Can I Believe in Social Justice and Still Say No to Gay Marriage?

by Pieter Valk

November 25, 2025

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Many Christians today are eager to pursue biblical justice: standing against racial inequality and advocating for female leadership. But when it comes to sexuality, that same passion for justice often feels at odds with historic Christian sexual ethics. Let’s wrestle honestly with that tension and explore how Scripture invites us to seek justice for LGBT+ people, not by abandoning biblical convictions but by embodying them in ways that are radically compassionate and life-bringing.

“What if I told you that biblically-grounded churches have failed gay people—not just in the past, but right now? And not just by what they’ve said, but by what they haven’t done?”

For decades, orthodox Christians have been passionate about defending historic sexual ethics. We’ve written books, hosted conferences, and preached sermons all focused on resisting revisionist theology and affirming God’s design for sex and marriage. And yet, despite all of that effort, we are still losing gay Christians. Not just a few. A mass exodus. They aren’t leaving because they hate God. They aren’t leaving because they’re looking for an easier theology. They’re leaving because they feel like thriving is impossible according to orthodox Christian sexual ethics.

Let me ask you something:

How many churches that affirm a historic sexual ethic actually disciple and invest in gay Christians?
How many churches provide spiritual family, mentorship, and a clear roadmap for thriving in celibacy?
How many churches have actively repented for past harm, instead of just saying, “We never meant to be homophobic”?

For most gay celibate Christians, the answer is none. This isn’t just a modern problem. It’s a historic one. For centuries, the Church has treated same-sex attraction not just as a difficult experience but as a curse. We’ve asked gay Christians to sacrifice without support. We’ve expected them to thrive while isolating them from meaningful community. And then, when they struggle, we blame them for not trying hard enough.

This systemic failure isn’t just an accident. It’s part of a larger pattern of injustice in the Church. But the Church is an era where we’re learning to notice systemic injustice and take responsibility for making those on the margins whole, at least when it comes to racial injustice. Perhaps this era offers an opportunity to apply those same concepts to the challenges gay Christians face.

Transferrable ideas?

In the summer of 2020, the murder of George Floyd forced millions of Americans—including many evangelicals—to wrestle with systemic injustice in a way they never had before. White evangelical Christians seemed to lean in and learn from Black Christian leaders like Esau McCaulley and Justin Giboney in ways that appeared miraculous compared to how many white Christians engaged in conversations about race and faith after Trayvon Martin was killed.

For years, many conservative Christians resisted conversations about structural racism. They were willing to call out individual acts of racism like slurs, discrimination, and hate crimes. But when asked about systemic racism—about generational inequality, racial disparities, or the long-term impact of segregation—they hesitated. They wanted to believe that racism was only a personal issue, not a structural one.

But in 2020, that narrative began to crack. For the first time, many Christians realized that intentions don’t erase impact. Just because a church never intended to be racist doesn’t mean they didn’t participate in systems that oppressed Black people. Just because they never preached segregation from the pulpit doesn’t mean they didn’t benefit from it. Just because they never personally used racial slurs doesn’t mean they weren’t complicit in racial injustice.

This was an awakening for many churches. It forced them to ask

Have we celebrated racial diversity in theory while maintaining racial injustice in practice?
Have we allowed racism to fester through inaction?
Have we built churches where Black Christians feel like second-class members?

Fellow white Christians were offered tools to zoom out from just thinking about personal sin and, instead, think about the immediate and generational impacts of communal sins (both intentional and unintentional). Our eyes were opened to the ways that imbalances established by intentional injustice tend to be maintained (or even widened) over future generations if there is no intentional correction. White evangelical Christians recognized their responsibility to do something to deconstruct the systems that maintained imbalances and do something to make the victims of generational injustice whole again, somehow.

This realization led many Christians to embrace biblical racial reconciliation. They began to see that addressing racism isn’t just about condemning hate, it’s about actively undoing harm. It’s about repentance, repair, and intentional action. And that raises an important question: If Christians were willing to learn from racial injustice, could those lessons also apply to systemic homophobia?

For many, this is an uncomfortable question. Because here’s the reality: many Christians today hold a clear, biblical stance on race, but when it comes to sexuality, they hesitate. Some of the same Christians who now recognize systemic racism will still say things like:

“We don’t hate gay people, we just think they need to be celibate.”
“We don’t exclude them, we just don’t create programs specifically for them.”
“We’re not homophobic, we just don’t really talk about that.”

But if we took the lessons of racial reconciliation seriously, shouldn’t we ask the same kinds of questions about systemic homophobia?

Have we built churches where gay Christians feel like second-class members?
Have we celebrated celibacy in theory while making it impossible in practice?
Have we allowed homophobia to fester through inaction?

What would it look like for orthodox churches to take systemic injustice against gay Christians as seriously as they now take systemic injustice against Black Christians? To answer that, we need to address a common tension in Christian theology.

Resolving moral tensions

During this period, I received dozens of messages from earnest Christians with some version of the following question: “I’ve become convinced that how Jesus really sees things is more in line with culturally progressive views on racial justice and women in leadership. I’ve always believed in a more traditional Christian sexual ethic, but now it’s bothering me that the version of Jesus in my head leans one way on race and women, but then the other on sexual minorities. That seems inconsistent. I feel like Jesus wants some form of dignity and justice for gay people as well. Does that mean I need to switch my views on that, too?”

My first impulse was to send these earnest Christians an Amazon link to William Webb’s Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. This somewhat dated, unsubtly titled volume concedes that Christians have used the Bible to justify slavery and oppress women, but it encourages modern Christians to instead focus on what the narrative across the Scriptures tells us about God’s ultimate ethic on slavery, women in leadership, and gay sex. Webb argues that when we take a closer look at how the Bible talks about each of those, we see the Scriptures treat those topics differently and compels the Christian to hold perspectives on race, female leadership, and sexuality that point in different directions.

Basing his approach on the notion that God accommodates His self-revelation based on humans’ abilities and limits, Webb points out that across the narrative of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, the way God talks about slavery and women changes over time, suggesting a trajectory toward an ultimate good. Women, for example, are among Christ’s disciples, and Paul urges Philemon to see his slave as a beloved brother.

Webb argues that this trajectory, however, is not found in how the Bible discusses same-sex sexual activity. Notwithstanding all the cultural caveats we might make, sexual activity between people of the same sex appears to draw consistent repudiation, even condemnation.

So I sent the Amazon link for Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals to my friends yearning for biblical justice for sexual minorities. They were underwhelmed. What I failed to recognize was that the core concern of my friends wasn’t the seeming inconsistency of Christian responses to race, gender, and sexuality. Instead, their primary concern was a desire for gay Christians to experience genuine wholeness and thriving in our churches, instead of experiencing loss of faith driven by Christian homophobia.

The Christians messaging me saw that believers could hold onto biblical ethics while seeking justice for racial minorities and women. Their real question was, “What about gay people?” Unspoken, I heard them also hinting that they were hoping there was a way to satisfy their God-given yearning for justice for sexual minorities without needing to abandon historic Christian sexual ethics.

So what about gay people? Well, let’s look back at how churches have approached racial justice in recent years.

Many churches that once ignored systemic racism have now embraced biblical racial reconciliation, which means:

Taking intentional steps to undo the harm.
Acknowledging historic injustice.
Recognizing how that injustice still impacts people today.

If we apply those same principles to systemic homophobia, it would mean:

Acknowledging the ways the Church has historically harmed gay people.
Recognizing how that harm still shapes our churches today.
Taking concrete steps to dismantle systemic homophobia.

Which brings us to our third key question: How has the Church hurt LGBT+ people? How does systemic homophobia linger?

Injustice and lingering wounds

The Church’s failure toward gay Christians didn’t start in the 21st century. It’s centuries old.

For most of Christian history, being gay wasn’t just socially unacceptable, it was criminalized.

In the Middle Ages, same-sex sexual behavior was punishable by death.
In the 1800s, sodomy laws criminalized even celibate gay people who were suspected of being gay.
In the early to mid-1900s, gay people were labeled as mentally ill and subjected to conversion therapy, electroshock treatment, and institutionalization.
In the 1980s and beyond, Christians defended the criminalization of gay sex, supported housing and employment discrimination policies, and stood by as the AIDS crisis was waved away as gay cancer.

And while the Church may not have always led these efforts, it certainly stood by and watched.

Even in the last fifty years, many

pastors taught that merely experiencing same-sex attraction was a sin and propagated ex-gay theology that led millions to lose their life or faith.
denominations barred celibate gay Christians from leadership in their churches and policed what words sexual minorities could use to describe themselves.
parents failed to protect kids from the wounds of the closet by waiting until kids came out to share about God’s love and wisdom for same-sex attracted people, enabling loss of faith and loss of life.
churches neglected to teach about or support the vocational singleness encouraged in Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7, instead cultivating churches in which no one can thrive in lifetime singleness for the sake of the kingdom.
churches, often with the best of intentions, hid their historic Christian sexual ethics, publicly used messaging that hinted at the opposite, and set gay people up for painful bait-and-switch experiences when they learned the truth after years of fellowship.
Christians maintained a double standard of sexual stewardship by calling gay Christians to biblical standards but then turning a blind eye to sins among straight Christians, including casual romance, premarital sex, disregard for Christ’s invitation to consider vocational singleness, refusing to be open to raising children for the kingdom in Christian marriage, and enabling unbiblical divorce/remarriage.

These messages shaped entire generations of gay Christians. And while many churches today no longer endorse ex-gay therapy or outright discrimination, they also haven’t actively repented. And that leads to the next question: How do we see the effects of this history in our churches today? Even if your church doesn’t intentionally exclude gay Christians, systemic homophobia is still present in many ways. Too many of the gay Christians I’ve known who’ve tried to follow historic Christian sexual ethics still struggle mightily.

They’re haunted by the lingering wounds of the closet, including shame, anxiety, depression, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. They’re tempted to adopt a victim mentality and abandon God’s wisdom in response to the double standard of sexual stewardship in their churches. And their churches still don’t know how to offer lifelong, lived-in family to anyone in long-term singleness, regardless of sexual orientation.

It seems there’s a systemic homophobia that was established by communal sins of the past and continues to burden gay Christians today attempting to follow God’s wisdom. It must be pruned from the Church.

Deconstructing homophobia

In contrast to the injustice gay people have experienced, there are seven ways the Church can be cleansed of systemic homophobia and sexual minorities made whole:

Churches can repent for the sins of past Christians against gay people.
Nehemiah 9 and Ezra 9, among others, make clear that it is good for the people of God to recognize and confess the collective sins of the Church.
Pastors can correctly teach that while same-sex attraction may constitute a temptation, a person has not sinned until the individual has yielded to that temptation in thought, word, or deed. Pastors can teach that the solution to temptation isn’t harmfully ineffective ex-gay practices but, instead, a daily dependence on the Holy Spirit to resist temptation.
Denominations can recruit leaders who are faithfully stewarding their same-sex attractions, celebrate the spiritual gifts they have to offer the body of Christ,
and support them in reaching LGBT people with the gospel, even if that means they use cultural LGBT+ identifiers to do so.
Churches can clearly and compassionately share their convictions about God’s love and wisdom for sexual minorities so straight Christians know how to better support their queer siblings and so gay Christians know whether it’s safe to share their story.
Parents can teach every kid in age-appropriate ways about sexual stewardship for all people, including God’s love and wisdom for same-sex attracted people, before puberty.
Churches can raise the bar for everyone’s sexual stewardship, protecting gay Christians from a self-destructive victim mentality and fostering thriving according to God’s wisdom for all.
Churches can teach what Jesus and Paul had to say about vocational singleness,
guide teens and young adults to discern their relational vocation (regardless of sexual orientation), celebrate the commitments and kingdom work of vocational singles, hire vocational singles as church staff, and cultivate intentional Christian community where vocational singles can find lived-in family.

Race does not equal sexuality

Before we close, I want to acknowledge that race and sexuality are not the same.

Race is a God-given source of diversity. There’s nothing broken about being Black. The color of our Black and Brown siblings in Christ is exactly what God intended for them.

In contrast, while injustices have been committed against gay people and systemic homophobia lingers, same-sex attractions are ultimately a brokenness that God did not intend.

Perhaps this difference is why Webb’s Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals is unavoidably necessary. Biblical justice for racial minorities and for sexual minorities will look different,
but not because God is arbitrarily singling out gay people. No, true biblical justice for sexual minorities will be just as good for gay people as it has been (in part) for women and people of color.

Just because they’re different doesn’t mean we can’t apply the same biblical justice principles to both. Because here’s what they share: Both have been treated unjustly by the Church. Both require the Church to repent and take action. Both need the Church to be intentional in undoing harm.

What if we tried?

But it doesn’t look that way yet, right? Why? I submit it is because we haven’t tried it yet. The Church has never actually tried to embody God’s wisdom for sexual minorities in ways that lead to good and beautiful thriving for gay people. We’ve only seen the tragic fruit of ex-gay theology and revisionist sexual ethics.

Perhaps for the first time in history, Christians have everything we need to compassionately embody historic Christian sexual ethics. We could try it and see what happens! We could discover how gloriously good and beautiful a Church filled with gay Christians thriving according to God’s wisdom can be.

We might realize a Church in which kids grow up hearing and seeing the testimonies of Christians publicly navigating same-sex attractions, committed to historic Christian sexual ethics, and experiencing just as much connection and community as their opposite-sex attracted brothers and sisters in Christ.

Imagine some gay Christians walking out vocational singleness and others walking out marriage with someone of the opposite sex, but all finding deep belonging as they daily depend on the Holy Spirit to resist lesser loves. We might see a Church in which gay and straight Christians spur one another on toward love and good deeds, and the whole body of Christ flourishing according to God’s wisdom.

And we might delight in a Church where kids are sober-minded but not scared if they notice same-sex attractions in themselves, because they’re confident they can share with their parents and find lifelong support from their local church to thrive according to God’s wisdom.

Let’s try.