You gotta start w/ straight sex ethics
At a recent campus minister training, I urged them not to bring up gay sex ethics with students until they first covered God's wisdom for everyone's sexual stewardship (and addressed ways straight Christians often fall short).
Why? Consistency and effectiveness.
When we start with gay sin (or only talk about gay sin), that's reasonably seen as targeting. It perpetuates a double standard and empowers a destructive victim mentality in gay people.
But if you first call straight people to a historic sexual ethic...
(by tackling the pornography epidemic, challenging straight people to consider lifetime vocational singleness, ensuring Christian marriages are open to raising children for the kingdom, and applying the Bible's wisdom about divorce/remarriage)
...then it doesn't seem unreasonable or targeting to then invite gay people to steward their sexualities in culturally inconvenient ways—not to make everyone's life difficult, but because God's wisdom is ultimately life-giving for everyone.
Second, we've got to first talk about straight sex ethics because the solutions for better straight sexual stewardship are also the solutions for better gay sexual stewardship.
Gay Christians don't need special solutions. Gay Christians will thrive best in churches that are taking everyone's sexual stewardship seriously by
resisting romance idolatry and lust,
leading everyone to discern between vocational singleness and Christian marriage,
valuing a meaningful minority of Christians committed to vocational singleness,
cultivating intentional Christian community where vocational singles could find lifelong family, and
helping Christian marriages thrive and faithfully sacrifice for the kingdom.
The only extra step churches need to take for gay people is making sure parents share with every kid about God's love and wisdom for gay people before puberty in age-appropriate ways so that no kid ever has to suffer in the closet.
So if your church has been avoiding conversation about sexual ethics, but you know you need to get started, start with talking about sexual stewardship for all people.
