Two Christian Pastors Share Their Diametrically Opposed Views on Gay Marriage

I want to compare two letters to the editor that were printed in The Indianapolis Star on May 14, 2013, and May 20, 2013, respectively. Both letters concerned the story Former WNBA player Tully Bevilaqua commits to her partner from the May 14, 2013, edition of The Indianapolis Star. And both letters were written by Christian clergy.

Story about Tully Bevilaqua's marriage was repulsive Everyone is entitled to their opinion but that does not mean that I want to read and or see stories about subjects that I find repulsive and the May 14 story, “Celebrating a couple’s love” about former Indiana Fever player Tully Bevilaqua getting married was repulsive to me. Is The Star so depleted of newsworthy articles that it has to run such stories? If you must run them, please relegate them to the opinion section, where they should be, not on the first page of one of my favorite sections of The Star. Pastor David Vaughn Martinsville

Ban on same-sex marriage is truly repulsive Like Pastor David Vaughn of Martinsville, I was repulsed by The Star’s article about Tully Bevilaqua and the celebration of her commitment to her lesbian partner. I am repulsed because these two Hoosier women, a credit to our city and state, do not have the legal freedom to marry one another because of their sexual orientation. I am repulsed that so many people of faith speak in hallowed tones of marriage, elevate it as the central relationship in their own lives, then selfishly deny that same blessing to others. I am repulsed that as other states are committing to marriage equality, Indiana’s political leaders are hard at work making sure a group caring for gay and lesbian youth can’t support its noble efforts with a license plate. And I will be repulsed until our state, and indeed our nation, takes seriously its constitutional promise of liberty and justice for all. Philip Gulley Quaker pastor Danville

I don’t know about you, but the attitudes expressed in one of those letters sound much more like what I expect to hear when I think of “clergy” or “pastor”. So what I’d like to hear from my Christian friends, is how they think Jesus would have reacted to these letters. Which letter would have made him smile and nod in agreement; which would have made him scowl? Which author’s ideas embody what Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter) is really supposed to stand for?

Anyway, these two letters do a nice job of summing up an entire aspect of the debate over gay marriage.