Christians & Gays & Proposition 8

My latest is up at Pajamas Media – my usual deathless pearls about the need for gays to man-up and act like citizens working within the confines of real democracy, and the need for Christians to find a better way to befriend them, and the past-due need for the churches to protect themselves from the litigation we all know is coming their way.

An Excerpt:

The Christians may have unintentionally come off as condescending. We may presume that they would not want a crowd of gays meeting on their curb each week to proselytize. As a Catholic I would take issue with other Christians, no matter how well-intentioned, standing at the curb praying for my redemption based solely upon their knowledge not of me, but of my habits or my religion. Their singing songs for my salvation would come off as sitting in judgment of me. Even if that’s not how they meant it.

That said, the gay community is being rather cowardly in going after praying Christians and the always placid Mormons. People of faith have
certainly made their share of public missteps and that gives some people a sense of justified loathing. But analysis has shown that Proposition 8 passed largely thanks to the Hispanic and African-American voters who turned out for Barack Obama and who, generally, do not support gay marriage. The gay activists — ever politically correct — are not targeting those communities; they’re targeting the churches.

Or, more correctly, those parts of the faith community easiest to hammer, not the storefront churches in disadvantaged neighborhoods and not the mosques.

Please read the whole thing!

UPDATE: A friend, noting that I’ve seriously pissed off a few Christians in the comments section wonders if I should go all Kathleen Parker and embrace a prissy martyrdom. Not me! I’m strong in spirit! And I love mostly everyone. Heh. My intention was never to annoy the Christians, but some of them seem to have either completely misunderstood my point, or they were simply in a hurry to feel insulted. There are people – I am convinced – in every “community” who live to feel insulted and put-upon by others.

The whole point of the piece is to get to that last paragraph, which I think is important. It’s past time for folks to start considering the need for the churches to separate themselves from the having any authority imposed by the government – so that they can exist more freely within the Bill of Rights. It’s about protecting the churches from the reach of gay marriage laws and still exist within their own customs. Some don’t seem to be getting that.

The gays and Christians are acting out. Neither side is taking the time to engage on personal and human levels, possibly because once you do that – once you force yourself to break out of the comfortzone of your own convictions, to hear the other side – more is asked of you, of your reason, of your understanding, of your humanity and your heart. It’s that damned devil, vulnerability, again.

Hot Air has more on all this.