In this day and age, affirming a youth's sexual identity is more important than ever. An area where this tends to slip in, even in families where there is the love of God, is in young boys whose hair is allowed to grow wildly long, a profusion of glorious bushy hair. Perhaps the unstated reason is that it looks so cute, and that we never want that little tyke to grow out of being a beautiful toddler.
Most all the children's Bible pictures that show their Jesus with long hair were derived from the wicked Antiochus Epiphanies who was effeminate/homosexual, who stood as a type and shadow of the abomination of desolation in the Temple during the time of the Maccabees. He also purposefully sacrificed a pig on the altar. His hair was long. And somehow the enemy succeed in transferring that weakling image over onto Yeshua (aka Jesus today; there was no "J" originally) to get it put into children's bibles. Publishers didn't bother to get to the root of where those images came from. In actuality Yeshua's appearance was that of a darker Middle Eastern masculine Jewish figure.
Orthodox Jews who are very interested in keeping God's distinctives, clear and non-confused, especially in the sexual area, culturally, use as-their-guide that if you can't tell the difference between a man and woman at dusk--walking twenty, thirty, fifty ? feet away in the distance--then something must be done to clarify that distinction. Seen from a distance, a man's broad shoulders, broad neck and masculine stance help clarify that it is a man, even if he does have longer hair--but a child doesn't not have the benefit of those extra features to ensure that there will be no confusion. The Word explicitly says that a man's hair must be short--that it is a disgrace for it to be long (1 Corinthians 11`:14 NIV: "Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him..."). It becomes an obedience issue. This is not a new issue; Deuteronomy 32:42 (ESV) refers to "the long-haired heads of the enemy."
God is always interested in differences, distinctives, variety--and never more so than with sexuality. Satan's desired end result is only in boring sameness/ blurred concepts, dark colors (we've all noticed the prevalence of black garb). Instead God has a profusion of color in a meadow and delightful difference in extreme expressions of glorious femininity, and brave masculinity,(as in the clothing and grace of a beautiful waltz)--why? because they increase His glory. Together they demonstrate the full image of God Himself--the full character of God in diversity.
