I don’t know who this deacon is, but I do know that Northern Illinois is a lost, unbelieving conference. Their former bishop, Joseph Sprague, forced a conservative pastor friend of mine out of the denomination....not officially, but nonetheless true. Sprague led them down the path to hell and ruined that conference, probably for generations.
Many tried to bring Sprague to trial, but he always played spin-doctor with his answers and was unwilling to say for the official record what he’d said in other places.
How does gay marriage hurt me?
It is a negative, sea-change in the society in which we are trying to rear healthy, rational children.
It has my government endorsing disease by endorsing major vectors of disease.
It endorses the recruitment of the young to a deadly lifestyle, because homosexuality only endures through recruitment.
Yes and the more we watch TV serials the more we come to "accept" it. Have you noticed that nearly every TV serial in the 90s had a sympathetic gay friend? Take "Friends" -- I noticed that it subtly changed MY attitudes to gays.
We "tolerate" sleeping together before marriage, "staying together" etc. -- so the next stage is acceptance of "gay marriage".
This comes from "letting society take the lead and the church playing catch-up"