Love wins

I’ve been torn on what to say, if anything, in relation to yesterday’s Supreme Court decision. I am not surprised by it, but I am saddened by it. However, I find myself having a much stronger reaction to the social media response to it, and here’s why.

I lament that the left-leaning secular crowds have claimed “Love wins” as their mantra. It sounds so intuitive and so, well, loving, that anyone who disagrees with anything they say is labeled a hater and a bigot. Who doesn’t want love to win? But here’s the truth. Love isn’t 5 appointed judges making some arbitrary decision. Love isn’t being able to be with whomever you wish, for however long you wish, for whatever reason you wish. Love is a man who hung on a cross for three hours after enduring abandonment, mocking, torture, and crucifixion, who then conquered death and rose again. Love is a God who holds us in existence, whose love is so concrete and dynamic that it creates. Love is wanting the good of the other person for his or her own sake (and we could have a whole different discussion about defining “the good”, but suffice it to say it’s not comfort). So, yes, love wins. Love always wins. But I’m reclaiming that phrase for Love Himself, who wants better for us. Who wants us to walk the straight and narrow, which is difficult to be sure, but leads to life to the full.

Furthermore, I’m upset by the subtle, unrecognized discrimination of the so-called “tolerant”. All those people posting rainbows in solidarity with the “persecuted” would never post a cross to support the Christians around the world who are being put to death for their beliefs. They would never post a picture of a church if one were forced out of its tax-exempt status because it held to its beliefs in not holding same-sex union ceremonies. Those posting rainbows are only in solidarity with those who hold their same beliefs, namely that people should be able to do what they want, but only if those people are not Christians who are convinced that God’s law still trumps the law of the land. 

Finally, I’m disturbed by the short-sighted nature of those who are celebrating this decision as a victory. To say that marriage can be defined based on the whims of culture is to lead us farther down a slippery slope from which our society may never recover. This has nothing to do with the “rights” of homosexuals, to things like healthcare benefits, tax status, etc. To redefine marriage is to undermine the foundation of our culture, which is the nuclear family. What is to now stop someone from “marrying” their father, or brother, or dog, because who are you to tell someone who to love? When our children grow up seeing that “marriage” is merely a construct of convenience and enjoyment rather than commitment and covenant, they will extrapolate those values to everything else. I really don’t think it’s alarmist to go down this path. I think it’s ignorant and naïve not to.

So yes, it’s easy to post “Love wins” without thinking about what you are really saying, and it’s easy to say that anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot, but Love has always won and will always win, and Love looks a lot more like this: