Posted on 06/26/2023 8:04:10 PM PDT by Ennis85
The Catholic Church doesn’t need to bless same-gender unions. The Southern Baptist Church doesn’t. The United Methodist Church doesn’t. No church needs to.
God already blesses them—that is, if God is love in the way these churches all claim that God is.
If God is really love, if that truly is the essence of the Divine, then God is for same-gender marriage, non-heteronormative marriages for the same reason God is for any loving, respectful, interdependent union.
If God is love, God is for a mutually-beneficial relationship between two adult people; where they each find connection, affection, and devotion in the other; where they are fully seen and fully known, where they are encouraged and accepted and allowed to become all that they dream of becoming and can do all they are created to do.
If God is love, God is for sharing the celebrations and sorrows of this life alongside someone who is truly for you; someone who makes you a better version of yourself: someone who tolerates your morning breath, who holds your hair when you’re vomiting into the toilet, who silently holds you when you grieve the loss of your father, who forgives you when are at less than your best—who advocates for you and fights for you and stands with you when no one else will.
If God is love, God is for the new families created when two lives intersect and these human being’s loved ones become a new tribe together bound by their commitment to surrounding them with support and wisdom—and God is for the family that these two people get to lovingly define in ways no one has defined in the history of the planet, because that is the nature of family and of marriage.
If God is love, then God is for more fidelity in a world of deceit, God is for more affection in a place that grows ever colder, God is for more joy in a world that is often so starved for it, God is for more compassion in a time it can be tough to come by, God is for more love because God is replicated in it.
If God is love, then God is for butterflies in the stomach and awkward first dates and more awkward first fights; for navigating differences and sacrificial decisions and crafting compromise and growing older together, and God is for more people finding a home for their hearts because life is already so very difficult and so much better when not alone.
So yes, the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Church, the United Methodist Church, and every other religious organization interested in being agents of compassion in the world should absolutely bless, affirm, celebrate, and officiate marriages between LGBTQ+ human beings because that would mean they are truly perpetuating the character of God in the world and honoring the fact that God created every human being in God’s image without exception.
They should do that because it would begin to undo the Millenia of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community in the name of religion, because doing so would be a powerful declaration of the nature of God, and because it would expand the table of the hospitality of religion in a way that pulls people toward and does not push them way.
Churches should champion love wherever love breaks out on this love-deficient planet.
But if these religious institutions refuse to honor the dignity of LGBTQ+ human beings and insist on now acknowledging the supportive, challenging, difficult adult relationships that make them feel known and respected and whole, it will not be the last word.
Because if God truly is love as these people of God are telling us God is—God has already blessed them.
What God has joined together, let no phobic religious person tear apart.
If God is love, then He really wants me to rob a bank because I would be very happy if I had a lot more money and if God loves me he wants me to be happy. Wish me luck.
If that’s true, why did he create two sexes? A male and a female? Why didn’t he just create all males or all females?
Yes, God does love each of us, but he does not love everything we do, or fail to do.
What is the point of posting this?
The author doesn’t understand agapaō love.
Sex is not love.
Any prostitute can tell you that.
Homosexuality is not about love.
It’s about lust.
They lose.
Or as Tina Turner sang, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it.”
God defines what love is. He tells us. We don’t tell Him.
A small child might think that if their parents loved them that they would be allowed to eat nothing but chocolate and play in the street where there is traffic. Does not mean the child is correct.
THe author of this article needs to read the Bible, God’s word, and learn differently. Homosexuality is expressly forbidden.
Revelation 3:9.
GOD IS LOVE, BUT HE IS ALSO HOLY.Man’s silky attempts to try to explain what the Triune ELOHIEM is.
I have no objection to two men loving each other. It is having SEX that is unnatural. HomoSEXuality.
I’m commanded to love my pastor and his wife, but NOT to have sex with either!
By this logic, incest, pedophilia and polygamy should be just fine and dandy. Love is love, doncha know...
Author doesn’t know what love is. Teaching right from wrong is love. Making someone “feel” loved is not the same as loving them. “If it feels good, do it!” is not love.
Just ignore that whole bible thing....
2021 is two years ago.
Of course God wants men to love each other. As father and son. As brothers. As friends.
Love between men is godly. Sticking your p*n*s into another man's *n*s is Satanic.
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