Faith Perspective: How Does the Bible Inform Our View on Same-Sex Marriage?

During my morning devotions today I was having some trouble finding the passages I was looking for in the Bible. The light was dim, my sleepy eyes were unfocused and my fingers fumbled with the thin pages.

After a while, I stopped fumbling and just held the Bible in my hands. I thought about the sweep of the stories found in that book and how the whole of scripture has informed my thinking and being and doing over many decades.

My morning reading got me to thinking about perspective and how people look at life. Sometimes our focus is on the very specific, the very concrete and sometimes we take a longer, more general view.

The debate about same-sex marriage has some of these elements in the mix. People of faith from all faiths see the same issue quite differently. We often look at particular passages in the Bible and see specific things written on topics such as homosexuality, but just as often we look at the whole of scripture at reflect on how the book in general views humanity.

If I were to summarize the whole of scripture into one word, that word would be love. It was love that caused God to create humanity; it was love that caused God to redeem the world again and again. There are even some passages in scripture that say specifically that God is love (1 John 4:7-8).

So how does that inform our discussion about same-sex relationships? What would be the most helpful perspective for people of faith--looking at the Bible as a whole or looking at some very specific scriptures?

What is your take on this topic?