It means if you think gay “activity” is not for you and the couple next door are good people and openly gay, it is better to accept that than cut them off or start a feud or get hot under the collar. It means that what law-abiding consenting citizens do in private is, morally, none of your business.
There are some interesting qualifications here that seem to nuance your position to the point of it becoming a kind of meaningless policy of “niceness.”
Suppose the “couple next door” are running a meth lab and selling to teenagers and children in your neighborhood? Of course, they are no longer “law-abiding,” so I would take it that such transgressions of the law would warrant your interference.
What if the “couple next door” were sexual predators who were a potential threat to the children in the neighborhood?
You could argue that as long as they remained “law-abiding” and didn’t overtly practice their deviancy on children, they ought to be left alone because what they do as “law-abiding consenting citizens” is none of your business.
The problem, however, is that this is not an all or nothing proposition. At some point, the moral perspectives and actions of others does impact everyone. It is not as if the pragmatic alternative is to remain blind to what others do and then, suddenly, ‘wake up’ at precisely the point where their “morality” impacts you.
What each of us thinks and does, does impact others even if it is to deprive them of mentors and models for appropriate morality. Every thought and act, even those in the privacy of our own homes does affect reality.
Every word spoken and deed done in the cover of darkness will be brought to light.
Jesus said, “Whosoever looks at a woman lustfully” and “everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.” That means our thoughts and private desires can render us NOT ‘law-abiding’ in the only way that really counts - before the judgement seat of God.
Granted, this does NOT mean that putting people down for their failures and moral lapses is the pragmatic or best way of dealing with others, but, at the same time, it also does NOT mean we are simply to ignore or write them off or condone every behaviour and perspective as if these were as legitimate as any other.
There is a middle ground of speaking the truth and counseling against immoral behaviour and attitudes because even states of mind, as Jesus stated, are grave matters.
Either same sex behaviour is as legitimate as any other or it is not. If it is, then it would be appropriate to “live and let live” because no moral principles are being infringed.
However, if same sex behaviour is decidedly NOT morally appropriate then speaking the truth about that reality is required.
The question becomes a practical one of what ought to be said and how to have the greatest positive effect. If same sex behaviour transgresses the law of God in the same way that looking at women lustfully or being angry with others, and acting on same sex desires make the person liable “before God,” then we do the person no favour by counseling them that they are doing nothing wrong and their actions are no more sinful than smelling roses or petting cats.
Jesus made no qualms about clearly identifying, not just wrong behaviour, but, attitudes and states of mind that required adjustment. He didn’t qualify his words with, “Well it’s really none of my business, so pay no mind to what I just said. Live and let live.”
Either his words were the way to LIFE and ought to be heeded or they were not. We do no one any favours by watering down the message and claiming Jesus’ words merely presented one path, and other paths that incorporate sinful desires can be just as life-giving as the one Jesus recommends.
Why would Jesus speak against states of mind or emotions if he didn’t mean these needed to be ameliorated?
Again, this does not entail our options are either:
- tolerate the attitudes and behaviour of others, or
- be intolerant of the attitudes and behaviours of others to the point of crusading for eradicating any and all lapses.
The alternative you seem to be ignoring is that we can counsel and instruct in ways that can positively make a difference, beginning with our own attitudes and behaviours.
If we truly love others in the way Jesus asks us to, then we do care about their eternal well-being and would not simply let them destroy themselves and their eternal happiness merely because we rationalize “live and let live” as a kind of benign policy of non-interference.
“You do your thing and I’ll do mine” (aka live and let live) is not creating Christian community nor loving relationships, it is indoctrinating others to believe “every man IS an island onto himself.”
The paradox of Christianity is that the Transcendent is the Immanent. God becomes man. God is three persons in one nature. We are one humanity in God though also individual persons. It is both / and, we are BOTH one AND we are many, not either / or. That is the challenge.
So, if “the couple next door are good people and openly gay,” the alternatives are not merely
- accept them, or
- cut them off or start a feud or get hot under the collar.
The crux of the issue and the solution to the dilemma is to ask, “What are the alternatives if neither of those are acceptable?”
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with an argument from authority about what the law requires. Clearly there is disagreement about what God says on this, or there wouldn’t be nearly so many threads.