Perez Hilton: Vermont recently became the 4th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit - why or why not?
Miss California: Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage, and you know what, in my country and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman.
Readers of Kaw Talk, and worshippers at Kaw Prairie, might know by now that while I am an eager evangelical Christ-follower, I believe eager evangelicals are among the people most destructive to the cause of Christ. When our eagerness for Jesus is decoupled from humility, grace, education, and yes, plain old intelligence, it can become shrill, stupid, and toxic to the Kingdom cause.
For instance, the evangelical anti-science cartel annoys God, I’m totally sure, since He’s probably delighted to watch us learn the secrets He's well-proud of. And most evangelicals who put a “the” in front of the word “liberals” probably need to watch more than one TV station.
So I find myself in unfamiliar water today, writing in defense of a clumsy, inarticulate, but genuine-seeming and decidedly "non-mean" evangelical Christian, Carrie Prejean, aka Miss California 2009. The amount of ridicule and invective this unfortunate young lady has been subject to is tremendous (just Google the phrase “opposite marriage” for instance). The ridicule might be a bit more fair if she’d been competing for Miss Grammarian or even High School Valedictorian, but which Miss USA candidate raises that kind of expectation?
So as someone who’s misspoken from the pulpit, verbally stumbled in small talk, and sounded stupid in public (a radio interview I gave last summer – and which was aired scores of times throughout a long day – still makes me cringe!), I want to stand up for our scantily-clad sister in distress. A fellow Kaw Prairie friend was bemoaning the disdain and hatefulness shown to Carrie, and I agreed that we Christians over the centuries have been so hypocritical, closed-minded, power-hungry and rigid that we shouldn’t be surprised when the shoes are on the feet.
But we should admit that the disparaging, mean-spirited words we hear used against Christians like Ms. Prejean are the very reasons it’s so imperative that humble, hard-working Christians take the Gospel of Jesus Christ urgently but gently to a smug, manipulative world that needs it so badly. And why it’s so imperative to stop doing unto them like they’re doing to us.
