For those of you not in the know, north Mississippi (Itawamba County) has been in the news this week. I’ve heard people voice their opinions all over the place, and then I remembered, “Hey, didn’t I start a blog? That would be the perfect place for me to write out my ideas!” So here I am, typing away on my laptop and revealing my heart and mind to you, the gracious reader (I am deeply grateful that you are here, by the way).
I am posting a link to a news article for those of you that haven’t heard of what I will be discussing. The basics are that Constance McMillen, an 18 year-old senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School wanted to take her date to the prom. One problem, her date is also a girl, her 16 year-old sophomore girlfriend. School Board said no, somewhere along the way the ACLU got involved, and the School board decided to just cancel the prom for this year. Offers have come in to hold a private prom (including one to bus them here to New Orleans, give them a prom, and bus them back, all for free).
I know people who love the decision to cancel the prom, but I think it was a cowardly move. Is the School Board within their right to do so? Yes. Does that mean they should have? No. The School Board only further victimizes McMillen by canceling the prom. She doesn’t just lose her chance to go to her senior prom, but all of her classmates lose their chance as well. How do you think they feel about her now? She is a lesbian in high school in MISSISSIPPI!!! (Don’t get me wrong, I love Mississippi. I grew up less than 30 minutes from Fulton, I went to the community college there, I worked in Fulton. However, I know the area. There are some backwards things still occurring there.) She has already faced more discrimination than most of us, and now she’s the one that will be blamed by her classmates for ruining their senior year prom. And the sad thing is, It’s not her fault.
The way I see it, the School Board had two decent choices:
1) Stick to their decision to not allow McMillen to bring her girlfriend and to not allow McMillen to wear a tuxedo. If they have moral objections to McMillen, then they should have the courage to stand by those objections.
2) Allow McMillen to attend with whomever she wanted and wear whatever she wanted.
Instead, they chose to penalize everyone and persecute McMillen. You cannot convince me that the School Board did not know that McMillen would receive backlash from her classmates. We’ve all been to high school, and we know how vicious it is. The School Board attempted to bury the situation and hope that it would go away quietly. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are no secrets in the digital age. Small-town discrimination that occurred through the early and mid 1900s is not possible anymore. We are all connected by the internet, for good or bad.
I am not here to tell you whether gays and lesbians are right or wrong. I don’t think I could really convince someone either way (I choose to leave the conviction to the Holy Spirit). However, I will state that discrimination of this nature is never acceptable, and in my opinion is made even worse that it is perceived to come from Christians. Allowing McMillen to bring her girlfriend is not accepting or condoning her choices, or telling her that she is right. It is simply treating her like a human being that is loved by God (She is loved, by the way, and she should also be loved by followers of Christ).
I fail to understand how as Christians we expect to be able to force our morality on other people. The authority of Scripture is not dependent on whether or not people follow it. I don’t see how we can expect someone to follow what we believe the Scripture says if they don’t accept its authority, and yet Christians seem to be constantly doing just that. How about this? We choose instead to love them, without condition, without exception, and allow them to see Christ in us. We take opportunities to explain who Christ is, what He has done for us, and how we love ALL people through him. Hopefully, they become believers. Then, we let the HOLY SPIRIT convict them of sin through the Word of God (it is part of His job, after all.) Our job is to love God with everything we are, and love people as much as we love ourselves. We share the gospel when we do these things (See John 13:34-35).
I expect that many of you readers will disagree with me, and that’s okay. He has made all of us unique, and I am able to do things you cannot, and vice versa. I encourage your comments, I really want to hear them, even if you disagree. Let’s keep it civil, I’m not here to offend, but rather to perhaps bring a viewpoint that you haven’t seen before.
Grace and Love,
Matt
