I’ve recently been invited to a couple of gay weddings. So—what with being Christian and all—I asked myself the famous question, “What would Jesus do?” (Which I don’t too often ask myself, actually, since Jesus could, for instance, raise people from the dead and turn water into wine, whereas I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning and/or turn water into coffee. Safe to say many of his options are none of mine.)
Wondering what Jesus would do if he were invited to a gay wedding naturally enough led me to the New Testament. And therein I found these quotes:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24); and,
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13); and,
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” (Matthew 23:15). And last but hardly least:
“Love your neighbor as yourself,” [said Jesus]. “There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31)
When I next went looking for anywhere in the Bible where Jesus says anything at all about homosexuality, I learned that Jesus spent about as much time talking about gay people as I do talking about button collecting. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Jesus did say many crucially informative things about homosexuality, but that when he did so no one around him happened to have handy an ostrich feather, sappy stick, or whatever it was they used for pens back then. Which would make sense, actually. If you’ve spent any time at all reading the New Testament, you know that Jesus’ disciples weren’t exactly Johnnies-on-the-spot. They were just normal, everyday guys.
Which I think is kind of the whole point. Jesus most surely did love him some everyday people.
Throughout the New Testament, the only kind of people with whom Jesus consistently takes frightful exception are the very “teachers of the law and Pharisees” that we see him dressing down in the passages above. One thing that often gets lost in our considerations of Jesus is the degree to which he is exactly the wrong person to piss off. And you don’t have to spend a lot of time in the New Testament before you understand that the only kind of people who seem to ever truly anger Jesus are those who put religious dogma above what he most clearly stood for, which was God’s love.
Around Jesus you can whine, lie, shift your loyalties, be late, be greedy, be too ambitious, be stupid, be a coward, be a hypochondriac, constantly complain, fall asleep at every wrong moment—you can do nothing right, and it won’t in the slightest way seem to offend him.
But you put dogma ahead of love? You transmogrify God’s law into a justification for denying God’s grace?
Then yikes, man. Then you’ve got yourself a problem no one in this world wants.
I’m not sure how exactly we came to so often consider Jesus the soft and dreamy, namby-pamby type. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being namby-pamby! I have an uncle who’s namby-pamby!) But it’s hard to believe it came from the accounts of Jesus we have in the Gospels. That’s just not the guy on those pages.
Jesus is scary when he’s riled. And the only people who rile him are those who, in His name, set themselves up as sanctimonious judges of others.
I think I better go to the weddings of my gay friends. I’m almost scared not to. While it’s certainly true that in many of his parables it’s unclear what exactly Jesus was saying or meant, he didn’t even almost waffle about his “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He very explicitly declared that the “first and greatest commandment.”
If there’s any wiggle room there, I just don’t see it.
So I’ll attend my gay friends’ weddings, in the exact same spirit I’d expect them to attend mine. And if it happens that in the course of either of their weddings or receptions I find myself wondering if I’m doing the right thing, I’ll be sure to remember the first miracle of Jesus’ recorded in the Bible. It’s when he turned water into wine.
At a wedding.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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[weird rambling anti-gay comment deleted]
Your comaprisons don’t work. Every sin you refer to includes people causing harm to others. A caring, gay couple is not causing harm to anyone when they choose to marry.
I am Christian. I came across this blog through some searching I am doing. I have a dilemma. My brother and his partner will soon be getting married. My husband has asked me what my thoughts are about attending the wedding. I am so torn about this! I love my brother dearly. I love his partner, too. I love God even more. I don’t want to do anything that would grieve God. I do believe every word of the Bible. And His word clearly tells me homosexuality is a sin. But my brother’s sin is no more grievous than my sins. If I attend, am I condoning it? I’m I saying to my brother, this is right. God says it’s not. It really doesn’t matter whether I, you, or anyone thinks its right or wrong. God is God.
On the other hand, I know my brother is not saved yet. So I cannot expect Him to know Truth or to be grieved by what grieves God’s heart. I want to show my brother and his partner tat I do care about them, that I do love them, and be there for them like they would for me.
But to ‘be there’ would mean a celebration of something that grieves God.
I was just going to move on from this blog…until I read the comment ‘homosexuality is utter perversion’. That broke my heart….because that is not beneficial, edifying or glorifying to God! You are doing more harm than good. You are grieving God. Don’t think for a second you are serving God. Don’t be fooled. And lastly, Jesus was beaten beyond recognition, for your sin as much as mine or anyone else’s. oh but for the grace of God there go I. If you’re saved, it’s by His grace, not by anything you’ve done to earn it. I am so humbled by His grace and mercy toward us!
I am still undecided. I will be praying and reading God’s word. I will also seek counsel from my pastor and friends because I know they have a heart for God and for us sinners. They have tender hearts. Whatever I decide, I need to consider my family as a whole…my brother, his partner, my husband, my children, my mother, my siblings. I will have some explaining to do whatever my choice. I want it to be based on Truth and Love. Either way, though, it won’t affect my standing with God. And I know I’m going to disappoint some people. But it’s God and His ultimate plan I need to consider.
Please don’t respond to me with harsh judgment…I speak to both sides. I am still torn. THINK. If its not True, Helpful, Inspired by God, Necessary or Kind. Keep it to yourself …. and pray.
Dear Anonymous,
God knows what is on your heart. He knows you love your brother, and He knows you love HIM. Talk to Him (more than you already do) about softening your brother and his partner’s hearts towards Him, about turning towards the Lord. “in all things prayer and supplication”. By attending the wedding, and showing your brother what a loving and supportive sibling you are, you are also showing him your Christ-likeness. Jesus didn’t walk with the well folks. He walked and talked with the sick, the halt, the lame. Yes. Homosexuality is a sin. But we are all sinners, and from what I have read, there are not degrees of sinfulness. Sin is sin. So we are all in the same boat. Let’s help each other get OUT of the boat and INTO heaven. Talk to your brother and his partner about Jesus, but mostly let him see Jesus IN YOU, and he will want that light shining in his life as well.
Autumn, I’m quite surprised that you’d pick this blog of all places to say that homosexuality is a sin, as if this is fact. What you assert is not fact, and you need to do your homework.
That false doctrine has been debunked many times by the ever-patient host of this blog. That false doctrine causes great injury to a great many people who have done nothing other than live as God created them. It is time for that false doctrine to go the way of biblically-sanctioned slavery. Please educate yourself about sexual identity, not to mention what really constitutes sin.
If you click on the Hits tab at the top of this page, then scroll down to the LGBT and Christianity section, you will find the pot of gold at the end of the beautiful equality rainbow.
[Fundy comment quoting the New King James Bible to "prove" God deplores gay people deleted.]
Luckily the Supreme Court of the United States (thus far) disagrees with you.
And about 63% of the people of this country. Yeah, so that conversation’s old, don’t you think?
Autumn, I grew up going to church a few times a year and considered myself a Christian. As an adult I started going to a church that really taught us the Bible and I’ve been learning so much. Now I do know God and His word. God opened my eyes. Unfortunately we all judge God by our experiences and what other people say and do, before we really get to know God personally. Once I opened the Bible and started to not only read it, but to study it, it was like I started to see things more clearly. Only God can open our eyes to sin in our own lives. Until then, we will continue to justify sin. And as a Christian, I am not immune to this. There is still sin in my life that God is dealing with.
God knows my heart. Nothing will change His word and His truth. No matter how much we try to justify it or change it ourselves. No matter how many agree with it or not. God is God and He never changes. He is holy and just. And He is sovereign over all.
I don’t want to stand in His way. I want to serve Him. If asked to give a defense for what I believe, I am ready. And I will do it with respect, love and gentleness. It’s possible to disagree with people, agree with God and still love. Just because I don’t agree with someone does not mean I hate them.
Your advice was very helpful, Autumn. Jesus loved and loves on us sinners. Jesus never justified anyone’s sin. He spoke the truth to them and loved them while he did it. Of course, he was rejected by many, and so are we. But why should we be surprised? Our knee-jerk reaction, as sinners, is to slap back when we get slapped. But Jesus said to turn the other cheek. It’s hard. It’s easy to do what ‘feels’ right and to justify it.
So the answer is: Love. God knows my heart. It’s a heart that longs to please Him. To please Him, I need to know Him. I am continually getting to know Him more and more. And He is continually making me more and more into His image.
Thank you, Autumn.
Hi Anonymous
To [possibly] answer your question on a practical level: if your brother were not gay, but had been married and then had an affair and got divorced, and was now marrying someone else (not necessarily the affair partner) – would you attend that wedding? Adultery and divorce are not exactly held up as ‘good’ in the Bible, but I suspect that most Christians would attend such a wedding (there are, of course, the extremely legalistic who would not).
A ‘gay’ wedding cannot be any ‘worse’ for a believer (even one who maintains that it is unbiblical) to attend than a post-adultery/divorce wedding, so if you would attend the hypothetical one then I’m guessing it would be a good idea for you to attend your brother’s actual one? His wedding is about him, not you, so you should just go along out of love for your brother – which I don’t think is something that would grieve God…
Funny you use that analogy, VJ. My brother-in-law was unfaithful to his wife while she was pregnant. He left her and married this other woman. Nobody in his family attended his wedding, except for his mom. That had a big affect on him. It was a special day to him, though it was not for his family whom he abandoned or his siblings who were disappointed in him. If we had stopped to think of the hurt we were causing upon hurt, we would’ve had a long term affect on him. Today he is divorced again and alienated himself from the family.
Forgive and love, should’ve been the choice back then.
Today I think I will choose to love. Let God handle the rest.
So, thank you, VJ. You and Autumn have been helpful.
God never asked you to find answers in the Bible! Of course there are a lot of things that are either not mentioned by Jesus, or only in passim, or in ways that could be misunderstood, at least by someone who wants to get a desired answer.
There is no point in a book-based religion.
Instead, Jesus founded a Church. There you can find the answers. The only source of the word of God, aptly soon put on paper ALSO through the Bible (but as an incomplete yet fundamental instrument, not as something predating or on a higher level than the church itself.)
Sure, we can agree that today’s priests that act like those pharisees and rabbis will get a harsher punishment. But scratch the surface, and behind a pedophile priest you’ll find a “progressive”. Accepting the premises of the 60s movement is what brought so many bad examples and toxic behaviors in the Catholic Church. Mistaking love for encouraging everyone to do whatever pleases them.
True love means telling you when you are doing something wrong. NOT (!) avoiding any criticism that could upset you, and so feeling compelled to redefine good and evil to suit the emotional needs of people who cannot stand harsh truths.
Love is not at all being forced to choose between a) hating someone who’s got a problem or b) denying there’s any problem. Love is telling the truth, even when it hurts.
This comment is contributing to the wrinkles developing on my forehead from puzzling this through. Wow.
Jill,
[comment deleted.]
this is awesome. I just wrote a poem on this very subject.
check it out
http://haffofaman.blogspot.com/
I just want to say that I didn’t think too much of Lot when I read that passage the first time, and I still don’t. Offer up your virgin daughters to the lustful crowd??? Some father. He should have taken a bow and arrow to them.
A few years ago, similar pseudo “biblical justifications” were used to “justify” slavery, racial segregation, the interdiction of biracial marriage and apartheid in South Africa. They also denied women the right to vote and hold public office because “women are to stay silent”. Strangely, very few people still try to to that nowadays (except with ulterior motives).
Was the Bible wrong, James? Or rather, were the people interpreting the Bible through the lens of their ignorance and racism wrong? Fundamentalists like to cling to old translations of the Bible (negating the progress made in understanding the meaning of words) because it suits their frame of mind, simply. They are scared of anything that is not simplistic, black and white, cut and dried.
Do you know some children are born with an ambiguous gender, incomplete genitals, or hormone signatures that are not clearly male or female and sometimes with extra chromosomes? These children are created by God, James. Is Creation evil?
According to the latest scientific research, homosexuality is decided before birth. (God gave us heads to use them, said my old pastor.) Children often know at a very young age that are gay and sometimes their parents know it too, before puberty, in the absence of any contact with any gay adult or other outside influence.
How then can you say that this is a “perversion” (meaning by that a conscious choice to do evil)?
These children are also created by God. They are my brothers and sisters. But you prefer to act like Cain.
It’s so weird we’re not hearing from rabid Christian homophobe James anymore. I wonder what happened? It’s like he’s been blocked or something.
Awwwww, what did have to go deleting that for, when we finally got to take on a *real* argument for preventing gay marriage? I didn’t find that particularly disrespectful (compared to, say, the comment immediately below), and it was with no insignificant effort that undertook giving rebuttal to it, knowing that this sort of stuff coming out of “family values” think tanks is what allows policy makers to sustain their prejudices with an air of rationality, whereas no one wins a national debate, much less a major election, these days running on a platform of “the Bible says so” (free universal public education, for all its failings, has at least secured us this). In fact it should be remembered that the intellectual forces with which neoconservatism (let’s make no mistake that that’s were the problem lies; more traditionally conservative libertarians tend more to see gay/straight marriage on equal legal footing nowadays) originates and by which, to a great extent, it is shaped, are atheistic (which, b.t.w., is part of why they are in our understanding misguided; yet they know no such thing as “our understanding” because their philosophies assert the primacy of self, or of consciousness, defined as self-awareness, or something along these lines).
Oh, I didn’t realize you’d given it a big answer. I’ll reinstate it. Sorry.
No problem. Thanks, John.
Attending an Exodus International convention, perhaps?
hmmmm.
(well… I’ll just go ahead and post this reply anyway…)
“John 1: 1-2 states that, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and the Word Was God. He was in the beginning with God.’ Guys, this is the trinity. The ‘Word’ here is Jesus.”
We’re aware of that (and personally I think those verses and the ones which follow are some of the most profound verses in any Scripture ever). The problem seems to be that *you* aren’t aware of that, and its implications. You think the Word is the Bible, instead of Jesus (and what that really means is that you think the Word certainly says whatever your interpretation of whatever Bible you happen to choose happens to be). Now Jesus doesn’t go around telling people they’re not allowed to be married. Of course, neither does the Bible, but whatever. (In fact, the Bible never *does* anything; Jesus, however, works miracles—yes, even the miracle of uniting a same-sex couple in Holy Matrimony! Would you believe that? O you of little faith, all things are possible with God [I know, that's the problem I have with God too].)
“When you reject concrete teaching of scripture (which is the infallible word of God), you effectively reject Jesus-the ‘Word’.”
But look at the difference in capitalization that you used. I don’t know about you, but to me that makes a difference. Are you saying that capitalization is without effect as regards concrete meaning? Well, is it the same to talk about an apple store and an Apple Store? Sorry, but Jesus is not a book. Jesus is a diving being, and Jesus is a human being. His human being can be seen in flesh and blood; his divine being—in love and truth. That’s all love, James: gay, straight or indifferent, Jesus is in their midst! The new covenant, writes Paul, is not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
“sin is sin” — Agreed. So I’ll pray that what your saying hasn’t and doesn’t hurt someone, and I’ll pray for your forgiveness if so.
“addictions to pornography is just the same as homosexuality”
How so? Are all homosexual persons unhealthily lustful? (Or is it that all porn addicts are gay?)
“If we live in habitual sin, we have not been born of the Spirit, and we certainly have not been washed with the Word (Jesus).”
Exactly. So I really hope that this isn’t a habit for you, James. I’ll trust this is the first time you’ve said these hurtful things publically and that it will be a one time mistake, yes?
On a more theological matter, assuming you meant God’s Word is timeless (otherwise, I’m not sure which of God’s words exactly you could be referring to as somehow timeless), why do you think so?
The Father is without beginning, and so without time, but the Son—the Word—is the beginning and the end, in time, so as, in the fullness of it, to reveal the Father, becoming (and remaining) man, which is such a being as abides in time. How else does the Timeless minister to those stuck in time but by sending word into time in some way? Now, the Word is indeed immortal, but only because he died, that Hades holds no power over him, but by his death (a real event in time, as I understand it) he put Death to death, for those who believe in him. While the Father is eternally the same, the Son, in order to do the will of the Father in these things (and so much more that I doubt the world itself could contain all the books that should be written), did will to be incarnate—and matter does not exist except with energy and motion at some level, and these have meaning only assuming time. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52) So it doesn’t sound like the Word is timeless to me; ever-existing—perhaps, but if so, ever-moving and ever-changing; the Everlasting, from everlasting, to everlasting, which we see as beginning and end, which know as different forms—Alpha and Omega—though the essence is One with Father and the Holy Spirit: and the essence is Love, James. God is love.
Matthew, that was great & amazing. I pray that I can learn to make such well worded responses to “Christians” who are hatemongers. I have had a hard time explaining why I know that I am not wrong in my belief that Jesus would not condone the mistreatment of the LGBT community.
John, I am so happy to have found your blog.
The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage
The Tech (M.I.T.) – Cambridge, Mass.
| Tuesday, February 17, 2004
| Adam Kolasinksi
Posted on Fri Feb 20 2004 14:28:38 GMT-0500 (EST) by rightcoast
THE SECULAR CASE AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE
Adam Kolasinksi
Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason to grant them the costly benefits of marriage.
The Tech, Volume 124, Number 5
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one’s spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.
I do not claim that all of these other types of couples restricted from marrying are equivalent to homosexual couples. I only bring them up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason. When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse’s social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse’s health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy. Why? Because a marriage between to unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.
Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate. One might argue that the exclusion of blood relatives from marriage is only necessary to prevent the conception of genetically defective children, but blood relatives cannot marry even if they undergo sterilization. Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reaching technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children.
Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.
One may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages, but a lesbian’s sexual relationship, committed or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce. Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe’s Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Unfortunately, small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. However, the empirically verified common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child’s development should give advocates of gay adoption pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomy, so it is essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Is it wise to have a scoial policy that encourages family arrangements that deny children such essentials? Gays are not necessarily bad parents, nor will they necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female.
Some have compared the prohibition of homosexual marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage. This analogy fails because fertility does not depend on race, making race irrelevant to the state’s interest in marriage. By contrast, homosexuality is highly relevant because it precludes procreation.
Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships today. Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to the state and society.
Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation. In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years. Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation.
The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis cant it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction that love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.
Adam Kolasinski is a doctoral student in financial economics.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other…” You can’t serve homosexual perversion and God…
That’s true, James. No one can serve two masters. An example? One can’t be a godly parent in the ways that God calls us to parent our children while at the same time, believing that being gay and being christian is incompatible. So given you won’t answer, I’m going to assume that if one of your kids told you they were gay? Like so many other homophobic fathers. you would kick your gay child out of your home like so many parents I’ve encountered like you do in the ‘name of God’. You would send them into the streets to be subject to predators and criminals who rape them and destroy them. Because you prioritize your homophobia before them. And that, my friend. will reap an eternal consequence for you – messing with one of God’s little children like that – I would not wish on my worst enemy. But keep posting this stuff that no one is reading – your non-answers speak far more than what you post does.
James, please read Romans 2:1-4 the next time your quote anything from Romans 1.
I’m glad we’ve realized that the Bible gives insufficient support to such ideas and so moved closer to the real fears behind the conservative position here—that somehow family as we know it, and thus society, is endangered.
I’m familiar with this argument, which hinges upon the understanding that propagation of society is a compelling state interest. Why? How? Why should I believe this to be so? In fact, there are many states around the globe that recognize just the opposite as a compelling interest. So why does it matter to the state how biologically fruitful society is? Couldn’t it be in the long run easier on the state AND the society if the society thinned out a bit?
“Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.”
Yes, but they are the only ones denied it due to an unjust discrimination—namely, an institutionalized gender discrimination. It is the only way in which we are compelled to discriminate in offering marriage contracts on the basis of something that we are compelled NOT to discriminate on the basis of when it comes to employment contracts. Such an inconsistency is rationally untenable, and so, having been exposed as error, must surely be abandoned.
“Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them.”
Really? Well guess what: the same goes for sterile siblings/cousins!
But are we sure there are more homosexual couples than couples involving women past menopause or otherwise sterile and/or a knowably sterile man? What’s the source for that information?
And according to such reasoning, there’s certainly no reason we should let aging couples retain the benefits of marriage once they are no longer able to contribute to the “propagation of the society”.
But, at least according to the general American worldview, the true interest of the state—the purpose for which governments are instituted among men—is to secure certain rights, among which we count the right to the pursuit of happiness, and such cruel measures interfere with that right, and not for the sake of any other right. So it’s really just that simple.
You claim that advocates of gay marriage have failed to show what state interest the marriages serve: that interest is the people’s pursuit of happiness. What worthier end in itself could there be for the state than this? And I really don’t think we need the help of the state at this point to keep our society from dying out. I will leave it to organic processes to strike a naturally balanced propagation rate, that, perhaps a little lower, could be rather more sustainable (and happier for those it sustains) in the long run, in a world vested with finite resources.
“However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe’s Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development.”
I disagree that evidence is ample, and that they necessarily *need* two *parents* exactly of different genders (or even that gender would be so clear-cut really).
“In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment.”
So why not no state marriage benefits until someone’s actually pregnant, or else a child already chosen for adopt?
Come on — to our detriment — really? Whereas in some Eastern Societies, such as China, it’s such a good thing, that now they’ve got such a population growth nightmare that they now have to actively discourage procreation, sometimes forcibly?
“If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis cant it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other?”
The state does not and cannot judge whether parties to a marriage love one another; rather, the state registers and recognizes the existence of the marriage contract by virtue of the expressed will of the parties involved to form a corporate body that meets the state requirements for and definition of a marriage.
Under current US law, this means a marriage must exist between exactly two parties. But what, pray tell, would be so wrong with working out a way of recognizing each of the two men as married to three separate women, and each of the three women, to two men? Well, the problem with polygamous marriages in general, as I understand it, is that they tend to leave an excess of unmarried men in the population (in countries not routinely at war like the various tribes of Jacob’s and Mohammed’s times were), which men then become something of a plague and burden on the society and the victims of a sort of classism, where the men/women with the most power and money acquiring the most spouses, further driving a wedge in contemporary society between the haves from the have-nots. But as for the sterile brother-sister question: none – no basis really – why not let them marry?
“If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.”
And what if that’s a good thing? Perhaps the state never really had much reason to be involved in the marriage business in the first place; so maybe the disintegration of state control and a substantial restructuring of how what benefits are recognized for whom could allow society to realize a more natural pattern of human relationship in the present-day world.
James I’m not going to read anything you post until you follow the polite rules of a conversation and answer the question posed to you. Which is, what would you do if one of your children told you he or she was gay? How would you handle it?
HHomosexuality is utter perversion, period.
Ok, thanks for clearing that up.
James. Serious question. What will you if one of your children is gay? How will you handle that?
Then there is homosexuality which likewise is condemned in Scripture. The Apostle Paul, writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declares that homosexuality “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:9; 10). Now Paul does not single out the homosexual as a special offender. He includes fornicators, idolators, adulterers, thieves, covetous persons, drunkards, revilers and extortioners. And then he adds the comment that some of the Christians at Corinth had been delivered from these very practices: “And such were some of you: But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:11). All of the sins mentioned in this passage are condemned by God, but just as there was hope in Christ for the Corinthians, so is there hope for all of us.
Homosexuality is an illicit lust forbidden by God. He said to His people Israel, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13). In these passages homosexuality is condemned as a prime example of sin, a sexual perversion. The Christian can neither alter God’s viewpoint nor depart from it.
In the Bible sodomy is a synonym for homosexuality. God spoke plainly on the matter when He said, “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel” (Deuteronomy 23:17). The whore and the sodomite are in the same category. A sodomite was not an inhabitant of Sodom nor a descendant of an inhabitant of Sodom, but a man who had given himself to homosexuality, the perverted and unnatural vice for which Sodom was known. Let us look at the passages in question:
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house around, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. (Genesis 19:4-8)
The Hebrew word for “know” in verse 5 is yada`, a sexual term. It is used frequently to denote sexual intercourse (Genesis 4:1, 17, 25; Matthew 1:24, 25). The message in the context of Genesis 19 is clear. Lot pled with the men to “do not so wickedly.” Homosexuality is wickedness and must be recognized as such else there is no hope for the homosexual who is asking for help to be extricated from his perverted way of life.
James,
Thanks for the scripture. I think we’ve all read this – maybe a thousand times? We all have access to the same Bible you have, we just don’t use it to justify our emotional pathology/character defects like you do.,
I pray to God that none of your children are gay, what hell on earth that would be for them to be on the receiving end of this, you are exactly the kind of father I’ve dealt with who kicks them out of the “loving Christian home” I’m sure you think you’re providing. Next to prove they aren’t gay, I’m sure you’ll be posting pictures of them at a dance or something, right? Just like you violated your wife’s privacy by sending people to your Facebook to prove what a strong straight man you are (I didn’t search by the way because I have more respect for her privacy than you do).
Now what else do you have? This is old news. I’m nursing a cold so have lots of time on my hands. Keep going, this is awesome to watch you stomp out of here in a righteous huff, only to come back for more.
Actually, Deu. 23:17 says something much more like, “There is not to be a female temple prostitute among the daughters of Israel, nor is there to be a male temple prostitute among sons of Israel.”
But anyway, read two verses further and you find: “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury”.
Either it’s all been abrogated for us, or I sure hope you don’t ever deposit in accounts or invest in financial instruments happening to accrue interest at the expense of any fellow son of Israel (at a rate at any time greater than that of inflation)!
And then there’s this at the end of the chapter: “When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour’s standing corn.”
I’d love to hear someone point to this verse as “proof” that it was OK that they vandalized their neighbor’s crop! The point—different time, different place: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
Now, about Sodom, what’s wrong with you that you pervert the scriptures like this? Lot, a righteous man, recognizing before he even went out the door (which is why he made sure to shut it behind him) what these men intended to do, knew exactly why they could do no such thing and plainly rebuked them: “for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof,”—NOT “for likewise are you men as they”!
(The point is Lot’s hospitality despite the wickedness of the men of the city all around him, and how through it he was saved from sharing their fate.)
Why you so fixated on the orientation of people’s sexuality, that you appear utterly blind to the fact that disrobing, beating, gang-raping, robbing, and—once the repeated, forced sodomy loses its thrill—ditching by the roadside far from home those whose only crime was being an outsider among you and your people is just plain evil beyond words, regardless of the genders involved? Anyhow, Lot’s thinking to offer them his daughters demonstrates that he didn’t even consider them all to be truly homosexual (in which case, he would know they wouldn’t be interested, and he had lived among these men for quite a while by then). What it does not show, however, was that what was so bad about it was the gender of the intended victims, for Lot didn’t have any sons living under his roof at the time. Psychologists have long known that rape is not about sex, expressing one’s sexual orientation, but about power (its victims are more often women because women are more often more easily overpowered, but so might be a few male angels alone in a community of powerful demons). So how can you so pervert the intent of Scripture that you use a tale of a perverse desire to inflict terrible evil upon helpless victims to inflict terrible evil upon helpless victims? Let no one be deceived: the perversion of Sodom and Gomorrah has nothing to do with being gay. While only the men, and only of Sodom—but all of them regardless of sexual preference—were involved in the cited example of the perverse and wicked spirit among them, all were destroyed; God was already about to do this prior to this taking place, the angels having been sent in fact to warn Lot about it.
“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” (Ezekiel 16:48-50)
Matthew, you are one of the brightest spots on this forum. So smart.
The words “homosexual” and “homosexuality” (specifically in 1 Corinthians 6:9) have been substitute for the original Greek word “catemite” which translates: “boys kept for purposes of prostitution”. The term Sodomy clearly refers to RAPE or more specific to the quoted scripture Deuteronomy 23:17, gang rape! The whore and the sodomite are classified together because they are both used for prostitution. And if you really think about it, can you really say that the whole of Sodom were homosexuals? There were men, women and children gathered at Lot’s door. These people were interested in degrading Lot’s visitors, overpowering them, defiling them in, not having loving, committed sexual relations with them. Come on James, seriously?
Both Paul and Jesus tell us in the New Testament that we are not under the Levital law. These laws were laws of “Holiness” given to the priests. They were instructed not to wear certain clothing, eat specific foods, and to abstain from several sexual situations. Many Biblical scholars, believe that the quoted scriptures about men lying with men refer to the, then common, pagan practice of men taking male prostitutes within the temple.
Even when we believe the Scriptures are “infallible” and “without error,” it’s terribly dangerous to think that our understanding of every Biblical text is also without error. We ARE fallible. We DO err”. And we can certainly misunderstand and misinterpret these ancient words.
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