Gays In My Life

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

@#$%


Hair - Hair (The Movie) The Song
Uploaded by goldrausch. - See the latest featured music videos.

@#$%

I'm not gay.

That doesn't come as a surprise to my wife or anyone inferred in the KDs of 2/11/11 and 2/24/11.

I've never even been tempted to gay behavior; though, like many hot-blooded guys, there's always been this fascination with gayness in the other gender.

Anyone who disputes the last clause of the previous sentence cannot be trusted to conform to 1 John 1:5-10 not to mention John 3:19-21 (Oops, just did!).

It's like those scandal sheets at the cashier of your local supermarket.

If lots of people like you/me/them weren't buying 'em...

Be that as it is despite the protestations of posers, I've had, uh, opportunities; like when the Eagle Scout counselor at Camp Acahela near Blakeslee, Pennsylvania asked if I wanted to join him in his sleeping bag or have him come into mine. I asked if he knew I was the camp counselor for woodcarving merit badge. Then, and this one was really hard for a mainline pastor who's been used to prostituting himself to get ahead, one of my advisors for my doctoral dissertation hit on me and...

That was a close one!

Interesting.

No male biker has ever hit on me.

Anyway, I'm not gay.

That doesn't mean I feel any better or any worse in God's eyes 'cause I'm not; 'cause anyone who's been reading KDs for any length of time knows I've done and probably will do lots of stuff that's kinda antithetical to Christianity as personified in Jesus and prescribed in Holy Scripture.

Trusting Lord Jesus as Savior has very little to do with being perfectly behaved in His eyes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're supposed to give our best shot to Him in gratitude for His amazingly unparalleled kindness aka grace to not hold any of you/me/us against you/me/us; but as Bill Felmeth always reminded me in one of the few things that I remember from seminary, "God does not love us because of who we are, what we do, or where we've been but in spite of who we are, what we do, and where we've been! That's the Gospel of Jesus Christ!"

So I've never been able to jump on the wagons of the way left who have elevated gay behavior to next-to-Godliness or way right who think being gay is so much worse than the other stuff mentioned in the Bible that...

I just never get steif over gays from any direction.

Besides, and I may be wrong on this, I don't think God loses as much sleep over gays as He does over posers like people mentioned in the 2/21/11 edition, crazy religionists who chop off heads in the name of their phony sun-fried god, pewsitters/pulpiteers who agree with the last person they've talked to so as not to put their perks and popularity at risk, Democrats/Republicans/mainliners who are doing their best to destroy the gift of America, warmongers, and so many other purveyors of this world's meanness, madness, and misery.

While I've never been convinced being gay is consistent with Biblical revelation or even basic psychology/anatomy, I've also never been convinced gossip, hypocrisy, the backhand of Christian fellowship, and...

@#$%

That came to mind when I heard that Doug died about a week ago.

He was the Director of Music and organist of the first high steeple church that had the guts/stupidity to hire me.

Because I was still climbing to the top of the ecclesiastical ladder of success - only later to discover my ladder was leaning against the wrong building(s) - and too young/unconverted to realize what He had entrusted to me and left that church prematurely to go to a higher steeple, we ministered together for five of his more than thirty years there.

He was one of two gays on the staff.

He was "out" but never flamboyant while the other was "in" and celibate; and while some will have a hard time accepting this, especially those who have completely figured out God's business for Him, they were the most responsible, loyal, and productive members of the staff. They led more people to Jesus by their love for others to love Jesus than...

@#$%

As Paul Harvey used to say, "And now the rest of the story..."

The day after I was installed as homiletical meat in that church, two elders came to see me with my first assignment as - Sound the trumpets! - senior pastor.

Fire Doug.

I kid you not.

They said, "Because he's gay, you must fire him."

Their ignorance of our franchise's polity seemed irrelevant at the time; so I played along with them.

I asked, "How do you know he's gay?"

They said, "You know..."

I said, "No, I don't know. Have you caught him listening to Barbara Streisand songs in the sanctuary or something?"

They did not think that was funny.

I did not think they were funny; so I said, "I don't think so. If I fire Doug, I'll have to fire all of the gossips like you and then nobody will be left in the church."

We never talked about it again; and I survived five years until movin' on up to the next high steeple.

@#$%

Doug and I had an agreement.

As long as he didn't flaunt his lifestyle and as long as I didn't flaunt mine...

We became good friends and played lots of tennis together; which I'm sure caused talk except for the babes noted in the second sentence-paragraph of this KD.

I did fall in love with another organist at the wrong time for us and never did anything about it; which was the right thing not to do.

Speaking of being right, I don't get the obsession of some folks who always need to point out what's wrong with others as if they're...

It makes me think of Ted who also lived in Kansas City during "our" time together who often said to those kinda posers, "What's that I see in your eye?"

Remember that question.

It helps when you're with self-righteous Democrats/Republicans/mainliners/lefties/righties/etc.

It changes the focus to Lord Jesus as Savior; which, unless I'm wrong, is why He was/remains more about His grace to overcome the laws that are beyond our abilities/affections to satisfy.

@#$%



@#$%

Blessings and Love!