Warning: Hot Topic!

This comes out of an ongoing email correspondence that I have been having with several friends of mine from seminary. The question was raised as to how one should approach the issue of civil unions for homosexuals. Here was my response:

I think that one can separate the issue of the sin behind homosexuality and the civil rights of homosexuals.

I don't think that any of us would truly question that heterosexual relationships outside of wedlock is a sin, yet we are fine with unmarried "life partners" having civil rights, such as visitation rights, tax breaks, etc. In this case, I think that there is a comfortable separation between what is a civil right (that should not be dependent on one's moral action) and a moral tenet of faith.

Or perhaps to be further implicating, while we don't often like to say this plainly, if we are to hold firmly to the first commandment, to put no other gods before God, than Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, etc are committing the most grievous of sins, yet we would rightly be seen as ridiculous to claim that they cannot be allowed the civil right to have unions.

A bit of commentary on the above statement. I think that to hold firm to faith in Christ is to proclaim that way to be the one true way. I accept that there are elements of truth in nearly all religions, and that there are many overlapping ideals between Christianity and other religions. Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and people of other faiths are by no means bad people for having other beliefs. The above statement should not be read as an indictment against such people. But again, if we are to hold true to the tenets of any faith, we are to accept that that faith holds primacy over any other faiths, and that at their core, the other faiths eventually fail in the face of the one you hold to be true.

To do anything less would be to dip into universalism, where everyone is right - or essentially where no one is right. But that's another issue. Back to the email...

Again, there is a clear distinction between our love for people trying to help them recognize and turn from sin, and simply legislating those standards onto to people, imposing them on people without any real effort to help them understand the sin.

Jesus' own most common interactions with sinners is not to proclaim their sin, but instead to get to know them, to love them and help them see and understand their sin, so that they will turn from it, not out of judgement, but in love. In fact, the most consistent group that he does call out on their sins are the Pharisees, Religious zealots who are trying to blindly impose their religious laws on people without caring about the people themselves.

In this case, we can and should separate the person from the sin, and think about the rights and interests of the person, in order that we may have a voice that can be heard not as judging, but as loving.

If Christians are to both uphold the sanctity of marriage and to be a loving and welcoming community, we need to raise our standards for how we hold marriage in general, for heterosexual relationships more than anything. We do not support each other enough in the midst of struggling marriages, and we are far to lightly open to the bailout option of divorce. If we really are holding marriage up as a sacred union before God, we should treat it as such.

As it stands right now, we are treating it in most cases as simply a civil and legal union. There is nothing religious or moral about that. To try and impose a standard for religious or moral implications for others on an institution, when we do not adhere to such a standard within the Christian community makes us become hypocrites.