A friend of mine sent this link to me the other night, and I found it to be one of the best articles on the subject I’ve ever read.

It’s written by Oliver “Buzz” Thomas, a Baptist minister and author of an upcoming book, 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job). It’s entitled “When religion loses its credibility.”

Oliver compares the church’s refusal to accept scientific evidence that homosexuality is determined by genetic and/or biological factors rather than choice to its famous stance on Galileo’s discovery that the Sun was the center of our solar system.

Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice. To the contrary, whether sexual orientation arises as a result of the mother’s hormones or the child’s brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth. The point is this: Without choice, there can be no moral culpability.

He makes several points regarding the appearance of homosexuality in scriptures, and a dead on statement that if you are going to accept ONE of the rules in Leviticus as the absolute, unequivocal word of God then you must accept them all. And that means, no more football, no lobster, no catfish, no contact with a menstruating woman…

He wraps up with a particularly poignant thought:

The suffering that gay and lesbian people have endured at the hands of religion is incalculable, but they can look expectantly to the future for vindication. Scientific facts, after all, are a stubborn thing. Even our religious beliefs must finally yield to them as the church in its battle with Galileo ultimately realized. But for religion, the future might be ominous. Watching the growing conflict between medical science and religion over homosexuality is like watching a train wreck from a distance. You can see it coming for miles and sense the inevitable conclusion, but you’re powerless to stop it. The more church leaders dig in their heels, the worse it’s likely to be.

Enjoy the article, and pass it along to folks that you know should read it. My parents are on my list.