The United States Supreme Court opened its new term this week with a docket that includes a challenge to a law in the state of Colorado—and by extension, more than 19 other states [1]—banning what has come to be known as “gay conversion therapy” [2].

This therapy, sought at times by persons wishing to have same-sex attraction changed to opposite-sex attraction, includes any number of practices, depending on those applying it. It “often consists of methods that involve, but are not limited to, talk therapy, aversion therapy, brain surgery, chemical castration, surgical castration, hypnosis, psychoanalysis, corrective rape, and various religious practices, including prayer and exorcism” [3].

One Matt Salmon reports undergoing such therapy as a teenager, experiencing treatment which included, among other things, “getting into a circle with the other teenagers in his group therapy session and shouting obscenities at a gay boy forced to stand in the middle” [4].

Perhaps the most important question for the Colorado law banning this therapy, in the challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court, is “whether Colorado’s law goes too far, violating the First Amendment’s speech protections by dictating what counselors can discuss with clients” [5].

I profess no expertise relative to the physical or psychological impact of these treatments on those receiving them, except that nothing I have read regarding them has offered any hope as to their success. I am aware of persons who claim that through the power of Biblical conversion in their own lives, same-sex attraction has been replaced by opposite-sex attraction. If such in fact has happened in the experience of certain ones, I rejoice. But the most basic issue for the Bible-believing Christian, Seventh-day Adventists in particular, is whether or not such therapy is necessary so far as the Biblical and spiritual consequences of same-gender sexual intimacy is concerned.

Previous Articles

On at least three recent occasions, this site has addressed itself to this issue as it relates to the Bible/Spirit of Prophecy doctrine of sin. One of these articles is titled, “Last Generation Theology and the Homosexual Debate” [6]. Another is titled, “Do Our Feelings Define Us?” [7], written with regard to a prominent American political figure who is openly gay and has described these feelings within himself as divinely implanted. The most recent one is titled, “A Big Reason Why the Definition of Sin Matters,” also written in the context of the debate over so-called “gay conversion therapy” [8].

I recommend that our readers consult each of the above articles, especially as this issue is again coming to the fore in the American judiciary. Those familiar with these articles will note the repetition of their content within themselves and in the present article, and this is by design.

The Biblical Problem

But the basic problem with gay conversion therapy, at least so far as Christian theology is concerned, is that it is often based on the assumption that sinful urges, sinful feelings, constitute sin itself, even when resisted by the will. This assumption runs counter to the teachings of the Bible, in particular the words of the apostle James:

Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then lust, when it hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin (James 1:14-15).

Ellen White, in one of her clearest statements on this subject, writes as follows:

There are thoughts and feelings suggested and aroused by Satan that annoy even the best of men; but if they are not cherished, if they are repulsed as hateful, the soul is not contaminated with guilt and no other is defiled by their influence [##9|Ellen G. White, That I May Know Him, p. 140.##]

It is true there are those who claim to have had certain sinful urges, sexual and otherwise, obliterated from their inner selves. I have known, for example, former smokers who claim they no longer feel the desire for a cigarette. I remember a college professor of mine who struggled for years against the desire for hamburgers, but told a Sabbath School class of which I was a member that he had reached the point where he could drive past a hamburger outlet and feel no urge to stop. Perhaps, for the same reasons, there are those who once practiced same-gender sexual intimacy who have reached the point where such feelings have been extinguished within them

But then, I knew a head deacon at a church where I was once a member who was a recovering alcoholic, who hadn’t had a drink in over twelve years. Even after years of abstinence, he told me he still felt a desire for a drink whenever he passed a bar or liquor store. Praise the Lord, he resisted these desires through heaven’s power.

The bottom line is that in either case, whether these feelings are obliterated or simply denied by the power of God’s grace, no sin is committed so long as the will says no. Ellen White is clear that God’s people will have to resist the promptings of sin for as long as this present life lasts:

Appetite and passion must be brought under the control of the Holy Spirit. There is no end to the warfare this side of eternity [##10|——Counsels to Teachers, p. 20.##].

So long as life shall last, there will be need of guarding the affections and the passions with a firm purpose. Not one moment can we be secure except as we rely upon God, the life hidden with Christ. Watchfulness and prayer are the safeguards of purity [##11|——Prophets and Kings, p. 84.##].

Just as long as Satan urges his temptations upon us, the battle for self-conquest will have to be fought over and over again; but by obedience, the truth will sanctify the soul [##12|——From the Heart, p. 297.##].

The Christian will feel the promptings of sin, but he will maintain a constant warfare against it. Here is where Christ’s help is needed. Human weakness becomes united to divine strength, and faith exclaims: “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 15:57 [##13|——The Great Controversy, pp. 469-470.##].

Total victory, which both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy writings promise the Christian in this present life, doesn’t mean the absence of warfare against the flesh. Until Jesus comes, that warfare continues, even when the Christian has stopped yielding to sinful fleshly desires.

No Christian pastor or counselor is thus obligated to admonish fellow Christians seeking relief from sinful urges, that God either requires or promises the obliteration of these urges this side of the eternal world. Biblical morality in any form is not about orientation or inner desires. It is all about choice.

Conclusion

Without qualification, same-gender sexual intimacy is condemned in the pages of God’s Word, in both the Old and New Testaments (Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Rom. 1:26-27; I Cor. 6:9-10; I Tim. 1:10). According to the Bible, there are only two genders—male and female (Gen. 1:27). If one is part of a faith community where obedience to the Scriptures is upheld as normative, what Scripture teachers regarding gender and sexuality is non-negotiable. But in free America, where church and state are separate and religious faith is wholly voluntary, one is not required to adhere to the teachings of the Bible so far as gender identity and acts of mutual consent are concerned.

Whether the U.S. Supreme Court allows the practice of gay conversion therapy should not be an issue for those adhering to the Biblical definition of sin. The only conversion therapy endorsed in the inspired writings is the transformation described in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, and in such verses as the following:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (II Cor. 5:17).

But as we saw in the Epistle of James, this doesn’t mean sin either exists in one’s fleshly nature without an act of the will (James 1:14-15), or that fleshly desires must be extinguished in order for sin to be fully conquered in this life. Ellen White is in full accord with Scripture when she writes, “All may now obtain holy hearts, but it is not correct to claim in this life to have holy flesh” [##14|——Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 32.##]. Thus Ellen White states elsewhere:

We are commanded to crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts. How shall we do it? Shall we inflict pain on the body? No, but put to death the temptation to sin. The corrupt thought is to be expelled. Every thought is to be brought into captivity to Jesus Christ. All animal propensities are to be subjected to the higher powers of the soul [##15|——The Adventist Home, pp. 127-128.##].

The case of Daniel was presented before me. Although he was a man of like passions with ourselves, the pen of inspiration presents him as a faultless character. His life is given us as a bright example of what man may become, even in this life, if he will make God his strength, and wisely improve the opportunities and privileges within his reach [##16|——Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 569.##].

REFERENCES

1. John Fritze, “Supreme Court to review Colorado law barring gay conversion therapy for minors,” CNN, March 10, 2025 https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/10/politics/conversion-therapy-supreme-court-colorado

2. ----“Supreme Court to decide if states may ban attempts to ‘convert’ gay and transgender youth,” CNN, October 6, 2025 https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/06/politics/supreme-court-chiles-conversion-therapy-colorado

3. “Conversion therapy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy

4. ----“Supreme Court to decide if states may ban attempts to ‘convert’ gay and transgender youth,” CNN, October 6, 2025 https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/06/politics/supreme-court-chiles-conversion-therapy-colorado

5. Ibid.

6. Kevin Paulson, “Last Generation Theology and the Homosexual Debate” ADvindicate, Feb. 20, 2017 https://advindicate.com/articles/2017/2/20/last-generation-theology-and-the-homosexual-debate

7. ----“Do Our Feelings Define Us?” ADvindicate, June 28, 2019 https://advindicate.com/articles/2019/6/28/do-our-feelings-define-us#:~:text=Kevin%20Paulson%20%E2%80%A2%206%20years,either%20good%20or%20bad%20choices.

8. ----“A Big Reason Why the Definition of Sin Matters” ADvindicate, July 5, 2024 https://advindicate.com/articles/draft1-9ek5h-yyxsc-xjn22-6c4dg-3l78d-gfmye-yess7-znzzj-6cpmd-5jht3-543bw-gm6cr-ly7jl-nst6c-wnsfr

9. Ellen G. White, That I May Know Him, p. 140.

10. ----Counsels to Teachers, p. 20.

11. ----Prophets and Kings, p. 84.

12. ----From the Heart, p. 297.

13. ----The Great Controversy, pp. 469-470.