Challenging the "Coming Out" Narrative

Robin Roberts, an ABC news anchor on "Good Morning America" has recently "come out" as a gay woman. She is one of many homosexuals to do so in the public arena over the years. Such stories tend to pop up in the headlines from time to time. It has happened long enough and frequently enough now that a lot of people have started to shrug off such news headlines, as it simply isn't such a "big deal" anymore in America that people (especially those in the entertainment industry) are openly gay. Coming out of the closet is a generally accepted narrative in our culture, and the story isn't overly "newsworthy" as it once was.

Indeed, just the opposite, as the recent Duck Dynasty scandal shows, people openly and publicly speaking against homosexuality make more news and ruffle more feathers than those who do not. Indeed, taking such an open position can even cost somebody their job, as our cultural pendulum has swung so far left and progressive, that holding such a position is now considered, by in large, socially unacceptable. 

What is considered acceptable is for us to embrace, uncritically, the countless coming out stories that usually follow the predictable narrative of a gay person who felt pressure to conform to acceptable social norms, and did things like get married and have children, and otherwise "live a lie" as a repressed homosexual who wasn't free to be themselves. Then finally when they can take it no more they "come out" as a gay individual. 

That's often how the story goes. And it's a story whose truthfulness cannot be questioned. And if you dare raise an eyebrow and so much as question any part of this story, you will be considered a hater and biggot who does nothing more but engage in bullying and probably played games like "smear the queer" as an adolescent. 

What cannot be socially tolerated, however, are conversion stories that reverse this narrative. Stories where known homosexuals who came out of the closet find Jesus and become straight as a result. Such stories should be newsworthy, especially since it is culturally accepted (a claim without any scientific proof, as the American Psychiatric Association points out) that people are genetically born gay. If truly "born that way," then a homosexual becoming straight is as miraculous as a white man going to sleep and waking up as a Chinese woman. Everytime this happens, then this should become headline news, as it is more newsworthy than the story of somebody "coming out" of the closet.

And the truth of the matter is that there are thousands of such stories in our nation. But such stories are "repressed" in the media, because it is not considered socially acceptable and it is a narrative our society will not allow to be told. And why? Because if at the end of the day people are "born gay," then somebody claiming to be "born again" another way is proof of a miracle and proof that Jeus Christ is alive and really Lord. And if it turns out that science one day shows that homosexuality is more the result of choice than genetic pre-disposition, a conversion narrative will show that people are gay simply because they are sinners who love their sin, and their choices are something they might have to give an account for one day. And if either of these lines of reasoning are true, these are narratives our culture will truly do well to repress, because at the end of the day, men love the darkness instead of the light. And such men simply do not want Jesus wrecking their lives.