I've been stewing on the controversy swirling around Carrie Prejean for some time now. More than I usually would with such a story, and I think it has to do with the fundamental disconnect between the actions Carrie Prejean and those like her take in the name of the same figure, Jesus Christ, whose teachings they say guide their lives.

This wasn't quite the tack I was going to take. I was going to hold forth on the cost of Carrie Prejean, or at least the cost of pandering to those who share her beliefs, using the stories of Lt. Dan Choi and Alan Turing. Lt. Choi and Turing still will figure into it, but the sermon I heard at church today brought things into focus for me. It was delivered by the Rt. Rev. James Tengatenga, Anglican Bishop of Southern Malawi, on the command to love. I hope to post a link to the audio soon; it was an eloquent homily that managed to bring in Fiddler On the Roof and the rock group Foreigner. I will post a link to the audio as soon as it's available.

So swirling through my head during this sermon were the stories of Lt. Dan Choi, and Dr. Alan Turing. Choi, as many of you probably already know, faces a dishonorable discharge for admitting he was gay on The Rachel Maddow Show. So far as we know, Lt. Choi did not violate any of the Army's fraternization rules; the soldiers of his unit apparently knew of Choi's sexual orientation and didn't care. Because of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and not because of any misconduct on Dan Choi's part, we are going to lose the services of a West Point graduate who is fluent in Arabic. Are American Arabic speakers such an abundant resource we can afford to throw them away? 

Or consider the life and tragic death of Alan Turing. The DailyKos diarist Dbug wrote an excellent diary outlining Turing's life and death. Turing is the father of the computer age, coming up with the idea of the multipurpose programmable computer years before the first one was built. Just as significantly, he enabled the British to break the German Enigma code at the beginning of World War II. The diary goes into great detail about Enigma, but suffice it to say that the Enigma encoder was a mechanical computer that the Germans believed to be unbreakable. And it would have been, if the British had had to rely on brute-force human computing. After the British acquired an Enigma machine, Turing invented a machine called Ultra that succeeded in breaking the code.

Turing was gay, but none of this mattered when he was saving Britain from Hitler. Less than a decade later, however, Turing was arrested for homosexual conduct. He never bothered denying his sexual preference; mostly, Alan Turing wanted to be left alone to do his work. He agreed to take female hormones to "cure" him of homosexuality, but couldn't find work anywhere. Growing increasingly depressed, Turing likely committed suicide by breathing cyanide vapor. He staged this to look like a lab accident. He was only in his 50s, and we will never know what else might have come from his amazing mind.

Lt. Choi loves his country; Alan Turing loved his. Neither have asked for much, just to be able to do what they love to do.

Carrie Prejean, along with many who share her opposition to gay marriage and ending Don't Ask Don't Tell and ensuring that the GLBT community has equal rights generally. But Christ's command to love doesn't come with any conditionals. Ms. Prejean should love her fellow humans enough to let them live their lives in peace and freedom, not depriving us of the services of a Dan Choi or the genius of an Alan Turing ; she should love her country enough to accord others the freedoms she herself enjoys and takes full advantage of. 

How 'bout it, Ms. Prejean? Can you follow the command to love? 

Update: Here is the audio of Bishop Tengatenga's sermon. It begins after the gospel reading.