Gay or straight, marriages are all about love

03 July 2011 - 04:04 By Lihle Z Mtshali
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The New York Senate voted last week to legalise same-sex marriage, a huge victory for the gay and lesbian community in this state.

The first thought to cross my mind when I heard the news was: "That is so awesome. Simon and Mike will have the option to get married here now."

(Simon and Mike, a gay couple, are friends of mine. Simon is South African and Mike is American. Up until now, if they had decided to settle in New York, they would not have been able to legally get married here. I knew how happy this development would make them.)

The next thought marred my jubilation. I was still happy for my friends and still hopeful that, with gay marriage being passed into law, it might cut down on the number of young people jumping off bridges to untimely deaths because they were being bullied for being gay. However, I was in a dilemma because I am a Christian. The Bible condemns homosexuality as sin. As Christians we are taught that a union between people of the same sex is a misnomer because marriage is designed to be between a man and a woman for the purposes of procreation.

My faith is based on what the Bible, which is the divinely inspired Word of God, teaches and I strive to always be faithful to God. I'm human, though, and while I don't question God, I do falter every once in a while. Walking the Christian walk is not always easy. In fact, it is often challenging because we face judgment not only from non-Christians but also from Christians themselves. They conveniently forget the words "Judge not, lest you be judged."

So I know that by admitting that I was happy when same-sex marriage was legalised, I am going to draw a lot of hate mail from fellow Christians, as I did when I wrote that Lady Gaga was not a Satanist and ended up being called all sorts of names, from "lost" to "stupid" and that I was "going straight to hell".

But I am speaking my heart because I know there are many Christians who, like me, love and fear God and have studied the Bible and are aware of all the scriptures which speak out against homosexuality, but who also know gay couples who are as committed to their relationships as any heterosexual couple and who deserve to be happy.

I believe that this is an important conversation to have as a community, instead of just chalking it down to the "evil that comes with the end of days".

Aside from what the Bible says about homosexuality, a lot of Christians believe that legalising gay marriage undermines the concept of family and is an attack on family values.

Here's what I know about family: the dynamics of what makes a family have changed drastically since the days of Adam and Eve.

My father died when I was still in school. My mother raised my two sisters and me on her own. We never wanted for anything just because we didn't have a father at home. We turned out just as well as our counterparts who had both parents at home - sometimes, even better.

I, in turn, have raised my now 13-year-old daughter alone, for the most part. She has a great relationship with her father, but she has never known us to be together, yet she is as stable as any other child whose parents are married. She has always been happy, respectful and does extremely well in school. She is a child any parent would be proud of.

Am I advocating single-parent homes? No, because I know that raising a child on your own is darned hard. The ideal situation would be to have both parents at home, raising the kids together. I am, however, saying that single-parent homes are not doomed to fail just because it's hard to do. They do work, whether one finds oneself in that situation by choice or not.

On the other hand, two-parent homes don't always work and sometimes they produce highly dysfunctional kids. There is nothing to say a family will be successful just because it is made up of a man, a woman and 2.5 kids.

Clearly what matters here is raising children in a stable, loving home, whether it's run by two heterosexual or gay parents or a single parent.

And let us not forget, there are many gay men and women who love God. I'm pretty sure God returns that love. How about us doing the same?

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