Because I Can… the random thoughts of Marc Scott

Twitter is a pretty cool thing.  If you’ve never checked it out, I suggest you do.  I love the fact that you can connect with just about anyone and discuss just about anything.  There are quite a few celebrities using it now, and that has just added to it’s popularity.  I like that people like John Mayer, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Shaquille O’Neal and others use it to connect.  It’s not messages coming from their publicist.  It’s messages coming from them.

One of the people I follow is Rob Thomas (twitter.com/ThisIsRobThomas).  Today he posted the following…

PT.1 i’m so tired of people saying that the miss usa contestant, Carrie Prejean, had courage to speak her mind. she’s a bigot.

PT.2 i’m sorry, but i think if you’re against gay marriage, you are a bigot and you shouldn’t be applauded for sharing your bigoted views.

I’m not one that goes around looking for controversy, but I was a little stirred by what he said.  Rob Thomas is most certainly entitled to his opinion, as is anyone, but I felt the need to respond to his post.  To be honest, he’s Rob Thomas.  I didn’t expect he would even read my reply, let alone respond to it.

@MarcScott: What about my right to believe in the biblical definition of marriage? I’m not a bigot. I just believe something different.

@ThisIsRobThomas: But your bible can’t tell me what i can do i MY home. your religion is for YOU.

@MarcScott: I agree. But the fact that I don’t share your belief doesn’t make me a bigot anymore than it makes u for not sharing mine.

It was a couple of quick comments back and forth between us.  Then the fun began.  I started getting inundated with messages from Rob Thomas fans who had been following along.  Let me just say that some of them were less than impressed with my thoughts.

If you want to get a lot of people to stop following your Twitter feed in a hurry… mention something about gay marriage and the Bible.  I think I lost around 20 followers after those messages.  I was OK with that though.  I had to stand up for what I believed.

What was really cool though was that, after sharing those “tweets”, I spent the next 4 hours messaging back and forth with a lot of his fans about the topic.  Here is what I’ve learned.  People will hear you out if you show them respect.  That is where I find the church often goes wrong.  It doesn’t always show respect.  It just says, “gay marriage is wrong and homosexuals are sinners” and it pretty much ends the conversation there.

For the record, I do believe gay marriage is wrong, and I also believe that homosexuality is a sin.  However, I think there are right ways and wrong ways to approach the conversation.  To the “Christians” who were ripping on Rob Thomas and telling people to stop following him… that would be the wrong way!

I was willing to hear people out.  Even the people that were calling me a bigot.  I let them speak and I didn’t judge them.  When they were finished, I shared my thoughts.  We had conversation and it’s foundation was love and mutual respect.  I explained that God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman and I think we should preserve the definition of marriage to remain in sync with that.  People hit me with the “free will” argument, to which I responded, that doesn’t mean I have to agree with your choices.  People said, “God wouldn’t discriminate against gays” and I had a chance to explain that God does love gays, but what they are doing is still a sin.  It went on and on.

I told people that it wasn’t my job to tell them if they were wrong or right.  I was simply explaining my belief to them.  That lead to several of them asking for scripture references so they could see for themselves.  I can’t even explain to you how awesome that felt.  Some of these people, I suspect, have very little, if any use, for the Bible.  Yet, they wanted to know where God said these things so they could look it up for themselves.

Carrie Prejean is now going to be participating in a national TV ad against gay marriage.  $1.5 million dollars is being spent on this campaign.  I haven’t seen the commercial, so I won’t put forth an opinion yet.  However, I’m not convinced this is the best approach.  I fear, whether it is meant to or not, that it will come across as another “attack on gays” by the Fundamentalist Conservatives.  That is not the way to use your voice.  That is not the way to get people to listen.

I do not have all the answers on the topic of gay marriage.  For a lot of people it’s a question of basic human rights.  Rights that are afforded to heterosexual married couples, but not gay couples.  I don’t have a good answer for that.  Why is a murderer, who is a sinner, extended rights, but a gay person, who is also a sinner, is not?  I don’t know.  I don’t have an answer.

It’s easy to say that if a gay person would turn from their sin, then this wouldn’t be an issue.  But really, is it that easy?  I don’t think it is.  I have read stories of Christian men and women who have done everything possible, right down to exorcism ceremonies to try and free themselves of their homosexual desires.  When it doesn’t work, what do you we?  Cast them aside?  Banish them to pits of hell?  Take from them the rights afforded to the “straight” people in society?  It seems to me like that isn’t a very good answer either.

Jesus said to love your neighbour as yourself.  It sort of comes down to that for me.  I don’t have all the answers.  I just know that tearing people down isn’t going to make them want to hear me out.  I also know that not everybody is going to agree with me, and that’s OK too.  But there still needs to be love.