Standing together

I applaud the Epis­co­pal Church for con­se­crat­ing Bishop Gene Robin­son in the face of threats of schisms within and with­out. We do not live in the first cen­tury but rather the twenty-first cen­tury. We can­not allow first cen­tury social mores to guide us today as if they were some infal­li­ble dic­tate writ­ten in stone by God directly to apply for­ever in all places. The Bible was writ­ten by men with their lim­ited under­stand­ings for the audi­ences they were address­ing in their day. These writ­ings may serve as a good guide or inspi­ra­tion for us today, but they must be inter­preted and applied to our present sit­u­a­tion in a rea­son­able man­ner. God may have inspired the writ­ers of the Bible, but God can still inspire us today as we inter­pret them and do our own writ­ing. God is not dead or silent but works through those who are open to the Spirit.

Just as the Bible has been used to oppress women (and still is in some cir­cles) it is also used to oppress gays. When will we real­ize that God is a God of love and all are God’s beloved includ­ing all cre­ation. No one has a total lock on God and can say their under­stand­ing is the only cor­rect under­stand­ing. God is far more than we can ever imag­ine or real­ize. Let’s get a lit­tle humil­ity and stop try­ing to impose our views on oth­ers but rather engage in con­struc­tive dia­logue in a spirit of love and grace.

When Matthew Shep­herd was bru­tally killed for being gay, I decided to become more of an activist for gay rights. Today, we are see­ing a con­ser­v­a­tive back­lash as gay rights are advanced. Those who are for­ward look­ing, pro­gres­sives need to take a stand or any progress will be turned back. Sat­ur­day I joined the Coali­tion for a Fair Michi­gan which is form­ing to stop efforts in Michi­gan, both in the Leg­is­la­ture and within many con­ser­v­a­tive faith com­mu­ni­ties to amend the State con­sti­tu­tion to deny equal rights to gay and les­bian fam­i­lies by ban­ning mar­riage and all forms of legal recog­ni­tion of those fam­i­lies such as domes­tic part­ner ben­e­fits and civil unions. I encour­age you to get involved also if you live in Michi­gan or else find a group in your area that does sim­i­lar work.

In sol­i­dar­ity,

Steve

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2003 at 05:24 and is filed under Steve's Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.