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Why I’ll not vote Yes …
Thursday 21st May 2015 @ 12:19 am

I’m pretty jetlagged at the moment.

Such moments tend to make me honest.

 

So, please, do read to the end.

 

In two days time I get to vote in a referendum on allowing people of the same sex to marry in Ireland.

 

I’ll not vote Yes, because it’s trendy to do so.

I’ll not vote Yes, because gay friends will like me more.

I’ll not vote Yes, because it’s tough to be a single heterosexual man without people questioning your sexuality

I’ll not vote Yes, because the No side have mounted a hard hitting balanced campaign

I’ll not vote Yes because, the arguments abounding in Christian conversations all centre on a Biblical view of sexuality and of marriage.

 

 

So I will, vote yes.

 

I will vote Yes, because I take Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience seriously.

I will vote Yes, because as much as Scripture talks about sexuality (with what it says being open to wide theological debate), it talks a lot more about the welcome and embrace of ‘the other,’ the hurting, the marginalised, the mocked, the unwelcome.

I will vote Yes, because my tradition tells me that the renewal and redemption of God’s world through the power of God’s Spirit, is often unexpected, often uninvited, often unwelcomed and often misunderstood.

I will vote Yes, because my reason tells me that this really is a question of human rights and equality.

I will vote Yes, because my experience tells me I cannot look gay friends in the eye and tell them I legally deserve more than they do. My experience tells me that same sex families I know, love their children … and sit at their child’s bedside through endless nights in hospital, exactly as my straight friends do, in the same hospital. My experience tells me that as annoying and as fabulous and as flamboyant as some gay people I know are, there are even more straight people who annoying me even more. My experience tells me that when I can pray better, interpret Scripture better, worship God better and mature in faith because of the teaching of Christian leaders who are gay, then those gay leaders should have the same human rights as I do.

 

So I will vote yes.

 

But, I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do. Honestly.

 

I would ask that you take your theological building blocks and put them together in a way that honours the Spirit of God working in God’s world, and working in you. To go against your conscience makes the result of the referendum insignificant. Laws will come and go. Your soul will not. It will either mature and grow, or wither and weep – and so often those movements take place in the moments of conscience decisions.

So I would not dare tell you how to vote. I just hope that you do. And I hope you consider your answer deeply.

 

And I hope you allow those with deeply held, different opinions, to also exercise their conscience well.


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