LGBT Rights vs. Religious Freedom
According to one Christian thinker, it’s time to get on the LGBT bus or be thrown under it.
Last week a thought occurred to me. I wanted to tweet it out but
wondered whether it would be too incendiary. The thought was this: “It
seems odd how confident we are that folks can lose their unwanted sexual
parts, but can't lose their unwanted sexual attractions.”
And then I thought of the stunning article by Christian ethicist
David Gushee. And if you follow me on Twitter, you know what I did next.
I hit “Tweet.”
In his article at Religion News Service, Gushee fired a warning shot
across the bow of conservative evangelicals and religious
traditionalists. He writes, “[y]ou are either for full and unequivocal
social and legal equality for LGBT people, or you are against it. . .
neutrality is not an option. Neither is polite half-acceptance . . .
Hide as you might, the issue will come and find you.”
Now, there have been honest attempts
by people on both sides of these issues to offer third-way sensible
solutions, even compromises, that accommodate religious freedom and LGBT
rights. Still, I think Gushee is right when he said these solutions
will largely be rejected, shouted down by demands of a full embrace of
the LGBT agenda.
What bothered me, however, deeply about Gushee’s piece, was how he
framed the struggle of those who hold strongly to the historic Christian
vision of sex and marriage. Conservative religious holdouts, Gushee
writes, “are organizing legal defense efforts under the guise of
religious liberty, and interpreting their plight as religious
persecution.”
Jake
Meador, writing at Mere Orthodoxy, was bothered too, using much
stronger words than I am today. We’ve seen time and again, and Jake
lists them, how federal, state, and local governments are forcing people
to choose between their livelihoods and their faith. Meador goes on to
point out what is really going on here—a clash of worldviews. And one
side, at least, sees it as a total war.
And that side, as I tweeted, sees biological physical reality as
fully optional and malleable to our surgical and chemical demands, while
at the same time seeing emotional inclinations and sexual attraction as
fixed and permanent. This is nothing but pagan Gnosticism on steroids.
Gnosticism, over which Christianity triumphed 17 or 18 hundred years
ago, held that the body was at best inconsequential, at worst, outright
evil. Physical, biological reality is no reality at all.
And that’s where we are today. When the Supreme Court ruled on so
called same-sex “marriage,” as my friend Jeffrey Ventrella pointed out
to me recently, it wasn’t just legislating morality. It was legislating
metaphysics. It placed itself and our nation on the side of those who
believe that, as Meador wrote, we “are completely autonomous,
self-defining human individuals and [that] the government has an
obligation to protect our right to self-definition.”
And all who question that definition, for example Christians—who
believe that what God created was good and quite real—well, we’ll just
simply have to go along. Or else.
So middle-ground solutions, though possible, are becoming
increasingly implausible in today’s divided America—an America in which a
Christian ethicist like Gushee sees no reason to accommodate Christians in a pluralist society.
So, where does that leave us? God willing, it leaves us right where
we are, at our posts, obeying Christ, loving God and our neighbors. We
continue to educate the young, heal the sick, feed the hungry, preach
the Gospel. We continue, as Rod Dreher wrote about last week, mucking
through the flood waters of Louisiana like Istrouma Baptist Church,
bringing relief to the suffering—and I guarantee there you’re not
tripping over volunteers from the LGBT Human Rights Campaign.
No matter how difficult Christian faithfulness might become—middle
ground or no—we must continue to be the Church, Christ’s body on earth.
Further Reading and Information
LGBT Rights vs. Religious Freedom: No Middle Ground?
As John has pointed out,we might not find much middle ground in this
particular struggle, but we are called as believers to take the high
ground--to continue following Christ's command to go into all the world
and share the good news of salvation, available to all who will believe.
Other Resources
On LGBT equality, middle ground is disappearing
David Gushee | Religionnews.com | August 22, 2016
Keeping Faith Without Hurting LGBT Students
Alan Noble | The Atlantic | Aug 15, 2016
On David Gushee’s Dishonesty
Jake Meador |Mereorthodoxy.com | August 24, 2016
Available in the online bookstore
Loving My (Lgbt) Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth
Glenn T Stanton | Moody Publishers | October 2014