I am an advocate of defense of marriage. But to me it does not seem a good strategy to try to defend marriage (or marriages) by being preoccupied with the private sexual behavior of a small minority of people.
I wish Christians (and churches and voters in general) could quit worrying so much about a few real or imagined homosexual activities going on somewhere and start worrying much more about the health of real marriages in our own churches and families. This would be much more productive, and much more honest, than most current “defense of marriage” activity. It would also be much more valuable than voting for candidates or legislation solely on the basis of this issue. Marriage IS a major issue, but gay activities are of little impact compared to what is going on (or not going on) in many heterosexual marriages.
If we put as much energy into
- investing in our own marriages and marriages within our churches,
- increasing faithfulness, friendship, courtesy and responsible behavior within our own marriages,
- reducing sports obsession (and other time- and money-eating obsessions),
- reducing porn addictions
- or helping helping alleviate extreme financial pressures and overcome financial ignorance or irresponsibility in our churches and homes
we would be doing much more to defend marriage than is currently being accomplished with all the anti-gay agitation.
This is very serious. I’m not promoting any “homosexual agenda” or “homosexual lifestyle.” I’m saying that if we care about the health of marriage we should put the energy and effort FIRST into the marriages we live in or are close to. Any other course starts quickly to smell of political dishonesty and manipulation and religious hypocrisy.
Further, obviously, people who are practicing homosexual behaviors (or other sexual practices that are outside Biblical standards), or who have close friends or family members who are involved in such practices, need to be especially careful to avoid dishonesty or mean-spiritedness in their conversations or activites related to this issue.
Jesus did not say that the woman brought to him (in John ch8) was blameless. But Jesus DID insist that she be punished only when “he who is without sin” would cast the first stone. Jesus, if our take on him is right, was the only one there who was without sin. BUT HE REFUSED to pick up a stone to punish her. Then, AFTER he publicly embarrassed her accusers and they all left, he told her, “Go, and sin no more.”
That is a very helpful example of moral activism!
Here is a letter that all “Christians” should think about when judging homosexuals (In which they are not supposed to judge)
The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont…
“Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people. I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.
My first born son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.
In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.
You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.
If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?
A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul, a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.
You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance. How dare he, you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant.
God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin. The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving to be better human beings than we are?” Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that? “