Brad Lamm, speaker and author of How To Change Someone You Love, wrote this article focusing on the question: Can you pray away gay?
Lamm talks of his own personal situation as a gay man with a family who still remains divided on the subject, saying it “caused a commotion and distress when I came out in my late teens.” He goes on to say that his parents, who believed they could cast out demons of homosexuality, promptly sent him to a “pray away the gay” therapist.
After mentioning a survey released by Gallup that states roughly 50% of Americans now accept gay relationships and 48% believe gay Americans should have the right to marry, Lamm ends his article with a sort of commission to those who remain divided. “Pray on it,” he says, “and come up with your own answer that’s loving and kind, no matter where it falls.”
Actually, is this the real question?
The footnote on 1 Corinthians 7.1 (NIV) suggests this as the way to translate the verse: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman." The main text is a bit more obscure: "Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry." http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Cor…
Later, Paul says in verse 8, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am."
It is only for those who cannot pray away sexual desire that Paul gives an alternative in verse 9. "But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
You only enter into a marriage contract and have sexual relations if you cannot control yourself. Apparently Paul feels that you cannot pray away straight.
Before any heterosexual even considers telling a homosexual to pray the gay away should try to pray the straight away in his or her own life. That is the life Paul feels it would be better for you to live, if possible.
If you can't pray the straight away, what makes you think someone else could pray the gay away?