What would be a good short, succinct response to the person who posted this on my FB page? I’m getting nowhere and nothing but a headache. (Or should I just let it go…?)
“God’s tolerance for polygamy for a while was no indication that He was/is indifferent about homosexuality and adultery. In the verses used in the chart God said not to kid yourself or deceive yourself into thinking that any of the listed sins were OK. In fact, He was emphatic that such people WILL NOT inherit the kingdom of God. Secondly, the passage in 1 Corinthians 7 was a special circumstance of a “present distress” that moved Paul to advocate that it is better to remain single (under THOSE circumstances, not in every circumstance) yet, avoiding fornication (sexual immorality) is more important that those circumstances. So, law over-rides circumstance. Paul pointed out the crucial importance of a man-woman marriage in Eph.5:23f. So, Jesus took us back to the original uncorrupted plan of a single man and a single woman showing the plan for marriage. There was never a time that God tolerated homosexuality, much less allowed for such marriages.”
“You cannot reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into.”
You won’t make a difference to the poster regardless of what you say to them, but you might to some of the readers.
This answer is short, isn’t overly hostile, is somewhat witty, and you can post it and then ignore the rest of what they say, easily avoiding getting dragged into the horribly uncomfortable ongoing internet argument that the original poster desperately wants to get into and win.
Exactly. I know I’ll never sway this person; my main goal is to make it clear to all of my other FB friends that I do not endorse this viewpoint whatsoever.
There isn’t a short Facebook-wall sort of answer. In person, I usually just note how many proof-texts were quoted in defense of Biblical slavery and how abolitionists pointed to an abstract sense of empowerment, equality, and brotherhood in the Bible as a whole, for which they were mocked and derided as twisting Christian texts to clearly anti-Christian ends in the face of obvious Biblical approval of chattel slavery.
“I do not endorse this viewpoint whatsoever” works pretty well.
There is a cruel and abusive theme that keeps surfacing in Christianity, hurtful to those who themselves are victimized and never cause harm themselves. Self-identified Christians so often appear to focus their vicious hate on the last people who deserve it. I used to volunteer as an escort at an abortion clinic, to help anxious and miserable patients fend off the Christians who would bump up against them and jostle them and get in their way between the parking lot and the clinic entrance, and knock them off the especially high curb near the bottom of the clinic steps. In the lulls between patients, the Christians would jeer at us that we escorts were “homosexuals”. They would actually blame gay people for the phenomenon of abortion. Really? If there is one population that needs abortions less than most, surely it is the lesbian and gay community.
And they were frightening. In your face, and making lots of physical contact. And they seemed edgy and unhinged. They impressed fear upon me - as I think they must have intended.
So many of them. It impressed me forever.
I think you can state your belief that marriage rights should not be given only to preferred demographic groups, but to all loving responsible consenting adults. You can donate to marriage rights charities (I have set this up automatically on a monthly basis). You can join local PFLAG chapters, and Employee Resource Groups at work, download literature, do all kinds of things – and most importantly, be visible on your Facebook page and elsewhere. The world of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and ally people is populous and varied and everywhere. We just don’t always look that way. We should.
“I’m not a Christian, so I don’t really care about what you think God wants. And thanks to the first amendment, you’re not allowed to force me to follow your religious dogma.”
If you are a Christian, replace the first sentence with, “My church has different teachings than yours.”
Do the paperwork and start an official religion which says that SSM is perfectly fine because God said so. Make him explain why your religion is less valid than his.
My response would be to remove that post from my FB wall, remove that person’s ability to post things to my wall, and change the settings so I only receive major life events in my news feed. I think that will send the appropriate message to all that care.
Oh, also, note that the Bible never, ever says anything about gay marriage. There are a couple verses that condemn men having sex with men, but none that say a word about who can marry who.
I’m sure there’s a writeup somewhere about how God forces you to marry your dead husband’s brother, endorses polygamy, sentences divorced women to death, all that stuff.
Look for all the whacky old stuff that’s just as much a part of the bible as anything else, but that modern society has thrown away because the social situation has changed since then. Divorce used to be death, then it just became taboo, and gradually it became accepted. Did the bible change? No, society did. People believe whatever they want to believe, and what they want to believe changes over the years.
So in 50 years, as the demographics shift, religion won’t care about gay marriage any more than it does about divorce, because the people who choose what they want to believe won’t care about it as much.
“What a perfect parody of a frothing religiot, [friend]! Aren’t we lucky we live in a time and place where we know how utterly cruel and abusive that sort of attitude is?”