Our LGBT community too often forgets that the people who claim "Christians" oppose equality are ignoring the fact that many many CHristians are passionate supporters of equality. Here's one,
The REv Tim Phillips, From SEattle First Baptist Church:
The coming vote in the Washington state legislature is likely to unleash another round of 'holy wars' on lesbian and gay families by those who presume to speak on behalf of God, the Bible, and all "real" Christians. To disagree with those holy warriors means not only to open your politics for debate but to open your Christian faith to attack. It is no wonder that so many progressive followers of Jesus would simply rather not be identified as "Christian" at all.
But there are reasons, as a Christian, to be thankful for this moment in history.
First, because this debate always gets us back to the basics -- what kind of God do we trust and what kind of Jesus do we serve? .... So let's just say that the God we trust and the Jesus we serve seem to move in the direction of the un-conditional. That is pretty basic.
...if we have to talk about conditions, let's talk about the conditions under which any intimate relationship between two adults could thrive -- integrity, mutuality, responsibility, maturity, and a certain amount of support. I think it is safe to say that Christians on all sides of the debate would agree that these are the kinds of values that are commended by Scripture....
The point is: the legal marriage contract creates the conditions under which the expectations of these values come into play for two adults who choose to enter into it. The contract does not guarantee those values but it does create the social -- and I would say 'spiritual' -- expectation of those values and to affirm those in as many settings as a possible is, to my way of thinking, not to diminish the expectations of marriage but to expand them.
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