I won't start a hot-button conversation here about politics.
I just want to talk about what my politics are not. Yesterday I was reading chapter 5 of this wonderful little book I've been reading titled UnChristian. This chapter was about the alarming perception of Christians as being antihomosexual. Not that it should be alarming, anyone who watches the news and doesn't live in a cave should know that there are "wonderful" people like the Reverend Fred Phelps out parading against homosexuality and hating everyone who touches it.
This notion bothers me so much more in election years.
I cannot stand the way that the Christian Right leverages anti-gay and anti-abortion to bring out the Christians to vote Republican. It becomes, suddenly, the "right" way to vote.
Now, I'm not for abortion. I wish that making it illegal would make it go away, but it won't.
Homosexuality is more complicated to me. There are just too many nuances that dictate the sexual orientation of a person. I know that I've heard more than one gay person say that they wished they could change, choose to live the accepted and normal life of a "breeder." Which brings me to another topic, knowing that in order to become parents, they would have only difficult options at best. I think the easy thing to do is to not feel any compassion, to say that gay, lesbian, and transgendered people don't deserve to have families of their own.
But sometimes the easy thing to do is not the right thing to do. Brokenness is spreading like wildfire, and hate and discrimination abound, even with the Civil Rights movement and other powerful advances. It's got to be pretty comfortable to sit within the cozy confines of a stale Christian bubble and point in disgust at how many ways the world is falling apart. James Dobson points out the legalization of gay marriage as practically being a sign of the apocalypse. Really? I thought that the 50% divorce rate within those who consider themselves Christians was a pretty big chink in the armor.
I digress.
What if instead of protesting against a law, we protested against hatred? What if we just went and loved God and then our neighbors? Do you have any gay neighbors? Love them, go ahead, eat dinner with them. Find out what you can do for them instead of sending in your absentee ballot declaring that marriage between them would cause your heterosexual marriage to become somehow less valid.
Politics are just that, politics. There is nothing living or breathing or active about them. There is no piece of legislation that is going to make or break my marriage, there is no piece that is going to make homosexual couples split up and stop lobbying for rights for their families. What is going to make my marriage better is love for God, and love for my husband. What's going to make our families stronger is love for our children, and bringing them up to love God and their friends. Maybe our children will be better able to love the homosexual community because of that.
So my politics are not particularly concerned with being against gay rights and gay marriage. My politics are not defined by what I am against.
I just want to talk about what my politics are not. Yesterday I was reading chapter 5 of this wonderful little book I've been reading titled UnChristian. This chapter was about the alarming perception of Christians as being antihomosexual. Not that it should be alarming, anyone who watches the news and doesn't live in a cave should know that there are "wonderful" people like the Reverend Fred Phelps out parading against homosexuality and hating everyone who touches it.
This notion bothers me so much more in election years.
I cannot stand the way that the Christian Right leverages anti-gay and anti-abortion to bring out the Christians to vote Republican. It becomes, suddenly, the "right" way to vote.
Now, I'm not for abortion. I wish that making it illegal would make it go away, but it won't.
Homosexuality is more complicated to me. There are just too many nuances that dictate the sexual orientation of a person. I know that I've heard more than one gay person say that they wished they could change, choose to live the accepted and normal life of a "breeder." Which brings me to another topic, knowing that in order to become parents, they would have only difficult options at best. I think the easy thing to do is to not feel any compassion, to say that gay, lesbian, and transgendered people don't deserve to have families of their own.
But sometimes the easy thing to do is not the right thing to do. Brokenness is spreading like wildfire, and hate and discrimination abound, even with the Civil Rights movement and other powerful advances. It's got to be pretty comfortable to sit within the cozy confines of a stale Christian bubble and point in disgust at how many ways the world is falling apart. James Dobson points out the legalization of gay marriage as practically being a sign of the apocalypse. Really? I thought that the 50% divorce rate within those who consider themselves Christians was a pretty big chink in the armor.
I digress.
What if instead of protesting against a law, we protested against hatred? What if we just went and loved God and then our neighbors? Do you have any gay neighbors? Love them, go ahead, eat dinner with them. Find out what you can do for them instead of sending in your absentee ballot declaring that marriage between them would cause your heterosexual marriage to become somehow less valid.
Politics are just that, politics. There is nothing living or breathing or active about them. There is no piece of legislation that is going to make or break my marriage, there is no piece that is going to make homosexual couples split up and stop lobbying for rights for their families. What is going to make my marriage better is love for God, and love for my husband. What's going to make our families stronger is love for our children, and bringing them up to love God and their friends. Maybe our children will be better able to love the homosexual community because of that.
So my politics are not particularly concerned with being against gay rights and gay marriage. My politics are not defined by what I am against.
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