I appreciate your desire for folks to get along, and I know how I feel when people I like aren’t seen by others the same way that I see them… I can’t help but think that if only other people could see the goodness and thoughfulness that I see, then they would understand the person that I know. That they somehow misunderstand that person’s intentions, and that the criticism are more than a little unfair in the balance.

Here’s the thing, however. This great man went to a country where they are debating doing horrible things – incarcerating people for being gay, incarcerating people for knowing people who are gay and not reporting them. Killing people for having a disease.

He not only didn’t speak up to question whether this was a just or moral way of treating other people, he brought back an article about this — out of all the things he could have discussed — and used it as a talking point about how our culture has lost its way.

In this country, we know that the most an anti-gay movement can do, really, is attack the marriage issue — legally and culturally, that’s as far against gays as most people will go right now.

When he has this reaction to Ugandan politics, when he brings back this article, it’s reasonable for those of us whom he is going to great lengths to target (and why is he picking on us? why does he care about this issue instead of all the other Christ-centered issues?)… how far would he go if he thought the culture here would accept it?

Because he’s seen a culture engaged in extreme behavior, and he seems to think it’s got something good going on. That it’s Christ’s way. Despite ample Biblical evidence that this is not at all what Christ had in mind.

In some cultures, Christians have been persecuted and killed for who they are, for what they believe. I think we all respect that this is unacceptable, and morally wrong, and it should be stopped. I’d like you, for a moment, to put your foot in the other shoe, and understand the extreme position people are in. It’s not a game, and it’s not theoretical. People are going to have their lives ruined, and it’s not right.

And that wonderful man – and I believe he has the capacity to be a wonderful man – has a certain issue here – a blemish (even possibly well-intentioned) on what may well be an otherwise good personality (I don’t know him, so I cannot speak to his whole person).

Sometimes we take logical conclusions into illogical spaces. Sometimes we don’t appreciate that what is merely an idea in our life represents a living hell, or death, in someone else’s. It’s possibly the most dangerous risk of being involved in public policy — that your words and leadership lead to unacceptable and morally evil, and even unintended outcomes.

So, I appreciate your position, and I respect your affection for this man, especially in the context in which YOU know him. But please appreciate that there are some of us who have to live in the shadow of his actions. He’s gunning for us, even though we did nothing to earn his attention other than to be born into this world and ask for our seat at the table.

I think you can forgive us for thinking less of him than do you. And I urge you to remind him of his better angels – if he is the man you say he is, then this is truly an aberration of his character, and that means he can see the error of his ways.

if you can kindly point out where my assumptions are not supported by documentation and I’ll be glad to have Emrich clarify.

And, incidentally, if by “peaceful dialogue between left and right” you are assuming that you are on the right and I am on the left, that assumption is in error.

I have one simple question for you:

Do you want the State to refuse to recognize your marriage?

Before you get to all the reasons why you think that the State should deny mine, answer that question to yourself quietly. Because the answer to that question is the single most important thing you will consider today.

It’s a Jesus question. It is the very foundation of faith. Everything – Leviticus, Romans, what Jesus called “the Law and the Prophets” – comes down to that question.

Even if the “radical militant homosexual activists” were trying to destroy society, even if they were trying to take away your religious freedom, the right answer to that question doesn’t change.

The answer is, of course, no.

Now I know that many in The Church have a long list of excuses why they don’t have to obey Jesus’ commandments. Usually they start with a list of the sins that they are sure I’m committing which means they can ignore Jesus until I stop sinning. The second excuse is, of course, that God Himself defined what a county registrar should record for income tax purposes. And then come the usual Matthew 7:22 crowd who are busy Fighting Battles for God and don’t care who is hurt in the process.

Now, Mike, I’m all for peaceful dialog. So just as soon as everyone at the table has the same rights, we can peacefully sit down and discuss whose rights to take away.

But until that day, there isn’t much to discuss. You want to treat me legally inferior – clearly contrary to the commandments of Jesus, and I don’t want to be treated inferior.

That is not the hallmark of a righteous person.

You seem to have difficulty understanding who is attacking whom. If your “most sensitive and amazingly caring” great-uncle were not seeking to harm my life, I wouldn’t have anything to say about him at all.

And please be honest. Don’t act as though “all your uncle has been saying” is about marriage. You have eyes. You can read. He also thinks that our country – which does not imprison or execute gay people – has lost its way. Unlike Uganda, where gay people are regularly beaten and murdered.

I have not twisted his words. I put them right here on the page so everyone can see them for themselves.

The problem, Carissa, is that you are in conflict. You wish to be support policies that are cruel, but you don’t want to think of yourself as a cruel person. You seek to impose your religious views on the state, but you don’t want to think of yourself as oppressive.

But that’s the downside of being cruel and oppressive. Yes, you may get your way for a while… but good and decent people start to consider you a bully and hateful and a bad person.

It’s your choice, Carissa. You can either behave in a loving and Christlike manner – treating gay people how you want to be treated and treating gay relationships how you want your relationships to be treated – or you can continue to support the execution of gay people in Uganda and wonder why the world think you are a monster.

In your desire to excuse evil, you distorted the facts.

To connect a pastor who was 2 weeks in the bushes in Uganda and who sends out a newspaper article to his buddies to the bill which the article praises is no stretch at all.