Yesterday my two oldest kids came home from Weymouth High School and informed us that tomorrow (Friday) is “Gay Pride Day.” Everyone is encouraged to where a Gay Pride T-shirt and to be silent throughout the day in honor of this special event. Our initial response was “Well, don’t wear a T-shirt, and make sure you talk often and loud throughout the day.”
Of course there is a better, more biblical response than that. But first, let me give you a quick overview of Youth Pride. I paid a visit to the Massachusetts Youth Pride website and learned that “Youth Pride is the oldest and largest GLBT pride event in the nation.” (GLBT stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bixesual, and Transgender.) According to the Massachusetts Youth Pride Committee (MAYPC), Youth Pride is important for three reasons:
1) Youth Pride brings youth together to alleviate isolation: It's an event where thousands (YES, THOUSANDS!!!) of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth (and their allies) realize they are not alone. Realizing that there is support and people alike in the world are hugely meaningful for an isolated adolescent.
2) Youth Pride works to alleviate the social stigma associated with being a GLBT youth:
In a world with so much hatred and animosity against things we don't understand, Youth Pride is an event that works to push pack the social stigma heavily associated with being GLBT. Increasing visibility works to push stigma back, to increase understanding and tolerance of the GLBT community….
3) Youth Pride brings community, higher education and social support resources to the youth: Youth Pride is a program primarily rooted in suicide prevention. The two goals mentioned above help to alleviate the risks of suicide.
The 2008 Youth Pride Rally and Festival is scheduled to take place tomorrow, May 10, at Boston Common. The event officially kicks off at noon.
Up until yesterday, Massachusetts was the only state to legalize gay marriage. It did so in 2004, and since then, 9,500 couples have taken advantage of the law. As of yesterday, California became the second state to legalize gay marriage. This has huge implications for our nation, considering that California residents make up well over ten percent of our nation’s population. (California has an estimated 108,734 same-sex households, according to 2006 consensus figures.)
What are we to make of all these Gay Pride celebrations, court decisions and such? Let me suggest three biblical responses:
Hatred: Not for the people ensnared in such sin, but for the sin itself and the tremendous harm it does those who are in bondage to the sin of homosexuality. I find it interesting that Youth Pride “is a program primarily rooted in suicide prevention.” These kids and adults who are caught up in this sin are among the most miserable people on earth. While celebrating their “sexual freedom” on the outside, they are bound by the cords of their sin on the inside. We should hate not them but the sin that enslaves them.
Humility: In 1 Corinthians 6, the apostle Paul reminds us that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Then he lists various categories of sinners included in the realm of the unrighteous. Among them are fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners. But then in the same breath he immediately goes on to say, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” Then over in Titus 3, a passage I’ve been studying this past week, Paul says “to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures…. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (vv. 2-5). Any righteousness or victory over sin that we have attained is all owing to the grace and mercy of God. Let us not react to Gay Pride with our own sense of Christian pride. That would steal from God’s glory and make a mockery of His mercy and grace toward sinners like us.
Hope: Isn’t that what these poor souls need and what we can offer them? In Colossians 1:23, Paul talks about “the hope held out in the gospel.” In Lamentations 3 we read, “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks Him.” Instead of pointing our fingers at sinners, we should be pointing sinners to Jesus Christ. I close with these words from a song that Steve Green sang a number of years ago:
We are called to take His light
To a world where wrong seems right.
What could be too great a cost,
For sharing life with one who’s lost?
Through His love our hearts can feel
All the grief they bear.
They must hear the words of life
Only we can share.
People need the Lord, people need the Lord;
At the end of broken dreams, He’s the open door.
People need the Lord, people need the Lord;
When will we realize -- people need the Lord.