My thoughts on gay marriage

In case you weren't aware, a bill including gay marriage was voted in today, making NY the 6th state in the country to legalize gay marriage.

Some are celebrating.  Some are mourning.  I'm going to pick apart my thoughts here...and they may  not agree with yours, whether you fall on the side for or against gay marriage.

I had a friend who was gay (had because he died a year and a half ago, from a drug reaction completely unrelated to his gay-ness).  I was a crappy friend.  We went to school together, and for a few years were very close friends.  David was annoying, but he was real.  He was adventurous, and he loved people.  He just loved them, not expecting much of anything in return.  And, did I mention, he was gay.

Now, David had some other issues, mental health type issues, and about a year before he died, I cut him out of my life.  Unfriended him on FB.  I was disgusted with his life, with his blatant sin.  And then he died.  And I realized that I had it all wrong.  Well, not all.  But a lot.  Underneath all of the "stuff" of life, David was still David.  He was still my friend, and I let him down.  I will always regret that.

Some may not agree, but I think Jesus would have had dinner with gay/lesbian/whatever people.  I know he would not have agreed with the lifestyle, but he would have loved the person.  The broken, hurting person who somehow let Satan get ahold of his or her life in this way...that person, Jesus loves.  Jesus died for them too.  Who do we think we are that we avoid getting our hands messy in people's lives because they are gay? 

We are not above them.  We ARE them.  Our sin may look different, may not be so in your face, but it is sin all the same.  We are all as black and defiled as death, without Jesus!  Whether it be the pastor who has a problem with porn, the woman who aborts her own flesh and blood (oh, another hot topic for a later day), the teen who gives in to hormones, the father who destroys his kids with his words, the child who steals a candy bar from the store.  We are all sinners.  No one has or can meet the standard of absolute holiness God requires.  We all need Jesus.  The gay man.  The lesbian lovers.  The people who are so sexually confused they aren't even sure who they are!  I am not any better than any of these people.

So.  Those are my thoughts on GLBT people.  They are first PEOPLE.  And then, gay.

My thoughts on gay marriage are quite a bit more "right wing conservative".  Marriage is to be between man and woman.  Period.  I am not personally opposed to civil unions, resembling a contract.  Do I think it falls outside of what God planned for us?  Yes.  But I do think it is wrong to deny gay couples health insurance.  I know it is wrong to deny any loved one chosen by a patient to make medical decisions for the patient.  Visiting rights, in hospitals or anywhere else it applies, should be given to a life partner.  These are PEOPLE, forcryingoutloud.  People who love.  Misguided?  Yes.  Sinful?  Yes.  Again, as am I.  But any way of treating gay people as less than human is not much better than slavery, IMO. 

I do believe marriage should have been protected, and left to one man and one woman.  But you know what?  This law is not earth-shattering.  Sin is going on all around us, all the time.  Legalized sin.  There is not a day that goes by that I don't see it.

I'll still be married tomorrow.  And maybe Jim and Joe (totally ficticious names) will be too, in the lovely state of NY.  Will that really affect my marriage?  Is my marriage less of a marriage now, because Jim and Joe are permitted to marry?  No, I don't believe so.  It shouldn't affect Christian marriage any more than the hundreds of thousands of non-believers who marry without having Christ as the center.  And, you know, I've seen Christian marriages who haven't done that bang up of job either.

How about we all mind our own business?  Love people as Jesus loves them?  Let God deal with the sin in our own lives?  How about trusting that he can deal with all of the sin in the world?  He will.  In time.  Not much we can do about anyone else's sin, right??

And David?  I am eternally sorry.  I wish I had one more day with you...