Following Up on the Gay Culture issue. I am challenged by Mathewes-Green's "gay rights" approach, which I discuss in the immediately preceding post. In another section of her Gender book, she refers to efforts she made to dialog with Pro-Choice advocates. She either created or promoted a group called "Common Ground" that sought a dialog between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. She apparently had some success with this.

In a recent talk that I heard Steve Covey make, he also talks about productive dialogs between pro-life and pro-choice advocates.

All weekend I was thinking about whether a similar dialog could be set up between "evangelical" Christians and "gay rights" advocates. (I put "evangelical" in quotes, because I am about to think that the word has no real utility any more, if it ever did. What's the matter with the descriptive of simply "Christian"? I remember 15 years ago thinking "born-again Christian" was either redundant or divisive, and I'm glad that this moniker has mostly passed out of usage. I am about to think "evangelical Christian" is similarly useless or even unhelpful and divisive.)

I know a lawyer here in Miami who is quite prominent in roughly the same area of law in which I practice. I have known him for many, many years on a professional basis. We are friendly, but the relationship is not one of friendship (or enmity). We just know and respect each other professionally. (Which, when I think about it, is no small thing.) This lawyer is prominent, even a leader, in the gay community. (I don't like the descriptive "gay" either. But "they" seem to like it. Maybe its Christian to refer to "them" with a descriptive that "they" are comfortable with. Wow - this word-choice matter is one to approach with great care, no?) My thinking is to call him up and suggest that we have lunch and see if there is any "common ground" as Mathewes-Green would say. This lawyer is culturally Jewish too.

I will post my progress.