I have heard much in the way of defining marriage and gays and so on. Preferences and rights and protests and religious bigotry. On Aug 4th, a court in California repealed the State's law defining marriage as between a man and a woman and defining domestic partnerships and their rights. Essentially, the ruling says that gays and lesbians are allowed to marry because marriage and domestic partnership are two different things and they deserve the same rights and status as married couples.
As a member of the Body of Christ, I have to as myself what I believe and why. Then I have to compare it to God's view. God sees people not laws and deeds. He clearly says that homosexuality is wrong. But so is divorce, theft, sex outside of marriage, lying, idol worship, killing, etc. We live in a fallen world. It is a world full of people. And with people, you have sin. With sin, you need Jesus. Sin is sin. We all sin. So why are we not compassionate towards all sinners equally?
Why would we let a divorced individual serve in church but exclude a gay person? Why is it that we can embrace a drug addict and not a gay couple? We have laws in some states that allow a man and woman who are living together to receive rights as a married couple even though they never really married. My brother and sister-in-law fall under that. But if they were the same sex, they could not get the same rights. Yet is sex before marriage not also a sin? There is a double standard there.
I don not ask anyone to bend on the issue of any sin and ever think it is some how OK. But what I ask is to seek His Kingdom and wisdom in living with sin in our own lives and in others. Look at the plank in your eye before removing the speck in an other's. Gay folks should not be treated differently. They are sinful people just as we are. Love the sinner but hate the sin-- all sin, even your own. Then we will see the Kingdom of God in our lives.
