To the Journal editor;

On Saturday, several of my friends shared with me photos of a beautiful rainbow over Marquette.

On the same day, many people also shared with me images condemning the use of the rainbow as a symbol of the LGBTQ community over it’s religious significance.

But that got me thinking of just what the rainbow symbolizes and why I, as a man of faith, applaud it’s use by the LGBTQ community.

The rainbow is first mentioned in the Jewish and Christian bibles at the end of the story of Noah’s Ark.

It symbolized a bow and arrow being unstrung and rested on the ground. God symbolically “dropped His guns” and made a gesture of peace after the greatest gesture of wrath in the whole of scripture. It was a sign that God didn’t hate us. That’s a message that gets lost in the noise of the culture wars almost daily.

God doesn’t hate people for existing, especially people who’ve already faced hatred and rejection from those they love on a regular basis.

The LGBTQ community has heard that they’re going to hell on a daily basis. But I wonder, has anyone ever invited them to Heaven, told them that they are wonderfully made in the image of God? (Psalm 139:14), that gender is irrelevant in Heaven? (Matt. 22:25-30), that Jesus likes them and understands them?

This is the Gospel, yet I don’t hear it anymore over the cries of obscenities hurled by people who should be brothers in faith.

I bring this back to the rainbow as a perfect symbol for the LGBTQ community, because it’s important to know that God is at peace with them.

This isn’t meant to be a shallow dodge of the harm that hate rhetoric has done, but as a first step to healing that injustice.

I replied to my friends who shared the rainbow picture that God had kicked off Pride Month in style for them and I believe it.

This is God’s invitation to meet under that rainbow and live in the peace with other that we so sorely need. This is the invitation I extend this June.