This is the civil rights issue of our day.
I urge you to read Citybeat Editor John Fox's condemnation of gay discrimination, my piece, called Josh's Two Moms and this compelling story of a gay man learning to accept himself as he is.
Also, I believe that, if you take an honest inventory of yourself and the gays and lesbians you know, you'll recognize that the bile conservatives hold for them does not bear the weight of experience. They were born this way, just as you were born heterosexual. You didn't make a choice to be fascinated with the opposite sex or to fall for your spouse, you just were, are and did.
That gays are destroying straight marriage is a cheshire cat, a straw man, born to fall. It's not the truth.
Moreover, they should be welcomed into the body of Christ. We, as a church, should invite gays and lesbians, letting them know that they're welcome for communion, too, and that Vineyard will be a place of non-discrimination. Different ideas? That's great, argue them - in a polite way - but recognize that Jesus loves gays just as much as he does you.
And, if after all this, you still believe what they're doing is wrong, that's okay - if it is a sin, it's no different from any other sin, and you tolerate and love all those other sinners, right? That's all they want - to be let alone to live without a hassle. (I'll step off my soap box now)
This is gay pride month. The Pride parade, which is family friendly, is on Sunday, June 11th. The Rally and Parade begin in Clifton's Burnet Woods at 11am. The Rally preceeds the Parade which steps off promptly at 1pm and finishes at Hoffner Park - that's on Hamilton Avenue in Northside, just south of Chase.
Take your spouse and your kids. It's a great, free festival and you dont have to be gay to attend.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
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4 comments:
I think it is undeniable that Jesus' love extends to all, including gays. He showed this time and again in the short time of his ministry. He ministered to outcasts, the poor, the marginalized, and the sick. We don't have his own words regarding homosexuality, but we can infer from the well-known story of the woman caught in adultery what he might have said. Jesus did not accuse her, and caused her accusers to recognize their own imperfection. Yet still he admonished her to "go, and sin no more." Jesus is distinguished from the Old Testament by his message of love, but never did he reject the strictures of the Old Testament and, in fact, was scrupulous in adhering to them.
In Christian faith, homosexuality is a sin. Yes, the proclivity to homosexuality may be biological. So, too, is the proclivity to adultery and other forms of sexuality that are not sanctioned by Christian faiths or by the law. It is the choice of the act, the engagement of the human will, willfully, in engaging in the act, that is regarded as the sin. And this will not and should not change, certainly in Catholicism.
Faiths are specifically about choosing one set of values and rejecting others. The act of committing homosexuality is no more entitled to exclusion from the definition of sin than are the acts of adultery or bestiality. If you require that a faith accept homosexuality because some people were born homosexual, then you must remove strictures on other forms of sexuality that have persisted in the human gene pool. I know this is hard for some people to accept, especially those who feel that God made them the way they are. It isn't what you are, though, but what you choose that determines your values. I believe that God made me an adulterer, yet I choose not to be one.
Having said that, the relationship between an individual and his or her God has primacy over the teachings of any faith or the judgements of another. In the Catholic faith, the primacy of this one-to-one relationship was established most recently in Vatican II. If a person truly believes, at the peril of his or her soul, that God sanctions his or her homosexuality, then that person is free to participate in faith. The Church welcomes repentant sinners of all types, but not willful, persistent sinners.
Things are different in society than in a faith. In a multi-plural society, not everyone shares the same set of values. Where the conflict in society arises, over the definition of marriage, for instance, is in defining the values of that polis. There are many arguments and justifications for many positions. It seems clear from the scientific research that the genetic basis for forming families is the persistence of one's genes in the gene pool. People chose monogamy and a nuclear family and some recent period during evolution. Marriage is a public way of acknowledging that bond. Though aberrations to this model persisted in the gene pool, they were not sanctioned by most societies.
In recent centuries, particularly in recent decades, we have witnessed an explosion of knowledge and thought about what it means to be human, and what it means to be a family. Many new interpretations and opinions have been advanced. Underlying these is the assertion of the human will in primacy over the natural order from which we evolved. Some people see what is, genetically, an aberration and from their human compassion want to expand our definition of “normal” to include those aberrations. Others choose a different view, which is to call that which is an aberration by its true name. This is the crux of the battle over homosexual marriage. There would be no battle, no backlash, no need for legislation, if those people of compassion did not insist on redefining marriage and labeling the position of their opponents as “discrimination.”
Look, there's two issues here:
Civil Rights -
Gay couples want basic civil rights that are enjoyed by straght couples - shared benefits, tax breaks, inheritance rights and, most importantly, end of life decisions and custodial rights. This does not redefine CIVIL or RELIGIOUS marriage (two very different things) for anyone else other than for the gay couple - marriage would no longer be frought with legal dangers and hassles - it would be fair.
Religious responsibilities -
As followers of Jesus we have a mandate to welcome everyone into the church. If you believe that it's a sin, then why single it out above and beyond other sins? It doesn't make sense.
Jonathan, who are all these willful sinners (of other sins) that are denied admission to the church?
And, who are all these folks who aren't persistant sinners anyway? I sin over and over agian. Are you saying that you don't?
Yes, good distinction betweeen civil and religious issues, beckyandsteve.
In the civil realm, let's look at it more broadly than just what gays want. Let's say that all people have yearnings for various types of relationships, including polygamy, relationships between adults and children, and relationships between man and beast. We know that people do have yearnings for these types of relationships because of their persistence. Why not grant them all their "civil rights" just as we grant them to a couple comprised of a man and a woman?
The reason society doesn't sanction those relationships is because most people don't think society should actively encourage them, and in many cases should criminalize them. Just like most people don't think society should broaden the definition of marriage to include two people of the same sex. A society is, by definition, an organized community with shared values. Gay marriage is not a shared value in the U.S.
I'm all for letting two people enter into whatever type of contractual relationship they want to in their private lives, and being able to put whatever body parts of theirs they want to into whatever orifices of another consenting adult that partner accepts. But not marriage.
In the religious realm, beckyandsteve, I want to begin by distinguishing between what I wrote and your incorrect interpretation of it. I wrote that "The Church welcomes repentant sinners of all types, but not willful, persistent sinners." You asked "who are all these willful sinners (of other sins) that are denied admission to the church?" I did not say that anyone was denied admission. The meaning of my statement is that no church actively says, "we welcome sinners to join us and we plan to sanction their continued sinning."
Churches are places of salvation from sin. But salvation is only available to those who reject sin; this is a central teaching of Jesus, and not ambiguous in any way. The only argument that is left to you, in asking a church to accept homosexuals and affirmatively sanction their acts, then, is to argue for a redefinition of sin that does not include homosexuality. Read my previous post for why this won't happen.
It is my experience, by the way (including with gay relatives and friends) that sinners reject Church much more frequently than the reverse. And I do, personally, welcome people of all types into my Church. I don't judge them; that is for God to do. But if asked, I also do not affirmatively sanction their sin, any more than I would expect people to celebrate my adultery, should I choose to engage in it.
PEN, at the risk of inflaming you further, I will attempt to engage with you. There are any number of reasons for a government of the people to affirm the will of the people. And it is the will of the people of the United States that marriage be between a man and a woman. If that will changes, so be it, but it is not up to a single judge to make that determination for society or for a minority to impose its will on the majority.
Divorce is clearly a sticky area. My priest has explained to me that until very recently (19th century)the average marriage lasted seven years. Yet in my church, which is Catholic, people who are divorced civilly are denied Communion unless they have received an annulment, which is difficult to obtain. Many Protestant churches do indeed permit divorce and remarriage; I disagree with them, so your argument on this point is not with me. I believe that many Protestant faiths, such as parts of the American Episcopalian Church, have fallen away from the teachings of Jesus.
And PEN, here from Merriam-Webster's on-line, is the definition of aberration: "the fact or an instance of being aberrant especially from a moral standard or normal state." Homosexuality fits both parts of the definition.
For years, men (mainly heterosexuals), have interpreted hate/discrimination toward homosexuality when reading the Bible. Other interpretations exist which logically explain the "clobber" messages commonly used agaisnt homosexuality.
A very good book written by Rev. Jeff Miner and John Tyler Connoley, "The Children Are Free" clearly and logically address these "clobber" messages, explaining the full context of the verses rather than the snippets uses against us.
I'm sick to death of hearing, "Forgive the sinner but not the sin. How would the heterosexual community feel about giving-up love and sex for the rest of their lives? What so many don't or refuse to understand is gay men love each other the same way straight men love their wives...the love felt is absolutly no different, and it's NOT just about sex.
Jesus spoke of eunuchs being born, man-made, and self-made. An excellent thesis, "Born Eunuchs" written by Faris Malik, clearly explains the history of eunuchs and why he believes they were the homosexuals written about in history.
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