Exo 20:7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

The Christian Post article “Court Judgment: Ohio Student Can Wear ‘Jesus Is Not a Homophobe’ Shirt” on 22 May 12, and “How should the churchlove a Gay couple” represents a sub-conscious shift that despite all the hundred of millions used to prevents gays from having any basic civil rights to getting married, the inevitability is nigh. Whlist still maintaining that homosexuality was sinful, there is a glimmer of a turn around. However, the space for redemption may long been over.

Forgotten in the debate was that it is about children, gay kids being abused and bullied because they were gay. When the Ohio student, a Maverick Couch wore the shirt with “Jesus is not a Homophobe” it was a telling statement against all Christians who are in one way or another implicated as a church in crimes against the GLBT community. They were the innocent ones robbed of their childhood and many their lives because of the religious people of faith.

When we claim that we are against gay marriage because of “protecting” the children, it is to cover up our sheared conscience of destroying the lives of so many gay children made to suffer bullying and torture at school.

The anti-gay aggenda and rethoric has led many Christians to do what they would not normally do – break four of the Ten Commandments:-

a. Thou shalt not kill

We have taken away the hopes, dreams, passion of many lives, we have “killed” people by affirming that what is the innate central part of their lives is somehow sinful. Instead of enjoying their God given nature, they spend their lives living in a closet and not free to be.

We have put gays in a private jail, put them in the torture chambers of needless self hatred and self condemnation, and destroyed the core of their beings. Many comitted suicides because part of them had already died.

When we kill, we use our liberty to take the lives of others, to cause harm when no harm was done to us. We claim it was for the general good, when it was a purely selfish nature of satisfying our religious construction. If being gay is not a sin, it makes it harder for us to reconcile our biblical beliefs. That is our problem which should not have been put on the gay gentle lambs to be slaughtered for our religious expediency.

b. Thou shall not commit adultery

In a Patrichal conext, adultery is taking away the sexual enjoyment and pleasure of other men with one of their many spouses. It is a sin, because a straight male in the biblical context can have many wives and so need not steal the opportunity for sexual and intimate affections of other men.

From a biblical patrichal view, It would also have made the women soiled and dirtied by the other men and hence little worth for sexual intimacy. Hence, we are taking away the right of other men of the sexual intimacy with the women they rightfully “owned”.

When we come so strongly against gay marriage, we are in fact committing a modern day adultery. We are usurping the basic rights of others for sexual and relationship intimacy on account of our own religious construction.

We only care about our own religious faith beliefs even though it takes away the basic rights of others for relationships. It is worst than stealing because it goes beyond a material theft for we are made for relationships and sharing of lives together.

c. Thou shall not steal

We all have basic rights. When we insist that gay people should be put in jail, denied the right of employment, marriage, freedom to serve in the army etc, we are stealing their basic rights and preserving special rights for ourselves because of our religious faith.

In Singapore, due to the strong pressures from people of faith, gays are not even allowed to form organizations to advocate their basic rights. We steal from people and take their rights to organize themselves to defend their basic rights.

We are reminded that in Africa, there are many who are zealous Christians insisting on the death penalty for gays in the hallowed halls of their Parliaments. We have stolen their lives on earth and now want to take away their last breath.

d. Thou shall not bear false witness

In order to justify our religious claims, many Christians have resorted to pseudo scientific studies on the harm caused by being gay.

We have also as in case of the Anglican church such as Church of the Saviour made up stories that gays are seeking special rights, making our children gay, persecuting the church, and used by Satan to destroy Christianity.

It is all a deliberate false advertisement and preaching from the pulpit a whole set of lies in the name of God which caused much harm and destruction to the religious faiths of gay people many who will forsake Jesus because we bear a false testimony and indeed blasphemed the name of Christ.

We have caused many gay people to stumble and depart from their Christian faith or turn to a generalised form of faith where it is all about love but nothing about spiritual salvation.

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.

The gay issue has become sin upon the church of Jesus Christ much beyond the call by the Ohio student that “Jesus is not a homophobe”. We may be religious homophobes but we have the religious freedom and rights to our views as people of faith. But we have crossed the boundaries by breaking the Ten Commandments in how we deal with the small gay minority.

The patronising question that Christian Post raised on “How the church should treat gays in love”, shows a disregard for the basic principles of religious faith that God is a transactional God. It is not about giving money and receiving blessing, but in our religious self righteousness, we fail to ask for forgiveness when the harm caused is so grave, hence the clock for judgement started. The gay issue have caused the church to sin.

God is a God of relationship and in our zealous anti-gay movement cloak in the name of Christianity we have rolled back the stone and put gays in closets separated from Jesus. We have robbed them of communion with God and taken away the lampstand of God from their lives.

We are at the cross roads of History where gay rights and widespread liberty will be proclaimed at any moment of time. It is a time for the church to reflect for whether we treat gays better in the future matters little when we get back the Tsunami of the harm we had caused multiplied four fold. Our sins are made far more profound because we have used the name of God to justify our harmful actions hence making the name of Jesus Christ in vain.

The strong anti-gay articles against gays will be seen less and less often in Christian publications such as Christian Post and Christianity Today, but the law of God – for justice will never pass away. The blood of those of those we transgressed cries out to heaven.

There is space for grace, there is still space for the redemption of our souls for the love of God endureth forever in Jesus Christ. God is a God of redemption. May His grace and mercy be upon us when we come humbly to seek His grace in the life of the church.