I see two parts to this. First, there is a personal interpretation of what the Bible says. Second, there is what God calls on us to do for others. We are called to love our neighbors. It doesn’t say what our neighbors look like. However, reading the Bible, different people will interpret things differently. So, for example, some Christian couples interpret marriage (wives respect your husbands, or wives obey?) differently. My personal viewpoint? If two people are happy in a marriage, it’s not my business. However, when someone tries to be judgmental about MY marriage, and says I’m “not a good Christian” because I don’t follow their interpretation — that’s when the whole “look at the beam in your own eye” comes in.
The reality is that we all need to be humble and acknowledge our own sinfulness, ask God for forgiveness and be grateful to Jesus for dying for our sins. This is the basic gospel. It applies to every single one of us. God so loved us (gay, straight, male, female, black, white, etc.) that He sent His only begotten Son to die for us ON A CROSS. If we want to follow Jesus, we confess our sins, accept our redemption with gratitude, and take up the cross ourselves. God does not care if someone is gay — He loves the gay person just as much and wants reconciliation with that person just as much.
As far as I’m concerned, when I’ve talked to friends of mine who are gay, I tell them — I am here to love and support you, period. My pastor recently married a lesbian couple. But I also have Christian gay friends who have chosen to be celibate just like I have straight friends who are celibate — because they believe it is sinful to have sex outside of marriage and for whatever reason they do not believe marriage is for them. These are personal choices and in a private, safe space we can pray for each other in love and support. But to expose these types of private things to a public space??? WTH???
I remember over a decade ago getting into it with a guy at my church who was upset about us welcoming a gay person into the congregation. I pointed out that if he wanted to be legalistic, how was it that he had no problem with the congregation welcoming his single-mother daughter, who had had 2 children outside of wedlock? My point was not that the church should not welcome, love and support his daughter, but that God does not pick and choose, He welcomes all, and so should the church.
The gospel tells us that if you are perfect — if you have never sinned, then you don’t need the church. The church is a place for sinners. But the Bible teaches us that ALL of us are sinners. Gay people are also sinners, not because they are gay but because they are human. They are equal in God’s eyes with the rest of us. Whenever you treat a fellow human being with less than perfect love, you are sinning. This is the ideal we are all trying to measure up to and we all fall short. Being gay or straight is as irrelevant as gender, age, skin color, occupation, etc. None of it matters. Every single human being has failed at some point in their life, and we need forgiveness, redemption and grace. We all need help to do better.
