Some years ago my best friend from college, Eric, died of a terrible, wasting disease. His doctors tried an array of experimental medicines that did little but delay the inevitable while adding a host of unpleasant side effects to the symptoms of the disease. And finally he died.
How would you react if I told you that I didn't care that my friend had this disease, that I didn't care whether he was sick or healthy? Surely that would be absurd. I hated the disease. I hated it to exactly the same extent that I loved my friend.
The disease that Eric died of was AIDS. It was no mystery how he got it: he was openly homosexual. But AIDS was just the final payment Eric made for his "lifestyle". I'm not sure if he had any male friends besides me -- most men were too uncomfortable around him. (He had "boyfriends" of course, but none were real friends. Eric himself once commented that when things got bad, the only people who were there for him were those who disapproved of his lifestyle.) He never knew romance, or the love of a woman. And -- let's be blunt -- he never enjoyed sex the way God intended it to be.
How would you react if I told you that I didn't care that my friend was a homosexual, that I didn't care whether he was gay or straight? Surely that would be absurd. I hated his homosexuality. I hated it to exactly the same extent that I loved my friend.
That's why I'm opposed to "gay marriage". Just as it is no act of kindness to give free whiskey to an alcoholic, so it is no kindness to tell a homosexual that his "partner" is as good as a wife. God wants something so much better for him. Let's encourage our friends to seek what's real, not wink at the lies that are destroying them.
© 2004 by Jay Johansen
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