Thanks to the monumental work of straight couple, Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer, producers of the movie Seventh Gay Advenitists, the denomination has radically moved towards more gay/lesbian acceptance.
Akers and Eyer should be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Adventist Academy Awards, a deserved “Oscar”.
Instead, they have been blacklisted from denominational employment!
Until the very recent past, the majority of the denomination promoted the idea that gays/lesbians deliberately chose their orientation. Huge blame, guilt and derision was heaped upon them for this supposed deliberate decision. The converse, that what was chosen could be reversed, led to the concept of conversion therapy.
Decades after the Colin Cook fiasco in Reading Pennsylvania, where the church wasted huge amounts of tithe payer dollars, in trying to change gays to straight, the notion still persisted that change was possible.
Even today, the church expends huge resources in parading around the planet, three aging gay men who previously advocated "change " but now call it “redemption”.
Having sown their "wild oats " for years (one even admits to being a gay prostitute), as their declining testosterone values, and need for Viagra/Cialis kicks in, they have finally found “redemption”. I label it for what it is, lowered sex drive from age and previous substance abuse ( which several admit to).
Be that as it may, Adventism, except for a few homophobic diehards, has largely accepted the mainstream view, long endorsed by both American Psychology Association and American Psychiatic Association, that orientation is not a choice nor is it changeable.
The one remaining hurdle for Adventism is same sex marriage.
Since our founding the anti- Catholic stance of the church has heaped scorn on the celibacy of nuns and priests. But there is a considerable difference between Catholoc celibacy and gay celibacy.
The Catholic priests/nuns make a deliberate, calculated, ADULT, informed CHOICE when they take their vows. Our gay/lesbian Adventist offspring have NO choice in their orientation.
The Catholic priests/nuns, live in large supportive communal convents/monasteries/homes, with much conviviality, companionship, camaraderie and mutual support. Our celibate gay/lesbian offspring are asked to spend a lifetime in solitude and loneliness.
The priests/nuns in return for the vows, have life-long shelter, food, and medical care .
They also have the ADULATION of their families and their parishioners.
Even our celibate gays/lesbians face ostracism, shunning, disparagement, and scorn. Amd while their straight siblings/cousins marry attorneys, accountants, architects, and anesthesiologists, leading to an affluent life style, the celibate gays/lesbians not only lack a high earning spouse, but could end up homeless, without an earning partner should he/she lose employment.
Our pastors/administrators when widowed, are frequently re-married within a year, because they cannot tolerate the loneliness and lack of a companion.
These same brethren demand a life time of companion less loneliness for our
gay/lesbian offspring.
Surely, the PARAMOUNT moral defense of homosexuality, is that a truly compassionate and loving creator, the one who emphatically stated: it is not
good that man live alone, should impose involuntary lifelong loneliness and lack of companionship, on humans who have done no wrong, made no false choice, and just deserve the same romance, love, intimacy, fellowship as their straight siblings.
MAY I PROPOSE A HAPPY VALENTINE TO ALL, GAY AMD STRAIGHT!!