Originally posted to www.davidjdunn.com.
When people call you a blasphemer, Christ-denier, a defender of tyranny and an apologist for Babel, who cares more about impressing liberal academics than listening to the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church, the best response is almost always silence. My general practice is to avoid confrontations with anyone who believes him/herself capable of knowing me in 1,500 words or less. But for Fr. Johannes Jacobse and some of his readers, I am going to make an exception. Fr. Jacobse is involved with a call-in radio show I will appear on this Sunday (June 17). Even though his article did not speak for the show or its station, I thought it might be wise to offer potential listeners/callers a short “intellectual memoir” of my involvement in the gay marriage debate over the past year. I do not intend to change anyone’s mind. I only hope that offering a little insight into my intentions and motives might help us have a more substantive conversation — one focused more on the issues than speculations about my character.
Last July, I published a blog in the Huffington Post on gay marriage. I used New York’s decision to legalize gay marriage to point out that a sacrament is not the same as a civil contract. Relationships other people call “marriage” has no bearing upon what we believe marriage to be. But some readers missed the point. Either they did not pick up on the double sense of the term “marriage,” or they simply assumed that anyone not wagging a Pharisaical finger at gay people must be pro-gay. Of course, in my case, they would be right. But more on that in a moment.
I got my Ph.D. from Vanderbilt, which has a reputation for promoting “liberal” theology. This seems to have led some to assume I pray for the day when an Orthodox priest might hold