I am what I sometimes feel like is a breed, a liberal Christian. As someone who really hates conflict I often find myself in uncomfortable situations as most of my family are conservative Christians as are many of my Christian friends. I also have a lot of non-Christian very liberal friends. Because I hate conflict I often just keep my mouth shut when things are said that I don’t agree with both sides. It’s super cowardly I know, and it’s not something I like about myself very much but my innate need to be liked, to not stir things up, to keep the peace, to not get into long heated discussions, etc. means I have a tendency to not speak my mind around these types of issues.
Maryland has a ballot measure during this election to approve marriage equality for gay people, which I will be voting for. I haven’t really specifically talked about it with any of my Christian friends in Maryland, but I’m guessing many of them are planning on voting no. When the polls were showing that the marriage equality was likely to pass by about 10 percentage points I was content to continue with my status quo of kind of staying out of the issue, but now that the anti-marriage equality people have been making their final push and polls are showing the issue in a dead heat I feel like I finally need to speak out on the issue.
I am not even going to touch on the theological issues of whether or not homosexuality is ok or not because I don’t think that is the issue at hand. I think Justin Lee from the Gay Christian Network, whom I have previously written about, does a great job of addressing how Christians on both sides of the issue of homosexuality can and should still love homosexual people. This is what I am talking about…love. The Bible I read and the God I choose to follow has instructed me to love. It is his greatest commandment to love my neighbor has myself, which means I should be treating others as I would like to be treated. I would not want anyone discriminating against me because I am different from them, so I will not discriminate against them. So many people seem to act in hateful ways to gay people and it makes my heart hurt. God calls us to love not hate. Jesus hung around with the people who were considered the worst sinners in his day. He did not condemn them. He did not spew hate at them. So I don’t understand where that comes from in people professing to be Christians.
I had ended this post differently in my original writing of it, but someone just pointed out to me that instead of publishing my final post WordPress decided to publish some half written draft that ended with half of a sentence. I don’t remember what I actually said after this point in the post, so I’m just going to end it here.
I am a Christian who will be voting yes for Maryland Marriage Equality and hope you will consider doing the same.
More Than Meh 
I know that there are heated conversations on both sides of this issue, but just the same as you saying that there are hateful things said against gays, there are hateful things said about Christians that are merely pointing out that God (if you believe the Bible is the word of God) says that homosexuality is wrong. I don’t dislike gay people. In fact, we spent several days on our last cruise with two ladies who share a lesbian relationship. They were very nice people. I just happen to believe that they aren’t following God’s plan. Does that make me hateful? Some would label me homophobic because of what I believe. Is that fair? Sometimes it is difficult as a Christian to know how to vote on issues because it involves so many people who are not Christians. Here is a scripture from 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked person from among you.’” So here it is talking about taking care of those inside the church and leaving those outside the church to God. Does this mean that we should not try to make society conform to God’s teachings? What if someone decided that stealing wasn’t wrong and gained a lot of supporters who would pass a law saying it was okay to take other people’s things? Should we ignore that? I would certainly vote against such a law. Just some food for thought.
I admire your bravery for speaking up about your beliefs. I wish I was as brave as you when I was in Texas this weekend with my family. Washington state has a marriage equality bill being passed this election and all the churches in my neighbourhood in Seattle have signs up saying that they are in support of the act. Thank you for speaking up that as a Christian you are also in support.