How should a Christian Love a Gay Friend?

Love doesn’t require indulgence or agreement. Likewise, loving a gay friend shouldn’t require us to agree with them. In fact, love often requires disagreement, especially when we see that our friend is embarking on a self-destructive course of action.

A student just sent me this from a pro-gay (PG) source:

• Gay marriages in the Bible include the marriage partnership of Jonathan and David, which was recognized as a sexual partnership by King Saul himself, 1 Samuel 18:21, 20:30, and the marriage partnership of the centurion and his beloved servant, Matthew 8:5-10 and Luke 7:1-10.

• Nongay Christians dispute that any of these Bible celebrities were gay. However, it seems unlikely that in a book like the Bible, which covers four thousand years of human history, that there would be absolutely no gay people. Even the most vocal anti-gay Christians cannot prove that assertion.

Would love require us to agree with these assertions or to determine first whether they are true? Let’s first look at the PG evidence for David’s “gay marriage” to Jonathan:

• Now Saul’s daughter Michal was in love with David, and when they told Saul about it, he was pleased.  “I will give her to him,” he thought, “so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” So Saul said to David, “Now you have a second opportunity to become my son-in-law.” (1 Samuel 18:20-21)

How is this evidence that David and Jonathan were married? I guess that this PG source is claiming that the offer of Michal in marriage had followed David’s “marriage” to Jonathan and therefore Michal would represent the “second” time that David would become Saul’s son-in-law.

However, this “second opportunity” represented a second offer of a daughter (Merab) of Saul’s to David, as indicated in the two prior verses!

The next verse the PG offered has nothing to do with a gay marriage:

• Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? (1 Samuel 20:30)

If anything, this verse argues against SSM! If David had married Jonathan, Saul could not blame Jonathan for his loyalty to his “spouse.” Besides, if David became king in place of Saul, Jonathan would then be his co-regent. No problem there for Jonathan!

The case in favor of a SSM is entirely unwarranted, and therefore doesn’t deserve any refutation. However, a student just informed me that he had heard an interesting “interpretation” of the Bible:

• Since we Christians are supposed to love one another, how then can we criticize love between two gays?

Isn’t the gay claim that their SS love is biblical just a matter of interpretation? Is any conclusion about the teachings of the Bible simply a matter of honest interpretative differences? Could an interpretation which concludes that Jesus was the devil be honest or faithful to the Scriptures? Of course not! Such a conclusion could only be regarded as an abuse of Scripture and not its use!

Of course, “love” is used to refer to very different behaviors. We call both sexual intercourse and God’s love for the world, “love.” However, these are very different things. The Bible teaches us to love others. However, it does not teach us to have sex with all others. This would be an abuse of Scripture.

The PG also claims that the Roman Centurion was married to his male servant. What evidence does he offer? Matthew 8:5-10! However, there is not the slightest suggestion of a SSM here! Is this an honest interpretative difference or a dishonest attempt to manipulate the gullible? It should be obvious!

What does love require? Should we enable delusional thinking? Is this love or is it people-pleasing, a desire to be liked even if, in the long-run, it damages?