"normal family networks"??!?!

I'm grateful for the overall sentiment in the editorial, but this phrase really bothers me. I also resent the implication that we have to choose between supporting inclusion and supporting "normal" families. Inclusion is the way that we support ALL families and there is no one norm, not even in Scripture, which condones family arrangements that would make most Episcopal clergy blush.

One of the most fundamental logical fallacies in the anti-gay argument is that people who are gay pose some kind of threat to individual heterosexual families. Lord knows anybody trying to raise a family has no shortage of challenges to deal with. However, the fact that somebody with no connection to that family is gay is not one of them.

It is of course tied up with the notion that being gay is a moral choice rather than a biological reality. Thus they want to claim a homosexual conspiracy to recruit innocent straights from the hetro cause. Given the best available information about the prevalence of homosexuality, it hasn't been a particularly successful conspiracy.

I agree about the use of the word "normal." I like the notion that we are all seeing through a glass darkly and working over time toward deeper understanding.

Frankly, I resent the implication about family networks being only a heterosexual reality, as if we who are lgbt aren't part of larger family networks within our extended families and our parishes and don't form families of our own which bear the faith. This little snippet is understated heterosexism and still suggests implicitly that we are a part of the whole as contrasted to "normal". What is the norm is not necessarily what is normative...and such "normal" doesn't even begin to recognize religious communities as families or the many single parents around the world who too are families.

These two links are quite useful in thinking about family more broadly in a Christian context:

http://www.new-ostrog.org/fam_bearer.html

http://www.new-ostrog.org/fam_vocation.html

And I dispute the statement that "it is theological nonsense that the Holy Spirit might lead people in different directions."

Why ever not?

But then I accept that there are other valid paths to God besides Christianity.

A MacArthur writes: 'And I dispute the statement that "it is theological nonsense that the Holy Spirit might lead people in different directions.' Why ever not?"

Why ever not, indeed. Maybe it's as though different ones of us are led to work on different sections of a jigsaw puzzle. We shouldn't be surprised that we're not seeing the same things. We can, however, hope that someday we'll be led to put the whole thing together, and then we'll see what the real picture is.

I think the Holy Spirit can lead people in different directions as part of a process through which we get to the Truth. But I do believe in Truth with a capital T.

I understand and appreciate what the editorial is trying to say, but I too read that sentence and rolled my eyes. Maybe the use of the phrase "normal family networks" in opposition to gay and lesbian inclusiveness, as if it never occured to them that this would offend some readers, points to a cultural divide between the C of E authors and those of us across the pond. It's hard to imagine that kind fo false dichotomy coming from any but the most conservative TEC publication in the US, where people are increasingly realizing that "normal family networks" include gays and lesbians. It makes me realize how hard it is to separate theological disputes from culture, when we have such a fundamental differences in our understanding of what constitutes "normal."