Sunday, June 30, 2013

Should Christians Fight Gay Marriage?



Recently, The Defense of Marriage Act was repealed by the Supreme Court, the result of which allows married gay couples to act as any other married couple, and makes discrimination based on their marriage partners illegal. The celebrations have been continuing since the announcement, but of course here in Oklahoma, the announcement was met with plenty of ultra-conservative backlash. The Governor of Oklahoma made a statement that she still believes in "one man, one woman" marriages. Unfortunately, it is an arena such that any comments from our Governor falls void, since she herself is not known for 'traditional' marriage, if you exclude divorce and infidelity in your definition of 'traditional'.

One must be totally ethnocentric to believe that their beliefs should be imposed on everyone else. I understand that some religious folks believe that the Bible is actually the word of God, and so they believe by enforcing and fighting for biblical laws to become Government enforced laws, that they are siding with God over their Government. The problem with such enforcement of a 'biblical' extraction is that these laws are hand picked from a book full of laws, and some are either unenforceable or cruel and barbaric to enforce. If one wishes to enforce the laws of the Bible, then why are they ignoring the rules they don't want to follow, and then attempting to enforce other laws that they do follow?

Deuteronomy 22:11 says "Thou shalt not wear a garmet of diver sorts, as of woollen and linen together." Wouldn't it be ridiculous to see a line of church protesters in the mall outside of Macy's with signs saying "Stop Blending Wool and Linen!" and "No Cotton/Cashmere Sweaters! Deut 22:11!"? Or what if there was a group lobbying for the death penalty for those who work on the Sabbath, adhering to the scripture in Exodus 31:15 which says "whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."?  Unfortunately, there is no difference between the silliness of these scenarios and the issue at hand today. I think if you are arguing for the following of a specific law that applies to a certain group of people, then you are omitting them from the grace of God. Salvation through Jesus is supposed to belong to everybody. Jesus himself broke a few of the Old Testament laws, like working on the sabbath, yet he remained 'sinless'. Maybe there are factors in this 'sin', or 'separation from God' that are more important than just literal Old Testament law.
 
I think straight people often miss the realization that gay people do not always think a whole lot differently than they do. Often there are gay couples that have been together in a monogamous relationship with each other for their whole life since their meeting, and have no interest in being with anyone else. There are plenty of gay people who disapprove of the 'promiscuous' behavior of some gay people, and are sickened by homosexual prostitution every bit as much as a straight person may be disgusted by 'straight' prostitutes. It is also notable that some babies, and not such a small number, are sometimes born with both parts, male and female, and the gender is usually a decision made by the doctor, and sometimes the family. It is hard to imagine that sexuality can always be perfectly in line with the physical body. I think people's sexual energies can be different than what we perceive of them by their outer appearance. And for that reason, I think we should stay away from judging people for their adult choices, and treat all people as you know Jesus would treat them, with love, grace and respectfulness.

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