What Happened to Unconditional Love?

I don’t know how many of you actually read the Bradley Scout, but I was reading it this past week and a column really caught my eye. It was by my friend Kelly Mahoney, and even though she is my friend, I think she got it pretty wrong on this one. I would suggest you read the column here: EveryStudent.com not for everyone. In it, she talks about this website that is being promoted by Campus Crusade at Bradley that happens to have two articles written by (former) homosexuals who are now Christian (link and link).
I did a lot of thinking after reading it over the weekend and decided that I had to say something, not because of the main gist of Kelly’s column, but because of the way she portrays Christians in it. Granted, there are plenty of little things that I want to object to (and that’s what my blog is for), but the big thing is a letter to the editor I am working on…
But here’s the little things I object to: Kelly has a way with words. She has a gift, and I think she’s a great writer and persuader. She’ll make a great editorial writer someday (when she’s the editor-in-chief of the New York Times or something). I just wish she would have worded this column differently, because her word choice almost betrays her position (I’m just copying all my quotes from buscout.com).

“Both stories cite childhood sexual abuse as a reason for later sexual preference. While neither goes into detail, Parker’s tale describes how, in middle school, he had a sleep-over ‘and I woke up with him touching me, and I liked it.’ Folks, that’s not abuse. That’s experimentation among teenagers, which is normal.”

No, that is sexual abuse. If I woke up and someone was touching me, regardless of whether I liked it or not, it would be abuse. Imagine if, on Bradley’s campus, an 18-year old girl woke up with an 18-year old guy touching her. How would that go over in the news? ABUSE! Why is it different if its two boys in middle school. James Parker also says in his anecdote: “I often thought back to when I was a 5-year-old boy, and my neighborhood buddy Brian and I used to have sex parties in our forts.” I’ll just let you draw your own conclusions on that one.

“And unlike the punk music scenario, no one chooses to be gay. Scientists believe the arrangement of a mother’s genes can affect her son’s sexual orientation, according to a study published in the February Journal of Human Genetics.
Other organizations are contemplating the balance between nurture and nature. ‘Both biology and early childhood – perhaps even the hormonal environment of the womb – seem to matter in forming the complex trait that many gays say they know was fixed at a young age,’ wrote Eric Hand of The Saint Louis-Dispatch in a recent article.”

Notice the key words in that little blurb: believe and seem. That doesn’t mean its necessarily true, just that research is thinking its true… A theory, nothing more.

“No matter how hard a person prays to whatever deity he or she believes in, it’s not going to ‘cure’ them of being gay.”

Not once in either anecdote say that they “prayed hard and got cured.” As a matter of fact, never once do they use the word cure.

They are happy with who they are. Why would anyone want to be cured of a personality trait that’s not only integral to his or her life, but also makes him or her happy?

Neither of the two people who wrote their stories were happy. As a matter of fact, they both seemed pretty miserable to me. James Parker wrote: “In that moment I felt filthy and guilty beyond words. It was if I was the dirtiest person alive. I wanted to die…and I even considered it. I drove home, crawled into my dorm bed, locked the door and cried for the next 2 days straight.” Christine Sneeringer, talking about the breakup of a 7 year marriage over her affair with a woman said: “I was dealing with guilt, too, over being a home wrecker.” I don’t know, but that doesn’t sound to happy.

So, point-by-point, that’s what I think. Here’s the letter I’m submitting, but its a rough draft. There’s no paper this week, so I am going to pray about it and work on it the rest of this week. Feel free to share your thoughts, but its something I am going to go through with, because its something I feel I have to.

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After reading Kelly Mahoney’s column on March 3 (“EveryStudent.com is not for everyone”) and reading the two articles that it cited on the EveryStudent.com website, I was really frustrated with the ideas and standpoints she portrayed. It’s a shame that Christians today are being defined by the actions of a small minority of vocal people, people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who regularly espouse messages of hate. These ideas simply do not reflect what Christianity is all about. Not once did Mahoney actively seek a Christian (who were clearly labeled with their EveryStudent.com t-shirts around the time of that article, she even said she saw some) to ask their opinion. She just assumed it.
The problem today is that the media (including this newspaper, consciously or not) is trying to portray an us versus them theme. If you read the two articles from EveryStudent.com that Mahoney cited, you’ll find that not once did a single Christian reject them or accuse them because they were homosexual. They were loved, regardless, and that is one of the fundamental Christian teachings, unconditional love. Never once did either claim that their homosexuality was a disease or that they were “cured” of it. They changed their sexual lifestyles because they felt compelled to, and made choices on how they were going to spend their life. They were never forced into doing anything they didn’t want to. They were simply loved by Christians.
I’m not trying to say the research that Mahoney cites is wrong, because I don’t know if it is or isn’t. But I know that I don’t know, and probably never will know for sure (and if you read the words she chooses, the researchers only have theories, not facts). What I do know is that CNN or Fox News would much rather sit a conservative Christian who blasts gays across from a homosexual because it makes compelling television. Controversy breeds ratings, it’s a simple fact.
For once, I’d like for Christians to be known not for what we are against, but what we are for: unconditional love. Where was that in Mahoney’s column?

Jim Judd
Senior