On February 5, 2004, I faced an audience of some 500 people, over 300 of whom were avowed lesbians, on the topic: "Is Same-Sex Marriage Good for the Nation?" My guest, Amy Hunt, was a leader with the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus.

One student, a member of Smith Christian Fellowship, sat among some twenty avowed lesbians as the forum began. They were chortling about how I was going to be chewed up and made ready for shark bait, and they were ready for it. But as the forum progressed, they started to complain about me: "HeВ’s too gracious..."

During the forum itself, I made three observations among others. First, I told the student body, and others in attendance, that I wanted them all to succeed in attaining the fruit of GodВ’s image В– peace, order, stability and hope; to live, to love, to laugh and to learn. The question is how we best achieve these goals, whether on GodВ’s terms, or on our own broken terms.

Second, I stated that I did not want one inch of greater liberty to speak what I believe, than the liberty I first commend to those who disagree with me. The Golden Rule in political context. And third, I stated that if any homosexual person there happened to be facing danger, and I were in position to intervene to protect his or her life, I would do so instinctively.

During the question and answer period, one lesbian activist, and one male homosexual activist, both said remarkably similar words В– that my opposition to same-sex marriage was "doing violence" to them. I then asked, "Do you mean that I am doing violence to you because I disagree with you?" I could have reversed the moment and said, "Does it mean that you are doing violence to me if you disagree with me?" I did not, and had I done so, I would have lost the moment, and forfeited the ethics of the Gospel which it to love our enemies, and not to accuse them. Even if they accuse us falsely.

These are people full of anger, so often against the chosen absence of their biological fathers, and the harm that absence visited upon their lives. They have adopted an ersatz homosexual identity, my presence affronts them regardless of how gracious I may be, and thus I become a surrogate against whom to express their anger. They needed to make me angry so as to justify their anger. When I did not get angry, they lost some wind in their sails.

After the forum, a lawyer approached and introduced himself to me. He had worked for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in its Goodridge decision, which legalized same-sex marriage in the Commonwealth. He asked me if I had read the decision, and I said yes. He then called me a liar several times, basically because I did not cite it during my presentation that evening. So I finally started quoting it, citing the Chief Justice in her majority opinion, her lead concurring Justice, and comments from two of the dissenting Justices. He then changed the subject.

He wanted to intimidate me into silence. After all, who was I as a minister to address legal matters? He needed to prove me out of his league and unqualified. This attempt to intimidate me into silence grew comical yet tragic. He emailed me several times afterward, having looked at my website. He was concerned with a "disturbing pattern" of me going from campus to campus "stirring up ideological antagonism toward the indigenous gay students..." and what I am doing is "very, very hateful and arrogant" and "meddlesome." He recommended that I change my occupation, diagnosed my emotional insecurity of "clinging desperately" to the Bible, and finally my need to go on a 30-day (pagan) "Insight Meditation" retreat, where I would learn to "SHUT UP AND LISTEN for a change..."

Imagine that. A biblical opinion on same-sex marriage is so rarely heard on pagan and secular campuses, and there I was at Smith College, the most pro-lesbian college in the nation, in Northampton, Massachusetts, with its reputation for the heaviest concentration of serious witchcraft. No matter my articulation of the image of God, freedom of speech and willingness to risk my life for a homosexual person В– I was being told to shut up.

These twin dangers face believers continually. If we are self-righteous, have axes to grind, and are able to be drawn into anger, we misrepresent the Gospel. If we do not speak the truth, and are intimidated into silence, we fail to represent the Gospel. To speak the truth in love is the goal. Here I grasped anew the language of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount concerning the "narrow road" of discipleship. Or perhaps more like a balance beam, which if we do not walk carefully, by the grace of God and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can fall to either side.

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When the lawyer was talking with me, a young woman interrupted him, graciously and with great poise. She said to me, "Thank you for coming. I am struggling. Can we talk sometime?" She had been an atheist, came to Christ within two weeks time, began to deal with some deep pain in her life, and began to grow wonderfully in the Lord. Then, at the end of the year, I received a note from the leader of the Smith Christian Fellowship, which reads in part: "We have been experiencing continued blessings from the forum, and I know that it was the first step in a major transformation Christ is working on this campus." I pray so.

When we are free of anger and intimidation, when we create a level playing field for all sides to be heard equally, when we accept the hardest questions of our adversaries with grace, when our goal is to see reconciled relationships more than merely winning a debate, the Gospel is advanced. Anger silences itself, pensiveness can happen, and the goodness of the Good News can be perceived as we serve the work of the Holy Spirit.