My country, 'tis of thee

I do not celebrate this weekend, but mourn over the SCOTUS decision on marriage.  I was so grieved by it, in fact, that Friday night I had bad dreams all night long--dreaming that I was in a deep depression, that I was in a scary battle, that I was about to be cannibalized, and that my library books were overdue.


This decision is bad for heterosexuals, and it is bad for homosexuals.  We are telling ourselves a lie, fellow countrymen, that gender does not matter.


It does.


Each of us enters this world made gloriously as male or female.  We are different.  We are complimentary.  It is the way we have been made.


Our complimentary biology could not be any clearer about the natural order of family life.  Man and woman are made for each other, sexually, from whence springs the next generation, to be raised in all the fullness of humanity by a covenantally committed member of each gender.


To exclaim triumphantly (and politically-correctly) to our gay friends that their homosexual desires are good and honorable and healthy is doing them no service.  When I am running headlong into destructive behavior, I need no friends to cheer me on, but someone to gently say, "Mindy, you're wrong."


Indeed, denying homosexuals the ability to marry and pursue the same companionship and shared life that I enjoy as a married hetero is awfully harsh.  It is a terribly harsh reality that some people experience exclusively same-sex attraction and will therefore never know a complimentary marriage.  Shall we therefore replace harsh reality with a sweet lie--that we can indulge in that for which we were not made, and suffer not at all as a result?


I'm concerned about the many homosexuals who have grown into their orientation because of painful or even traumatic events in their young lives.  In a culture that celebrates gay pride, who is addressing these hurts?  Who is helping them sort out the damage to their spirits and regain personal strength?  Is anyone even asking them?


I am aware that many other homosexuals are oriented so all their lives, without any trauma.  They are "born that way."  You know how I was born?  I was born with an orientation toward selfishness, cold-heartedness, and a proclivity to use other people for my own personal ends.  People like me ought not relish that we were "born that way."  We ought to reject our natural but wrong inclinations and exercise self-denial.  No one sanctioning or celebrating my selfishness is doing me any favors.


I grieve this weekend for the country I love and the trajectory of error it is on.


And I grieve this weekend for my homosexual fellow Americans, to whom very few people are speaking the truth--and even fewer speaking it with compassion.


I am sorry, gay friends, that this country has failed you.  I am sorry that you have been the targets of hate.  I am sorry that many of your struggles have been ignored.  And I am sorry that this nation is telling you that the wrong you are doing is right, that the path of destruction you are on is fulfillment, and that there is no greater hope for you than to fully immerse yourself in your own natural inclinations.




For more reading with a similar perspective, here are some thoughtful articles written by homosexual men:

I'm Gay, And I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

On dealing with the pain of not being able to have a family

A Christian reflection on living with same-sex orientation