i am sure all of you have heard about this by now... the infamous question that miss california fielded and her response in last weekend's miss usa pageant.
i have a few comments about this whole situation:
1. everyone has the right to their own opinion. don't ask someone a question about what they think and get mad when they respond with their opinion. the fact is, the homosexual gossip columnist who asked the question seemed to be digging for an affirmation to back his beliefs. sorry, buddy, but you didn't get it because some people in this world find that there is a worldview that trumps the fads of culture.
plus, this is america. if you tell someone they are wrong, it is discrimination, which, ironically, is the very thing you are fighting against. it is ridiculous that we have over-defined freedom to the point that there is no freedom.
2. it is amazing to me that people who are fighting for something, which they identify as 'love', can be so hateful. the class of one individual in this situation prevailed, while others went to their blogs, called names, and threw temper-tantrum cheap shots. that is just inappropriate, tacky, and childish.
further, shame on those of you who abandoned someone you called a friend because you discovered this person didn't believe the same things that you do, especially when this person called you a friend even though she already knew you held different beliefs than her. but this is how things seem to work, isn't it? let me suggest that true love and friendship go beyond even the deepest beliefs. i think some individuals have revealed their true color in all of this and should take time to reflect on it.
3. i am just flabbergasted that people who want to argue that people are intolerant are themselves so intolerant. if you want to live in a relativist world where everyone is entitled to their belief, then you must honor everyone's belief. i have just one thing to say - welcome to your self-created catch-22. by the way, honoring someone's beliefs means that you shouldn't expect the rest of us to tell you that we agree with you. we don't.
4. by the way, just in case you were wondering (since one news report stated otherwise) - miss california does not hold views which are in the minority among her age group, nor even for her liberal state. i am pretty sure that california voted to uphold true marriage. this statement was a media-created myth to try to trick people into being like-minded by making the majority feel like outcasts. we will not be marginalized by your lies.
5. thank you, miss california, for reminding us of something. we should never read culture onto scripture. instead, scripture should inform our understandings of culture. and based on scripture's nature of Truth, it has some hard teachings. this inherently means that scripture will rub us the wrong way sometimes. if it doesn't, then we aren't reading it correctly. how many times did people walk away from Jesus because they couldn't adhere to His teachings because it challenged them to live their lives differently... it forced them out of their strongly held incorrect beliefs?
6. i have realized two things from all of this...
a. this is all a power struggle. a minority wants to do something that a majority thinks is wrong, so the minority does anything possible to flip the situation on its head. as much as our post-modern world hates power (which is interesting because this is exactly what the minority wants), power properly used is not necessarily a bad thing. power is not meant to dominant and oppress, but it creates boundaries that protect (which in this case are called oppressive in order to look like it is awful... pretty soon inmates will be suing the government for imprisoning them).
at some point we must all face it, we were created finite beings, which necessarily means we are limited. why? because God loves limits. He loves limits because He loves us, and He uses limits to keep us safe. this is the same way a parent places limits on children to protect them from a world that they do not fully understand. in doing this, they are not being oppressive but loving. there were limits from the beginning in the garden (think the tree of good and evil). God created things good, but anything good used improperly can be dangerous (just look at electricity!). He knows our tendency to pervert His good creation for evil. thus the reason God ushered adam and eve out of the garden after the fall - because otherwise they would have been able to eat from the tree of life, allowing them to live indefinitely and keeping them in their sin. once again, God created limits (death in this case by cutting them off from the fountain of youth... which provided God a way to ultimately redeem them from sin).
sexual matters definitely fall into this category. i watched as a young couple, both of whom were fourteen-years-old, sit on the oprah show last week and announce to the world that they were ready to have sex with each other. it is interesting that we don't think these children are mature enough to operate a motor vehicle, but we do think that they are old enough to have sex, which always comes with the potential to create life (when asked, the girl admitted that she didn't want to think about this consequence because it "scared her to death"). wrong! sex is something God placed boundaries on, not because it is sinful or evil (although, as all else, it is when used wrongly), but because it is so wonderful that when improperly used it can be extremely destructive. it is not meant to be an outlet for lust but an opportunity for a special intimacy reserved for married couples to bring them together as one flesh. used otherwise, it becomes people using other people as objects to fulfill their desire. it is literally dehumanizing! this is the antithesis of love.
i enjoy candy. it brings joy to my life, but there has to be limits. otherwise, i end up with diabetes or overweight. something that could have been enjoyable ends up destroying me. you see, this is what sin is. it is the crossing of boundaries created for our good. it is using things that God created good in capacities that they were not created for. the problem is, secular culture, which worships a god it created, thinks it can now define how creation should be used, which obviously suits its own sinful desires. we are just not having any of it.
b. from this, i have concluded...
one side has dominated this whole argument for a long time. it has been controlled with language about rights and love. this is not an issue of rights and love, though - mainly because this has nothing to do with rights or love. marriage is a privilege and an institution that was created by God, which is defined in Genesis 3. culture, you have no right to define this because God has taken that liberty, as it is His creation. while i am not ignorant and recognize that marriage is also a social institution, it is a social institution explicitly for purposes of procreation. as homosexual relationships are incapable of this, marriage is an absurd demand (other than trying to claim something that is not your own for "romantic" reasons). further, since God is love and has created marriage (the place for eros, intimate, love) solely between a man and a woman, i think it is a safe bet that eros love has been perverted in any other capacity.
so i would like to suggest this: people who oppose homosexual relationships have been said to be unloving, uncompassionate, out of touch, biased, and a list of other things. these are incorrect assessments, though. i admit that some people are homophobic and hateful, but the rest of us recognize that we love people too much to give in to someone's beliefs (and thus falsely confirm them) when we know these beliefs to be destructive. we struggle against culture... not to maintain or get power, but to uphold the divinely created boundaries... not out of hate, but out of love.
cheers,
jw <><
