A Father and a Son

I found this to be extraordinarily moving. It was a part of testimony given for and against Maine's marriage equality bill on April 22, 2009. Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan.

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3 thoughts on “A Father and a Son”

  1. There is a philosophical hurdle that the Church needs to get over if it is to deal with the sad anti-gay stance of so many Christians. If we understand that there is a distinction to be made between the gospel and our historically rendered understanding of the world, we need to be open to broadening our understanding of the gospel as our understanding generally increases. Otherwise we in the Church are saddled with what Charles Taylor calls a subtraction story with regard to our faith when we are talking to the wider (educated) world. I just posted to the effect that that has to stop.

  2. As I see it the problem is that homosexuality has been elevated to the status of a super-sin (presumably because it signifies a "lifestyle"). Homosexuality stands in for many Christians as a symptom of the disintergration of traditional structures, such as the idea of the church-going family. This is a huge problem for two reasons: firstly it blinds Christians to the reality of their own sin, as though homosexuality were somehow more offensive to God than petty jealousies, rivalries and pride; and secondly, because salvation is a matter of trusting what God has done in Christ, moral depravity is no bar to his grace. That is to say, no one will be condemned because they engaged in gay sex (in thought or deed), but because they did not believe in the one God sent to die for us. Equally, no one will be saved by not engaging in gay sex. I say all this because it is very easy to take an hysterical view of the modern world, to condemn whole swathes of people in what is at bottom a social and political critique, not the judgement of God. This doesn't mean that Christians shouldn't take a stance on moral issues, but that we should be very careful at whom we point the accusing finger and why.
    Also, just to add a clarification, my views on justification are not yet another call for antinominalism. Because God has made it so that we don't have to be perfect before we have a relationship with him we are free to love him, and free to do good works in a way that is unimaginable under a works based system.

  3. daividmatch, reacting to your comment about "a symptom of the disintegration of traditional structures, such as the idea of the church-going family."

    This is no doubt true, but at the same time deeply ironic and tragic, because a huge proportion of gay people don't go to church and don't form otherwise traditional families precisely because they have been pitched bodily from their families and churches.

    I wish people, especially the anti-gay "traditional values" people could take a step backwards and really see what they are doing, particularly lately. They are fighting hysterically against gay marriage, gay relationships and gay families, trying to use as their reasons that their churches might have to accept gay people, that children might be allowed to think being gay is okay, and that they will have to accept gay parents as real families.

    In other words, because of a belief that gay people are anti-family, anti-church, and anti-children, they are actively working to build legal structures specifically to hurt gay families and their children while guaranteeing that gay people can continue to be excluded from their churches.

    Perhaps, if they have a perception that gay people are not churchgoing families, they would be better served asking themselves why.

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