The Indy Star has an article entitled Gay rights issue splits Christians. The Indianapolis city-county councile has a gay rights ordinance proposed that would extend employment and housing protection to gays. I haven’t been following the issue all that closely, but bilerico, among others has been following the matter closely, and apparently the ordinance is up for a final vote tonight.
The Indy Star article does a Tale of Two Churches perspective on the ordinance. Christian Love Missionary Baptist Church and Jesus Metropolitan Community Church have messages that are diametrically opposed. The Baptist Church says that gays ought not have government protection. The Community Church reverend conveyed the message that Christians ought to be opposed to discrimination.
From what I’ve read in and of the Bible, Jesus wasn’t much concerned with peoples’ sex lives. Maybe Church Fathers like St. Paul and St. Augustine were very interested in the sex lives of others, but, from what I’ve read, it just doesn’t seem to come up in the teachings of Jesus. I subscribe to the heretical notion that Jesus had a pretty good message that was corrupted by the likes of Paul and Augustine. In any case, from a peace, love and understanding point of view, I think Jesus would come down on the side of homosexuals. Ditto with support of the downtrodden and oppressed. Jesus ministered to lepers and prostitutes. I just don’t see him shunning homosexuals.
Even according to what I know of Pauline and Augustinian thought, we’re all sinners.I’m not sure why the alleged sins of the gays are somehow so much worse than the sins of the rest of it. The way I’ve read it, we’re all such loathsome, sinning creatures; capable of being saved only through Grace, that I doubt the details of our personal corruption matters much to God.
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No, I just don’t buy the idea that an anti-homosexual bias is divinely inspired. Such inspiration comes from a source closer to home. Through the millenia, religion has been used to give individuals control over other individuals. Same with manipulation of fear of “the other.” Discrimination against homosexuals is not Christian. It is Christianesque, and it is has been used by the unscrupulous to gain control over well-intentioned people who merely want to be good Christians.
I have to confess. This Indy gay-rights ordinance does not mean much to me. I’m not from Indianapolis. Gay rights issues don’t affect me personally or (to the best of my knowledge) any of my close friends or family very much. But, then, I’m more or less a selfish person and not a good Christian. If I were striving to be a good Christian, I’d recognize Christ’s message of inclusion, peace, love, and support of the oppressed, and I would conclude that to be opposed to the ordinance would be to come down on the wrong side of the issue morally.
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