The presence and purpose of Karmen Temple’s article entitled “Christ would accept gays” appears quite dubious and presumptuous.

It seems that the ISU Daily considers it more noteworthy to expand it’s opinion page for the sake of a controversial article rather than cover significant events on campus such as the presence of the campus evangelist, Tom Short, at the Hub last Wednesday and Thursday.

Tom maintained crowds of over 150 people for over five hours on both days with over 500 students each day, and yet the Daily never mentioned a word of its occurrence (other than an exaggerated, opinionated cartoon).

Oddly enough, the Daily did deem it appropriate to go out of its way to print an article from The Daily Trojan on a topic that was inflammatory and completely indefensible.

For Temple to put words, beliefs or attitudes in the mouth of Jesus on the moral topic of homosexuality is precarious at best, absurd at worst. Jesus’ lack of comment on this issue, which is often used as a support for the behavior, actually speaks louder than words.

It says a lot for Jesus to have never spoken out against the stance of the people of his time and culture that not only considered homosexuality a sin, but its practice a capital offense!

What says even more for Jesus is when he clearly stated that “…at the beginning, the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and ‘for this reason a man will … be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'” (Matt. 19:4,5), but he never seized the opportunity to include, “by the way, that includes a man and a man and a woman and a woman as well.”

Jesus never supported or endorsed homosexuality, but rather he strongly taught on moral purity and the sanctity of marriage. He condemned lust, sexual relations outside of marriage and hypocritical teaching that would justify immoral behavior as the Word of God.

The love that Jesus spoke of was to deal justly and honestly with your neighbor and not to blindly accept your neighbor’s behavior, especially one’s sexual behavior.

The true love of God is practiced by deeds of kindness or demonstrated in words of correction and serious rebuke.

Love does what is best for the individual it is directed at, and that is not always a pat on the back saying “you’re OK, I’m OK.”

Out of love, therefore, I beseech the homosexual and the sexually immoral of any construct to cease living a lifestyle that will hurt, cripple — if not prematurely end — your life.

This is the same attitude as the Apostle Paul who urged us to imitate him as he imitated Christ. This is no better seen than in I Cor 6:9-11 which states:

“Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders … will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

It would have been much more professional and loving for the Daily to have refrained from printing Temple’s erroneous and unloving opinion and instead printed an article expounding on the presence and truly loving, biblical position of Tom Short while on campus.

Tim Borseth

Alumnus