This burns me up to no end.
I've gone to a lot of churches. Small intimate ones (30-40 in attendance) and exciting mega-churches (with 6,000 each Sunday). I've never met anyone who hated Gay people. I've never been told to hate gays. I've read the Bible front and back and it simply does not teach hatred. In fact, quite the opposite.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church in Paris, Tx. It was traditional, old-fashioned, and not very edgy. (It was difficult for the older crowd when a kid showed up with something shaved into the back of his head.) But the most important teaching I ever received about homosexuals came from this church.
I was a young man (middle school?) and had only a little understanding of what homosexuality was. We had two television channels in our town so I probably learned about this from watching shows like Picket Fences. Anyway, in every TV show involving gays an entire society would be nervous and uncomfortable about the new guy in town and his alternative lifestyle. I learned from the television that I was expected to treat homosexuals with caution. I didn't understand why.
Later, in church, Pastor Fortenberry told us about a congregation that had shown love to a local gay man by befriending him instead of shunning him. They did not shove a Bible down his throat and did not treat him differently. On TV, gays were treated with hostility, but in my church I was being taught to show them love. Every time I have heard about homosexuality in church it has been a repetition of this same teaching; within Christianity there seems to be solidarity here.
I know that there are exceptions. I know that there have been some fools who have used the Bible to justify their hatred, but I grew up in the Bible belt and have yet to meet one of these rare individuals. The church is not the enemy of the homosexual community and every Christian must work hard to overcome the hateful image we have unfairly been given.
3 comments:
Amen! I've had a very similar experience. At the most, my Bible-Belt surroundings have pressed the idea that homosexuality is something different from the norm (which, of course, it is), and something to be cautious of. But hatred - you're right, I've never heard it or seen it in Christian circles.
Agreed -- as usual.
However, there seem to be very few believers, particularly who are 40-plus who actually know someone who is gay, or even someone who might be (openly) struggling with same-sex attraction.
The issue is often very far removed. So it's easy to say we love, but at the same time, we're often stuck in our Christian ghettos.
This is part of the reason I've grown so weary of the Gay Marriage issue. I don't think we have the right to talk about Gay Marriage until we talk about divorse. More specifically, what I mean is we should be talking about Gay Marriage, but in an inclusive way, rather than this Us vs. Them, antagonistic, protesting the Academy Awards way.
The very notion that disapproving of a person's sexual lifestyle equals hatred presupposes that there is no objective moral standard applicable to sexuality. Given that most Christians believe there is such a thing, it becomes clear that asking someone to give up an immoral lifestyle can actually be the most loving thing to do.
In short, the logic is obscured by the "hate" rhetoric. People who don't believe in objective sexual morality ought to address the disagreement over these fundamental premises rather than label one premise as "hatred."
The question whether there is such a thing as objective morality where sex is concerned is an old question. There is a hint of an argument in Plato:
Look here, Glaucon, it's wrong to have sex with your mother, isn't it? / Yes, Socrates. / It's unnatural, isn't it? / There is nothing more unnatural. / What about sex with elephants? Is that unnatural too? Or octopi? Or a human corpse? / Yes, that is certainly unnatural. / But I've noticed that your friends all like to have sex with flowery boys. / Yes, they like that very much. / No doubt it is their opinion that, while sex with their mothers, beasts, and dead women is unacceptable and unnatural, sex with men and boys is natural. / No doubt their opinion is just that. / This is very interesting, Glaucon, because I've just thought of something that makes me fearful for the future of Athens. / What is that, Socrates? / I'll tell you. What if their opinion is wrong? What if sex with men and boys is just as unnatural as the sex we already agreed is forbidden? What if the gods intended us to have sex with our wives so our seed wouldn't be scattered all over the countryside, where it can do all sorts of damage, but would stay at home where it can do the most good by rearing children? / If that was the gods' intention, then you have every reason to be fearful, Socrates.
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