Jars of Clay frontman Dan Haseltine shocks Christian fans with gay marriage support

Beginning on Tuesday, April 21st, Dan Haseltine, front man for the popular Christian band Jars of Clay, took to Twitter to announce his apparent support for same-sex “marriage.” The tweets came all week and then Haseltine responded with a Friday blog post.

“The treatment of people as less than human based on the color of skin is crazy… Or gender, or sexual orientation for that matter,” he tweeted. “Not meaning to stir things up BUT… Is there a non-speculative or non ‘slippery slope’ reason why gays shouldn’t marry? I don’t hear one.”

Haseltine’s blog post detail a bigger picture: how he hadn’t given gay rights much thought and his tweets were in direct response to a panel discussion he had witnessed.

He then explains how watching “12 Years a Slave” is tied to his comments.

The film had such incredible storytelling and superb acting that gave faces and souls to the men, women and children trapped in slavery.  The thing that continued to swirl around my mind was a scene when one of the slave owners was quoting scripture to slaves.  He was using the words to drive home a point about his supremacy over the slaves, and the wrath they would face if they were disobedient.

He was mis-using scripture to back up his acts of oppression toward another human.  He was using scripture to back up his idea that slaves were less than human, and so should not be given the rights of humans.

I would not say that the issues of slavery, which are tied to color and race, clearly mirror the issues of gay rights.  But for some reason, all the questions I had surrounding gay marriage came rushing back.

Haseltine wrote: “Never liked the phrase: “Scripture clearly says…(blank) about…” Because most people read and interpret scripture wrong,  I don’t think scripture “clearly” states much of anything regarding morality.”

Yeah…. That was definitely not my intended point.  This was also met with a great amount of negative feedback.

So, that said, Twitter is a great place to share selfies and a horrible forum for discussions and a bad place to communicate under the fog of jetleg…which leads me to this:

His apology (part of it)

It was a poor choice of venue on my part.  I chose some of my words poorly.  And I was unable to moderate the conversation in such a way that it kept everyone’s views with a shared validity and civility as I had hoped.    And so, I am not going to continue the conversation on that forum.  I do apologize for causing such a negative stir.

So add Jars of Clay to the list of celebrities who wander into the world of sensitive social issues and step on a land mine.

Jars of Clay photo/Ian Muttoo Flickr