Gays "Bash Back"

In a little publicized story, a group of gay/anarchist activists stormed Mount Hope Church in Lansing Michigan during a service on Sunday Nov. 9.

Of course, they accused the evangelical church of “transphobia and homophobia.” Yet, somehow the "bigoted" churchgoers did not react violently. This was certainly a disappointment to the activist who were hoping to videotape violent reactions to justify themselves.

The Rev. John Elieff said (in another article) that the church is not "anti-homosexual," and though it does teach that homosexual behavior is sinful, "Mt. Hope Church struggles to follow Christ’s example of loving the sinner and not the sin."

The activists might be surprised to learn that almost all Christian churches teach something similar. Most churches that teach homosexuality is a sin understand that same-sex attraction is a difficult burden, and desire that we try to view homosexual actions as a counterpart to the kind of inappropriate sexual behaviors that heterosexuals engage in, such as promiscuity, lust, pornography, and affairs.

I really believe that true "gay-bashing" has less of a correlation to church participation than it does to beer-drinking and football watching. In other words, most churches teach people to love everyone, including unrepentant sinners, and even our enemies. It is the popular machismo found in bars and locker rooms that teaches such un-Christian ideas as "women exist for men's entertainment" or "it's manly to pick on gays."

So next time angry activists want to attack someone, they might want to pick a more appropriate target.

As a side note, it seems to violate a church's right to free speech if you disrupt their main weekly meeting like that. How can a group have free speech if the primary meetings where they share their views are disrupted? So the activists should try for more constitutional timing too.