On tolerance
Rich: Because I acknowledge that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin, I am intolerant, even though I support civil unions for gay couples as being fair and just under the law of man, and even though I drove an hour and a half to demonstrate my opposition to an anti gay hate group.
November 10th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Does it really?
The problem, especially among gay men, has mostly to do with rampant promiscuity, which is also sinful for heterosexuals. Getting hung up on homosexuality as an issue is a disaster for Christians. There is no one sin in the bible worse than any others, and we really need to worry more about the plank in our own eye before we go after the speck in someone else’s. Says so right here.
There is one quick solution to this whole mess: take government out of the marriage business all together. Make all government recognized unions “civil unions” and leave “marriage” up to the churches. Heck, by that account two people can marry each other without anyone’s say-so and simply by getting together and proclaiming that they are married. All government does is provide a means of recognizing and enforcing a contract.
November 10th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Yes, it does. Really.
The bible states that all sex outside of marriage is sinful.
Since marriage could only be between opposite genders (even in polygamous marriages the man was married to each woman, but the women were not married to each other), then any same gender sex would have to be outside of marriage, and thus sinful.
What it doesn’t say is that same gender sex is any worse than any other non-marital sex. They are exactly the same. To say that one is “ZOMG! The lake of fire will come for you all!” and the other is just a triviality is patently unchristian.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I am leery of definitions of good by reason of “what I don’t”. E.g., “I am good because I do not kill, because I don’t steal, because I don’t take the Lord’s Name in vain, because I don’t commit sodomy, like those other sinners, beacause I don’t own guns”.
It is a fact of human psychology that we make ourselves good by making other people bad in our minds.
It seems to me better to say “I have been with my wife for eighteen years, we are raising a beautiful daughter, we think it’s a wonderful thing, and if you two guys or girls can find the same happiness it will be a wonderful thing but if you do not it will not change us in any way”.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
You’d get the same reaction if you preached against gluttony in a congregation full of fat people — even if you went on to add that there should not be a law against eating oneself to death.
November 10th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
That link’s a little inaccurate. Sodom was set to be cinderized long before the attempted gang-molestation of angels (which didn’t quite have genders to start with), but it was a little involved. Likewise, not all parts of the Levitican laws are overturned by the antithesis of the law in the new testament, just most of them.
It’s rather easy to deal with those issues — there are gay Jews that follow the laws in Leviticus, who simply determine the relevant passage to be a prohibition on missionary or anatomically impossible positions — but simply ignoring or glossing over them is rather impolite towards those that believe those issues exist.
Moreover, the relevant issue is not male-male intercourse (which is Constitutionally protected on a federal level and thus can not be overturned by the California amendment or, practically speaking, anyone else), but marriage between two individuals of the same legal sex. The distinction of male/female marriages as being rather unique goes all the way to Genesis, and is kept well past the Antithesis of the Law.
I’m not a Christian — I’m not even ensouled enough to ask the necessary underlying questions — but I don’t think it’s respective to make straw men out of them.
Not likely to happen. There’s simply far too much of a social incentive to specifically legitimize and emphasize male/female pairings (any serious study on the differences between the children of unmarried parents and the children of married ones demonstrates that).
November 10th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I have no problem with the idea of civil unions for all and having religious institutions decide who gets to marry as long as they can offer “marriage” to gay couples.
If folks want to believe that their religion says that homosexuality is a sin, that is there business. But, those people don’t have a right to impose their beliefs on society as a whole. My religion says that killing and eating animals is a sin, but I don’t try to impose that belief on anyone else. That is tolerance, not supporting a “separate-but-equal” institution which isn’t marriage.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I think you might have difficulties recommending tolerance as a virtue. It’s not… overwhelmingly evolutionarily successful.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
The Bible is very straightforward about the sin of homosexuality, even though the Bible is often accused of being vague and inexact.
A serious lack of philosophical knowledge has caused gross actions like homosexual marriage to be taken by many people (thankfully not a majority) as being normal or even called for.
November 10th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Tolerance, much like support for the President, is a one-way street for liberals.
November 10th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Seconded, thirded, and fourthed. And then some.
As for the liberal’s reaction to the perceived violation of her definition of “tolerance”… is anyone really surprised? This is what folks like her have been preaching for… well, as long as I can remember – “Believe as I do, support the things I do, or you are intolerant. Oooooh.” Like it is some gorramed curse of something (and, of course, these days, it has turned into one…).
November 10th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
The bible states that all sex outside of marriage is sinful.
That might be true, but I do not know the relevant passage. Link please? And please, nothing from the OT that’s outside the 10 commandments. Everything else, as far as I can tell, are simply rules that got chucked with the new covenant in the NT.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I know that is says that sex outside of YOUR marriage if YOU are married is sinful, and I believe that pre-marital sex is a no-no, I just don’t know the explicit passage. So please, do tell.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Leviticus 18:22
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
November 10th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Most of Leviticus was reversed by the Antithesis of the Law in the New Testament, if I remember correctly. 18:22 isn’t covered precisely, so it’s kinda in limbo, and the original description could use some better detail (to take some of the typical progressive Jew ‘outs’, is it just a prohibition on ). Hebrews 13:4 and most of Deuteronomy 22 focus on adultery and a ban on sexual relations with someone betrothed to another individual.
Deuteronomy 22’s later verses also recommend a rather draconian punishment for women who lose their virginity before marriage. Mark 7:21 prohibits fornication of all kinds, whose definition usually includes sexual relations outside of marriage.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I freely admit that I am intolerant. I am intolerant of a great many things, among them, child abuse, murder, rape, robbery, theft, dishonesty, cowardice, pragmatism, racism just to name a few.
There are other things of which I don’t approve or find distasteful, but tolerate because they do not harm anyone who has not consented.
Too often we confuse tolerance with lack of principle. They are not interchangeable. Being too tolerant, simply means one has no principles to which they adhere. Being intolerant in the absence of harm to others means one has no principles to which they adhere.
I am no fan of homosexuality, I don’t approve, but guess what? What happens in such a relationship has never caused anyone I know or have ever known any harm whatsoever. I have the option of not participating and I exercise that option. That makes what anyone else does,is none of my damn business. That is tolerant enough. It is intolerate of others to insist I embrace it and sing its praises and pretend I feel another way than what I actually do.
I demand the same level of tolerance as do they.
Do I think government sanctioned marriage between gays is appropriate? No, I do not. But, not for the reasons that are usually ascribed to someone of my opinion.
Marriages were happening thousands of years before the state, any state, became involved in the sanctioning of it. Mostly, it was a religious issue. But the non-religious also married long before state involvement.
The state became involved for two main purposes, taxes and inheritance issues. None of which should be their business, either. Many a bastard child has been denied inheritance for being born outside the bounds of marriage. That was intentional. It kept family fortunes from being diluted by too many claimants. Not particularly just, but still the law for many centuries.
Gay marriage cannot produce offspring from within the confines of marriage. Sorry, that’s just biology. Beyond the ability of man to change.
Do I believe that people of the same sex who live as lovers should have fewer rights than those of us in traditional marriages. No, it does not.
But, I don’t believe it is the business of government, except in the guarantee that their rights be as protected as mine. That is a hard sell, simply because of the tax issue that was the impetus for the state to become involved in marriage in the first place.
I favor protective legislation for gay partners equal to but not exceeding those of us in traditional marriages. I do not think they should be called marriages by any but the church or churches whose doctrine allows such. Here’s the kicker, I don’t think my marriage should be treated any differently.
If that’s not enough tolerance there’s something wrong with the equation and its terms need to be examined, because there is an error in its statement somewhere.
November 10th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
1 Corinthians 6:9 explicitly condemns homosexual acts as damning sin. The Greek word used is “arsenokoites”, a distinctive construction in that it only appears to be used in one other surviving contemporary Greek document: the Septuagint at Leviticus 20:13.
So to say “it’s kind of in limbo” is flat out wrong. The New Testament bars this behavior, and to add weight and clarity, uses the exact same word as the Greek copy of Leviticus. There is no ambiguity.
None of this has anything to do with gay marriage. Churches are opposed to gay marriage because of the potential for lawsuits against pastors that refuse to perform the ceremony. It’s a catch-22: bless the marriage and burn in hell, or refuse to perform the ceremony and be bankrupted in the courts.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:15 am
None of this has anything to do with gay marriage. Churches are opposed to gay marriage because of the potential for lawsuits against pastors that refuse to perform the ceremony. It’s a catch-22: bless the marriage and burn in hell, or refuse to perform the ceremony and be bankrupted in the courts.
Which is precisely why we have the first amendment. “…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” and all that.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Ben
Except we have court cases like the Elain Photography case, ben, which demonstrate several courts to be inherently hostile to First Amendment rights when they involve a ‘disadvantaged minority’.
I think Christians get a “get out of jail free” card for violating the spiritual law in order to comply with Ceasar’s, as long as they’re not happy about it, but I’m not really clear on the matter, and the first amendment issues are more than a litttttttle worrying.
hypnagogue
No, it doesn’t. The Septuagint’s Old Testament uses the phrasing “arsenos ou koimethese koiten gunaikos”, while the New Testament uses the word “arsenokoites”; the latter is almost certainly borrowed from the formation of the former, but they’re different words.
“Arsenokoites” is a bastardized loan-word that’s not really translatable. “Arsenos ou koimethese koiten gunaikos”, if you’ll excuse the Blind Idiot translation, comes across as ‘to lay with men in wife’s bed”.
I’m a soulless animal, and thus it’s not my place to judge a religious text, but it’s not the most descriptive phrase.
Leaving for now the inherent issues with the origin of the words, while it may be unusual to interpret the phrase from a euphemistic viewpoint as anything but the Catholic euphemistic interpretation results in, a number of religious sects seem far more interested in the letter of the law.
As damning as being a politician (well, liar, but you get my point), drunkard, greedy, or of any heterosexual sexual immorality. All in all, not especially damning.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Dearest Gattsuru… you just quoted Leviticus 18:22, I quoted Leviticus 20:13. Try flipping the page. Your point is moot, in any event, as both forbid homosexual acts.
This is about par for the course for anti-Christian bigotry. False statements, attributed to the straw man, torn down with relish. Except for two details: 1) you are completely wrong, and 2) you are teaching others to do wrong. The first damns you, the second damns them.
Let me be perfectly clear, as your attribution of my views is completely false. It isn’t my job, as a pastor, to intervene to prevent sexual immorality, or to fight for legislation mandating sexual morality. My job is simple.
My job is to teach what God has stated is sin as sin, and to teach repentance for forgiveness through Jesus Christ. If sin is denied, then repentance is impossible, so I must not deny sin. That’s it. If you choose to not believe the Bible, that is your choice, and I will not do anything against that. I would advise only that you ought not speak for a God you don’t believe in.
As for legislating morality; it’s a fool’s errand, and will never lead to righteousness. I don’t agree with gay marriage, but I do agree with civil unions of all sorts. I don’t have to condone sexual immorality to determine, from scripture, that your family is who you choose it to be. Just don’t ask me to bless you in your sin. I must refuse.
This is not a sexuality issue. Esther chose to not be separated from her mother-in-law when she was widowed. Similarly, I have a friend that lives with and provides for her elderly mother-in-law even though she has long since divorced her husband. Marriage is not relevant to their family, nor is sexuality. Family is about love, not lust. Legal recognition of their family would seem to me to be necessary, if only for tax, estate, and insurance purposes.
As for tolerance: I’ve never seen it. I’ve been persecuted my entire adult life for my beliefs. By liberals, by conservatives, by friends, by strangers. I do believe in love, though — and I’m willing to go to extraordinary lengths to prove it to you. The truth is this: love died for you.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Did I say Esther? I meant Ruth. I can double check for ever, and still make mistakes.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I’ll admit I don’t keep too many translations of different religious texts around for quick access, nor have much ability with Greek, but it looks to be a similar sentence construction.
Both forbid a rather specific euphemism. The most common interpretation is to prohibit same sex sexual acts in a wide variety of situations; it’s not the only interpretation of the text. I’m a soulless animal, and don’t particularly care which of those interpretations are correct, but I don’t think ignoring other viewpoints provides an entire understanding of the matter.
I have no problem with the tag of bigotry on a wide variety of attributes; there are things out there that no one should tolerate. Accusations of anti-Christian bigotry for pointing out the viewpoints other people hold, however, is pathetic. It’s just a bad as the GLT idiots raising claims of bigotry for daring to think differently.
I’m a soulless animal, and thus not particularly good at religion nor willing to profane a religion with false worship, but I’ve got no problem with religious folk or holding religion as a good standard. I just like to present viewpoints.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
hypnogogue, for the sake of this discussion, I’ll cede your point about the Bible strictures against homosexuality.
Nowhere, though, can you find any passages in the Bible that bestow upon me or you the power or right to harm, harrass, or interfere with others who do me or you no harm. That would be between the individual and God. Not the individual and you or me.