Section 1 of the 14 Amendment of our Constitution guarantees all citizens of the United States their rights to life, liberty, and property as well as an equal protection under the law. This applies to all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or their gender identity. The freedom of religion doesn’t give the state a right to deprive any group of their rights. https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/constitution.pdf So why are Evangelicals so hell bent on denying citizens who identify within the LGBTQ umbrella their Constitutional rights?In my experience, Evangelicals can easily embrace the diversity of race and ethnicity among people. To their credit, they see one race: the human race and for them everyone is equally in need of salvation. However, when it comes to homosexuals and transgender people, they loose all reason because LGBTQ people rightly refuse to accept their identity as sinful. In my view, a gay person can no more ask forgiveness for being gay as I can ask forgiveness for being black. This is how I was entered the world: black, female, and heterosexual. I didn’t choose any of these particular characteristics.
Some Evangelicals will say, a person can be gay, but just can’t act on it. Others will say that the gay person or the transgender person needs to be healed or delivered from their condition. I go back to my argument last week about this body being a tent. It is a compilation of genes and hormones passed down. The measure of a person is what is in their heart and their deeds, not in the tent that contains him or her.
I arrived late in my advocacy for LGBTQ equal rights. In church, I heard nothing but condemnation for homosexuals found in the epistles. The ministers asserted that people were making a choice to be homosexual and that it was impossible for someone to be born in the wrong gendered body because “God doesn’t make mistakes.” In my youth, no one I knew had formally “come out”. I had a cousin here or there that seemed more feminine than expected or more male than expected, but no one ever talked about their differences openly. One of them was violently murdered in his home, but no one talked about the circumstances of his horrible death-at least not to me. Sadly, the reality is that homosexuals and transgender individuals are often victims of violent crime. Their safety and emotional well being should be a Christian concern as we are called to care for the vulnerable, but it isn’t. Instead, they break with Jesus’ teaching about the folly of judging others.
It really wasn’t until I started meeting with college students who were coming to terms with their sexual orientation and others with their gender identity that I truly began to understand that we were not talking about a choice. Who would choose to be ridiculed by family and friends and condemned to hell by religious leaders? What rational human beings would choose to place their lives and livelihood in danger? As I listened to story after story and sat with struggling students and colleagues, I began to question everything I had been taught about these human bodies God created and where God actually stood on the issue of gender identity and sexual orientation. On the subject of gender, information from the pulpit was clearly missing. No one ever talked about the 1 in 2000 babies born with ambiguous genitalia (intersex).
I realized for myself that Jesus never condemned or even mentioned homosexuality. But he did talk about adultery. He never healed a homosexual as if he or she was sick. But he did heal the blind. He taught us to love God and to love one another and to let God be the judge. He spent time with the outcast, teaching us to accept those whom society condemns. And I have to notice that there is no commandment against homosexuality among the ten that God gave Moses. I’m certain it wasn’t an oversight on God’s part.
These days, I get angry when people try to claim that gay marriage somehow harms their heterosexual marriage. I get angry when people try to tell others which bathroom they can and can’t use based on their notion of a gender binary doesn’t really exist. I get angry when people insist on a right to discriminate against others based on their Christian beliefs. Really? What would Jesus do?
We already know what Jesus would do because we can see his example in the Gospels. So, the next time a politician condones discrimination against the rights of fellow citizens based on their sexual orientation or transgender status, I’m going to vote against that person. Our Constitution guarantees us equal protection under the law and in our Declaration of Independence, our founders claimed for each of us the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
I like to think God, in the magnificence of creativity, gave us diversity rather than similarity: talents within contribute to quality of life. Non-judgement & loving respect for others? If it was a test of character in his own creations, many fail badly. The gift of human freewill, also a test, is sadly misused, in both religion & politics. Organized Religion seeks control, Faith seeks acceptance, offers gratitude. Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right. When Jesus said, “Love thy Neighbor”, we can insert ‘accept or respect’ but it is not for us to say, ‘unless’ _____ – far better to walk away & let God handle it. Bless you for sharing. Your words are so often my comfort read.