A new study from a researcher at the University of Tennessee suggests that homosexuality may be transmitted genetically, though there is no evidence for a single ‘gay gene:’ Homosexuality May Be Inherited (video and story).

Does this bother anyone?

Doesn’t bother me. Here’s why: original sin permeates all we do. It makes sense that this would contaminate us to the core, quite literally. Naturally, original sin has effects on us physically. If you’re a Christian, this shouldn’t surprise or dismay you. If it does, you’ve probably not had good teaching on how messed up sin makes us.

This won’t be a terribly popular post with everyone…I know that. I dare to suggest that there’s something innately wrong with anyone (even me). But the good news is that God doesn’t judge me on the basis of my temptation. Instead, he judges me on the righteousness of Christ because I have been united to Him by His work in my life.

I know, I know…it sounds like a hostile takeover. It sounds like a free pass. It sounds terribly exclusivist. It sounds like a terrible thing to say that people are actually messed up.

And yet, don’t we know people are messed up when they cut us off in traffic? Do we really think that they learned that? Let me put it this way: have you ever heard a 2 year old defiantly tell their parent ‘NO’? I have. They weren’t taught that. They didn’t have to be. Those kids are messed up the second they pop out, my friend.

And the years are not kind to the messed-up-ness. Sure, we learn some self-control…and if we’re Christians, we get an extra dose of help from the Holy Spirit. But we’re still messed up. And we still need someone else to pry our defiant hands off the bazooka we have aimed at God and each other.

This is fascinating stuff, but it doesn’t change the equation we have in Scripture. If anything, it intensifies our need for someone beside us, outside of us, to change us. And for that, I yearn and hope and long. My inheritance, being united to God’s Son, is better than anything my parents handed down to me. It affirms the good things they have given me…and heals the bad.

Come, Lord Jesus.