Gay Marriage . . . A Sign that the Planet is Getting Better?

I must first give a disclaimer.  This will not a discussion about homosexuality or even if gay marriage is a good thing or bad thing.  I look at it this way, I’m not gay so it is none of my business if gay people favor or disfavor marriage.  For a great theological discussion on the topic, go back to imonk’s pages about it and will try and link it here.

But here is to my point. 

I remember sitting in my old evangelical church a few years ago when the pastor preached on the topic.  He was adamant about opposing gay marriage when it first came up in our state.  He was actually the vocal leader and local champion against the law and marched in pro-family rallies at the state capital.  But, eventually a law allowing gay marriage was passed this year.  I can remember our adult Sunday school discussing it and the leaders of the church, including the pastor’s right-hand man saying that gays legally marrying were proof that the world was going to hell in a hand basket.  In other words, that this world was getting ready to burn and Jesus was coming back soon and gays were proof of that.

I tried not to speak up in Sundays school in those days because every time I did, I would feel the wrath of everyone and I was told, in so many words, more than once that I couldn’t be a real Christian with my liberal viewpoints. Meanwhile my wife would be down in her class having a wonderful time talking about precious things, good fiction books, flowers and etc.

But that day I spoke up that rather than the world getting worse and falling apart, I was actually leaning in the direction of Amillennialism . . . believing that we are now in that glorious times when the Church will succeed more and more until this planet is fixed.

The Sunday school class all agreed that I was a heretic at best and a blooming lunatic at worse.  They pointed out how America is in ruins compared to the glorious 50s when things were almost perfect . . . and there were no gays (I assume).

I see a world that is improving as time goes on.  To start with the 50s . . . well that was the period when the Sunday school director at my childhood church was sexually molesting little boys.  This has nothing to do with the issues about gay marriage, but I’m trying to make the point that bad things were happening back then. What made it worse in this child molestation problem in our church was that the pastor and the mom’s all covered for the Sunday school director. They tried to keep their little boys away from him and introduced him to other little boys as decoys so he would fulfill his pleasure and leave their sons the hell alone (I know it sounds sick now). The dads called any talk of what was going, “women’s gossip.”

Take this case study alone. What happened in my church in the 50s and 60s I don’t think could not happen today.  The parents of the first boy sexually assaulted would go to the police . . . or appear on Dr. Phil and all hell would break loose . . . or so I would hope.

But we can take it back further.  Smiling daddies have been raping or molesting their little princesses since the beginning of time . . . but it stayed in the closet. But now?  Not so easy, at least I hope.  And moms?  Well, the bad moms used mental torture since Eve left the garden. That may still happen now but not as easy.

This doesn’t even touch on the developing world. It is much harder to be an evil dictator today than 100 years go . . . not to mention a 1,000 years ago. Then look at Church history. Could the Church get by with peeling the skin off people, who were alive, but who disagreed with the church as they did in the past?

So, this week I was listening to the news about Obama supporting the Supreme Court case to over-turn the ban on gay marriage as a civil rights violation.  And I listened once again to the voices of the people wanting the opportunity to marry the person they love, often who they have been committed to for decades.  It isn’t about the gay community wanting the license to have bisexual orgies left and right

I know I’m walking on the very edge of the topic, but again this isn’t a discussion about homosexuality, but about the pursuit of justice.  I believe the world is getting better and better (thanks to the distant influence of Christianity on the world) where justice is held high, and the pursuit of it is a noble cause.  The pandemic of social injustices is slowly diminishing, with strongholds still only in the dark places, deep Africa, in the world of the Islamic fundamentalists, in the world of dictatorships and in the worlds of some Christian fundamentalists.  The desire to overturn gay marriage bans is just a part of that pursuit of justice which is a good thing, even though I can understand my Christian friends who see homosexual love as theologically wrong, this desire for justice and fairness in all areas of life . . . could it just be part of the great redemption?