We've all heard the phrase 'Don't drink the Cool-Aid.' This week, God has been telling me very strongly exactly this. As He is clearly orchestrating my playlist this morning to tell me, I'm going to speak out for what I believe. The truth of God's Word.
Currently, the Cool-Aid is being colored red. Anyone who has a FB account has seen it - the red equality sign being posted by people. Ostensibly, it stands for Marriage Equality. Seems harmless, right? Not even close. This seemingly innocent picture in actuality holds a much darker meaning. It is not about Marriage Equality. It is about equal marriage rights for the LBGT communities.
I am by no means a bigot. Ask anyone that knows me, I'm fairly tolerant of other people's lifestyle choices. If you ask my opinion, be prepared to hear the truth from God, but presented in a loving and non-judgmental way. Each and every one of us is presented with choices in life, and we each will eventually pay the consequences for those choices, both good and bad. I strongly believe and do my best to live out that we are also called to present the Truth whenever possible to those living in UnTruth.
For those of us who claim the Truth of God's Words, supporting the LBGT communities lifestyle choices in any way, shape, and form, is a sin. Whether or not you personally like that or not is a non-factor. That being said, choosing not to support the individual person, aside from their lifestyle choices, is also a sin. What do I mean? Exactly this - refusing them access to the same necessities and even extra's in life that someone who makes heterosexual lifestyle choices has. Housing, a job, healthcare, clothing, food, transportation.
It is when we confuse equality with fairness that the lines become blurred. As an employer, it is wrong to deny any of your employees healthcare. However, that does not mean you should be obligated to provide access to contraception and abortions if it violates your moral convictions regarding murder. In that same sense, you should not be obligated to provide healthcare for your LBGT employee's live-in partner simply because the state does not recognize their union as legally able to marry. The government set this precident when it was formed and based on the Biblical principles God laid out when He created Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Steve, not Autumn and Eve. One man + one woman = One Union.
Holding this belief to be a part of the Integral Truth of life as God created it does not make me a bigot. It does not make me akin to the ultra-conservative mobs of the 60s who were against racial equality. It makes me a Truth-teller, not a hate-spewer. I support the person, I am not obligated to support the lifestyle.
Fairness demands that everyone receive the same thing, regardless of it's moral rightness or whether it's best for everyone or not.
Equality demands that everyone receive exactly what is best for them withing the species God created them.
As humans, we are created to honor God, to bring Him glory with our lives. Choosing our own feelings and desires over His moral code is certainly part of our human urges. However, let's not confuse human urges with spiritual Truths. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, without sin. When the serpent, aka Satan, the great tempter, entered the picture, he brought with him sin. When Eve gave in to that temptation to disobey God, she gave in to Satan's ever constant desire to be greater than God. In that moment that she disregarded God's instructions to her and Adam, she made a choice to, in her mind, be smarter than God.
Did it actually make her smarter than God? Heck no! The price of elevating herself to a level of arrogance and disobedience is still being paid today. Shame, pain, and death. Humans began confusing equality and fairness shortly after they were booted from the Garden of Eden. Example One: Cain and Abel. We all know how well that argument about fairness ended, with one brother murdered and the other spending the rest of his life attempting to run from God and the consequences of committing that murder.
God gave us a sense of shame for a very good reason - it is our moral compass. If something makes you feel guilty, if you worry about others finding out about it, if it makes you feel ashamed in some way, that's a HUGE alarm going off to tell you that it is morally wrong. The very fact that people are fighting so hard to gain acceptance for something that was considered taboo to even talk about less than a generation ago should be setting off warnings in everyone's minds and hearts.
Yet here again, we confuse equality with fairness. Fairness demands that anyone, regardless of their sexual lifestyle choices, should receive equal treatment in the eyes of the law and even, and here's the big kicker, with the Church, which is the very Body these lifestyle choices are in such abject discord!
When we, as the Body of Christ, begin to confuse acceptance of the person with acceptance of their sexual lifestyle, we knowingly committ a huge sin. We do not have to be ok with it to love the person. Example? We are not ok with someone molesting children, or wontonly murdering others, or committing adultery. Why then, are we ok with people making a lifestyle choice that is in itself against not only moral law but also the very nature in which we were created?
We are not only called to love everyone, we are called to stand against sin. Just as we say it's a hypocrisy to be Pro-Life yet support abortion and genocide in some cases, it is also a hypocrisy to say we are Christians and Catholics who fully believe the Word of God and still support any part of the LBGT lifestyle.
Just as it is important to make a clear and strong stand about mainting morality in our beliefs, it's even more important to display those in our daily lives. Little else will destroy the good done through a taking a moral stand quicker than allowing temptation to creep into our personal lives unchecked. We are all unperfect due to the entrance of Original Sin into the make-up of humanity. It's expected to falter now and then, but it's what we do with those falterings that determines whether or not our witness will stand True under observation. The stronger a person stands, the more they are subject to intense criticism from those under the influence of Satan.
So make a choice to love without compromising moral law. Jesus loved the sinners, those rejected for their moral shortcomings. Just as He was compelled to serve them first, to show them how to leave their fallen ways and follow the path of Righteousness, so are we. Equality in all situations, fairness in none. Support the individual, not their immorality.
It is not just important, it is essential to our Christian faith that we at all times stand for morality. Love the person, not the sin.
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