Paper kills column saying devil makes people gay

Gay rights groups say they’re pleased the oldest Roman Catholic newspaper in the United States has retracted an opinion column suggesting the devil may be responsible for gay attraction.

The column in the Boston archdiocese’s The Pilot newspaper was titled “Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction.” It was written by an adviser at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It said “scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the devil.”

The 182-year-old newspaper withdrew the online column Wednesday and posted the author’s apology.

'Tremendous damage' 

The gay Catholics group DignityUSA says the column was outrageous and inflicted "tremendous damage on the souls" of gay people. The Human Rights Campaign said Thursday it's a shame the archdiocese ran a column ignoring the science about sexual orientation.

Regardless of what DignityUSA and the Human Rights Campaign believe or proclaim, science has little or nothing to do with sexual orientation. Since the fall of Adam, mankind has been infected by a human nature that is absolutely depraved. The human nature is morally corrupt and absolutely perverted. This perversion extends itself into every area of the human nature including sexuality.

Fortunately, this absolute depravity of every living human being does not mean that we are as sinful as we can be. Their are a number of restraints in effect which limit or hold back the level of perversity in every human being. Those restraints can be family, the church, society, the law, fear of punishment, or the Holy Spirit.

Satan, more than likely doesn't tempt anybody to sin, exapnd on their depravity - let alone determine sexual orientation. The Scriptures seem to indicate that Satan is probably in heaven, standing before the throne of God, "accusing the brethern night and day." Granted, Satan has assigned his demons to individual Christians, but Satan himself rarely concerns himself with a specific individual.

James, former pastor of the Jerusalem church and half-brother to Jesus Christ makes it clear in his epistle to the Jews that human beings sin because the depraved human nature entices and lures each of us by way of temptation. The human nature uses internal desires, lusts, longings, and proclivities as a fisherman uses a lure to entice us to take the lure and sin. Therefore, any sexual desire, apart from God's specific means of satisfying that desire, arises from the human nature, offers itself in an enticing and alluring fashion in order to cause the human being to "take the bait" and give into sin.