After speaking at some great length on the phone with my brother (Axiom of Gamefamily.net), I’ve learned some pretty interesting things from a more positive Christian teaching than what we normally see represented in the extremist friendly media.
I don’t know if what he believes is necessarily what his church teaches, but I have to say it rang out pretty well with me, and generally on these types of things I tend to think of him as pretty old school conservative, and secretly mock him behind his back.
More or less, this is what he said when I asked him, “Why do you think its not okay to be gay?”
Paraphrasing because I can’t remember the exact wording: I don’t, exactly. Basically its not okay to be gay, but its also not okay to be straight. Lust in general is a sin on all levels. If we were perfect, and we’re far from it, we would live a life without any form of sexual desire. What we are taught is that the least sinful way to lust is to lust after our spouse. It is not any less of a sin for me to lust after a woman than it is for a man to lust after another man.”
So I asked him if that meant he thought homosexuals should get married. It was a long conversation, that involved a lot of tangents as conversations between brothers do, but in the end, he pretty much said yes.
He also did point out something, whereas he could not recall any biblical statements condemning gay gentiles, he did point out that there are several places in the Bible where we are told that to be complete a man must leave his family and marry a woman. That leaves me with a nagging question in my head. Is this wording deliberate from God, in that he wants men to marry women to be made whole, or is it an open statement targeting a predominantly straight culture that we should all, regardless of sexual orientation, seek to find our soulmate that we might be made whole?
I believe in a God that wants us to be happy. If there is one woman out there that he created to make me whole, I’m pretty sure my gay friends have a dude out there to make them whole also.