The gay community worked diligently to put a friendly happy face on themselves…and achieved that with great success. It's no longer weird or odd to talk about, to watch movies about, to have friends that are a part of the gay community. 

In fact they did such a good job at it that a side effect was to make those who did not support a gay lifestyle look like idiots. We looked like the bully…because we weren't "tolerant".

Then they went after marriage.

They lost.

So now where's their "tolerance?" I find it almost amusing that we are always the ones that need to be tolerant of other's beliefs but the same isn't said for the other side.

Don't get me wrong…we do plenty of things to earn the title of bully, and shame on us. But don't point fingers at the Christians who boycott a movie as "intolerant" and then do the same thing yourself and call it righteous.

Of course, I guess that could be said about both sides.

I believe this is why the anarchists have shown up and turned this violent.

The big question for believers is how do we live out the Sermon on the Mount in this situation. How do we show the love of Jesus in this situation? He told us persecution would be coming, but he told us to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek. Powerful words, but how do we do it?

Political spin aside, Tal and Michael bring up an excellent point. I think I have heard Phil mention before — and I know my Pastor has — about the idea of giving bottled water. Imagine the "good PR" we Christians could receive if, instead of shouting at Anti-Prop 8 protestors or carrying big signs with biblical messages directed at them, we attended the protests and handed the protestors bottled water… even better, if we hand the water while wearing "Jesus loves you" t-shirts and keeping our traps shut with a nice, loving smile.

I like it.

Sadly, I brought this topic up for discussion on my radio show (Sunday nights on Sirius Satellite Channel 161, 9PM EST-6 PST) and many believers suggested that we fight back, and get physical if necessary. Here, we see in microcosm, how religion is used to start a war.  

If we allow ideology to trump our theology, we're all in trouble.  

Rob, how about adding "and we do too" to the t-shirt?

I pastor a very different church, at least for Birmingham, AL. We've become one of the safe places for homosexuals to come for worship. It's interesting to me, but they very often will come to me after worship and the conversation usually goes like this:

Visitor: Hey, just wanted to say this was my first time here. I just thought you should know that I'm gay.

Me: That's great! I'm Tal.

Visitor: (chuckle) Yeah, but what do you think about me being gay?

Me: It doesn't matter what I think about it.

Visitor: Really? Most pastors really tend to think it matters…

Me: I know, and I understand where they're coming from, but here's how I look at it – I didn't make you, I didn't die for you, and I'm not the one who ultimately judges you – makes my opinion pretty immaterial right?

Visitor: Cool. Ummm, so what do you think God thinks about it?

Me: Now that's a much better question. Tell ya' what – do you have a Bible? We've got one for you if you don't, but if you do, I would love for you to read these passages. Not these few words of one or two verses, but these sections of Scripture – and if you'll do that – I'd love to take you out for coffee or a drink to hear what YOU think He says about it.

I love it when they take me up on it. We have fantastic conversations. Yes it's tense, but I've yet to have any gay or bi-sexual people sit down and say, "He's cool with it."  It does lead to some difficult conversation about the lifestyle and the whole genetic vs. choice debate.

I believe we will always lose that battle – people believe what they want to be true. I try to keep it to how the Bible defines sexual immorality. This way I can tell them about my own failures as a recovering porn and sex addict (24 years enslaved). Sexual immorality is sexual immorality – man, woman, dog, cat, corpse. Who or what you have sex with doesn't change the fact that sex outside of God's design is immorality.  Do we really think God's going to be willing to cut a break to the guy having sex with a woman outside of marriage over the guy having sex with another guy? Hardly. 

There's no point scale for sin, and we're all sinners. We're all equally offensive, it's just some of us have received God's gracious forgiveness.

 We should ask for forgiveness for how we have treated this segment of society and show them the love of the Gospel. Read the parable of the Good Samaritan and imagine that the victim in the parable is homosexual. Pretty accurate commentary for our current times.

Let's get out and show them the love of the Gospel, and pray that Jesus will love them through us.

Sorry to be so long – just pretty passionate on this one after the show this week. Stunned that so many believers are ready to physically fight.  How can we expect someone who doesn't know Jesus, to act like him?