What If Accepting LGBTQ People is a Matter of Life and Death?

Last week the United Methodist Church, a sister denomination to my own, voted to reject a “big tent” proposal that would allow those clergy and congregations who fully affirm their LGBTQ brothers and sisters to remain in communion with those who do not. For those who hold traditional, non-affirming positions on the subject, the vote was hailed as a victory. For those on the other side (if sides there must be), it was a day of heartbreak and grief.

A month earlier, my own denomination–which is non-affirming in that it officially does not allow LGBTQ people to hold positions of church leadership–reissued its own statement on the sanctity of all human life. This came in response to a set of American laws recently passed; not on the rights of LGBTQ people, but on abortion. As a denomination we condemn abortion because, in our view, abortion involves the termination of life; life that is valuable to God and, therefore, valuable to us.

​In the confluence of these two decisions I wonder: why don’t we evaluate our doctrines on gender and sexuality through the same lens with which we evaluate abortion? What if our theological perspective on our LGBTQ brothers and sisters was filtered through an affirmation of the sanctity of life and its corresponding repudiation of practices that lead to death?

Read the rest over at The Wisdom Daily.