There’s a form of discrimination that America doesn’t like to talk about. Compared to all other Americans, members of one particular minority group are two to six times as likely to attempt suicide, at a much higher risk for social rejection, more likely to suffer from addiction and the most frequent targets of hate crimes in the US. Members of this group also comprise 40 percent of America’s homeless youth, and 26 percent of people in this group report having to leave their home because of hostility from their family.
This group is America’s LGBT population. And although Jesus instructed Christians to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and tend the sick, America’s Christians are less interested in fighting discrimination against homosexuality than they are in fighting, well, homosexuality. It’s understandable that Christians would believe that homosexuality is wrong. I won’t contest that there are several biblical verses which imply strongly that God’s plan for sex only includes heterosexual marital relationships. The problem is that Christians have unwittingly extended their teachings against homosexuality so far as to ostracize and degrade an entire minority group. This is the most un-Christlike outcome possible.
In Luke, chapter 14, Christ heals a man with leprosy on the Sabbath. This earns him criticism from the Pharisees, because he has defied God’s law to keep the Sabbath holy. But to Jesus, the heart and soul of God’s law is goodness to one’s fellowman. This is further emphasized in James 2:8 and Galatians 5:14: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Christians need, therefore, to be sensitive to the suffering of America’s LGBT community. And just as important, they need to understand the harm they cause when they speak out against homosexuality using terms like “sinful,” “unnatural” and “against God’s will.” They need to look past themselves and see what harm is caused when homosexuality is likened to bestiality or pedophilia. The difference between homosexuality and bestiality or pedophilia, incidentally, is that homosexuality can be consensual; the latter two cannot.
Let me be clear; I’m not saying that Christians are wrong for believing, privately, that homosexuality is not part of God’s plan. I’m not saying that Christians are wrong for personally abstaining from homosexuality. But I am saying that Christians need to be cognizant of the harm that is caused when anti-gay rhetoric is brought into the public sphere. Christ might not have condoned homosexuality. But he would have been even less tolerant of anyone who willingly participated in a system of discrimination and suffering.
It’s clear that the Bible’s sexual mores are subordinate to the greatest laws of Christianity, which are “love God,” and “love your neighbor.” Christians who allow their condemnation of certain sexual practices to distract them from the well-being of their fellowmen have lost sight of Jesus’ mission on earth.
Nathan James is a senior studying psychology. His column runs weekly.
