Listen, I support LGBT equality... in all things. Marriage. Employment. If there's equality to be had in an area of life, I want LGBT folks to have it - just like everyone else.
This gets dicey because I am (most days) a Christian, and our Bible says some things about that. I will admit that I'm unclear about how to reconcile this, which is part of the reason that I took a... break... from church and ministry to wrestle with God. I'm not sure how to convey my firm convictions on this subject to my more conservative religious friends. The easy answer to this quandary would be to stay away from the faith and the church, as I have recently tried to do for a number of reasons (this being one of them): after all, if you don't care what the Bible has to say about something, you're free to formulate your own opinion. But, as simple as it would be, I'm choosing a slightly more difficult path - the path that refuses to abandon a tradition that I've followed for most of my life, regardless of how uncomfortable beliefs and members of this tradition sometimes make me.
The courage of a couple of amazing Christian friends have made me realize that I haven't done enough to articulate my belief, and that I haven't done enough to see my convictions on this issue through. And, before you haters start hatin'(g), I know that a blog post isn't really an important forum in terms of making grand pronouncements... but it's the forum that I have.
I've said this before, but I reaffirm this position at 11:48 p.m. on November 3, 2013. I believe that the LGBT community deserves and is owed the exact rights that heterosexual people take for granted. Now. Right now. Every day that the Federal Government does not act on this, they make an absolute travesty of our democracy. The rights of an entire community of people are being held hostage by a vocal, militant, MINORITY of religious people, in blatant disregard of the separation of church and state. Millions of dollars are being spent to keep the LGBT community out of courthouses, wedding chapels, hospital rooms, funeral homes. This is not a secondary issue. This will not wait.
As for the church: this issue is not going away. These PEOPLE, our brothers and sisters, are not going away. This issue is the sword that the American Evangelical movement is preparing to fall on, and so it's time to ask ourselves: are we willing to die as an institution, in order to hurt and cast out a group of people that society has already hurt and cast out? Is this what we're ready to martyr ourselves as a church for, to lose an entire generation over? I promise you, equality is that important to us.
Now, I'm not worried. I know that something else will rise again when this lumbering giant of the American Protestant Church falls over dead - and that something will be amazing. But, it would be FAR better if we decided to change instead. We don't have to perform weddings (though I think we should look at that issue a little more closely.) We don't have to march in the Pride parades (though we should look at THAT issue more closely as well!) What we should STOP doing, though, is telling a group of people in one breath that we love them, and then telling them in the next that they are unrepentant sinners in danger of hell. That they are sinners simply for loving someone and wanting to be in covenant, communion, partnership with that person. That is not love - it's just putting a nice coat of paint on our prejudices.
I know what the Bible says. I've read the verses, had the verses quoted to me, had them quoted to me again, read commentaries on the verses, commentaries on the commentaries, rebuttals, point/counterpoint... I've been doing my homework on this for the past decade. And, regardless of what I am told I must believe, I refuse to abandon my conviction that the Bible either A) Doesn't say what you think it says or B) Says what you think it says, and it's culturally biased on this subject (among several others, I might add.)
I have some friends who believe strongly that the Bible is an inerrant single volume, fully sufficient for salvation and holiness - they are part of a fairly large group of Christians on that point. But, I dissent from that opinion, respectfully. I cannot abandon my conviction that we are wrong about this issue. I cannot abandon my conviction that, if there is a final Judgement, that we will be judged harshly for how we treated those on the margins of society. We will be held to account: did we bear the cross for those mistreated by the institutions of our time - even the church? Did we invite them in without condition, without hesitation? Did we do what I believe Jesus would do, were He here today?
Or, did we refuse them?
I stand by my conviction on this. The United States will never live up to its ideals as a free and equal society if they do not extend that equality to the LGBT community RIGHT NOW.
And the church needs to get on the side of the marginalized and ostracized, or its fruit will whither on the vine.
Grace and peace.
