When Krista and Jami Contreras took their daughter Bay for her first pediatric visit, they were surprised to learn that the pediatrician they had selected, Dr. Vesna Roi, had decided not to accept Bay as a patient because they were lesbians. Dr. Karam who informed the Contrerases of Dr. Roi’s decision and said she would be Bay’s doctor delivered the news. Dr. Roi said she had prayed about it and did not think she would “be able to develop the personal patient doctor relationship that I normally do with my patients.”
According to their attorney, Dana Nessel, the Contrerases did not want to publicize the matter initially, “But now they think it’s important to come forward. It’s a matter of letting people know that this is a real thing that really goes on.” Of course they do. Same-sex couples think that everyone, including conscientious Christians, should accept their chosen lifestyle as normal and natural despite what the Scriptures teach.
There have already been some discrimination cases of a baker refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, and a photographer who did not want to take pictures at a same-sex couple’s wedding. But these are not even in the same category as refusing health care to a child.
We are in the midst of a major societal shift, and witnesses to the capitulation to the homosexual lifestyle by our culture and the courts. Christians can expect in the foreseeable future to be confronted by same-sex couples that will demand acceptance and services. What’s a Christian to do?
Honesty compels me to ask, Would Dr. Roi have turned away the child of a heterosexual couple who live together without benefit of marriage, or a single woman whose child had been born out of wedlock? Does she pick her patients based on the specific sin of the parents? How would she reconcile her decision with the words of Christ who told us “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets,” Matthew 7:12?
Things are going to get messy as the Church negotiates the learning curve of same-sex relationships and how to reach out to them in love without condoning their behavior. And regardless of how intolerant and petty they treat us, we have a God ordained obligation to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” Matthew 6:44.
Rather than disengage and withdraw from interaction with same-sex couples, I think Christians should seek to be the salt and light we are called to be. After all, our witness may be the only Gospel influence they ever have, and by engaging them we obey Paul’s admonition, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” Romans 12:21.
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