Ponderings...

Our school (which is heavy in the Social Sciences department) does Soc Movie nights occassionally. Tonight's movie was called "For the Bible tells me so", a 2007-ish documentary on the Christian parents of gay or lesbian chlidren.

This was a very pro-gay standpoint. Before I get too far into this, please understand that I come from a fairly conservative Christian background. My thoughts before watching this movie were that gay folks are people too and deserve to be loved, although I cannot force myself to fully approve of their life choices.

Right, we're all friends here? Excellent. Moving on.

This documentary pointed fingers at evangelical Christians/Catholics for discrimination and hate crimes against gay folks. I'm ashamed of Christians for doing that, although I do wish that the documentary had been a bit more objective and given people (Christians specifically) a chance to defend their own beliefs. But meh.

My thoughts after this movie? Homophobia sucks. Period. I still can't forsake the beliefs I've grown up with and say homosexuality is not a sin, but I believe that gay folks are people who deserve the same love and respect we give to straight people, and the hate crimes against them are unexcusable. I'm not a deep theologian or a pastor and it's not my gift to completely understand Scripture as it relates to current life or to other people around me- and frankly, that's not my right. It's not my call to judge who is holy and who is heathen- I've got enough problems of my own without worrying about the LGBTQ people around me. I'll let God do the judging, since He is the only one without his own issues to deal with first.

Besides, as one guy pointed out in the talkback after the movie, there's bigger problems to worry about in the world besides homosexuality. There might be huge rows here about gay marriage legalization, but that's not going to help a starving child in Africa or a woman being trafficked for sex slavery or a Christian getting killed for his faith or the thousands of babies who get murdered pre-birth before they can even see the light of day because their mothers refuse to consider adoption as a plausible option to unwanted parenthood.

That's my thoughts, as of now, anyway.