Most people know their mother loves them. And most people know their mother does not approve of every thing they do in their lives. When it comes to mothers, most people know that disapproval does not mean the absence of love. But when it comes to the issue of homosexuality and churches, the distinction between love and approval fades quickly.
I don’t think I need to tell you that most churches and the gay community have not been on friendly terms over the years. While most churches don’t approve of gay lifestyle and practices, they continue to say that they love gay people nonetheless. Kind of a “love the sinner, not the sin” thing. But that message of love isn’t getting through. This is never so clear as in the protests against the passage of Proposition 8 which bans same-sex marriage in California.
Protesters are not shaking their fists only in the streets—like they are doing here in Long Beach where I live—but have assembled across California outside Mormon churches, Catholic churches, and Rick Warren’s Saddleback church, sometimes chanting “shame on you!” The L.A. Times reports on one protester: For Sally Landers, a Saddleback Church member, her participation in the protest was a deeply personal matter. Landers and her female partner plan to marry and adopt children. When she received an e-mail from Rick Warren urging a “yes” vote on Prop. 8, she said, “I felt like I was kicked in the stomach by someone who loves unconditionally.”
It appears that for many gay people, like Landers, disapproval of their sexual lifestyle quickly translates into lack of love—and even hate. The “love the sinner, not the sin” mantra is not working on the issue of homosexuality, like it may if we were talking about cheating on your taxes, lying to your spouse, or gossiping about your coworkers.
To answer why this may be, I can only speculate from an outsider’s perspective since I am not part of the gay community. But I think that perhaps it may be that gay people think of their homosexuality not as something they do but as something they are. Living a gay lifestyle, getting “married,” and having sex are not incidental choices, but natural expressions of who they are. Tax-cheaters, liars, and gossipers hardly associate their actions and their selves in this way. To disapprove of who one is, and not just what one does, feels like anything but love. Churches may retort that they do not disapprove of who one is, just what they do. But as long as the gay community sees their sexual lifestyle as inextricably part of who they are, churches and the gay community will continue talking past eachother. That is the conundrum we find ourselves in.
What can churches do? Honestly, I don’t have an easy answer. In fact, I don’t even have a difficult answer to offer. I don’t think the problem will go away if we blame the“religious right” as politicizing a personal moral issue. The strife existed long before ballot measures and marriage amendments made headlines. Nor will it help matters to abdicate church involvement in social issues, so that we don’t get involved things like society’s definition of marriage. Backing off ofsocial issues will likely undermine other attempts by churches to get involved in social change—like on justice, poverty, and the environment.
I don’t have answers on how to resolve this, but a first step is at least to articulate how the issue of homosexuality is different than other issues facing churches today. Before we can communicate better with the gay community we need to first understand where communication is breaking down. With that said, I welcome any suggestions from you, the reader, on how churches can communicate disapproval of a homosexual lifestyle but still communicate unconditional love to the individual himself or herself.
