Southern Baptist Leader: Being Gay Is a Sin In and of Itself

The swamp fever afflicting the Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC") is apparently intensifying as Albert Mohler - who is frighteningly viewed as a leading intellect -  has finally conceded that sexual orientation is not a choice but in the next breath decreed that being gay in and of itself is a sin.  Never mind if one doesn't act on one's feelings.   The good news, of course, is that the  SBC's membership is falling, so that fewer individuals will give a damn about Pious Albert's rantings.  Here some of his batshitery from his blog (Note how being heterosexual is not automatically sinful):

I recently addressed a major national conference on “The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage” held by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Subsequent to the conference, it became clear that the vast coverage of the conference in the national press raised some issues that need to be considered further.
 

One of these issues is sexual orientation. As I explained in my address, I had previously denied the existence of sexual orientation. I, along with many other evangelicals, did so because we did not want to accept the sexual identity structure that so often goes with sexual orientation. I still reject that notion of sexual identity. But I repented of denying the existence of sexual orientation because denying it was deeply confusing to people struggling with same-sex attraction.. . . most people experiencing a same-sex attraction tell of discovering it within themselves at a very early age, certainly within early puberty. As they experience it, a sexual attraction or interest simply “happens,” and they come to know it.

Given the depth of the Bible’s teachings on sin and this fallen world, this should not surprise us. In some sense, each of us finds within ourselves a pattern of desires — sexual and otherwise — we did not ask for, but for which we are then and now fully responsible. When it comes to a same-sex attraction, the orientation is sinful because it is defined by an improper object — someone of the same sex.  Of course, those of us whose sexual orientation is directed toward the opposite sex are also sinners, but the sexual orientation is not itself sinful.

It [homosexuality] is not something that is, in itself, freely chosen. That does not mean that the individual is not completely responsible before God for how that orientation is then handled.

 I suppose Pious Al blames all of this ultimately on original sin.  The problem, of course, is that Adam and Eve never existed and, therefore, there was n "Fall."  I'd argue that one of the biggest sins is refusing to utilize ones intelligence and instead cling to ignorance and bigotry.  Pious Al is one of the biggest sinners of all.