Damage done by those who, in the name of Christianity, oppose LGBT equality

July 2, 2013

Christians v. Gays: The Damage Done
After last week’s Supreme Court decisions overturning the Defense of Marriage Act  (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8, Rev. Dr. David Gushee, a minister and professor, wrote an article for Religion Dispatches about the harm done by those who claim to be the true representatives of Christianity while displaying outrage at the Court’s decisions and declaring a kind of war of “Christians v. gays.”  Gushee wrote: “Many are already arguing about the great damage that will be done to marriage with today’s decisions. I would suggest that a more important damage to Christian witness in American culture has already been done, not by the Supreme Court but by the Christian activists; and not just today but for a generation or more. And that damage will intensify in proportion to the Christian outcry in days to come.” He is using the word Christians (as, unfortunately, many in the media are using it also, but without the definition or qualification he provides) to actually refer to conservative, “heterosexual, activist traditionalists,” who “have become identified with actively pursuing the denial of rights and benefits to others that they themselves enjoy.”  Read his list of the kinds of damage being done.

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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