A "gay" dad is a great dad! -- we're told

In a very sad essay that isn't supposed to be a very sad essay, seventeen-year-old Amber Snidebush tells us about "Growing Up With A Gay [sic] Dad" (hat-tip to SmithL of FreeRepublic). Amber wants to tell us that not only is it really not bad to have a homosexual father, but it's actually pretty cool and has been good for her. In fact, it's been a plus:

The best thing is that my dad can do things no fathers will ever do. He can do my make-up, and even taught me to walk in heels!

Now, how do we evaluate this? Amber evaluates her situation the way most of our society would: in terms of how she feels about it. She doesn't feel hurt by her father abandoning her mother to embrace and practice perverted and harmful desires. Instead, she feels good about it, her friends are OK with it, it's made her feel more accepted and accepting, and (very importantly, to Amber) she has never felt judged by him.

And then there's the whole make-up and high-heels thing.

Amber's way of approaching this will strike many of her readers as nothing but common sense, because this is the way we think about everything. We are not to judge others -- meaning we are not to say anything is wrong.

In fact, it is said to be wrong to say that anything is wrong.

A Christian will approach the matter differently. He knows from the start -- or should know -- that he will think differently than his culture. He knows that he is not to be pressed into conformity with his culture, but is to be transformed from within by the renewing of his mind, to conformity to the Word of God (Romans 12:2). He will ever be out of step with the majority in this fallen world (Ephesians 2:1-10; 4:17-24).

And so it is here. The Christian will not start with how Amber feels about her father's lifestyle or fathering-style. For that matter, he will not even start with how he feels about it. Rather, he will start with the Word of God. A father is a good father if he strives to do what God says a father should do. He is a bad father if he does not.

So, does God have anything to say about the responsibilities of a father? Indeed He does, far more than one essay can set forth.

But for starters, it is the role of a parent to train his children to see themselves first of all as stewards of God, responsible to Him in all they do, meant to carry out His will in the world (Genesis 1:26-28; cf. 18:19). The father must love the one true and living God above all (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), and must be so absorbed in His Word that it overflows into family life, as he talks to his children about the Word in all areas of their life together (6:6-9). He must raise his children in the faith-inspired love and practice of the Word of God (cf. Proverbs passim, especially 1:8ff.; 3:1ff.; 6:20-24; 13:24; 29:16; also Ephesians 6:4, etc.).

If he loves his child, he most certainly will "judge" him -- that is, he will teach him the difference between what God says is right and what God says is wrong, and will teach him that there are consequences for choosing to do wrong. If he fails to do this, he does not love his child at all. Rather, he hates him (Proverbs 13:24) -- because he is teaching his child that he can defy God with impunity.

With that in mind, what kind of father was Amber's father? The practices he proudly and openly embraced give us grounds to fear that he does not love God, but hates Him and wishes Him dead (Proverbs 14:2). He has denied Amber the blessing of a father who walks with integrity (Proverbs 11:7). He has exposed her to a nightmarish horde of miseries as potential consequences of his own rebellion against God (Exodus 34:7).

Worse, by his word and example he has taught her to imagine God to be irrelevant to one's thoughts or choices. He has taught her that right and wrong are relative. He has taught her that God can be ignored with impunity, and her essay shows that she has embraced this lesson and taken it to heart. Therefore, his upbringing has left with with no awareness of her state before God, nor of her need for reconciliation to God through Christ.

He has failed her in every crucial way. That she does not see this proves that very fact.

Now, very briefly, why do I dwell on this? For the purpose of picking on this poor girl, both of whose parents evidently failed to give her the most important gifts a parent can give? Absolutely not! I feel only sympathy and sorrow for Amber.

I dwell on it because we should all expect to see more and more essays like this.

The mainstream media has an agenda, part of which is to make homosexuality acceptable. If such a gut-level repulsive lifestyle is "okay," then surely anything else will soon be "okay." The mayor of San Francisco (where this essay was published) and various black-robed tyrants have forced homosexual marriage on the country, and now the mainstream media are in full damage-control mode, doing everything they can to force acceptance on American society.

Hence this essay.

And sadly American culture at large, and professing Christians in particular, show no signs of being able to think this through rationally, let alone Biblically.

Consider this my small contribution towards that end.