Novelist Anne Rice says gay rights, in
particular gay marriage, challenges the Christian faith.
Last summer Rice created a firestorm of
controversy when she quit the Roman Catholic Church. She said at the
time that she was driven out by the church's anti-gay rhetoric.
It wasn't the first time she had
shunned religion. At the age of 18, Rice, who had been raised
Catholic, became an atheist.
But in 1998, she returned to the church
after experiencing a religious awakening and for the next decade she
devoted herself to write exclusively Christian-themed novels, such as
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.
“Today I quit being a Christian,”
Rice announced on her Facebook page. “I'm out.”
In a videotaped conversation with her
son Christopher Rice, an openly gay novelist, posted
on the website of The
Advocate, Rice said Christians were challenged by the notion
that gay and lesbian people could lead healthy, productive lives.
“I think the main reason Christians
and Catholics are going through this crisis with gay culture is they
cannot face the reality that they are seeing before their eyes. The
reality is that good, wholesome, productive gay people exist in all
walks of life in our country and in other countries,” Rice
explained. “They are at war with information.”
“They cannot bear the thought that
two good gay people could have two adoptive children and get up
before an altar or a judge and exchange vows and live a good family
life.”
“These Christians now have to face
the fact that this information is just flooding in. Gay people are
people. Gay people are good people. Gay people are wholesome
people.”
“It calls into question everything
they believe about sin and salvation. That the narrow way is to
Jesus Christ and that anybody who doesn't take it and who is a sinner
is going to hell.”
“They have to face the fact that all
these good people are not living as degenerate sinners… They want
gays to be sinners. They want you to be a sinner and they want you
to behave like a sinner and they want you to fail like one. And it's
driving them crazy that you're not doing that.”