A Christian Defense for Gay Marriage, Part I

INTRODUCTION

Earlier today an Evangelical friend questioned my support of gay marriage as a Christian. This came at the end of a rather long facebook dialog about Christian anti-gay activities, gay rights activists  and the role the church has played in gay rights.

 The part of the dialog that troubled me the most was seeing how the Christians and gay activists addressed each other. My Christian friends defended themselves against accusations of supporting hate groups. I can easily see the gay rights' remarks coming off as self-righteous. At the same time, these are a disenfranchised group. They cannot marry the person they love (and enjoy the thousands of federal and state benefits attached to marriage), largely in part of Evangelical America. How could they not be angry?

Unfortunately, I bet both sides simply end more resolute in their beliefs. This is a loosing fight for both parties. An opportunity missed.

This is the motivation behind explaining why I support gay marriage. We need to change the dialog. The Christians fall back to Bible verses that activists' simply don't believe in. The activists's respond with mockery and decrying 'hate'. This isn't productive.

Here's the plan. I've got a four-prong defense of gay marriage tailor suited to Christians:

I. The Bible and Homosexuality (Is the Bible That Clear About Homosexuality?) (I and II here)
II. 'The Sanctity of Marriage' (Marriage Has Always Been One Man and One Woman?)
III. The Church's Response to Homosexuality (Is the Church Responding to Sin Correctly?)
IV. The Church and the Law (Will You Please Not Bring Up Separation of Church and State Again?) (III and IV here)

If you think I'm relevant, pass my blog around to your friends. The self-righteousness of both groups (yes, both) needs to end. While unfair, changing hearts and minds of Christians requires patience on the part of gay rights activists. It requires challenging basic assumptions and creating dialog, not insults, hate, and martyrdom. There is room for both gay marriage and faithful Christians.