Love Rules.

“Love Rules.” That’s the text message I received from Greg this afternoon. Eagerly, I had messaged him earlier in the day after hearing that the California Supreme Court overturned the ban on same-sex marriage. I had texted something like “YAY California!,” I think. It was the first time I felt a real sense of pride about living in this state, one foreign to my upbringing.

Greg is one of the many LGBT friends and mentors I have encountered during the last four years at Santa Clara. Like any other demographic, some of these friends are in long-term relationships, others are single, and some are other places in between. They are some of the most important people in my life, whatever their relationship status. Having said that, I cannot describe the overwhelming sense of joy and relief and justice that I felt when I heard this great political news today. Marriage (or no marriage) never affected my view of LGBT people or their romantic relationships–I naturally think of some couples I know as if they were married, just like my own parents–but in this very concrete judicial decision I had a deep sense of how much it symbolically mattered for my friends’ lives, and the many ways in which this tangible stride toward equality had the potential to inform the ways they are perceived by others.

“Love Rules” –those two little words captured the relatively recent formation of my own views about LGBTQ folk. I came to college generally indifferent about gay and lesbian people. I knew few, especially those who were out, and honestly, if I were asked about homosexuality I would have likely said, “It is probably wrong,” hesitantly referencing the Bible or popular Christian reasonings on the issue. It was not until I fell in love with certain people, and experienced the genuine goodness of their love and faith and hope–only to discover later that these individuals were gay and lesbian people–that I came to realize that I could not, actually, “hate the sin but love the sinner.” It was impossible to love as Jesus loved while “hating” a formative aspect of their identity. Just as I easily recognized that no one could hate women but really love ME, I could not separate my love and affection for my friends from their sexualities.

Love ruled–it won out over the awkwardness of unfamiliarity, over the passages that I had once read as dismissals of homosexuality, over the fear I held about standing up to my community–especially my Christian community–on an issue that many people would hold against me.

And isn’t that the kind of love we associate with God? A love that can overrule all of our pre-conceptions? A love that is bigger than even the supposed Christian truths that we try to glimpse with our human minds? If we ultimately believe that Love Rules above all, then we are necessarily vulnerable to surprise. To changing our minds. To being overturned.

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