We have now concluded LGBTQ Pride month, which was recognized by various corporations, leaders in academia, and in some places of worship. From a Biblical Worldview Perspective some thoughts come to mind. To start with, in Genesis 1:27 we read, So God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them. Then King David tells us Psalm 139:13-14, For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. With Psalm 51: 5 David starts to get into some bad news: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Other bad news comes in Psalm 14:2-3, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”
Now, on the bright side while our founders were aware of all that is said, they knew that every human being has a direct tie to God being His creation. Knowing this, they understood that people have intrinsic worth meaning that a person’s worth is separate from their performance, appearance, stature, etc. I look at Ephesians 2:10, which affirms our purpose and calling, “for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do, that we should walk in them.”
With this said, we have a greater appreciation of our individual worth and significance. To demonstrate the worldview of the founders, it is important to take note of this part of the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Thanks to the Anti-Federalists we have the Bill of Rights intended to protect and secure the liberties of ALL individuals regardless of their situational and life standing. To digress momentarily, there are several scriptures that pertain to our civil liberties. Acts 25:5 “So, said he, let the men of authority among you go down with me, and if there is anything wrong about the man, let them bring charges against him.” From the words of Jesus’s friend Nicodemus in John 7:51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” I point these scriptures out because they applied to all individuals then and are currently protected by the Bill of Rights.
Pointing out that the Bill of Rights applies to all individuals leads me to question the need for months to recognize a group of people and causes. In fact, I once read that Martin Luther King’s main objective during the Civil Rights structure was to insist that government stay true to their word by ensuring that all people are protected by the measures in the Bill of Rights. Now, with the LGBTQ effort, I have read members of this group often struggle in certain areas, but I believe those instances should be treated as individual matters rather than associating them with a group thereby encouraging unnecessary collectivism. Some point to the Stonewall Inn night club in New York early June 28, 1969, in which police raided a gay night club leading to six days of riots. Gay clubs also faced restrictions when it came to liquor licenses, amongst other things that violated their privacy. These actions are a clear violation of liberties; however, it really does not matter if they were homosexuals. They could have represented various religious groups, could have represented various socio and economic statuses, positions in the community, etc.
While all these instances are tragic like the George Floyd case, it makes the most sense to see them once again as individual matters. When individuals are encouraged to attach themselves to a group such as the LGBTQ movement, Black Lives Matter, the Christian Right, Gun Organizations, and various unions we become further divided as a society as the groups, though we are intitled to free association can lead to division when people place their identity in them. Group identity only does so much good until group characteristics change overtime.
As mentioned with George Floyd, who’s death was certainly tragic, we were given the impression that his death was a blow to the black community. Same with a homosexual who was assaulted. Instead of labeling this as an attack against the gay community and insisting on more hate crime laws, why not make a concerted efforts to go after the culprit and as I said, treat it as an individual matter?
Our efforts should be to consistently defend individual rights regardless of the group the victim associates without exacerbating group identity.
In His Image 