Evangelicals and Gay Rights

After the 2004 election, I begin to wonder how the Republican Party came to be in control of the Christian Church. It was not a hostile takeover, but a slow gradual usurpation of power and leadership. The groundwork, laid by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, led to the coronation of George W. Bush as Prophet, Priest, and President of these States United.


In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit that I am a reforming member of the evangelical right. I am an ordained deacon in the Southern Baptist Church and a former Sunday School teacher. I was registered as a Republican voter from 1992 until after the 2008 Florida Presidential Primary, and had voted the party line in every election, even before officially becoming a Republican. I was a Reagan Democrat, conservative, southern, white, and sure that God supported my viewpoints.


Now, well into my middle age, I have evolved to the point that I have begun to question everything I used to believe. I am not sure that God cares about our politics, but I do believe He cares about our actions. I cannot understand how evangelical Christians have become so angry, so mean, and so devoid of the joy that Christ says we are supposed to experience in Him. I also do not understand how we can pick a few scriptures to hold to as “gospel truth” and completely ignore other verses that do not fit our worldview.


My example today is homosexuality. This, along with abortion, is the issue that most evangelicals choose to take a public stand on. Not only is the evangelical right opposed to gay rights and abortion, they insist that others agree with their view or suffer the tortures of the damned. Personally, as a man, I have never had an abortion, and I have been happily married to a woman for thirty years.


With the election of Barack Obama and a Democratic takeover of congress, the evangelical right is frothing at the mouth; fearing wild-eyed liberals bent on destroying our moral fiber will soon overrun the nation. The favorite cry of the right concerning homosexual activity is Leviticus 18:22, where God says that it is an abomination for a man to lay with a man. In our English language abomination is defined as worthy of disgust or hatred according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. However, Leviticus 20:13 says male homosexuality was worthy of death, but the God of the Hebrews was not immune to handing down death sentences. Adultery, being a medium (a physic), cursing or striking your Father or Mother, or working on the Sabbath, all carried the death penalty. Many of us would never imagine cursing or hitting one of our parents, although we might find it in extraordinarily bad taste, it hardly carries the weight of a death penalty. Christians today certainly do not have a problem with working on the Sabbath, and apparently, many of us do not really think adultery is such a big deal either.


It is also an Old Testament abomination to eat pork or shellfish, or for a woman to wear men’s garments. I guess all of those women wearing pantsuits to church are in the same league with the gay and lesbian members of society; after all, they are all an abomination to God. We cannot continue to interpret the Bible as the literal Word of God, it must be read in the context of the culture in which it was written and read.


It is time for Christians to adopt a more Christ-like persona. Jesus was a religious and social radical, advocating that we love our enemies and bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who would use and persecute us (Matthew 5: 44). Jesus did not rail against the oppressive Roman government, but regularly took the Jewish religious leaders to the metaphorical wood shed for tongue lashings where hypocrite was one of the nicest thing he called them. More often He called them such things as “whitewashed tombs…full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27). The time for Christians to be more Christ-like has come. Jesus did not discriminate against those on the fringes of society, He embraced them. He was a friend of sinners. Fishermen, prostitutes, and tax collectors made up his inner circle, those not welcomed to the inner circle of religious activity. To be a disciple of Christ means to follow the teachings of Jesus, it is time Christians attend to “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23).