I Am Not Charles Worley: The Plea of a Christian Who Opposes Gay Marriage

I'm going to let you in on a little secret I've never talked about with anyone. On November 2, 2008, I walked into a polling booth in Glendora, California, and voted for Proposition 8, which sought to add the clause "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Why the secrecy? It's not because I'm ashamed of my views or regret the way I voted. Instead, it's because I don't want to be associated with far-right pastors who preach hatred and violence against gay people. And I'm not alone. Polls indicate that half if not the majority of voters in the United States support legalizing gay marriage, and yet in all 32 states where gay marriage has been on the ballot, voters have rejected it. I believe this disconnect between what voters tell pollsters and how they vote has to do with how their views are represented by the media—that if they publicly express their discomfort with the legalization of gay marriage, they will be associated with the likes of Charles Worley.

Pastor Worley, in a sermon to his North Carolina Baptist congregation last month, evoked Hitler in suggesting that gays and lesbians should be quarantined in something like a concentration camp. "Have that fence electrified so [the homosexuals] can't get out. Feed 'em, and- And you know what? In a few years they'll die out. You know why? They can't reproduce."

Groups like the Anti-Defamation League and American United condemned Worley's comments, which went viral on YouTube, while Christian bloggers on both the Right and the Left were quick to denounce his message.

Perhaps because of the extreme views of Christians like Worley, no matter the context—whether I'm talking with good friends, interacting with work colleagues, or just reading an article online—people who support gay marriage view Christians who oppose it as bigoted, backwards, or some variation thereof. This happens often enough in the media, and it doesn't need to happen between Christians. I am not Charles Worley, and I'm tired of others, especially fellow Christians, assuming that because I'm opposed to gay marriage that I'm hateful like him. It's time to extend a hermeneutic of grace to each other—especially to fellow Christians who still do not favor gay marriage and believe that homosexuality is not God's intent for human sexuality. My Christian faith informs my views on homosexuality and gay marriage, but so does my love for Brian.

if anybody ever had angel eyes, it was my baby cousin Brian. His eyes were the color of the Arizona desert sky at high noon, but it wasn't the color that made them so angelic—it was the way they shimmered when he laughed. Brian had such a sanguine personality it seemed his little body couldn't contain his joy—his deep belly laughs bubbled over at the smallest provocation. His mother would say she thought it was her job to protect that smile straight through to his adulthood, but I doubt she could've predicted what would happen to him.

Brian was always a social misfit. At age 15, he'd rather have his nose buried in some science-fiction novel than play sports. As a reward for making honor roll, he'd ask for things like the unedited version of Les Miserables. He wasn't great at small talk and his face would turn tomato red anytime a girl smiled at him. All this strained his relationships with his peers. And they were merciless. Gay, queer, and fag were regular epithets either hurled his way or whispered behind him just within earshot.

I was heartbroken as I watched what this did to him over the years. His eyes, now a mossy green, didn't shimmer anymore, and that joyful disposition was buried down deep, if it was still there at all. I did what I could by telling him to stand up for himself and telling him that what others said did not define him, but there was little else I could do. For who can quiet the voices of adolescent boys? By the time he came out as gay to his family, a whole world of damage had already been done to his soul. In the end, I watched him bullied not to the point of suicide, but to the point of another kind of death, a social death in which he alienated himself from everyone, even his closest family members.

I don't love Brian any less because he's gay. He's kind, brilliant, and full of beautiful ideas. The world would be such a lesser place without him. But in my mind, sexuality is a one-way street. And when I see someone I love going the wrong way down a one-way street, the most loving response is to say, "No, wait! That's the wrong way! That way only ends in pain."

I understand that Christians who support homosexuality and gay marriage don't view it as a one-way street, that they see gay marriage as a justice and civil rights issue. I'm not asking for anyone to approve or accept my views, but I am asking for Christians to be kind to one another, no matter which side they're on. In particular, I am asking Christians who support legalizing gay marriage to not assume fellow Christians like me are hateful, bigoted, backwards, or just plain mean because we oppose legalizing gay marriage.

The truth is, most of those who share my view are not like Pastor Worley, and most of those who support gay marriage aren't in favor of some drunken Woodstock free-for-all. Most of us are in the silent middle, and each believes that our view is loving, but the truth is that none of us are loving if we continue to browbeat people who don't agree with us.

I'm not in favor of gay marriage, but that doesn't mean I'm unsympathetic of how many gay people suffer. When someone you love is gay, you don't have the luxury of looking at this issue from the safe distance of an ivory tower or a picket line. Every day I deal with what happened to Brian. I have a front-row seat on the horror that his life has become because of bullying and people like Worley. With the long election season looming ahead, can't Christians assume the best about one another, no matter how differently we see things?