What I learned is that there are not two sides to this issue. In fact, what I found is that there are as many sides to the issue of the war in iraq as there are people. One person said, “I disagree with this war, but putting my name on that ad is NOT going to bring the troops home tomorrow.” One said, “I’m a veteran. I think our troops are being treated abominably, but I think bringing them home prematurely would just add to their woes and ours.” One said, “If the ad had just said something like, “PEACE IN GOD’S TIME.”

And when it comes to whether or not our church should ordain gays and lesbians and transgendered people to offices in our church, there are as many positions on that as there are people, too, I’d bet.

Anyway, I’m hoping that this discussion will be as least as fruitful as the one of the war and how best to address it as people of faith.

One thing we are asking, is that people expose themselves to different opinions. That is very Presbyterian. We believe very strongly in education.

Linda, our office manager passed the following quote on to me --

“Don’ t believe everything you read, and don’t read everything you believe, either.”

It’s good to read more than what you know will prop up what you already believe. It’s good to read THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and THE NEW YORK TIMES. It’s good for us to get other opinions.

Three or four years ago I preached a sermon arguing that I believed the conservative position on gay marriage was to be for it. I was looking at the issue, as I always do, through the lens of children.

That’s the key to understanding how I look at any issue – from war to gay marriage, Many thousands of children are being brought up by gay and lesbian couples today. We’re told they do was good if not a better job of raising kids as every body else. Those couples have better educations and make more money than the rest, on average, and there’s less incidence of abuse, in those homes.

But what I was thinking was, those children ought to have models of committed relationships in their home regardless of their parent’s sexual orientation.

Anyway, I bring this up, not to re-preach an old sermon, but to say that I appreciated what a number of you had to say to me afterward. As I said, I felt I was presenting the conservative position on the issue, and though many of you, if not all, got my point, you told me that the idea of a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman disturbed you. And you told me why. And I listened and I felt I had been too glib in putting forth my opinion without taking that in mind first.

You taught me something about speaking what I think to be the truth in love. So I am very mindful of that exchange this morning.

Where are we now, as a denomination and as an individual church this morning? And what does the Bible say about this issue anyway?

First the Bible –

I was itinerated around the Portland/ Vancouver area 15 years ago when the debate was raging in our denomination.

What does the Bible say? Well, for centuries people have pointed to the Genesis passage about the abominations of the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah as proof of God’s hatred for homosexuals. Which is silly because Ezekiel is explicit on this , saying that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of how badly they treated the poor in their midst.

When Paul refers to a form of homosexuality –in I Cor. He uses words arsenokoitai and malakoi, which refer to a well-known Roman practice in the 1st century where Roman men in their late 20s introduced adolescent boys to sex in public baths.

Paul had a problem with this practice. So did a lot of Romans who were NOT Christians.

But sexuality between two committed adults of the same sex? Paul does not say a word about it. And neither does Jesus.

The Bible is completely silent on the subject.

Why? Because the Bible was never meant to be a hammer used by people to smash others.

Yes, the Levitical laws in the Old Testament say men should not lie down with men, but they also say unruly children should be stoned to death and people need to not touch a pig’s skin. We all take those teachings with more than a grain of salt.

In the passage from the book of Acts that we read this morning, we saw how Peter had been taught that Jews were Jews and Gentiles were third class human beings. He’d been raised on the Old Testament. He knew that to be “true.” But he found that God had “more light” to shed on the subject.

More light.

In the 1850s Northern preachers said the same thing in churches in debates with Southern preachers who said that if Abraham in the Bible had slaves, why couldn’t southern plantation owners? The Northerners agreed that the Bible once sanctioned it, but that, in his day, the Holy Spirit was leading us to see that slavery was just plain wrong.

The upshot is that at national meetings, Presbyterians have agreed NOT to debate what the Bible says on this issue. We end up laughing too much.

Instead, those who have been against ordination of gays and lesbians have chosen to address this issue by changing church law.

Until 1996 it was left to individual churches to decide who can or can’t be an elder or a deacon, and to individual Presbyteries to decide who should be a minister.. Why?

Because the central tenet of our Reformed Presbyterian faith is that Christ alone is Lord of the Conscience. Not Sessions, or Presbyteries, or General Assemblies.

That all changed in 1996 with “Amendment B” which argued that committed relationships could only exist between “one man and one woman” and that people who cohabitated in any other fashion were not allowed to be elders or deacons or minister.

The Upshot? People on both sides of the issue were still upset. He general feeling was that we’d sold our soul and given away our central principle to do it. That Christ alone was Lord of the conscience.

In 2006, GA, trying to find a middle way said, “Let’s leave Amendment B restriction in our constitution, but let’s reaffirm that ordination be determined by churches and Presbytery’s according to their individual conscience, thus opening the door to ordination of whomever we choose with no input from General Assembly or Presbyteries dictating standards for ordination.
So, when people ask – “What’s the denomination’s policy,” I say – well, we are ordaining gays and lesbians but it’s still an issue under debate. And the issue is more than about sexuality – it’s about what Presbyterians believe about how God moves. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, actually.

* * * *

My daughter Margaret is taking a class in entomology right now at OSU. She called last evening to say that a single gene in Drosophila, the common fruit fly,
has been identified as critical in whether some fruit flies act in a homosexual manner or not.

It’s the same in chimpanzees, and zebras, and horny toads, and, yes people. Why should it be any different in us. We’re all God’s creatures. And yep, it’s just like left-handedness. Some get it and some don’t. That’s what we know for a fact. Why so many gay people are geniuses in music or the arts – well, that’s still being determined. But there must be some connection.

Arguably, the most conservative man in the country, Vice President Dick Cheney, has a lesbian daughter and he has no trouble with that. I take that as proof that God has a sense of humor.

Now, to our church’s policy – as of March 11, 2003 our policy states, “The First Presbyterian Church of Ashland, Oregon, seeks both intentionally and visibly, to welcome in words and actions, all the human family into the life of our congregation.”

What do you think?

I like it but if we said to gay people, “We love you, join our church. Here’s a pledge card, but, by the way, don’t even think of becoming an elder or a deacon let alone a minister in this denomination.” That would be a troubling stance. But many churches are comfortable with that. I think that this church would be more sensitive than that. We don’t want to be two-faced. I don’t believe we’d want to create a two tier system of membership. Full membership with all the benefits and privileges and “membership lite.” Am I wrong here?

Concerning whether it would be good or bad to change the constitution of the USA to outlaw gay marriages, former Republican Senator, Alan Simpson of Wyoming weighed in back in 2003. No one, to my mind, has said it all better since then – What I like especially about what Sen. Simpson says is that it’s so Presbyterian. You could insert the words, BOOK OF ORDER for Constitution, and national for federal. You’ll get the idea.

It is surely not the tradition in this country to try to amend the Constitution in ways that constrict liberty. All of our amendments have been designed to expand the sphere of freedom, with one notorious exception: prohibition. We all know how that absurd federal power grab turned out.
. . . People should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It's really no one else's business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard. . . . I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."
My views were formed back in my days as a kid in high school in Cody, Wyo. There was one classmate everyone would whisper about: "Jimmy, he's one of those." And we all knew what "one of those" was. Then, one horrible day, Jimmy committed suicide. It was the worst thing, a terrible waste, a sickening tragedy. Jimmy was one who felt isolated and hounded. He deserved a helluva lot better, from those of us in Cody, and from American society as a whole.
As our country has gained honest and steady knowledge about homosexuality, we have learned that it is not a mental illness or a disease or a threat to our families . . . . We all know someone who is gay, and like all of us, gay men and women need to have their relationships recognized in some way. How are gay men and women to be expected to build stable, loving relationships as all of us try to do, when American society refuses to recognize the relationships?
Not long ago the daughter of an old family friend of mine came home for a Thanksgiving dinner with her lesbian partner -- and my friend is one of those "old cowboy" dads, too! He and his wife gently took their daughter's hand, and her partner's hand, and said grace together just as millions of American families do every year.
To reach the best understanding, the debate over gay men and women in America should focus not on what drives us apart but on how to make all of our children -- straight or gay -- feel welcome in this land, their own American home.

Amen