Where is Christ?
At the outset, I will note: Leviticus, Romans. Old Testament, Pauline evangelism. Where is Jesus in that?
Secondly, while we're on the subject of Leviticus, well, it's an interesting book:
And the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, None of your descendants throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles; no man of the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the LORD's offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, but he shall not come near the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the LORD who sanctify them." (
Lv. 21.16-24, RSV)
But moving on to the issue at hand: The prohibitions of Leviticus and Romans apply to each individual of the faith. Don't do these things. But in the context of how one views other people, and propositions of the laws of the state, Jesus is fairly clear. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's (
Mt. 22.21). In the United States, Caesar is the government enshrined by the Constitution, which presently prescribes equal consideration under the law.
Those Christians who advocate an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to forbid certain civil rights to homosexuals would claim for God that which is rightfully Caesar's. Those Christians who supported the Constitutional abnegation of DoMA have claimed for God that which is rightfully Caesar's. Those Christians who would amend their state constitutions and pass laws against homosexuals are claiming for God what is rightfully Caesar's.
Those Christians who seek to enforce their consciences against others, especially in relying on the Old Testament and Pauline evangelism, are rejecting Christ, who admonishes his followers to do better than the Gentiles:
For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (
Mt. 5.46-48)
And the thing is that this compassion, this love, this
perfection, is the key to redemption, as Jesus explains quite clearly:
"When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.' And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (
Mt. 25.31-46)
Is it any wonder that the Christian argument against gay rights ignores Christ? How absolutely inconvenient that Christians should be obliged to recognize the authority of the Constitution and show compassion to their neighbors!
And it gets even worse: the Christians are not only behaving hypocritically in claiming a stake for their faith in violation of their Savior's teaching, many of them are openly defying His teaching:
Some Christians have made an art of figuring out who is saved and who is not. They figure that if you are at least trying to align your lifestyle to fit their interpretation of God's laws, then you are living under God's grace. But if you choose to continue living in a lifestyle displeasing to God, you cannot really be saved because you are living in a state of rebellion. These Christians are diligent to pick out those sins that are "lifestyle" sins and those that are once-in-a-while sins that can affect even good Christians. Once-in-a-while sins they blow off with the phrase, "we all fail sometime." Lifestyle sins they condemn loudly, making the point that people who practice such sins are bound for hell, and if they seduce our children into such sins, they will go to hell too.
And this is where these kinds of Christians, known collectively as the Religious Right or Fundamentalists, make a mockery of their own Savior. They do this by picking and choosing which lifestyle sins are covered by God's grace and which ones are not. They do this by claiming that God's grace covers their own lifestyle sins but not those of the homosexual. They do this by accepting God's grace in their own lives and then refusing to extend that same grace to those they condemn for having the wrong lifestyle.
And they can do this because they don't believe they have any lifestyle sins of their own. If you ask them about it, they'll say things like, "I used to sleep around but I was forgiven of that sin and now I don't do it anymore." However, ask them if a homosexual can be saved by God's grace, and they will say, "The gay man who does not turn from his homosexuality is choosing to live a lifestyle counter to God's laws and is not, therefore, saved by grace." What they conveniently forget is that 50% of them - those who count themselves among the Religious Right - are divorced, and more than 85% of those are remarried. What that means is, according to the Bible, that nearly 43% of the same people who condemn the gay man for his homosexuality choose to live in a lifestyle of adultery, a sin that ranks equal to homosexuality in God's eyes.
That's right. The very people who condemn one "sinful" lifestyle are practicing another.
You see, in the Bible Jesus said:
"Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery."
Luke 16:18
And the Apostle Paul (who continued to sin himself) said:
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God."
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
A divorced man who remarries is entering into an adulterous relationship. And it's not just a relationship; it's an adulterous lifestyle because the remarried man chooses to continue living in the adulterous relationship for the rest of his life (or until he divorces and remarries again). However, if you ask this adulterous man if he is still a Christian, he will say something like, "I believe God has forgiven me and I'm now living under his grace." And ask him if he's willing to leave his current wife in order to "turn from his adulterous lifestyle," and he will refuse because "God's grace has already saved him." But this is the same man who earlier claimed that the homosexual must turn from his "sinful" lifestyle as a condition of receiving God's grace.
(
McKinley)
So what's going on, here? In the first place, they reject Christ's teachings. In the second place, they deem themselves forgiven their own continuous sins while condemning other people for continuous sin. Is there nothing honest, then, about this faith-based political argument?
The honest route, then, is to pray to God for guidance and strength, to evangelize with the dignity befitting one who seeks to follow in the footsteps of Christ, and allow homosexuals who love and trust one another to marry and do their best for family and community.
But this means homosexuals can get married and have families, and that outcome is simply unacceptable to many Christians.
The problem, at
best, is a
lack of faith in God. The reality expressed by the Bible is that God will deal with each sinner in due course. The thought that a butt-fucking faggot might be forgiven and redeemed in Christ horrifies them. They do not trust God to do what they think God should do, and thus claim for themselves the authority and right of judgment. But why? Is that claim not key to the legendary fall of Satan? Perhaps they
are in the throes of the Devil. Or, perhaps, they are, simply and fundamentally, cruel.
This cycle of sin and judgment, usurpation and hypocrisy, is not new in Christianity. If these people are fundamentally cruel, it is symptomatic of the faith bestowed unto their conscience; they are victims of their heritage.
A Christian argument regarding gay rights—that is, one that actually looks to Christ for guidance—would not seek to persecute and exclude, nor claim the state as its agent in such a campaign.
____________________
Notes:
Bible: Revised Standard Version. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
McKinley, Brian Elroy. "When Christ was Gay". Elroy.net. Accessed December 19, 2008. http://www.elroy.net/ehr/gay.html