Eating my own words in this post, and it doesn’t taste very good. I have a feeling that much of my future will consist of doing this…. realizing the errors in my reasoning and trusting the Lord to take me from glory to glory in the levels of my understanding and in my sensitivity to the compassion of His heart. Day by day, the Lord is bringing me to a deeper understanding of the souls of the people that I desire to help—- and He’s giving me a more real and strong love for them than I have ever had before.
When I look back on my own experience with homosexuality, I see a lot of sexual desire. I remember the constant physical pull toward people of the same gender. That was a very real part of my life, and it’s a very real part of almost every gay person’s life. But in reality, isn’t the physical longing for the pleasure sex brings a part of most people’s lives—regardless of who they are attracted to? I’ve realized, just in the past couple of weeks, that I’ve only been choosing to see “the sex” as I look back on my history with homsosexuality. Consequently, in my mind and in some of my writing, I’ve been defining all homosexuals as some kind of species of sex-hungry, sex-addicted animals.
But what I’ve not been remembering when recollecting my experiences in the “gay life” is the desire that I had—and still have—to be loved, to be shown affection…..to be wanted.
Over the past year, if you had asked me what the gay lifestyle is all about I would have emphatically and unwaveringly stated that being gay is all about sex. In just a few posts back, I stated “The gay lifestyle is driven by sex, not love.” I was wrong. Gay people are not seeking out relations with the same gender purely for the sexual benefits, and neither was I. I have thought and said differently in the past–I was wrong. And I want to make that clear.
Yes, homosexual behavior is an abomination. Yes, God hates homosexual behavior. I’m not downplaying the magnitude of sin in any way. But what I’m saying is that we tend to forget that people who commit homosexual sin are pursuing the ultimate desire we all have, the desire God placed in us—-the desire for love and affection. Yes, their attraction toward the same sex is unnatural and some of them may be extremely promiscuous (as are some heterosexual people) and being indulgent in sexual immorality— but their desire for love and affection is still very real and very much a driving force in their life.
The Lord has used my own thoughts and desires recently to show this to me. There have been instances lately where I have started to feel an emotional pull toward someone of the same sex. Before these recent experiences, I had forgotten that I had ever felt that way before… emotionally drawn toward men (I’m superb at blocking out emotions— so it makes sense to me I would naturally forget certain ones I’ve experienced in the past), but recently, for whatever reasons, I have had an awakening in the cravings of my heart. Not for sex, not for mere physical interaction— but for love and affection.
Wanting to be loved and shown affection is not sinful in itself. It’s good, very good. But we sin in the ways that we go about searching to fulfill that wanting. We were made in the image of God and He himself placed the desires for intimacy and love in the deepest part of our hearts (first and foremost for them to be directed at Him)…. but simultaneously we have all been marred by sin—and it has distorted our desires down into the deepest parts of our hearts. Homosexuality is a distortion of a good, godly desire. It takes faith to believe that, which is why so few do. If you’re one of the few that have these feelings, but through faith trust what God has revealed about these feelings, I want to encourage you to continue to trust God and His wisdom—although you may not fully understand. Continue to believe and follow His will as revealed in His Word—- even when everything in your mind and body is contradicting the truth. Remember you are still in flesh… and remember that your flesh is severely scarred. If your attractions are currently not in line with God’s design— pursue healing and restoration through the renewing of your mind in His Word. Make Him the object of your worship, and see the effects of sin start to untangle in your life. But listen to me (as I say this to myself also)—If your attractions never end up getting in line with God’s design, and if the effects sin has had on you don’t untangle to that point—to the degree that you find someone of the opposite sex that you can’t help but desire— God is more than enough. The longings you have for love and affection can be found in God on an infinitely higher level than they ever could be in a human relationship. Don’t think you have fallen off of God’s grid—He’s aware of you. He’s aware of your longings, He’s aware of your needs… and He genuinely cares. You are loved, desired and even wanted by God. He is the great Comforter— and He will satisfy you in ways that perhaps a married couple could never experience. You may not understand His plan for you right now… and you may not until you are in His presence. But no matter what, remember that He is enough.
I’m not attempting to explain all the reasons people like me are attracted to the same sex… I don’t even think that’s possible on this side of eternity. But I can tell you the main cause of homosexual desires— our sinfulness. Sin is not just what we do, it’s who we are. It’s affected every part of us. We are not what we should be and we desire things we should not. Again, I know it takes faith to believe that… and if you don’t, I pray the Lord will grant you faith and in His lovingkindness lead you to repentance even amidst the mass confusion of your feelings. He did it–and is still doing it– for me. Jesus substituted Himself in our place and died for our sins— bringing upon Himself the condemnation that was headed toward us. He absorbed it all. I don’t fully understand that—all the ins and outs of how that took place— but I believe it. And I trust Him with all of my being. You don’t have to “get it” to come to Him. Just come. Lay it down…including your desire to fully understand everything…and come.
Lastly, I want to encourage Christians to treat the homosexuals around you as what they are— human beings made in the image of God. Yeah, they have corrupt desires. But so do you. Our brokenness may manifest differently from person to person, but the root of it is the same. Our hearts have all been infiltrated by sin— and rather than coming to God for help from the very beginning, we have all at some point rejected Him and fed our sinful desires…. resulting in even deeper corruption of our thoughts and desires. The homosexual may be “far off”… but through a Christian’s compassion and virtue, God could draw them near. Love is the answer, not condemnation.
We need Jesus. We need His love to come invade our hearts and give life to the death we’ve been existing in. All of us.
Matt I was very blessed I am old enough to be your father, but I have had this desire all my life. One thing I do say I am convinced that I will never change, but finding my desires in Christ is the only way out. Have I failed yes, have I had victory yes. I pray for you as you continue on this journey. G
Thank you for your gracious post, Matt. I have made some harsh posts towards you both here and on FB, and for that, I apologize.
You have also said something that I’ve tried to affirm to others countless times: while some people may overemphasize sex, for those of us in relationships, sex accounts for maybe 1/2 of one percent of what makes the relationship important to us.
The rest is primarily about companionship. It means there is someone who you come home to every night, share dinner with, talk to about the difficulties of your day and so on.
There’s a level of intimacy that is there that transcends what you have with other friends and even family members. It’s about building a life with someone. For whatever reason, some of us are simply not capable of finding or achieving this with someone of the opposite sex any more than we can grow a third arm. Frankly, it is offensive to have something so meaningful reduced to “well, you’re just a couple of sodomites” and then to be so casually and smugly dismissed.
Honestly, I don’t know what God finds moral or immoral, even if the Bible is true! He rewarded Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice his son, He tolerated slavery and the abuse of slaves. Yet, the Bible also says that the meek shall inherit the Earth and that we should love even our enemies. So … I don’t know! I have ethics but fail to live up to my own standards … may God forgive me for that. If I’m doing something unethical that I don’t know about… well, I can’t really do much about it except wait and find out.
Well, I DO hope you resolve this issue for your own peace of mind, and I hope you do find that companionship from someone, whatever gender they may be. Life is a good thing, but it’s better with others.
I am going to print this article out so I don’t forget what you’ve written here –
“The longings you have for love and affection can be found in God on an infinitely higher level than they ever could be in a human relationship. Don’t think you have not fallen off of God’s grid—He’s aware of you. He’s aware of your longings, He’s aware of your needs… and He genuinely cares. You are loved, desired and even wanted by God.” This is what we need to share with the people we meet at Chick-fil-A, on the streets, in protests or confrontations. God loves them. Jesus died for them. God understands them and wants to heal and forgive them. God bless you, Matt.
Like Trace, I am going to print this myself when I can so I can share this and remember this. I will also re-read it whenever I need to. This post of yours Matt is a real eye opener. I am now realizing why I have been stumbling and falling as of late. I must admit that you are so right in this post here. You have really opened my eyes and I am going to talk about this in prayer tonight with God before I go to sleep. Thanks again for this post. Keep up the great work that you are doing.
Printing this one out as well! Need to read it again and again to remind me of what was said here!
Thank you for this blog, Matt. It has always been more about emotional attraction for me. I have hope.
Hey Matt, have you heard the last speech from Alan Chambers? http://exodusinternational.org/2012/06/alan-chambers-opening-night-general-session-made-for-more/
What I got from it is that people with SSA (same sex attraction) feel alone. And that without a sexual relationship it might not be the sex they miss as much as the exclusivity of a commited, romantic relationship where someone intensely loves them and no one else? That is a vaid thing to miss, and I can understand how without God it would be pretty much impossible. I wonder how would it look if we the church were able to meet the very vaid desires of people who have SSA without encouraging them to find it in a romantic relationship?
I also really loved Mr. Chambers favorite verses (from Daniel 3) “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. ‘” and how he equated it with that whether he has desires or not, he’s not going to worship the idols of our culture in order to escape suffering. Great stuff.
God Bless!!! Thanks for your post, the Lord has been dealing with me in how to address this issue in my own ministry.
Correct me if i’m wrong but wouldn’t the desires the Spirit places in the heart be “unnatural” and the desires of our sinful nature be the “natural”? I hear people say homosexuality is unnatural and heterosexuality is natural. I tend to believe they are both natural. The unnatural desire from the Spirit bonds two to one through love to display the intimacy between Christ and His Church through which produces life. The husband represents Christ and the wife represents the church. Christ doesn’t marry Christ and the church doesn’t marry church. Everything is about the love of God through Christ for His bride (the church). Sex is the display of two in intimacy. We all have opportunity to be intimate with Christ in the Spirit. Two become one and two become one. It is the evil one who has distorted this picture to proclaim Christ through creation via our sinful nature.
- anyone resonate with this?
Matt, you are discovering what many of us coming out of the life have. We desire to be loved and wanted. The whole Chick-Fil-A thing was simply a way, for those who grew tired of being quiet and complacent while the opposition said horrible hateful things, to verbalize and stand up for righteousness. Perhaps it was not done perfectly, but for once Christians stood up for what they believe.
Having been gay myself, my heart aches for those who suffered abuse by those who hate gays, it is not right. But hating Christians or anyone with different views is not the answer. The gay activists accuse us of being hatful for simply disagreeing with them. They have no idea how much we, who decided to leave the gay lifestyle, love them. They accuse us of being intolerant. What does tolerance mean? The GLBT community is constantly calling for tolerance. However, they do not seem to be tolerant themselves. I have heard some say that because some have suffered injustice that their hate towards those that disagree with them is justified. On any level, biblical or not, that sort of thinking is wrong.
So, what is tolerance? What is hate? For me, tolerance does not mean staying quiet when hateful things are occurring, on either side. Everyone needs to be loved and wanted. I believe that encouraging mob behavior and boycotting anyone for their views is wrong. However, most Christian do not stand up for righteousness and simply stay quiet. The opposition counts on that, so they use intimidation and hateful word to silence Christians. Most people prefer just not to make waves, so they cave in. Hate is not disagreeing with someone’s view, hate is having strong distaste or aversion for something, somebody, or something with an intensity that shows hostility, such as assault, battery, or other extreme behavior. The Chick-Fil-A demonstration was a shining hour for the Christian world. Yes, we can make a difference in a peaceful way that does not spew more hate.
In my opinion, we will not see peace, tolerance, or unconditional love until Jesus comes to take over the earth. Why? The answer is very simple; not everyone uses the Holy Scriptures as their foundation. Some use humanity as a foundation from which to life. Still, others utilize other perspectives to guide the way they live. For us, our foundation should be Jesus Christ. When Jesus walked on the earth He encountered many imperfect people. However, for those who needed to be loved and wanted He simply stated,” . . . where are they? Has no one condemned you?” No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
I think we can all learn something from the way Jesus treated people.
I think that’s what everyone wants – to be wanted and loved and shown affection. Many of us substitute things (heterosexual or homosexual sex, drugs, booze, gambling, high adrenaline activities, etc) for the love of, and relationship, with God.
It seems to me that a healthy relationship with our mother and father should help us learn how to have healthy relationships with others, as well as how to have a true relationship with God.
Heidi, you are a VERY special person to know of his situation and still be around to offer him your support! So many would have run. He’ll never have a better person in his life than a loving wife and this is the very essence of what a “help-meet” does. (Genesis 2:18). May God bless you and your husband!
Dear Matt, How I would love my husband to read this! Unfortuantly I don’t feel I can send it to him. We have been married 12 years. He has struggled with this SSA desire about the whole time. He wants to leave and possibly find a man. But is not at peace and fears hell and isn’t sure God or the word approves of his desire to leave. Please pray for my husband Aaron! Thank you! He has never had someone come along side him and help him through this. Right now he is filling his mind with blogs and sermons and what not that help him feel he is ok!
Heidi: Been there, done that! Unfortunately, living a celibate “straight” life didn’t ease the sense of uncertainty. You see, I had become a “fundamentalist Catholic” … but then I was told that Catholics aren’t “real Christians” and were not “truly saved”. Of course I heard all sorts of things to the contrary, but one doesn’t really know, does one?
Ultimately, I think sincerity of heart counts for everything. If we follow our consciences, we will eventually let God handle any errors in our thinking if we find that, in the end, our consciences were not well-formed. This is why, as much as I hate the institution of slavery, I cannot condemn the men of the SBC who believed otherwise and who tried to treat their slaves fairly. If they were truly seeking after what was right, perhaps God eventually showed them the errors of their ways … or not.
On the other hand, if our conscience is screaming at us, I doubt there will be any real contentment found in acting contrary to it.
Excellent post! Woot! Woot! BTW great photo on the welcome page! Handsome devil!!!!
Very challenging matt, thank u. A great post to sharpen me and help my understandin and perspective on homosexuality…thank u!
Thank you Matt. My husband has been on a similar journey for many years. We’ve done counseling and he has gone to groups as well… It has been a huge blessing and your blog has been huge too… Thank you
@Matt
Wow Matt! You hit the nail on the head!
I used to think the same way as you Matt; that homosexuality was all about sex.
It is so easy for me to feel convicted that homosexuality is “all about sex” when I watch gay porn or when I hook up with the occasional guy because my hormones are obviously in control of my sound judgment and the physical arousal in my lower members bare witness to the base carnal desire I am experiencing in the moment. It such instances it is easy to say, “Homosexuality is all about sex.”
An experience happened to me 2 years ago that changed my opinion forever:
I became friends with another gay guy and it was simply platonic. We hung out for a year before I started having feelings for him. I was surprised that I began having feelings for him since I was never attracted to him to begin with (this disproves the stereotype that all gay men are about physical good looks). I was drawn to his heart; to his gentle spirit; to his love for attending church services, to his empathy for the suffering. I confessed my feelings to him and we started dating. On our first night sleeping together [by 'sleeping' I mean literal sleep- not sex] I noticed that I was not in the slightest bit sexually aroused by his body beside mine yet my heart was BURSTING with affection for him in that moment. All of a sudden I began to weep and I tried not to let him hear me sniffling. I was weeping because I had never before experienced feeling attracted to a man before without my hormones leading my judgment. I was not aroused “down there” and our night together was the most beautiful intimate experience I’ve ever had with a man free of sexually charged emotions. Eventually, admittedly, later in the relationship we began having relations yet it was unlike my previous sexual experiences: It was fueled by genuine love- not hormones.
So no, homosexuality is not “all about sex”
Now fast forward 2 years into the future:
I’ve already come to learn that homosexuality is not “all about sex” but now I am trying to come to terms with what God says about homosexuality. When exactly does one become ‘guilty’ of homosexuality? Was I ‘guilty’ of the sin when my boyfriend and I literally slept together even though we did not have sex? Is one ‘guilty’ of committing homosexuality when you are in love with your boyfriend but have yet to have relations?
How can the church say, “You are NOT guilty of homosexuality if you fall in love with a man but only if you get naked with him.”… (?)
Dealing with this whole ‘gay’ thing is so dynamic and puzzling.Throw in the soul’s desire to love and to be loved and it gets even more blurry.
Thanks Matt! Luv ya!
Matt
In every same sex relationship I ever had sex was not the priority or the motivating factor. Companionship yes, the women I engaged in relationship completed me or I believed they did.
I also think sex is over rated in in our culture overall. If physical attraction and sexual drive is all a person bases there relationships on then they will be quickly unsatisfied and move on to the next person.
Also an important factor to remember that men and and women gay or straight I are hard wired differently and it is important to make the distinction. There are men and women who are gay identified.
Does this mean I can stay with my boyfriend as long as we don’t have sex anymore? I am confused about that.
@Michael
You raise a very interesting question. I’ve asked this very same question to several Conservative Protestant Pastors, Roman Catholic Priests and Eastern Orthodox Christian Priests.
One Roman Catholic priest answered that it was appropriate to have “very close male bonds” with other men. I pressured him to expand on his definition of “close male bonds” and I asked if it was okay to have a boyfriend and literally sleep with him as long as we didn’t have sex. He said, “Yes, if you want to speak of details then yes; it is okay to sleep together with your boyfriend as long as you are not sexually active with one another.”
Another Roman Catholic Priest actually told me that it was fine to be gay and that he didn’t believe God would send a person to hell for being in a committed relationship. I was startled to hear his answer especially since he was conservative.
An Eastern Orthodox Priest told me that the Orthodox Church has many people today in the Church raising questions about homosexuality and that the discussions are “causing people to think”. That was a vague statement from the priest in my opinion but he did suggest that I find gay Christian friends who would not be a temptation for me but rather develope friendships with them thereby creating a support group for myself. I believe the Roman Catholic Church even has it’s own support group for gay men who are voluntarily choosing to live in chastity called “COURAGE”.
The Protestant Pastor recommended that I not marry a women since it would not be fair to her to have a husband that did not adore her feminine beauty as much as male beauty. Nor did he enocorage me to seek out gay friends yet he said he felt cautious to impose celibacy on me since, as he put it, “celibacy is a hard thing to bare”.So the Protestant Pastor pretty much left me between a rock and a hard place in my opinion.
So the above answers got me thinking about the following scenerio comparison:
If there are no sexual relations involved, does a man commit SIN if he falls in love with a women?
Likewise;
If there are no sexual relations involved, does a man commit SIN if he falls in love with a man?
Michael wrote,
Maybe I am coming at this wrong, but it seems to me the first question to ask yourself is:
“Am I saved? Do I believe God sent His Son to become human to suffer and die for my sins and do I accept that for myself?” (Acts 4:12) This is much more than simply believing something has occurred historically – it is trusting in it. If you trust in something, it will affect your life. This is what Paul and James both wrote about in Acts 26:20, and James 2:14-24 when they said we have to have evidence of our faith.
The next question to ask yourself is:
“Are we both committed to Christ?” 2 Corinthians 6:14 tell us that an unbeliever and a believer should not be yoked together. And if someone is not as committed or more to Christ as you are, then you need to take a look at any sort of relationship like that.
The next question is, how close to the “line” of sin do you want to walk? It seems to me you are asking the wrong the question. We should avoid sin. Would sleeping with him cause either of you to sin?
I think the answer is found in the principle we see in Matthew 5:28
I think when our looking at someone turns from appreciating beauty to lust (the principle would say, regardless of gender), it is sin.
Romans 1:24 & 26 speak of sinful desires of the heart and shameful lusts – both of which, at a minimum, would tie back to Matthew 5:28.
This would also tie into taking every thought captive for Christ, as we are told to do in 2 Corinthians 10:5.
1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us to flee sexual immorality, which also ties back into what Christ said in Matthew 5:28.
Obviously all of us stumble and are not perfect (James 2:10, 3:2), but we should avoid causing others to sin (Romans 14:20; 1 Corinthians 10:32).
Would lust ever come up if you slept together, for either of you?
Would it cause either of you to stumble?
Would it cause you to WANT to sin (a mental sin)?
Would it cause you to sin physically?
Is still living together holding on to something that God would see as wrong? If God wants you to let something go, to stop something, would you?
God wants our everything. If we are holding part of ourselves back, he is unlikely to be able to look at us and say well done good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21, 23; Luke 19:17). And if we are HIS, that is what we should want. We need to be faithful in the small things as well as in the large things – in every way in our lives, and this includes the relationships we enter into (or remain in).
I hope this helped.
@wbmoore
The thing is, my boyfriend was raised a Christian, has strayed away from the faith, but wants to go back. But this new for me. When I was growing up holidays were Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Jesus was never part of it all. The first church service I ever went to strangely enough was this very morning with my boyfriends’ parents/family. It’s kind of weird since he is overseas right now so it was just me and them. One thing I have to say is that his parents have always been very loving towards me. But I know they don’t approve of our relationship at all. I know they believe it is sin and don’t want their son to be living this way. I guess you can say that I am seeking God and questioning and trying to learn and understand.
Would lust come up if we slept together? I know that with me it probably will. It’s not like I’m a sex maniac or anything but I don’t see how you can be that close someone without it ever coming up. It’s probably a good thing that we are separated from each other for a while.
Michael- The good news is that you are searching for the TRUTH. The best place for this is the Bible. As the word of God it tells us what we need to know to live a Godly life.
2 Peter 1:3
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Please understand that following Christ is not easy for any human. In fact, it can only be accomplished with God’s help. God helps us most often by sending us other Christians to speak into our lives. Unfortunately, every time we hear the word of God, the devil comes to steal the word from us. He does this by telling us lies to discredit the word. This will happen on this forum as well. Someone will send you to the word of God, and immediately the devil will send someone to send you his false message and steal the word from you.
God is the still small voice. He is the quiet voice. The gentle voice. The devil is always loud. He is the screaming voice. He is the angry voice.
If you hear an angry voice, its the devil. Know this and it will make it much easier for you to discern the voice of God.
Also, the devil will ALWAYS tell you what you WANT to hear.
God’s words may be harsh, but they are always spoken in love.
As you start, do so with the following parameters as guidelines.
1) following Christ will cost you EVERYTHING. It means you no longer make the decisions, God does. This means your job, your money, your possessions, your friendships, your relationships, where you live, you name it…it all becomes His to control.
Gal 2:20
Matthew 16:14
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
2) God is in control- nothing is impossible for God and nothing can stop God’s will from being accomplished. He has all power, all knowledge, all wisdom.
Matthew 19:26
3) God loves you- He loves you no matter what you do. Don’t let the devil beat you up saying you are worthless or unworthy of God’s love. God will always love you, even if you decide to reject Him and choose hell rather than Him. God is always for you, never against you.
1 John 4:8
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him
4) The Christian walk will cost you everything, but it will gain you God Himself. He is the only one that can fulfill you and complete you, no person can do that. He is the only one that can give you peace and perfect love.
5) Know that you are in a war. The devil wants you and God wants you. You decide who wins. God thinks you are so precious that he humbled Himself from the glory of heaven to become a lowly man and then suffer the punishment you deserve so you don’t have to. The devil hates your guts but he will tell you whatever you want to hear to keep you separated from God.
@wbmoore
Interesting response. It’s making me think deep down inside my soul.
An even better question is “Do you KNOW God and have a relationship with Him’? Too much emphasis has been placed on “being saved”. That is the first step but secondary in the big picture. Heaven is not the prize. The prize is God Himself. He is the treasure. He is the inheritance (Ps 16:5). The prize is eternal life and eternal life is knowing God and loving God because God is life and God is love.
John 17:13
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Deut 6:5
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
You can’t love God unless you KNOW God. Either you believe in God but He is a stranger to you, or you know and are getting to know Him just like any other person. From my experience knowing ABOUT God and believing IN Him didn’t change my life, but when I actually developed a relationship everything about my life dramatically changed. Before I hoped He was real and now I know He is real.
Paul met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, and it changed everything instantly. He promises to reveal Himself to all those who seek Him with all their hearts.
Jer 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
@Michael,
We must each seek God where we are. For some of us, we are walking on a cliff and need God there. For others, we are drowning in a sea and need God there. Pay little attention to people who focus on the negative or the sins in our lives, but instead know that God wants us to be like Christ. Of course, we can not be – without HIS help.
ALL of us sin (Romans 3:23). This earns our spiritual death (Romans 6:23). But if we trust God, if we believe that God has raised Christ from the dead and we’re willing to say so, then we are able to give God praise and glory for saving us from what we earned (Romans 10:9).
I am glad you are trying to learn. Know this: God loves you. God has provided a way for you to know Him. God teaches love and forgiveness. But He also teaches holiness. We must turn from what keeps us from Him and put God first (Acts 26:20). THEN we will know what true love is (1 John 4). Its not what most people think it is (I would guess even most people who go to church all their lives dont understand true love as from God). It is obedience to God (2 John 1:6-9), being holy and helping those in need (1 Timothy 5:4; James 1:27).
Dont worry about where the line of sin is – GOD will make that clear. Ask instead whether God exists and what God wants for you and from you. He will answer you. He will help you. He will come to you in your time of need – IF you truly want Him to. If we are focused on us and our desires, we’re not likely to truly want God to come to us. But if we’re focused on GOD and what HE wants and what HE will do, then He is much more likely to come.
@Mike,
Good, I’m glad my response caused you to think deep down in your soul. I pray we each are willing to be so challenged and will look to God.
Matt, you’ve made some interesting points, here. It seems to me that the subject of homosexuality is one that tends to draw lines, in religious circles. Unfortunately to the point of attack between opposing viewpoints. It’s quite difficult to get fellow human beings to the point of abnegation toward something that feels completely natural to them. Especially when connecting this to their ultimate fate in the afterlife. It is also hard to be considered loving at the same moment of Godly correction which is often problematic just in the nature of being corrected in the first place (no matter what fault is in question). All the more reason to be loving and sensitive. This is an attitude which both the one who offers correction should employ as well as the one who has an honest and open heart should receive who is truly seeking the truth.
Henry, thanks for sharin ur heart and such an open beautiful way and helpin me understand what the heart struggle could stem from. I pray God would continue to speak to the depths of u His approval and love through Jesus. We r clothes in righteousness thru Jesus.. For us believers , He IS pleased. We are approved. We r His beloved children!! He can heal our souls! I will pray for u. Thank u for sharin
Sorry for my typos..tryin to type on bberry.. “Clothed”!!
not clothes….
Thanks for the clarification. I too agree its not all about sex. I realize that within me there is this spot that my natural father never filled. That part of me that needed a strong emotional male support figure to get through life with. When I look at my married brothers I wonder what was happening in my Dad’s life when they were born that he was able to reach them and instill in them that sense of security that didn’t reach me. Why wasn’t I reached? What was going on with my dad that made him emotionally unavailable to me?
My other brothers look like my dad and sometimes I wonder if that is what happened. I do not look like my dad and I am almost complete opposite in terms of appearance, ability to learn, social skills and curiosity and creativity. He in his own life rejected everything I was interested in or found interesting. We tolerate each other but have nothing in common.
When I think of the few gay, male friends that I do have, I see them all as weaker than me in someway and therefore unable to fill that emotional support from a man that is sitll missing. I try not get to know too many straight men cos that usually ends with me beleiving that they are better than me and becoming emotionally too dependent on them for strength and support.
When I look at my brothers I see that they have a deep need for their wives emotional support and I have always wondered why I never needed that emotional support from a woman.
My mother, my grandmother, and my aunts always seemed to have loved me inordinately. They found me amazing and wonderful and maybe thats why no girl my age was ever needed to fill any need of approval from women in my life. It was the love of my Dad, the love I never got from him and don’t get to this day that makes me feel incomplete as a man. And feeling incomplete as a man makes the possibility of having a relationship with a woman even less possible. What could I possibly offer a woman who is looking for a man to complete her. I’m still trying to find that missing male figure that will complete me.
I have tried to fill that void by thinking of God as my real father, of Jesus Christ as my older brother but to this day sometimes that misses the mark because I am still in the flesh and they are spirit and it is hard to relate. My flesh separates me from connecting with them as Father and Brother, as the emotionaly strong male figure I need present in this life.
I see the same need of approval in all my male and female gay friends. The approval they never got from their same sex parent. They all are just trying to find that piece that went wrong. They want to feel complete.
Dear Matt,
Thank you! The “church” world needs this hones and open dialogue. I also enjoyed your podcast on the whole Chick Filet thing. BTW, I was in total agreement. As I have several friends actively engaged in the gay lifestyle (what? shock! a pastor has gay friends?) from all walks of life, this was my response…..although I was trying not to be dragged into the whole media frenzy myself. I felt my FB family and community were awaiting a response. It simply was something like this…….
Matthew 22:34-40 Amplified Bible (AMP)
34 Now when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced (muzzled) the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of their number, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him.
36 Teacher, which kind of commandment is great and important (the principal kind) in the Law? [Some commandments are light—which are heavy?] 37 And He replied to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect).
38 This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment.39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself. 40 These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Surely Jesus knew what He was talking about. My “neighbors” include the homosexual community. God is God enough to convict each man/woman of his/her wrong-doings, I don’t have to. I simply need to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. God will do the rest.
I hope I make sense and encourage you brother.
Blessings,
Timothy
Not by our own might nor by our own power, Matt. By the Spirit of Christ, we’ll never walk through temptations alone. Thanks for sharing your struggles with us.
Matt,
I been thinking more about this post and of the comments so far written. Can this post be boiled down to self-identification and labels?
Isn’t it true when we speak of homosexuals and heterosexuals many times we speak in such a way as if these two groups are coming from divergent universes? Heterosexuals not getting homosexuals and homosexuals not getting heterosexuals.
Think we can all agree that homophobia exists among heterosexuals. What me might have a harder time accepting is that heterophobia exist among homosexuals but not because it isn’t true.
Just like racism exists among racial minority groups so to heterophobia exists among homosexuals who are also a minority. However in both instances very few people care to admit let alone discuss these matters.
For me I can most easily relate to men who are attracted to the opposite sex (straight dudes). The group I relate least to is women who are attracted to other women (lesbians). What I am talking about here is relationships how I relate to others not where I am swinging the bat-Made in Italy Oscar Mayer.
Growing up in a home where my father was always present being in a family of seven brothers the testosterone levels in the home off the charts. One could taste it. So naturally I have always been very comfortable around heterosexual masculinity and myself am masculine. I am not talking about being macho but a man secure in his masculinity. But that’s not my whole story.
I guess what I am trying to say we live in a culture that is divided both sides finding themselves in a undeclared state of war. Both sides want to claim victory but in war this is impossible. There can only be one victor.
“Tolerance”, “intolerance”, “bigot” “faggot”, “breeder”, “queer”, “homophobe”, etc are common words used in this war.
What happens next?
Davide
Matt, I am a white heterosexual woman in my fifties, married for almost 26 years. My husband and I have parented two children, now 21 and 18, a boy and a girl. I can truly say I have never understood the reasoning for the gay or lesbian lifestyles. I just thought of it as a “depraved” way of thinking and living. God’s Word is very clear about how God views men laying with men and women laying with other women. I have thought for a long time that the homosexual and lesbian tendencies were due to poor or the lack of, relationships with parents. Though I still don’t understand the phycological, emotional, and physical longings of these individuals, I am asking the Lord to give me a refreshed compassion and love for them. I do truly believe they are a much emotionally sensitive group, especially the men, and they just need to know people care. I have come to know some women who were once in lesbian lifestyles, but after becoming in love with the true lover of their souls, Jesus Christ, they no longer are in that. They became convicted that their gay lifetyle was not of God, repented of this sin, and are now out of that lifestyle. However, they have not married men either. But they have now found that they can live as an unmarried woman, having friendships with men and women, and are complete because of Jesus. A few of them still struggle some with attractions to their same sex, but not in depraved sort of way. My kids have friends who have announced they are gay to all. One young man’s announcement crushed his mother’s heart. I must say, as a mother, I would be crushed too. Just being honest! Nothing can rob a mother of her love for her son or daughter, but such a confession is very disheartening to her.
About the Chick-fil-A stand: My daughter and I were one of those who stood in line on Wednesday. I saw all those people and I thought truefully, that I was so happy to see so many people at just one of the restaurants take a stand on a conviction with Truitt Cathy. It spoke volumes. Honestly, for me,it was more about the conviction than it was about free speech. I would like to see him take a part of what Chick-fil-A earned that day, and share it with Christian organizations that reach out to those who are struggling with getting out of this lifestyle. There are several all over the country. Please forgive my rambling, but these are my thoughts. Thank you, Matt, for sharing this. It gave me some points to ponder and pray over. God bless you as you continue to serve the Lord, and your community!
Hi Matt,
I hope you are able to read this since you get so many comments to your posts.
Being GAY is ALL about sex. So you were correct in your original post, although you did not know why.
Do not confuse HUMANITY/ being Human with the GAY “identity”.
GAY is all about sex, because that is its very definition. Gay is a BEHAVIOR, not an identity.
The IDENTITY of everyone is HUMAN, and that involves, as you put very well, the needs for love, attention, affection, physical contact, sex, feeling wanted, etc. Since everyone is human, those who have gay tendencies/behaviors naturally have all those same HUMAN needs due to their IDENTITY as a human.
HOMOSEXUAL and HETEROSEXUAL are behaviors. The very words themselves provide their definitions as tendencies/behaviors, specifically relating to SEXUALITY.
Do not let the enemy confuse you on this point. Using the word “GAY” removes the “sexual” part of HOMOSEXUAL and therefore to a twisting of the definition in our minds.
The reason that homosexuality/gay can be OVERCOME is because it is a behavior that ties into our sinful NATURE. Society has twisted it into being an “identity” and therefore immutable.
We have the IDENTITY of being human. Our identity is immutable. We will always be human. We have no control over our humanity.
We have the NATURE of being sinful. Our nature is immutable in our current flesh. Our flesh will remain sinful until the resurrection when our flesh will be made Holy if we have accepted Christ. Our Spirit, however, can be reborn immediately and change from a sinful nature to a holy nature. We DECIDE whether to change our Spirit (and ultimately our flesh) by deciding to have faith in Jesus.
We have the TENDENCY/BEHAVIOR of being homosexual or bisexual or heterosexual or asexual. We control our behaviors as part of our free will.
There is no such thing as a gay person. There are only people who exhibit gay (homosexual) behaviors.
The enemy has tricked many with his lies/ deception that being GAY/HOMOSEXUAL is an identity. This is not true. No one is born gay. You can’t separate the homosexual babies from the heterosexual babies.
I DEVELOPED same sex attractions which then led to homosexual behaviors (as did you). I believed the LIE that I was a “gay person”. I found out that living a homosexual lifestyle was BAD for ME. I can’t speak to others lives individually, but research clearly points out the glaring fact that homosexual behaviors are bad for most people that participate in them (shortened lives, decreased quality of life, greater exposure to SEXUALLY transmitted diseases, the list goes on for any who care to look up the research). Since God has declared it sinful, I believe that means it is BAD for EVERYONE. Probably in the here and now, but if not, then certainly as it impacts their eternal destinies.
The greatest problem with homosexual behavior is that, like all sin, it separates us from our loving Father God. Like every temptation it forces us to make a choice. We can either rebel against God since we are “gay”, or we can die to our own desires, take up our cross, and follow Jesus.
When I came out in the homosexual lifestyle I thought I was “free”. What I found was I kept slipping further and further into bondage and addiction. What I found is though I “just wanted to be loved” I was engaging with increasingly more sexual partners in the pursuit of “love”. I found I could not serve God and Homosexuality, so I abandoned God for 15 years. Fortunately for me God never gave up on me the way I had given up on Him.
God says not to have homosexual sex not because He is an controlling ogre, but because He knows its BAD for us to engage in. It was very bad from me in the NATURAL, let alone the SPIRITUAL.
I pray that the TRUTH that no person is GAY (IDENTITY) will set people free to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. “Behold, He makes all things new.” (Rev. 21:5)
@Bill
Hi Bill!
You really helped me to see how the term “gay” is correlated (or not correlated) to one’s Indentity, Humanity, Behaviour & Nature.
I can’t speak for Matt, yet with that said, it seems that Matt was simply using the term “gay” in it’s most loose, generic meaning for convinience sake.
Just because you are attracted to guys does not mean that you are some sexual maniac ever pondering your next hook-up on craigslist. In other words, an attraction toward a man can possibly originate from genuine non-pornographic feelings as opposed to feelings originating from the male groin. Therefore does that mean homosexuality is any less sinful? NOT AT ALL!
I wish we could stop with all the ‘fear’ talk about how practicing gays are destined to a life of promiscuity, infidelity, sexual addiction and depravity. It’s so dated!
It’s the equivalent of us saying that all practicing heterosexuals who live in sin out of wedlock are destined to a life of promiscuity, infidelity, sexual addiction and depravity. It’s so archaic!
WHY are we afraid to say to the homosexual couple”
“You will have a joyous life of monogamy, fidelity, and love for one another. You will adopt beautiful children who will grow up to be good and respectable citizens of society. You will have a house with a white picket fence and two dogs in the suburbs but know this; you will be separated from the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Is that so liberal and scandolous to say? It’s a more practical and realistic approach.
To the degree that the ‘straight’ unwed couple living in sin is destined to a life of licentiousness so also is the ‘gay’ unwed couple living in sin destined to a life of licentiousness.
Sin is sin so I hope we can stop magnifying ‘gay’ sin over ‘straight’ sin.
It IS possible for a man to feel romantically for another man without his thoughts being X-rated.
Thanks
@Bill, good stuff. I can relate to much what you said even though our wounds might have been different. Nevertheless wounds do heal.
Bill … why does so much of your post sound like the talking points of the Family Research Council?
Being gay is not simply about behavior … it’s a description about interpersonal relationships. For you, it expressed itself in promiscuity. That doesn’t mean it’s the same for all of us, you realize. Many of us are happily partnered and monogamous. So for you, yes, its expression was perhaps unhealthy. For others like myself, it’s a means of developing the better parts of our nature. My relationship has made me a more generous person, a better listener, a more patient person … this is all bad?
This has not been … and I don’t think will ever be … possible for me with a female. Why? Who knows. The option is celibacy and living for my own interests. How is that better? I just don’t see it.
Why is this issue the ONLY issue on which people take the Bible at face value?
Women teaching? Open for interpretation.
Remarriage? Negotiable.
Divorce? Concessions can be made.
Slavery? Debatable.
Tithing? Depends who you talk to.
Masturbation? Reasonable people apparently come to different conclusions.
Interfaith marriage? Also negotiable.
Torture? Let’s just agree to disagree.
Contraception in marriage? Catholics are pretty certain about this one, Baptists don’t care one way or the other.
All these things despite the seemingly black and white dictates of Scripture.
I just find it all so bizarre.
Hi James, thanks for your comments.
I have never read anything from the Family Research Council. All I know is what God speaks to my heart, my own interpretation based on my life experiences, and what I read in the Bible. My own church never really addresses much on homosexuality, they just love everyone and leave the results up to God.
I don’t condemn you or anyone else. For my part I am very happy if you have a great relationship. In my own experience of 15 years living as an out homosexual person I never saw one relationship that was monogamous. I know of many who believe their relationship to be monogamous but have cheating partners. Some have been together as long as 25 years. I pray that is not the case for you.
To be clear, my out lifestyle was not always promiscuous. When I first came out I was such a prude I wouldn’t even let someone kiss me because I was not in love when them. I only wanted true love. I had a boyfriend at 19-20 years of age. He adored me. He pursued me. He did everything he could for me and treated me like a king. But he also cheated on me and gave me HIV when supposedly we were both virgins. I had no idea I was infected because I never got tested thinking I had no possible exposure. I went through a progression of “monogamous” relationships. 5 years. 2 years. 1 1/2 years. 3 months. 4 years. Not one of those relationships was actually monogamous. During all this I thought it so strange that someone could meet someone online and have sex with them. Eventually I became an online sex addict, pornography addict, and was the cheater in my own “monogamous” relationship.
The devil is a liar and the father of lies. All sin seems good/ fun/ fulfilling/ interesting in the beginning. But the subtle changes from prude to online sex addict took over my life without me knowing. It was not overnight for me. Probably began about 8-9 years of living as an out homosexual person. I started out despising the whores and not wanting to be associated with them or their lifestyle. I wound up just like them, because we all have the same evil heart and lustful flesh to contend with. In my very nature (sinful) I was exactly what I did not want to be.
Some people have low sex drives. For them its not the same struggle. They have other primary struggles. Homosexuality is not their primary struggle even though they are homosexual. I have a high sex drive, so that became my biggest struggle/temptation over time.
All I know is that God judges us by our hearts, not our actions. BUT, He demands to be first in our lives. God will take second place to nothing. Not our jobs, friendships, children, partners, sports, money, gambling, sex, drugs, or anything else.
Likely you are similar to me and wanted not to have homosexual feelings. Maybe you prayed like I did for God to change you and He did not. Maybe you then came to the conclusion like I did that I was in a catch 22—it was impossible for me to please God and therefore I needed to just make myself happy. Maybe like me, you then became an out homosexual person and felt an initial relief or release or lightness or freedom. Maybe like me, you quickly found out that most people only wanted you for sex, but you resisted them waiting for “true love’. Maybe like me, you will determine that a homosexual life is not good for you, that in fact its very bad for you, both in the natural world and the spiritual one.
In the natural, apart from God I became abandoned to my sinful flesh. I became a sex addict and porn addict and literally in bondage to my sin so that I had no control over myself anymore. I became the bad guy. I became the cheater. I became the person who uses others for his own sexual needs without viewing them as anything other than meat. I was a walking dead man and I almost died from AIDS twice.
In the spiritual, I who knew ABOUT God my whole life turned from Him. I stopped going to church, but would still sing myself a worship song in the shower. I stopped reading the Bible. I found it impossible to go to church and still have a gay relationship, so I chose the people. In the end, all the people where just as sinful as I was because they weren’t serving God either. I was a walking dead man. Even when my body was strong I felt dead in my spirit.
Finally, I decided my life was a mess and out of control. The gay life was bad for me. My decision was not based on the Bible or fear of hell, but simply because I recognized I was not doing a good job at running my own life. I didn’t like who I was as a person or how I was treating others. I was so consumed with porn/ online chat/ hooking up that I was barely able to keep working. So I turned my life over to God.
I said, “God, have it Your way. Prove to me that Your way is better. I will give You control of everything in my life. My job, my friendships, my relationships, my possessions, my time, my energy, my thoughts, my ideas, my dreams, my hopes, my goals, my intentions. I will hold nothing back from You, now show me that You are real.” In essence, I died.
And He did. He showed me He is real. The same God who refused to answer my prayers when I lived in rebellion. The same God who has still to this day not removed my temptation towards same sex attractions. The same God who I thought abandoned me because I abandoned Him. He showed me He is real.
That changed everything for me. For 30 years I thought I was a Christian because I “believed in Christ”. But I didn’t KNOW Him. And to be honest I wasn’t entirely sure He was real. But when I surrendered EVERYTHING to Him, He revealed Himself to me. Now I know that I know that I know that God is real, that Jesus is real, that the Holy Spirit is real.
So now I am celibate for 5 years. Not because the church says to. Not because the Bible says to. But because I love Jesus more than anything else. Because it appalls me to think of being the cheater on Him. Because intimacy with Him is so far beyond sex (even with someone I loved) that words can not express it. Because when I spend time with Him nothing else matters. Not money. Not sex. Not possessions. Not fame. Not attention. Only Jesus matters. And I will serve Him the rest of my life because He is worthy. It doesn’t matter if I go to heaven or hell. (although I believe He is faithful to give me eternal life).
I finally understand the wedding vows. It doesn’t matter if I am rich or poor, I love Jesus. It doesn’t matter if He gives me health or He leaves me sick, I love Jesus.
My prayer for you, is that God will reveal Himself to you as He did to me. And that through that revelation, through KNOWING Him, everything about your life will change. That maybe you will, like I did, die…and then live anew in Jesus.
I don’t consider this the ONLY issue to apply the word of God towards. I think the word of God is to be applied to everything in my life.
Regarding all your other “church debate topics”, I prefer to stick to the topic of homosexuality. Which, even though you don’t acknowledge it, is about same-sexuality. Sexuality, not relationship. Sexuality is a component of a relationship, not the equivalent of a relationship. You have been made better in your own estimate by your relationship in your inter-personal skills. That has to do with your IDENTITY as a HUMAN. This has nothing to do with your sexual behavior, HOMOSEXUAL.
The option is not, as you say, “celibacy and living for my own interests”. The option is “you die, and then live for Jesus’.
Celibacy and living for your own interests is HUMANISM= everything is about happiness of man= UNCHRISTIAN
Dying and then living for Jesus is TRUE CHRISTIANITY= the end of all being is the glory of God, not the happiness of man
This video on Humanism vs Christianity by Paris Reidhead should be helpful:
A few scriptures to leave you with (assuming you believe the Bible to be the word of God).
Mark 10:29-30 29 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields–and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.
My point- your sacrifice will be rewarded.
Mark 8:34-35 (NIV) Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
Mat 10:38 (NIV) … anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
My point- we are required to die to ourselves and our desires if we call ourselves followers of Christ. Anything less we are deceiving ourselves. (Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?)
Daniel 12:10 Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.
John 12:48 There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.
Romans 8:9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
My point- Ask yourself if what you are doing is being controlled by your flesh or your spirit in all that you do in your life. We are called to follow the Spirit of God, not the desires of our flesh.
Lastly, I will say this. I love homosexual people. I have more homosexual friends than heterosexual. If I had my own wish, it would be a good and productive and fulfilling and God- approved way of living. But our heavenly Father loves us and has all wisdom, God loves homosexuals and heterosexuals because He loves all people. He is not a controlling ogre. He only wants what is best for us. And He tells us that homosexuality does not fulfill His purpose or design or desire for us. It misses the mark (sin) of His holiness. It is BAD for us (certainly that was clear in my own life). He doesn’t just arbitrarily say “don’t do this and don’t do that”. He isn’t a set of rules and regulations. He is a personality made of Spirit (Father and Holy Spirit) and Flesh (Jesus). He wants us to become one with Him. To join in their perfect union. That we would also be holy spirit and holy flesh. To do so, we have to be holy just as He is holy. Not in our actions (Jesus took care of those) but in our hearts. Once our hearts are changed then our actions naturally follow suit. The battle is in our minds. When our minds are renewed we become like Christ.
I say all that to say I love you, James, and I am so glad that you are pursuing God. My prayer is that you will give up everything to Him. If you do, He is faithful to complete the good work in you and you can rest in Him. The prize is not heaven. The prize is not eternal life. The prize is God Himself, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Knowing Him changes everything.
Correct, and this happens outside of the context of homosexuality. Some people were cured of various illnesses and injuries after praying to an icon of Saint Mary . And yet, praying to an icon of Saint Mary is the sin of idolatry.
Why does God allow us to benefit from our sins at first? Why does he allow people who engage in same-sex sodomy to experience the joys of love and companionship from their sodomitic partners? Why does he allow those who pray to icons of Saint Mary to be miraculously healed?
I believe He is testing us. It would be easy to give up sodomy or idolatry if we were struck with painful boils the instant we engaged in such behavior. But if we benefit, at least temporarily, from such behavior, then it is a test to see if we truly love Him. Would we be willing to give up something apparently beneficial for us to conform with the moral will of God?
When God gave the law to Israel, he gave the people and their rulers this commandment.
If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
Deut. 13:1-5.
(It should be noted that the commandment to put the prophet to death was to the rulers and judges of Israel, not the people of Israel in general.)
Bill thank you! I pray so that my husband will make christ his all and give up all for him
@james, You and I have had our disagreements and I have said things to you and to others that was cruel and offensive. For that I am sorry and I apologize. I was wrong. Reading Matt’s post again this morning helped me see how wrong I was. Tail between my legs at four o’clock this afternoon I was in the confessional. Anyways seen your comment and wanted to tell you how sorry I am. Thank you.
No problem, Davide, it’s forgotten. Thank you! I’m sure we won’t always agree but I shall also try to be less combative as well. That’s one downside to discussions on blogs … the relative anonymity makes it easy for us to discuss things in ways we would not were the person two feet in front of us.
@ james, Hey! It’s okay if you are a little combative I do own a cup and head gear so I’m well protected. I am thinking you and I holding hands and singing ‘Kum ba yah’ won’t sit well with my psyche-moxie baby moxie!! Ok off to church. See you! be well
@Davide
Hi Davide. I’ve sent an email to your aol account.
Talk about “eating my own words”…seems to be the recurring theme this week for a lot of us (myself included).
As a straight man with zero understanding or comprehension of what drives same sex attraction, I want you guys to know I find the blog and comments extremely insightful. As an apologist, I have a strong desire to defend the faith, but I also want to do so gently and with reverence.
Outreach to the homosexual community and those supportive of it is extremely important in today’s society, so I’m very thankful there’s a dude like Matt out there saying what he says, and you guys providing the feedback (even when you disagree). His blog posts and your comments really help a dude like me understand… Though I still don’t.
Matt, thank you for being so brave and honest in your post! It’s nice to see someone else eat their owns but apologize for it, shows humility which is not something that is valued in our culture.
I could totally relate to your blog. I don’t have any philosophy to share. I have only been out of homosexuality and living for God for a month now. I will say that my past relationships with women, yes sex was great but it was the cherry on top. I wanted the perfect relationship, but I could never find it. And in my last relationship our sex life was great but the relationship was lacking. I left her because their was so much emptiness from the relationship and the sex that so fired our love I didn’t care about anymore, it didn’t matter.
For many years now, I have listened to, over and over again, many gay people like Matt. Different ages…ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I live in a big city, where there is perhaps more of a density of gay people as well as diversity. And perhaps in communities where the church has stronger influence, the density of gay people isn’t as evident for those reasons. Not because they aren’t there, but the trust and confidence it takes to be honest and open with people who assess the entire of your character, and your social value from your sexual orientation would be a difficult thing to do. Not just difficult, it can be extremely risky.
There is a very good reason why the claims from people under duress are invalidated by people who really are seeking the truth, is because there isn’t free will involved. When a community teaches that there is a minority segment of their fellow citizens who can’t be trusted, who are threatening, who deserve suspicion and aren’t normal or good people, this inculcates an attitude of entitlement to force the will of the larger community on them. When the environment is poisoned by this expectations of change, and low expectations of the person’s abilities without changing, then there is powerful incentive to bend to the will of the others.
I keep hearing the code words: ‘struggling with brokenness’, ‘homosexual lifestyle choice’…’walking away from homosexuality.’
There are still aspects of modern society that doesn’t appreciate say, very dark skinned blacks and their attendant features. Or curvier females. Because it’s light skinned blacks, and very thin women who are glamorized, who have more opportunity to become wealthy and media of all kinds enforces that notion that this is the most desirable and better way to be.
There are always unrealistic and unnecessary expectations in our society that breed pathologies. Hence we have anorexia among young women, and blacks who have suffered burned scalps, skin scarring and even Asian having surgery on their eyes to attain an unnecessary ideal because of prejudice against what they have.
And this is where I, as an outside observer and on analysis, see a similar situation in gay people coerced into attaining something they can’t or shouldn’t have try to. It’s unnecessary and exacerbates the risks of other pathologies and validates the prejudices around their attribute.
You trade one form of struggle for another, and give a win to the greater society that placed the burden on you in the first place.
A person, gay or not, will still have and be their orientation whether they are having a sex life or not.
It’s only gay people who are burdened with believing it’s wrong or bad to have gay sex (even within monogamy and commitment), and are suspect whether they have a sex life or not. This is what sets up emotional, spiritual and social conflicts for gay teenagers and those around them who enforce the unrealistic expectation that the burden of changing be on them. The struggle, as it were, is actually with reconciling all that with ever changing and contradictory standards that are set for gay people and NOBODY else.
I find it abhorrent and cowardly to say there is a struggle, but you the roots of the struggle off the hook. A person trying to pass for what they are not to avoid being suspect, or challenged by prejudice is understandable. Doesn’t mean it’s a path of choice, or the right one. Even when claims of piety are the reason, and the Christians that never think they are wrong, won’t listen.
These comments are indications that the mental and intellectual conversation is basking in the branches. But the rot at the root is clearly being ignored.
Regan, I hear what you are saying and yes, homosexuals have been singled out unfairly because they are such a minority in the community. However, ALL christians struggle with their sexuality in one way or another. I’ve heard half the men in the church struggle with porn. My husband does. I myself have struggled with my fertility.
I am hoping that the good God will bring out of our culture war is that the church will no longer expect gays to go “straight, date, and mate” because for most it isn’t realistic. That said, each one of us is still expected to pick up our crosses daily and follow Him.
Regan,
[Maybe] the best strategy for the CHURCH and the WORLD is if they would just be quiet about homosexuality and let it return to where it belongs, in the confessional and whispered here and there. Once it was talked about at dinner tables, it became public, once public, it became a right, once a right, it became a good. And once a good, it can never be criticized, and thus begins the persecutions.
I have debated the words of homosexuality ad nauseum in various forums. It’s always the same debates and nothing ever changes. Many Christians who have same-sex inclinations have the desire to be faithful to the theological anthropology of sacred Scripture.
I am beginning to refuse
to consider persons as “heterosexual” no “homosexual” and insists every person has a fundamental Identity: Child of God. The human person, made in the image and likeness of God can hardly adequately be described nor reduced to reference of a sexual orientation.
We all got our challenges, trials as well as strengths, talents and gifts.
Thank you
@ Davide I am not Catholic like you. I am Lutheran and I also struggle with Homosexuality myself. In the past, I was an active Homosexual and I indulged in everything that this particular sinful sexual lifestyle had to offer. I am no longer active in that lifestyle as I am now seeking to heal from this emotional condition and to become the man that God intended and wants me to be. I have been struggling myself lately as a result of some negative stuff that has been happening in my life. I have been facing temptation in the face and although I did fall a few days ago, I simply asked God in the name of his son Jesus Christ to forgive me for the fall. I talk openly with my church pastor about my Homosexual struggles and he has been very sincere and very supportive of my decision to do the right thing in God’s eyes and do what God requires of those who worship him to do rather than give into temptation when these unnatural desires that I have (note that I said “these unnatural desires that I have” rather than say “my unnatural desires” as I refuse to let these unnatural desires that I have dictate to me on how I will be or who I am not. I am a male and I am Heterosexual in the eyes of God as we are all biologically hard-wired for male-female compatibility) and indulge in all the sinful sexual activity that this particular lifestyle has to offer. I know what God and his word, the Holy Bible, says about that. It says that the sexual activity between two members of the same gender is wrong, sinful, unnatural and inappropriate. I also openly confess to God in the name of Jesus Christ when I do sin by giving into temptation or if I am in the process of giving in, I simply stop myself and ask God in the name of his son Jesus Christ for forgiveness. After that, I feel better and if it happens that the temptation comes back, I simply throw it on God and with the help of his son Christ Jesus, God helps sustain me. I have also shared my struggles with an elder in my church and also, with the Men’s Network group who I attend meetings with during the time period of September through June every year. It has all been very supportive and it does make me feel good when I get that. I am also a member of many online support group who help men struggling with Homosexuality and they have also been very supportive. It is wonderful that I am not alone in my struggle.
The bottom line is this; I refuse to let the unnatural desires that I have make my choices or to define who I am as a human being. My identity is male and that is the only identity that I accept and embrace, which, in itself, is a really difficult thing to do, especially where Homosexuality is concerned.
Thanks Davide for your words of encouragement.
Frank—>You are welcome
Bill,
I am so very sorry about what happened to you. I’ve lost one dear friend to HIV (who acquired it through the guy he was seeing for several years). I hope you stay healthy.
It’s unfortunate that this disease is still being spread. It’s not like it’s a mystery as to how, at least not anymore. I do know that we can’t say we know what “love” is if we choose to put ourselves and others at risk. That’s just libido. Nothing more.
I think that the desire for sex (straight or gay) from as many people as possible is usually less about sex than about feeling desired. It’s a rush to be wanted and needed, if only for a short time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really satisfy because when someone is used for those purposes and then leaves, you’re left feeling worse than before … so you need to reaffirm your own human value by doing it again … and again …. it’s a sad state that I think many people live in.
I’m not sure there’s a substantive difference between promiscuity and the desire for fame. It’s all illusory, in the end.
We all ultimately have to choose whether we’re going to chase after these phantoms through shallow and narcissistic encounters or grow up and love others with sincerity. It’s not easy, and it usually costs in some fashion. However, it does most definitely satisfy in a much deeper and profound way.
I hope you find that support you need to live the Christian life in the way you see fit.
Thanks Matt. I will be referring people to this post. So many are uninformed (including those of us with this struggle) of the reasons for SSA. I wish I could have read this 8 years ago but it’s all in God’s timing.
True and lasting contentment can only be found through Jesus Christ. God bless you brother!
Reblogged this on Michael Daly CJ Blog.
Matt –
I want to sincerely thank you for retracting your hurtful and harmful statements and being humble enough to admit your change of heart. Perpetuating false stereotypes does nothing to help the church show love to people who are gay.
Like you, I am a Christian who is gay. Unlike you, I don’t believe that gay relationships are any more inherently sinful than straight relationships. [For anyone out there reading this with an itchy reply finger, I know we could go toe to toe on the clobber verses; but I think I know your theology and you know mine, so that probably won't do anything to advance the conversation.]
While some gay people may be called to be chaste and single, I do not believe that all of us are. In a previous blog post, you said: “God won’t forgive you for ignoring His truth [about the sinfulness of being gay] just because you lived a good life compared to other people.” If you feel called to celibacy, that’s cool; I would support you in that calling. But I would encourage you not to judge the salvation of those of us whom God has led in a different direction. It’s not for you, me or anyone else to say who God will forgive.
Your encouragement to have us not judge your salvation does not negate what we read and understand in scripture. It is the word of God that judges you not any one of us. I do not believe God has given you a different direction than what is written in scripture. And I MUST say to you that I do not believe God will forgive you for ‘ignoring’ scripture otherwise I will be held accountable for not having cared enough to try and save you from exclusion.
hectorious –
Faithful Christians disagree on a host of theological issues – the ordination of women, the use of the death penalty, the use of contraception, the significance and appropriate timing of baptism, the meaning of hell, the use of intercessors in our relationship with God, free will versus predestination, the literal or metaphoric nature of the creation story, and the list goes on. If what is written in scripture is as clear as you suggest, why does this disagreement exist? Does this disagreement make the Church universal any less faithful? Is the issue of homosexuality different or more important than other theological disagreement? I believe that God is bigger than all of us and He is working in all of our lives. Moral certitude causes division in the church; Paul reminds us that we can only see dimly in this world. I would love for the Church to focus on the things that unite us rather than those that divide us.
I think one of the things the Gay community often misses in the conversation is that some Christians truly fear for the eternal salvation of people who are gay. That’s a pretty strong motivator – especially for the parent of a person who is gay! All anti-gay sentiment is not purely an expression of moral disapproval and animosity. Unfortunately, the rhetoric from Christians often becomes over heated, awash in moral certitude and condemnation, and downright ugly. It makes hearing or feeling the love of the church very difficult.
David- I am curious what scriptures you believe support your view for a homosexual relationship??? As far as I know there are none. I would be most interested in knowing if there are verses that support your viewpoint.
Clobber verses? What exactly is that?
“Clobber verses” refer to the handful of verses in the Bible that could possibly relate to homosexuality. There are loads of apologetics (on both sides of this debate) easily found on the internet. But here is a good “compare and contrast” recap of the verses in question:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/homglance.htm.
Bill – Christians who express moral disapproval of people who are gay often cite Paul’s prohibitions in Romans, 1 Cor., and 1 Timothy. Many biblical scholars and historians refute the notion that this is a condemnation of homosexuality per se, but rather a warning against destructive sexual practices like male prostitution and ritualized sex in worship. In fact, the word “homosexuality” didn’t even appear in the bible until 1946. Paul probably didn’t even have a conception of gay relationships (or even marriage) as we understand it today. The Bible is silent on the issue of committed, monogamous same sex relationships.
To the contrary, Paul describes singleness as superior in many ways to marriage. He encourages Christian men to remain single and chaste. I don’t think many people today would use Paul’s comments to disapprove of opposite sex relationships.
The moral disapproval is of same-sex sodomy.
Shoes Thrower –
You say “The moral disapproval is of same-sex sodomy”, not same sex relationships. Your clarification seems unnecessary; how can you disapprove of the former but not the latter. I can only guess at your motivations for making this clarification. Presumably you are also morally opposed to other, non-sodomy forms of sex between gay people. Making this meaningless clarification and choosing the word “sodomy” seems intentionally provocative – as if you are trying to use the word as a slur against people who are gay. This is the kind of language and discussion that will continue to divide the Church rather than heal it.
Thanks for your response. I have read the literature you are talking about. Unfortunately from my viewpoint their arguments are very weak, although I am no scholar. It just looks like people trying to twist scripture or make excuses to me. I read the Bible for myself and it seems extremely clear. It reminds me of everything that Satan does throughout the Bible. To Eve he said “surely God did not say…” When God CLEARLY SAID.
I wasn’t looking for verses about disapproval of homosexual relationships as I already know those. I was looking for verses that specifically approve of them which would then put the topic up for discussion similar to predestination or once saved always saved. While I hope that you are right and I am wrong, I don’t see how it could be written any more clearly than “man shall not lie with man as with a woman”. To me that seems to indicate the sex itself, just as the surrounding verses are talking about sex itself. It doesn’t say you can have sex with your daughter as long as you marry her and are monogamous, so to me that would apply to homosexual relationships as well.
I see a merciful and compassionate God in the Bible. But I also see one who says what He means and means what He says. He killed Uzziah for touching the falling ark. He killed Ananais and Sapphira for lying. He killed priests for strange fire. And He warns us about those teaching falsely (2 Peter 2).
2 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them —bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
I hope for your sake you are not following such as these. May God bless you David. My prayer is that He will continue to bring you closer to Him and grow you into the man he designed you to be. King David was a man after God’s own heart, although far from perfect. May you likewise be a man after God’s own heart.
Bill –
The comments thread of a blog is no place to have an exhaustive conversation about what scripture says about gay relationships. I am no scholar either, but I do consider scripture my authority. And after much study and prayer (and tears), the Holy Spirit has helped me discern from scripture an understanding that is different than yours. You cite the mosaic code, but much of the law in Leviticus is disregarded – we are under the new covenant; freed from such legalism. I can only speak for myself: God showed me that my greatest sin – the thing that kept me furthest from him – was denying the person that He created me to be and rejecting His gift of sexuality. He showed me that I am a child of God, created in His image, and worthy of giving and receiving romantic love and the emotional blessings that come from intimacy.
If someone is called to celibacy, or if they are faithfully waiting for the right person to come into their lives, I wholeheartedly support them. But I don’t believe that people who are gay must remain celibate without the possibility of romantic love in order to please God. And I believe that telling people that pushes them away from the cross.
Bill, sincere thanks for engaging respectfully in this conversation. I wish more Christians (on all sides of this debate) would take such a gracious approach to such a difficult conversation. I pray that we all continue to seek God, and I have faith that he will heal our very broken church and our very broken world.
A same-sex relationship can, at least in theory, be devoid of sodomy and other sex acts.
hmm. Matt, It seems I posted a reply with too many links in it, so it went to spam.
Reblogged this on Orange Trees and commented:
I am a Christian who has experienced the homosexual lifestyle. Heck I still deal with same sex attractions.
It’s not a ‘lifestyle’. It’s life.
We’re all born with a sexual orientation. We are all born different. We’re created with different gender attraction for a very important reason. That our species will survive tempered in gender understanding. Religious enforcement of gender, is artificial and dangerous.
Men and women aren’t getting along well in the world because of such enforcement. Look at countries where there is religious gov’t. Women are treated like children and can’t even be seen in public without losing their individuality and identity. It should be clear to anyone who can think on their own, that we’re created and in a world of Creation that is immensely diverse and varied, and it’s meant to be that way.
Our four categorized sexual orientations were not mistakes, nor anathema to a plan that is easy to see, some people haven’t figured out.
And some of us have.
The greatest shame is those who want to still keep their fellow human beings in darkness about that.
That is no excuse for wicked behavior.
What the religious definitions of wicked behavior is, and what it actually is and how modern society responds. Are very different things.
Making such short comment, without any defining and specific meanings, is meaningless.
I bring up my credentials with law enforcement, because I have the social AND professional background to define what wicked, dangerous AND reprobate behavior is.
And what is acceptable and healthy in our society, that is considered bad behavior in religious terms, but in personal and civil terms, is not.
And since we’re usually talking about homosexuality in this forum. Homosexuality, isn’t wicked. It’s EXCEPTIONALLY morally neutral.
Because at least it doesn’t produce unwanted, abused and abandoned children by the millions, vulnerable to poverty and a lot else.
But it’s clear that not accepting it, is an extension of the inherent misogyny in Christian teaching. And an extension of the prejudice against contraception.
Archaic, barbaric and contradictory to human progressive social standards.
You don’t get to live in the modern and protected social civil liberties, while trying to project unworthiness for them on gay people.
And this is why it’s not God I don’t trust. But PEOPLE who claim God in ways to make others suffer.
So you really didn’t make a point, shoes thrower.
It is so a lifestyle. It is NOT A life. We are NOT born with a sexual orientation, which is THE oldest lie ever told about it. Each and every one of us is biologically hard-wired for male-female compatibility. God made man and woman for a reason. He made woman as a compliment to the man to be one in flesh with him. God never intended for sexuality to be used the way that the world is using as well as abusing it for. He intended sexuality as a gift that can be enjoyed by a man and his wife and not for casual partnership or for two members of the same gender to indulge in sexual activity with each other sinfully. God improves of and accepts healthy Heterosexuality and condemns all sorts of sexual immorality in his scared word, the Holy Bible. Even if someone struggles with Homosexuality, they must see that acting out on those unnatural desires that they have is a choice and not an inevitability as they think that it is. I also struggle, but I choose NOT to act out on the unnatural desires that I have(note that I said “the unnatural desires that I have” and not my unnatural desires as I refuse to let these unnatural desires define who I am or make my decisions for me. I only accept my gender identity, which is male and that is all that I accept about myself, which, in itself, is not an easy thing to do) and I know that I am pleasing God when I chosen not to act out on them.
We are not born to behave a certain way. ALL behavior is learned and acquired, not inborn, genetic nor predestined. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Nobody is born Homosexual, which is THE oldest lie regarding this. Again, nobody is born anything. The only thing that we are born with is our gender identity, which is male and female. I know that there are people born with physical disabilities, but that is just nature. Everything else, such as behavior, is learned and acquired.
Something to think about.
I have to agree with you on this, Frank! My understanding is that we are all born with free will. Some, due to circumstance, have it tougher than others… but God gives us all equal opportunity to turn to Him and repent, if we’ve strayed in directions counter to His will (which we all have done). As far as the comment that was made about it not being a choice, the scriptures have a lot to say about people who profess lies : Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces[a] of this world rather than on Christ.”
Well, a pattern sure has formed. I know it’s extremely hard for most people here to engage a more complex aspect of discussing gender and orientation. And Scripture, again, is used as a substitute for personal depth. Oh well, I misjudged you Gene. I wanted to respect you as someone who has thought beyond certain limits. I want to also remind you that Coretta S. King, Rep. John Lewis, Julian Bond, Andrew Young, Mildred Loving and several other veterans in the Civil Rights Movement and equality struggle, emphatically have stated their support for gay equality and understand the parallels of injustice that gay AND black people have endured through history. In different ways, but no less horrific and unjust.
You wholeheartedly disagreed, and so did Erica and you agreed with her.
So enlighten us, on what YOU know, that those venerated civil rights warriors don’t or didn’t know? Because I spent a very long time participating in various educational and justice advocate institutions that required study in that history and connecting the different forms of injustice in order to FIGHT IT.
And knew before I knew what these brave people expressed, that there was an opportunity to involve different people in the same goal.
And YOU missed it, evidently.
Frank,
I can’t speak for anyone but myself. I have lived this question for years (decades, really). I have to say the Holy Spirit has led me in a completely different direction than the journey you are on. I believe that scripture does not prohibit gay relationships. In fact, denying God’s beautiful gift of sexuality speedster me from Him. If you believe that same sex attraction is a problem, And that you should not act on that attraction, that’s fine. I support you in doing what you think you need to do to live a Godly life. But know that you are a gay man who chooses to be celibate. Your sexual orientation is not something that changes. Your same sex attractions do not go away ( and there are scores of faithful Christians who come before us who prayed to be delivered for their SSA – desperate to the point of suicide – who know this truth). What is the natural desire: the one given by God, or the one defined by the straight majority in the church? For the sake of everyone including the women you may impact, pleas don’t pretend to be straight.
For me, God has shown me that I am His child, created in His image and worthy of loving and receiving romantic love (and the emotional security and strength that flows from it). I will support you in chastity if that’s what you thi k God has called you to. In return, I simply ask that you don’t judge those of us who are gay but not called to chaste singleness.
David
I have to respectfully disagree with you. The Holy Bible, in it’s own words, condemns sexual immorality as a whole (Galatians 5: 19-21) and that includes the sexual activity between two members of the same gender (1st Corinthians 6: 9-10). It was also the main reason why the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed(Genesis Chapter 19). Another account in the Holy that proves that this is wrong is written in Leviticus when the law was handed down by God after the Israelites exodus from Egypt(Leviticus 18:22) and another Old Testament account of the Levite and his concubine(Judges 19). The Holy Bible, in it’s own way shows that the sexual activity between two members of the same gender is wrong and unacceptable in the eyes of our creator. He had this law laid down for a reason and to this day, the law that God set forth still applies. That law has never gone out of date nor will it ever go out of date. Again, God only approves of Heterosexuality as God made Man and Woman, Adam and Eve, for a reason. Again, God never intended for sexuality to be used and abused the way that the world is doing so at this moment as it has been since the fall from perfection. When someone indulges in any immoral sexual activity, including the sexual activity between two members of the same gender, is actually sinning against God and there is no way around God’s law. We were all given a free will and we must use it the way that God requires us to use it. Again, there is no substitute for what God made and meant for us.
Again, something for you to think about.
It is a faith and religious path that is chosen. THAT is what is a lifestyle choice that people casually and selectively indulge in. It’s not an enforced or gov’t required way to live. Homosexuality is a natural and biologically based sexual orientation, UNIVERSAL to all human life. Christianity is not. Judaism is not, Buddhism and Islam are not. Homosexuality is and always has been a part of all human life and history, and neutral to one’s culture, faith community or family structure. In other words, there is nothing that influences when and where homosexuality will present.
You were TAUGHT your religion, but not homosexuality.
And gay people aren’t forcing or trying to force anyone to BE gay, that’s impossible, but the same can’t be said about those who want religious power to influence gov’t and what other people will think and fell about homosexuality.
Now, you don’t have to believe any of what I just said.
And you don’t have to believe that the Earth is a sphere either.
The gap between what the writers of the Bible knew, and what OUR human society knows is wider than an ocean.
And you can believe if you cross that ocean, you’ll fall off the edge of the Earth.
But think about what you look like believing that to those of us who have the courage to sail the ocean, and look for new people and interests to expand our world of knowledge, logic and compassion.
And frankly, a neutered gay person isn’t very interesting or the person to go to in learning any truth of understanding about gay people. And gay children are paying a heavy price for it and don’t deserve to. They and their straight peers deserve better, and deserve the kind of education that helps them cross the ocean of ignorance and fear.
You are still missing the mark. I wasn’t talking about religion. I was talking about what the Holy Bible says about this particular type of sexual activity. The Holy Bible claims, in it’s own way, that the sexual activity between two members of the same gender is wrong and unacceptable. God had the law laid down in the book of Leviticus and also, the passages of both the Old and the New Testament that I shared in another post say about this type of thing. You have a choice. You can believe what God and his law, the Holy Bible, says or you can believe the opinions of the world around you. Most people choose to believe what the world around says. Me, I have chosen to obey the law of God, his word the Holy Bible, and live it. I have chosen to NOT continue living the sinful sexual lifestyle connected with the so called “Gay” lifestyle. That sexual lifestyle is sinful, immoral, unnatural, unacceptable and above all, condemned by God in his sacred word, the Holy Bible. There is no way around it and there are no bones about it. If anyone disagrees with that, they are not only calling the Holy Bible a liar, but they are also calling God, the author of the Holy Bible, a liar and as Hebrews 6:18 says “It is impossible for God to lie”.
I am no longer enslaved to that sinful sexual lifestyle and I am glad to be free of it, I no longer want to return to that lifestyle as it is sinful and unacceptable to God.
Plus, there is absolutely NO scientific proof that people are born Homosexual. There is absolutely NO proof of that.
Again, something to think about.
Hey Frank, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you people that I’ve had the same Bible study, was raised Christian throughout my childhood and adulthood.
I KNOW what the Bible says.
I also know when and how and at which vulnerable targets it’s used as a weapon of injustice.
Any of us, directly in the line of fire, are obligated to resist these traditions of injustice and defend our humanity.
And that of our fellows, also under fire.
All I see is just folk, like you and me. Folk who have no business invoking God when convenient to what they are inflicting selectively, unfairly, hypocritically and in contradiction to our progressed lives.
What good is a neutered gay person to inform this situation?
The Bible will not say anything differently, it won’t change the message and it can be put down and picked up at will.
Conflating homosexuality with the same attribute of being at will is wrong. As evidenced by the tragedies and conflicts that confront gay lives. This leaves gay kids especially without protection or opportunity to teach people the reality necessary to save their lives and that of others mistaken for gay people.
Nobody else in society, NOBODY, has to defer their religious sins on condition of their civil and political equality.
NOBODY.
Which is exactly why it looks cowardly and hypocritical to pick on homosexuality and label it wrongly to fit the purpose of punishing gay people for it.
I’m not afraid of telling anyone that thinks I deserve to live in an inferior position of life, have my life preplanned FOR me or decides that I’m not worthy of certain opportunities because I’m a woman, where they can stick it.
I will not flatter another human being, that’s afraid to do that and sits around and allows someone younger and more vulnerable to take the weight people like you refuse to carry.
All the Scripture quoting, and claims of loyalty to the Bible and what it means to you, won’t hide that fact from whoever is paying attention.
The stakes are much higher for gay children.
You don’t get to make them sacrificial lambs because it’s convenient to what you CHOOSE and WANT to believe.
I see that you are still missing the mark. I am not surprised.
You state that you had studies with the same Holy Bible and that you know what it says and everything.
I do have one question:
Why are you arrogantly defending a sexual lifestyle that is sinful and unacceptable to God and that the Holy Bible condemns? That is right, you read the question rightly.
Since you know what the Holy Bible says about this sort of thing, you still defend that sinful sexual lifestyle in arrogance. You know what it says and you know that the bible says that it is wrong, but you continually defend that lifestyle. There is no excuse to defend something that is sinful and unacceptable to God. We all have a choice, but it seems that you already made yours. I am not trying to sway you nor am I trying to shove anything down your throat. I am just trying to show you in the most sincerest way that I can what the Holy Bible, God’s own word and law, says about this sort of thing. What you are saying here is what Jesus Christ says in Mark 7:7 NIV about those who worship his father but defend sinful and unacceptable practices, such as the sinful sexual activity between two members of the same gender, when he said regarding his father: “They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” Look, I understand that you are refusing to believe what the scriptures say, but that is your decision. I have chosen to believe the truth of God’s word and life a lifestyle of chastity rather than indulge in any sort of sinful sexual activity, including, but not limited to, the sexual activity between two members of the same gender, which continually the Holy Bible says is wrong, sinful and unacceptable in both the Old and New Testaments. It is there. Whether you choose to accept it or not is your choice and again, I see that you already made yours.
Here is an article link that I would like to share. This is for everyone to read:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/julyweb-only/better-conversation-about-homosexuality.html#.UCqXcckyccw.facebook
There are numerous pages to read and it does explain it’s point very well.
Again, something to think about.
Frank. Give it a rest. Really.
Regan, myself, and scores of other Christians who are gay have wrestled with the clobber versus for years. I know your theology and I reject it. I do not believe that God condemns same sex relationships. And the idea that He does is rooted more in tradition than in scripture.
I’m not trying to walk your walk for you; or tell you what you should believe. But my disagreement with you is not based on ignorance of the bible nor is it based on a rejection of scripture as you continue to suggest. You and I simply have a theological disagreement about the sinfulness of gay relationships. If you want to see various interpretations of what scripture says (or doesn’t say) about being gay, a simple google search of “clobber verses” will give you a wealth of results supporting both sides.
I hope that your faith is not so fragile or shallow that it can’t withstand a little disagreement. Disagreement on non-essential theology does not make anyone less of a Christian. I respect and support your quest to live a God-centered life; I would hope you would do likewise. Please don’t pretend that you know God’s heart. Please don’t dismiss the possibility that the Spirit has led others to a different understanding. Please don’t judge other’s salvation. God is greater than all of us and He is working in all of our lives.
Hi David.
What I am actually trying to impart here, is that this religious messaging isn’t new, and it DOES restrict the ability for gay people, especially gay children, to be allowed to SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.
To inform beyond stereotypes, assumptions and prejudices. And every time, someone of faith comes it, insisting they deserve to say anything and take up ALL the time all over again, and be the ones deferred to in accepting that their belief in the Bible is IT. Done, over. Nothing else can be said, believed or understood.
And all this, as if no one has ever been horribly abused by this. Kept from their full potential, that whole cultures haven’t been destroyed by the insistence that the Bible is the end all, be all and the only thing anyone needs to know.
And I ask again, why should the same people who have been on the receiving end of the worst of it, just lie down and TAKE it?
I am an eyewitness to Bibles being waved in state houses, in legislatures, in the Senate and in my face, to justify anything from punishing black people, women, Jews, gays, and atheists to keeping people from accessing birth control, and organ donations.
Christians, Christianity, the faithful and the religious of all backgrounds have had plenty of opportunity, been given a lot of benefit, even of the doubt. So, I want gay people to be able to speak for themselves. To give full opportunity to gay people and especially gay children to be able to teach us, without interference and constant, unrelenting defamation and disrespect for existing.
I don’t want to HEAR from Christians ANYMORE, I’ve heard the same thing, over and over again, my whole life.
Most everyone has.
It’s GAY people we haven’t been able to hear from in comparison, or a chance to understand and be educated by experience teaching us. It’s only recently have people figured out how early in life gay sexuality manifests, and we can only hear it from the very young, if they aren’t threatened with being shut down, or coerced or silenced in any way.
It’s not about ‘silencing’ Christians, that’s not going to happen and no one is trying to do that. Not even gay people.
But when are some Christians going to have the grace to LISTEN to something and someone ELSE?!
When are gay CHILDREN going to be able to live openly, honestly and be guided in commitment with someone of their SAME ORIENTATION, their hetero peers are allowed to? When can they do so, without being threatened?
We have learned NOTHING good FROM Christians about gay people all this time, and yet…those of us with enough experience and curiosity to know differently tend to think that Christianity has CHEATED us out of a relationship with gay people that could be a powerful alliance. It’s not NECESSARY for gay people to not be gay, and it’s a world with a lot less color, abundance of diversity when they aren’t here.
And I don’t think it’s remarkable or brave or worthy of congratulations that a person isn’t ss attracted anymore or has come to the terms of Christians or other coercive social standards DECIDED FOR THEM.
What IS brave, remarkable and enlightening, are those gay people who have succeeded and been themselves and owned their lives in spite of it.
And I noticed Gene didn’t answer my question about what Coretta S. King didn’t know, but he does about gays and blacks having NOTHING in common where civil rights struggles are concerned.
Not surprisingly, someone who hasn’t fought for them for themselves or anyone else, might think that.
Yes, Regan, I totally agree.
The God I hear Christians of a certain ilk talk about is unrecognizable to me. The God I hear described sometimes is not only compassionless, but even ashamed of His wicked, evil creation. I believe as they do that we are born in sin and, through the grace of God, we turn from sin. Seemingly unlike them, I also believe that God is just, merciful, and compassionate. I believe not only in the full divinity of Christ, but also the full humanity of Christ. He knew loneliness and yearned to fit in. He knew sorry and ached to be freed from it. He knew joy and elation and celebration.
I often don’t see compassion, justice, or love from some Christians. It feels like they have high jacked the religion. They run roughshod over the conversation and suck the air out of the room. Especially when discussing people who are gay IMO, their witness to the world is only one small step on this side of Wesboro Baptist. That’s sad and it’s driving people away from the cross – especially people who are gay.
As I wrote to Frank, I will gladly support anyone who chooses celebacy if they feel like that’s what they need to do to live a godly life. However, I believe that churches that preach celebacy for gay people are actually engaging in emotional and spiritual abuse. Think about what they are saying to the gay kid in the front pew. They are saying God created him as unworthy of the loving and being loved romantically. They are giving him an awful and false ultimatum – live your life without the possibility of intimacy (and all of the emotional security and fulfillment that flows from it) or displease God. They are saying he will not have the possibility of having a life like his parents, he must go it alone (so much for “it is not good for man to be alone”).
They are also giving him another ultimatum – stay in the closet, or come out and risk all of the relationships in your church and your family that are central to your life. That closet is a deep and lonely place. If you spend any time speaking to Christians who are gay, you will here story after story of people desperate for God to change them, often to the point of suicide.
This is emotional abuse. Full stop. There is a moral issue here. These beliefs are doing real harm to flesh and blood people. Just as I reject some Christian’s belief that we should not visit doctors because it causes unnecessary, irreparable harm, I also reject doctrine that insists on celebacy for gay people.
@ David: Reading what you wrote, you are rejecting the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible, in itself, encourages and enforces chastity for all Christians and to flee from all sexual immorality (1st Corinthians 6:18), including, but not limited to, the sexual activity between two members of the same gender. I am not surprised by your rejection of the Holy Bible. No, I am not. The vast majority of people in this world are rejecting God’s law and word and following worldly thinking rather than learning about God and serving him and seeking his guidance in their lives. The Holy Bible is what encourages and enforces chastity. This is not man’s law, but God’s law. Christians are required to follow God’s law. The law is there, but it is up to us as we have the God given free will to make our decisions. I choose to follow God’s law rather than indulge in sexual immorality.
Plus, this is NOT the Westboro Baptist Church as they go against what God set forth in his sacred word and law, the Holy Bible, by spreading hatred by making meaningless and road to nowhere type protests in front of military funerals and other functions. They are using the wrong approach. God does NOT hate anyone as we are created by him. The Holy Bible says that God is love(1st John 4:8). God is a loving god that is full of love, compassion, kindness, tenderness and mercy. He sent his son Jesus Christ to die for us so we would never be enslaved to sin, but to be free from the bondage of sin. Through him, we get to the father(John 14:6)and also in his name, we are saved as Christians and if we do fall short, which we do from time to time, God is there to forgive us and his son is God’s only mediator between himself and man(1st Timothy 2:5).
As I have said before, I will NOT let anyone’s arrogance sway me away from the truth.
Frank, have you ever experienced or seen what repressive religious cultures do to people? Have you noticed what country you live in? This is a nation of personal choice, the freedom to make them and responsibility. We are not a nation of religious enforcement, although there have been members of our society forced to endure some form of it at one time or another. And it’s been dangerous, destroyed potential and diminished the credibility of religious compassion.
I’m free to believe in the Bible, or NOT.
And keep my own counsel with God, in MY way, not YOURS.
Or NOT.
And if I don’t, deal with it. Yeah, deal with it and quit with the scold and the denouncement in what you deem a lack of proper piety. Leave whatever God is going to do, UP TO GOD then.
Because as I keep saying, we’re just folk here. And all I see are ordinary mortals, treating other folks wrongly, selectively and hypocritically.
It’s not God treating me wrongly, it’s people like YOU.
I know the difference, deal with that too.
What matters is what the LORD God Almighty does to His enemies.
Are you His enemy or His subject? You are the only person in the world who can answer that question.
@ Shows Thrower: This reminds me of the parable of the sower that Jesus Christ shared and when his disciples asked about why he spoke to them in parables, he explained what he meant in his parable. For this particular experience that is going on now, with a couple of people here arrogantly defending a sinful lifestyle that God condemns in his word, the Holy Bible, it resembles when the sower sows seeds among the pathway about they who hear the word and than Satan, the Devil, comes and takes the seed away before it even has a chance to grow. This does apply here.
I just thought that I would enlighten the board here with this.
This isn’t a conversation Frank, you and too many here are stuck on giving sermons. And deciding that for you to judge my character rests on whether I answer to who I serve.
You’re acting like the Grand Inquisitor. You’re not in, nor ARE any kind of authority.
And never will be.
We’re still just folk here, and everywhere, Frank.
When I see a human being abuse another, it’s THAT human being who is going to answer to it, to their fellow human beings. It’s getting those doing the abusing to understand their culpability, and claiming the divine right to do it, won’t cut it.
Not only is abusive on it’s own, but cowardly.
YOU can pick and choose to serve God, but deciding another person isn’t good enough because they aren’t doing it to YOUR liking, well…
That’s precisely the line where control freaks become abusers.
Who0 on this blog is abusing you?
@ Shoes Thrower: Nobody here is abusing Regan at all. This person simply doesn’t like their arrogance pointed out to them, that’s all. Oh well.
I never said anyone was abusing me on this blog. Not. Ever.
So, your question is pointing to something that I’ve long tried to point out. Your projection of the persecution complex is so ingrained, that you truly think I’ve said that about how I was treated, when I’m emphatic about the opposite.
I have however, been subjected to some abuse and so have the children I’ve mentored, by people of faith in OTHER AREAS.
I can speak for myself.
Don’t put words in my mouth I didn’t say.
That’s what happens when you’re incurious and can’t be bothered to ask sincere and real questions, you just decide and judge ahead of a statement made.
That’s called prejudice.
@ Reagan No, I am NOT repeat NOT being prejudiced. I am NOT a prejudicial person. I was simply stating what the Holy Bible said and all. The Holy Bible states clearly that the all immoral sexual activity is condemned by God in his sacred word, the Holy Bible. It is written in there. That in itself, is NOT prejudice. It is simply pointing out the truth of God’s word and what it says concerning all immoral sexual activity and that it condemns that activity. As Christians, we are all under God’s law in the Holy Bible and God requires all Christians to obey and be submissive to his law. That is all that God asks of us. Of course, we all fall short from time to time and when we do, we simply ask God to forgive us in the name of his son Jesus Christ and after that, the slate is wiped clean. We can move on from there. I was simply defending what the Holy Bible, God’s own word, said about this particular sexual activity as well as all immoral sexual activity. That is not prejudice. I also love my neighbors, but I don’t condone any sinful practices that my neighbor does do, but I don’t let that stop me from loving them as Jesus Christ commanded us to do. We are love our neighbors, but not follow our neighbor’s sinful patterns if they are doing something that is sinful in God’s eyes. Again, no prejudice here. I love people regardless of race, creed or color as I have plenty of friends who are of mixed races, creeds and colors. I just hate evil and I hate what is bad as God requires us as Christians to hate what is bad or evil(Psalms 97:10, Romans 12:9). I hate the sin, not the sinner. One more time, no prejudice here.
It is just that you were continuously defending a sexual lifestyle that is condemned in the Holy Bible and you also were saying that you were aware what the Holy Bible said regarding all immoral sexual activity, including, but not limited to, the sexual activity between two members of the same gender. but you were defending it. I pointed out that this was arrogance. Yes Regan, it is arrogance. You are simply and arrogantly defending a lifestyle that God, in his word, the Holy Bible, condemns and abhors. I know that you won’t admit that, but Regan, I don’t plan nor count on you acknowledging this and I won’t waste my energy trying to humble you. If you want to be arrogant, that is your choice. I am not going to try and sway you nor will I try to humble you.
By the way, I was also the victim of abuse myself. I know the pain of that and believe me, I wish that I wasn’t abused as I wouldn’t be struggling with the issues that I struggle with now.
Frank, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you>
1. I know what the Bible says and condemns.
2. Homosexuality isn’t a lifestyle, it’s an orientation, and everyone has one and they are not interchangeable. And it’s unfair and wrong to punish one group of people for theirs being different.
3. I also know, that modern society and our lives can coexist with a great deal the Bible condemns, and we do. Homosexuality is one of them.
These are truths I’m stating, this is how we live in the huge, gaping and quantum difference in how WE live, and how the Biblical societies lived.
They never came close to what WE have accomplished, that’s not arrogance, that’s a fact.
YOU benefit from it, and now you want regressive responses to how gay people should or deserve to live.
And Frank, I wasn’t talking about RACIAL prejudice. But the kind of selective prejudice where you allow yourself to make a judgement call regarding someone else’s character, and expect no consequences for doing so. How many times are you going to call me arrogant, because YOU have decided I don’t show enough piety for your taste?
You’re just Frank. I have nothing to prove to YOU. And no one else does either. And typical of people who know their situation is advantageous, you call me arrogant. You did, not God.
I know I’m not dealing with God, I’m dealing with YOU.
So YOU are going to own the judgement you make, and the actions you do in accordance to that judgement.
I have a lot of young people depending on me. And I don’t lie to them, and there is a lot they have to be exposed to, to learn the truth.
I’m not ‘defending a sinful lifestyle’.
These kids aren’t a ‘lifestyle’.
And when someone like you talks to them like that, I’m OBLIGATED to check YOU, not them.
I don’t hide behind the Bible for my actions, that is why I’m trusted in what I do. Very trusted.
And Frank, for all your pious claims, when it’s all said and done, you’re not the one who can be.
No, you are not sharing truths, you are sharing opinions and from your point of view, they are truths. I am not surprised at this. By your posts, you are only showing that you can’t tell the real difference between the truth of God’s word and human opinions. That alone shows how arrogant you are.
It is arrogance when someone knows what the Holy Bible says and yet they continue to defend something that the Holy Bible condemns, such as the so called “Gay” lifestyle. Regan, how many times do I have to tell you that it is a lifestyle. Yes it is. When are you going to accept that cold hard truth and reality? Is is a lifestyle and it is a very sinful and destructive lifestyle. Not only that, by your posts, you don’t like your arrogance being pointed out to you. If you don’t like that, that is your problem, not mine.
As I said in my earlier posts, I DON’T repeat DON’T hate my fellow man regardless of what race, creed or color he is. I also don’t hate him if he were in any sinful sexual lifestyle, including, but not limited to, the so called “Gay” lifestyle. You were the one that brought up the prejudicial stuff, not me. I was just stating that you were wrong in your accusation of me. The only reason why I don’t support the agenda of the so called “Gay” lifestyle is because God, in his word, the Holy Bible, condemns that lifestyle and also the sexual practices alongside it. It is a lifestyle. Also, I am only defending the truth of God’s word and what it says concerning this subject, which every Christian is required to do. I will NEVER ever support an agenda that God and his word, the Holy Bible, condemns. No arrogant person will ever sway me. You can try to sway, but you will only lose. I am still going to continue defending the truth of God’s word and nothing nor nobody will ever stop me from doing that and that even includes the arrogance of others.
I’m not here to sway you Frank.
I’m here to learn more, and understand more about what I’ll have to do.
I’ve learned a great deal about how certain people’s minds work. And how that translates into more complex and exceptional situations. You can think what you like. But there will come a time when people who believe as you do, have turned their unswayed beliefs, into actions that are damaging and threatening, and most of all contradictory. It’s confusing especially to young gay people and their peers. People who think as you do, threaten them.
As evidenced by more tragedy resulting from anti gay sentiment, than acceptance of homosexuality.
Those of us who work very hard in sociological and other sciences, can take you for someone who remains rigid, ignorant, and not especially compassionate or informed.
You might think it’s piety, and respect for your own religion, but it signals not much respect for what matters.
I have young people to protect from people like you.
And I’m very good at it.
Better than you are, at what you think you are doing.
Fortunately.
@ Regan: You have been all of us how arrogant you really are since you have been posting your opinions on here. But Regan, this time, you have really shown even more arrogance than ever before. Now, you are launching into the “I’m better than you are” type of an attitude, which is the worst form of arrogance. Where do you come off saying that you are better than me? None of us are better than another person. We are all human. We are equal in the eyes of God. Again we are all human. We all have our faults. Your main fault is the arrogance that you have and that is really sad. We who are Christian on this blog have been trying to show you the truth of what God’s word, the Holy Bible, says about these things that you have been arrogantly defending. This is all that we have been trying to show you, Regan, but you continue to ignore that and defend what God condemns in his sacred word, the Holy Bible. We are just trying to show you the truth. But you are ignoring the truth and insisting that your opinions are the truth and that the real truth of God’s word are opinions.
As I have said before and I will say again, “There is NO scientific proof that Homosexuality is inborn or genetic.” NO scientific proof whatsoever. Plus, there are many people, both men and woman, who were at one time living that sinful sexual lifestyle known as the so called “Gay” lifestyle, but later embraced the truth about God and his son Jesus Christ and chose to do the right thing and abandon that sinful lifestyle and today, there are some of them who are happily married to members of the opposite gender, and also have their own families. There are also those who have become Christian, but are still single as they have chosen to live a life of chastity as that pleases God because God requires all of us Christians to live our lives in chastity. God is love.
By the way, I happen to be a very compassionate person. I do love my neighbors and I do respect others and speak respectively to them as I am doing so with you. I also have some news for you. Those young ones that you are protecting, you are protecting them from hearing the truth of God’s word. That is another way that Satan uses to keep those who are still sinning and are enslaved to sin, such as being enslaved to sexual sin, including, but not limited to, the sexual activity between two members of the same gender, from learning the truth about God’s word, the Holy Bible, and accepting Christ as their savior. Satan doesn’t want nobody to hear the truth and have the truth set them free. I am here to help those who want to break free from sexual sin or any type of sin. With God’s son Jesus Christ, enslavement to sin is abolished and with him, we can be set free from sin’s bondage. That is why God sent him to Earth so we can be set free from sin’s grip and live a free holy life in his name and also, to get to know God better through daily reading of the Holy Bible. That is all I want and am trying to do. I have done it and believe me, there is nothing like the feeling of being totally free the bondage of sin and not have sin’s grip have a hold on me in my life anymore. God and Christ are at the wheel and I am glad and happy that I am free. Thank God and his son Jesus Christ for that.
If you are still going to be arrogant, that is your choice.
As of now, this conversation is over with between us.
Frank, Regan simply doesn’t realize (or possibly respect) the fact that God’s word trumps anything man comes up with. Her rationale continues to flow along the lines that Christians believe old world rationalization which is, by her arguement, a mode of out dated thinking. She refuses to accept that God is aware of everything that man will ever come up with (even before the world was formed) and has given us everything we need to know as pertaining to life through His Holy word. There won’t be any convincing her or anyone who thinks like she does until she accepts this basic axiom.
@ Gene You’re right. But as I said to another one who has been posting here, I think that we should simply move on from here and forget it. I feel that right now, it is best to ignore Regan and her arrogant rants. She is on her own now as I have said to her that I no longer want to continue the conversation. It’s best to ignore her right now and every time she posts on here. We tried, but we lost. Oh well. But we who defend the truth know that the truth will win out in the end.
Gene, I do agree with you in everything that you have posted here and I will continue to defend the truth and I will not let the arrogance of others sway me away from it.
Whatever, Gene. Won’t be the first time you had no idea what you were talking about. Especially when it came to judging me.
But judging, is what Christians just LIVE to do. It’s their life’s work. Getting it wrong, and doing harm, doesn’t matter.
You have to do a much better job if you’re going to invoke God and your piety when it comes to sensitivity about other people.
But, this is all about you and what YOU feel. Okay then.
Well, actually Frank, it was you who makes yourself out to be better than anyone for simply claiming piety. wbmoore is calling me theologically untrustworthy. Gene and Erica were offended by my comparisons of social injustice for blacks and gays (and as soon as I put an important fact before Gene about venerated advocates who better know than he does about that, he ran from the discussion).
From the start, the tone of these threads has been negative judgement, blaming and shaming, and little context with how lives and history have converged in THIS century.
The first things you do, is treat other people as if they are retarded children or unworthy of a fair and creative conversation.
As soon as you thought I didn’t show sufficient piety or respect for God, your attitude was all at once condemning and full of religious invective.
The first thing Christians like you just love, is putting other people on the defensive.
You got the stone you threw thrown back at you, that’s all.
If you can’t handle it, then don’t throw stones.
And apparently, when it comes to what you think you know about homosexuality, lacks ANY deductive reasoning, whatsoever.
You can’t and refuse to discuss it in that context as it that’s not true or necessary.
One can deduce that because of the fact, that homosexuality is universal to all human life and history, there is a biological component.
One can deduce, that because of identity being a strong impulse in human cultures, designating strict and artificial roles for men and women only because they were men and women is why homosexuality was designated as bad. No other reasoning for THAT conclusion is in evidence.
Other than difference and same sex attraction, NOT anti social behavior.
One can deduce that faith communities are invested in using fear and threat to control their adherent, whether they choose that faith or not. In more barbaric times, using the vulnerability and illiteracy of others is an effective way of controlling them.
ALL sexual orientations, the four of them and their categories, are biological in basis.
ALL of them. There is no genetic map for heterosexuality either.
There is no genetic map for being Christian, or Hindu. There is no biological component to being Mormon.
Being religious of a certain type, has changed, evolved and improved with human progress.
And homosexuality has been stable and constant in all cultures, human history and family structures. NOTHING can change it. The only difference is duress and coercion rooted in systemic prejudice and discrimination. Never mistake passing to avoid all that, with changing.
Big difference.
The fact that some kind of threat is required for gay people to pass, isn’t about them, but the systemic problems around them.
Pathology can come from such a thing. Ever hear of the Clark doll study?
THAT is how the intelligent folks have come to know that homosexuality is harmless, morally neutral and doesn’t compromise the essential functions of a person.
It’s not even natural for you to hate homosexuality so much. You’ve been taught to, by het people with an agenda to see gay people disappear. And gay people, as our Creator has warranted, never will.
It’s PEOPLE who have made the mistake of punishing gay people for existing. And hurting them for daring to NOT be ashamed, scared or cowed.
God is not doing it, PEOPLE are.
Denial isn’t helping your case.
I’ve never said anyone on this blog, abused me.
But some Christians HAVE in other ways, and still I haven’t held it against anyone HERE. I know that some Christians are capable of it, and that’s all I’ve always said. Period.
Don’t be obtuse.
It’s unbecoming an adult.
You have once again missed the mark, not that I am surprised.
By the way, you have Christianity confused with another one of Satan’s ways of deceit, which is called legalism.
Yes, we are living in a nation of personal choice, but it was God himself that gave us this free will, not mere human men. God is the creator of free will, not men. He gave us the free will to make decisions and that was way before this country, the USA, was even around. Man did not give us anything, only God did. God created everything around us and gave us lots to enjoy while we live here on Earth. God also handed down his law and that law condemns all immoral sexual activity of all sorts. It is in both the Old and the New Testaments. You have chosen to reject the Holy Bible and go your own way. While God gave us the free will, we have to use it the way that God requires us to use it. Many people in this world have chosen to not use it the way that God requires, but rather, to make their own decisions as to what they feel is right and what they feel is wrong. This world has one motto and it is “If it feels good, do it and don’t let nothing stop you from that”. But that is NOT the way that God intended, After Adam and Eve’s fall, mankind was lead into imperfection, sin and death and the God given free will continues to be used wrongly and abused by the world to this day. Arrogance will never get you anywhere. Doing what God requires of us will get you everywhere as those who follow his laws and keep his commandments will receive rich blessings constantly while those who follow the way of the devil ruled world we are living in now will not. It seems that you have made your choice and I am not going to try and change your mind. If you want to continue to arrogantly defend a sinful lifestyle that God and his sacred word, the Holy Bible abhors, go ahead, It will never get you anything or anywhere in the long run.
By the way, I am NOT talking about religion. I am talking about God and the Holy Bible in general. Why do you have this confused with religion? Good question, huh?
@ David I will never, repeat never, give this a rest. I would never do that in a million years. I am going to continue standing my ground and proclaiming the truth no matter what you or Regan says. I am not letting the arrogance of others make my choices for me. I have made my choice and that is to come closer to the truth of God’s word and seek his guidance rather than let the world dictate to me how to live or even let the unnatural desires that I have define who I am as a male or as a human being. I am seeking change, healing and seeing the guidance of my creator, our father who lives up in Heaven and my daily Holy Bible readings are the best way to seek out God’s guidance and to get to know him better.
By the way, there is no such thing as a “Gay” Christian. Each and every Christian is Heterosexual in God’s eyes because that is what and how he made us. We Christians who struggle with Homosexuality claim that we are simply “Heterosexuals with a Homosexual problem”. Not only that, if it weren’t for Heterosexuality, you and Regan and the rest of us who post on this blog wouldn’t be here. Our parents are/were Heterosexual and that is why we are all here as a result of the law that God set forth and the way that he made all of us humans, which is that we are all biologically hard-wired for male/female compatibility. Every one of us comes from one father and one mother, not two fathers and not two mothers.
Also David, this isn’t just theology. It happens to be the truth. I know that you reject the truth, but that is your decision. I am not going to force you to believe the truth if you don’t want to as that would be a waste of time and energy. Go ahead and believe what you want. It’s your life.
“…I’m not letting the arrogance of others make my choices for me…”
Except that you weren’t BORN pious or Christian, or religious.
So, if one were honest, it’s not that much of a stretch to think that a Christian gave you the choice between a rock and a hard place, but hey…still a choice, right?
Keep on seeking God, brother, and I’ll do likewise. Peace to you.
Thanks David. I just caught this after I replied to another one of your posts here on this blog. Thanks again.
So I’ll answer the question.
1. Homosexuality isn’t a lifestyle, it’s a sexual orientation. And sexual orientation isn’t defined clinically, physically, mentally or socially as a lifestyle, but a state of being that would still be the same whether you had a sex life or not. Only gay people suffer that kind of inaccurate and damaging labeling.
I’m not defending a ‘sinful lifestyle’, I’m defending the obvious humanity and difference and innocence of orientation gay people have.
2. Typically those who think they have some divine authority over other people would see a challenge to such a thing as ‘arrogance’.
3. Most people here define homosexuality and gay people according to stereotypes, if not an archaic and outmoded standard of the role that sexuality has, and gender too for that matter. In civil law, in public accommodation, there is an obvious hypocrisy that says that hets require double standards for gay people they don’t accept for themselves in our modern and progressed society. Double standards that are cruel, irrational and intractable.
The Bible and other faith communities condemn a lot of things, that human progress has not only proven is healthy and supportable for individual well being, but that is easily and mostly accepted and should be. I recognize the extensions of misogyny, stigma against contraception, and feminine equality in requiring Biblical condemnation of homosexuality. There is no rational reason that anyone on the receiving end of religious based prejudice, cruelty, defamation and isolation, are required to take it.
You can insist there is only one side that’s true and that deserves deference. And regardless of what that does to actual people, especially young people, well eventually your sanity deserves to be questioned.
Very recent history, where there are eyewitnesses, including myself, isn’t on your side, and shouldn’t be.
Once again, with your posts, you are only showing how wrong and arrogant you really are. I am not being prejudiced. I am being Christian and biblical. I am also sharing the truth about what Homosexuality really is. Yes, it is a lifestyle. It is a very sinful lifestyle. It is not approved of by God nor his word, the Holy Bible. God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. To put it in a more secular way, it’s Tarzan and Jane, not Tarzan and John, or, it’s Romeo and Juliet, not Romeo and Julio. You have a choice. You either accept the truth or you don’t. By your posts, you are simply refusing to accept the truth and accepting what the world says. I am not in your way as that is your decision and far be it for me to force you to accept the truth. You have made your choice, but fair warning, you might regret that choice one day when “the day” does indeed come. I wouldn’t want to be in your place when that day does comes and you are on the wrong side as a result of following the world’s thinking. Do you remember what happened to those Israelites who worshiped the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments? Do you also remember what happened the wife of Lot? They lost their lives when they didn’t obey what God commanded them to do? He commands us to obey his laws in his word, the Holy Bible.
I am also not letting your arrogance steer me away from serving God and obeying his laws. If you want to keep being arrogant, fine with the rest of us, including me. Me, I have chosen to accept God’s laws and follow them rather than follow the world. My decision is not an easy one, but I have made it and I am sticking with it. I am forgiven for my sins in the name of God and his son Jesus Christ. That sinful sexual lifestyle known as the so called “Gay” lifestyle has no more hold on me nor will I let it have a hold on me ever again. Your arrogant attitude means nothing to me.
Two things Frank.
1. If I don’t kneel to your satisfaction, what are YOU going to do about it?
2. It’s so inappropriate to think that being ex sexual, or having an orientation or claiming a new one is some kind of achievement. It’s not like curing cancer, it’s about not getting any.
That’s not hard.
Hets have their same problems too. With conflict within relationships, unrealistic expectations, and they have NO idea how THEY are het, so how can they teach gay people to be that way?
There’s no SKILLS involved with a sexual orientation. But there are in knowing whether you’re mature, shallow, selfish or not and how to treat other people properly.
For real.
Not just lip service because it sounds good and impresses people who won’t back check.
It’s not that I don’t believe in God, Frank.
I just don’t have a lot of reason to believe my fellow human beings.
I’m going to let you in on something that apparently a lot of het people haven’t considered: that faith communities especially try to push people into mixed orientation marriages, which typically fail. I’m a het woman, and many women like to believe or het men too, that they can CHANGE a person. Sometimes even things that don’t have anything to do with sexual orientation, like fidelity or maturity, are things that make marriage difficult, and why divorce is so prevalent.
UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS.
And hets, believing that sex with the op sex has some curative effect on gay people has been a big lie and huge mistake in our society.
In many ways dangerous, since unsuspecting spouses have been infected with HIV because of it.
Were I a het woman, in a community where perhaps it was difficult to find an ELIGIBLE bachelor, I’d resent having to compete with any lesbians for a husband. The same, I would think, should be true for het men having to compete with gay men for women.
It should be noted, that being able to have a relationship with the opposite sex WITHOUT the sexual tension, is a refreshing and necessary tempering factor for men and women.
Which is why enduring and profoundly wonderful friendships with gay people IS the gift from God. Let gay people have each other, as their orientation and attraction warrant and encourage fidelity and marriage and committed responsibility.
WHO DOES THAT HURT?
No one EVER answers that except with a religious opinion, and that really isn’t relevant to a more important and TANGIBLE reality.
That gay male friends, are the spiritual, emotional and intellectual opportunity for females to be with men, without any sexual tension or compromise.
Same is true for lesbian friends, they are all of these same things, but are not physically threatening to me, or to the relationship I have with my HUSBAND.
So, where society has REALLY screwed up, is assuming that men and women only have very narrow roles to play, and ONLY their sexual compatibility matters.
Once again, religious communities enforcing simplistic and simple minded factors to something that requires more complex logical and critical understanding and influence where gender and orientation are concerned.
There are aspects of being men and women that NEED homosexuality as a tempering factor, with all the benefits of intellect, talent, compassion and spirituality, but none of the sexual threat that extremes between men and women actually has been.
Otherwise, the feminized reality of poverty, disease, domestic violence, abandonment and child abuse is contradicted by the same people claiming that males and females are the superior form of compatibility.
Regan said,
Again, Regan, that is your opinion. You throw out credentials and opinions and expect that to sway people. Please provide studies which substantiate your opinion.
And of course society does things God has said not to do and we manage to coexist. That is no different than the people in and around Sodom and Gomorrah – they did things God said not to do, and God dealt with them. The people of Noah’s day did things God said not to do and God dealt with them. Revelation tells us that many people will do things God has said not to do while on this earth, but they will be judged and will pay for it in the after life.
This is what people who love God are trying to help those who would deny God (or what God has said) to avoid. God loves you, Regan. We love you Regan, otherwise we would not speak out about the spiritual cliff you are upon.
That’s not MY opinion, it’s a biological, science confirmed and sociological fact. If it helps you to reduce that into MY opinion, since religious beliefs here reduce EVERYTHING to, simplistic and erroneous terms, I can’t do anything about that.
‘Scuse me if the enormous gap between our lives and how we are living is EXTREMELY different from Biblical societies. And in between, if the improvements in technical, social justice and medical science hasn’t persuaded YOU, then scolding me isn’t going to cut it.
If you believe the Biblical standards of thought, are far and above more credible than how we live now, and continue to change for the sake of that progress, then you shouldn’t be living here.
You should march yourself into a situation where you live EXACTLY the way people did back so long ago.
I already did MY homework.
You do YOURS.
Not surprising you’d say that, religion has always conflicted with scientific, medical, technical and social breakthroughs.
You’ve just proven your hypocrisy, and contradiction in terms.
You’re benefiting from a human progress you don’t want to share.
I really do not care. God commanded us to not engage in same-sex sodomy. Those who defy Him will burn forever in the Lake of Fire.
Uh yeah…apparently you DO care. Otherwise people that think like you wouldn’t go out of their way to exclusively go after gay people. It’s been tried to go after non religious or hetero people before, and they told the religious folk where they could stick it.
And I guess you and Frank and with few exceptions have figured out you’re all saying the same things over and over again.
Endless loop, repetitious…
Gay folks belong to obviously break up the monotony. For sure, gay folks make life interesting, and worth rethinking what males and females can creatively do with their lives well beyond Biblical limitations and expectations.
Regan, you’ve already proven that you cant be trusted theologically. I’ve seen the studies that show sexual orientation can be changed. So since you cant give reference to any credible source for your statement, I guess your earnest belief in this area can be ignored.
Oh, you’ve ‘seen the studies’
Yeah, so have I.
Know what they DON’T say, and know what’s left out of a great deal of those studies?
Historical context.
Comparisons to hetero people in similar situations.
Most of all, the coercive factor of systemic threat against gay people in their formative years.
Meaning, any claims of changing is like claiming when light skinned blacks passed for white under Jim Crow is a legitimate reason to maintain Jim Crow.
Or Jews in the Soviet Union or under Nazi occupations who changed THEIR identities is a legitimate claim.
Duress, poisons conclusions about ANYONE.
As I’ve already said, our culture has seen people undergoing painful and expensive procedures to meet an unrealistic and unnecessary ideal.
That’s how we have anorexia in our culture, because of the glamorization of thinness.
That’s why Asians, have had their eyes altered, why blacks have straightened their hair risking scalp burns and bald patches.
Forcing people to fit in isn’t new.
It’s admitting that it happens, and for reasons of prejudice against them that fosters it.
This is NO different, except that divine right to inflict it is invoked.
There is no real anti social or harmful behavior in being homosexual, just different.
An acceptable difference and it’s time society got to know gay people without the DURESS.
That’s why people under torture, coercion or threat to produce the result who threatens them wants, isn’t legitimate.
That duress has to be eliminated, and it’s religious people who should be the first to support that, to make the result an honest one.
There is less and less and less to support your claims because more and more gay people have been in safer places to come out as children.
And that’s what’s making liars out of folks like you, shoes thrower.
Not me.
correction, this reply is directed at WBMOORE
Oh, and there is no requirement I be trusted theologically. What’s THAT got to do with anything BUT a religious opinion, and not social justice.
I shouldn’t have to be ‘trusted theologically’, because I make no claims to have a lock on any theological references or opinions.
But, not surprising here, those that do, tend to ignore a great deal of what’s important to positive changes in our society that hasn’t been tried before and needs a lot more time to be allowed to spread further.
What you just did, wbmoore, is to slander my character. You don’t mean just theologically trusted, but trusted at all.
Otherwise you wouldn’t have mentioned studies you’ve claimed to have seen.
But, that’s par for the course, defamation of those who actually KNOW more than you do or have experience in certain things you are afraid to.
See, all the theology or Scripture you can absorb, is a poor substitute for the kind of character it takes to actually get bruised and dirty in the name of social justice. The real kind.
Lip service and Scripture quoting is easy. The results of that will speak for themselves.
And there are people being seriously hurt for no reason by religion based anti gay sentiment.
You have no more excuse for that, than those who decided women deserved similar treatment.
You’re just folk. It’s people doing this harm to other people, God isn’t doing it.
People are. Being disingenuous about it, isn’t helping your case.
I know who I’m dealing with. Just folks.
Theology isn’t courage, and not necessarily smarts.
Why?
Because I can see where it’s used to keep from being held accountable for what people do to someone else.
If you were right, then the tragedies wouldn’t be piling up, and duress used to coerce your beliefs.
@ wbmoore: I guess that you are right. We both and someone else on this blog have been trying to have Regan see the truth of God’s word and she continues to arrogantly defend that sinful lifestyle. Regan continually ignores the truth and arrogantly defend what God condemns. We should simply give us all who tried to help her a pat on the back for trying and just move on from here. I agree that it is now best to ignore her arrogant rants as I am tired of trying to make her see the error in her thinking. Forget it. She’s on her own now and if she wants to be arrogant, so be it.
So, this court has decided.
I’m guilty of being arrogant.
I’m guilty of being theologically untrustworthy. Ya know, I’ll take that. It’s better than being scientifically, historically and sociologically ignorant. Constitutionally hypocritical, and untrustworthy to be around young people and their need for honest and safe places in which to be so.
I’d much rather defend the ‘lifestyle’ you can easily point to. Because it’s impossible to defend hypocrites, liars, the ignorant and cowards. But Christians apparently can do that all the time, and when it’s pointed out, just throw more stones.
It’s not God I disrespect, or belief in God.
It’s actually how you use God, treat God and make God your fall guy for human cruelty.
Regan,
As you have said, you’re just folks. So when you present an opinion, we take it with as much credibility as anyone ELSE’s opinion. If you had actual scientific studies to support your ideas, and you didnt come accross as the savior of the world from people who love God, then perhaps you could make points in ways that others might listen.
But given that most of us on here love God and His Bible and try to use the Boble as a guide for life, even if it could be shown that people are born gay, we know God is powerful enough to determine what people should or should not do, powerful enough to change people, powerful enough to judge people who disobey Him. Since God has said dont do certain things, when people claim that people should be free to do what tey want, we will tell them what God has said, and then we will leave them to their own devices. People are free to choose to accept what God has done and said or not accept it. It saddens us that people chose to not accept God, and not obey God, but its their choice.
I am sad for you Regan. It seems like you’ve had a lot of pain in your life and blame God and Christians. Its a shame you seem to have no idea that God loves you and that God sent Jesus to suffer and die for your sins, just as He did for mone, Matt’s, Franks, and everyone else’s sins. All you have to do is change and turn to God and have evidence of that change in your life. None of us are perfect. We all sin. Sin earns us spiritual desth. But Jesus died so we dont have to die spirirtually. The choice is yours – accept God’s forgiveness or not.
@ wbmoore: I couldn’t agree with what you said more or less. But as I said to a few others, Regan will continue to arrogantly defend that sinful sexual lifestyle. I have had it with trying to show her the truth and she keeps striking me down with her arrogant attitude and demeanor. I also want to share what Jesus instructed to his disciples when they went to different cities preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and he also instructed them in Matthew 10:14 NIV by saying “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town”. By this, if anyone chooses not to listen to the truth and continue to be enslaved by sin or defend sinful practices, though they do know what the Holy Bible says, we are to simply leave them alone and forget them. This is why I feel that it is best to ignore Regan and her arrogant rants. I have had it with trying to show her the truth of God’s word and she keeps defending sinful practices that God condemns. I am not wasting any more time nor energy on her and she accuses me of not being compassionate when I am trying to use compassion to show her. I am also trying to show Christian love, but she calls it hatred. Oh well.
Again, it’s best to ignore her now. We tried, but we failed. Forget it. She’s on her own now.
Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, ccording to the traditions of men,according to the elementary principles of the world.Rather than according to Christ
I guess not listening is one of those values you embrace so much, right. You’re just looking for a way to feel the victim of anti Christian sentiment. I don’t blame God for what’s gone on in my life. And I simply stated that there have been incidences of abuses, but I don’t blame Christians for my problems. Which…thankfully, are actually very few.
The reason why is because I know how to work through things without blaming something intangible, like God.
You haven’t listened.
I do love God. I just love God differently.
And YOU don’t respect THAT.
I don’t like God getting the blame for the shortcomings and cruelty of people on one another.
But you don’t want to acknowledge that, you just want to find fault in my not acknowledging God EXACTLY the way you think I should.
And as for scientific studies.
I just wrote already what deductive reasoning smarter people have come to about homosexuality.
There is a difference between cues from the Biblical cultures, and the studies you believe making that information fit your belief.
Instead of that information and the other deductive information reaching a LOGICAL conclusion about it.
There are ways to reach that logical conclusion, without scientific studies.
But you don’t want to know that either.
Not listening, making quick and easy judgements based on narrow and little information.
That’s the reason why Christians make themselves and God unattractive.
It’s not the arrogance of others, nor not wanting to love God.
It just doesn’t occur to you, that God doesn’t need cheap, stone throwing sales men, such as yourself.
YOU need God, God…doesn’t need YOU.
Oh sweet Regan, I am not trying to feel the victim of anything. The only thing I feel is sorry you have been hurt and you cant see the Truth.
You say you love God, but differently. I of all people can understand and accept that. I’ve been a witch. I’ve had a spirit guide. I’ve defined God they way I wanted to think of God. I’ve worshipped as I wanted to. I’ve demanded people respect my spiritual walk with what I called god. But it wasn’t the True God.
God isnt getting blamed for anything. God is getting glory and praise for the fact that HE sometimes changes people’s sexual orientation. He is getting glory and praise that HE helps people deal with temptations. He is getting glory that He removes temptations sometimes.
As for your use of deductive reasoning, you are still not providing studies to show that what you are saying is nothing more your ideas. The reason for the studies is that we can more accurately determine what is, not what we want to interpret things to be. Its easy to convince oneself of something via what one would call logic, but it may not be accurate.
You are correct, I need God. I’m grateful to God that HE created me and HE has given me faith in Christ. I am grateful God has delivered me from sexual immorality. I am grateful God has delivered me from addictions. I am grateful God has given me life, both spiritual and physical.
I pray you will realize you need the One True God, who created you and loves you.
Let ME correct you on something, okay?
It’s not ME being hurt that keeps me from seeing the truth.
And please don’t compare your history of being all over the place with your spirituality, with mine.
And as for your opinion on the studies you’ve seen: think about this, if you believed what YOU just said, then why do you accept these studies done under very limited and wrongful comparisons?
You haven’t addressed the fact that information taken that doesn’t compare the same circumstances or takes into consideration, duress, then it’s not a clean specimen.
You’re not questioning how such information can line up with what you are comfortable with, but with so little information with which to make it?
I gave an example earlier: how can information about Jews, that comes from a non Jewish anti Semite, be credible?
So tell me how information that comes from sources, already hostile to homosexuality, be the credible source?
There are people who still are adamant that marriage equality for gay people is detrimental to everything civilized to man.
And do so as if the precedent for gathering information from has had as long a period, or that where it has been legal, hasn’t had ANY negative results worthy of maintaining discrimination.
I mean, would you want yourself or a child to attend a school that ONLY taught the Bible, and used that as the only reference. Or their history, sociology and other textbooks stopped their information at 1929 and no further?
And you told those children to not believe anything else, or they weren’t allowed to know anything else.
And the only people who said the history was valid and truthful, were say the white, Christian heterosexual men in total control of that information?
For you to say that it’s about my opinion, to weaken the gravity of what I’m saying, is actually disgraceful on your part.
The Bible has many books, was written as anyone can tell in Aramaic, and an ancient form of Greek.
Then reinterpreted in the King’s English, by James of England.
The Truth.
The Irrefutable Word of God.
Really?
Considering how badly just this thread can be interpreted by people who can read and speak the same language. And how newspapers and the mass media we’ve come to know in our modern age has been distorted depending on who they were talking about.
It’s not hard to imagine the Books of the Bible being screwed up over this much time, and any original meaning or interpretation up for challenge from people, some of whom were forced to be illiterate. Like females, for example.
So, you’ve found your comfort zone.
And you don’t want to have anyone challenge it or say you’re wrong to be there.
Actually, I’m not even saying you’re not there or invalidating that’s where you are or how you feel about it.
But I have as yet to meet anyone who’d say that promoting equal social justice, and protecting those previously without it, is a bad thing. Until the subject of gay people.
But even in general, that’s what really going to have to decide it.
Not YOUR opinion about homosexuality (which isn’t new, but definitely a DAMAGING opinion).
And not whatever limited studies you like to think are valid in maintaining discriminatory civil policy.
Eventually, INTEGRATION and acceptance is going to decide it one way or another.
Very similarly to the way we accept contraception, autopsy, exchanging blood and organs, or trying to reach the heavens through spaceships.
All these have been religiously taboo, defined as harmful, wrong and sinful.
And yet, allowing them to be freely utilized, accepted and a matter of free access and choice, has not only improved the well being of individuals, but of nations as well.
But the burden of proof is actually ON YOU not me.
Because you are the one that demands restriction on gay lives. And you don’t have any proof that homosexuality is ANTI SOCIAL.
Comparing it to paraphilias or pathologies that ARE anti social, wouldn’t be any more right to do, than saying that apples and grapes are the same kind of fruit.
But that’s what your studies keep doing.
And that’s something YOU should be questioning. Not questioning ME.
Regan,
Sigh… I feel for you. It must be frustrating to want to be taken as someone who is an expert and who should be able to sway opinions with just your words to be asked to show evidence for your claims. You keep claiming to know so much more than everyone else. But you continue to refuse to prove it with scientific studies. You refuse to accept what God has done and said. You want to ignore the fact that people HAVE changed sexual orientation. You want to deny facts which are demonstrable. God changes people. God heals people. God changes sexual orientation.
Even the guy who pushed to remove homosexuality from the DSM, Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, Chief of Biometrics Research and Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City, can change sexual orientation.
But even if people were born as a homosexual, God can change them, should He desire. Sometimes God does change them. Sometimes, not. Sometimes He wants us to rely upon Him instead of doing what the world says we should do. God told Paul God’s power is made perfect in our weakness.
God would answer your needs, heal your pains, and save you, if you would turn to Him in faith, repent, and have deeds appropriate to repentance.
1. Spitzer has retracted on anyone changing their orientation. His research sample was too small, and couldn’t be qualified but from a few superficial questions at best. There was no follow up after the short term, and it was the long term (and he knows it too), that proved him wrong.
2. What’s important here is, that sexual orientation whatever it is, shouldn’t and can’t rest on discrimination and threat. One will have a sexual orientation, regardless of having sex.
3. Meaning, it’s not an accomplishment, it’s inappropriate to treat a person as if their orientation will make them inferior or anti social, when in fact, no one’s orientation does that. It’s as much folly as deciding gender or color makes one human being inferior to the other. But we both know that’s how people treat each other and THAT is what I have a problem with.
4. Do YOU know the difference between a paraphilia and a pathology? Do YOU know what their clinical definitions are? Do you understand their context in historical and socio political terms? I do. They are not a matter of opinion, but factual evidence. I’ve done the work of going to school on that. And you haven’t. Do you even know the difference between the definition of a religious sin, and a moral sin? I do. And I can explain it to you.
Religious sins, are those which have been redefined, accepted and ignored through human progress. Such as I mentioned. Sexual orientation, autopsy, contraception, how clothes are worn and food is eaten.
These we obviously can coexist with, and continue to improve on or learn more about.
Moral sins, are those which have to do with the treatment of another person. Betrayal, assault, theft, lying, prejudice, bigotry, stealing, adultery and murder. The results of these never change, the motive and action is a measure of the character of the person. These are irreversible acts, that require isolation of the perpetrator in order to maintain trust and safety in a community.
Generalized statements, like ‘we’re all sinners’ or ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ or ‘sin is sin’, sounds like bull because typically the people who utter them, know they aren’t held to any standards or accountability for what they do with their own, but are quick to point them out in the easiest scapegoat.
All medical and mental health pros are obligated to update, expand and be truthful about their research, and subject themselves to peer review.
The studies you agree with, have done none of that. Therefore, not credible.
Those that continue to use Bible based prejudice to inform their research and case samples, inevitably won’t have a clean and honest result. And no amount of sincerely held beliefs can measure up to that. As long as such research is for the purpose of interfering with the self reliance and social integration of their subject, they’ll always be wrong, because no credible person would restrict those from any individual.
If I’m better informed than you are, that’s just reality, because I’ve done the work to be better informed. It’s not my opinion I’m speaking with. But a professional life and personal life of study AND experience.
If you keep requiring gay people to be restrained, without any ability to be honest and open without a threat in some form, then the result can’t be honest or truthful. And claiming they are, is the domain of liars.
All we really NEED to know about gay people, we already do.
Homosexuality is not anti social behavior. It’s not threatening or dangerous. And it wouldn’t be too smart of you to argue with a law enforcement science professional about the definition of anti social behavior. Since you haven’t been to medical school, would you argue with a surgeon that you know how to take out a spleen better than they do?
I don’t know what it is about homosexuality that makes people comfortable with arguing over something they don’t know anything about, or have the courage to do anything differently about it.
Sexual activity, carries risks whether you’re gay or not.
There are degrees of it, that are lessened by monogamy and commitment.
But throughout all human life, sex has been a mortal decision for females, hasn’t it? Since childbearing carries not just risks of death for mother and child, but women can be deformed and damaged by it too.
I know what the Bible says about the pain of childbearing and an ob/gyn would beg to differ with that, wouldn’t they?
And as for any of you and your friends here, who tell me God loves me. I don’t need YOU to tell me that. In fact, considering that I’m pretty much a heretic to Frank, and shoes thrower, in another age, I’d be thrown in prison and threatened with a pyre or hanging.
Saying that God loves me, coming from YOU, doesn’t sound sincere. That’s all.
It’s very difficult for me to believe in your sincerity about other people’s lives, when the stakes are so high for gay young people especially, who’ll have to defend their orientation, sometimes as a matter of life or death, or the difference between having the love of their family, or a school career that isn’t disrupted.
You KNOW that happens.
And there are factions out there who will exploit YOUR beliefs, to make life terrible for gay kids.
And they do.
That is not my opinion, that’s what happens.
And your continued belief that what you believe is right, will give validation to those willing to do this to young gay people.
THAT is why you and the studies you believe, signal your indifference to that kind of torment, risk and vulnerability these young people have.
You resist it for yourself, and give yourself absolution that it’s a good thing and deserved because gay people are committing a sin, they shouldn’t be anyway.
And you go on as if this belief of yours has worked well in this way, and caused no problems. And if it has, it’s their fault for being a sinner, right?
This is why what you do and believe, has no heroism in it.
There is no risk in being Christian in this country, or hetero or acquiring heterosexuality.
There is no courage in it.
That’s not just my opinion, that’s the finite aspect of what moral consistency would be.
YOU demanding proof of a genetic component to homosexuality, is offensive.
If you knew what you were talking about, there IS no genetic marker, for each orientation, but sexual orientation itself IS biological.
THAT is what the better informed do know. THAT fact is in evidence.
And something THIS universal to all human life and history, with no exceptions, IS categorized as biological.
That’s not my opinion, that is a scientifically and clinically accepted fact.
I think the proof YOU are demanding, is whether homosexuality has equal value to heterosexuality. Whether homosexuals are lesser to heterosexuals. That’s the inference.
That’s like demanding to know whether having black skin actually makes you equally of value as people with white skin. THAT is what makes your demand for scientific proof offensive.
Especially considering you believe so firmly in an INTANGIBLE, while I’m talking about nothing but what is tangible, and how people are treating other people.
And you didn’t answer the question about who has more credibility to answer any questions about the group being discussed.
You can’t have a result, when the subject isn’t invited to be a part of anything in order to know.
Indeed, the quality of commentary here is, there are no mysteries, but certainty.
Nor did you answer the question about stopping any further information or EXPERIENCE, past a certain time.
You just went into another sermon.
Another indication that you want limited information, and to limit it for others to access.
So you’ve repressed, or hidden your real orientation.
It’s an archaic, expected response to religious conditioning.
So what?
I’m a woman, women are expected to repress their sexuality and a lot else, according to the Bible.
Frank thinks shunning me here is a good idea. Nothing new there either when Christians don’t think a person is showing THEM proper submission. God isn’t the one that said it. Frank did.
With the full integration and access of gay young people in the same way as their het peers, it’ll be that much easier to question the Bible and those who think it licenses their authority over what people think.
It’s long past time for gay people to be able to show us the full extent of their potential.
We should look forward to it. What has been accomplished in spite of how gay people are treated is proof of remarkable fortitude and compassion.
Virtues we should well respect, and I think, a sin to waste.
I’m not afraid of that. But all indications are, you are.
I wouldn’t have a problem with that, if you weren’t calling it something else and what it’s not.
I know insincerity, if not hypocrisy and cowardice when I see it.
And the condescension in your comment to me, is just another indicator of how insincere you can be.
” can change sexual orientation” = “says homosexuals can change sexual orientation”
@wbmoore: You know that and I know that. It is just that those who choose to believe what the world says and continue to arrogantly defend what God condemns even though they know it is wrong in God’s eyes fail to see the truth or they simply and willfully choose to reject the truth. That is how it is with those who follow the world rather than follow God’s laws.
I think I committed a grammatical error there. So don’t jump on it and take it as a concession.
In no way, not only do I not agree with that, It doesn’t make any sense that a person can change orientations, when they don’t really have any choice NOT to.
If we lived in a world where gay people actually could stay gay without judgement or duress or threat and changed anyway, well…you might have a case.
But that’s not what happens, and considering the source of who thinks change should occur, isn’t a credible source.
Oh and your suggestion of shunning me, because you don’t think I’m showing the proper level of submission.
Which is why, I know that you’re fervent in your faith and belief. But how you treat others who you have judged don’t believe as you do, makes you seem very insincere when you say ‘God loves you’.
Frank, coming from you, God would seem to be a raging control freak, abusive parent and task master.
Fortunately for God, I know better than that.
It looks like that one of us who is posting on this blog is putting their fingers in their ears and singing La, La, La, La, whenever the truth is being shared with them. I am not going to drop any hints as to who that person is. They already know who they are and it really isn’t worth it trying to make that person see any sense regarding their willful unbelief of the truth. Oh well.
I just didn’t happen to put the words ‘that they can’ before the descriptive. A confusing use of grammar.
So, no I didn’t mean to say one can change orientation. What I question is WHY should anyone have to?
A person can be anti social or threatening whether gay or not.
So what’s the point in changing orientation? In the greater scheme of things, I think I already pointed out that there is something necessary in male/female relations to have men with all the gifts of manhood to offer women, but not the sexual tension that makes things difficult to have that.
And vice versa with lesbians, who are less physically threatening to their het sisters than a straight man would be.
God got it absolutely right that Creation have variations on sexual attraction. To reduce those tensions, to have a segment of the population that doesn’t spontaneously procreate, but offers all the other benefits to survival.
Homosexuality has built in contraception as a check against overpopulation. That’s what mortality is, after all.
In case you haven’t noticed, the artificially prescribed roles and standards for males and females, apparently neither gets along so well. If they are so naturally compatible, why are women so threatened in all the world? Why ARE gays and females the most oppressed, and violated people?
If gay people make up roughly 10-15% of any given population, 90-85% hetero isn’t ENOUGH? Why should there be MORE heteros in the world, only to make more women and babies live in poverty and domestic violence or to be abandoned through divorce or other situations?
7 billion and counting in this world, is a sign that we’re not procreating enough?
Explain that.
You seem to think YOU have all the answers, that should be an easy one to reconcile with 21st century sensibility.
With ALL the variations and diversity of living things in this world, ONE normal orientation doesn’t even make any sense. It doesn’t. Variations on gender attraction IS natural, and there is a very good and necessary purpose to it.
That makes more sense than the conflict that religious restrictions keep making.
If anything, it would seem that the balance of humanity lies directly in the freedom, and full equality and social justice for exactly those groups. ONLY then, I think the world actually would be a more just and peaceful place.
And yes, those of us who study human biology and sociology DO know we’re born with a sexual orientation. And I can see that there are smarter, more rational heads that have to prevail on this. And we know the difference between pathology and paraphilia, which apparently you do not. You don’t know the difference between substance addiction and sexual orientation.
Equating substance addiction which has distinct physiological changes and health risk results, is wrong to do. Such addictions present in a person whether they are gay or not. Paraphilias and pathologies are orientation NEUTRAL.
You can argue that apples and chainsaws are the same, but what would you look like doing it with someone more informed than you are?
Just the fact that homosexuality is universal to ALL human life and history, should clue you in on the biological basis of it.
And religious communities are very guilty of inciting fear and ignorance in people they want to control.
The left handed, geniuses, women and people with clinical physical and mental disabilities have all been subjected to extreme and cruel torments and executions because men of powerful religious influence claimed divine right to do it.
Which is why, rationalizing that gay people still deserve to be treated in any way other than what heterosexuals or even ASEXUALS are able to do without a challenge, makes the religious community hard to trust with religious belief.
When you fuck people over with it, why should anyone LET you?
As much as it might pain some people, there is no evidence that one is born with homosexual orientation. If you know of such a study, please let me know, as I have looked for the research.
While its not a perfect comparison, homosexual behavior has psychological and physical risks, as you have admitted addiction does, and some have suggested addiction, like being homosexual, has a genetic component. This being the case, it seems to be an apt comparison.
Studies show that people change sexual orientation, and that children raised by homosexual parents are more likely to be homosexual than those raised by non-homosexual parents – all of which indicates that environment has more to do with homosexual orientation than biology. http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/genetics_of_homosexuality.html
However, it makes no difference if someone is born gay or not, as it has no bearing on whether God said to do something or not. GOD is powerful enough to change someone, be it giving sight to the blind or giving heterosexual orientation to someone who had a homosexual orientation. And although sometimes He does do that, sometimes He doesnt.
I just mentioned what evidence there is, that we’re born WITH a sexual orientation, but that the universality of homosexuality with no influences from culture, family structure, or history IS the proof it’s biological in basis. And the categories are that heterosexuality is more common, asexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality less so. But all are normal and biological in basis. It’s only homosexuality that bears a harmful stigma.
Just as left handers, geniuses and other neutral forms of human behaviors are less common, but not dangerous. Even though there was a time when faith communities thought they were.
So much for the credibility of what religious people think.
And ALL sexual behavior will have inherent risks, but to assign more dangers in homosexuality out of proportion or necessary to banning gay sex, is not only untrue, but a product of prejudice.
Women, through the centuries would be the ones making a MORTAL decision to have sex, because dying from child bearing is still a problem. And syphilis was the AIDS of it’s time. Always fatal, but with a sometimes long incubation period.
The difference is in those in the healing arts who summoned the courage to find cures and not blame evil spirits and dark humors.
Committed monogamous sex, has less risks obviously than promiscuity. Unprotected sex is more risky than protected sex. Men are more promiscuous than women (whether gay or not, because they don’t bear the risk of pregnancy).
And you just contradicted the specific distinctions between pathology and orientation, and conflated addiction with it. No credible, I mean NO credible expert on sexual bio mechanics or addictions, do that. So not only is your comparison not perfect, it’s wildly inaccurate.
I just TOLD you that pathology and paraphilias are orientation neutral. Because regardless of a person’s sexual orientation, then can suffer from addiction.
As for ‘studies’ that show people change orientation. I can guess where you got that from. I’ve noticed that there is the kind of informational manipulation that YOU aren’t questioning as complex or thorough enough.
For example, do those studies make any contextual comparisons to systemic discrimination and the coercive nature of being raised in a religious home where one couldn’t be honest or be guided about homosexuality realistically?
There’s a lot of agreement of the stereotype that some kind of sexual abuse ’causes’ homosexuality. Or that it’s an acquired factor.
But no one wants to believe the abusive nature of systemic bigotry. And with the real spectres of mental, emotional and physical abuse a gay kid might face, the incentive to go along to get along is a strong one. Damn what HE really needs.
And as for gay parents influencing the sexual orientation of their children, apparently everyone is real watchful and certain that gay parents won’t raise children properly. But NOBODY cares to calculate how hetero parents have fucked up their gay kids.
It’s not that a child will more likely be gay by being raised by gay parents, the difference is they aren’t going to HIDE IT from their parents and their parents won’t abuse them for it, once their orientation is evident.
And as I keep saying. We’re all just folks here. It’s people who abuse other people that coerce or change the outcomes of whether we’ll ever really know gay people the WAY WE DESERVE.
It’s just folks invoking God to get their way with gay people.
So NOTHING changes. Same old ignorance and prejudice, different day.
You can argue with me, and deny what I just said.
But you haven’t invested in learning anything different, or new. Just what you’re comfortable with.
See, you’re the one it pains to go past a certain level. Which is quite shallow. Very shallow indeed.
I volunteered for many years with AIDS Project LA. One of the motivations was that black women were getting infected at similar rates to gay men. They both share similar marginalization by society. That is, they don’t have the same value, so would share some of the same pathology.
And confluence of societal stigma and ignorance. I read medical history books. Most recently a book on the origins of the CDC. And an impressive book on the history of cancer called “The Emperor of All Maladies”.
Very interesting what people of medieval times did in response to cancer.
And how most people here respond to homosexuality is right around how people did in the 19th century.
Including you.
We have pictures from the Curiosity of a dawn on Mars.
Nobody in the Bible would have even DREAMED of that kind of knowledge, much less accomplishment.
I’ve done a LOT more work than you have, and I’m unafraid to think for myself or learn about something unpopular to learn.
But you can’t lie to young people, and it won’t be hard to correct you on what you just said. I already know several that could dust you on the ridiculous things you just said.
What you think you know, is actually rather shallow. But that’s what happens when you let people think for you and tell you what to say and do.
Regan, you mention what you believe, apparently thinking what you consider knowledge and intelligence should sway the world to your way of thinking. Please provide evidence via studies, not your personal subjective observation.
You obviously will not be swayed by evidence that is contrary to what you want to believe, whether it is in the area of science, social science or theology. It must be nice to believe what you want, and to be able to explain way facts, regardless of what those facts actually say.
None of us deserve anything other than God’s wrath. But God has provided the only way to avoid getting what we deserve. It is only through repentance and turning to God through faith in Christ that we can be free from what we DO deserve. We are each free to accept what God has done by sending Jesus Christ to suffer and die for our sins. In the same way, we are free to reject God and what He has done for us, but there are eternal consequences.
I pray God works in you to will and to do His will. I pray God works in you to help you open your heart and accept what God has done for you.
Regan, I don’t mean to sound abrupt when making this statement but your “misjudging” me doesn’t surprise me and I’m not bothered by it at all. It’s just that you are asking me to do something which you won’t do, yourself, which is to let go of your own personal convictions to see things from another point of view. The truth is that I really agree with much of what you are saying as long as it doesn’t conflict with my respect and reverence of what God has said. If I didn’t have the religious convictions I presently hold, at all, I could see nothing wrong in people wanting to pursue anything direction in life they want, short of infringing upon the rights of others. Since this is not the case, I cannot condone anything outside of the will of God and His clarity upon the issues of life. Just because there have been MANY who have mis-used and abused scripture in the past doesn’t make it invalid, today. When properly divided, it remains in tact as ultimate truth and that I cannot ignore especially just to climb upon your so call experience and humanistic philosophies in order for you to make your points. One thing that I have not misjudged about you is that you have little understanding of God and I’d suggest you’d seriously rethink those positions because, in the end, when you have to kneel before Him, those arguments will be of as little value as they are right now. I know I’m sounding horribly harsh but you need a correct understanding of God in your life and the more I have read from you, the more I’m convinced of this.
Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”.
Gene, how many times do I have to tell you that I was raised Christian and with a very scholarly and intelligent family?
I’ve gone to Bible study for years. So it’s not that I won’t see another point of view, I’ve ALREADY been there, I’ve ALREADY seen it.
Already put the time in. Probably more than you.
And it’s not new, it hasn’t changed and it won’t. Right?
So what point is there repeating BACK to you, what YOU’VE already heard about what’s in the Bible?
And as for my understanding of God, to YOUR specifications?
I asked you what do you expect, what could possibly be expressed here that would qualify me to be pious enough for YOU?
The thing about reverence and respect for God, IS between me and God.
Not YOU, me and God.
I don’t owe it to YOU.
That is what YOU need to understand.
I haven’t even debated or denied the existence of God here. And that should be enough for YOU to accept.
As for the issue of infringing on the rights of others. Homosexuality and gay people don’t do that. It’s the other way around, and it’s wrong and unfair and dangerous. I didn’t say that because of past abuses through Scripture, it INVALIDATES it.
What I’m saying is, we have recent historical precedent to know when it IS being used to abuse fellow citizens. And making up excuses to keep doing it WITH the Bible, is what I have a problem with. I recognize that abuse, and nobody is going to get let off the hook for it.
There are going to be all kinds of things we accept in life and we do, that conflict with all kinds of religious beliefs. And there are aspects of human behavior that will always be threatening, that never change. No matter what religion you are, or orientation you have. Like stealing, lying, assault, adultery, addiction and murder. Those always have the same result. These are things that can’t be taken back once committed.
Sexual orientation and what one does with it, can be used wrongly or rightly and orientation has nothing to do with it.
Gay people get abused whether a sex life is in evidence. So, you can hold on to your convictions about homosexuality the way other pious people have held onto theirs about women, and contraceptive sex and the mark of Cain.
We’ve all seen how a SINGLE and distinguishing attribute, will get layered with all kinds of theoretical, hypocritical, conflicting and ignorant stereotypes and claims that God agrees or said it was okay to believe it.
And you still didn’t answer my question. Since you and Erica slammed me for comparing struggles and injustices among suspect minorities, what do YOU two know, that the civil rights veterans I mentioned, didn’t or don’t?
How come THEY can understand the gravity of equality and acceptance (including the God loving wife of a minister), and YOU don’t seem to?
I know THEY were all raised in church too.
…and Regan how many times do I have to comment that it’s obvious that you don’t know real Christianity nor have a Biblical basis for applying it to the statements you claim. Even the demons believe in God and they tremble. (James 2:19) Just because you say you were raised in an environment where God was taught doesn’t mean you know God and it’s very apparent that you don’t or you wouldn’t be making all the claims you do. Years of Bible study should reflect an understanding of the supremacy of Gods laws, which you do not appreciate. The injustices among the minorities that you say I slammed you for and those civil rights which you keep referring to are an absurd distraction away from the principles of God in which Matt was using in his original statement on this blog. More than once I’ve suggested that you create your own blog, but you seem hell-bend on staying here and down blasting everyone who dares to challenge the all knowing Regan with all of her degrees and experience which you tout over and over and over again. Get REAL wisdom, Regan… which can only come from God.
Gene.
1. ” you don’t know real Christianity” That’s a loaded and very broad statement to make. Considering how many thousands of ways, different Christians interpret Christianity, sometimes cruelly, that’s a rather unfair statement.
2. There is no reason to apply a Biblical basis to my statements, it’s not necessary and sometimes it’s inappropriate.
3. What you find distracting are inevitably relevant to some specific parts of how we ALL live in this very diverse and varied society. Not my fault if complexity distracts you.
4. And again with the condescension and calling me all knowing for trying to appropriately and correctly put context where necessary, in an attempt at more clarity and motivation for saying it. But condescension and giving orders apparently is part and parcel of how some Christians communicate their judgement. The profound difference in when YOU are responded to and how God is responded to. You’re just a man, Gene. If I choose to keep my own counsel with God, and not you especially, what’s it TO you? God isn’t treating me like that, YOU are.
I think Gene knows real Christianity better than you do. He has every reason to apply biblical basis to your statements. Without the Holy Bible and God, the author of the Holy Bible, we wouldn’t be anywhere in this sinful world controlled by Satan and his minions. God had everything written in the Holy Bible for a reason. The Holy Bible is his law and as Christians, we are required to follow his law and what he commands. It is just that you are arrogantly defending that sinful sexual lifestyle knowing that, at the same time, the Holy Bible condemns the sinful sexual lifestyle that you keep arrogantly defending. I think, and I am saying that I think, that you are seeing that you are getting nowhere with your arrogant defense of the so called “Gay” lifestyle and whenever you make a statement of defense and also bringing up the lies that science brought up in years past about it, you simply get angry because you know that you can’t run from God. God knows you and he knows where and when you try to run and hide from him and his law. You can run from God all that you want to, but you can not hide from God. God knows where you are and he knows your hard heart in arrogantly defending something that he condemns through his sacred word, the Holy Bible.
Wake up Regan. You have a choice. Your choice is to either accept God’s perfect law or accept what the devil controlled world around us says. I see that you have made your choice, but as I said before, you might regret that choice later on.
Well done Regan. I agree with you 100%!
Only an arrogant person agrees with another arrogant person. That is the way of the world that is ruled by Satan, the Devil I suppose.
Only an arrogant person will think they have the right to judge others and call them arrogant, Frank.
In my book, anyone who continually defends any/all immoral sexual activity, including, but not limited to, the sexual activity between two members of the same gender, knowing what the Holy Bible, God’s own sacred word and law says about that, is an arrogant person. Anyone who agrees with or defends an arrogant person is as arrogant as the person that they are agreeing with or defending.
Oh well, okay then.
Frank, why don’t you just march yourself up to your state legislature, and reinstate stoning non virgin brides, and accused gay people, and how about demanding that laws that protect women in marital rape be reversed.
Let’s make sure that gay people are lined up, and executed or here’s a better idea, the Bible says that masturbation and any form of sex that won’t produce a baby, has to be policed, enforced and those who engage in it jailed and punished.
Oh and how dare any women sit on SCOTUS, or serve as ministers in church. Their ONLY role is to sit and take orders, and have the babies and mind the house.
NONE of those things are injustices or irrational or cruel, because the Bible says it’s not, right?
We don’t have a Constitution or Bill of Rights or any form of reasoned and necessary laws that maintain a secular standard of coexistence, do we?
‘Course not.
Cause in YOUR book, the Bible. NONE of these things would exist.
And because I am a woman, you’re going to scold me because I take issue with how myself and my sisters are treated BECAUSE of that book?
You don’t think it would be reasonable for me to question why myself, and gay people have to submit to cruelty, or shame or defamation without any emotion or challenge or demands for changes?
Well, see it’s like this Frank.
Maybe you really need to talk like you do, and say what you do to sound all authoritative and strong.
But I hear nothing of empathy. Appreciation for those who faced and challenged brutality to make things much better for others.
And you would have had to articulate that to know what it’s like to do such a thing for other people. I mean FOR REAL. Not by praying, not by ‘walking away from homosexuality’ or making someone else do it.
But at the risk of losing something precious to you.
Not because of making points with God, but because it’s the right thing to do.
There ARE no risks to being Christian in this country, there is not much challenge to it, let alone persecution FOR being Christian.
Certainly not by the gov’t. But there have to be limits on what the religious can to do another person, otherwise the list of punishments I provided would STILL BE LEGAL to do.
Your sermons aren’t going to hide what might really be in your character, Frank.
The only thing that matters is submission to God.
@ Shoes Thrower: Amen fellow Christian. I couldn’t agree more or less.
Really shoes thrower?
That’s between me and God, not YOU and me.
We’re just folks here. We’ve always been just folks here.
Not just this blog, but the whole world.
So, when it comes to such a submission, how come it’s a human face I’m looking at, and the barking mouth of other humans I’m looking at, who are demanding it out in public?
What’s between me and God, should be respected, don’t you think?
So why DON’T you respect that?
Well?
I was just reminded, by seeing the incredible photos by Gustavo Lacerda, that there are rarer, mysterious people, that have been the subject of distrust, hostility and violent responses by people of barbaric and primitive cultures.
Homosexuals, the left handed, geniuses, and albinos.
Lacerda’s pictures, in pastel color saturation, make them ethereal and beautiful. There was a time, that this feature that gave such a strange look to people, was considered evil and albinos were killed for it.
In retrospect, those cultures that were hostile to the different, are considered brutal, ignorant and fearful.
It’s fair that those who STILL respond to homosexuality in the same way deserve to also be considered brutal, ignorant and fearful.
You’re TAUGHT to distrust and be hostile to gay people. I doubt anyone would feel that way on their own.
After all, you can’t point out a gay person in a crowd, like you could an albino. In fact, a gay person among hets, doesn’t always stand out at all. But when they do, it’s kind of like a peacock among eagles. Different, but no less remarkable.
But a gay person could ALSO be albino, left handed, AND a genius.
So biologically based attributes STILL aren’t accepted, so debating whether homosexuality is biological or not, wouldn’t make much difference where it matters.
Anyway, the link to Lacerda’s photos is on
http://www.andrewsullivan.com
Oh, and how the different, mysterious or unexplained get treated and badly, by primitive and ignorant cultures is historical FACT, not just my opinion.
Regan, you’re not seeing the obvious… isn’t it interesting that being black, albino or left handed isn’t mentioned as being sinful in scripture…yet being homosexual is. True ignorance of scripture led some toward brutality against people with God-designed human variances. The fact that God brought out His negative thoughts about homosexual activity was obviously written to make sure that we are not doing exactly what you are professing.. making it just another human attrubute.
Why oh why do people try to tangle with enlightened men such as Regan DuCasse? Where is Paul when you need him! Regan you have a calling and a passion, I can see it clearly . And I respect that you believe what you are doing is right, that you are protecting the vulnerable from the ignorant. Because religious belief in Christ seems so archaic.
However, the matter of homosexuality being sin is a matter of faith. We need only to reach the ears of those with the message of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit will do the rest. I once believed as you did Regan but now my eyes are opened and your smart arguments and will never take away the freedom and peace I now know. And, despite your efforts Jesus will continue to save the hearts of many through grace. May God Bless you, Regan.
Get it right, I didn’t say belief in Christ was archaic. I’m saying that belief that homosexuality is some kind of anti social, and unhealthy or threatening to a person, their life or society’s order of things is.
When it’s all said and done, nobody else has to justify their orientation’s existence, or their gender identity on condition of getting along with faith communities. Let alone accomplishments or social success that heterosexuals get applauded for.
That persecution complex that makes you think you’re the ones who are so put upon when you’re challenged is unbecoming what being a Christian is SUPPOSED to mean.
I was raised a Christian, just not to be the kind of Christian that treats Scripture and God and Jesus like a snooty club, and other people’s difference as a righteous social cause you obviously couldn’t tolerate and don’t have to.
Oh and wbmoore, I’m not threatened at ALL by the claim that people can’ change.
The point is, why should a gay person have to change? It’s ALWAYS been straight people teaching others to feel threatened by gay people. It’s the straight folks in control, not God, not YOU.
It’s straight people enforcing that claim on God and the onus of changing be on gay people.
I don’t have to feel threatened. I’m heterosexual, and I was raised Christian.
I just don’t use that info like you do as a standard of character, or moral virtues. That’s why I try not to mention it. Because it doesn’t matter.
How you treat another person always will, no matter how many ‘God bless yous’ pour from your mouth.
It’s the gay folk’s turn to let the truth out, to let themselves be known without more of the same people who don’t have the grace to step aside for five minutes and let that happen.
Whenever you invoke God, for whatever reason. Coming from you, and the WAY it comes from you, has little weight.
God doesn’t need salesmen.
Regan,
Christ called to die to ourselves to find real life in Him. I am amazed to see this in my life now. I used to think that holiness was repressive and for idiots. Christ constantly told us to carry our cross if we were to follow us. He did not promise popularity but that the world hate us for exposing darkness by shining the light of his truth. It is real freedom. Christ did not come to condemn but came to offer grace so we could be set free from our sensual bondage. Remaining in sin is what condemns us. From a person who is grateful that God has mercy on me despite my hate for him, so now I want to show the same to others. Praying for you tonight.
How many times do I have to tell you that I was raised in church too? Longer than you, probably. I never used to think that religious belief was for idiots, but religious people ARE guilty of unhealthy repression of gay people who don’t deserve it. Especially in civil policy. I haven’t put anyone down for the joy and comfort they have found in their faith.
And you’re not hated, but challenged when you DO punish other people and support harming them inconsistent with the civil laws that govern us all.
I don’t need wear my faith on my sleeve, the way YOU do, so scolding me because I don’t is stupid.
I love God very much. I have epiphanies all the time when something spectacular happens. Like seeing the space shuttle soar over my city, then seeing it up close in the street and thinking about the collective human ingenuity that’s had us literally reach the stars.
I’ve seen macro photography of grains of sand, and learned they are symmetrical with patterns. Like microscopic sea shells. That is where God is. In everything that’s amazing in diversity and variance and change.
Including the creation of some of us to be different too.
Apparently, it doesn’t matter at all that I tell you that. You just want to keep telling me WHAT and HOW to believe while wallpapering this forum with your repeating of what you learned from the Bible. As if I said nothing at all about loving God.
Which makes your behavior rather masturbatory and you’re here just for self gratification and scolding me for not doing exactly what you think I should.
Which actually makes you telling me you’re praying for me, a rather empty gesture. It doesn’t take a lot to pray for someone. It’s not taxing really.
Because I pray too.
Now, fighting for justice for a very unpopular minority that’s threatened all the time, now THAT, takes something I guess you’re not down for.
Regan I know I shouldn’t open this door, but I will. I’d like to learn how you can claim a person (you) who “loves God” can also justify having a fundamental disregard to a specific portion of His written word (i.e. the practice of homosexuality). If God has written His law and it is not subject to change (as it claims to be within itself) then how can anyone profess to respect God and still not honor His laws? This is what you are asking people who understand, believe and respect this divine law to do. Civil laws are not an overruling trump card to be used in lieu of the laws of God simply because “society” has decided they punish a valid and natural part of humankind in whom you also refer to as what certain “youth are enduring”. Your finger pointing needs to be back to the fallible human thoughts, like yours, who rely on the often invalidated mode of human reasoning, not upon the God who is and has been in total control from before the establishment of time. To make it simple, you’re not going to get anywhere trying to convince anyone (at least not in this blog) to follow any final reasoning beyond the written word of God, here. This is why you aren’t getting the discussion you seem to keep asking for. You do err with your youthful friends when you advise them to be who they are and seek human wisdom in this. God’s instruction is the only answer and, when correctly administered, brings peace to the lives of anyone who are enduring life’s hardships… which include us all!
Well said Gene. I couldn’t agree more or less with you. Anyone who refuses to live by God’s perfect law has no respect for his law. God put the law down for a reason. Those who refuse to obey God’s law will suffer the consequences when the time does truly come.
Regarding Regan, she’s just being as arrogant as ever. She knows what God’s law says in this regard, but refuses to accept it, believe it and obey it. It is much easier to follow the way of the world than it is to follow God’s perfect law. This is why I have chosen to ignore Regan as she will never acknowledge what God’s law says about the sinful sexual practice between two members of the same gender. She has chosen to follow the way of the world rather than God’s law. That is just her choice and there really is no sense trying to sway her or even convince her. That is why I have chosen to ignore her and her arrogant attitude towards God’s perfect law concerning this sort of thing and I will never let anyone’s arrogance sway me from God’s perfect law.
Each and every day, I continually thank God and his son Jesus Christ for setting me free from the trap of Homosexuality. I also continually ask him throughout the day to help strengthen me whenever temptation hits. I simply throw the temptation on God (Psalm 55:22)and ask him in the name of his only begotten son Jesus Christ to strengthen me to help me fight and resist any temptation that comes around. I usually have to do that throughout the day as I do get tempted to give into the unnatural desires that I have. After that, the temptation is reduced to nil and I can go on with the rest of the day.
Thanks again Gene for your inspiring words.
“Anyone who doesn’t live by God’s perfect law, has no respect for his law”.
I don’t know how you know that, nor how you’d expect God’s law to be enforced and there be a positive outcome. See, you say things like that as if that’s never happened and no amount of suffering was ever rendered by that mindset. And because I don’t repeat words from the Bible or engage in a long repetitious thread of the same, you call me arrogant.
Is there ever a time you might consider that the way you convey such words isn’t about my arrogance, but your indifference to a conversation about where religious belief endangers young gay people?
You’re showing your contempt for me for no other reason except I’m not expressing my religious beliefs in the same way you are. Of course you’d interpret it as disrespect for God. That seems to be the only thing you can do.
“all the religious disciplines and avowed beliefs will not hide nor give you the moral courage required to make the very changes in racism, misogyny and homophobia that murders civility and empathy. That segregates knowledge and understanding, from evidence and social justice.”
The problem you’re having, Regan, is the basis on where you form your opinions. Since you judge people “hiding” behind “religious disciplines” you infer that these are nothing more to be considered than any other human philosophies. Yes, there are people who do not understand and mis-represent religion and I’d have to agree with that, however to make this argument one must acknowledge the existence of truth in religion, as well. When you disagree with someone who you think is aligned with your definition of murdering “civility”, then it’s easy for you to render that religion as false or segregationist. It doesn’t bring any proof to the table as to that religion being false other than the opinions you are “observing” in your own personal experience. For as many as you see being hurt, there are countless others who claim freedom from this distress. I find that trust in God is by far the more sane path than any of the experience you claim to have and until you prove yourself to be infallible, I’ll stick with truth as it is written.
Just pray at this point. Note that our words are being twisted to say things that we never wrote. God loves Regan but it is getting ridiculous to continue a conversation that results in dialogue that has no logical coercion.
2 Timothy 2:23-26 ” Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Well said, Freedomcampus. What you said was right on.
As I have said to Gene, it’s best to ignore Regan and her arrogant rants. I tried to reason with her myself, but she refuses to let herself be reasoned with. That is why I have chosen to ignore her and her arrogance that she shows here. It’s best to save all energy for productive things and helping those who want to be be helped, not on arrogant people who refuse to accept and respect God’s perfect law.
We can pray for her and hope that our prayers come true. It’s all that we can do.
Gene, as I recall, you and Erica showed your contempt for me for comparing the injustice against gays as similar to that of blacks. And I thought it interesting you’d say that, since the titans of the movement like CS King, Julian Bond, Andrew Young, to name a few, clearly say the opposite of what you think. I asked you a fair question with regard to what you’d ever done FOR someone else, to think so differently from such venerated and courageous people. I mean, I know first hand what it’s like to be an unpopular minority too. And since I’m a woman, there are aspects of the Biblical societies in their treatment of women, that resembles what the Taliban do to women now.
Yet, here we are, the 21st century, where we’ve marched ahead through commitment to civility and social justice, FROM the barbarism, tribalism and misogyny of Biblical culture.
I can think of several things that are universally taboo, or sins in religious cultures. I’ll pick contraception.
Whether artificial or not, it’s anathema to the religious laws of increasing one’s tribes. However, contraception, especially artificial contraception is essential to individual health and well being. The gov’t can’t be engaged to enforce the beliefs against it. Nor can the religious call it a restriction of THEIR freedom when a person uses these options.
The taboo on homosexuality is an extension of the stigma against contraception, and the basic misogyny that permeates such cultures.
It’s essential for gay people to help the greater public understand who they are, and their potential in society. And that’s impossible with religious intervention damaging that opportunity out of fear of losing control of gay people.
When that intervention is civil law, religious enforcement and the torment of young gay people to comply with a chosen belief in God’s law, then it’s a tainted result. A study done decades ago on black children living under Jim Crow revealed the emotional and psychic damage that systemic prejudice does to them. Gay children live under similar threat to their well being in that way. What do YOU think it does to a kid to be told that getting AIDS and being a pariah are INEVITABLE? What do you think being assaulted with the messaging you’re a pervert, a child molester and deserve to be punished would do to someone who is utterly innocent and harmless? Especially when they are young?
And then what do you think actual physical abuse from a parent, sibling…or school peers does to a youngster? Well, we know. They are at great risk of suicide and it happens.
So Gene, from your post, I’m guessing you’ll never support or engage in anything that teaches the public the truth about homosexuality. You’re hiding yours, or telling people you’re repressing your sexuality in favor of religious discipline. Well, that’s nothing new. That’s been expected of gay people already. And it’s never really been healthy. In fact, sexual repression never is. Otherwise it manifests in unhealthy things like sexual immaturity, obsessive behavior and other pathology.
Which apparently, some people on this site have already been involved in.
It’s much easier to repress something so personal, than to engage in very public and difficult advocacy of an unpopular group you belong to.
It’s much harder to call for greater experience and understanding of a much maligned, defamed and misunderstood minority.
Who are universally, a part of the human family.
I don’t think in retrospect, you’d say that a non Jewish, anti Semitic has any credibility about Jews. However outspoken they are as being all knowing about Jews.
Same with racists. Racists have a way of imparting a firm opinion about people of color they are certain of. And I’m sure you wouldn’t give them credence either.
I find it more than hypocritical, that non gay, anti gay people have been allowed all the credence and control of information about gay people. Starting with the Bible and then layering more and more defamation and unbelievable myth and misinformation on top.
As with racism, misogyny, anti Semitism: anti gay sentiment gets the invocation of God to seal off any further discussion.
The God said it, I believe it, and that’s that, method of not dealing with certain difficult and contentious subjects.
Which you and your cohorts are doing right now.
What would you think of a black man that said that Jim Crow was a correct structure of governance?
A woman that thought she should be subjugated and never participate in her own destiny?
And what should anyone think of gay people who agree with the oppressive belief that they do indeed, deserve discrimination. That they are perverts, deviants and conspire to assault other people?
Sorry Gene, all the religious disciplines and avowed beliefs will not hide nor give you the moral courage required to make the very changes in racism, misogyny and homophobia that murders civility and empathy. That segregates knowledge and understanding, from evidence and social justice.
I have work to do. And Gene, there are people out there actually doing God’s work. And it’s never been the racists, misogynists and anti gay.
And please, I really don’t care what you believed and when, OR what you believe now.
I know what is being DONE, especially to young gay people and their hetero peers. Hiding behind God to do it, only shows some moral cowardice about the real results. So not impressed with you as you are with yourself.
Poor Regan…. One would think that if one had such knowledge and credentials, then one would simply know that a scientific study is not retracted. According the the editor of the journal, “You can retract data incorrectly analyzed; to do that, you publish an erratum. You can retract an article if the data were falsified-or the journal retracts it if the editor knows of it. As I understand it, he’s [Spitzer] just saying ten years later that he wants to retract his interpretation of the data. Well, we’d probably have to retract hundreds of scientific papers with regard to interpretation, and we don’t do that.”
The data was not retracted, just his interpretation of it may have changed. Its questionable as to why he would want to do that, since it stood for 10 years and there is nothing wrong with the methodology nor the science. Perhaps he has been beaten down by all the hate mail he received over his study. There are plenty of people, like yourself, who seem to have a vested interest in denying that people have stated they have changed orientation know what they are speaking about. Its like people claiming there’s no such thing as a black conservative – their beliefs fly in the face of the facts.
But there are other studies showing the same thing – people can change.
It seems you are threatened by the idea that some people can change.
Your belief flies in the face of the facts. If you believe you are correct, then please provide studies.
But as I have said. Even if you were correct, God changes people. All you need to do is turn to God as He has said, in repentance and faith in Christ. God is calling to you….
Wbmoore,
They may ridicule us as general rule but we need to give our responses in love. It only drives them farther into hate for us. God can do anything but we are still trapped in a body of sin until we see Christ one day in our new bodies. I am not certain how far how many of my sinful desires will be gone but I know that I can walk in freedom in Christ by focusing on him daily filling my mind with his truth and empowered by his Spirit. I refused to be identified myself by feelings which can lead us into a myriad of confusion but by the truth which sets us free. It is not repression but a great freedom which give us more life to do great things for others.
What IS it with you and this persecution ‘they are out to get us’ complex? I’m not ridiculing anyone here. And neither has any other dissenter that I can see. It’s not ridicule to challenge you. It’s not ridicule to TRY and have a conversation and get a straight answer about 21st century social justice that gay people keep getting excluded from for no reason anyone else has to.
Why is that so hard to get across to you? Is there some pathological NEED to think you’re being nailed on a cross, when you’re not.
No one is HURTING you and cares to.
Does it NOT occur you how self centered and self righteous you are being? To say nothing of your indifference, obviously, to what gay youth are enduring.
And your answers, are not really answers at all that addresses what I’m trying to talk to you about.
“Poor Regan…” Really?
You know you’re being sarcastic and condescending. Why are SO many of you like that all the time? Is that part of the drill?
Being patronizing, instead of stand up on the real issue at hand?
I have a lot more respect for God and Jesus than you do. How you have a relationship with either, is YOUR business.
I do know who is in charge, and when I say it’s not YOU, why would you argue with that then?
One of us in here is confusing Christianity with Legalism. This happens to be a very common problem. People who practice legalism think that the law and the gospel are both one and the same, when in reality, they are not. They are both very different.
True Christianity goes by the old rule of God which is “hate the sin, never the sinner”. Legalists do the exact opposite. They hate both the sin and the sinner, which is always wrong and inexcusable. Many who profess to be Christian do practice legalism and legalism is as of the devil’s work as the sexual activity between two members of the same gender is. Legalism is a sin as having sexual relations with another member of one’s own gender is a sin.
When true, and I mean true, Christians enforce the law of God, they do so with love and compassion for anyone who has fallen into sin. Legalists are the opposite as they use brutality and at times, physically and emotionally abusive methods on others. One of us in here is simply showing that the only thing that they know is legalism and not really true Christianity. The way that they are usually confused is a very common error in judgement. Everyone makes that error. Admittedly, I have made that error myself many times throughout my life as I too was a victim of legalism myself.
My father, who professed to be a “non-denominated” Christian, used legalism with me when I was in between the ages of 8-9 years of age. He repeatedly beat me, he also insulted me and really hurt me both physically and emotionally. He always responded with physical punishment for even the most minor of errors. Not only that, I couldn’t even express myself because if I tried to do that, my father thought that I was possessed by a demon and many times held me to the ground and wouldn’t let me up until he felt that the demon was out of me as I was usually exhausted by fighting to get up off the floor. This went on for a brief nine month period, but it was more than enough to really screw me up mentally and emotionally as I never received any love nor affirmation of my father. For most of my life, I confused Christianity with legalism as a result of that experience as I went from being a happy child to being an angry young man as a result of that. For many years, I hated anyone who professed to be a “born-again Christian” as I always thought that each and every one of them was a very abusive type of person. For most of my life, I actually thought this and that only further fed my hatred for them. It was a never ending cycle that kept going and going for a long time in my life. I even threatened the lives of anyone who professed to be “born-again” whenever they tried to preach to me on the streets whenever they approached me as I wanted them to leave me alone and not to talk to me. Yes, I am being honest and humble here as I did all of that. I had chips on my shoulder for practically anyone who claimed to be a “born-again Christian” and was never afraid of showing that anger.
Over time, my anger mellowed as I later learned that not everyone who claims to be “born-again” are like that. I have met many who were actually wonderful people and were really nice and caring. They showed me that what was done to me by my father was the practice of legalism and that it does get confused with Christianity quite a bit. I learned that true Christians show love and compassion to anyone who is seeking God, his son, the lord and savior Christ Jesus and wants to follow God’s perfect law. It took me many years to mellow out, but later as I learned that there was a difference between what my father did and Christianity, it helped me to mellow, but it was a very slow process. Now, my anger has mellowed and I no longer threaten anyone who claims to be “born-again”. I understand that even Christians are also imperfect people who do fall short on occasion, but God is there to forgive anyone who does fall short. God is very loving and very merciful and slow to anger. God loved us that he sent his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, into this very world to save us from sins and the grasp that it can have on us as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. God and his son both want us to come to repentance and they are both very loving, merciful and forgiving.
Homosexuals, be they male or female, are simply emotionally broken people who never got the love and affirmation that they should have gotten when they were growing up and they were simply misled into believing that their needs were sexual, when in reality, they were emotional needs. When these needs are fulfilled authentically, desires for members of their own gender do decrease, but it takes time. This change and healing doesn’t happen overnight, as it takes times to change and heal from the brokeness. Hatred and threats against anyone struggling with Homosexuality only makes the matter worse, as hatred is never the answer.
Each and every day, I thank God in the name of his son Jesus Christ for setting me free from the trap of Homosexuality and the sinful sexual lifestyle associated with it. I am no longer enslaved to Homosexuality, and that even includes any sinful sexual activity connected with it. Thank God that I am free and also, Thank God for showing me the difference between Christianity and Legalism. For those unfamiliar with Legalism, here is the link to the Wikipedia article on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_%28theology%29
There is a difference and I learned that the hard way. I am glad that now, I am a Christian and that I am serving God and worshiping him in the name of his son Jesus Christ in spirit and in truth.
Forgive me for the length as I had a lot to say in this area. I just had to say everything that was on my mind to say. Again, please forgive the length.
Thanks to all of those who sincerely want to help people like me to learn the truth about God and his son Jesus Christ as well as everything that they are and do for mankind. Thanks again.
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What I’m lacking to understand is… How and why do you believe in something that deems your preference as unnatural and immoral. Something that condemns your lifestyle?
I don’t see how you’re comfortable woth yourself being into men. You seem like the type of homosexual who has condescending feelings about your own kind. I accept your opinion on it but I don’t think you should perceive your own lifestyle as sinful, unnatural and immoral. Yes, everyone deserves love but when you find it difficult loving yourself, how do expect someone to feel that for you?
If you believe in something bigger than you that allegedly condemns immorality I wish you good luck with finding yourself.