What My LGBT Neighbors Teach Me

My Confession to the LGBT Community

But I also look back, and I see my own sin. I see a number of times when I tried to buttress my ties with conservative friends and family by focusing around our common enemies: liberal Christians who supported gay marriage.

I see times, most grievously of all, when I as a young pastor led church meetings, seeking to combat wrong teaching and allowed people to say homophobic, hateful things rather than challenging those words as I should have. I needed those people in order to “win.” I thought it was enough not to believe those things myself. It was not; I did not challenge those hateful words enough.

The Bible says of Jesus, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Matthew 12:20).

Who was listening in when those words were spoken in my presence and not challenged by me? Who was bruised further?

I also see my sin in wanting and needing to control the behavior of my gay friends in order to have a meaningful relationship with them.

And I see the way I took one behavior the Bible rejects and treated it differently than I did I other behaviors the Bible rejects.