Christian Right is always Christian Right is always Right But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'

When we proclaim that “no one is born gay”, we are essentially proclaiming that sexual orientation is a choice even though this is contrary to experience and scientific studies. Few would say that of a straight person yet the Christian Community proclaims it loudly for gay people. If “no one is born gay”, it follows that “no one is born straight”. However, for most whether gay or straight, sexual attraction comes normally without a point of decision. To demand that Gay people actively make a choice contrary to their natural inclination whilst not demanding that straight people do so, is hypocritical, and cruel. People seldom think normally, consistently or logically especially when influenced by strong religious extremism.

In the case of the former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, the Christian Right was Right in saying that her answer to the hot question on Gay marriage was the reason why she did not won the Miss USA crown even though it was the will of the people, who voted her down. The Christian Right only cares about the will of the people, when the majority vote suited them. If not, they deemed that the majority was persecuting them. The Christian Right is always Right.
When the former Miss California demanded her right to speak against gay marriages, overnight, she became the poster girl for the “The National Organization for Marriage”, a Christian based anti-gay organization, never mind that contrary to their “conservative” interpretation of the bible where women are not allowed to speak in churches and to be fully clothed even with their head covered. The tabloid press then showed a picture of her, almost nude, that she did for a picture shoot. She also kept talking and talking to the press, with a very sore persecution complex. We are willing to lose all our morality, dignity, conscience just to go after gays even though they form a very small minority of the population. Ironically, promiscuity epitomized by these glamorous half naked women seducing the men was the major issue in breaking up marriage. But, no the Christian Right is always Right.
Senator John Ensign, a key leader in the GOP has announced that he was involved in an affair with a married woman, his campaign treasurer, Cynthia “Cindy” Hampton. During the affair, her husband also came under his payroll and both got a large pay increases. The Senator had to make the affair public not because he felt led to by God, but because he was blackmailed. The Senator is a member of Promise Keepers, will vehemently stand against two gays who loved each other for many years from getting married, yet thought it right to flaunt his straight marriage. The Christian Right is always Right.
The Rev Pat Robertson claimed on “The 700 club” on 09 June 2009 that most homosexuals are thus because they were abused as a child, and they are also hell bound. Maybe he is also right, Gays have been abused by the Christian Right and many don’t believe in Jesus Christ or have left the Church because the Church has closed their doors on them, and not only that went out of their way and using all their political might, power, and wealth to restrict the very basic rights of gay men and women and to blame them for destroying their straight marriages. The Christian Right is always Right.

In the recent Aware saga in Singapore, it may be worthwhile to examine the lives of the main Christian leaders who had planned for many months for the takeover. These are well educated and leaders of the Mainstream Christian Churches who had diverted the abomination against God though idol worship and put all these sins on the gentle gay lambs to be slaughtered, why? So that they be seen as holy, white washed and clean.

What motivates them? Could it be to hide a perceived sin in their lives or someone close to them? We are naturally sin conscious which result in an inward need to pacify the demand that we “pay for our sins”. Religion teaches us to do good works and deeds in order to mitigate the sins committed. What happens when this sin is so hideous according our perception that not only are we to do good in order to pacify this voice of condemnation, but also required to do more, to “help God” to get rid of these unclean gays which we deemed as the worst sinners! ie we are doing God a favor for our own sake.

Condemning gays also brings us a notch above them in the ladder to heaven, exalting our own righteousness and hiding our sins when being compared to Gays which we deemed as an abomination to God. We just kept on condemning gays not because they are any worst sinners than us, but to exalt ourselves as righteousness before God.

We have journeyed through the Christian Protestant revival from the 16 th century, and through the Charismatic revival starting in 1904, we that have been so right about Salvation by faith through God’s grace. We have gone from basic Christianity on faith, and Holy Spirit baptism and now face the real test our Christian walk. In those days, the despised was “eating with tax collectors and sinners”, but today, the despised is to be associated with the gay community. Jesus sarcastically replied to them “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” – were they the ones who were really sick yet felt that they did not need the greatest physician of all, Jesus Christ, to save their souls because they thought that they were “righteous”. The test of how we see “our righteousness in Christ” is our comfort level to be with gays. Jesus had no problems, neither should be. We can believe ourselves to be so RIGHT in persecuting gays, yet we can be so WRONG.

The keyword in Mat 9:12 is “but”, when Jesus asked them to go back and reflect on what it means “to desire mercy and not sacrifice”, whom the Pharisees knew refer to Hosea 6 -

When the Pharisees criticized Jesus for being with those that the majority of society would despised and considered just as Rev Pat Robertson does as hell bound sinners, we fail to see what God desires. He does not desire our burnt offerings based on the demands on the law to be made righteous, when we go to church each week to do penitence, and communion in a mechanical and religious routine manner, and condemn those who do not fit into our religious perception what is right or wrong, as unclean. It is the knowledge of the ways and manner of God through Christ that really matters, and the key and central theme of pursuing this knowledge about God, is His heart of mercy. We are so quick to condemn, so fast to pass judgment, so quick to shut the gates of the church to those we feel below our standing, that we have forgotten that we too need the grace of God – to healing of God, to revive us and the miracle of God to raise us up on the third day. Yet, it was the least in the community, so despised by the conservative majority as sinners, that Jesus found the place where they would accept Him the most.

If Jesus had come on Earth to Singapore, today, perhaps the only place He would be accepted would be in the Gay community, where all are welcome, regardless of race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. The religious amongst us from the Anglican Church in City Hall, would send a delegation to condemn Jesus for sitting and talking to gays at a gay bar in Tanjung Pagar. And His reply would be the same to us as He did to the Pharisees of Old two thousand years ago -

(Hosea 6:6 NKJV) For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.