Preston Sprinkle+ Guest Says Christian Parents Should Let Their Teenage LGBTQ Children Go On Same-Sex Dates

Preston Sprinkle is the co-founder of Revoice, President of the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, and host of Theology in the Raw podcast. No stranger to perverse and novel theology, he’s known for platforming a Roman Catholic lesbian who praised an X-rated BDSM film, and championing “gay-Christian” or a “trans Christian” identities, declaring that these designations ought to be celebrated and fully embraced by the church, promoting personal pronouns, and arguing that annihilationism and universalism as legitimate, orthodox Christian positions.

In a recent episode of his podcast, he and guest Bill Henson of Posture Shift Ministries discuss how best to parent LGBTQ kids from a Christian perspective. Henson has previously suggested that parents should definitely use their LGBTQ children’s personal pronouns, and now the two surmise that it’s “good parenting” to let their teenage LGBTQ children to date people of the same sex so they can retain ‘influence’ in their lives. Of course, the exact same argument could be used for allowing your teenage children to drink and do drugs or a number of really bad decisions.

Sprinkle: But if I look at the long-term picture, I want to do whatever I can to maintain a relationship here. And there’s already going to be things stacked against the deck, kind of stacked against this. And so maybe making some accommodations to preserve the relationship. Is that…?

Henson: Yes. And maybe also to protect my child emotionally. For example, if my child is an older 16-year-old or almost 17-year-old, or if they’re in their senior year, okay, am I going to say ‘no, no, no, no, no to dating?’ And then when they go off to college, they literally fall off a cliff where for the first time in their life, they are now making dating decisions on their own outside of my household without any of my insight or influence or oversight.

So surely there has to be this kind of letting go. Do we want the letting go to be this binary on-off switch when a kid is 18 and out of our house? Or do we want to be able to say, ‘well, okay, you’re 17 now and you want a date. Okay, we’re going to allow you to make that decision on your own. We don’t support it, but we’re allowing you to make your own decision.’ At least it would give me a year to have oversight and to be available to them. If they got hurt they (would) be able to come to me. I’d be able to comfort them. I’d be able to talk to them about the lessons that they learned.

So that is not promoting sin. It’s not approving of sin. It’s not encouraging sin, but it is saying, let me have some relationship with my soon-to-be adult child and be part of their life rather than just no, no, no, no, no. And then they go off the cliff on their own.

Sprinkle: So you think it could, because again, this transfers to, this is just good parenting.

“This is just good parenting.” Preston Sprinkle and his guest agree that Christian parents should probably allow their LGBT children to start dating people of the same sex at 16-17 years old so they can learn what dating is like before they turn 18. pic.twitter.com/wSqNKCQLD0
— The Dissenter (@disntr) October 3, 2023