The End of Pride

This Pride Month, I look forward to the end of pride. Pride is a bane, not a blessing. It makes us self-centered and competitive. It leads us to exalt ourselves above our fellow man and our God. It places us with Lucifer, who said, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God . . . I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14). And ultimately, pride always leads to the exploitation of the vulnerable.

Stay with me.

Most of the pushback against gay pride focuses on the gay. But the reality is that pride has led humans into unnumbered defiant sexual practices. In fact, there’s some heterosexual pride at work in the tendency to single out homosexuality. Lucifer has incited humans to many forms of sexual sin. Because sex has such power to create life-giving bonds of love within the covenant of marriage, he finds infinite ways to redirect it to our own destruction.

Why should we be proud of cooperating with him who hates us?

God’s plan for sexuality, the flame of Yahweh, protectively encloses the fire that otherwise burns humanity’s house down.

Jesus’ Definition of Marriage

The Creator reserved sex for the marriage relationship, and then defined marriage like this:

Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Matthew 19:4-5.

This definition includes three things—man and woman, the formation of a new family, and exclusive oneness.

Have we not seen unnumbered examples of how sex outside of these guardrails wreaks havoc? Because we don’t honor God’s plan, the flame of human passion rages over the globe, leaping cultural, national, and generational boundaries, leaving scorched earth in its wake. And sadly, the most vulnerable suffer the greatest damage.

Notice what the prophet Ezekiel says about Sodom, a city known for sexual deviancy: “She had . . . pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy” (16:49).

In light of this exploitation of the vulnerable, how can we be proud of any sexual sin?

How can we be proud of pornography, when evil humans use it to force children into trafficking, and one of the top ten searches on Pornhub is the word “teen”? (1)

How can we be proud of adultery, when almost 60% of affair-plagued marriages end in divorce, and the children of those marriages suffer the most? (2)

How can we be proud of the Western version of polygamy, serial polygamy, where individuals repeat the cycle of: marry hastily, then divorce carelessly, when divorce is well known to harm children? (3)

How can we be proud of indecent dress, when it turns everyday life into a bedchamber, plays directly into sexual objectification, and increases the self-consciousness and insecurity of young females? (4)

How can we be proud of premarital sex and cohabitation, when they predict marital distress and divorce, which impacts children? (5)

And how can we be proud of gay sex and marriage, when they rob children of a mother/father dyad, which benefits them in multitudinous ways, and when surrogacy can quickly turn into child trafficking?

Consider Barrie and Scott Drewitt-Barlow, the first gay men to father children through surrogacy. They found a surrogate in the U.S., where commercial surrogacy is legal, but poorly regulated (What a shame on our country!) and chose the egg donor at a fashion event, completely because of her looks. (6) The two were arrested in May of 2026, charged with multiple offences including rape, sexual assault, and modern slavery trafficking for sexual exploitation. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow’s trial will hopefully tell us if he broke any laws, but he freely admits that one of his many successful, legal businesses is an international surrogacy agency, which already constitutes buying and selling children. Does trafficking children across national boundaries makes your neck hair stand up? I hope so.

A Lifeline

Okay, I spoke my piece. But I can’t just be a moralist; I must throw out a lifeline. So, here’s that lifeline:

Truly, the Creator forgives it all. As sin abounds, widening its reach and form, grace abounds beyond it. We can’t outpace the God of mercy. He freely offers pardon and power to change.

One study placed the number of human beings globally with compulsive sexual behavior at over 10%. (7) God can deliver all 830 million plus of them. How? Does He simply sprinkle them with holy water and, Shazam! they’re free? In my clinical and life experience, most of us need a structured program in which we redirect all the energy expended in the addiction, habit, or compulsion, to the process of recovery. Here are a couple resources for your benefit:

A recovery program Abide Network will be launching soon has the following components:

Spiritual Devotion- Seeking God through prayer and Bible study.

Social Connection- Coming out of isolation into fellowship.

Individual Exploration- Speaking to a counselor or coach well-versed in sexual recovery.

Group Cooperation- Attending groups such as 12-steps or Celebrate Recovery.

Physical Cultivation- Getting on a good health program using exercise, healthy eating, etc.

Intellectual Education- Partaking of media focused on recovery.

Reasonable Relocation- Avoiding temptation where possible.

We will offer a coaching/course bundle that for many will be the beginning of victory. Click here, scroll down, and request A.J. Beltz.

Many other helpful sexual integrity ministries exist. One, which I will be speaking at this fall, is Coming Together Ministries (https://www.comingtogetherministries.org/). Check them out.

Pride Month

Many blogs this month have gone out in protest of Pride Month specifically and queer lifestyles generally. I don’t disagree with the biblical position about sexual morality, but I disagree with focusing exclusively on one sexual sin. Heterosexuals have plenty of cause for repentance. I’ve tried to widen the conversation to include all forms of sexual sin and their harm of the vulnerable. What have I missed? What has helped you and others come into harmony with the Creator’s design?

As for me, I don’t just want the end of Pride Month.

I want the end of pride. Do you?

Scroll down to leave a comment.

References:

1. https://theexodusroad.com/porn-and-human-trafficking-the-facts-you-need-to-know/

2. https://sacksandsackslaw.com/digging-into-the-data-the-top-10-reasons-for-divorce/

3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1832495/

4. https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/molecules-of-immodesty

5. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5956907/

6. https://youtu.be/CUllk9CoGu8?si=Rwna1rnYSaQOObwJ&t=1930

7. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12138901/