alcohol dependency. To my puzzlement all this had happened without Nigel “repenting” of his relationship with Adrian. How could the Holy Spirit be producing such fruit in the life of a man who, according to God’s word, was living a sexually sinful lifestyle?

Something didn’t add up here. But, dull as I am, it took me another 11 years to work out didn’t add up: it certainly wasn’t God’s spirit or his word; just my inconsistently literal interpretation of it! I’d misheard God’s word. “Though seeing, [I did] not see; though hearing, [I did] not hear or understand.” (Mat.13:13). I now realise that Nigel was able to come to Christ without repenting of his relationship with Adrian because there was no sin there to repent of. By contrast, the one relationship the Holy Spirit did tell Nigel he needed to repent of was with alcohol. So, as he committed his life to Jesus, Nigel asked for prayer to overcome his over-reliance on alcohol. And, as Nigel publicly testified at his confirmation, God faithfully answered that prayer.

The question of same-sex relationships simply never came up on the Alpha course. But if Nigel had remained with us, I fear that our later treatment of him as a traditionalist church might have strangled his infant faith in its cot.

That God can and does bring saving faith to people in committed same-sex relationships, I believe, is proven by the experience of an increasing number of thriving, inclusive churches. Most (but not all) of these churches are listed by the Inclusive Churches’ Network - https://www.inclusive-church.org/

This includes various “ACE” churches - LGBTQ+ affirming, Charismatic, Evangelical churches. Like John Peters’ former New Wine Anglican church, St Mary's Marylebone, London - https://www.stmaryslondon.com/

Danny Brierley’s Chester Road Baptist Church, North Birmingham - https://www.chesterroadbaptist.org.uk/

(And I’d highly recommend Danny’s brilliant book, To Inclusion and Beyond - see my Further Resources section )

Keely and Simon Bateson’s Riverside Church, Whitstable (They'd previously led churches within the Vineyard movement) - https://www.riversideuk.org/

And let's not forget Dave Steell's One Church Brighton, which came out as fully inclusive long before any of these Johnny-come-latelys! https://www.onechurchbrighton.org/visit-us/

My own church, Ebbsfleet Baptist Church, led by Pastor Penny Marsh, has also recently come out as fully affirming, https://ebbsfleetbaptistchurch.org.uk/about-us/

If you’re in any doubt that churches who accept same-sex partnerships can thrive and grow, I’d recommend attending one of these churches.

In May 2024, I was privileged to attend the first Fruitful conference for affirming evangelical Christians, hosted by St Mary’s, Marylebone. I there saw for myself some of the wonderful new spiritual fruit growing amongst Jesus’s LGBTQ+ followers. Just one example is the young nurse I met there, Hannah (name changed for confidentiality). As a lesbian woman Hannah had virtually abandoned her faith because of the way churches had mistreated her due to her sexuality. She then saw advertised St Mary’s course, Refocusing Faithfulness – exploring the Biblical basis for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Church. She decided to give God and his church one last chance. That course and the acceptance she received as a lesbian Christian saved and renewed her faith. Hannah has since become an integral part of their prayer and youth ministry teams and enjoyed the church blessing of her marriage to her fiancée (sadly, still the best Anglican churches can offer).

By contrast, as we’ve seen, over two-thirds of LGBTQ+ Christians reported they did not “feel safe to be themselves” in their own places of worship. But, more positively, that same survey found factors which most increased their sense of safety within the church included: being able to be open about their sexuality or gender identity, a warm welcome from church leaders, having church leaders openly affirm same-sex relationships and an inclusive statement on the church website.

I know this had been a real relief and blessing to a lesbian lady who joined my own church. For years she had attended traditionalist churches where she had to hide her sexuality for fear of being excluded. She'd finally found a local church where she can just be the person Jesus made her to be.

If LGBTQ+ Christians feel the need to be safe to be themselves in church, how much more will non-Christian LGBTQ+ enquirers need this to feel comfortable enough to even enter a church, let alone hang around long enough to hear the sermon? Where people are made to feel comfortable about their sexuality and gender they are far more likely to come, stay and hear and receive the gospel. It’s really just spiritual common sense.

And the same applies to the heterosexual majority. Overwhelmingly, they now react as strongly against perceived homophobia as racism and sexism, just like my brother’s girlfriend did 21 years ago. I’m realistic. Offering an LGBTQ+ inclusive message will not send the crowds rushing in to hear the gospel. They’re hardly going to think churches deserve a medal for finally accepting what most of society did two decades ago! But churches that affirm same-sex relationships do at least increase their bandwidth that people might tune in and listen to, rather than turn the dial to the next station the moment they hear a screechy “homophobic” noise.

I think of a lovely young couple Kate and Chris (not their real names) with two gorgeous little kids who have become part of our church. Neither had a church background, but both recently became Christians. Kate shared how a key early breakthrough for them was when our pastor Penny explained how we believed Jesus accepted LGBTQ+ people on just the same terms as everyone else. Kate was clear they would have wanted nothing to do with a church or a God who didn’t embrace LGBTQ+ folk that same way.

Some churches who adopt an affirming position lose rather than increase their numbers, at least initially, as members with traditionalist views abandon them. I know something of this from my own church’s movement towards inclusivity. Sadly, this resulted in our losing two wonderful, young, Christ-centred couples. Thankfully, we’ve so far gained as much as we’ve lost in numbers. But for black majority churches the loss can be much greater. Pastor Paul Bailey testified to this at the 2024 Fruitful Conference, sharing the experience of his brave stand as the UK’s first publicly affirming black Pentecostal pastor.

But none of his loss of numbers in his congregation, let alone his bank balance, proves that revisionist teaching harms the gospel’s reach.

Spiritual growth surely cannot be measured by the Sunday morning headcount, but by new spiritual fruit. After all, a loss of numbers was something even Jesus suffered when he started challenging traditional theology with revisionist teaching. (See John 6:59-71).

And being “saved” by Jesus should be about so much than saying an “ABC prayer of salvation” so that we go to heaven when we die. Jesus declared, “I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10). So, our salvation should also be about experiencing a better, more joyful life here and now, in which God’s spirit enriches all areas of our life. And for most LGBTQ+ individuals, as with most heterosexuals, this abundant life must surely include sharing it with the sexual life-partner they happen to fall in love with, regardless of their gender. Only the revisionist teaching allows them to do this.