Oh, the innumerable ways people try to answer this question. Does God want gays to become straight? Does He just want them to lie to themselves? Does He want them to accept themselves for who they are? Does He want them to pursue loving, committed, same-sex relationships?
I mean, God is love. Doesn’t God want gay people to love?
The Christian answer would be YES. God wants gay people to love. He wants them to love Him… and to repent. But what does that even mean? What does that look like?
I am a Christian, and I have homosexual feelings. There are many voices from within the church that say this is impossible because if I were indeed a born-again Christian, I should not have homosexual temptations at all. They say that if the Holy Spirit were truly in me, I would be set free from homosexuality altogether. Rather than seeking out a solid biblical understanding of homosexuality when confronted with persons such as me, many people have just retracted back to their false legalistic views and ostracize those who struggle with same sex attraction.
Although I have same sex thoughts on a daily basis, I do not, in any way, feel compelled to ever return to a lifestyle of homosexuality. God has put His Spirit within me and created in me a new heart that views every aspect of life differently because I am finally able to see the world through life-seeking, living eyes of faith rather than the sin-stained, darkened eyes of death that I had always viewed the world through before knowing Christ. But here is where people start to get confused: although I am free from the stronghold that homosexuality had over my life, I have not been exempted from the continual temptations. There is so much confusion because many people have been led to believe, due to a plethora of false-teaching, that homosexual temptation should totally cease at the moment of conversion. Ironically, most of these people with this kind of “theology” are still tempted by sin in other various ways; but once again, they want to isolate homosexuality from all other sins and place on certain people a higher standard than the Bible places. There are some people who claim to have been instantaneously delivered from homosexual attractions in full, and I will not attempt to negate their claims. But this is not true for the majority of people, like me, who struggle with these feelings. The Bible never in any way says that we will not battle temptation; rather, it says very blatantly that temptation shall surely come! The Scriptures do not offer a promise that homosexual feelings will magically disappear when we recite a prayer or creed out loud. That kind of ideology fits much more in line with witchcraft than it does Biblical Christianity.
Having homosexual thoughts and temptations does not define our standing with God, but how we deal with these temptations should show us our standing with God. A Christian is called to repent from all sin, which includes the sin of homosexuality; so when a person is legitimately converted to Christ, they will see their sin, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and turn from it.
The books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah beautifully lay out the renewing work that God would do in His people through His Son Jesus Christ. He said that He would take out their heart of stone which was evil and opposed to God’s ways, and in its place give us a heart of flesh which would yearn for His presence and overflow with love for Him. Because of this divine transformational process, true Christianity is not bondage, but freedom! The regenerated Christian does not unwillingly submit to the laws of God, but he or she now joyously pursues God and His holiness while forsaking their sin. The genuine Christian has a new nature which is completely opposite of that which they had from physical birth. They yearn for God, delight in the Law of God, and passionately want to do what is pleasing in His sight. Biblical Christianity is not about refraining from all the wicked things you love and doing all of the righteous thing you hate, but it is a miraculous transformation by which you now love the righteousness you once hated and abhor the wickedness that you once loved.
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”- Ezekiel 36:25-27
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”- Jeremiah 31:33
Though the child of God strives in repentance, we all fall at times; and when I say all I mean all. There is not a Christian out there who has had a perfect repentance, and if they think that they have they are guilty of the sin of pride. But as a whole, the person that is regenerated by the Holy Spirit will walk in a manner that reflects their growing love for God, and respectively their growing hatred of sin. The more intimately we walk with the Lord Jesus, we start seeing with greater clarity the consequences of our sins and the negative flux it causes in our communion with God through the Holy Spirit. This produces in us a great amount of godly grief when we do give into temptation, which in turn leads us to genuine heartfelt repentance.
Unfortunately, repentance has slowly been bled out of the gospel many people preach.
When a person claims to be Christian, and without remorse embraces and pursues their same sex feelings, it’s evident that they are either deceived, in a season of rebellion, or may not even really know Christ. I know that sounds extreme, but the Bible is very extreme in its message regarding what the overall lifestyle of a Christian will look like.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Matthew 7:13-14.
“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”- 1 John 1:6
“No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.”- 1 John 3:6-9
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”- 1 John 2:19
- Jesus Christ, who gave us our very being.
- Jesus Christ, who bore our guilt and sorrows.
- Jesus Christ, who purchased us with His own blood.
Knowing Jesus, even in the midst of our weaknesses and tribulations, is the goal and centrality of the Christian faith. Only in knowing Christ, loving Christ and chasing after Christ, can we effectively battle and put to death the things in us that strive so violently to strangle our souls.
Reblogged this on Strengthening God's Plan For Marriage.
Matt, thank you so much for being a vessel of God’s word. I have always struggled, and not been able to succinctly say what i feel. I now can send people to you when they want to know my perspective.
Homosexuals are to do the same thing the rest of us sinners are commanded to do! Repent and do no more! The Bible doesn’t say the temptations will be gone, just that we have God’s strength behind us to help us resist the temptations!
One doesn’t simply “repent” of something so complex & integral as ones sexuality. Ones sexuality can not be reduced to being mere temptation. We are more than four footed beast with wild random urges to be tamed. The bible says we are fearfully & wonderfully made…a little lower than the angels. That isn’t refering to our bodies only but to our inner being as well which includes our sexuality. God is not pleased with or get only glory from the torture placed on gays by the church or that which they place on themselves. I think it is time for the church to seek God for His wisdom concerning sexual matters because what is being done to gay people in the name of holiness is absolutely horrible.
It is a good thing that Matt and Dana call gays to unite with the LORD then.
I had been 7 years with such a depression that I could sometimes barely breath. You know how much pain I felt because I could not get away from this feelings? Even more so considering that even when I was a child I felt this “curiosity”. I am talking a child with 4 to 6 years old. This article don’t go into detail either. Does he have a wife? Is he even capable of loving a female as a wife? Gays cant love a woman that way from what I have heard so are they doomed to past this life alone? I am bisexual with a affinity for males. I can love either but how about a gay person? Not only that but the church have often make’d them feel even worse than how people outside make them feel. If you wanted to help them then why don’t you even treat them nice? Even more you cant even try to even comprehend, let alone understand the pain we felt because everyone said it was wrong but we could not do anything about it. You know how many times I asked myself things like: Why did I have to be like this? Why cant I be normal? If its wrong then why does God don’t save me? What else can I do? Everyone can be tempted with any sin, yet, a straight would never feel atraction to another male, there is no way they can love a man like a woman. Yet if every sin can temp anyone then why does this sin don’t temp quite a lot of people? I was raised in the church. I love God and the Guilt was eating away at me because I have always tried to not do anything wrong. I felt desperate, sad, angry that I could not stop this feelings, lonely, hopeless, with no strengh to do anything, with no way of getting out. Can you even imagine all that together? You know how many gay people have tried to kill themself or have done so? Its like nothing you have ever felt before. We often are like this for a very long time too. Do you belive a homosexual or bisexual would not try to get out if they could see a way when they know the life they will have to endure? Having fingers pointed at you, gossiping everywhere about you, risking losing friends or family when you tell them you are gay or bi and being treated differently or badly just because of your sexuality? Come on now! If I could have found a way out I would have done so a long time ago. None of you have any idea of how deep this is and probable none have felt even remotely close to it. Its easy to point fingers when you are part of the bigger group yet when you point your finger there are 3 that point at you!
Really beautiful. Thanks.
Matt, beautifully expressed, I pray that the words that you pen encircle the world and bring freedom to many through the anointing of His Spirit!
Matt,
even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was tempted. Not in the same manner as you were, but He was tempted nonetheless.
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, BUT ONE WHO IN EVERY RESPECT HAS BEEN TEMPTED AS WE ARE, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
(Hebrews 4:14-16 ESV)
You do understand what you are even saying right? How can a gay temp a straight man? If the straight man is tempted then he is not a straight man at all. He is either gay or bisexual. By going that way then you would be saying Jesus was bisexual because he would also need to be tempted with a female.
Worshiping The Sacred Will of Almighty Father God requires a purified thought process.
He gave us the one and only genuine source of life.
He expects us to live it honorably according to His Unfailing Word.
Gloriously all temptations cease when we walk hand in hand with God.
Then you would not be human. You will be tempted. There are times that it would be more easy to lie, etc… Dont give me that you dont feel any temptation because YOU WOULD BE LYING >:/. If even Jesus was tempted in every way then how come you are not?
matt, I think being a Christian is a journey of conversions beginning at our baptisms (born again or born from above) and continues…at times and I mean this as no offense but you do seem fixated on your SSA. Maybe this is a normal response, I do not know. But keep doing what works for you and keep praying. You must understand there are many others praying for you..i think everything will work out very well for you. Ciao
Lol, I can see how the appearance of my blog can make it seem as if I’m fixated on my SSA. But honestly, on a day to day basis I’m not. Of course, I think about it as I’m writing my book or working on this blog, as the point of both of those is to provide a resource for people who have SSA or know someone with SSA. But more of my thought life is taken up with Jesus. Just the person of Jesus. SSA is a part of my life, and may always be. It’s something I have to constantly battle throughout the day, but rather than lingering in self-pity or doubt about these attractions, I’ve learned to divert my attention to Christ and dwell on Him. In Him there is healing, not merely for my sexual attractions, but for the entirety of my soul. Hope you’re doing well, Davide
@ Matt,
Thank-you for the reply to my comment.
I think you might know I live with two ‘gay’ men and a woman. One of the ‘gay’ men lives his life contently, happily, and fulfilled.
The other ‘gay’ man is all about the drama. I had just finished listening to the second dude rant about this-and-that (ex-boyfriend, zit on his ear and something about him ‘running empty’ of Crest Whitestrips). I then removed myself from our dialog (he talked I listened) and into my room shut and locked the door (he’s a stalker) and read your post-so I guess I only read what I wanted to read—> more [gay] drama. I apologize.
Certainly, a straight man living with two gay dudes and his sister is not always easy…it seems I am the only one who leaves the toilet seat up, sack of opened tortilla chips, hummus, wine bottle (s) and dirty socks in the living room. The hilarious part: it’s my freakin’ house! Thank goodness I have three serious allies in my dogs. They do not give a crap what I do or do not do.
I think I understand some of your trials I see it in a guy #1. But he rarely talks about his SSA. However, I am sure the temptations are very real. He is devout and orthodox Catholic, attends daily Mass, monthly confession.
….Obviously, us un-married ‘straight’ dudes have our own trials and temptations especially those of us who have sexy, smart, and gorgeous fiancée.
Keeping your focus on our Lord is never a wrong thing… You do inspire others which is very cool.
But yes I am very well.
Take care friend and many blessings.
Francesco Davide
Matt,
Maybe God has not taken away the temptation completely yet, and you know he could, so that you don’t lose compassion for others struggling.
Sadly, when we conquer things easily, we can become self righteous and unsympathetic.
Whether, its in this life time, or when our Father calls you home, you will be rid of this struggle. Keep your eyes on Jesus.
This was the best comment I have read on any of Matt’s blog posts.
@Matt Moore “Lol, I can see how the appearance of my blog can make it seem as if I’m fixated on my SSA. But honestly, on a day to day basis I’m not.”
But then you got caught on Grindr. And now you sold your computer and got someone to put a lock on your phone. Please get some help. I say this from my heart. I went to see a therapist when I was really depressed and he helped me clear my mind. I’m not talking about a “christian” therapist either, one who will tell you that you’re “broken.” You’re not.
Matt, you have written a well thought out and personal essay which truly captures the heart of what God expects from us all.Temptations will always exist; the devil is a busy bugger. But God’s grace is sufficient for us to resist if we desire to do so. Jesus certainly did not promise an obstacle-free life but He promised to walk with us always. May your words bring a fruitful return. I intend to share this with many friends and acquaintances.
I feel like you have a great understanding of homosexuality and Christianity and have combined them in a way that is honoring to God. Good job, great thoughts!
Great article! We are all face sinful inclinations of some type but some of us are blind to them. Thankfully for the scriptures, they open our eyes to what is sin and offers the means of grace for a new birth found alone in Christ and his work on the Cross. I am learning one thing that we like Paul must be consumed with the Christ and it is amazing how the sin nature loses its grips on us. We must be in awareness with of our weakness but we must focus not on the sin so much that we lose sight of our main objective which is to know Christ in his fullness. Paul’s ultimate aim was to identified with Christ as as he so often expressed in his letters. Religious Christianity offers ritual, ceremonies, rules and religious dogma that appeal to our soulish but does little to overcome the spiritual problem that plagues us all. As Paul so warns us in Corinthians that we must not lose our simple devotion to Christ because it is the key to the victory in every aspect of our spiritual journey to live out the life that he called us by his grace. I experienced this twenty-five years ago and I have learned by the scripture and life experiences that we must have this mindset to truly experience the life that Christ wants for us. We must watch out for the dangers of religious supercity that men seek to entrap us in or become so engrossed in our struggles that we must sight of the majesty and power of Christ and his work for us and in us bought solely by his blood.
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What is wrong?
Did your boyfriend bone your rectum extra hard?
SHOES THROWER says:
What is wrong?
Did your boyfriend bone your rectum extra hard?
The perfect example of a hypocrit right there.(Bad english)
And Adrienne
That is very stupid and uninformed. Its funny though. I passed 7 YEARS in a emotional hell wanting god to give me freedom and nope. Didnt happen. By the way the sin would not be on loving anyone but actually acting on it from what I have heard. This also means that a homosexual that (from what I have heard) cant love a woman as a wife is doomed to live theyr life alone. Great… Would be such a great life eh?
Grayson:
The thing is gay people can love theyr partner. Its not like saying you just want to have sex. I know I have been in love of females and males(I am bisexual) but I would not just have sex with anyone unless I love them. Overall for me its just loses its meaning. If I was so desperate then I would just masturbate and be done with it. By the way masturbating is not bad as long as you dont fantasize. Also, just to be clear: I am still a virgin. About that, in quite a bit of cultures homosexuality and bisexuality were accepted. The ones that mostly didnt was because of religious views. Its that simple. Its not they are close minded or they fear the truth. Its because they have been hurt theyr whole life because of what other people says so they tend to be more defencive.
Love what you said. Those that mock only have the mind of the flesh and cannot please God. Therefore their hearts cause them to attack the people of God. They feel condemned but it is their behavior that condemns them. God offers freedom to any homosexual who chooses the Lovenof God over the love ofnour 5 senses.
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You, sir, are an idiot. A closed minded idiot. There is NOTHING wrong with being with the person you love.
Wow…you sure are arrogant in name calling. He never said one rude thing yet you think you have a right to attack someone because their view is different. You are the idiot.
You don’t have to be ‘rude’ to be offensive.
And he is an idiot if he is closed minded.
Why are you attacking me because my views are different? I view him as an idiot~! Roflolololol
So Lolido, you are willing to burn in the Lake of Fire for all eternity for taking dix up the poopy chute? That is crazy.
And are you only willing to do good because you fear this “lake of fire”?
That is crazy!
@Shoes thrower
Heterosexual couples are known to “take dix up the poopy chute” too. Maybe they should burn in a lake of fire too!
OK, Lolido, just take slow, deep breaths and back away slowly from the computer. That’s right, now go lie down for awhile with a cool damp cloth on your forehead. You’ll feel much better!
Matt, seriously great and insightful post. Your blog was one I referred to in a recent online debate on the general issue of SSA and I will continue to refer folks to it. Keep the faith!
The only thing close minded about this well written article is your anger at the fact that someone is not giving permission to pursue the desire of your heart in the form of sexual sin. Not to mention to be name called by gay people is quite an honor since Christians already know that the world is going to disagree. Thanks for proving that gay people are close minded and hate filled out of fear of the truth. If being gay was so great it wouldn’t have taken thousands of years to fool the masses.
@Grayson:
What planet are you living on?
1. Well, yeah…it is very frustrating and anger inducing to have to ask permission or be invited to be treated like a HUMAN BEING, when you ARE a human being.
2. Sin, is a religious definition, NOT a civil one. And there are no morality, competence, fertility or religious tests required to be married and have children.
Mores the point: there is nothing moral about smug indifference to the pain and spite heaped on gay people no matter how law abiding, compassionate and responsible they are. Only because gay people are a minority, and always have been is the reason they have been misunderstood. Pointing at a tradition of mistreating gay people as a good thing because it’s gone on so long, is like wondering why we still don’t have slavery in this country or why men can’t rape their wives with impunity. Why shouldn’t gay people and those who love them get angry? If no one got angry at the abuse of other human being, we WOULD have slavery in this country, and no woman would have ever gone into space. Your scold says a lot about you.
That you’d never and haven’t fought for the equal treatment of another person.
The difference between knowing what justice is, and you thinking it means ‘just us’.
That is not true.
Matt is gay.
I agree with Lolido. Words cannot describe how stupid and pathetic you are, Matt. Seriously. I would usually debate over this topic with rich argument points. But after reading the stuff that you post, I feel there is no point. I can only conclude that you have a primitive mind and that you’re simply homophobic.
My guess is that you have no “rich argument points” and are just a troll. If you had any valid points to make, you’d have done so instead of calling a man who has shown it’s possible to leave the SSA lifestyle names. Funny how liberals do that, no valid argument? No problem, just start calling people names to distract them. Shameful.
Matt’s message is not that God made him straight. His message is that God made him good.
Wow, calling someone pathetic and stupid. I really doubt you are capable of rich argument points. Why do you guys care so much about what Matt thinks? If you are so happy being gay then go and do that instead of wasting your time just trolling. I mean really, that is the definition pathetic and stupid.
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I am very capable of rich argument points. You’re just not capable comprehending it. If you must, please refer to Regan’s points.
And please, keep assuming I’m gay just because I have enough common sense not to follow a 2000 year old book written by men and see the faults in Matt’s writing. And enough common sense not to be arrogant enough to believe I have the right to “correct” other people when there is nothing to “correct” in the first place.
“If you are so happy being gay then go and do that.” A bit difficult when there’s people like YOU trying to “correct” them. Maybe you should be happy for them and let them be.
THESE TWO POSTS^
•☆.•*´¨`*••♥ Jst keep ur stupidity to urself. I don’t want it rubbing off on more people. Thank you~ ♥••*´¨`*•.☆•
Are you simply threatened when someone leaves the homosexual lifestyle thereby showing that it is indeed possible?
Homosexual lifestyle?
Oh! You mean being a completely NORMAL human being and simply being in love?
So threatening!
Nothing normal about fecal matter on your wee-wee.
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It isn’t about the sex, It’s about love. There’s a difference.
I must also respond to the often repeated “gays are so threatened by those of us who leave the homosexual lifestyle..”
That sounds so smug, and self important as if there isn’t any threat except in the imaginations of gay people.
As I’ve said, yes…gay CHILDREN are in fact very threatened. Gay people ARE threatened every day with discrimination and systemic bigotry. So you leave gay kids to have to explain their needs and wants to misinformed parents. Gay teens risk abuse from clergy, their educators and their own families. The very things everyone is dependent on in their formative years.
It’s so grossly irresponsible and MEAN to respond to gay people as if PASSING for hetero is for moral and responsible reasons.
Passing for something you are not, to avoid the negative judgement of the majority of society, isn’t new. Poor people do it, light skinned blacks did it, Jews have done it.
The crime of an ex gay, is deferring to that negative myth and misinformation. Looking down your nose and those who are gay, is if you’re now a member of a special club, doesn’t make you authentic or accomplished.
It makes snobs of ex gays to say things like that.
It’s a potent incentive to heel, when you’re shunned and denied your very humanity, let alone the needs gay people have that ARE the same as anyone else’s would be.
So, now you’re heeled to those all too willing to oppress the brethren you left behind.
Gay people know what you really are and WHY.
So gay people aren’t threatened the way you’d like to think.
Ex gays like to think they are heroes…but that’s typical of traitors and what they think of those they have betrayed. And hiding behind piety, is actually a very cowardly thing to do.
I’m a het black woman. I have no gay children, or sibling or gay parent. In effect, I have no gay dog in the fight, and obviously it’s an UNPOPULAR position I take, that I don’t HAVE to.
But I do anyway, because there IS a right and wrong here. The difference between convenience and burden.
Ex gays have shifted their weight, and made the task of gay people being known, understood and left to coexist in peace, more difficult. You ran, where others are standing their ground
So keep running, just don’t expect any praise or respect for it. The cowardice of your actions make you unworthy of it. So it is YOU who are threatened and have no backbone for fighting for needs defending.
Fecal matter on your wee-wee is infidel’s filth.
Please enlighten me and explain HOW we are stupid. Don’t get offended if you can’t accept criticism.
Yes…they are arrogant for speaking against someone airring their oppinion. I too agree with him.
Stupid because you are intolerant of other peoples life experience. Homosexuality in its very nature is against al that God is….like it or not.
Your ass must be jealous of the amount of shit that comes out of your mouth.
“Stupid because you are intolerant of other peoples life experience.”
…says the one who can’t tolerate homosexuality.
Well, Lolido, I am not jealous of you having fecal matter on your wee-wee.
I love how you assume Lolido is gay just because she/he has enough common sense to realize the faults and the stupidity in homophobia.
Not everyone with common sense is gay. Just thought you should know.
i was calling matt moore stupid.
Oh sorry about that misunderstanding. Yes I strongly agree.
@krashnasty and Lolido
awesome posts!!! :3
You three are spending an awful lot of emotional energy on playground name-calling. How very mature and “tolerant” and “accepting” you are of someone (Matt) who is not attacking anyone, but is putting his daily challenges and struggles out for anyone to draw strength from, or, if they choose, to throw verbal abuse. Yes, some of the other commenters are being vulgar and abusive. How about ignoring them and engaging with Matt and his actual post instead, as you would wish people do for you.
The only thing he’s struggling with is accepting himself for who he is.
Hello Milton, I left as fully respectful and edifying comment I could. I have long, long experience with ex gays. And, they are of a piece. Nothing deep going on, nothing new. I given as much consideration as possible to educating myself and giving proclaimed ex gays every opportunity to do so. And absolutely NOTHING comes out, nor anything especially diverse.
Just the same refrain, that it was homosexuality that made them promiscuous, unsatisfied and addicted. That it’s homosexuality that fostered those problems. That’s just more stereotyping and not being honest about their CHARACTER that made them like that. Typical of people who don’t want to take responsibility for being irresponsible, they blame something else or someone else. Now their new glom is religious addiction. Something intangible that won’t talk back, or make them see themselves as who they really are. I can understand struggling with the systemic abuses of the religious against gay people, but it’s unforgivable to blame their sexual orientation, when heteros who suffer the same pathology don’t do that. They aren’t judged for it either. So it’s just as unfair for ex gays to think them judging gay people the way misinformed and prejudiced heteros do, absolves them from sharing the burden of defamation.
They engage in the same defamation.
I see no intelligent answer coming from them either, even though supposedly their piety and new affect to be hetero GIVES them all the answers.
So, I’ll ask again: if I wanted a child, even a Jewish child living in a world that doesn’t accept Jews, to learn about being Jewish, his history the accomplishments of his people and how to love being Jewish, should he learn from a non Jewish anti Semite?
Who has the most cred here?
So gay children and their het peers, learning about gays from non gay, anti gay people, is suddenly legit?
Like learning about blacks from the Klan is?
Have you EVER learned what segregationists learned and thought about black SEXUALITY?
It was sexuality, in fact, that fueled Jim Crow. Skin color was an easier means of accomplishing segregation. But it was black sexuality that set off racists.
LEARN something, about very recent history and the abuses of women, blacks and gays and using the Bible to justify it.
Recent history some of us were alive to EXPERIENCE and bear witness to.
Missionaries haven’t always gone about their work for purely altruistic reasons.
Religious influence in a lot of places has blood on it. And acting like it doesn’t, is just another symptom of how indifferent faith communities are to the damage they do.
And ex gays, are part and parcel of that.
If this post is too complex for you to read, then that’s a shame. I usually take it for granted certain people are intelligent enough to deal with it and THINK.
In his posts, Matt flatly accepts that he has same-sex attractions. He does not claim that his repentance and belief in Jesus took away his same-sex attractions.
Check.
So Matt has same sex attraction still.
That’s not the point. Of COURSE he does. That’s what being a gay person is.
However.
There is inherent insult and smugness in claiming that being gay is wrongful, undesirable and makes one a bad person and unworthy of inclusion in life’s most fundamentally supportive environments. Most children are raised under some religious teaching. This will make gay young people suffer the most. It is confusing and contradictory to be told that what you are has inevitably bad consequences and the environment around you confirms this because gay people are legally, and socially ostracized.
When all the while, that child knows he didn’t choose, he’s innocent, he’s not a bad person and just wants to be loved and supported by his network, as all young people want to be.
The struggle is not with his sexual orientation.
But with the contradictions in terms, the hypocrisy and cruelty and ignorance of faith communities and the bigotry of civil policies those faith communities influence.
I’ll point to a psychological research project that was pivotal to the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. It was done by Dr. Benjamin Clark and his wife.
Their research was on the physical and psychological damage living under Jim Crow laws and standards did to black children. That the constant messaging that their racial backgrounds made them inferior, less intelligent, unworthy of being treated equally or fairly, had lasting consequences to their self worth, self esteem and social adjustment.
Sound familiar?
No reason to think that same messaging doesn’t have the same effect on gay kids.
A gay person that goes along with the power structure that undermines the worth of homosexuality and gay people, cannot be trusted.
Which is why Matt never claimed this. What is wrongful is same-sex sodomy.
@Milton: and who says? By what reasoning? WHY would anyone, in the 21st century, believe that and think that enforcing against those who engage in ss sex deserve to be criticized, if not abused for it?
WHO does it hurt?
Well?
Good job Matt!
Thank you for your comments and i am sorry it stirred up such hateful, intolerant responses from arrogant people. I am a former gay person who chose God over the propaganda that i had to remain in that lifestyle. They try to convince you that there is no freedom from the homosexual lifestyle or that you can embrace God and sexual promiscuity but I found both to be lies. Once you open yourself tonsomething there is always a chance to be tempted in it because we live in a corruptable body awaiting the day for the incorruptable one. Those who do not know the heart of God continue to push sexual immorality as the norm.
Amen Adrienne! You are right! The liberals want everyone to embrace evil for good just as the Bible says they will in end times. Satan and his followers want company. Like the old saying goes, “Misery loves company” and they are leading miserable lives.
Thank you Dena. They are barking up the wrong tree bdcause I came out of the gay lifestylenso their arguements hold no weight. I know personally the corruption within the gay community. Its the same as heterosexual groups that promote sexual freedom and promiscuity.
Right on Adrienne. Seems like almost all of us who have left the gay lifestyle have all faced the same thing! I’ve had heterosexual people who I truly thought were friends leave because I was no longer espousing the “it’s ok to be gay” mantra anymore. Go figure. Stay stong girl!
WHAT ARE YOU ALL EVEN SAYING! She is just being a a-hole about it. You wont save anyone like that even if its true(which I seriously doubt since I tried). Hell you are not even showing the love of christ with such a ignorant posts. You can be promiscous no matter which way you role. Sexuality is not a excuse. If you were promiscous as a gay then its your own fault for being easy. In my case I am 19 years old, I am bisexual AND I AM A VIRGIN and I plan on staying that way until I love someone so much that I would sleep with them. Sex lose its meaning unless its with someone you love. If I am that desperate just masturbating is enough to get the levels low.
Hahahah! I think you’re more suitable of the definition “arrogant.” Since it is people like you who “believe” it is your “duty” to save the homosexuals from themselves!
Who are you to judge whether someone’s right or wrong?
They love someone of the same gender. Big deal. Get your head out of your ass and let it be. LOLS
Thar whole “judge not lest ye be judged” goes right out the window when it comes to gay sexuality.
Oh and Shoes Lover – I really love it when I get fecal matter on my “weiner” when I give it to my girlfriend up the butt. She loves it to because I take care of her clit while I’m doing it.
Lolido, you ought to get your dick out of a boy’s ass.
That you love someone of the same sex no more justify engaging in sodomy with them, than it does worshipping an icon of Saint Mary with them.
Same-sex sodomy has the same chance of getting you into Heaven as worshipping an icon of Saint Mary.
Are you a moron? Promiscuity have nothing to do with being gay. Its your own fault if you are easy. And its not just a chance but constant. I tormented my self for 7 years and nope. Nothing happened. I am 19 years old, bisexual and a virgin. If you had sex with anyone its your own fault. Like really now. My first crush with a male I had no desire to have sex with him. I merely loved him, I only though of him often, when I though of him I was happy, I felt peace, I wanted to be with him(share time), I wanted to talk to him. It was a beautiful feeling especially considering that at the time I was tormenting my self because of my sexuality.
I look around at and seek to know all the diversity and variance that’s all around us. And I marvel at the creativity and curiosity within the human race that’s expanded our experience with each other and pleasure we can take in life. And yet, the most fearful and ignorant among us remain willfully confounded and demand strict enforcement about gender and sexual orientation. The most fundamentally religious are the least open to the expansion of experience, lest an individual wrest their self determination and reliance from faith communities.
Women and gay people suffer the most from this enforcement. Still.
I resent the constant need to convert gay people. I resent someone deciding to keep others from the experience of KNOWING gay people as gay people are.
It’s appalling to me that there is still such hostility to their presence and cues are taken to feel this way from ancient, barbaric and primitively superstitious cultures.
Give it a rest already!
Missionaries have had their turn, have the grace to let actual gay people speak for themselves and teach the world who they really are.
THEY are the constant, non abusive entities of all humanity, religions are not.
I’m not impressed with Christians that talk a lot about their piety, but fail at the most morally important ethic there is: to treat another as you’d be treated. Christians in America love to benefit from the protections of the Constitution, and will invoke it where convenient, but think nothing of taking it’s benefits from gay people especially.
If I ever wanted to learn about Jews, I wouldn’t go to a non Jewish anti Semite to do so. And there are factions that still prefer to see Jews disappeared. And then who would be left to speak for them and who they really are?
Being gay and it’s destiny isn’t promiscuity, disease and misery as people like Moore were taught to believe, and inevitably open himself up to that pathological trap.
He was taught to and not accept cutting as a gay person, so he didn’t.
Blacks in this country, women too, are considered inferior and there are other people who work to see them fail, so as to point a finger and make a value judgement on them.
It’s hard to be black, or a woman, it’s hard to be gay.
Some of our fellow citizens are all those things.
And they manage to make good of their lives without interference from busy body, control freak missionaries.
The moral stuff it takes to succeed as a gay person and it’s inherent courage is something to be reckoned with and respect.
Our hands, have fingers and a thumb. The thumb acts in opposition and is a minority in comparison, but our hands are less strong and skilled without it. Imagine gay people as thumbs to our fingers on our hands. With the potential to be a powerful and precious ally. They are not the enemy, it’s the moral cowardice and disrespect for the diversity God gave us among one another. Heteros are simply the most self appointed and spoiled of God’s children and countless that could have been accomplished has been lost for all this zeal to see this singular aspect of ALL human life disappeared.
We are all unique, there are many flavors and spice among us. Life without gay people would have less color, and would be far more bland and is already horribly violent when it comes to the appreciation of gender variance and attraction.
Moore isn’t impressive, he’s not anything new or special for what he’s done. In fact, he’s just made life a lot harder and shifted the burden to that gay teen struggling to wrest his God given identity from expectant parents willing to abuse him in that expectation.
He deserves no praise or thanks for that.
Indeed, to think one special for heterosexuality is as ridiculous to think the same for being white, or male. We’ve seen what people are like who think that way and the damage they have caused to maintain such a fiction of their supremacy.
I met alot of gay people…..I was gay and the community was my life, my people, my way of life so you cant say i am looking from the outside. I lived withi it and know first hand about the promiscuity and sexual element fhat is the focus. Gay pride leader watching men flaunt and gyrate their bodies and speak openly of their sexual encounters in bathrooms, parks, back rooms at bars. Family friendly??? Hardly. Yes, we are to treat people the way we would like to be treated and if I was living an immoral lifestyle i would hope someone would have the guts to confront me. But instead i had liberal straight friends who didnt want to loose their token gay friend and tried to get me to just “embrace ” who I was created to be. I chose to do just that. I was created to given God glory and to honor Him with my body…so I walked away from the gay lifestyle and the lies.
That is an exceptionally superficial way of looking at things. I am a black woman. I can attest, that blacks are a minority, like gays and lesbians, who haven’t been considered with any of the value they deserve. The stereotype that blacks are sexually unrestrained and lack morals is the same brush that gay people are tarred with. And unfortunately, aren’t allowed to socialize, gain the diversity of experience and role models from which to gain the vital sense of value they actually have.
Gays are forced into a ghetto too.
So, your EXTREMELY limited experience, is all you thought there was, and that apparently was all you thought YOU deserved too.
And I’ve noticed something very pronounced I don’t think any of those who claim ‘they’ve left homosexuality’ have: you all eventually sound alike, talk alike and your experience as gay people is rife with sexual abandon, disconnection and sexual frustration.
In other words: you don’t sound authentic at all. You don’t seem to be real people. You’re not real heterosexuals, because to be one’s ORIENTATION, you don’t have to work THAT hard at it.
It takes no religious intervention or disciplines to NOT be hetero OR gay.
You’re going to be either, whether you’re having sex, or in a relationship or not.
Ever hear of a het that’s renounced it, and denied that’s what they ARE, under those same circumstances?
And sexual and relationship disconnection is also a problem among hets.
The marriage and parenting failure rate and the high percentage of abandoned children attests to that.
So there doesn’t seem to be much point in being het, or not being gay, except that hets are treated better in the law, and don’t have to justify their existence or motives to anyone.
The difference in hets or gays isn’t morality or Jesus or God.
Morality, ultimately is how one person treats another.
And there is absolutely nothing moral in how hets have appointed themselves to treat gay people and arranged social hierarchies so that gay people suffer more for merely existing.
There is no reason why gay people should offend anyone for that alone.
And religious reasons are the least rational and acceptable of all.
There is a book by Dr. Seuss about the dangers of conformity. It’s called “The Star Bellied Sneeches”. I see no variation, or uniqueness in self proclaimed ex gays.
And frankly, because of the sameness of your claims, piety and new found way of living, you’re boring and bland and beige.
I’m a het woman and found a great deal more that’s fulfilling, important and valuable among gay people precisely because they aren’t sexual objects to me.
And as a woman, unconventional in looks and attitude, I’m punished for not being soft, and demure and smart. People have tried to place me in a social and spiritual ghetto all my life.
Let’s be honest, you just didn’t have the will to fight or find anything other than stereotype and objectification.
But the burden people like you and Moore have placed on other gay people. Especially very young gay people who don’t get a chance to build the strength to fight the stereotyping you could not, is unforgivable.
You’re like a light skinned black, passing for white that supports Jim Crow laws and agrees with the white supremacists that blacks are sexually threatening and immoral and have no value because of it.
And the intellectual dishonesty about that, inherent in what you’ve done, deserves no respect.
With that view, sadly you will never experience the love of God and your true destiny. Believe the lie, but when you lay down at night peace will be far from you.
What a typically CONDESCENDING thing to say about what relationship I have with God. This is what makes so many people of faith sound pompous, judgmental and disrespectful of the path of others. God isn’t NOT in the Bible, or Q’ran or even the Torah or OT. God is in sunrises, the smiles and laughter of children. When I hear the great music of Beethoven, or Aaron Copeland…or Ella Fitzgerald singing. Or in the voices of Kathleen Battle, or Ray Charles. I see God in the giant sequoias and when I see their seeds on the ground, I marvel at the time it took for that small seed to grow into that giant tree. The healing arts that cured syphillis and polio. That we can give blood and transplant organs, or see the universe through the Hubble is where God is. I love flowers, and fruit and ice cream. The juice of the mango and the color of twilight is God speaking to any one of us.
I don’t need you, little mortal person like I am, to TELL me what and who God is. I saw God in the face of the gay kid, whose face lit up when he sang with the voice of an angel, and who kissed me and called me mama bear. I see God EVERYWHERE! THAT is what comforts me, that is what moves me to be kind. I hear God, I see God…and it’s so sad, that God is taking the rap for the abuses of other people, especially his gay children. I think it’s sad beyond reason, that you think God is in deprivation and repression of LOVE. You just didn’t know where to look for love, and who you most needed it from and it hurt you because hets WANT you ALL to hurt and hurt each other to keep you apart. Blacks were kept from loving each other, and forming bonds to make them stronger. That is what oppressors do to keep you weak and dependent. So don’t even THINK about lecturing ME about the love of God. There is no love of God, in the thousands of years that gay people have been expected to disappear and not offend because they are DIFFERENT. Don’t think for a minute, wearing your piety on your chest is a good substitute for DEPTH of soul. It’s not. You and those who agree with you, are actually quite shallow. And perhaps that’s why things were so unsatisfying for you to start with.
Wow, you’ve totally bought the liberal and homosexual lines! They must be very proud of you.
Those who turn from God have hardened their hearts and closed their ears to words of life. They’ve turned the truth into a lie and chose to believe and live a lie as if it is truth. Because of this they encourage others to live this same lie and attack those who try to warn them. They cannot please God nor desire to do so. They value what their flesh enjoys rather than what God desires. They are lovers ornpleasure rather than lovers of God.
http://www.funnymotivationalposters.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Holy-Facepalm.jpg
@Lolido…you really need to get a life. Queerdom is eating your brain alive….just like a cancer….it kills whatever it touches. At Matt can say in all honesty that he understands that hole in his heart was God sized hole….nothing could ever fill it except Christ. You, on the other hand, will keep trying to fill that hole will all kinds of perversion and still not be satisfied. How sad.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m71l6lPAJu1qkgh4go1_1280.jpg
@Millard…you really need to get a life. Defending before he even speaks up himself. On top of that I wasn’t even addressing you. So mind your own god sized hole and quit being a judgemental, closed minded ‘person.’ How sad!
Strange because I am 19 years old, bisexual, not looking at porn, not imagining a fantasy when I masturbate(its possible, especially if you know all the parts in your body that makes you feel good and lose yourself in what you feel instead of what you imagine or see)AND I AM A VIRGIN and plan to stay that way until I love someone enough to sleep with them! How many heteros at my age can say that eh? In fact I dislike anyone touching me at all. That’s only for when I am in a relationship.
GREAT POST MATT!
God bless.
Matt, perhaps you don’t think you’re fixated on SSA. But an awful lot of nasty anti gay people ARE. They inappropriately want the gov’t to enforce civil policy, and they base it SOLELY on religious belief, and not the fact that gay people are also tax paying, law abiding citizens with the same responsibilities, but NONE of the same rights and freedoms that go with them.
They make incursions into states where marriage equality is being considered. I live in CA and watched as incredible amounts of money was spent to involuntarily divorce thousands of gay people. And gay folks in turn spent multi millions to keep from being divorced and to continue to marry.
I’ll ask this question again: if you wanted to learn about being Jewish, about Jewish history and culture, would you consult a non Jewish anti Semite to learn? SHOULD you, were YOU a Jewish kid, learn about yourself and your heritage from a non Jewish anti Semite?
Considering that Jews are a minority in the world and under seige, who would have more credibility here?
Who should?
People tried to teach me about homosexuals the way everyone usually learns. Had I never QUESTIONED them, I would have missed out on some of the most important things in life.
What if I’d never met gay people, yet figured I knew all there was TO know from these same Christians that taught you?
I know some very young, enthusiastic young Christians. Whose church community has so little diversity, as does their lives…THEY are in for a world of hurt and betrayal. They are new parents, and what if their child or one of them turns out to be gay?
Same old, same old all over again.
Pious straight parents doing unnecessary damage to their child, and all suffering for no reason.
No reason to believe THAT is what God wanted, but what a bunch of ignorant male control freaks wanted and still do.
You learned about what to do about your homosexuality, from a society that had it out for you for having it. A society that didn’t appreciate the healthy, bright and good looking kid you obviously were in the beginning.
Homosexuality predates the organization of religion. All human life and history has born witness to this, without exception anywhere. And never learning about gay people, however an unchanging part of human life, is the agenda of the non gay, anti gay.
So, who is more credible here?
Those who have arranged brutal hierarchies to oppress according to gender, or those are ARE the gender (like female) and their sole difference is gender attraction?
Men are not the ones to consult on menstrual cycles, but men of Biblical times decided on what that meant and how a menstruating female deserved to be treated.
I find these religious texts highly suspect, for these reasons alone. That you and your supporters don’t, and at the same time are not engaging what the stakes are for gay children here, is why YOU get the derision you do. It’s legitimate. And the immature retorts and not engaging that aspect doesn’t get at the heart of the matter. There is something pathological in an ex gay’s need for validation.
And accolades for one’s choice of religion is as inappropriate as expecting it for being hetero.
I tip my hat to you!
Is it wrong to be turned on by this cat fight? Please tell me at least two of you are clam diggers…no teasing!
You so sexy baby boy
Amazing article buddy, you presented all the points in a clear way. Blessings from Venezuela, I’m still praying for you. Take care man, Hugs!!
if you have to try this hard to stop feelings something is obviously wrong.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CvudXaiCeKk/T1aV7kJSB2I/AAAAAAAADQE/M24nMEczXBE/s400/jackie-chan-wtf.png
Matt, I’m glad that you study diligently and seek to practice righteousness and His will for your life. I believe that if tou have temptations towards homosexuality, and that is how you put it, then to succumb to is, or any temptation would be sin. I have struggled with drugs and alcohol, anf could be justified by excuses like, “it isn’t harmful”, or “its perfectly legal.” But the problem is that it is a controversy that separates us from God. It’s called idolatry. Anything we need to be happy, aside feom God, is an idol. Never has same sex marriage been outside of controversy, much less legal. And many laws were set up firstly by God for the Jewish people. And as God dis not allow it ever for His chosen nation, and He also is the same yeaterday, today, and forever, I am inclined to believe that He still maintains the opinion that homosexuality is an abomination of love and sexuality. I do not hate gays or wish anything other than peace and joy for them. Both of which are given freely from our gracious redeemer to thoae that would give up their lives for him.
@ Peter, again with the superficial and simplistic rhetoric. Really? Comparing a substance abuse with a sexual orientation that’s GENDER based? Reciprocal and mutual? Gender shouldn’t still be an issue. You think that Biblical age cultures had a lock on women, and gender based issues? I’ve noticed that no one answered a very simple question of MINE about what those cultures did with women, and TO them. Even during their menses.
There are taboos on contraception, autopsies and now, organ and blood donation. Women weren’t expected to be educated, and self determined. The same standards written in religious texts were used to justify subjugation to men, even in rape.
And I don’t see any modern American Christians giving up a THING for their God, but are all too willing to offer up the most convenient human sacrifice, which is gay people to that God.
Who in the hands of too many and in recent history, have made God into the image of an abusive, controlling parent.
Substance addiction has immediate physiological effects and results. Homosexuality never has rendered a person incompetent or altered.
You obviously don’t know the difference between a pathology and a paraphilia, and too many anti gay people aren’t willing to learn.
I work in law enforcement and I’ve seen the results of the most depraved behavior most humans are capable of. Conflating homosexuality with any of them is wrong.
And so is conflating what are defined as RELIGIOUS sins (which modern societies ignore all the time), with moral ones.
Which are defined by how you treat another human being. Which is why murder, adultery, theft, abuse and assault never have changed as far as their results and justification for avoidance and protection comes from.
Get. Real.
A lot of you here seriously need to talk the way you do to work yourselves up and SOUND important, don’t you?
And still, you’re too simplistic to engage what really matters and why anyone is STILL debating gay people and their existence and why.
I can’t get all impressed by the constant invoking of God and Scripture, deeds are always going to matter. And constantly defaming gay people is just a lot easier and less effort than focusing on the bigger things.
Regan, you’re amazing. Loving the comments.
Thank you so much, krashnasty! I hope you’re having a good week!
-Applauds-
The fact that you can take these people seriously… Forever won my respect.
Regan DuCasse
You say it better than I can. Well done.
Sadly, it is a hopeless effort. Facts will never sway a true believer.
Funny since a straight is just as tempted as a gay or bi with a female. Also if you love your wife thats a idol? Funny you put it that way. That makes no sense.
Matt, find a man you love, get married, make passionate love, get a nice house with a white picket fence, get a dog, a couple of cats. Adopt unwanted children, Be a family, plant a garden, join the PTA, coach soccer (or something less boring).
“homosexual lifestyle” is not only drug-fueled anonymous sex. Heteros are pretty good at that too.
If your god really loves you, he won;t care where you stick your penis (children and other non-consensual creatures excluded);
Are all those child rape enabling Popes in heaven??
I like that ahhahaa
ob coz dos pope r!!111 dey r pplz of god!!11 all pplz ob god r allowed bcaz dey all ‘good.’ how dare u r qestion dat! omgawd!!!!111
I got kicked out of 3rd grade Sunday school because I would not accept the answer to my questions like how? and why?
The answer was “shut up. it’s a miracle”
@Katty.
Apparently, wisdom is NOT QUESTIONING and simply ACCEPTING what is thrown at you.
U r klearly not wize!!
I’ve wasted my energy on countless anti-gay Facebook pages but I was told to check out Matt Moore’s. I was thoroughly entertained by the stupidity. And reading the criticism comments from others such as Katty and especially Regan. I also love Lolido and StopDropNTroll.
I’m glad there’s some people with common sense in here!
Regan is the best. And can type much better than I can.
It is a shame that you are not one of them.
Matt,
WOW! Your words bring tears to my eyes. The truth you’re sharing continue to bring hope and encouragement to so many and you’re transparency is inspiring.
Keep sharing the healing, the peace and contentment you’ve found in Christ!
I’m praying for you!
So, the only responses I get from adrienne and those who agree with Matt, are non responses or condescension? I didn’t call names, and was quite mature. So, the DEEPER issue gets ignored here and I get asked no questions.
Can’t even engage a real conversation, which says a lot. It really does. And I have absolutely no reason to think otherwise than what I’ve said. Adrienne, et al sure didn’t give me any reason to.
These people do not deserve to be taken seriously!
The only defence they have is: “It’s in the bible.” or “U’LL NEVA HAV DA LORD’S LUV!!!11″
What does God expect from gay people? Evidently straight people don’t want anyone to know.
Since THEY are the ones keeping gay people from fully realizing their full potential. From telling their own story, from being open and honest about their needs and wants.
Which aren’t any different from any other person’s.
God apparently has been trying to tell everyone what God wants from gay people, and for a very long time, no one will listen, nor give any opportunity to hear from God about that.
Does that answer the question?
Because Matt and those who say they have ‘left’ being homosexual, apparently aren’t credible sources on that.
Scared people usually aren’t.
Matt is merely a person too afraid to stay as himself. Perhaps he’s the one defying what god made him. Hahaha the irony!
Lolido, well put. As Crazy Jesse Ventura said. “Religion is for the weak” who need dome big daddy to take all the blame and give out the spankings, OUCH!!
Lolido,
you preach open rebellion against God and His standards.
Your current course of choices and conduct will land you in the Lake of Fire.
@Lolido: Jesus said that self-denial is a basic principle of Christianity (Mark 8:34) …therefore: “self” is an obstacle to serving the Lord. Check out these passages:
1. Judges 21:25 – A summary of the wickedness of God’s people in the day of the Judges: “Every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
2. Matt. 23:25 – The hypocrite is “self-indulgent”.
3. Acts 24:25 – Must learn temperance (self-control) to become a Christian.
4. Rom. 2:8 – Those who do not obey are self-seeking.
5. Gal. 2:20 – No longer I (self), but Christ. Means before he served Christ, it was service to self.
6. James. 3:13-14 – Those who do not follow the wisdom from above are selfseeking.
There is no irony here, God did not make Matt or anyone else gay. it’s a part of self-indulgence.
@Gene: self denial? Really? I don’t see any Christians, especially modern Christians doing any such thing. This is about forcing gay people to deny themselves and their needs. And engaging the gov’t to back up religious belief in that’s what gay people deserve.
I don’t see any Christians denying themselves Constitutional protection, and not engaging in defamation of gay people. Words, words, words…Gene.
You can quote all the Scripture in the world to identify yourself and your study of Christianity.
But when it comes to deeds, walking the walk…I’ve got eyes on that too. And your criticism of homosexuality is the weakest rationale ever. And it always will be.
then there’s nothing else to discuss, is there?
Sure there is, Gene. So you’re being dismissive to get that upper hand without saying anything? See, this is what I experience from just about every ex gay, or Christian. Can’t ENGAGE a conversation, it’s just throw out some lines from the Bible and you think that should impress anyone and end of discussion. I was telling the truth. WHAT self denial that’s meaningful and matters? You’re welcome to name THAT chapter and verse if you want to.
You’re trying to tell me it’s an accomplishment to act hetero, or NOT be gay? That there is sacrifice and discipline in that?!
Are you trying to say that it’s self denial to follow the popular opinion that defames gay people?
That it’s self denial to participate in one of the most influential and powerful religions in the world, especially in America and to be a white, Christian man in America at that?
A religion that our country allows a person to take or leave at will and follow to their own extent, or not?
Amy felt it important to share the fact that she gave up certain types of movies for Christ.
I haven’t done anything for Christ, actually. Not a thing. And nothing to get into heaven or do favors for God. I sure haven’t.
And I won’t. I don’t quote Scripture and I don’t invoke ‘the Word of God’ or ‘the Will of God’ as the motive for my actions.
And I won’t.
I don’t assume God is on my side. I don’t care if you say God is on yours.
I know already what you are no match for, and that alone makes me smile sometimes.
I agree with you. 100% Regan. This is about the fact that these people see homosexuality as a ‘sin’ to be “corrected”. So Gene and his ‘self’ quotes were pretty irrelevant.
Matt, indeed does, believe homosexuality is to be “corrected.”
Lolido,
same-sex sodomy is a sin, just as worshipping icons of Saint Mary is a sin.
Both are equally effective in getting people into Heaven.
Why do gay people need to engage in same-sex sodomy any more than they need to worship an icon of Saint Mary?
God made homosexuals so he could watch them be tortured on earth until they die and then thrown into the lake of fire in hell to be tortured for all eternity.
That’s what the evangelical so-called christians say..
Worship and obey me or I will torture you for eternity.
Nice god ya’all have there.
You’d be absolutely right, katty, if any part of what you stated were true. Thank goodness it’s not! The entity you describe is Satan. He’s the deceiver who wants your types of rhetoric to be believed. Thankfully there is no basis for your beliefs other that what you (and those who think the same way) have decided on very limited knowledge rather than first hand honest biblical study. The “evangelical so-called christians” in whom you speak are not true Christians, so don’t pile everyone in the same group and disrespect true followers who would never make such claims!
Oh, Gene so you are not one of those evangelical crazies like Robertson, Falwell, Perkins, Hagee, etc. Oh No not you.
Satan has them under his control, Yeah, right.
I hate to inform you, but the supernatural does not exist.
There is no god, no satan, no angels, no demons, no witches, no warlocks, no evil spirits, no good spitits, no genies, no leprechauns, no hob goblins, no ghosts, no poltergeists or any of that bullcrap.
Humans are animals. Like all the others.
We eat (whatever tastes good), we shit (hopefully away from the food), we screw, nurture our young and we die.
Except if you are a Catholic Priest or Jerry Sandusky; then the young are fair game.
do you think Paterno is in hell right now??
katty, since you have all the answers how about answering these:
If there is no God, how did intelligent life originate? How could an impersonal force produce a personal being? How could that which neither thinks nor wills produce that which thinks and wills? How could lifeless matter ever by chance grouping of the particles produce that which is not matter, a soul? How could that which has no self-consciousness, and consequently no purpose, ever produce that which is self-conscious and which shows the. result of purpose? How could that which has neither life, consciousness, intelligence, nor morality produce a living, conscious, intelligent, moral being?
You’re speaking with a forked tongue there, Gene. Who do you think you’re impressing?
In the world of tangibles, and us mere mortals hanging out here until the weather clears…I can tell you don’t believe a word of what you just said either Gene.
How do I know?
Because you’re not having a conversation, you’re invoking. And if you think it’s a good substitute for depth of soul, you’d be wrong. You’re boring already.
And that’s exactly why all of Creation includes gay people. All heteros, all the time, WOULD be boring too.
I’ve already said I see God everywhere and in a lot of things, without some noisy Christians like you telling me or anyone else what to think, feel or know about God.
You’re not confident in God at all, because you don’t think to shut up and let someone else listen in THEIR way or NOT on that.
What you think is callousness, isn’t that towards so called Christians.
It’s calling you all out on your rudeness, and because you’re using God as a tool, not a private companion.
“You’re not confident in God at all, because you don’t think to shut up and let someone else listen in THEIR way or NOT on that.
What you think is callousness, isn’t that towards so called Christians.
It’s calling you all out on your rudeness, and because you’re using God as a tool, not a private companion.”
THIS ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barWV7RWkq0
Gene, you are using god as an excuse to deny PEOPLE of their RIGHTS.
He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings; He does as He pleases; He answers to no one; His might makes right. What a wonderful God He is!
All Biology is Chemistry
All Chemistry is Physics.
Physics rules.
I will grant you that maybe some supernatural sky entity set up the whole system. It’s possible, not likely.
Then you elevate this supernatural sky entity to knowing and controlling what every biological creature is doing and thinking 24/7] worldwide,
Still possible. less than not likely.
Then you believe that this supernatural sky entity really cares what every biological entity on the planet does with its reproductive organs, and if the biological entity does the “wrong” thing with those organs, he/she will be condemned to hell to be tortured for eternity.
The worst thing about being an atheist is knowing that Hitler,
Stalin, et.al. aren’t getting this treatment
I don’t elevate anything, I believe the evidence, which is plentiful, supporting God and who He says He is. If you want to believe in nothing, that’s certainly your choice but at best you only have a 50/50 chance of being correct. After you die isn’t the time to be finding out you missed your chance “if” there is some “supernatural sky entity” up there. If you are wrong then you get to meet Hitler and Stalin in person. I’d suggest a more serious consideration into discovering the truth about Christianity rather that being so callous toward those who place their confidence in God and the belief system that has survived centuries.
I’ve already stated why I believe in God. And it didn’t take any whining, control freak, nosy and pompous people of faith to TELL me what I needed to know. However, the second someone impresses themselves with quotes, with putting down gay people, with thinking that the ancient Biblical cultures were more intuitive, inventive and morally virtuous than modern man, they’ve lost me.
I know when you’re talking like God’s police, and the only people who deserve to be here, are the ones who have benefited the most from the abuse of others. Christians have a long, bloody history of abuse. And still do in some quarters. And if you refuse to acknowledge that it’s happened and why, then why should anyone listen to you? Why do you think you deserve to be trusted if someone smells the stink of self interest, if not delusion coming off of you?
Gene, only if you concern yourself with the after-life which you can’t prove exists. Death is a natural stage of any life cycle. Hitler was a Christian. Pretty interesting.
Hi everyone! I am not here to debate or argue, I am here to tell you what I have recently given up for God. I have quit watching the kind of movies that I was watching in the past. the usual kind in todays world.. sex scenes, the lord’s name in vain, you got it. I had grown fed up with seeing that kind of stuff time and time again displayed. I cant remember when the last time I had been to a theatre. All I know is that this was all for the better in my walk with Christ. Thats it folks!
@Amy….
You’re kidding, right?
@gene
intelligent life? Let me tell you the wonderful story of human evolution and how we started to gain cranial capacity throughout time and eventually ending into the species we are today.
OR we can have your version
where god created everyone and everything. Two of each right? Let’s fast forward that. WOAH WAIT wouldn’t that mean incest? Jst saying.
Regan and Katty! Finally some common sense around here.
Kudos to Lolido, StopDropNTroll and QK as well.
Matt,
I’ve had those desires come against me. After I was born again, it happend. I asked the LORD what was going on and HE showed me it was a perverse spirit coming against me. I rebuked it in the name of Jesus and it left. Satan uses these perverse spirits to put people into bondage to homesexuality. As a believer, which it’s clear to me you are I want you to know and walk in wisdom. The blood of Jesus calls us by a new name, Redeemed. Jesus wants you to live in freedom from all Satanic forces that try to put us in bondage again. So you need to start standing in the blood of Jesus and the freedom you have from every wrong mindset, your past, evil desires (since this is a work of Satan), and all Satanic forces. The blood of the Lamb has given us victory over all of Satan workings that come against our lives and minds to hinder us. As you stand in the truth of GOD’s word and the Redmption and Freedom you now have through Jesus’ blood you will no longer be confronted daily with these “false” desires that you once gave place to in your mind. Remember, that the enemey is out to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus came to give us life, and life eternal. I love you, brother. Keep pressing in to LOVE and truth.
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I just want to say, as a Christian, the way some of the posters have responded to those defending homosexuality made me more angry than anything those defending homosexuality posted. It was hateful and not in any way Christ-like. Insulting or mocking isn’t at all what a Christian is called to do when their beliefs are questioned, and it certainly isn’t the way Jesus responded to criticism.
The truth here is, there is no way I will ever be able to convince a non-Christian that homosexuality is wrong. I won’t try either. I came to Christ through circumstances completely aside from the homosexual debate, and the work of Christ in my life has radically changed my life. I can’t ignore that; it’s shaped every aspect of my being. As a result, I’ve grown to want to please him in everything I do, and, seeing as homosexuality defies the example relationship of Christ and the Church presented in scripture, I won’t have any part of it.
Now, obviously, that’s just a hollow noise in the ears of someone who doesn’t believe, which is why I won’t try to convince them otherwise. I won’t hate homosexuals. I won’t mock homosexuals. I won’t try to turn them straight. I’ll only show them the love of Christ, and if, by chance, they come to me looking for lifestyle more satisfying. I’ll be glad to share my faith with them. That’s all I can do. Truthfully, that’s all any Christian to do. The bible repeatedly says no fine-sounding argument can win anyone to Christ, only the supernatural work and love of God.
Someone may comment on this, but I won’t respond, because, like I said, debate is pointless when you’re operating on two fundamentally different sets of core beliefs.
Ps – btw’s great article Matt. Very well grounded in scripture.
Aaron, really?
You’re showing some selective blindness when it comes who behaved in a mocking manner. And further, I think it’s fair to say that defending homosexuality in the face of how gay people are selectively and inconsistently treated by faith communities is warranted. All the claims, assertions and extolling that ‘you’re just doing what Christians are called to do’, while in a very different way gay people are SINGLED out for attention, is disingenuous at best.
It’s Christians behaving like this, and even pointing fingers at which ones are not good ones, and expecting all of you to be believed regardless is so frustrating.
It’s been assumed I’m turning away from God, but the truth is, I’m turning away from arrogant, disingenuous and cowardly people who claim to be Christians.
Big difference.
Gene keeps saying that over and over how much he believes in the word of God, that it’s the absolute truth. I know he believes that.
Who it hurts, is where he’s shown he couldn’t care less. It’s got to be how he believes in God, or else.
Or else not going to speak to you as if you’re an adult.
Or else going to give a sermon and not have a conversation.
Make no acknowledgement of correlations and causation where religious belief causes harm.
He’s not the only one. And why, I could walk away from this experience none the wiser, or understanding or loving of God.
But very much turned off and confused by the hypocritical and contradictory behavior of the people who claim they know God and act on God’s behalf better than anyone.
@Regan:
you’ve made a strong accusation against me: ” Gene keeps saying that over and over how much he believes in the word of God, that it’s the absolute truth. I know he believes that. Who it hurts, is where he’s shown he couldn’t care less.” Are you prepared to prove that I could “care less” about who is hurt over the people who mis-represent God? I’ve said over and over how I do NOT agree with this, yet you continue to lambaste me.
Alright Gene, I’ll try to be fair about this.
You have said that you believe in the word of God, and firmly in the origins of that word. When I mention the abuses from those who claim the same, your answer to that was either you had nothing to do with that, or that I was anti Christian.
That’s weak, considering the situation.
There have been sweeping, generalized statements from your fellows here, in which Christians feel, believe or are compelled to point out who is or isn’t toeing the same word you believe in, and judging them harshly, if not churlishly.
A sweeping statement like “we’re all sinners”.
Is assuming guilt until proven innocent. And some poor people are ALWAYS guilty, by that kind of assessment, no matter how innocent.
Hence the definition, ‘suspect class’.
Which is why the Founders and Constitution reversed that sentiment when it came to accusers and the burden of proof.
So, it’s a fair question to ask, considering those origins of that word, and who HAS been entitling themselves and who is allowed enabling the enforcement of that word, how do you KNOW for and to a CERTAINTY of those origins?
I guess I don’t have to ask WHY you believe it.
But it would be hard to argue that it’s not mere mortals doing the deeds, without waiting around for what God is going to do or not.
Which makes other mere mortals demanding people less powerful answer to THEM, not God.
So, if we are to know what’s right or wrong by the fruits (or results) of doing what’s right or wrong. Then plenty of Christians and others have a lot to answer to when their religious belief results in unnecessary toxic prejudice, tragedy and injustice.
Not because of not believing in God or Jesus, but because no one listened and ignored the pain of another (or the poison fruits) because it was too inconvenient.
That sweeping statement is used to remind those who had unconditionally surrendered to God that they too, had committed evil and are still capable of committing evil.
In this article, Cal Thomas makes a reference to the trial of Adolf Eichmann, quoting a witness.
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Matt,
We’ll be praying for you. I hope the comments of many of these above posters do not succeed in browbeating you into ignoring God’s will for all of us that we resist the sinful temptations in our lives, as that is their clear intention. The amount of vitriol whenever someone like you speaks out about resisting homosexual temptation is really appalling. It seems that in our society, the only choice that is not acceptable is resisting sexual sins for Christ’s sake – and I am not just talking about SSA but adultery, divorce, premarital sex, and all the rest. (Honestly, you think what you’re saying gets a bad reaction, try taking on no-fault divorce! Talk about a “sacred cow.”) As C.S. Lewis pointed out many years ago, something has gone wrong with sexual desire in our society – we’ve managed to make it our “golden calf” and as usual, that hasn’t served us well. In the end, some things are more important than sex – and foremost among those things is God’s will for us. I pray that I will be able to deal with my sinful temptations as honestly and forthrightly as you seem to be doing.
I won’t be back on this thread – too much cruelty. But I wanted you to know that I and others are out here, praying for you. I hope you will pray for us too.
Thanks for being honest about your struggles! How brave you are. If only more Christians would admit their struggles. I have been a Christian for 23 years. I still struggle with anger, lustful thoughts, laziness, gluttony, and I’m extremely irresponsible with what God has provided for me financially. I’m know there are more, but that’s what’s on the forefront today. Thank you!
How is it that loving someone is a sin? I am a 19 year old bisexual and in my first male crush I had no desire of having sex with him. I wanted to be with him and talk to him, share time with him but it didnt cross my mind to have sex with him.
And Gene, there comes a point in what accountability means. Not agreeing with say civil and political abuses, and perhaps not participating in them, really doesn’t matter if you do nothing to ACTIVELY not allow it to be done by someone else.
You know what the poisonous and dangerous socio/ political atmosphere is against gay people. And it takes a lot more than prayer or not agreeing to change it. That is if you WANT to change it.
Which you can tell me whether or not you do.
And certainly, by making declarations of walking away from homosexuality, or calling it a lifestyle, makes gay people changing that atmosphere extremely difficult. And for gay kids, an unfair and on face, a dangerous gauntlet.
The message you believe, and what you’re sending isn’t new. It’s not going to change.
And, apparently for some people of faith, not up for debate.
Well, I say it’s gay people and their identity that isn’t. But they constantly have to justify and defend it.
And they more than anyone shouldn’t have to do that.
If you don’t want to have to justify and defend your faith, then don’t make anyone else have to do what they must.
Treating another, the way you’d want to be treated, see?
There wouldn’t be a conflict of interests here at all, were it not for the legacy of injustice and hypocrisy Christians have been capable of, stacked up in comparison.
It’s quite ironic when they call the homosexuals sinners when they’re the ones being judgemental pricks.
I just read Matt’s blog and the comments….
I’m horrified by the hatred in these comments and how people of just cut each other down. Everyone is so set on proving themselves and making sure they get the last word in. Fellow followers of God you should be ashamed with how you’ve spoken to some of these people. So what if they want to come back and tear you down every time you type something. That doesn’t mean you have to retaliate at every breath. THAT is wrong. THAT is NOT like Jesus.
We all have trials and we all have struggles but one thing is true in the Bible that God gave us to do above all else, is love. Love others no matter their problems. Love others no matter their sins. Love them as God loves us. Sin is the same in God’s eyes. If homosexual people want to get married LET THEM. I have seen many homosexual couples be happy together and in the church. What matters to them the most? Love. They just want to be loved no matter who they are.
Something that we have to do with the times is… flow with it. The culture today is what it is. We need to move with it. I’m not saying don’t be like Jesus. I’m saying… we need to be accepting of the lifestyles that are abundant in the world. It’s a sin to be a stumbling block for others. Maybe your intolerance and hatred will keep people away from Jesus. How many of these people who do not believe in God would be more accepting of God’s people, and Him, if we were more accepting and loving of them LIKE GOD HAS TOLD US TO BE.
I’m sickened and some of you should be ashamed. If you get defensive with my post, then maybe you’re one of the ones that should be ashamed and you’re defensive for a reason.
I’m sorry to all people who have been judged and hated because of followers of God who refuse to be loving. People who won’t sit and listen to you and accept you as a person with many faults… and successes. No matter the person we should celebrate everyone’s successes and love all.
Thank you J. You’ve been very fair in your comments.
They want other people to approve of their sodomitic sex acts. They want the “special status” of marriage, not just the “bundle of rights”. See
Complaint in Jackson v. Abercrombie, CV11-009734-ACK-KSC, at 13,
quoting Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health, 289 Conn. 315 at
289, 957 A.2d 407 at 416 (Conn. Sup. Ct. 2008). They want “their relationships [to] be recognized by the rest of society as being as valued as heterosexual relationships” See Civil Rights Brief in Opinions of the Justices to the Senate, SJC-01963 (Mass. Sup. Jud. Ct.) at 13. They want “status in the community”. id. at 12,. They want “social recognition”. GLAD brief, Opinions, at 24.
But as Thomas Sowell pointed out , “[n]one of us has a right to other people’s approval.”
Sodomitic sex acts…. so you’ve never given or had oral sex? What about heterosexual anal sex? I mean if we’re going to get real. Please, lets do.
I don’t know about you but… I’ve had oral sex.
I’ve also lied, cheated, gluttony, I have dishonored my parents. I have not lived a golden squeaky clean life. Should I be denied getting married because of those things? I’m heterosexual. I’ve had sex before marriage. I’ve been disrespectful to others. I’ve been a stumbling block for people I’m sure.
I’m a follower of God. Should I be shamed like homosexuals are being shamed? Should I be refused love too? Because by some standards I should be… but because I’m heterosexual I won’t be. I’ll be forgiven.
When you accept Jesus and confess your sins. You are forgiven for all your past present and future sins. As long as you try the best you can and don’t become a slave to yourself God will pour blessings in your life. NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE. Love is love. Love knows no name. No face. Love is God and God is Love. When Jesus was on earth he befriended all people. Thieves, prostitutes, liars, murderers, drunks, cheats, some of the worst people in those days and he befriended them. Don’t forget when Jesus died for our sins… he died for EVERYONE’S sin. He died so we could stop judging others and love others whole heartedly.
Do you want to know what people see? They see what we do, what we say, how we are. So if you want to make an impact in someone’s life… love ALL people. You have no right to refuse happiness and love to others. No right to take that away from them.
The change starts with God, but how can people change if the people that are claiming to no God aren’t showing love but showing hate? How can people change and accept God if they can’t accept the followers because all they see is judgmental intolerance?
I don’t know about you… but I chose God. I chose the path of love and LIFE. If the voting for homosexual marriage comes up on the ballot in my state I’ll be voting yes. Who am I to refuse love and happiness to others?
Because if homosexual people can’t get married, who is going to be the first to be blamed for it? Christians. They associate Christians with them not being able to get married. They associate God with hate. Is THAT how is should be? no. Time to change our hearts.
Refusing to redefine marriage does not constitute intolerance or hatred.
However, the rationalizations to refuse, have been hypocritical, contradictory, illogical and most of all, un Constitutional. The rationalizations to ban gay couples from marrying, aren’t even consistent with marriage and how it IS defined NOW. Constantly saying the word ‘redefinition’ without context, makes it sound like a BAD redefinition or one inconsistent with why people get married at all.
And those opposed to gays marrying, try to redefine marriage into what isn’t IN the LAW now.
So, there have been many reasons stated, some ARE hateful, stupid, bigoted, anathema to equality, or even common sense. No, not all who refuse to accept gay people marrying, do so out of hate.
But their idea of what the Constitution is, and the place of gay people among us and self determination of all citizens doesn’t make any RATIONAL sense.
You can’t go into a court of law, and defend the bans with ‘because God said so’. Many have tried to do that with marriage laws and women, mixed marriage or integration.
Why should everyone, but gay people, decide what gay people can or can’t do with their lives?
Writes who?
You?
No…the branches of gov’t that have protected OTHER citizens from the very abuses of religious belief and power you support.
Don’t sit on your butt with Constitutional protections to live as you can, even with your belief, and expect gay people to be excluded from the same protections.
YOU don’t live under any Biblical standards whatsoever, you live under Constitutional ones.
THAT is what treating another as you’d be treated is about.
Which is why it’s not hard to call you out on how two faced you are.
What branches of government would they be?
SCOTUS for one. Why don’t you go back to school? I have a pocket version of the Constitution, Bill of Rights.
We have judicial, executive and legislative checks and balances in our laws. Didn’t you go to school or were you kicked out because you weren’t learning anything? We’re not all required to live according to the Bible. Including you.
So again, invoking a RELIGIOUS opinion on this, is irrelevant.
You don’t get to decide who can use birth control and what kind according to your religious belief, although religion was invoked at one time to TRY and ban that. But individual liberty trumped that and rightly.
And there isn’t any reason to keep gay people from marrying according the same basic laws ALL people are married by NOW.
1. minimum age of 18 (which protects from coercion)
2. with mutual consent and agreement (also protects from coercion)
3. the parties are not currently married (non redundant, rendering marriage unnecessary)
4. they are not closely related. (non redundant, the state recognizes blood kin, making marriage to be kin, unnecessary).
Where in that is it necessary for both people to be heterosexual, or op sex? Or religious for that matter? I don’t know what century you think you live in, let alone planet. But this is the planet in which not every Christian was right, moral, superior or good. And it was necessary to let them understand that. For the same reason our society doesn’t allow human sacrifice according to religion. Suck it up and deal with the fact, reasonable limits have been placed on what people can do with their religion when it comes to other individuals. Whether they share the same beliefs or not.
Technically, no it doesn’t constitute intolerance or hatred.
Not technically?
Well go around and ask people about it and get back to me what people say when you ask, “Why can’t homosexuals get married?” Asking your like minded friends doesn’t count. Ask random people you don’t know. Ask homosexuals. I bet you might be surprised by what they would say and who they would blame.
They can not marry because what they propose is not a marriage.
Times change my friend. The definition (regardless of sexuality) has changed. The traditional sense of marriage that was held 20 years from now is not what we have today. People don’t really get married in churches anymore, not even about God to them. Most marriages aren’t even about God to the couples. They do it because it’s a tradition, because it’s what is expected of them, not because of a traditional godly meaning, or related to any other religion.
What about other religions who get married?
What about people who say they don’t own up to a religion?
While we’re at it getting a divorce isn’t even acceptable in the Bible unless it was a physically abusive marriage.
The definition of a traditional marriage has evolved. I know of many couples that don’t believe in marriage and won’t get married. They’ve been together for years and years. They are heterosexual.
Times are changing. Culture is changing. People are changing. Hold true to the biblical values that you know is true, just at the same time learn to love and accept the culture as it evolves. “Love your neighbor as yourself” “Do unto others as they would do unto you.” Remember that next time telling someone they can’t get married because they aren’t like you.
This is why we oppose redefining marriage.
Mark 10:6-8
Treating another as you’d be treated, means in EVERYTHING. Not just what you pick and choose to your convenience, shoes thrower. Times HAVE changed. In recent history, someone us grew UP in experiencing, we heard people try to use religious belief to justify and rationalize abusive, punitive and un Constitutional behavior. Being a believer isn’t your license to decide for another individual how they deserve to live.
We don’t have a religious, morality, competence, fertility, fecundity TEST for fitness to marry. We just don’t.
You live in a nation that bases their gov’t treatment of it’s citizens on equal access, protection, rights and freedoms as long as those citizens maintain the same common responsible behavior.
You can’t sit here and deny that gay people aren’t paying taxes, or sharing in the same responsibilities as other citizens. They have children to raise, there are local communities to participate in.
What ELSE would you have a romantically committed, responsible couple DO to secure their support and responsibility to each other?
YOU aren’t going to do it.
Even incarcerated, murderers have the right to marry.
The issue isn’t about who deserves to, or who is fit to marry, but that it’s marriage that’s good for a person to aspire to and be included in.
The ONLY restrictions necessary, and that are in place, are so that it’s not coerced, or redundant.
The LEGAL definition of marriage has only four basic rules.
1. To be of minimum age of majority.
2. To be of mutual consent
3. To not be closely related
4. To not be already married
The purpose of marriage, is to make TWO non related, non married persons, into PRIMARY kin, with custody and responsibility of each other. Period. Children are optional, gender and what one does with it, is not and cannot be enforced by the state.
In a time when it’s IMPOSSIBLE for the state to MAKE individuals stay with their spousal and parental duties (whether married or not), how STUPID is it, to KEEP individuals who ARE doing so, without legal protections, FROM doing so? And ONLY because they are gay, not because they have no interest or capability?
And all your Bible quoting and belief, can’t do anything about all this either. And shouldn’t.
It’s like you trying to enforce whether your fellow citizens can use contraception or not. YOU never get to police that, or enforce how they arrange that in their lives. You can’t decide FOR a couple, how the role of gender figures in their lives. It’s not up to YOU, whether they have kids or not, or who will be the breadwinner or what kind of arrangement they make in each other’s care anyway.
Why are you forcing that issue AGAINST gay people?
See why you make no kind of sense in what YOU think the state’s definition of marriage is, as opposed to the Bible’s definition of it.
Times have and MUST change. YOU don’t live in a single fiber, robe wearing, polygamous and primitive culture, so gay people shouldn’t have to either.
Jesus Himself stated what marriage is.
So. What?
This is NOW. We live in an age, doing things as human beings NOBODY in Jesus’s time even THOUGHT of. We have grown, we have changed and socially evolved and where things have been more inclusive and given people opportunities to know each other better and be more just, life is better.
Even for you.
And when Jesus was first in prison, when the people of his time had a choice of who to let go free.
They chose Barrabus. People of that time didn’t know everything, and didn’t trust or care about Jesus THEN.
People who betray, steal from, assault, murder….or who teach to distrust someone not because they are doing harm, but because they are different, doesn’t change as a moral definition of how to treat another human being.
But modern man has rejected what the definition of demon possession is, what gender is and what social justice is, since then.
YOU don’t have to suffer the ignorance, fears and prejudices of Biblical times. So neither should anyone else.
Invoke Jesus all you want, you’re still not living LIKE him, and you know it.
And you’re living like Him?
I have avoided saying anything about myself in that regard because it shouldn’t be necessary, now should it?
But all things considered, with some of the confessions that have been made here, or outright shallow and misguided judgements against others who don’t profess their religious resumes to the satisfaction of many here: it doesn’t matter how I live to someone like you. That’s the point, you don’t really care what another person does with their lives. You wouldn’t have asked such a question if you did.
Shoes thrower, that’s a religious opinion, not a LEGAL one.
It can’t and doesn’t hold up to Constitutional and consistent scrutiny. Not all human beings are so strictly defined in nature that way where male and female are concerned. Only when women were subjugated property in a marriage, was being a male and female necessary to the structure of religious marriage. THAT is no longer true. Gender is only important between the individuals in the marriage, NOT THE STATE. There is no reason why gay couples, and het couples can’t coexist in the law, the same way parent and non parent married couples exist in the law AS WELL. You can’t, and neither can the state, ENFORCE what that flesh does within any given individual home. You have no way of policing or interfering with the qualities those individuals will bring to their relationship.
THAT is out of your hands anyway.
So you can quote the Bible all you want and waste your time. It’s irrelevant in this whole issue.
I believe in the Bible and its words. Just know quoting the Bible for people who don’t believe in it… is condescending and falls on deaf ears.
Shoesthrower here is food for thought. I want you to really think about this…
God created Adam and Eve with FREE will. That means they chose to love him, they also chose to disobey HIm. With disobeying him it brought sin into the world, and everything else that came with it. It brought disease, thorns, weeds, and death. We are still created under that same free will. God gave us a choice to love him and follow him… or to turn our backs against him. Who are we, as believers, to make laws and rules and regulations that others have to follow when our own God never has ever done it for us. He has given us a book to TEACH us how to be righteous and to love him and ALL people, but they aren’t rules to enforce upon others.
When we vote stuff into a government, any government, we are saying that the only things that matter in our religion is following rules. It’s all about rules. Well it isn’t. IT’S ALL ABOUT LOVE. Trying to enforce rules on people makes them act like children/teenagers, it makes them want to rebel and say “I CAN DO WHAT I WANT”… what we have to do as believers is show them that they can have what we have and more… but the way to do this is by loving. By living a life of righteousness and if we aren’t loving of ALL people FIRST AND FOREMOST… all the other rule following means NOTHING. Because you’re too busy to be judgmental you turn people away from you… and you turn people away from God. Open your heart and mind to ALL people.
Exactly J. I’ve been trying to point out religious enforcement against lives most vulnerable to it. And there IS a quality very distinct in how blacks, women and gays have been spoken to, not just how they’ve been treated historically. Those in power, treated each group LIKE children. Regardless potential or accomplishment. Not only have I borne witness to this treatment of others, but I’ve been treated that way because I am black and a woman…and I support gay people. The overt condescension is that of low expectations. Children are not to be self reliant, children can never question those who have authority over them, children aren’t supposed to form romantic bonds, or organize a sex life however committed, children aren’t suppose to challenge or disobey.
I see gay people being spoken to like bad children and being scolded by mere mortals just like themselves, not God. People like to treat gay people that way because it’s easy to, not because there has been a good and rational reason to.
Blacks have been treated this way, with the blessing of white Christians who supported Jim Crow and were convinced God made them better than blacks. Men are cruel and brutal to women, everywhere…and are so distracted by repressing gay people, have done little to reduce the abandonment of spouses and children and domestic violence in our society.
The vicious dismissal of this context, has been very telling.
Attacks on my character for this has been also. No one cares about the connection to mistreatment of gay people with MISOGYNY.
What I find unforgivable, is not only saying that the historical record of mistreatment of blacks and women, is more legitimate as a caution about violence and injustice against them.
But that the similar treatment of gay people is either non existent, and/or justified.
Erica and Gene played the misery card from the bottom of the deck and dismissed talking about it.
I said that I’ve spent a LIFETIME knowing what the Bible says too.
I’ve learned from the same book as well and it’s not just my opinion how it’s been used to be cruel, spiteful, violent, bigoted, prejudiced and hypocritical and irrational.
So when someone is displaying any one of these, and most importantly, projecting them onto someone who is pointing it out, I’m not dealing with a good Christian.
And being nasty me because I know it, doesn’t help their cause either.
This is why one of my favorite verses is Phillipians 1:6 “He who began a good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” God recently opened my eyes to this verse. Our struggles with temptation, growth in the spirit, and triumphs will not cease until we meet Christ. With our struggles comes stronger faith, wisdom and joy. Sometimes our struggle is with ignorance and bigotry that was planted in us from a young age but when we start to understand God’s grace do we become broken and see people in a different light and not just homosexuals but everyone who struggles with sin including ourselves.
Thank you Matt for writing this. It is wonderful and exactly what I’ve been trying to explain to people.
I think it is so sad that so many of you have turned a personal testimony, written with insight and compassion, into something that can only be described as dirty, mud slinging rants. What Matt wrote was his own story, what he has gone through and some of you have attacked him. How is that being tolerant? All of us, before we became Christians, were headed for Hell, regardless of our lifestyle, our age, our thoughts or our “sins”. It is only by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Christ that we are saved from that end. Sin is sin. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Please allow Matt to express his thoughts without attacking with filthy language and hurtful comments.
thank you, mr. moore, for your beautiful and brave honesty, and for your love for Jesus.
Wow Matt Moore, AMAZING how your words flow here and explain exactly what the Bible says. Thank you, for putting it out there even in the midst of so many people doing wrong things. Congratulations on your work in fighting sin, all of us need your strength, because as you have well said, we are all tempted with different things! I have a blog for Bible studies and I am so happy someone out there is doing it too! We can reach the masses! My blog is http://www.witnessingtheword.blogspot.com if you’re interested.
Homosexuality is something that you’re not really born with, it’s just mere sin. We are all born with sin, because of Adam and Eve who lost the perfect life, and because of Satan tempting people! Regardless of what kind of sin is tempting you, you are to fight it. I am just sooo pleased with your words and I wished I could shake your hand and thank you personally, because it seems like those sticking with the truth are the minority. It is really hard to find the support of someone else, and I am just so happy that I’ve found you! Thank you a million times!!!
beautifully written reply, Ingrid! It’s true that there is a minority opinion being stated, but that’s the way the Lord said it would be. Truth always prevails, however!
“Homosexuality is something you’re not really born with. It’s mere sin…” That it’s only gay people that have to debate anyone on that is exactly why people who believe that make life impossible and wrongly difficult for gay people. When I see straight people bald faced and condescendingly say that to gay people, it’s so inappropriate to do.
Gay people don’t have much choice in when someone utters such a thing, and neither when that attitude is used as political action.
A lot of people have been immeasurably hurt by such an opinion and a lot of people are obviously hard pressed to make a person who believes it listen TO FACTS.
And that is what makes saying something like that offensive and it always will be offensive. Because real people are deliberately harmed by it, and the pious among you couldn’t care less.
Funny since I have had this “curiosity” from when I was 4 to 6 years old. Like really now.
Oh dear… The ignorance of Christian slaves…
The human race can be sickening at times.
Beautiful story, Matt. Truthful account of a Christian struggling with SSA. Thank you.
I know God is calling for a people who will follow Him no matter what it cost. However it has always angered me that more seems to be required oft hose who are dealing with homosexuality. I know I speak for many when I say this thing hurts like nothing eles.Most of us have dealing with this from early child hood.Some of us also have had to struggle with gender identity issues.The isolation from being misunderstood & rejected by those around you is horrible enough. It adds an entire other level of misery to be told the God of the universe does not honor your pain & all He wants is repentance & holiness. I understand why some folks feel suicide is the answer when you don’t knowwhat to do with yourself or how to view yourself. i don’t know where I stand with God but I refuse to accept a life of constantly being at odds with my sexuality while straight Christian are so at ease with theirs. It’s not fair & it’s a cross i’m willing to bear.
Hello Kevin,
Time and time again, I have myself tried VERY hard to have an honest, real deal conversation about how the Bible has been used as a means of structuring gender and homosexuality into configurations that don’t exist. And obviously, weren’t meant to. Some cultures had no problems with finding something practical and even spiritual in those who could identify with the opposite gender so strongly.
The fact remains, that homosexuality is treated as if an anti social, mental and spiritual ‘disorder’, that no child who discovers themselves attracted to the same sex, would be able to overcome years of religious or other conditioning without a conflict that could put them at other risks.
The struggle, therefore is not with homosexuality, but with the environmental prejudice, distrust and conflict that is fomented by heterosexuals determined to see gay people disappear.
Hetero kids and adults are taught to respond to homosexuality this way, against their better angels in fact.
This response, obviously doesn’t COME naturally and it wouldn’t.
A sad commentary on how dangerous such willful ignorance is.
And to see gay people, literally ‘go with the program’ and get comfortable ‘with their place’, only serves the purpose of those who exploit ignorance and fear.
I know it’s important for any human being to feel wanted, accepted and included, but why it’s ONLY religious discipline that ultimately has to fill that role for gay people and no one else for this to happen, is exactly YOUR comment.
I was raised with the same spiritual and religious teaching, all my life I’ve heard it over and over again.
And whatever the Bible says, conflicts with REALITY, so there is no reason for me to believe what I’m told about gay people from that book.
It saddens me that so many gay people are taught to distrust that part of themselves, or that heterosexuality is some magic or superior state that will get a better grip on what’s spiritually more noble and healing.
And if not, than trade an active romantic life for one with God and Jesus.
Which is still a manner of avoiding what’s tangible and more difficult.
An honest and authentic relationship with OTHER people who will challenge you and keep you that way.
God and Jesus, as intangibles, actually never will.
I mentor gay teenagers. To be honest, I resent the commitment to intellectual dishonesty here that makes gay kids pay dearly for being alive. It’s a struggle to grow into one’s body, deal with powerful hormonal impulses and gain romantic insight in the formative years.
I resent how ex gays, or those claiming celibacy or having no gay romantic relationships anymore that allows the anti gay to damage gay children who are too vulnerable and conflicted by what they are told as opposed to what THEY know is real.
And I resent a typical EX SEXUAL, as I like to call them, claiming some kind of superiority for revisionist personal histories and new found religious disciplines. As if that is enough as a character reference.
It’s not.
When young people have to pay such a horrible price for what people like so many ex gays do, and they don’t admit that’s THE problem, not an answer to it, then I have every reason to not have any respect for them.
Because it leaves young gay people little choice or guidance to gain a healthy perspective for themselves that they need badly, so they can avoid the traps people like Matt and his supporters had to deal with themselves.
Heterosexuals have some horrible relationship issues, also fomented by rigid ideals about gender and it’s place in our lives. Heterosexuals just are required to give up their orientation, no matter how many relationships they screw up. And do, regardless of general support for THEIR relationships. So it’s only fair to conclude, that gay young people without the same support and guides, would be hard pressed not to meet another gay people without the baggage of systemic prejudice.
Black people have gone through the same problems, and it’s damaged that minority generationally because of it.
It’s way past time, religious communities let gay kids teach everyone the real and honest truth about homosexuality in a safe and accepting place, and perhaps this ex gay BS will finally be put away as it should be.
Because these religious people have taken up all the time, energy and air for a very, very long time and they can at least have the grace to give another aspect it’s turn to inform.
In the same boat. In fact I had this “curiosity” from around the age of 4 to 6 years old. I didnt see it as wrong until around I was 12. After that came the hell I passed through for 7 years until I accepted it now with 19 years old. I have loved both genders and to be honest its not even about sex for me. I am still a virgin.too. What I mean is that when I got my first crush with a male when I was around the age of 14 to 16 I didnt really want to have sex with him just like it happened with the girls before him. I merely loved him like I did the girls.
I feel so, so bad for you. You are lying to yourself, and you know it.
Reevaluate your faith (you can still be Christian and ACTIVELY gay), be happy, be gay, BE YOURSELF.
Cheers.
Please don’t give up. Your post was painful to read, and I’m feeling at sea as how to respond effectively, except to say I know what it ‘s like to have no one appreciate what makes you different. But there are many people who are like you, and who understand where you are now. It’s always important to be here, to leave your mark and claim your place. I mean that from being where you are now for a different reason. I know what it feels like to have people make you hate what you are, but that doesn’t mean they are right, nor that you don’t belong.
What matters most, is you will always matter and will be loved. Please take care. If I could I’d wrap my arms around you. I want to reassure you, and send you love.
Hope is more eternal than anything.
Why won’t God kill me, I don’t want to upset him, and I do not want an undeserved heaven either, but I just can’t stand my mind and my weakness anymore, I know being gay is not the worse thing by any standards but I just don’t know what to live for if I am so fucked up.
I also can not stomach being angry at God, for putting gay people in hell or even athiests, I just understand them and I even feel I understand them better than the religous, why is God’s ways so twisted, and to me feels sadistic. Why hell for a punishment, he repeatedly says he has nothing to gain from worshiping him, than what does he have to gain from seeing us suffer as well, just to make us suffer eternally if we become too bitter to believe in him.
I am sorry God….I just can’t be of the righteous…just give me oblivion I want no part of this story.
Shivaneva,
Satan is a master of lies and decepton. He wants you to steal life from you and the most relationship that you have in the university. His most common lie is the sin nature that we are born with defines me. We are all born this way. and it shows up in different ways in each of us. We have a choice to remain in it or believe in the hope found in Christ. He loved us so much he bled on a cross for you and took all that is in you that is sin so he could pay the price for you. He rose from the dead to demonstrate that he was God and he took the power of sin over us from satan. You have been given a gift of amazing freedom and new identity by simply believing in Christ and what he did on the cross which paid for your sins and he is true to make you a new completely new person. Your faith is made real by your response to it.
Romans 10:9-12 “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Faith is not about feelings but placing our trust in the reality described by Christ and the apostles. We have a reason to be confident since there is no message so documented in human history. The thousands of scriptural text could be piled a mile ahead and yet a agreement unlike any other ancient documents. The writers of the bible wrote their experiences with God and about Christ so we would have a accurate record and the means of knowing how to know Christ.
Luke 1:1-4 “Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.
Don’t settle for the lie. God does not hate you but loves you so much that he has in Christ paid for your sins and provides the way out of its power over you. Paul was a great sinner but he found Christ 1 Timothy 1:15-16 “This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.”
Believing means that I choose to walk away from the lie that I am what I feel but instead by simple faith believe and walk by faith that God paid for it in Christ and he will place his Holy Spirit to give me power over it. I am learning to grow in faith by reading the scriptures written by the New Testament writers on how to do this. It is all based on faith which itself is a gift from God which is a firm conviction lived by my daily decisions because I really believed it and God is faithful to give me the strength to do it. If I start going back because I fall for the lie that he is not able or that sin is good for me then I can simply tell God my failings of sin and He is faithful to forgive and give power over that sin. 1 John 1:19
You need to find believers who really love Jesus in this way or you can contact me personally if you want to understand salvation is found in Christ and how to walk out in faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. None of us are perfect but the grace of Christ is changing us daily to more like Him. It is important to have others in your life as we are told in Hebrews 3:12-15
“Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. Remember what it says:
“Today when you hear his voice,
don’t harden your hearts
as Israel did when they rebelled.”
Watch this video from Tenth Avenue North that speaks about your pain and hope that we can have in Christ.
Really Albert?
You couldn’t just say something truly genuine from your own heart and not from that book? Does it not occur to you that book is part of the problem? You’re not listening.
You’re not the only one. It’s become very, very clear to me in many other arenas how little some Christians care to listen and how indifferent they can be to the pain of another and the pain they inflict.
And if it’s impossible to connect without invoking the Bible, especially AT a gay person or someone very conflicted with their sexuality and orientation, then it’s about as comforting as a bucket of cold water thrown in the face.
The Bible isn’t flesh and blood, it doesn’t have the capacity for spontaneity or listening to a human being. Only another human heart and soul can do that. Those things will always carry more weight, and lighten someone’s else’s burden more than any book ever will.
So it is not genuine? You now decide the rules for what is genuine for other people? Your actions and word reveal a person steeped in bitterness. The reality is that Word became flesh which was Christ and he did feel our pain and did something that on one else could do which was to redeemed us from the cause of all this pain which is sin. The best thing anyone did for me was to share this amazing news of his love for me. I was a outcast lived in a dump laughed by outsides, an addict and learning about the love and power of Christ saved me. I was not supposed to make it in life but I am seeing God changed lives and growing in greater hope and love everyday. You speak one thing and do another. Do you see this in you? You speak tolerance and write malicious words if someone disagrees and now you want to define genuine. God is real and he loves you. Sadly like you will cling to their inner self believing that they have found freedom but reality will be revealed one day and I am fearful for you. There is so much evidence around and for that book that should make you think but your hate blinds you from the truth. Christ’s prayed for those who mocked and spit at him because they were blind to their own actions and so I will be praying for you also.
It’s not about ‘rules’. I don’t decide the ‘rules’ for what’s genuine and what’s not. I’m a human being that can pick up things you apparently can’t. This is about Shivalena and the pain she’s in. Not you getting off on a sermon, when it’s this kind of responses and RULES set about the Bible that causes these problems to begin with.
YOU coming at me about rules is ludicrous. Considering that most Christians who try to control other people, and decide who is more important, or less of a person is according to them all about “the Bible’s rules”.
What goes on in your head, to make what comes out of your mouth happen, means you aren’t thinking about anyone but YOUR needs more than Shivalena’s.
So get over it.
Shivalena needs a credible therapist, and sounded alarmingly suicidal.
So THAT is what was needed, not a long, string of preaching.
Regan,
The tragedy is that this world’s best experts can only give a bandage or a painkiller to sooth the pain that Christ can only heal. After twenty five years, I have to come to realize that one one man or therapist or human wisdom can deal with the spiritual issue that was killing me. Man is spirit, soul and body. The spirit due to sin is completely disconnected to God but Christ has provided the way back by his sacrifice on the cross for us. I have suffered the loss of much. I watched my mother hauled away in cuffs at the age of 6 only to see her mind gone all during my childhood, suffered severe emotion and physical abuse from a relative, had no relationship my father and he died when I was only 22. Loss every possession in a fire except for a car at the age of 14, experience racism, social abuse in the schools due to my poverty which was severe quite often experiencing hunger. I was told my teacher that I would never make in life. I lived in a little dump which was my home during my teen years. I have experienced severe pain, heartache, loss, fear, shame and had a completely lack of confidence in life. Had no hope for a future. A neighbor at the age of seventeen shared the hope and love found in Christ. I grew in a religious environment so I always thought Christianity was about keeping church rules and keeping up a appearance. Christ radically showed himself in the scriptures and set me free from a destructive sexual lifestyle and pornography. The gospel of the Christ is about a exchange of my dead spiritual life for Christ’s life. It is all by faith that God loved us so much he literally gave himself thru Christ on the cross because it was the only way out for us to be free from the control of satan, death and sin. Peace has replaced fear, joy replaced depression, love instead of hate, and others are important than my own life. I am praying for her because I know the depths of panic and the feeling that everyone has forgotten you including God. I also the lie that we will never be good enough for God. God has given us a trustworthy witness in the words of the writers of the new testament. Some of my cousins are bible translators and getting to know them has made me aware of the validity of the scriptures. Craig Keener one of the best bible experts has many articles on this issue. It is critical to point this out because my hope is not based on a myth. Men can only after years of studies see the symptom but they cannot offer a real cure but only a bandage to keep the pain down. We are born in a world of sin so unfortunately pain is part of our existence. It was not God’s fault but our ancestors Adam and Eve bought the lie that they no needed longer God and believed the lie that satan told that sin was ok which now has poisoned everything in our world. This why we are born with struggles against the sin nature, the self-centered world system and satan’s henchmen who work daily to convince many that life is not worth living. God is love but sin separates us from him and it kills us. He is offering to give us a new life that Christ has paid for. Just believe and surrender as a step of faith and he will live in you by the Holy Spirit. It is a process of transformation, the less of us results in more of Christ’s life which gives meaning, significance, peace, joy and the ability to resist the power of sin which corrupts us. God has a new way of living which is to love Him above all and love our neighbor as yourself. All the requirements of the new life are summed in these two commandments. Tragically many church people in the USA only have a superficiality Christianity since they have never really understood the gospel but a church message that promised salvation merely based on a sinner’s prayer. It is much more than a prayer but true repentance from doing my own thing, and a surrender by faith in the son of God that we experienced this new life. We who know Christ walk in it daily by the power of the Holy Spirit no longer walking in the ways of our flesh which corrupts. This is why I am passionate twenty five years later about Christ because I have seen the healing power of the gospel as given to us by Christ and the writers of the new testament and so now I reach out to the homeless, hurting ones and anyone who needs hope. Christ is real and loves us too much to keep us trapped in our destructive self-centered existence.
And once again, YOU DON’T LISTEN.
It’s about YOU, again. One size book fits all to YOU. YOUR experience, isn’t Shivalena’s just YOURS.
And again, YOU gave a sermon. In YOUR opinion, therapists aren’t as competent as the Bible.
Thanks for YOUR biography, nobody asked for.
We won’t be hearing from Shivalena anymore. When the conflict COMES from the Bible, throwing the Bible at a person, would exacerbate the conflict. But you don’t care about that. Just about how YOU feel about it.
Thanks for nothing Albert.
Regan,
I have no desire for this hateful kind of stuff. I feel badly for her and there are definitely some great Christian therapist that can also help her. Ranting will not helping her. I should have not allowed myself get upset about your comments so I will admit that I should have been more sensitive about this whole situation. Having been in the middle of hell myself gives me a passion to share the same love. that gave me hope and healing. Even I don’t agree with you I don’t have the desire to hate you. I don’t what happened what to you but something did to make you feel this way. She is going thru a lot of incredible pain and your comments are not helping her nor this uncivil conversation. Sh is crying because there is a part of her that wants God but yet feels that she is too bad for him. Christ loves her so much. My prayer are for her tonight and I know that are others who will also be praying. I have seen amazing things when believers in Christ pray and nothing is impossible with God. Please for her sake, lets stop this silly rant and I just as guilty being part of it.
I wasn’t being hateful, I was being frank about your insensitivity to the fact that it was religion that caused the conflict. It’s weak to keep playing the victim just because some people aren’t impressed or give fawning approval every time you invoke God. We’re all just folks. God can handle it, even if you can’t, not always getting unconditional incursion into a situation inappropriately.
I’m frustrated that there isn’t more I can do for Shivalena directly. It’s in my nature to act quickly and effectively, and her pain is very worrisome.
Even if you can relate to that pain because you had a difficult life, it’s still inappropriate to pretend that religion hasn’t been used as a tool to be abusive against gay people and being gay.
And your disdain for psychiatry might have something to do with ex gay therapists being quacks? I don’t know, but that was another inappropriate thing to say.
You didn’t ask me if I might have some background or experience in something that might be more appropriate.
Maybe you should try asking first, instead of just telling.
Regan,
I have no interest in seeing myself as a victim but I wrote because you seem upset that people find life in Christ. For me is not about being brown, minority, or whatever label that society wants to put on me or we put on ourselves. It is a new perspective that frees us from being absorbed with ourselves. I shared my story as an example that God is real and can do some amazing things. I now can tell a homeless kid or a guy in a jail that Christ is real and able to save them. I do my best to help them by feeding them and etc but I shared Christ which gives them new life. I used to think this way of thinking was repressive and silly. Paul tells us why most will think that surrendering to Christ is foolish in 1 Corinthians 13-14 “we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.”
Praying a blessing for you this week.
You seriously are lacking here in introspection when it comes to understanding such a reaction.
I have absolutely nothing against people who find life in Christ. The problem is in people forcing that life in Christ on others and using God to be insensitive, abusive and indifferent to the pain such abuse inflicts.
I have a problem with people using Christ and God, to abuse gay people and making them an object of distrust and hostility and most of all, on condition of civil policy and personal growth as well.
And the most frustrating thing, is people claiming such a life in Christ, and going out of their way to NOT commit to just one of his two most important commandments, and denying such abuse goes on, and justifying that of everyone who is considered a sinner in the Bible, it’s only gay people and sometimes females, on which their lives are politicized with it.
Claiming religious faith, or studying it, doesn’t suddenly imbue anyone with more importance than another person, nor more intelligence or moral authority.
But to hear a lot of Christians tell it, it does.
Do you understand? I recognize a mind game when I see one, and how messed up some gay people are from it.
Very soon, at the end of this week, GLSEN has sponsored a Day of Silence, to bring consciousness to young people about how anti gay sentiment and abuse causes bullying, assault and other torment which leads to suicide. It’s a demonstration and a means of helping young people form alliances, instead of the distrust and hostility that religious teaching especially has influenced such anti gay sentiment.
Well, Focus on the Family with other similar org. support has found a way to interfere with this day, by taking the day BEFORE and using it as a means of saying the same things to young people that have caused all the problems in the first place. As if their Christian teaching about homosexuality doesn’t do that, and is more important and a better mindset to being gay.
That is a very MEAN thing to do. It’s a way of constantly working to keep young people from learning anything different that’s vital to be learned in order to save lives.
And by the way, all the anti gay cohort orgs like Ruth Institute, NOM, who have taken themselves to legislative and court houses all over the country to slander gay people, don’t allow dialogue or any dissenting opinions or factual information. However truthful, or innocuous. Such information or opinions are deleted, banned and blocked.
In other words, the Christian way, or we’ll silence and censor and make life hard for you. Especially if you’re gay.
And when Shivalena reached out, she got more of what is at the root of her problems.
I mentor gay kids. And if I saw anyone like you or Matt Moore trying to come around, yeah…I’d have to get between you and that kid. You’d be the one that would make them actually go over the edge and commit suicide.
You should know when you’re not helping, and in fact might make things worse.
Being Christian doesn’t mean you’re incapable of doing that.
So sometimes it’s better if you checked yourself and the situation before you decided to say what you like to say. It’s not always appropriate, nor applied where it’s best needed.
Sort of like the way quack doctors give an overdose of the wrong medication, for a condition a person doesn’t have. THAT is what religious belief is doing sometimes. And especially to gay kids.
So NOW do you understand?
Quit trying to make this about the persecution and hatred of Christians, unless and until you acknowledge how hateful and persecuting some Christians are. Just because it’s with a smile on the face and a gentler voice, doesn’t mean that’s not what’s happening.
Why are you so mad all the time? First we are not forcing anyone to any belief and secondly just because we pointing out that decisions have inherited consequences should not be equated with hate or abuse. God hates racism and he said that those who knew Him must love others so anyone who claims to know Christ and hates someone based on their color does not know Christ (1 John). I came to the realization many years ago that there is an eternal reality that I could no longer deny about sin. I had a choice which was to either reject the lifeline offered to me by Christ out of my downward cycle of sin which is my natural inclination or reject his offer and continue the short term easier path of just allowing my fallen nature to continue its dominion over me until its final outcome of death and destruction. Love warns a friend that goes down a path of self-destruction even that that friend perceives words of truth as abuse or hate. It takes more courage to share the truth about Christ then to stand by applauding their slow spiritual suicide. Satan is real and he is the master of deception. We can mock at the idea of a satan but he loves to keep the idea in this world that he is a myth because it just makes his work of deceiving people away from God much easier. He has deceived so many now in our society that sin is freedom and there are no consequences. Christ is offering us all an amazing gift of abundant eternal life even when we are his enemies and the reason that he suffered on the cross. His love is amazing and should be evident in every believer. I am learning to understand this new kind of love so it is becoming easier to show grace and mercy to others even if they hate me. Christ loved them so much that he died for them so I want to love them enough to share the message that Christ that he did not come to condemn them but to set free them from the sin condition that will condemn them. Sin tends to hid the dark side of its consequences and this is evident in many of the posts about makings solely on subjectivity. I have a tough decision in the next few days because I just found out the president of the local gay group at our community college is a child molester who committed a serious crime against a close relative of mine at the age of 5 just a few years but they now have made him the president of the college gay organization despite the fact that his record is on our city’s online public records. This is the irony that I see with some of the adherents of unbridled sexuality because some see no problem with this. I now have the duty of making it public knowledge to the college since the group did not see fit to have him resign because of his crimes against young children. Lets be honest and paint the whole picture of unbridled subjective sexuality. It is not all rosy and great. Sin leads us down a path much darker than we could ever imagine.
Gee Albert, does it mean that much to you for someone to be mad at you, at Christians? Do you have to interpret passion for justice and fairness as being hateful?
You need to be a martyr SO bad, for your religion, that just about anything someone says, recycles back to some very outrageous intellectual dishonesty on your part.
As long as you keep conflating homosexuality with the kinds of sin that no heterosexual is socio/politically required to defend in themselves, then that dishonesty is in evidence.
The second sentence in your post “First we are not forcing…”
BIG fat, whopping lie, there Albert.
When religion is the impetus that drives much political action and civil law against gay people, and that is translated into different forms of discrimination or individual abuse, that IS requiring that others have the same belief about homosexuality. And ONLY gay people.
And I have mentioned it here before, but apparently it makes no impression, but it should.
I have long years experience with the crime scene photography unit of the LAPD. I ride along patrols with uniform officers and I’m a forensic artist. That’s the sort of work that puts me very close to all manner of human depravity. ALL of it, my course of study has been forensic science and crime analysis, with other ongoing courses to do with behavior sciences as well as procedural technology.
If you know a crime has been committed, then you are obligated to report it. However, let’s get real, you better know damn well that gay men in particular are accused and considered guilty without EVER committing any crime against anyone. Which has gotten innocent gay people assaulted and murdered outright.
The slander and libel that they threaten children, have no sexual restraint or any more morality than animals is a similar indictment black men suffered in the time of Jim Crow.
And here you are, just as convinced of it too.
People who make no distinctions regarding what is harmful and what isn’t, and who indict only ONE distinct minority because of their distinction and nothing else, are guilty of the crime of injustice and prejudice.
I’ll tell you, it does NOT help law enforcement.
And it’s a well known FACT among legit behavioral scientists, that sexual repression is not healthy. It’s not holy, nor a more moral thing to do when using societal prejudice to coerce it.
It can be the cause of a sex related crime.
Mores the point, too many prejudiced religious people don’t acknowledge the difference between pathology, paraphilias and sexual orientation.
You say there is an obligation to the truth, yet YOU and your ilk aren’t too interested in the more complex aspects of it.
Just what’s simple and easy so you DON’T have certain things and people you have to deal with.
Maybe your life has been too tough already to handle it.
Bu that doesn’t make you an expert on the social science aspect of it.
The Bible, isn’t the gold standard on that. And never was.
Sermons, especially, are expressed ONLY when it comes to the subject of gay people all the time. I never see anyone do it around banking and loans (which have destroyed this country’s economy in many ways), I don’t see preaching at gang hangouts, or divorce courts.
And these so called family orgs have a lot of visibility around gay related politics, but not a word about domestic violence.
That doesn’t mean that homosexuality is a greater sin, that only means that because gay people are NOT the reprobates some people WISH they were, they are just an easier target that won’t react and respond the way a heterosexual who is a ‘sinner’ would.
Which makes folks like you, Albert, look like cowards.
The worst kind. Cowards that lie about one set of people that are easiest to hurt, while avoiding people who’d fight you even harder on your lack of priorities.
I’m not mad, I’m STRONG.
Regan,
Will be praying. God loves people and He sent Christ to rescue them of the sin cycle that strangles them spiritually, emotionally and physically. It is the exchange life not the repressed life. My sin and its destructive desires traded for His abundant life of righteous, peace and joy. I am just a messenger and witness of what God can do in anyone who simply believes in Christ. Praying and wishing that your week goes well.
Thank you Albert. I do appreciate your well wishes that I have a good week. I can agree that God must love us. And as I said, God also made so many unique things in abundance. Our diversity is a blessing, being different and being variant and infinitely gifted with love, intelligence, compassion, courage, empathy, curiosity, inventiveness and creativity. It’s like we were given a huge box of things to use to expand on those gifts, not stifle that diversity and curiosity. Being fearless is part of how we have become more experienced with each other, rather than distrustful.
It’s been tragic, sad and unproductive that gay people are the ones made to feel that they don’t belong in that scheme. That THEY are the mistake or were broken in their making.
If that were true, changing up what that making means, wouldn’t have the tragic results we DO see and hear every day.
I don’t want to live in a world where someone is made to feel they are a vessel of sin, and not much more. With nothing to give unless they are empty of that supposed sin and replace it with a rote set of responses to it no one else is required to.
And I don’t want to live in a world where the assumed sin of homosexuality, and gay people themselves, are no longer themselves.
And try to teach other younger gay people not to be themselves either.
That’s fear of themselves and insecurity in it.
If you feel such confidence that you’re who you were meant to be in this other form you’ve taken, I can’t tell you what to feel.
I can only tell you how I feel about it and what it looks like from the outside.
Regan,
He is on the sex offender website which is a public record and so he ihas already gone thru the court process and has been convicted. I am going to privately warn the college group in consideration for their feelings because it is what Christ would want me to do. I am shocked that no one has either failed to check his background or they are ok with it. There was sufficient evidence given to convict but unfortunatley many others were too terrified to come forward and so he only has one conviction. You are correct that this type of criminal activity should be always be reported. I have worked with inner city youth for many years and I know that abuse is often hidden but if found needs to be reported for the sake of the child.
Good work Albert. You’ll have to give them the website so they can see it for themselves and handle it from there. And I DO hope they handle it and can. We had a scandalous incident here in Los Angeles of a school teacher with a record of abusing youngsters, who was hired by LA Unified School Dist. and he was found to have been abusing 4th and 5th graders in a really disgusting way. And the district couldn’t fire him! All they tend to do with problem teachers is set them aside with PAID leave! Sometimes for years on end.
The time I’ve spent with the LAPD, it’s in the Science Div, photo unit. Which is essentially considered dry evidence. We’re bundled with polygraph and latent prints, for example.
Of course, you get to know vice cops, fraud squad…and rape and sex crimes specialists.
It’s mind blowing the network of websites and sharing sex criminals have at hand.
I know though, that the gender and orientation biases of the public are not just ignorant and ill informed, but very dangerous. It’s very hard for some people to give up those biases, even for the greater good of really effecting change.
Sad to say how hard it is to do that.
Good luck, and I hope this guy is put where he won’t endanger anyone else again.
So, I advise you, if you know or have evidence that the man you’re talking about has harmed someone, you have a duty. But you BETTER be right. Understand?
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Good post. I would like to add that in our weakness He is strong! (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.) God bless you, Matt!
Thank you for this message. Well said.