March 03, 2006

Don't Speak for Me as a Christian

I was pointed to this piece on the CBN.com website. It is titled "Loving Your Gay Son." Here, their Dr. Linda makes a sincere attempt to offer advice to guide parents toward being loving and, at least to some extent, accepting. I don't have any major issues with the advice she offers. She seems to be seeking the path Jesus would take, and that's a great foundation for doing anything.

The second sentence of this piece, however, is deeply troubling. Dr. Linda states as fact regarding homosexuality that, "Christians still believe the lifestyle is spiritually and morally wrong. "

I beg your pardon.

Generalizing statements like this, which ignore the fact that there is a dissenting opinion among people like me who consider themselves card-carrying christians, is what puts forth the message of intolrerance.

All the helpful advice in the world will only go so far if it at least partly based on ignorance of the facts supporting it.

2 comments:

  1. Your point is well taken. A certain part of the Christian community has simply taken over the term Christian as applying to themselves and those with whom they agree. Interestingly, the agreement is usually on political issues more than doctrinal.

    More disturbing in a way is that the mainstream media tends to let them get away with it, without noting that Christians are a pretty diverse group. Look through any metropolitan Yellow Pages under "Churches" if you doubt the diversity.

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  2. There's the whole connotation of "lifestyle" too.

    Embodied in that is usually having multiple partners (dozens or more a year), or just general sex addiction, drug abuse, constant clubbing, acting "gay" whatever that may mean to one person or another, etc.

    There are hetero people who have serious additions to sex and porn, are promiscuous, have serious drug or alcohol abuse, frequent bars for more than just a casual drink, etc. Are these the mark of the "straight" lifestyle? No. They are marks of someone who is self destructive regardless of their sexual orientation. But people, especially concerned parents buy into the notion of this "gay lifestyle" that their kids will change into an amoral monster now that they're out.

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