Just weeks ago a Federal Judge overruled the will of the majority of Californian’s by overthrowing Proposition 8, a law defining marriage between one man and one woman. This judge’s decision was a very sad and wrong ruling. Since then America has been making her opinions heard on this issue, and a major debate point is, “love is never wrong. We need to love them and let them marry. Don’t hate.” That kinda got me thinking, “could they be right? Would allowing them to marry be loving them?” Which got me thinking even more, “How do we define love? How does the Bible?”

Biblical Definitions of Love

Lets compare the argument ‘Love is never wrong’ to what the Bible says about love. The Bible is pretty clear in defining love:

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. -1 Cor. 13: 4-8 

Nowhere does it say, “Love means being okay with whatever anyone wants to do. Let ‘em do it!” In fact, it nearly says the opposite: “does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth” Rejoices in truth? I think this calls for another question: What is truth?

Defining Truth

Truth is right and wrong; it is the defining contrast between what is good and what is evil; it is absolute. It must be absolute or else it is not truth, but merely opinion.

For example: if truth is not absolute then how can we define right and wrong? Murder may only be wrong if it’s true for you. You could go as far to say that law, the Constitution and human rights are all only right if they are true for you. That’s the problem when truth isn’t absolute: it gets blurry and undefinable. Pluralism and tolerance takes over to the extreme and we end up with death and lawlesness.

So if truth is absolute, and right and wrong are fixed, then love rejoices in the fixed positions of right and wrong. This brings us back to the original argument ’Love is never wrong,’ which can’t stand if love rejoices in truth. Love is the vehicle by which truth is driven into our sinful, rebellious hearts. Love takes right and wrong from truth and applies it with compassion; it doesn’t yell “You’re wrong!” but compassionately, yet firmly applies it to those erring past the line of wrong. 

On to the second half of the argument: “We need to love them and let them marry. Don’t hate.” Don’t hate. Let’s define hate.

Defining Hate

Dictionary.com says, “to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest: to hate the enemy;” 

First off, hating a person is wrong. Yet you can hate that persons actions. Supposing that right and wrong are absolute, how is upholding the standard of that morality hate?  When you say no to your child’s requests for candy, is that you hating him? I believe the saying “Hate the sin, not the sinner” applies here. We can hate wrong-doing without hating the wrong-doer. When Jesus died He displayed His ardent hatred toward sin, while at the same time His extreme love for humanity! In His death He satisfied God’s holy passion for right and wrong, and He manifested His desire to see humanity freed from the cost that our sins brought. 

To be clear, we need to show homosexuals Christ’s love while still upholding the standard of righteousness that says homosexuality is wrong. Unfortunately, matters like these are extremely tricky and can be easily misunderstood as angry hypocrisy or hateful. Which is why we have to purposefully set our hearts to show love to people, even if we don’t agree with their ideology or lifestyle choices. Jesus even goes so far as to say love your enemies! (Matt. 5:44) That kind of love is intense.

In summary, my heart is pretty grieved by what has happened through this judge and by the direction our nation is headed. On one hand I agree that God’s justice and righteousness must go forth, but on the other hand I don’t wanna see people hurt in any way through judgement. Even God doesn’t rejoice in the death of the wicked (Ezk. 33:11). So we need to pray that hearts and minds are changed, ideologies broken and the love of Christ goes forth to save souls and bring many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10).