THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502240034
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Pat Robertson was right not to meet with Mel White on the very highly charged issue of gays in religion. ``Christians battle over belief'' (news, Feb. 10) reported that Mel White was seeking an audience with Robertson to present his case.
White makes the mistake of using Matthew 18 to try to bring the two parties together. White didn't do his homework. This chapter has nothing to do with compromise. Jesus is teaching a basic doctrine of the faith involving one brother who sins against another.
Our Lord takes this through several steps ending with the following: If he will not listen (meaning the one who has sinned), treat him as though he were a stranger or tax collector (meaning one who can't be trusted).
Homosexuality is simply unacceptable, and he who involves himself in such activities will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
MONROE WILLIAMS
Virginia Beach, Feb. 14, 1995
I was intrigued by the letter (Feb. 17) regarding the Mel White/Pat Robertson controversy. The author chides your newspaper for reporting their differences, but most troubling is his tirade regarding Mel White's double life. He misses the point that Pat Robertson and his followers are helping to assure this very (secret) life.
Would your writer classify a Jew who sought subterfuge rather than death a traitor? One need not look only to Nazi Germany to see the horrors of ethnic and religious cleansing. The horror is alive today in Bosnia, Somalia and Ethiopia, and its stirrings can be felt in America.
The Christian Coalition and the religious right cloak themselves in the words of Jesus Christ but many of their leadership are neither Christian nor right, and their agenda is not built upon the tenets of Jesus Christ but upon self-aggrandizement and personal power.
If people are going to use the Bible and Christ's life as the yardstick against which we are measured, then they need to take to heart Christ's admonitions about loving one another as he has loved us.
Jesus Christ taught goodness, love and, yes, tolerance for its own sake, not for a quota of contributions or to further some political agenda.
We are all different. Our God made us that way, and we need to work to live together with tolerance and compassion.
JOHN E. PARKER
Norfolk, Feb. 20, 1995
In response to a letter from Tommy Steele (Feb. 7): I have to assume that Mr. Steele does not know Mel White and that he thinks he does not know any lesbian or gay person.
The church and society have taught the lie that people who are homosexual are so by choice. That might be true for some people who have engaged in same-gender sex by choice. These people can change. But the people whom Mel White represents are living out their lives as they were born. They cannot change their sexual orientation any more than can the heterosexual.
I have so many friends who ``lived the lie,'' as Mr. Steele puts it, because they tried to be ``straight'' and got married under pressure of family, church and society. But a lie cannot be lived with, and so, when they told ``the truth'' and came out of the closet, they met the onslaught of horror dealt out by those who assume the role of judges.
Mel White is trying to deal with that kind of situation which we find in every community in America. I am happy to stand with Mel White, for my desire is that everyone might live in peace and in the love that we all profess.
The Rev. BOB BRADFORD
Virginia Beach, Feb. 14, 1995
Mel White, former ghostwriter for Pat Robertson, thinks that Robertson's attitudes toward homosexuals contribute to unethical, illegal and cruel treatment of gays and lesbians. His request to discuss this with Mr. Robertson seems on the face of it to be a reasonable one. As witness to the seriousness of his request, White is now in a fast at the Virginia Beach jail, having been arrested for trespassing at CBN.
The Rev. JULIA DORSEY LOOMIS
Virginia Beach, Feb. 18, 1995 by CNB