What We Should be Doing Instead of Yelling at Each Other

So there’s thing that’s been in the news recently (at least it has been in Virginia) called same-sex marriage. And for the longest time I’ve been decidedly torn on the issue. I’ve known that I love the people themselves, but I wasn’t sure about the topic of marriage. I can’t help but see both sides of the debate, but I guess that’s better than screaming at the people on the other side for not agreeing with me. And I think that (the screaming, that is) is part of the problem. Actually, it’s a big part of the problem. People are so stuck in their ways, unwilling to listen to the other side and make a compromise. Well, compromise is my middle name, so here goes.

So on the one side you have the “progressives” who say, among other things, that committed monogamous relationships between two people, regardless of their sex, is better than many of the abominations in marriage we see today that are still legal.

On the other side of the issue are the “traditionalists” who state (on the grounds of religion mostly) that marriage should be between one man and one woman and that’s it. As a committed Christian myself, I can’t deny seeing the truth of that statement. Marriage was made to be between one man and one woman for life. Anything less than that is simply not what God, as our loving Lord and Savior, intended for us. 

But look around you. Where is there anything or anyone that is functioning exactly the way God intended for us? The point that gets lost in translation in this argument, this war of words, is that no one is a sinner on the mere grounds that they are gay. No, we are sinners because we are human. It’s a part of our nature. We have all sinned, you, me, and everyone, and none of us are perfect. People just make a big deal about homosexuality, but they could very well be making a fuss about lying or stealing. I think it’s a shame that we spend so much energy arguing about this issue instead of preaching the Gospel. 

Maybe instead of condemning people to hell through our hatred of their “outrageous sin,” we can love them anyway and invite them to join us in heaven. What does condemnation do? Absolutely nothing. Zilch. It just creates an even larger barrier between us and people who desperately need God’s hand of love. This is not to be confused with conviction. Conviction leads to repentance and is based on love, but condemnation just creates hate. Think of conviction like me telling a friend that she can’t just eat junk food all the time. I tell her this because I know there’s something better for her, and I tell her in a way that makes that simple fact clear to her. 

Marriage, at least in the US, is not a religious matter. It’s a legal matter. And I can totally see how people can feel like second-class citizens just because they’re denied this right. Arguing about the morality of same-sex marriage is not going to change who’s gay and who’s not. It’s not going to change how many people enter into all sorts of broken marriages that are destined to fail. The only thing it’s going to change is the perception the world has of Christians. And that perception is not going to be pretty. 

I shall close with this last thought, written by Russell Moore in a Christianity Today article titled “What Did the Supreme Court Really Change Today?”. I could never hope to say this in a better way, so I leave you with his words: “It’s a time for forgiven sinners, like us, to do what the people of Christ have always done. It’s time for us to point beyond our family values and our culture wars to the cross of Christ as we say: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.'”

Epylle Spydre