Gay vs. Greed - An Exposition

Three stories:

Imagine you have some friends. And those friends have a 17-year-old teenage child. Your friends are good people and great parents. You would trust them with your own children without reservation. But, alas, teenagers will be teenagers. And recently you have learned some things about the behavior of their teenage son. So one evening, you confide in them the dark secrets of their child’s behavior. You tell them he has on more than one occasion been known to drink and drive. On top of that, one of his friends raped another student and their son has been helping his friend cover it up.

Serious stuff. Dangerous stuff. Deadly stuff.

They are good parents, so they are devastated.

Next week, you are having dinner with them and they confess to you that the behavior problems are even worse! You gasp! How could it get worse? In hushed tones, they tell you that they found out their child also… cusses.

What? This is worse?

As the weeks go on and on, you find that your friends mention the drunk driving and rape cover-up less and less. But they cannot stop talking about the cussing. Anytime you bring up the more serious allegations, they admit those are problems and they are also talking to their son about those things, but his language is the real burning issue.

In the end, after months and months, you see that your friends are really only pursuing getting their kid to stop cussing. But their son’s habit of drunk driving and involvement in the rape cover-up goes largely unaddressed.

-----------------

I visited Haiti during the summers of my early adulthood. Those trips changed everything for me. They taught me more than any book could ever have done; more than any blog or news piece ever has. There is this one image that forever sticks with me.

Our team was visiting a school for boys. We drove into the compound and into a closed-in yard used for recreation. On the field were about a dozen or so young boys, around ages 8-12, playing soccer.

Completely naked. All of them.

Why? To attend the school, they had to wear a uniform and the uniform was expensive, so they removed it before playing soccer to ensure they didn't ruin it. No uniform meant they couldn't go to school. So they played naked so as not to jeopardize their education.

I remember the fog of indignity. Having to decide between having fun or remaining clothed. Having to experience puberty in public. And then those boys being paraded to the white rich Americans.

I mostly remember the shame. And the anger.

I still carry that fog with me. And the shame. And the anger.

--------------

Over the last few months, three controversies have pulled the rug out from under the idealistic hope that our society could simply “move past” the intolerance (purposeful or not) exhibited to homosexuals. First began World Vision’s hiring policy change, allowing gay Christians to serve the poor (which was quickly retracted). Next, a member of Jars of Clay, a Christian musical group, openly questioned (via social media) whether Christians are required to deny equal marriage rights to homosexual citizens of the U.S. Third, Michael Sam was drafted to the St. Louis Rams and kissed his boyfriend on live television.

Conservative Christian leaders around the U.S. all collectively blew up. Blogs decried each controversy as one more instance of our society’s slow descent into hell. Radio talk shows named moderate or liberal Christians as apostates to the faith and/or heretics to be purged from the ranks. And the hearts and minds of our conservative population once again turned their attention (had they ever turned their attention away?) to the growing “problem” of homosexual inclusion as the single greatest enemy to a moral society.

-----------

It shouldn't be too hard to connect these stories. You probably already have.

I sat in that white Range Rover with five or six other rich, white, Americans. We all saw the same group of naked kids. We saw the same poverty. We saw the same world that we have helped create and the startling contrast between what it means to have been born in Florida vs. having been born in Haiti. We all heard the same stories of premature deaths, human suffering, and the dangers and struggles of the most benign activities that we easily take for granted as Americans.

We all saw the same things. We saw the same human faces. We all walked into that fog of indignity together.

And here I am hearing those voices say that the single greatest threat to society is letting a gay man get married. Or letting a lesbian doctor vaccinate the poor children across the globe. Or the fact that you watched one man kiss his committed partner that just so happens to be another man.

What? People are dying. Or suffering. And you are worried about whether or not we give equal tax benefits to people who don't share your intractable, archaic moral stance?

Without a doubt, homosexuality in our modern American society has become a central hot-button issue for our time. But it shouldn't be. We need to move past it. There are much more important matters at hand. Or at least tone it down and focus on issues that are more important.

How can I say that? Who am I to make the judgment on what is important vs. what is not?

I am simply looking at possible consequences of our action (or inaction) and triaging based on severity.

How many people die of homosexuality each day? Zero.

How many people die of starvation each day? Thousands.

How many people suffer as a result of two men marrying each other? None.

How many people suffer as a result of poverty? Millions.

Given the choice between your child dying of cholera or being attracted to the same sex, it is an easy choice. People are suffering and dying of things that we can change and instead we think the whole of Christianity is summed up in opposing same-sex couples. There are actual policies we can debate and change that will have a lasting impact to reduce the suffering and enhance the well-being of our fellow human beings on this earth and instead we think the greatest moral evil is when two men are allowed to show affection to one another on television.

What drives me even more crazy is that this fairly simple triage, one that any reasonable person could create regardless of religious beliefs, is ACTUALLY buttressed by the moral teaching of the Bible. The Bible is FULL of excoriating passages about the social, personal, and spiritual dangers of greed – a moral concept that transcends the cultural and historical distance between ancient biblical times and our modern context. The duties of man to help the poor as explained in the Mosaic law as well as the teachings of Jesus and his early church weigh heavily on our modern soul even still.

Yet those passages and commands are given minimal lip service and largely forgotten. Instead, the conservative Christian community has opted to focus on the very specific, yet non-lethal, problem of the sanctity of marriage (*but only the homosexual intrusion, not divorce).

Those who focus on the lives and well-being of the poor instead of gay marriage are told we don't want to follow God. We are told we don't believe in the authority of Scripture. We are told we are selfish and only trying to fulfill our own desires, not those of God. We are called heretics, heterodox, and apostates. We are considered false teachers, lovers of sin (or deniers of sin), and leading people to the gates of hell.

When in reality, we only have the vantage point of seeing that drunk driving is more serious than cussing. We have read the Bible for its whole message, not the few verses that substantiate our disgust over watching men kiss.

Why is being gay more serious than being greedy? (Alternately, why will the gay go to hell but not the greedy?) Why is it properly Christian to oppose same sex relationships instead of opposing human suffering? Why isn't human flourishing our goal instead of sexual superiority?

I am not nearly finished with this. More to come.