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| Photo by Jonny Eberle. |
Arnold: "I don't know what to say to you. I really don't. I'm not trying to throw it in your face but it is what I am and it's not just a matter of who I sleep with. Ma, try to imagine the world the other way around. Imagine that every movie, book, magazine, T.V. show, newspaper, commercial, billboard told you that you should be homosexual. But you know you're not and you know that for you this is right..."
Ma: "Arnold, stop already. You're talking crazy."
Arnold: "You want to know what's crazy? That after all these years, I'm still sitting here justifying my life. That's what's crazy."
Ma: " You call this a life? This is a sickness! But this is what you've chosen for yourself."
Arnold: "Ma, look: I'm gay. I don't know why. I don't think anyone does. But that's what I am. For as far back as I can remember. Back before I knew it was different or wrong..."
- Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein
Last month, the New York State Legislature passed the Marriage Equality Act, making New York the largest state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage. When I heard the news, I remember feeling pride — pride in the fact that we were finally taking steps toward a more loving and accepting future.
Some people are surprised to hear that I support gay marriage and go to church. Personally, I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive. The God I believe in is a loving God, who loves everyone, not just straight people. The God I believe in makes no exceptions and any interpretation that casts him as a father who doesn't love all of his children and would condemn some of them because of how he created them just feels wrong.
In 1st Corinthians 13:13, Paul writes to the church in Corinth, "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."In the gospels, Jesus says the same thing, telling an expert in the law, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matthew 22:37-39).
Love your neighbor as yourself. That's what it all comes down to. Loving our neighbors — all of our neighbors — and God makes no distinction between people like us and people who are different. In his day, Jesus was criticized because he associated with the unclean members of Jewish society. He ate with tax collectors and went around healing lepers.
I am convinced that if Jesus was here today, you would not find him in the pews of our churches. You would find him among the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer community. Why? Because Jesus does not side with public opinion or authority. He sides with the people society and the church condemn. Not to convert them. Not to "save" them, because there is nothing wrong with them. He goes there to show them that God loves them unconditionally, just as they are. If we want to call ourselves Christians — followers of Jesus Christ — we would do well to follow his example.
Yet, people still hate. Christians in particular often denounce homosexuality as a sin. When I hear this hateful rhetoric, I am ashamed to be connected to an organization that can be so blinded by dogma that it forgets its founding ideals. If we took a step back and saw the hurt anti-gay sentiment has on real people, we would be disgusted by ourselves.
Arnold: "Listen, Ma, you had it easy. You have thirty-five years to remember, I have five. You had your children and friends to comfort you, I had me! My friends didn't want to hear about it. They said, 'What're you gripin' about? At least you had a lover.' 'Cause everybody knows that queers don't love. How dare I? You had it easy, Ma. You lost your husband in a nice clean hospital, I lost mine out there. They killed him there on the street. Twenty-three years old laying dead on the street. Killed by a bunch of kids with baseball bats. Children. Children taught by people like you. 'Cause everybody knows that queers don't matter! Queers don't love! And those that do deserve what they get!"
I hope that one day, this won't even be an issue. I pray that my children will ask me about the gay marriage battle and ask, "Dad, what was that all about?" because they won't understand what the big deal was. Someone has to take a stand. As Christians-in-progress, I think we're called to stand with those who are told that everything they are is wrong and that they need to be "cured."
Jesus loved everyone. Why can't we?
This is Benjamin Knox, how can anything from the Spirit of God be a hateful rhetoric?
ReplyDelete-It would probably more accurate to replace "Christians" in your article with "People Who Inhabit the Spirit of God" (that's who the scriptures tell us we who follow Jesus are).
-[In reference to the Christian-In-Progress word] It's not anything you do that is the creating progress, it's all the Spirit of God, His Gospel of Grace; that creates the progress.
-True love is in the trinity, the perfect triangle of love, which Adam denied when he ate from the forbidden tree; we inherited that denial (sin) generationally, some kids are born angry, some kids are born with inherent lust (that's me), and some kids are born gay.
-It's unfortunate that they think we are giving them a hard time when we tell the naturally gay that they have go through the same thing every "Person Who Inhabits the Spirit of God" goes through. (It's a rather painful process)
-You only gain perfect love when you allow yourself to be transformed by the Spirit of God, the truth is a gay person is exactly the same as you and I, just different sin.
Interesting take on the whole issue. I respectfully disagree with you, but I think yours is a very intelligent way of looking at it ^^, so I want your opinion. My church doesn't believe that homosexuality is a sin, but we also think marriage is an act that can only be carried out by the union of a man and woman (as reflection of God's relationship with Israel or like Jesus' relation to the Church). We also don't think that everyone is called to be married (not even all straight people), so marriage isn't so much a right as a calling or vocation. God definitely love's gay people (he made them after all ^^ and died for them, too), but may have another calling for them apart from marriage. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, since most pro-gay marriage people I've talked to aren't coming from a Christian perspective :)
ReplyDeleteMary, I agree that not everyone is called to marriage. Paul articulates that very clearly in the Epistles. However, I believe that people who are called to join together in marriage know that that is their call.
ReplyDeleteAs a Lutheran, I believe that revelation comes from Scripture, not from the Church, and so I don't see how the Church has any authority to say "Well, you're not called to be married. Only a man and a woman can be called to that vocation."
Pastor Jeff Johnson, a campus pastor at UC Berkeley (and one of the first openly gay pastors in our church), put it very succinctly when I met him in March: "Marriage is more powerful than our ability to exclude people from it." I think any discerning about calling is between an individual (or a couple) and God. The Church just messes things up when it tries to squeeze itself in the middle.
I see it more as... It's not the Church's authority that says marriage can't happen between two people of the same gender. On the contrary, I believe the Church doesn't have the authority to redefine marriage as between two men/two women. I know that sounds weird, but it's what I believe. It the same way my Church teaches that not any man can be a priest; one must be called to do so. (I'm not sure how that works in the Lutheran religion; how does one become a Reverend?)
ReplyDeleteI do think non-scripture based revelation has to come into play, however, in our treatment and love of homosexuals. After all, going strictly from scripture, one might see Romans 1: 26-32 as an excuse to hate gay people for "their perversity" and their "unnatural" relations. This is what the bible teaches, but the Church teaches that we should love gay people and be kind to them, as they have quite a cross to bear (whether you are for or against homosexuality, you have to admit, it must be hard to be gay in today's culture). Granted, the Church's teaching is based off of Christ's love for all people, but it can't be seen as a straight-out-of-scripture interpretation, if you see what I'm saying? I don't think the Church is trying to get in the way; I mean, we ARE the church, you know? When a person gets married as a Christian, they are doing so as a member of the Church, often in a church ceremony. Thus, it makes sense that the entire community that makes up the Church, or the Body of Christ, squeezes itself into marriage, since, essentially, the marriage itself is happening in the Church as an act before God