Why Loving Homosexuals Means Letting Them Marry: A Christian Perspective

Originally published by THE GOOD MEN PROJECT on April 15, 2013 –
Why Loving Homosexuals Means Letting Them Marry: A Christian Perspective
by C.S. Humble
We’ve forgotten love.
And I am so sorry for it.
I’m pained so deeply by these Christian statements on the social, spiritual, and ethical implications of allowing same-sex couples the right to be married in the eyes of the United States government. We, and I say we, because I am a part of the Church of Jesus Christ, who through his life, death, and resurrection has defeated the powers of death and destruction for the sake of all mankind in order that we might have life. I am a part of the communal body of believers who swear in their life that they believe that Christ died, was buried, and then was risen from the dead by the deep and universal power of God.
Because I am part of that body I feel compelled to speak out – compelled to rebuke that which is hate and cradle that which is the truth found only in the grace and power of Christ Jesus our Lord.
I read the statements of bigotry and discrimination put out against our homosexual brothers and sisters, and I just want to apologize. I just want to hide away and not have to keep telling them that I don’t hate them. God doesn’t hate them, but rather that he loves them more immeasurably than they can ever know. A love that surpasses the ultimate final knowledge mankind can ever attain; a love rooted in an unimaginable light; a love so powerful that it shakes the very foundations of reality and puts to rest the powers of death.
We worship a Messiah who began a kingdom in a death tomb, where he sits upon a mercy seat, and decreed a line in the sand when the religious princes of the day wanted to stone the unclean. In the eyes of the law, rather how they saw the law, thought it best to put a hooker to death – to smash her brains in with stones because she was an abomination in the law scrolls of their ancestors. They were wrong. The Law is not the measure of our faith; it is not the full immutable truth. We ourselves are no longer bound to the stones of the Hebrews, we are no longer fettered to blood sacrifice, holy wars, and oppression of women and children.
The pharisees were wrong to call for a stoning.
And the Church is wrong to refuse homosexuals the right to marry.
How can we attest to love gay and lesbian creations of God when we purport to them that they shouldn’t be afforded the same rights that we as heterosexuals enjoy.
We are called to love above all things, love in spite of hatred, persecution, religious belief, and even under penalty of death. We are called to stare into the face of our persecutors and shoulder the yoke of love with every fiber of our being.
Love endures persecution, but also rebukes it. Love hopes for all true and glorious things. Love never fails.
Love surrenders.
It surrenders itself unto death. Submits itself to all others. Makes itself a servant to both the oppressed and the oppressors.
Love never fails because it is sufficient unto itself. Love never fails because true love dispenses with selfishness, in the way that perfect humility does away with modesty. Love never fails because true love does not see gender, race, or class, rather it only sees the immaculate creation of God in its pure and glorious light.
True love, the love Christians are called into, never seeks to condemn or oppress, but delights in submitting.
“Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. The law and the prophets are summed in this.”
To love our neighbors is to provide them every single right that we entertain as heterosexuals. There is no other course!
This isn’t an issue about Grace, it is an issue that is chiefly rooted in justice. It is unjust to segregate a section of God’s creation because we cannot grasp how they could love someone of the same gender. It is a social crucifixion! Where instead of Christ on the cross, we choose to nail equality to the dogwood and let it suffocate and die, and then cheer when it has taken its final breath. We’ll say : “WE WON, WE WON, THE HOMOSEXUALS DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO MARRY! MARRIAGE IS OURS! JOY BE TO GOD, WE KEPT WHAT WAS OURS!” Instead of sharing that which we know to be the deepest commitment we can make to another human. We want to refuse marriage to homosexuals not because they are different, but because we know it proves they are equal with heterosexuals. And if they are equal with heterosexuals, we’ll be afraid to ask, “What if being gay isn’t a sin”, and “If being gay isn’t a sin, what does that say about my entire paradigm of what I think about sin and what it means to love unconditionally.”
We aren’t worried about what allowing gays to marry will mean for them, we’re afraid of what it will do to us. Because it will force us to ask questions.
Instead we’ll do murder. Sacrifice it to our vanity and religious zealotry, because we refused to love when our calling was to forever love without question or reservation.
We will one day look back and see the historical record of Christian masses standing opposite an oppressed minority, screaming like the pharisees who collected stones, espousing puritanical dogma, and serving a political agenda that stems from a root planted in a garden of selfishness. It will be a time that we’ll tell our children we chose to serve ourselves and not Christ. And we were wrong to do so.