Thinking a bit more about “Maybe God is a better person than you think,” I was struck by the sadness of that situation.
It must be an awful thing to believe that God will not allow you to be as loving, merciful and generous as you wish you could be. It must be an awful thing to want to be more loving, but then to think that God forbids it and, thus, that your desire to love is somehow wrong.
I think there are more than a few American Christians who just wish that someone would give them permission to heed their conscience rather than heeding the unloving, unkind, unmerciful things they have been taught about LGBT people.
And that reminded me of a famous post by Teresa Nielsen Hayden on the subject of comment moderation. That post ended with her writing:
… if you’re waiting for someone to give you permission to suppress and thereafter ignore malfeasants, you have it right now. If you want, I’ll make up a certificate.
And then, of course, she did. Because if people are waiting for someone to give them permission to do the right thing, then the right thing to do is to grant them that permission. Even if you can claim no more authority for doing so than just being Some Guy on the Internet.
So, OK, then. If you’re waiting for someone to give you permission to love LGBT people and to welcome them without qualification as equal members of the church, you have it right now. I’ve even made up a certificate.
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