Julian Bond, Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and others contend that we Christians use religious teachings to deny rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. This contention was made public in a three-minute commercial posted on the National Black Justice Coalition’s (NBJC’s) YouTube page (www.youtube.com/NBJCDC).
The NBJC, America’s only nationwide Black Gay civil rights (but really choice) organization, asks, “Is using religious teachings to deny equal rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people any less wrong than using religious teachings to discriminate against people of color, against equality for women, or against people of different cultures wanting to marry?”
I have a problem with this question. I also have a problem with the NBJC connecting homosexual persons' Civil Choice agenda with the Civil Rights movement. Moreover, I think the NBJC is wrong to espouse similarities between interracial marriages and same-sex coupling on June 12, 2007, the day we commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia decision, which struck down miscegenation laws and allowed interracial couples to legally marry. Ultimately, this question does not help humanity become a more functional family.
Using Religious Teachings to Deny Homosexual People the Right to Choose
Many people consider hermaphrodites, or transgender individuals, the exception to the rule. To me, hermaphrodites exist because mankind has yet to regain a Godhead connection. Rather than fall to our knees and confess our many sins before God, we, heterosexuals and homosexuals, give in to our sinful natures, having sexual intercourse with multiple partners before settling down with one person or no one at all. But these sexual escapades have consequences. The moral corruption in our society seemingly has corrupted humanity's bloodline, causing some individuals to be born with abnormalities, deformities even. These hermaphrodites have to go through life living with an abnormal condition beyond their control, and we must do everything we can to help them understand that they are still children of God. In this sense, they don't make the choice; the choice was made for them at the moment of conception.
But what do you say to a person who was born a woman but has the genitalia of a man? I'll get back to you with a more definitive answer after I research it a little more. But I will say this: The plight of transgendered people should not even be associated with homosexual persons' Civil Choice agenda. It shouldn't be associated because they, like persons of color and women, do not choose to be whom and what they are. To me, this association is nothing but a ploy on the part of gay, lesbian and bisexual community to attach their sinful choices with the inalienable rights that they already share with the rest of humanity.
I am a born-again Christian. That doesn't mean I'm perfect. It just means that back in 1977, at nine years of age, I confessed my many sins to God and then accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. At the time, I didn't understand the full extent of this conversion, and I dare say I still don't. But one thing I know is that when Jesus Christ allowed himself to be nailed on Calvary's cross, he paid the penalty for my past, present and future sins. Because of what he did, I'm able to walk in victory, assured that my spiritual self will abide in his presence after my physical self has expired.
My self-worth is fueled by the type of relationship that I have with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit -- or God in three persons, holy trinity. And because a human being's thought life is what drives his/her feelings and actions, I engage in prayer, bible study and Sunday morning church attendance so that I can develop a better capacity for taking every evil thought captive. That's not saying I succeed every time. I have fallen short of God's glory on many occasions. But I keep pressing on because I, and every other Christian on the planet, have been commissioned to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I'm endeavoring to fulfill this calling in the coming years through my words and deeds.
But the real question is what would Jesus Christ’s position be on the issue of same-sex coupling? I believe he spoke on its inappropriateness in Matthew 19:4-6. It reads, "Haven't you read," he (Jesus) replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
Jesus Christ himself tells us not to separate what God has joined together, which in this case is marriages between men and women. However, mankind has allowed homosexual persons' Civil Choice agenda to confuse the issue. Minus these religious teachings, gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals will remain forever lost, never being afforded an opportunity to truly know God in this life and the next.
Civil Choice vs. Civil Rights
Homosexual persons' Civil Choice agenda should never be assumed synonymous with the Civil Rights movement. For centuries, persons of color (namely black Americans) and women were discriminated against because of who they were born to be, not who they chose to be. The bible does make reference to slavery, being subservient to your master, but not once does it say Blacks were the ones enslaved. However, white Americans used these passages as justification for keeping us down. References are also made about how women are supposed to be subservient to men. But we must always go back to the book of Genesis to remember that women were created to serve as mens' helpmates, not servants.
Again, the bible calls the behavior of homosexuals "detestable" and "a perversion." God still loves the person, and charges every Christian to do and say what he/she must to bring him/her in line with God's will for his/her life. Doing so will be a difficult task, because the proponents of homosexual persons' Civil Choice agenda are silencing their critics by falsely accusing them of bigotry. When we Christians fail to live up to our calling, we are essentially endorsing their behavior. And by endorsing it, we are subjecting them to consequences that could have been avoided if only we had shared God's truth through our own attitudes and behaviors.
Similarities between Interracial Marriages and Same-Sex Coupling
There is no correlation between interracial marriages and same-sex coupling. Racist white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) males did indeed use the bible to deny interracial couples the right to marry, but nothing in the bible supports this practice. It doesn't support this practice because marriages are between males and females (as diverse as the colors of a rainbow) created in God's image.
When all is said and done, though, we must understand that when God created us, he gave us all we need to make righteous decisions in the human relations department. Absent the bible, we would have nothing but our physical bodies and basic instinct to guide our affections. But the bible gives us the instruction we need to always be in control of our thoughts, feelings and actions. From this instruction, we have a moral code to abide by, one that causes us to place the wants and needs of others above our own. That doesn't mean we condone the wants and needs of homosexual people; it just means we support their capacity for being in a right relationship with God.
