A few items I found around the web and excepts from them:
Why I Am Gay-Friendly - by Andrew Tatusko
A brother faces homosexuality head on when his sister comes out to him -
“I had to reconcile my understanding of unconditional love with the conditions that lead to my sister’s own healing process from years of pain and addiction. So the question slowly moved from How can I love her and hate her sin?, to How can I love her for who she is? And it was this question that forced me to accept and radically change my world-view to see that homosexuality is not a sin, but a gift.“
What About the Heart? by Cheryl Moss Tyler
Is a political christian about two issue only or does it go deeper? -
“A decade ago the talking heads of conservative religion said that if you were pro-choice or homosexual you were the “doom of America”. Somehow that unbalanced train of thought continues today. What we don’t realized is that something happens when we make those our only issues…First, Jesus was all about the spiritual.“
Holy Whine and Hallelujah by Grace Unfolding
Jeremiah’s complaint is heard in a new way -
“Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.“
“Jeremiah had loved God all his life and had heard God call him in his youth, placing words on his lips and a truth in his heart that he was to take to the people…..The truth given to Jeremiah wasn’t the truth being preached in the temple at Jerusalem. The words were an offense, a scandal to all who heard them. No way was Jeremiah speaking God’s words. Impossible!“
I don’t know exactly what you mean, but let me explain…if you want more then you can email me.
First, I’m very straight. I’ve gotten tired of the conservative right (and I’m a conservative) only addressing two issues. It seems that most of my conservative fellows believe that abortion and homosexuality are the root of all evil (and it was really common in the last decade to use the phrase about “the doom of America”). They ignore other issues an have all fingers pointing to abortion and homosexuality. For example they completely gloss over what Jesus said about anger, hate, love, etc. What they might call the hardline on homosexuality “love”, but to the outside it looks like hate. Smells like hate. Tastes like hate.
Second, I’ve gotten tired of conservatives forcing GLBT into ex-gay groups. Honestly, most have no idea what an ex-gay group, but they’ve only heard somewhere that it works. But they don’t know the long-term harm it does to almost all the people who are in the group—I don’t need to explain that to you.
Several years ago I got an email from a conservative fellow who asked how he should witness to a co-worker who liked to cross-dress at home. I said to leave the co-worker alone.
I’m in Nashville and know that Lifeway doesn’t hire gay people—I also know some of the people who work there and they aren’t straight. On a much sadder note I meet with people who dare not tell their pastor they are gay or they will be ostracized.
So in the end–maybe this is a religiously political issue for me. Political in the sense I see a wrong and want to help make it right. May it is more social-religious.
As for my conservative fellows–I place most of the “blame” on the leaders because they preach issues from the pulpit, and them the members hang onto it without really searching out the answers for themselve. The leaders don’t seem to be moving out to right wrongs in other areas…there are few voices about spouse abuse, the environment, or really even pornography. Maybe a rambling moment in a sermon now and then, but there are no marches on the court house, rallies or petitions.
My intent/goal is to be a voice out there to the straight community to inform them of things they ought to know already. I want to be a bridge builder between the gay and straight communities.
Contact me if there are any other questions. My email is cherylmosstyler@aol.com
When I said, “Is a political christian about two issue only or does it go deeper?”
It a setup to your own post about how christians, who have become political, have latched onto only two social issues as their test in determining someone’s worth or not. However, you point out in your post, and continue in your above comment, that it is more than those two issues.
Which, by the way, I’m thankful to see a conservative christian espouse the ideas of more than the two social issues.
Thanks for the link! glad my story is hitting a nerve with may people in a good way.
Regarding the political issue, let me use abortion as an example. One can be anti-abortion and that is respectable enough if that’s what the position is. I can be on board with an argument that looks at the sanctity of life and that we should protect it for the unborn.
The problem is that those who espouse the position are espousing pro-life. That is another thing altogether. Pro-life mean that you favor the protection of all life regardless of age or behavior. So, if you do not support any legal form of abortion, then you must also support life among the already born. For example, you must also support programs to make adoptions a better process than it is since if we make abortion illegal, there will be even more unwanted babies on the street who will grow up in non-nurturing environments and this we know is a predictor of delinquency!
This would be my alternative. There are cases when it is better to save the mother at the expense of the unborn baby. But if we make abortion illegal, and want to be pro-life, the social structures must be in place to mitigate the fear and ostracism that pregnant, young, unwed mothers now face.
However, because this crosses the “liberal” line, conservative policy makers are not apt to go there which is a shame and it is unreasonable. the blame seems to continue to be on the mother who gets pregnant. After all, birth control is not supported by many insurance providers, but viagra is!