Ruth Malhotra is suing Georgia Tech because she claims their policy banning speech denigrating others because of their sexual orientation interferes with her right to be a Christian. Fred Phelps pickets funerals of gays and lesbians and holds up signs that proclaim that ‘God Hates Fags.’ Now, I may be wrong but I seem to recall that there was a little more love and a lot less hate taught by the man from Galilee.

There is a growing grassroots effort to force schools, colleges and workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs by claiming that policies intended to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination end up discriminating against conservative Christians.

What?!

How did toleration end up being intolerant? The short answer is that it didn’t. These folks would have you believe that the very existence of homosexuality threatens them.

Despite rumors to the contrary, there isn’t a Gay Agenda to recruit straight America into our clutches. We much prefer to bed the willing and the majority of us can’t really understand how just living our lives, the best we can, is cause for such concern. With all the other crises in the world, how someone like David Vitter (Senator-R) could say of the need for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, “I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one." And him representing New Orleans!

Homosexuality exists in the animal kingdom. Chinstrap penguins, dolphins, fruit bats, macaques, ostriches, flamingos, bonobo apes, orangutans, sheep and even beetles have been observed in bisexual and homosexual behavior (pair bonding, nest making, raising young and even sexual gratification with members of the same sex, either exclusively or as part of their development).

Homosexuality has also existed in every phase of human existence and in all cultures throughout time. From Sparta to the Sacred Band of Thebes to the Mayans of Mesoamerica, gay life was normalized to a certain extent in the ancient world.

Evolution hasn’t stopped because of it, the earth still rotates on its axis despite it and human society has not imploded from it. And if you think for even a single moment that God is surprised when folks go gay, remember that He’s counted every hair on our heads.

Arguing that He gave us free will to turn from sins like this beg the question of why Jesus himself spoke extensively about divorce but not a single time on the issue of homosexuality. His message was that commitment counts, that two should become one and woe to the third party that attempts to break them up. Even if I grant that gay and lesbian sex is a sin (which I don’t), His preaching’s were about love – loving your enemies, loving one’s neighbor as yourself, and loving God with all your soul and mind.

When you attempt to follow in His footsteps or to direct others to emulate His life, remember one important thing: Jesus would not support the politics of hate. To act like Jesus, we should be opening our hearts, not closing our minds.

It must really get His goat when folks twist His message so very badly. When judgment day comes, I know that I’d rather be counted as a sheep than as a goat.

Relevant Verses From the New Testament

Matthew 22: 36Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 25:40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Mathew 10:29Not even a sparrow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. 30And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. 31 Be not afraid, for you are more valuable than a whole flock of sparrows.

John 8:3And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.