You've got (voice) mail

The blog I wrote some time back stating why I'm voting for Prop 8 came out yesterday in Temple City Life as my monthly column.  Last night someone (anonymously) left a lengthy discourse on my office phone telling me to "read my Bible" and that while they weren't in favor of same-sex marriage, they also weren't against it.  If there was ever an example of post-modern moral equivocation, that's it.  

The day before, Pastor Sam read my column and said, "It's great.  Get any hate mail yet?"  Well, give him credit for a bit of prophecy.

I dearly wanted to reach out to this person--a victim of what sounds like a terrible divorce.  This person was irked by my passing reference to Malachi 2:16, where God says, "I hate divorce."  Well, God hates divorce--that's a fact--and I know few divorced people who don't hate divorce as well.  That doesn't mean that divorce isn't sometimes the only and last alternative.  God hates divorce--that doesn't mean that He hates divorced people. 

The caller also told me that I ought to be loving and forgiving, not judging.  Lord knows, I'm the chief of sinners.  It's rescue and compassion that makes me take the stance I do.  For me, this always comes back to Darrell Ballangee.  He was a friend back in High School, whose church told him that there was nothing wrong with his homosexuality.  He didn't make it to 35--dead of AIDS.  Flaunting God's design always has real world consequences.  Always has, always will. 

 

We cannot stand aside as our state embraces death.  I would be a coward and a traitor to God's word if I did.  I will stand with God's design without apology.  Here I stand, I can do no other.