I would challenge you on your statement “the immorality of gay people” and I would say unequivocally that not only a belief that gay people are intrinsically any more immoral than anyone else should be “relaxed”, it ought to be eliminated.
Gay people are no more intrinsically immoral that straight people.
Being gay is not immoral.
It what your DO that determines morality, not who you are. Being attracted to the same sex is not something gay people can control any more that I can control the fact that as a straight guy, I’m attracted to the opposite sex. We can only control what we do about it. That’s where morality comes into play.
You are redefining being "gay." Being gay is not the attraction to the same sex, but rather, a commitment to a sexual relationship with the same sex. Temptations come with hormones, because in the flesh we are weak. But when the temptation becomes an indulgence, if only by intention, then it becomes "gay."
With this definition in mind, choosing to be "gay" is intrinsically "immoral." I never said, however, that having gay-like temptations, like homosexual fantasies that are suspended between temptation and choice to be gay, is immoral. We are having a typical breakdown in the language necessary to determine the Christian definition of "gay."
All people equally have temptations of various kinds, whether it is attraction to the same sex or attraction to the same sex. It only becomes immoral when we give in to these temptations and determine to *be* that thing that we are tempted to be and do.
I might, for example, have kleptomaniac tendencies, and be tempted to steal things that my eyes tend to covet, because in my past I may have sinned in this way. Having eaten of the apple, it is easier to fantasize the thing that we used to do that was wrong.
But still, we don't have to indulge those fantasies, and the mere thought that I may want to covet and steal something I want is not the same as actually being that kleptomaniac and indulging in theft.
I realize that Jesus said mere lusting after a woman in heart can be the sin of adultery. But again, lusting in the heart is more than imagination--it is the willful intention to take a married woman if the man yields to his temptation the actual thought to follow through.
I have gay friends and even family members who are purposefully celibate and are light years more “moral” than many of my straight friends and family members who I know have committed adultery, as an example.
If they actually consider themselves to be "gay," as opposed to merely having temptations to be gay, then they are by definition "immoral." Others who are not gay may be as immoral as gays are, but following through with a temptation to *be* that thing is, by definition, immoral.
Perhaps you didn’t mean to say that, and your beliefs are more in line with how I couched the issue, but I believe the distinction needs to be acknowledged.
Redefining being "gay" the way you do allows one to actually be gay and yet not feel immoral. But if he actually *is* gay in his thinking, then he is, by definition, immoral.
I refuse to confuse the matter. Being gay is, in Bible terms, wrong and corrupt. The steady slide to full-blown acceptance of homosexuality is a slide towards Sodom and Gomorrah.
A little sin becomes a bigger sin. And the more one sins, the more addicted to sin he becomes. Let's cut it off at the pass.
Let's not condemn people because they have too many of the opposite gender's hormones. Nor should we condemn anybody because they suffer temptations, due to their past lives. But let's not help them on the way to Divine condemnation either?