Moving toward theocracy

Graphic by NC Policy Watch

Graphic by NC Policy Watch

Yesterday, the North Carolina House of “Representatives” overrode the governor’s veto of a bill that will allow magistrates to turn away gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry.

You see, some people think it violates their rights when two consenting adults of the same gender wish to enter into the legal contract called marriage. They think their right to discriminate supersedes the right of people to be legally married.

First of all, let me say the only marriage that’s any of your business is your own. The courts have already decided that marriage discrimination is unconstitutional. This is a last-ditch effort to allow such discrimination under the guise of “religious freedom.”

Tony Campolo

Another thing that happened this week is that Rev. Tony Campolo finally changed his mind about LGBTQ folks and announced he believes they deserve full inclusion in the church. That means marriage, too. Campolo, an evangelical Christian, is best known for his “red letter” theology. In many Bibles, the words of Christ are printed in red, and Campolo suggests we look to those words first as followers of Christ.

None of those red words says anything about homosexuality. Not one.

Still, Campolo was against marriage equality. I don’t know what changed his mind, but I think it was a gradual realization that there is no choice in sexual orientation and that it was not his place to judge, since this is how some people are created.

From his statement, released Monday:

“Because of my open concern for social justice, in recent years I have been asked the same question over and over again: Are you ready to fully accept into the Church those gay Christian couples who have made a lifetime commitment to one another?

“While I have always tried to communicate grace and understanding to people on both sides of the issue, my answer to that question has always been somewhat ambiguous. One reason for that ambiguity was that I felt I could do more good for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters by serving as a bridge person, encouraging the rest of the Church to reach out in love and truly get to know them. The other reason was that, like so many other Christians, I was deeply uncertain about what was right.

“It has taken countless hours of prayer, study, conversation and emotional turmoil to bring me to the place where I am finally ready to call for the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church.”

Campolo has long been a social justice Christian. I often wondered why his passion for social justice didn’t include LGBTQ people; now it does.

So, while one of the most respected Christian leaders finally has come to the side of love for all God’s children, my state, North Carolina, takes a giant leap backwards.

I am utterly ashamed of this group of hate-filled radicals in our state government.

All we can do (aside from file a lawsuit to get the law overturned) is to work to send every one of the 69 “representatives” home in 2016.

This is not about the love of Jesus; it is about the hatred of anyone or anything different.

It’s a pity they don’t understand what a radical Jesus was.

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