| B-A
Mission Statement
and the A/B, D/E Divides |
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B-A
Mission
Bridges-Across is a cyberspace initiative providing models and resources for building respectful relationships among those who disagree about moral issues surrounding homosexuality, bisexuality and gender variance.
The Divides There are, of course many sides to the homosexuality debate. We use the letters A and B (and C) to label beliefs
about the morality of homosexual relationships.
SideA: There are people from many backgrounds who for religious or other reasons believe that homosexual relationships have the same value as heterosexual relationships. SideB: And there are those of many faiths who disgree, believing that only a male/female relationship in marriage is the Creator's intent for our sexuality. SideC: No categorical statement about whether SideA or SideB is correct.
Reverend Buehler writes: But there is another divide which exists within both camps, and that divide I will term Method. Here's the Method divide, and at the risk of getting into toxic levels of alphabet soup I'll call it side D and side E. MethodD: The proper approach to people on the other side is to denounce them, avoid them, keep them away from the children, name them as dangerously evil and do whatever must be done to either change them or silence them. Government should be called in at some level to make sure this happens. MethodE: The proper approach to people on the other side is to recognize their humanity, try to hear them, love them, learn where their pain is, and stand in solidarity with them as human beings in opposition to the approach taken by D. The difference between these methods is the difference between coercion and openness, fear and love, control and vulnerability, violence and nonviolence. In my opinion, the way of Jesus brings us to E. It seems to me that Bridges Across is really about doing evangelism to convert people, not from A to B or vice versa, but from D to E. We do recruit. We do agree about method. We do disagree with people on both sides whose methods conform more to D.
The Mad Scientist writes: For some, the "divides" that have become a common part of the Bridges-Across glossary may still seem unclear, so an illustration might help. The A vs. B and D vs. E axes can be thought of as different dimensions characterizing "where" a person is with regards to the Homosexuality Divide and the Culture War associated with it. "A&B" has to do with the morality and/or Creator's intent for same-gender relationships, and D&E has to do with the response and/or implementation of those convictions (whether A or B). That is, pRR is a subset of Side B which in this depiction would be located in the lower right quadrant of the square, because the methods tend to be "D" rather than "E", and so on in a continuum. And visa-versa for possible approaches taken by Side A.  Side A represents the left, blue-ish half of the square, and therefore, TLS (SteveS) Side-E types are in the green-tinged, upper left quadrant, and the Side-D "anti" (disrespectful) types are in the indigo-tinged,lower left quadrant. Side C represents the vertical center-line. Bridgers who are cannot make a categorial statement about whether A or B is correct are located in the top center. |
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