Christianity and Gays

Okay, so Ryan, my boyfriend, is apparently upset at me because (or so he said so in his blog) I condone (which is true) and encourage (which is not true) homosexuality, and God specifically says in the Bible that homosexuality is a sin, and we as Christians must not encourage sin.

Well, the easy defense for this is to say: I don't encourage it. Never said I did.

But I want to go a bit deeper into this discussion, since he doesn't understand how the crap I can be a Christian if I'm okay with homosexuality.

First of all, we all know that Christians go to Heaven. But to go to Heaven, being a Christian simply means believing in God and Jesus. Accepting Jesus died for your sins, and accepting God into your heart, believing in the Trinity, and that Jesus was, is, and always will be divine in nature. So a person could be a genocidal murderer and still get into Heaven, if he believes. With that said, I don't think the chances of a person becoming a genocidal murderer if he has God's light in him (I don't mean to sound cheesy. Just matter-of-factly) being very high, but still. And a person who was a genocidal murderer can still be redeemed. Everyone can.

Second of all, God is about love. His two commandments he has for us is love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and treat others as you would have them treat you. Is hating homosexuals being loving? Is hating homosexuality being loving? Hating what someone is isn't the kind of love God wants us to show people. I'm more concerned with loving my friends, complete strangers, than judging them and turning my back on them because 'they're a sinner'. We're all sinners. Someone who's gay is no different from me. Believe it or not, but a gay person can still get to Heaven. And only Christians go to Heaven, remember.

Thirdly, who am I to judge? So what if a person is gay? So what if a friend of mine had an abortion, no matter what the reason? So what if that person killed someone, or raped someone? No sin is worse than the other, and it's not up to me to damn that person to hell. It's not up to me to try to change that person. I'm not going to go up to a gay person and say "the way you're living is a sin. You should stop, so that you don't sin anymore". I'm not going to try to change who a person is. That's not my job. My job is to love them, to pray for them, and have God change them. Now, if God is commanding me to help someone, then I will know that it is my duty. But until that comes, I don't have the power, authority, or the right, to try to make someone different than who they naturally are.

Now a brief note on abortions, since that's another thing Ryan was yelling at me for.

Abortions are bad. They're terrible. It is like killing a person; murder. That doesn't make you more of a sinner than anyone else, and it doesn't mean that God turns His back on you.

But for the record, when Ryan and I were talking about abortions, we were talking about politics. I was saying how a political party here that was campaigning earlier are supporters in ending all funding for people to get abortions. Ryan was all for that, but I felt that, as a government, looking from a political viewpoint, that's taking away from peoples rights. It's not illegal to get an abortion, so why should the government make it impossible for people to get one? From a political viewpoint, it's not right; people should be able to have a choice. I'm not looking at it from a Christian viewpoint, or even a Grace viewpoint, because I choose to be objective when it comes to things such as politics.

This is how the deal with homosexuality came up. The same political party wants to abolish the legalism of same-sex marriage, and I am so against that. For reasons such as 1) It's, again, taking away from peoples rights and freedoms, 2) It's discrimination against homosexuals, which is not only illegal, but immoral, and 3) I fully believe that gay people deserve the same rights as anyone else. They're no different than non-gay people, and the sooner people see that, the better things will become.

I just have one last thing to say. Pick your battles. Are you really going to fight with me on the justification of gay people? Or are you going to save that battle for something that's actually important? If you fight with me, or with anyone, about every single thing that you disagree on, eventually the real fights aren't going to matter. Your viewpoint is going to be obsolete, since you spent it discussing whether gay people deserve to go to Heaven or not. (Which I think isn't a just argument to begin with, since it's not any of our decisions in the first place).

I'm pretty sure I have more to say on the matter, but for the sake of keeping your interest, I will leave it at that.