A week and a half ago, 49 people were shot and killed at a gay night club in Orlando. Multitudes have taken to the web (myself now included) to comment on how we should respond to this tragedy. Each person who says anything is standing on some moral high ground from which they’re condemning or approving of other people’s responses. Let’s be honest: we’re all making judgments. Even if your message is “Stop judging, just love people!” guess what, you’re making moral judgments. I’m going to make some judgments too, because my hope is to help us all “judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24).

​The lion’s share of Christian responses I’ve seen to what happened in Orlando have been some version of “let’s not make judgments right now—our job as Christians is just to love, weep, mourn, comfort,” etc.

First, a confession of my own sin…

In a recent blog post, Julie Rodgers indicates her predictable movement from believing that Christians can call themselves gay and still be Christians to plainly approving of same-sex romantic relationships. She writes, "I've become increasingly troubled by the unintended consequences of messages that insist all LGBT people commit to lifelong celibacy."

In Rodgers's mind, there appear to be only two possible ways of proceeding for the "gay Christian": either you commit to lifelong celibacy (the option insisted on by gay-harming Conservatives) or you give yourself to a same-sex "marriage." But are these really the only two options?