This post is part of the Love Wins series – a series of posts covering topics within the issue of gay marriage (post 1, post 2, and post 3). The goal of these posts is not to convince anyone to think what I think, but to create a conversation and explore the topics together. I am not an authority figure on this issue, and will not always approach this from a highly academic perspective, but am writing as a Catholic young voice seeking the truth. I hope you’ll follow along and be part of the conversation!

In the immediate aftermath of the recent decision by the supreme court, I was mostly relieved to see that people I know weren’t being haters on social media. As time went on, though, some things came up that kind of made me cringe.

Exhibit A: Comparing gay people to unborn babies (or vice versa, or comparing the issue to abortion at all)

Exhibit B: Whining about being a victim

Exhibit C: Trying to prove your point with a fancy graphic.

Here are some pointers for people who stand behind traditional marriage on how to not be a crazy person moving forward:

1. Be a witness to the truth about love and marriage. It’s not all butterflies and unicorns, but it’s always worth it. Unless people can see that through you, posting articles and saying things isn’t going to help very much. Actions speak louder than words.

2. Educate yourself. Knowledge is power. Literally. You’re representing a lot of people, so represent well! I recommend reading a lot, paying attention to laws and studies, and becoming well versed in the why behind our beliefs.

3. Defy the stereotype of bigot and homophobe by . . . not being a bigot or homophobe. Love people, even if they disagree. And if people call you names for just believing in traditional marriage, respond gracefully. Nobody can make you a bigot unless you’re actually being one.

4. Remain open to conversation. And make sure that when conversations come up, you lovingly offer what might be a unique perspective.

5. Listen to people’s concerns on both sides, and don’t discount them. Everyone needs to be heard, valued, and responded to lovingly.

6. Have more of a response than JESUS for why you believe what you do. Sure, you could quote the Bible, but how relevant is that to people who don’t share your Christian beliefs? This goes back to #1 and the need to be educated. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow!

7. Keep the hope alive. In the end, no person or legal institution can change the sacrament of marriage, or the biology of men and women. Our society is changing. The way traditional marriage is treated is changing. But have hope, and don’t despair! Know that God is all about second chances. No one is beyond His mercy and love. Let no one be beyond ours.

If you can’t already tell, I think the most important thing on both sides of this debate is to love our neighbors – even when we disagree. That’s why this series is called “Love Wins”.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’ or by email to follow along during this series. And help spread the conversation by sharing this post!

To Life,

Image via Hartwig HKD on Flickr.

Further reading:

5 Ways to Respond to the Supreme Court’s Decision on Same-Sex Marriage

This post is part of the Love Wins series – a series of posts covering topics within the issue of gay marriage (post 1, post 2). The goal of these posts is not to convince anyone to think what I think, but to create a conversation and explore the topics together. I am not an authority figure on this issue, and will not always approach this from a highly academic perspective, but am writing as a Catholic young voice seeking the truth. I hope you’ll follow along and be part of the conversation!

People on both sides of the gay marriage debate are guilty of being mean. Plain and simple. Not everyone has been mean about it, but many people (including myself) have probably been guilty of airing an insensitive comment or two.

But this post isn’t about mean people. It’s about learning how to live around people who we disagree with on controversial, emotionally charged, issues. It’s about ordinary people confronted with a tough issue.

Ordinary people don’t usually want people to be mean to them. Nor do they go around looking for opportunities to be mean. However, even people who do their best to NOT say nasty things are accused of being intolerant bigot haters of love these days….or something along those lines. I’m talking mostly about supporters of traditional marriage. But on the flip side, some supporters of gay marriage have been subject to untrue accusations as well.

We all mostly want the world to be harmonious place, right? So it makes sense that we get mad at people who mess up our perfect plan for the world.

But we can and do broadcast our opinions and beliefs on worldwide platforms. It kind of makes me scratch my head when people start crying that someone disagrees with them after taking a stand for something. And it makes me sad that people are personally offended when a view other than their own is shared.

The thing is, putting your opinion out there is not inherently mean.

Having an opinion or belief does not mean you automatically hate people who don’t share your belief.

In the aftermath of the recent supreme court decision, I saw a friend post a lovely response article. And someone else literally commented “You are intolerant”. Like, what? Is having an opinion intolerant?

Or am I just expected to keep my mouth shut when I believe in something? 

And what does tolerance even mean?

Many people use it to mean “accepting behaviors you disagree with as as good for other people, even if you think they’re wrong”. It’s used as a synonym for agreement these days. If I don’t agree with a gay marriage supporter’s view, I’m a bigot, right? Well, no.

Case in point:

“We’ve redefined tolerance to mean never disagreeing. The real definition of tolerance is first disagreeing and then putting up with the people you disagree with. You have to disagree to start being tolerant.”

I have my beliefs because they are true to the best of my knowledge. And you know what? We all have different beliefs. We don’t all agree. And that’s part of life. We have to put up with it.  To strive to live together regardless of differing beliefs is what tolerance is all about. It’s not about agreeing with each other.

So here we are with different beliefs. I think you’re wrong about some things. You probably think I’m wrong about lots of things.

We don’t have to agree with each other.

But what we are obligated to do is to love each other anyway.

Every single person, regardless of beliefs, is worthy of respect and love. Nothing can change that. No matter what. Even when we have polar opposite beliefs. Our behavior should go beyond tolerance, even. I should not only tolerate you. I should love you. I want to love you, even if it’s hard. I want to be able to know and love people who are different than me, because love wins.

I’m not going to agree with everyone on everything, but love isn’t about agreeing. It’s about accepting a person as a creature with inherent dignity that nothing can change. I don’t have to accept your beliefs to love you. And I don’t have to share your position on gay marriage to be friends.

Tolerance is about doing your best to live in peace with people you are at odds with. I truly hope as our country moves forward that we can do a better job on ALL sides of keeping the peace.

We’ll talk more about this in an upcoming post on distinguishing between a person and an issue. Until then:

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’ or by email to follow along during this series. And help spread the conversation by sharing this post!

To Life,

Images via Hartwig HKD on Flickr.

Further reading:

Disagreement is not discrimination

This post is part of the Love Wins series – a series of posts covering topics within the issue of gay marriage. (First post here.) The goal of these posts is not to convince anyone to think what I think, but to create a conversation and explore the topics together. I am not an authority figure on this issue, and will not always approach this from a highly academic perspective, but am writing as a Catholic young voice seeking the truth. I hope you’ll follow along and be part of the conversation!

One of the biggest challenges facing people who believe marriage is between one man and one women is how to support and love people who are directly affected by our beliefs. Where do we draw the line between loving people with homosexual tendencies, and going too far in implying that we support a lifestyle we don’t agree with?

Here are a few tips for trying to balance disagreeing with life choices and loving people who make them:

1. Love everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender, religion, etc.

Just because someone is sexually attracted to someone of the same doesn’t mean they’re less human or less deserving of respect. We have to remember that everyone should be treated with love no matter what, because nothing can take away our dignity as human beings.

2. Be conscious of how you’re being asked to participate in other people’s lives.

If I had a friend moving in with her boyfriend, I wouldn’t give them a housewarming gift because I don’t support cohabitation. It’s not because I don’t love them or want them to have a beautiful home. I just won’t support their lifestyle because I believe it’s wrong. Same with gay marriage. If I’m ever asked to attend a gay marriage ceremony, I will not attend or give a wedding gift. It’s not because I don’t love those people, but I can’t bestow my support of their lifestyle on them by supporting their union. Be conscious of what you’re being asked to do, and choose wisely.

3. Be clear in loving people that you love and support them as human beings, but not their lifestyle.

It’s important to be careful how we articulate our beliefs in these situations. They’ll know we are Christians by our love, right? We have to respond to invitations and questions remembering that every person possesses an innate dignity and is worthy of love and respect. But at the same time, we have to stick to our beliefs. Sugarcoating issues never helps us get down to the nitty gritty of loving people where they’re at.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in paragraph 2358 that “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” But what do we accept? And what’s going too far?

Perhaps we need to be a bit more explicit here. What exactly can and can’t we do?

DO

• welcome homosexual friends into your life
• treat people with homosexual tendencies with the same respect as any other person
• both of the above, even if they have partners
• be gracious in conversation with homosexual friends
• educate yourself so you can correct misconceptions
• be open to talking about the truth about love and marriage
• be a witness to the challenge and joy of being a Catholic/Christian, even when it’s hard (because you might be the only Bible someone ever reads)
• listen to the struggles people with homosexual tendencies experience

DON’T

• tell homosexual friends they’re going to hell (because we can’t know that)
• focus on your friends sexual orientation
• downplay that living the truth about love and marriage can be hard
• attend a gay marriage ceremony
• provide supplies for a gay marriage ceremony
• perform a gay marriage ceremony
• have an agenda to convert every single homosexual person to church teaching

And this is where it gets harder. If you have homosexual friends with partners, and they have kids, how do you handle your kids being friends? Depending on their age, that might be difficult to explain to your child why their friend has two mommies or daddies. Does that mean they can’t be friends? No! A parent’s choice doesn’t diminish the dignity of their child.

But it does mean we have to make careful choices as to the activities we participate in.

To be honest, there’s no clear cut answer as to what exactly we can and cannot do when it gets down to the nitty gritty. I expect it will be clarified more as the Church learns how to respond to this. But for now, we’re going to have to take this mostly on a case by case basis.

It’s hopefully easy to understand why I wouldn’t attend a gay marriage ceremony. That clearly sends a message of support for the union, which is not an option. And I’m not going to consciously encourage people to sin. But the day to day questions are harder. When these situations do come up, I highly recommend going to a trusted, wiser, friend – or even better, a priest! – if you need help discerning what to do.

There are differing opinions on what we can and cannot do, even among the Catholic school of thought. But in the end, we’re all people, regardless of our race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or lifestyle choices. Nothing can change our inherent dignity. Nothing can change the fact that we are people worthy of the utmost love and respect. People with homosexual attraction are no exception.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’ or by email to follow along during this series. And help spread the conversation by sharing this post!

Are there any situations that have come up in your life you’re wondering about? How did you handle them? How can we concretely show our love of a person without supporting their lifestyle?

To Life,

Images via Hartwig HKD and Nicolas Alejandro on Flickr.

Further reading:

Catholic, Gay, and Doing fine

Always Our Children: A Pastoral Message To Parents Of Homosexual Children And Suggestions For Pastoral Ministers

Courage, an international ministry of the Catholic Church for persons with same-sex attraction – find a chapter near you!