Thursday, May 10, 2012

An Unpopular Opinion

In a secular society it is inevitable for gay marriage to be legalized. Supporters will rally behind cries of 'Equal Right for All' and any argument of "traditional" or "religious" beliefs will be condemned as archaic, hateful, and discriminatory. I think it is absolutely inevitable. But maybe my faith is weak.

As a Christ follower, however, my beliefs do not (and should not) waiver. It would be unacceptable for you to expect them to. Should my religion, my guiding Holy text, be reduced to an emotional opinion that sways with the lightest breeze of peer pressure? Surely not.

Although, I must clarify some things. As a person who believes that homosexual relationships are equally sinful as any that engage in premarital sex, I also believe they are as sinful as people who lie, curse and have weak faith. I hate all groups equally. Which is to say I hate none of them at all, because I surely love myself.

The problem is, rebuke is often confused for hate. Rebuke is a sharp word for calling out wrong behavior, it does not imply hatred. Disappointment, perhaps, but not hate. We now have a culture that mistakes laws or commandments that rebuke an action or a people's behavior as "God loving gays less" (or not at all).

This is so categorically untrue it is literally making my head hurt. But I'll tell you why we've reached this point in our society.

When your moral stance is that every law and decision should serve the sole purpose of making each individual as happy as they can be, subscribing to their emotional whims, you're doing it wrong.

We've lost our worldview, sacrificing it for individualism.

I believe the Bible lays the foundation for the most successful society we can live in. Mainly because it was inspired by the very God who created humans and the ability to conceive society. Jesus never said, "I love you, therefore do whatever makes you happy even if it is sin in my eyes."

I believe the most egregious failures in our society do not stem from an institution failing us (and certainly not from gay people), but from a people who are broken and living in sin. When we procreate we become parents who fail our children. We can all agree we've seen children raised without accountability for their actions. Excuses are easily made for them and the responsibility of parenting is dodged, excused and passed on to someone else if possible.

Men fail women because they are afraid of responsibility and never learned the role of being a man in the first place. Women fail men appealing to their desires to receive vacant and fleeting attention that is a meager, and temporary, substitute for love.

Children are birthed who lack strong guidance and mature parents to teach them how to contribute to society and they are set loose on the world without any inclination of what responsibility means.

We fail each other.

We fail to learn what good parenting is, and we pass it on to our children. And now we have a society crying out to appease individuals, instead of desperately trying to figure out how to sustain this generation and set the next one up for success.

In life hard decisions must be made. Unpopular ones even. But when they align with the Holy Bible I will be unwavering in my commitment to it. To do anything else would sacrifice my entire relationship with Christ.

I am a Christ follower. I cannot call myself that and also say I support gay marriage. One of those two things would be a lie, or at the very least, compromised.

It does not mean I hate gay people. I believe marriage is a construct made for more than just happiness. It should, (although the aforementioned failures of accountability have led to easy divorces, the normality of premarital sex, and the availability of abortions which has bastardized the whole system), it should, however, be procreating whole families who teach children how to become functional and beneficial members of society. Who learn to help others, support the economy, earn a living and have a family for themselves. Marriage should pass on a moral code that makes this place one worth living in. I believe this is only done by a man and a woman, as designed by the God of the universe.

Just because it has failed many thus far does not mean I should sacrifice my belief, hope and determination to make it what it was meant to be. Should I give up because my faith is weak? Because I run the risk of being called bigoted?

Yet I see the legalization of gay marriage to be inevitable. We no longer live in a nation where the majority subscribe to a higher, godly calling. We live in a nation that subscribes to the individual and calls it justice for all. I simply cannot waiver on my belief because it is what you want to hear.

But, surely, disagreement and hate are separate things entirely.

2 comments:

  1. Hey AJ! Its been too long, and I hope and am confidant you're doing well. Graduation is in two days and it seems like not much longer ago than that you were my RA in York River East. I couldn't help but notice your post and I'd like to join in the discussion.

    I was raised a Christian. Indeed, my grandfather was founder and minister of one of the largest churches in my hometown (First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, C.C. Texas) and some of the founding pillars of his theology account largely to what you said in your last line of your blog...

    "But, surely, disagreement and hate are separate things entirely."

    I think this distinction is something that has been lost in translation between "opposing sides" of the gay marriage debate and I think you articulated it very well. Too often, the nature of the "spread the word" mentality in Christianity is distorted into more of an "enforce the word" disposition. Centuries of crusade and oppression in the name of "the word" have shown that, perhaps, faith in Christ cannot be taught or forced, it must be invited AND accepted.

    Faith is a gift, and an exclusive one at that. I do not mean exclusive to mean that St. Peter is constantly turning away those standing in line at the metaphorical Gates of Heaven like a bouncer at a popular dance club. I say exclusive because history has shown that faith in Christ (at least and especially within a Biblical context) does not and cannot be accepted by all. The term "leap of faith" is an apt one because faith itself requires the acceptance of not only a higher being of some kind, but that that higher being cannot possibly be explained or understood by the faculties of contemplation available to us as human beings. In some ways, taking a leap of faith is like placing a bet, and mankind is inherently ill-equipped to understand the wager. Miracles (seven day creation, the virgin birth, parting of the sea, the burning bush, etc) also prove to be a hard swallow for many who are otherwise open to taking the "leap."

    The point here is that faith is NOT universal, and to force the tenants of one person's faith on another who does not believe is definitively contrary to the nature and intention of the country we live in. Thus, just as one cannot "enforce the word," in this country one cannot "legislate the word." To ban same-sex marriage is hardly less than the oppression of a minority based on the morality of the majority. Tocqueville called it the Tyranny of the Majority. This is not what this country stands for, and I think this is exactly why, as you said, legislation of gay marriage is inevitable. I believe that subscribing to the individual is indeed justice for all, at least in theory and intention, and is at the very least more just than the legislation of the majority over the minority.

    "it should, however, be procreating whole families who teach children how to become functional and beneficial members of society. Who learn to help others, support the economy, earn a living and have a family for themselves. Marriage should pass on a moral code that makes this place one worth living in. I believe this is only done by a man and a woman, as designed by the God of the universe."

    I wholeheartedly agree with your appraisal of the intention of the family and parents. The family is a social construct (in my opinion designed by man, not God, because the family existed long before the Bible and in many forms hardly limited to the union between a man and woman), and the "goodness" of a family should not be judged by its parts, but by its ability to serve the purposes you illustrated above. Is a dysfunctional family with heterosexual parents "better" than a functional family with homosexual parents? In my humble opinion, the answer is an obvious no.

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  2. [Continued from above.... there's a character limit :]

    "I am a Christ follower. I cannot call myself that and also say I support gay marriage. One of those two things would be a lie, or at the very least, compromised."

    I disagree. I dont think your faith should be something that causes you to stand in the way of (or at least speak out against) another person pursuing their own non-faith-based life. Most importantly, you should not feel that you compromise your faith by failing to stand up against gay marriage. It is not a compromise of your faith to allow someone else to live as they wish (especially when it has no effect on you whatsoever), and to believe doing so would compromise your faith I think undermines said faith more so than applauding gay marriage ever could. You can believe what you will in the privacy of your own mind; what someone does in the privacy of their own home with their own body (and… well, and I guess another's body) should not be a concern of yours or mine. You do not need to support gay marriage, you just need to turn the other cheek, so to speak. Though your intentions are wholesome, I think you may be misguided with respect to your decision to oppose gay marriage based on your faith.

    Anyway, I could go on and on as Im sure you could. I was a History/Philosophy double major, so these debates are what I live for. I appreciate your putting your opinion out there and hope you appreciate my response all the same.

    ~ Hank

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