Making it Personal

I've often said in this space that a person's perspective on homosexuality often changes when they are directly impacted by a loved one. Here is another example of that, columnist Charles Honey of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press:


My mom always said Emily dropped from heaven. Emily's mother, Wendy, and I felt she had wisdom beyond her years, as if she came into the world already knowing things.

But what Emily did not have, despite dear friends, was one particular friend, one person who cared more about her than about anyone else in the world. That was a person I very much wanted her to meet, because I did not want Emily to go through this hard world alone.


Finally, she met that person. Her name is Nicole.


Emily and Nicki, as I call her, were married three years ago in Massachusetts. At the time, that was the only state where two women, or two men, could get married.


That changed this week, when hundreds of gay couples tied the knot in California after a court ruling that the state's ban on gay marriage violated the state constitution. The judges' 4-3 vote drew on a ruling 60 years earlier that struck down a ban on interracial marriage.



Gay marriage opponents are alarmed and swinging into action. Concerned Women for America, a public policy organization, called the California ruling "an affront to God and His plan for marriage and family." A November ballot issue approved this month would constitutionally recognize marriage only between a man and a woman.

This is where we are supposed to start arguing about the morality of gay marriage, what the Bible says about homosexuality and whether Ellen DeGeneres is the secret mastermind of the so-called "gay agenda."

Sorry, I can't go there. Yes, there are necessary debates to be had about civil rights, Scriptural interpretation and biological realities. But I'm not going to tell you what you should think. That's your job.

All I can tell you is that when this issue becomes personal, everything is different.

It's the difference between saying playground equipment should be safe, and the alarm I felt when Emily got whacked in the mouth by an iron horse-swing. (No worries, she sang in the spring concert that night with a missing front tooth.)

When you're the parent of a gay child, the difference is between deciding how you feel about this in your head, and knowing what you feel in your heart. What I feel in my heart is not a passage from Deuteronomy but the joy of a twirling little girl in a ballerina outfit, longing for someone to dance with.

I don't discount the importance of the theological issues, although if you dive into that pool you'd better be ready to do your homework. "Because the Bible says so" just doesn't cut it when many biblical scholars say the whole of Scripture says something quite different.

And if you care about this issue but aren't personally involved with it, I'd suggest this: Imagine it's personal.

Click here to read the rest of the column. (hat tip to Freedom to Marry)