According to homosexuals, homosexuality is not a sexual preference, as they once maintained, but a sexual orientation, as they now claim. Their revised rhetoric was necessitated by the fact that civil rights cannot be sought on the basis of people's chosen sexual behavior, but only on the basis of inborn traits, such as gender and race. Therefore, gays and lesbians now argue that their natural proclivity for sexual perversion proves that homosexuality is innate and that all homosexuals should be eligible for special governmental protection under civil rights legislation.
Though these claims are quite preposterous, what is even more outlandish, not to mention sacrilegious, is the claim of today’s homosexuals that their sexual perversion is not just innate, but God ordained. “Why would God have made us this way,” they argue, “if He didn’t intend for us to be homosexual?”
The biblical doctrine of original sin teaches us that all men, not just homosexuals, have a natural tendency to sin. Granted, the sins we are most prone to commit may differ from those others are most prone to commit. Whereas you may be an honest person who struggles with a bad temper, your next door neighbor may be an easy-going person who struggles with dishonesty. In addition, inborn biological traits, both good and bad, may contribute to a heightened proclivity toward certain sins. For instance, a man born blind is less susceptible to pornography than a man born with sight. Yet, no one with 20/20 vision can justify an addiction to pornography on the basis that they've been blessed by God with good eyes.
Although physical factors may contribute to our susceptibility to certain temptations, they do not justify us falling to temptation. Our proneness to sin, though heightened or lessened by physical factors, is a result of our sinful nature, not our biological makeup. It is a spiritual problem brought on by our separation from God, not a physical problem caused by the way God formed us in the womb.
According to the doctrine of original sin, we are sinners by birth, by nature, and by choice. First, we are born sinners. David said, “I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). David was not saying that he was born illegitimately, but that he was born a sinner. Second, we are sinners by nature. The natural proclivity of all unregenerate men is to sin; it is not the practice of righteousness, but of unrighteousness. Finally, we are also sinners by choice. We all come to a point in life when “we know to do good,” but deliberately choose to do wrong instead (James 4:17). Nothing forces us to sin; we choose to do so of our own volition. The moment we do; that is, the moment we knowingly and deliberately choose our way over God’s way (Isaiah 53:6), we become accountable to God, imperil our immortal soul, and are henceforth in desperate need of a Savior.
In light of the biblical doctrine of original sin, it is easy to see how all sinners could make the same argument in justification of their sin that homosexuals make in justification of theirs. Could the thief not argue that he has a natural proclivity to steal? Thus, stealing is not only innate, but God ordained. "Why would God have made me the way he did," the thief could argue, "if He didn’t intend for me to be a thief?" Contrariwise, one could use this same faulty premise to argue against righteousness just as vehemently as he could in favor of unrighteousness. For instance, righteousness could be said to be unnatural and suspect simply because fallen humanity has no natural proclivity for it.
When we callously dismiss God's Word as the ultimate arbiter of what is good and evil, and set up the natural proclivities of fallen humanity as the standard by which natural and unnatural, as well as right and wrong are to be judged, we chart for ourselves a disastrous course into the future. Rest assured that it will inevitably lead us into what the Bible predicts, perilous times in which good—the truths of the Scripture—will be called "evil" and evil—the sinful tendencies of man—will be called "good."