These people are not Christians. That needs to be said simply and clearly. One of the things that those who oppose same-sex marriage often state is the truth that merely stating something doesn’t make it so.  On this principle, they are correct; but it probably applies to them more than it does to anything they say. The mere fact that people like this call themselves Christian doesn’t make them followers of Jesus. The mere fact that they claim to be “bible-based” or “God fearing” doesn’t make them people of faith, people of love, people of charity. Jesus told us to love our enemies, to forgive those who persecute us. Their version of “Christianity” has little room for love or forgiveness, so filled is it with self-righteousness, intolerance, and even hatred of every modern-day Samaritan.

There’s a current country-music song getting some radio airtime by a singer named Josh Thompson.  This mean-spirited guy has a song entitled, Way out Here.  The song starts  with these words:

“Our houses are protected
By the good Lord and a gun
And you might meet ’em both
If you show up here not welcome, son.”

How is it that in America — and in particular, the American South — people have so twisted and perverted Christianity that someone could even think of such lyrics, let alone record them and have that song well-received by so many? What about the message of Jesus of Nazareth do they not get? How can they possibly reconcile a perspective which threatens murder simply because someone is different or “not welcome,” with a supposed belief in “the good Lord”?

If these people are unable to see the face of Jesus in the stranger at their door, is it any wonder they can’t see the face of Jesus in the foreigner, the gay man, the lesbian, the illegal immigrant, the Jew, the Muslim, the black President, or even “the enemy”?