Deserving of Justice

AS BELIEVERS IN justice for those who face discrimination in our society, we applaud the Sojourners mission. But as parents of a gay son, we sometimes question our support of that mission, since Sojourners doesn’t always seem comfortable with viewing gays and lesbians as deserving of the same justice as African Americans, Latinos, women, and the poor. For example, in the May-June 1996 issue, Jim Wallis refers to “honest differences between Christians on what the Bible says about homosexuality” (“Hearts & Minds”); and Danny Duncan Collum, in the same issue, accuses the Democratic Party of becoming “identified with the promotion of...homosexuality” (“Eyes & Ears”).

Gay and lesbian people are not some abstract concept to be debated or promoted; they are real people who face the real problems of bigotry and prejudice on a daily basis, partly because the church is unwilling to examine its biases and educate itself about what homosexuality really is. Does Sojourners have any openly gay or lesbian staff? Has it ever considered interviewing gay and lesbian Christians about how it must feel to be forced into creating their own denomination, the Metropolitan Community Church, because other churches do not welcome them? Has Sojourners ever thought about how very un-Christian comments like Wallis’ and Collum’s sound to gays, lesbians, and their friends and families?