Thoughts on Amendment One and Christians

Yesterday two major political steps were taken with regards to same-sex marriage: North Carolina approved Amendment One and President Obama gave his support of same-sex marriage.  I watched as my Facebook feed filled with the following images (which were somewhat expected):

And then several times I saw the following images, paired with people's commentary on Christian's hatred and 'idiocy' about gay marriage and homosexuality.  

 

The Devon Park Church sign (above) was circulating, along with the commentary: "that's some kind of threesome."  In these moments, I was appalled and became very frustrated! People are no longer making this political war one of left-wing vs. right-wing or conservative vs. liberal, but of Christians vs. gay marriage equality.  I wanted to stand up for those of us who don't at all share or support (and indeed fight) this hatred toward the LGBT community, and say, "We're not ALL like this!" 

While I'm aware that there's definitely reason to have these feelings toward the Christian community, what people need to understand is that many of us don't even see eye-to-eye on this "issue" (I put this in quotes because it's not merely just an 'issue' really - see more below) and there's a great dissent about how this is handled within the Church.  

Because I'm not as eloquent, and because perhaps what I feel has already been said perfectly, I want to direct you to a blog post by Rachel Held Evans, a Christian writer and blogger, whose newest book is called A Year of Biblical Womanhood.

Her post is titled "How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation," and it really resonated with me.  It provides an overview of what Christians and others are saying in regards to Amendment One.  But my favorite section of her post is as follows:

"My generation is tired of the culture wars. We are tired of fighting, tired of vain efforts to advance the Kingdom through politics and power, tired of drawing lines in the sand, tired of being known for what we are against, not what we are for. 


And when it comes to homosexuality, we no longer think in the black-[and]-white categories of the generations before ours. We know too many wonderful people from the LGBT community to consider homosexuality a mere 'issue.' These are people, and they are our friends. When they tell us that something hurts them, we listen. And Amendment One hurts like hell...

So my question for those evangelicals leading the charge in the culture wars is this: Is it worth it? 


Is a political 'victory' really worth losing millions more young people to cynicism regarding the Church? 


Is a political 'victory' worth further alienating people who identify as LGBT? 


Is a political 'victory' worth perpetuating the idea that evangelical Christians are at war with gays and lesbians?


And is a political 'victory' worth drowning out that quiet but persistent internal voice that asks—what if we get this wrong?" (Source).