Two Seasons: Christmas And Baseball

Forget everything you learned in grade school about there being four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.  There are only two seasons that actually matter, Baseball and Christmas.

Christmas embodies all that life was meant to be

Baseball Equals Life As It Is
Baseball is life itself, or at least the most accurate metaphor we have for life.  The grueling 162 game season must be played out till its end, day after day.  It begins in the spring, with every team, every player, full of potential and hope.  The grind of each game, each inning, continues through July and August, wearing down those ill prepared for the long distance nature of life, sapping the energy of those who have stuck around one year too long, and cutting short others' promising careers with unforeseen injuries.

By September many teams have been eliminated from a chance at the post-season, but the games must still be played, though they seem meaningless to those with no hope of continuing into October.  But even on those teams there is opportunity for individuals to excel.  Baseball, like life, is a game where success is rare.  If a hitter fails to reach base safely 70% of the time he is considered a star.  For a team to win a few more games than it loses is reason for celebration.

There is more to success in baseball than numbers or even victories, at least for those who know what to look for.  The batter who gives himself up to move a runner into scoring position, a shortstop who cheats a little toward to the middle of the infield against a hitter who tends to go that way, the hitter who takes an extra pitch or two in hopes of wearing out a tiring starting pitcher in the late innings and a team that plays to win even after they've been mathematically eliminated from contention are all admired by teammates and opponents alike.  And, as in life itself, it is often these small moments of striving that give us the courage to face another day.

Christmas Equals Life As It Could Be
Christmas represents life as it was meant to be.  The mystery of the Creator becoming the created, the One given for all, He who was wronged making the ultimate sacrifice to be reunited in fellowship with those who have wronged Him are all a part of Christmas.  The hope and joy inspired by the season, the generosity and goodwill expressed by so many is but a foretaste of what is to come for those who recognize the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas embodies the hope, peace and love that can only be found through a relationship with the baby born that first Christmas.  Promised through and to Abraham when he said, "God will provide the lamb."   Born for the purpose of dying in place of all us, paying the debt that we owed to him.

For those of us who know Him, Christmas presents a tremendous opportunity.  The message of the Gospel is plainly stated in the lyrics of many of the songs of the season, songs that are sung not only in churches but also on the radio and through the sound systems at malls and department stores all across the world.  And people, even those who make no claim to faith or who would never attend a church service, have memorized these words and sing them every year at this time.

Christmas is a season to celebrate and give thanks and to share what life can and will be like if we but embrace the message.

The Biker Lifestyle

If I have one regret in life, it's that I didn't start riding a motorcycle 30 years earlier.

How It Started
It was St. Patrick's Day 2007, a Saturday.  Teri (my wife) and I were taking Kelsey (our daughter) and her then boyfriend (who shall remain nameless) to the Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta.  Irish folk music on XM radio was our soundtrack for the ride and a light drizzle welcomed us as we waited in line for close to an hour.

We'd been at the aquarium for a little more than an hour when my cell phone rang.  It was my son Caleb who at the time was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.  "Hey Dad, listen to this," he said and I heard the rumble of a 650cc engine as he fired up his brand new Yamaha V-Star Classic.

I was infected.  The biker bug had bitten me and begun its incubation period.  Over the next six weeks I researched motorcycles tirelessly.  I learned about engine displacement, bore and stroke, compression ratios, chain vs. belt vs. shaft final drive systems, air cooled vs. liquid cooled, fuel injection vs. carburetors.  And I looked at all the different styles and makes, cruisers, touring bikes, sportbikes, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Honda, Harley.

Spec sheets and model comparisons were shooting out of my printer until it ran out ink, twice.  Motorcycle forums and online biker magazines were added to my web browser favorites.  I did a couple of "just looking, thanks," stealth runs to my local big-four Japanese dealership (there wasn't a Harley dealership in Newnan at that time).

I narrowed it down to a cruiser between 500cc and 1000cc with shaft drive.  There were actually quite a few models that fit those specs, so I did a little more research.  At the time both Yamaha and Suzuki were offering pretty good financing deals so I focused attention on those two manufacturers.

Finally, I figured if the V-Star was good enough for Caleb, then it would be good enough for me.  And the 2007 model was available in white, something that at the time, for reasons I can't fully explain, appealed to me.  I called Cycle City (our local dealer) and yes they did have a V-Star Classic in white in stock.

Saturday of Memorial Day weekend Teri and I were at Cycle City.  I went straight to the white V-Star and sat on it.  Within seconds a salesman was standing next to me.  I asked for the guy I'd spoken with on the phone, Bobby.  He was with another customer, so I strolled around, looking at helmets and other gear that I knew I'd need.  Meanwhile Teri was looking at a used Kawasaki Eliminator.

Bobby found me looking at saddlebags.  We went back over to the V-Star as I told him that we'd spoken earlier in the week and what I was looking for.  We talked about the V-Star for a couple of minutes and then he said, "Before you make up your mind for sure, let me show you this."

Parked a few bikes away was a blue-purple (or blurple) Suzuki Boulevard M50.  The Boulevard had more of a chopper-muscle style with bobbed fenders compared to the full fenders on the V-Star.  The Boulevard was also a little bigger, with an 805cc engine compared to the 649cc power plant on the V-Star.  The Boulevard also had two other features that the V-Star lacked, liquid cooling and fuel injection.  It was the fuel injection that pushed me over to the Boulevard side, though it was a little more expensive.

Bobby sensed my resistance at the additional cost, so we talked a little more and with the deal Suzuki was offering he got the price within sniffing distance of sticker on the V-Star.  We filled out some paperwork, I took the tire replacement option (a total waste of money, don't bother with this if it's ever offered to you) and the pre-paid service deal (which was definitely worth the money, over the three years of the agreement I more than got my money out of it with oil and fluid changes and valve adjustments).  Bobby ran the paperwork back to the finance department, a tech took the bike into the shop for final prep and I picked out a Fulmer helmet, Tourmaster jacket and Cortech gloves.

My ride, the 2007 Suzuki Boulevard M50

 

This whole time Teri was looking around, but she kept going back to the Eliminator.  "Do you want it?"  I asked her.  She took a minute to answer and said, "No...not today.  I can ride on the back of yours." 

Twenty minutes later I was geared up and sitting on the M50 in the parking lot, thinking I was going to ride it home.  I was wrong.  I had little a trouble mastering the friction zone on the clutch and stalled it three times.  One of the techs rode it home for me.  I spent the rest of the weekend riding up and down the driveway.  Once I'd done it ten times in a row without stalling I ventured out into the neighborhood.

Over the next two weeks I got my motorcycle permit and signed up for a Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) course at a Harley dealership up in Cobb County, about 45 minutes away.  The earliest the course was available was August.  And I started riding further, with Teri following in the car.  That lasted for almost three weeks and then Teri realized I was having all the fun.  So it was back to Cycle City.  On the drive over she said, "If the Eliminator is still there we'll get it, but if it's gone, maybe I shouldn't get a bike."  It was still there, and I rode it home myself.  By that time a Harley dealership had opened in Newnan and Teri took her MSF course a week after I'd finished mine.

Embracing The Biker Lifestyle
Picture in your mind a biker.  Chances are you thought of a grizzled looking bearded guy in a leather vest with tattoos, a one percenter, a member of an outlaw motorcycle club (MC).  In the last few years the image of motorcycle riders has improved, thanks in large part to TV shows like American Chopper, Monster Garage, Biker Build Off and the two Ewan McGregor documentary series, Long Way Round and Long Way Down and the John Travolta movie Wild Hogs.  But shows like Sons Of Anarchy, while well written and compelling, and the History Channel's Gangland continue to portray the stereotypical outlaw biker.  I'm not talking about those guys.

I'm not talking about these guys

When I talk about the biker lifestyle I'm talking about the sheer joy you can only experience by punching the starter button and leaning into that first turn out of the driveway on your way to it doesn't matter where.  You become acutely aware of the slightest change in temperature as you roll down a slight incline.  You feel the gust of a tractor-trailer traveling in the opposite direction.  It is at once mind clearing and demanding of your total concentration.  It is ultimately about the ride, but there's more to it than that alone.

Nothing I've been involved with has started more conversations than motorcycles.  Complete strangers will come up to me in a parking lot and ask about the bike, how long I've been riding, where I got it, how much it cost.  They'll say how they've always wanted to ride but just never got around to it.  If they're a fellow biker they'll share some of their favorite rides or invite me to come and ride with their club.  On the road every other biker is a brother (or sister) and gets and returns the biker wave, left hand, first two fingers pointing down.  While the number of women bikers, and their percentage among all bikers, are increasing every year, a female rider (as opposed to a passenger-there is no such thing a motorcycle "driver") is still rare enough that Teri will often get a "Woo-hoo, you go girl!" from passing women cagers (a "cager" is biker speak for someone in a car).

Motorcycling For The Empty Nesters
Once Teri got that Eliminator we discovered that motorcycling was an activity we could share both on and off the bikes.  Our son, Caleb, was already out of the house with a family of his own.  And Kelsey, our daughter, was then a junior in high school, just a little more than a year away from going off to college.  It was the perfect time to adopt a new, shared lifestyle.

We bought a couple of books, Proficient Motorcycling and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Motorcycles and read them together.  We shopped online together for accessories and gear, visited Cycle City often enough that we're on a first name basis with most of the staff, and attended motorcycle shows.  We helped each other install saddlebags on both bikes (and then on Teri's new Kawasaki Vulcan 500, and then on her latest ride, a Kawasaki Vulcan 900).  We put a rider's backrest on the M50 and a windshield on the Vulcan 900.  We got each other heated gloves for Christmas one year and a bluetooth motorcycle intercom set the next. 

Teri's most recent ride, the 2009 Kawasaki Vulcan 900

Kids?  What kids?  Did we used to have kids?  Actually we're not totally empty nesters yet.  Kelsey still lives at home and commutes to school.  She will, on rare occasions, accompany us on an outing, riding on the back of my bike.  About the only thing we're still putting off is a multi-day trip, since we don't want to leave Kelsey alone for a weekend, not that she'd notice we were gone.  But there's still plenty of time for that once Kelsey moves out on her own.

Ride Your Own Ride
Teri prefers to have a specific destination in mind when we ride.  That's fine with me.  We've enjoyed planning out our rides almost as much we enjoy the ride itself.  We've found some wonderful restaurants within a couple of hours of home.  There was Butlers Mill in Graham, Alabama, a little buffet place on the banks of the Little Tallapoosa River that specializes in seafood, or is catfish technically riverfood?  It's in an old cotton mill not far from the Georgia state line.  We've also ridden to Juliette, Georgia and had lunch at the Whistle Stop Café, site of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes.  A little closer to home, and our most frequent ride to eat spot, is Senoia Coffee & Café, where they roast their own coffee and serve a mean cheesecake.

We don't always ride together.  When she was working dayshift at Newnan Hospital Teri would ride to work.  And when I was employed full-time I rode every day unless it was raining or below 35 degrees.  I still ride when I have on-site jobs.  And since the beginning if one of us is riding solo we always call the other one when we've arrived at our destination.  When Teri and Kelsey do a girls' day out I'll take off on the M50 and just wander with no particular end in mind.  I've not always known exactly where I was, but I've never been lost.

We've done a few group rides.  Quite a few churches in our area have motorcycle groups and we've ridden with a few.  There are a number of Harley riders in our own church and we've been out with them a time or two.  The wife of a colleague of mine recently finished up her Master's degree and treated herself to a motorcycle.  Teri and I took her on her first "group" ride, just the three of us.  We went to Warm Springs, Georgia, another of our favorite destinations and home of FDR's "little White House".

Still More To Look Forward To
I'm still very satisfied with the M50 and I think Teri will be happy with the Vulcan 900 for quite a while.  But I still check out the new models every year.  I've already picked out a couple "next" bikes.  My first "next" was the Kawasaki Mean Streak, but they discontinued that model before I was ready to trade up.  Lately I've been lusting over the Kawasaki Nomad and Voyager, something a little better suited to a multi-day trip (cause Kelsey will eventually strike out on her own).  I also kind of like the Harley Fat Bob, if only it was liquid cooled.

Truth is I'll probably have picked out half a dozen new "next" bikes before I'm actually ready to buy.  But there will be a next bike, or three.  And when (if) I ever get too old to hold a two wheeler upright at a red light there's always a trike.  See, that biker bug that bit me back on St. Patrick's Day 2007, it's incurable.  I only wish it had bitten me 30 years earlier.  I'm just sayin'.

Dancing In The Minefields: The Married Lifestyle

This monogamy business, it's hard work.  "I do are the two most famous last words.  The beginning of the end."

The happiest couple 07-15-1978

They're Dropping Like Flies
I reconnected with a dear old friend on Face Book recently.  I've known him and his family for 18 years; his wife was pregnant with their first child when we met.  They are no longer together, separated in 2008, divorced in 2009.  Financial difficulties played a role but that wasn't the sole reason.  Good Christian people, both of them.  That didn't seem to matter. 

Through Face Book I've found quite a few long lost friends.  A good many of them have thrown in the towel on marriage.  Face Book itself played at least a contributing role in one of the break ups, maybe more.

Love, it would seem, is not all you need.  At least not that romantic butterflies-in-the-stomach, light-headed, sweat-on-the-brow, ringing-in-the-ears kind of love.  That kind of love is fine for what it is.  And it's that in-love sensation that leads many couples to the altar.  But like the flu, whose symptoms it shares, that kind of love will pass.  Oh, it can come back, but it's elusive, and you have to work for it.  For too many, once that initial wave is over, so is the marriage.

A Little Marital Advice
Teri and I met in September 1977.  We were married in July 1978.  I know that love-at-first-sight phenomenon.  And I know it can happen, to the same couple, more than once. But going into it no one dreams it's going to be as hard as it turns out to be.

Many people have given us advice over the years.  The two that I remember the most came from grandfathers.  The day before our wedding my Grandpa Stirmel told me, "Lots of people will tell you that marriage is a 50-50 proposition.  It's not.  It's 100-100."

On the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary, Teri's Grandpa Forester told me, "That's a long time to spend with one woman."

The kind of love that is required to sustain a marriage is an act of the will.  It's hard work and resolve.  To more fully grasp what is necessary to make a marriage work it helps to understand where marriage came from and what it represents.  God cooked the whole thing up.  Some would say He ordained it.  And while there are very real here and now, on this world, in this life reasons for it, ultimately marriage is a metaphor for God's love for us in Jesus. 

Without getting into a theological discussion, allow me to make one more point on this particular part of the topic.  On the night before He went to the cross (which was necessary to make the relationship with us possible in the first place) Jesus sweated blood in anticipation of what He was about to do.  That should give us a hint as to the level of consideration marriage deserves before it is entered in to.

Worth The Price
In the end, it's worth it all.  Of course I say that without having reached the end.  So let me rephrase.  After 32 years, it's been worth it all.  It has, at times, been easy.  But not often and never for very long.  I'm not sure if I qualify as an expert on the subject, but I have managed to stay married to the same woman for more than three decades.  I've been married for most of my life, so I think I know a thing or two about it.  So here's my two cents for those considering marriage or who are married and may be having a rough go of it:  Remember who you are, and hang on.  And in the face of all the chaos remember to dance.

The love of my life

Minefields And Storms
Singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson has likened marriage to dancing in a minefield.  His song, Dancing In The Minefields says it better in three and a half minutes and 319 words than I could in 2500 words.  Thanks Andrew, for reawakening the romantic in so many of us.  Andrew's been married for 15 years, so he still has quite a few landmines to two-step around.  Those first 50 years are the toughest.  I'm just sayin'.

Dancing In The Minefields
Andrew Peterson

Well I was 19 you were 21
The year we got engaged
Everyone said we were much to young
But we did it anyway
We got the rings for 40 each from a pawnshop down the road
We said our vows and took the leap now 15 years ago

We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for

Well "I do" are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another I've heard is a good place to begin
Cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down
And I believe it's an easy price for the life that we have found


And we're dancing in the minefields
We're sailing in the storm
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for
That's what the promise is for

 So when I lose my way, find me
When I loose love's chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith
to the end of all my days
when I forget my name, remind me

Cause we bear the light of the son of man
So there's nothing left to fear
So I'll walk with you in the shadow lands
Till the shadows disappear
Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos baby
I can dance with you

So lets go dancing in the minefields
Lets go sailing in the storms
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And kicking down the doors
Oh lets go dancing in the minefields
And sailing in the storms
Oh this is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for
That's what the promise is for

Tyler Clementi and the Gay Lifestyle

Tyler Clementi is dead. He jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. It took NYPD a week to discover his body, floating in the Hudson River north of the bridge.

Tyler Clementi's Facebook Profile Photo

Google “Tyler Clementi” (here) and you’ll see that most news sources trace the story of his suicide to Sunday, September 19, 2010, a short three days before he jumped to his death.

On that Sunday Tyler, an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University in New Jersey, had asked his roommate if he could have some privacy in their dorm room. The roommate, Dharun Ravi, Twittered that night, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.” Ravi then streamed the feed from his webcam live over the Internet.

Sometime between that live streaming of Tyler on Sunday night and his swan dive off the GWB on Wednesday the following events occurred. Word and gossip spread through the dorm of the live Internet feed of Tyler. Tyler found out about it and went to campus officials requesting a room change. Tyler had another encounter of a sexual nature with a male in his room that Ravi attempted but failed to stream. Ravi apparently knew beforehand that Tyler was going to be involved in a second encounter because he alerted his Twitter followers with the times to be watching. Tyler sought advice on how to handle the issue in a gay chatroom on the Internet. And finally, on Wednesday the 22nd, shortly before he jumped, Tyler posted on his Facebook page, “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”.

This story, and the way it has been covered and the reaction it has generated beg several questions. First, with whom did Tyler share that Internet streamed liaison? And was that second encounter with the same individual or someone new? And how come no one else seems to be asking this question or trying to track down Tyler’s lover or lovers? The New York Times, the Star-Ledger, ABC, CBS, CNN, MTV, none of them mentioned this person or persons except in passing, simply identifying him in the course of describing the streaming of an encounter “with another man.” Two websites that I write for, Examiner.com and Suite101.com, both covered the story without mentioning whom Tyler had been with.

What sort of sorry excuse for reporting is that? Any half way decent reporter would want a reaction quote from possibly the last person to have any meaningful contact with Tyler. And it would be natural to ask how that person felt about the Internet streaming episode, since their privacy was equally violated. Either everyone on this story got lazy (too lazy to even include a line like “Tyler’s lover could not be identified” or “Tyler’s lover could not be reached for comment” just to cover their own butt) or they’re hiding something.

The second question is what happened in those last hours of Tyler’s life that put him on that bridge? From all accounts he seemed to initially handle the situation well. He went to school officials to report the invasion of privacy and ask to have his room assignment changed. He sought advice online. He even showed up on Wednesday afternoon to rehearse with another student for an upcoming performance with the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra where he played violin. Then at 8:42 PM on Wednesday September 19 Tyler posted on his Facebook page “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”. Witnesses report seeing someone jump from the George Washington Bridge shortly before 9:00 PM.

Reaction has been largely predictable. Ellen DeGeneres cried as she spoke about it and other celebrities, both gay and straight, decried bullying in general and bullying of gay teens in particular. Politicians clamored for tougher anti-bullying laws.

What I have not heard anyone say is this: Jesus died for Tyler Clementi. And that fact makes Tyler’s death all the more tragic.

There are those who know that fact and yet act as if it were not so. Not only that, but they act like, and go so far as to say, “God hates homosexuals”. I’m not talking about your run of the mill gay bashers and homophobes. I am talking about those misguided knuckleheads who make a claim to Christian faith, those who are, in the words of Paul in his second letter to Timothy, “holding to the outward form of godliness, but denying its power.”¹

These are the lunatic fringe of Christianity. Those like Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. There’s a group like that where I live. They used to regularly assemble on the road in front of Wal Mart with their bull horns and placards painted with what they must have thought were clever phrases like “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

What do these foolish people hope to accomplish with such behavior? Do they really think that a homosexual is going to hear their ranting or read their signs and suddenly see the error of their ways and repent? Surely no one is that naïve. More likely their behavior will accomplish what Jesus accused the Pharisees of doing, “But woe to you…hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven.”²

Besides their motives I also question why, almost exclusively, they focus their attention on the gay lifestyle. Yes, I know what the Bible says about homosexuality, I’m not disputing that. But the Bible is much more prolific in dealing with scores of other issues, like adultery, divorce and drunkenness, to name just a few. Why aren’t these guys out in front of Wal Mart with signs that say “It’s until death do us part, not debt do us part”?

By their strident condemnation of gay people they demonstrate that they have forgotten, or are willfully ignoring, the basic truth that Jesus loves and died for gay people as surely as He loves and died for them.

Now before anyone gets too carried away with the last five paragraphs or so, either for or against what I’ve said, allow me to focus attention on the other side of the debate.

It is incomprehensible to some in this age of militant political correctness that there are still people who look unfavorably on the gay lifestyle. Those who can’t understand how someone could be unsympathetic to homosexuality are, of course, delusional. They are the type of people who believe “if a mental model is esthetically pleasing then it must be true.” And by implication “if you truly believe in something, it’ll happen.”³ I’m not condoning gay bashing or bullying. But to be shocked that prejudice of any kind exists is naïve.

Activist gays will try to tell you that homosexuality is normal. They try so hard and so loud that I suspect they’re really trying to convince themselves. But by any definition, mathematical or logical, of the word “normal” a group that comprises at most 2.5% of a population cannot be considered the norm, or normal.⁴

And that insistence to demonstrate how “normal” and ubiquitous the gay lifestyle is is one of my major concerns with the group. They are presenting a picture that is so overstated as to be a lie. And they’re so successful in doing it because they have infiltrated areas of society that shape public opinion, like Hollywood. It seems that most TV series now have at least one recurring character who is gay. The teen-targeted show “DeGrassi”, set in a Canadian high school, has had so many major characters who are gay that, statistically speaking, every gay kid in Canada must attend that one school. There’s no balance. You don’t see a statistically accurate portrayal of other groups on TV. When was the last time a regularly appearing character was portrayed as a Christian? Not your nut-job psycho Christian, as is so often the case with Hollywood’s portrayal of people of faith, but a normal American Christian. I can’t think of any.

Up until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder, and the decision to change it was very controversial. It took the rest of the world’s psychiatric community another 20 years to do likewise. Many studies show that homosexuals suffer an inordinate amount of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety disorder, conduct disorder and being between 2.5 to 6 times more likely to attempt suicide.⁵

No, homosexuality is not normal. They might have a stronger argument to say that it is natural. The science on that argument is inconclusive at best. Still, there are other behaviors which some people have a natural tendency towards that are not normal or healthy; alcoholics, kleptomaniacs, gambling addicts, even some murderers may suffer from a naturally occurring physiological condition. But if they act on those tendencies there are consequences. I’m not saying that homosexuality is tantamount to these conditions. I am saying that even if it turns out that for some being homosexual is a natural phenomenon, it does not excuse the behavior. In the immortal words of Katharine Hepburn as Rose Sayer in The African Queen, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”

Am I saying that homosexuality is wrong? I’m saying that the act of same gendered sexual relations is wrong, yes. In Biblical terminology that act would constitute a sin. But no more or less than the other behaviors listed by Paul in I Corinthians 6:9 – 10. James 2:10 – 13 tells us that if we’re guilty of breaking one point of the law we’re accountable for all of it.

But James then goes on to say that mercy triumphs over judgment. And that’s the whole point. No one goes to hell for being gay. No one goes to hell for anything that they do. The only way to hell is for what you don’t do, and that would be to not accept the mercy and grace God has made available exclusively through Jesus.

Personally I don’t care if you’re gay, at least not any more than I care if you cheat on your taxes or your wife. That, ultimately, is between you and God. And even if you don’t believe that or refuse to deal with it now, you will deal with it. But in the meantime, please shut up about it. The gay lifestyle is the only lifestyle I’m aware of that is so fixated on a single component of the human existence, sexuality. And frankly, I’m sick of hearing about it. So I’ll stand up against gay bashing and bullying if you’ll keep your freaking parades out of the street, deal?

I’m just sayin’.


Footnotes

¹2 Timothy 3:5 (NRSV)

²Matthew 23:13 (NRSV)

³In his article, Government by Wishful Thinking, Steven Den Beste talks about the corrupted version of teleology that is rampant today.  Here's the link.  It's worth a read.

⁴In the course of researching this article I've seen quite a few studies and surveys, many of which are extremely slanted in their view on both sides of the debate.  From what I've found I think it's a pretty safe bet that homosexuals actually account for less than 3% of the population.  Here's one pretty easy to decipher chart, based on data from the U.S. Census.  And here's a more complete study on the topic.

⁵The article Homosexuality and Mental Health Problems gives a pretty straight forward view of the topic here.