The Sin of Denying Someone's Joy

How Anti-Marriage Equality Christians Rebel Against Jesus

Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed in 2015 for refusing a marriage license to a gay couple, has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court to reconsider its landmark ruling on marriage equality. It is one of countless challenges the law faces by Christian Nationalists.

The court may not comply with the request of Davis (who, incidentally, has been married four times), but it is yet another reminder that millions of Conservative Christians are incapable of minding their own business. They simply cannot under any circumstances abide other people’s joy.

Marriage is a legal contract, not a religious covenant—unless, of course, those entering into the union decide that it will be. To impose one’s theology upon anyone else’s marriage is to obliterate the line between Church and State, and to incarnate theocracy, something Jesus would want no part of.

It’s an act of unprovoked violence.

It’s an invasion of another’s privacy.

It’s also a sin.

Christians who oppose marriage equality (or LGBTQ rights of any kind) are ignoring Jesus’ command to love their neighbors as themselves. They are choosing to revoke the freedoms from others that they already enjoy: the right to marry the person they love, the right to adopt children, the right to body autonomy, the right to define their identity, the right to spousal benefits. Their incessant persecution of people whose relationships, families, and healthcare decisions do not affect them in the slightest isn’t just a lousy thing to do on a human level; it’s also a willful act of rebellion against Jesus.

I don't know how so many self-identified soldiers in the army of the Lord ended up deciding that anyone else's body, gender identity, or sexual orientation was their business. I don't know who told them that they had any right to tell another human being who they could be attracted to or find contentment with, or what pronouns they should use for themselves, or who they could marry, or what restroom they had to use or if they deserved to adopt children or not—but it certainly wasn't Jesus.

He never gave his followers the authority to judge someone else’s moral worth, to trespass into their bedrooms, or to police their marriages. On matters of sexuality, Jesus was, in fact, largely silent; never once criticizing or condemning anyone for their identity or orientation, or declaring that his followers should or could.

He did say that we were to offer to others what we would want for ourselves, with that kind of regard and respect and gentleness.
He did say that as we treat the marginalized and the forgotten and those already suffering, we treat him.
He did say that we should be generous to those in our path; to do our best to make sure that every human being had peace and rest and joy.

The call of the Christian is to be a helper, peacemaker, caregiver, and wound mender.

And that’s what makes this phobic, predatory persecution so fully anti-Christ.

Often, when I ask Conservative Christians how another person’s marriage harms them, they invariably claim that it “harms God.” Even if that were somehow true, that would still be between those people and God. They still wouldn’t get to meddle with people's bedrooms and bathrooms and body parts. That's way above their pay grade and outside their jurisdiction, and there's simply no Biblical way around it.

I often want to tell these self-appointed judges to leave LGBTQ people the hell alone, but that’s the very least they should do.

If these professed Christians were truly interested in being obedient to Jesus, they should be doing far more than simply letting queer people be. They should be including them fully in community and welcoming them into their churches without condition. They should be celebrating their marriages and families; they should be loudly demanding they have free and unfettered access to life, liberty, and happiness under the law that they do. They should be standing between the LGBTQ community and the peace-stealing bullies, instead of becoming them.

But here, two thousand years after Jesus’ life and ministry, the mission drift of so many of his followers has been so profound that they now feel commissioned and compelled to passionately, gleefully take away the elemental joys of this life from other people, and to feel righteous as they do.

If there’s anything completely disobedient to the teachings of Jesus, it’s that.

If anyone is willfully sinning, it’s them.