As you may have seen on Twitter the last couple of days, Jars of Clay frontman Dan Haseltine found himself in a bit of controversy after posting some thoughts about the issue of gay marriage. Earlier last week, he posted the question, “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” on Twitter. Unsurprisingly, there was a large response—with lots of opinions. And, as these sorts of Twitter discussions tend to go, things got heated. Leading up to today’s post on his personal site (which you should definitely read), Haseltine’s thoughts were the target of numerous Christian bloggers and writers, who essentially dissected his every Tweet. Several days and several dozen Tweets later, Haseltine posted a lengthy blog post apologizing for “causing such a negative stir,” clarifying some of his statements, providing context for the conversation and giving some background as to where he was personally coming from.
In my questions and dialogue with people on Twitter, it became evident that the issue I had chosen to discuss was far too personal, nuanced, and deeply connected to faith and our human condition to honor the amount of wrestling that others have done on this topic … 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.
You can read the entire blog post here …
