The Gay Agenda?

Hello.  I know it's been a long time, but my new idea is to try to make this more interesting for people who follow me.  

So, my church has been considering how they want to respond to the question about how to treat gays in the church, in light of what the Bible says, and what seems true to us.  It's a complicated question for many reasons; I've entitled this post "The Gay Agenda" because I notice a lot of people seem to feel like this is a thing, and that it's a scary thing.

First, let me summarize what I think is an accurate representation of this viewpoint.  According to wikipedia:

The term is applied to efforts to change government policies and laws on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues - such as, for example, same-sex marriage and civil unions, LGBT adoption, recognizing sexual orientation as a protected civil rights minority classification, LGBT military participation, inclusion of LGBT history and themes in public education, introduction of anti-bullying legislation to protect LGBT minors - as well as non-governmental campaigns and individual actions that increase visibility and cultural acceptance of LGBT people, relationships, and identities. The term has also been used by some social conservatives to describe alleged goals of LGBT rights activists, such as recruiting heterosexuals into what they term a 'homosexual lifestyle'.

The idea of a homosexual agenda is also used by some Christian critics of LGBT rights in conjunction with a putative ideology they refer to as homosexualism (as opposed to a synonym for homosexuality), using homosexualists to describe people who seek to advance LGBT emancipation.  The use of homosexualist in this way first appeared in 1995 in Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams' book The Pink Swastika, "to refer to any person, homosexual or not, who actively promotes homosexuality as morally and socially equivalent to heterosexuality as a basis for social policy".  Lively and Abrahams in The Pink Swastika argue that alleged homosexuality found in the Nazi Party, specifically within Ernst Röhm's SA, contributed to the extreme militarism of Nazi Germany, and write about the gay agenda in this context.

So, when I talk about the church’s response to homosexuality, it is in this context within conservative thought that ‘traditional values’ are under attack by the people trying to normalize treatment of LGBTQ people.  However, there is also a growing sense in American culture that there is a biological basis for homosexuality, and that everyone should be treated the same with regard to things like housing, employment and the legal system.  While some churches and denominations are reacting defensively to protect the cultural disapproval of anything that deviates from the biblical norm, there are other ways of being faithful to Jesus without excluding some from a place in the church.

I attend a church which is already pretty open to people who are different or don’t fit within the traditional western evangelical group.  Most people have internalized the idea that church is not about judging or expecting conformance.  We are trying to live out Christ’s example of loving each other even when we are not all the same.  It works fairly well in the abstract.  Most of us support legal protections for LGBTQ folks.  Most of us voted for same sex marriage in Canada.  Most of us think the loving God we worship would not create people just to damn them to hell.  But, there’s a difference between accepting the person and accepting the ‘lifestyle’ that is often ascribed to people with an agenda.

I think this is where we run into problems with the idea that there is such a thing as the gay agenda.  In the churches I used to attend, there seems to be a lot of fear around the agenda of gay people, especially as they ask for the same rights straight couples who can marry have.  My interpretation, after many years of association with these Christians is that the biggest fear people have is that somehow their children will be recruited, or otherwise encouraged to adopt the gay lifestyle.  There are many ideas about what would cause this, and I think that is one of the main reasons Christians can be so un-loving toward these people who are marginalized in our society.

Of course there is the problem of homosexuality (or at least homosexual sex) being considered a sin in the bible.  But I sometimes think the reason people focus on this one as being a sin that can keep you out of the church and out of heaven is that connection between homosexuality and children, either pedophilia, or at least influencing children to turn gay.  After all, the bible calls many things sin that people do every day (lying, stealing, not honoring their parents, etc.), but no one really freaks out over people committing those sins.

Of course, there’s tension with this reaction to LGBT people, because Jesus was a pretty accepting guy, when it came to people who were seen as ‘sinners’ in society.  And he did tell us that one of the ways people would know we were Christians was by the way we love people.  The bible is full of warnings about not judging others, and being on the side of those who are marginalized.  We want to be accepting of people, and demonstrate the love and forgiveness that God has shown to us, but we don’t want to have our kids be seduced into that lifestyle, or be victimized by someone who preys on kids.  Also, I think part of the fear Christian people feel about this particular sin is that it is kind of a symbol of all the myriad of ways that American culture is changing from what they remember it to be.  Gay marriage kind of stands for all the other things too: no-fault divorce, prayers being out of schools and other public arenas, the application of freedom of religion to Muslims and other religions, the loosening of community standards in women’s clothing (and teens)and in the proliferation of pornography and sexual story lines in movies and TV.  Many people look back on how things were in the 50’s with rose-coloured glasses and think we should go back to how things were then.

I don’t believe we will fully resolve this issue for the church until each denomination comes to terms with these cultural and religious trends and concerns.  Gay marriage will probably end up being the law of the land in the entire US before too long; how will the church of Jesus react?