Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly non-celibate gay bishop of the Episcopal Church is going to retire early because of the non-stop death threats he continues to get from Christians.
You know, there are always calls for Muslims to speak up against terrorism, but I’d like some Christians to publicly come out supporting the Bishop and denouncing the people sending him death threats. You want to complain that there aren’t enough moderate muslim voices? Then show me some moderate Christian ones.
Gene Robinson is an incredibly decent human being who is being terrorized because people who believe almost exactly the same thing he does, don’t like who he loves. Things like this make me find the appeal of Christianity completely incomprehensible.
And for those of you who say that that is not the behavior of a True Christian, I’d like to point you to the No True Scotsman fallacy as well as Leviticus. For those of you who think the appropriate way to deal with someone you don’t like is to threaten to murder them, you need help.
For the Christians who don’t particularly like the death threats but are glad that they’ve gotten this homosexual to step down, your tacit support is the moral equivalent of approving of Al Qaeda and Imams calling for death threats. You don’t have to agree with his lifestyle, but you should be at the front of the crowd denouncing the people using terrorism to get their(your) way.
I used to argue till the veins in my neck bulged from commitment with John Shelby Spong, former Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Newark, on this issue. I know the positions on both sides of the ‘gay rights’ constellation of issues are sincerely held. But this one…this marriage re-imagining is a contentious one. It may very well be that this will never be accepted without question as a moral supplement to our national folkways. Please try to understand that many people who cannot ratify gay marriage are not evil demons. By the way, I’m an atheist and not a fan of institutionalized marriage anyway. I’m simply arguing for some calm wisdom to prevail.
That’s sort of a non-sequitur, this doesn’t have anything to do with marriage, it’s just about the consecration of a gay man as bishop.
I’m sorry. You are right. I didn’t make it clear. I meant to share with you that I tried to see Bishop Spong’s point of view on all the various issues within the ‘constellation’ of gay rights (which I see as constitutionally redundant incidentally), and tried vigorously. It was completely unnecessary to cite ‘gay marriage’ at all since all arguments of extended civil rights for gays devolve from one moral singularity.