Tinka: I said:
Gender preference is not a choice. There is no evidence that people can chose their gender preference.
Not once did I say that people were born homosexual.
There is a major difference between saying that gender prefernce is not a choice and in saying that people are born homosexual.
Science clearly supports the idea that gender preference is not a choice.
Most people would equate a statement that a person was born with an X condition as a statement that the X condition was genetic.
The evidence from science that homosexuality is genetic is NOT conclusive. From that standpoint, I would not be able at this point in time to say that homosexuality is genetic.
If you have studied Embryology you know that animals and humans are born with conditions that are not genetic. There is a school of thought that suggests that homosexuality is sometimes related to such issues. But, that is not conclusive.
if you have studied psychology you know that some of what people become is due to post-natal development. There is a school of thought that attributes some homosexuality to such. But that is not conclusive.
Personally, I subscribe to a probable multi-factorial eitology of homosexuality. I say that in part due to the time I once spent working closely with homosexuals. By the way, I joined each week a group of HIV infected patients and shared a meal with them. The majority were homosexual adult males. Some were not. Some were SDA. Some were celebate. Some were female and we had a few children.
When I was working with homosexuals we had several hundred people we were clinically treating. IT became very cler to me that: 1) There could not be one common etiology for their homosexuality. 2) Their gender preference was NOT their choice. It was given to them by forces/circumstances outside of their control.
The position of the SDA church, whether you agree or not, is that homosexuality is not a sin in itself. Rather, it is behavior that is a sin.