| Excerpt - Saying We Love Everybody
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 Saying We Love Everybody.
Summary:
Almost All Christians will say, "We're called to love everyone." This higher calling often conflicts with making judgments against LGBT people.
Excerpt from Straight Into Gay America.
Twenty miles from Hartford, Connecticut, pedaling into the hot afternoon, I realize how tired I feel from the first week of traveling. The weariness comes not from miles, but from the huge cascade of words and experiences. Shaded church steps offer a resting place where I nap half-an-hour before resuming my ride south into Connecticut. All three of these first states have passed gay and lesbian civil union or marriage law. Connecticut’s law passed this spring, and will take effect near the end of the year.
Asking three people in a row what they think of the new law garners only vague responses, “Yeah, I think we have a law like that…”
Response is tepid here compared to the energy in Vermont and Massachusetts, but five people this morning have also told me homosexuality is a sin. One is concerned the school district has “bisexual teachers” working in it. Each of these people is adamant that they love everybody, “like Jesus tells us to,” and homosexuality is a sin to be judged, “like the Bible tells us. Marriage is between a man and a woman.”
How can judgment fit into the time I’ve spent with David, Sara, Danielle, Greg, Willie, Rip, and the others I’ve met on the first part of this ride? How can we claim to love everybody if we take six isolated verses of Scripture more seriously than the life experiences of all these real people? How can we take these few verses more seriously than Jesus own life of fully accepting the outsiders of his time? By noon I feel weary from the contradictions, frustrated at these judgments we cloak with the language of Christian love. Needing a break, I quit pressing my questions and settle into an afternoon of sabbatical rest. Keith’s recorder has a radio function, so I plug in earphones to listen while I pedal near the Connecticut River.
Reaching Hartford I stop for pictures of the river and end up talking with the park attendant. He’s fascinated by One Wheel and we trade cycling stories. For a moment I wonder whether to mention I’m riding Straight Into Gay America, but I choose silence, keeping my sabbatical rest. Even as I take this choice of silence I recognize my freedom to engage or disengage this LGBT conversation on my own terms. For a gay person, the decision to reveal or hide one’s identity is constant and lifelong. Is it any wonder so many LGBT people choose closets?
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Straight Into Gay America:
My Unicycle Journey for Equal Rights.
by Lars Clausen
(Soulscapers, 2006)
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Reprint Permission:
Copyright by Lars Clausen: Permission granted to use quotations up to 1,000 words in lenth via website posting, emails, newsletter, print, radio, and TV media. The following attribution must be included.
Lars Clausen is the author of Straight Into Gay America: My Unicycle Journey for Equal Rights. Visit www.straightintogayamerica.com for more information.
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