Recently, I found myself inspired by an open letter written to New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy by Jon Raj, who just happens to be a gay father. Raj felt moved to respond to Murphy’s claim that per his Christian beliefs he “disagrees” with homosexuality and the “homosexual lifestyle.” Perhaps Murphy felt justified in using the public forum provided him by his stellar performance in this year’s Major League Baseball playoffs to broadcast the toxic admixture of his love for Jesus Christ and homophobia. What he clearly failed to take into account is that words can have impacts he might have been able to foresee if he’d merely taken the time to exercise even the barest minimum of compassion.
In thinking about Murphy’s use of his Christian beliefs to justify his bigotry, I felt moved to write an open letter of my own. With the World Series beginning tonight, it seemed a good time to focus on Murphy’s self-righteous hypocrisy. This is my own attempt to voice my dismay with yet another self-professed “Christian” who uses their faith to justify bigotry and homophobia in no way supported by the teachings of the Jesus Christ they claim to “surrender” to.
27 October 2015
Daniel Murphy:
The sports fan in me is happy for you and the success you and your team have found in this year’s postseason. Your career until now, as with the Mets’ history of futility and misfortune, provide inspiration to those looking to understand what can happen when you’re willing to work hard with no guarantee of success.
If you’d left things there, your story would be one widely celebrated and upheld as an example of an athlete who perseveres in the face of long odds. Unfortunately, you’ve chosen to use your newfound celebrity and renown to give voice to some truly, disturbingly objectionable religious bigotry. That you’ve compounded that bigotry by claiming the imprimatur of your flavor of God displays how little respect you have for those whose life and sexuality differ from your own.
Whether you choose to believe it or not, your position makes you a role model. Like it or not, this means your words and stated beliefs can and often do have an impact far greater than they deserve. You’re an athlete- and an accomplished one- but you’re not a philosopher, a deep thinker, or even a very good representative for the Christian faith you claim informs your existence.
To your point that members of the LGBT community “choose” their lifestyle, I would ask only one question: Did you choose to be heterosexual? Did you wake up one morning and realize that you were at a crossroad and that it was time to choose? No, I suspect you didn’t. You live your life as a heterosexual man because that’s the way you were born, and never felt the need to give it a second thought. It’s no different for gays, lesbians, or any other sexual orientation you don’t understand or that you disagree with. That others express their sexuality differently from you doesn’t make them wrong or sinful. It just makes them different…and every bit as worthy of being treated with dignity and compassion as you. Would that you could somehow see your way past you prejudice and self-righteousness.
You, like most of us, are likely surrounded by people in your life who happen not to be heterosexual. They may choose to stay in the closet…or they may simply decide that their sexuality and how they choose to express that in their private, personal life is no one else’s damned business. Whatever the case, their are undoubtedly gay people in your life whose sexual orientation is neither advertised nor subject to public knowledge.
Heterosexuals may be a pronounced majority in our culture, but that doesn’t mean that by default they’re the only morally acceptable sexual beings out there. There may well be a gay or bisexual player or three in your locker room. Does that make them less worthy? Less moral? Less capable? Of course not; they’re ballplayers just like you. They want to win championships and perform at a high level because that’s what athletes do. What they do behind closed doors has nothing to do with their abilities or performance on the field. More imporantly, it’s none of your damned business.
You may think that being a Christian gives you the right to spread your beliefs whenever someone sticks a camera or a microphone in front of your face, but spreading hatred, bigotry, and homophobia has nothing to do with Christianity. Jesus Christ never preached against homosexuality; in fact, the Gospel is about love, tolerance, compassion, and acceptance…things evidently absent from your judgmental, self-righteous theology.
Rather than go off on a long, emotional rant about your demonstrable theological hypocrisy, let me turn the tables for a moment, and I’ll use your surname as an example. In the mid-19th century, Irish immigrants were denigrated as ignorant, dirty, and subhuman (“No blacks or Irish need apply”). So what if someone had won a playoff game with a home run and then said during a postgame interview that he “disagrees” with the Irish and the “Irish lifestyle?” Sounds pretty offensive and astonishingly ignorant and dismissive, no? Yet an argument could be made that you did the very same thing with your self-superior pronouncement that you “disagree” with the “homosexual lifestyle.”
What you may not realize, or simply choose not to acknowledge, is that there are those of us who “don’t agree” with the “Christian lifestyle,” only because your Christianity has little if anything to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Your “Christian lifestyle” seems composed of equal parts self-righteousness, homophobia, and self-superiority- all wrapped in a nice little bow and perched atop a dusty, unused Bible. Fortunately, I know Christians whose “Christian lifestyle” has everything to do with leading a Christ-like life and who endeavor to model things like love, tolerance, compassion, and acceptance. Your Christain faith seems oddly devoid of those qualities.
I get that you feel in your heart that you’re sincerely trying to live your beliefs- and you may well be. It’s just that those beliefs have nothing to do with what the Lord and Savior you claim informs every aspect of your life actually taught. For openly displaying an astonishing degree of un-Christian judgmental hypocrisy, you’ve been roundly and deservedly pilloried by those who accept people for who they are and judge them on the content of their character- not who they share their bed with.
For your sake, I hope you will humbly accept the reaction and see it for the learning experience it should be. The Jesus Christ you claim to revere loved all and judged none; would you could see your way clear to doing the same.
Sincerely,
Jack Cluth
WWJD InterGalactic Headquarters
3100 NW Southeast Dr.
Portland, OR, 97210
