I've had gay friends most of my life. I asked questions to try and understand them and it may have been offensive but when I wanted to learn about homosexuality I talked, but most importantly listened, to the gay people I knew. I believe that homosexuality is not a choice for the same reason I never made a choice to be straight. So how can any of my gay friends or children who always knew they were gay have had a choice?
See my wife has had life long friends that are "members in good standing" and blindly obey the brethren. These friends have also judged the hell out of me, my wife and our children. And even though they were life long friends with my wife they unfriended her. But I wasn't expecting open minds since one of these friends is a cofounder of FAIR.
My wife was told that these "friends" would pray for our children to stop having these "feelings."
Which would be like praying that their eyes would change color on their own. The pray away the gay is not just offensive it is dangerously harmful?
But many choose to discriminate against gay people because of their "religious liberty" which I will take seriously when believing teens and young adults start killing themselves because society tells them they're lives and love is counterfeit, when kids who find God are disowned and kick out of their homes and onto the street because of their faith, I will take "religious liberty" seriously when parents send their children to reprogramming camps to gay away the pray.
In the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7 Jesus teaches us that when you are forced to go one mile with someone you should go two, this is where going the extra mile comes from. So if we are asked to bake one cake for a gay wedding then we should bake for them two.
My point is that even if discrimination is legal it's not what Jesus would do. If slavey was legal it's still not what Jesus would do. If treating women like property and denying them the right to vote were legal it still isn't right and it's not what Jesus would do.
Jesus taught this: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
Mathew 5:44-48
How are we any better than thieves (publicans/tax collectors) if we only do good to those who do good for us?
One test of a marriage is to be good to your spouse, to still love them even when times are hard. The quality of our love is not defined by easy times the difference is made when times are hard. Love means not being cruel to win and more than that it means making sure one side doesn't win because of one side "wins" that means the other side loses.
Even if being gay is a sin with a punishment of death in the Old Testament, so is adultery. And Jesus saved the life of an adulteress. He saved the life of a sinner, He drank with sinners, He ate with sinners and He made disciples out of sinners.
Because sinners are all Jesus ever had to work with. And that's all He ever will have to work with.
Jesus will meet us wherever we're at. He will seek out the one who is lost and leave behind the 99 to do it.
As the parent of two gay children never even once did I think of kicking my kids out on the street over them being gay. Neither did my wife. The only reason we cried after they told us is because we cannot protect them from being attacked mentally, emotionally and physically because of the way they were born.
And as a parent the deepest pain is not being able to protect your children.
Choosing to kick your children out for being gay is a choice, it is the wrong choice.
Compassion is always a choice, not always easy but always a choice. Jesus chose compassion even to sinners who were considered to have committed a deal breaker sin. We must chose wisely. The more we choose what Jesus chose the easier it gets the next time around. The easier it gets to accept that your children are gay and to love the still.
Jesus loves us each just the way we are. We should extend that same love and consideration to each other.
