As is often the case during Pride month, the hornet's nest of culture war rhetoric is stirred up once again, as our major media outlets stoke us into unending debate over whether LGBTQ+ love is the same kind of love found in heterosexual relationships, and whether LGBTQ+ families should be accepted as families in the fullest sense. I have dealt many times with the Scriptural questions surrounding these issues, and for a half a century the Episcopal Church has proclaimed LGBTQ+ persons to be fully beloved and fully accepted siblings in God's vast Family.
In 1976, the Episcopal General Convention declared that “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church” (1976-A069), and that they “are entitled to equal protection of the laws with all other citizens” (1976-A071). In 2012 we created liturgical resources for the celebration of same-sex marriage. Or as we like to call it: Marriage. No qualifiers. Yet, as the same debates and cliches get brought up over and over and over again over the nature of sexuality and marriage and family, it can often seem like we are missing the point in both striking and subtle ways. With all the fear and hate and mockery and dehumanization that is evident in the persecutors and even in the persecuted, perhaps we have lost our Way in following Jesus. Perhaps there is a different Way to frame the reasons why we embrace all persons and families in God's vast Family.
