Generational Divide on God's Love

Today, voters in North Carolina will have the opportunity to vote on a constitutional ban on gay marriage in their state.  While these laws already exist in NC, proponents of Amendment 1 say that a constitutional amendment is necessary ‘to protect marriage’ because ‘it’s what God created to give children a mother and a father’.

Nevermind the biblical record that the first marriages in the bible had several ‘mothers’ with one father, or that several passages in the bible have been taken out of context or oversimplfied to justify the condemnation of gay and lesbian people.  (For a fun overview of the quandary of biblical verses and homosexuality, try the film Fish Out of Water.)

The truth is that this is a generational issue, and will end up hurting the church. 

Young people overwhelmingly support gay marriage.  According to Gallup, between 2010 and 2011, support for gay marriage grew from 53% to 70% among those aged 18-34.  Within 20 years, this will not be a political football anymore, but for now, it brings the conservatives and the senior citizens out to vote. 

In the meantime, we damage the Christian doctrine of radical love.  Too many young twenty- and thirty-something’s already regard the church as a Ground Zero for judgmentalism, self-righteousness, hypocrisy and bigotry.

On social media and dating sights, people are overwhelmingly “spiritual but not religious”.  These are people who have not seen the church as Christ’s body, demonstrating courageous, rule-breaking, radical love for all of God’s people, but rather have been told where they have done wrong, who they must cut out of their life, what they must believe, and how they should vote.

This is not the way of Jesus, regardless of how ‘saved’ a person claims to be.  Jesus constantly put himself on the side of victims of prejudice.  That is how he demonstrated God’s radical love for all people.  And if Jesus was anywhere last week, he was with the LGBTQ supporters of the United Methodist Church, as they prayed, wept, and witnessed for the universal love promised by God – even as it’s denied by the church.

Proponents of North Carolina’s Amendment 1 claim, in their ad, that “everyone, gay or straight, is free to live as they choose”, except that passage would interfere with health care coverage and custody battles for children of gay couples, and domestic abuse protections would be weakened for all unmarried couples, gay or straight, in domestic partnership or civil unions. 

We, as flawed humans, do so much harm with these notions of knowing what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘Godly’ and ‘incompatible with Christian teachings’.  We cause permanent damage to young people as we reject their emerging self – as parents, community, and church members.  We foster environments where bullies thrive and young people take their own life.  And we condone the very same prejudices Jesus stood against by legalizing exclusion, shame and second-class citizen status.

As Tommy Tomlinson wrote in his Charlotte Observer editorial, No One Is Hurt By Gay Marriage, "when our children and grandchildren look back on it all, this whole debate will make us look silly and small. I suspect that, in God’s eyes, we already do."

I believe God is praying, weeping and waiting for the day we realize it’s not our place to judge, to condemn, or to exclude.