September 25, 2014
I’ve had the honor of officiating quite a few weddings over the past 30 years. I felt honored because my involvement in each wedding was at the request of a friend. And then I was doubly honored when my good friend asked me to officiate her gay wedding. She was not a Christian, but her partner was, and my friend wanted to give her partner a Christian wedding. Why was I, a lifelong evangelical Christian, honored to perform this wedding ceremony? I’ll answer that question by starting with a little history.
Back when the movement started to preserve “traditional marriage” by passing laws and constitutional amendments against gay marriage, I was not a supporter of gay marriage because the Bible seemed to prohibit gay relationships. But, I was deeply troubled by Christian leadership of this movement because it seemed to me marriage was both a civil contract and a religious covenant. And it seemed to me we Christians had no business imposing our particular religious views on the civil part of marriage. So, I was always “for” gay marriage — outside of the church.
But then the anti-gay movement picked up steam, and I was mortified at the vitriol emanating from Christian leaders toward the gay community. I could not grasp how anyone who took the Bible seriously could possibly justify such behavior. The movement quickly shifted from a desire to preserve cherished cultural norms to a full-scale attack on gays and the gay rights movement. Christian rhetoric devolved into an us-vs-them battle that featured hysterical hyperbole about the “gay agenda.” I was devastated by what my people were perpetrating and I was horrified at my membership in a majority culture which was actively persecuting a minority group. Where was God’s zeal for justice? Where was the Jesus who announced the beginning of his ministry by saying he was the fulfillment of Isaiah 61 – that great prophecy about God’s heart for the poor, the suffering and the oppressed?
As a Christian, I knew I was called to love everyone. And I felt sure the anti-gay marriage movement had landed on the wrong side of the Bible. So like other Christians before me who had identified with the plight of groups like poor children or racial minorities, I began to strongly identify with the suffering of gay members of our society. I may not have agreed with gay relationships on Biblical grounds, but I knew I was called to unequivocally identify with, and support, the rights of all gay people to live lives of dignity — free of persecution, organized hate or legal marginalization.
And then Justin Lee came along. He was the first Christian leader to create a bridge of peace between the two views of the Bible on gay relationships. He formed the Gay Christian Network and published two opposing essays side by side. One essay presented a Biblical case for gay marriage and the other supported the traditional view of homosexuality. Justin Lee made a compelling case for ending the battle over gay marriage by simply supporting each other in our differing interpretations of scripture. I read the essays, and the writings of other authors, and eventually concluded God is pleased to honor gay marriages.
There’s one more step in my journey to an epic gay wedding. When I left my career in community mental health to begin a private practice, I joined a practice called, “Christian Counseling of Reno” in which we served the churches in our community. I had already changed my mind about gay relationships, but I chose to adopt a neutral posture on this issue in keeping with Justin Lee’s philosophy of honoring those with views different from mine. When one of my gay friends found out about this neutral posture, she respectfully challenged my position. Some weeks later she was relating her painful experience as a gay person living in the crosshairs of oppression. I asked a question that suddenly seemed very relevant to our conversation: “If a person who is not on the side of the oppressors, remains silent while witnessing the oppression, does that make him the same as the oppressors?” My friend’s face hardened as she fixed her gaze on me and curtly said, “yep.” In that moment it hit me hard: I was my friend’s oppressor. I felt utterly broken and I knew I could no longer remain neutral.
A couple of years later that same friend asked me to officiate her gay wedding, and as you can imagine, I felt honored and humbled, and so very unworthy. And I felt overjoyed. I knew I was forgiven my past missteps in our friendship and I was so very grateful, to her and to God. We held the wedding in a beautiful setting and and we enjoyed the company of loving friends and family — gay and straight. God smiled on us that day.
If you know me, you know I am a quiet man. I don’t have the personality of a crusader or of an advocate. But I do love Jesus, and he modeled a love for me I could have never imagined on my own. He compels me to pay any price for that great pearl. I am compelled to love with the same commitment, the same depth, and the same disregard for my own rights. There really is no better way to live.