# Anti-gay Christians are merely bigots **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 10, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810 "2015-07-10T22:26:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/41 "2015-07-11T06:02:08Z")
> [@Eternal\_Truths](#): > > If marriage was a simply a documentation of someone’s love for something else then many young men could truly get married to xbox, or someone to their pet. If sex was any use of the reproductive faculties then one could truly have sex with a refrigerator… Yeah, comparing my love for my husband (whom I’ve been with for 12 years, if only married for 1 (and please not the lack of scare quotes)) with love for a video game or an animal isn’t insulting or belittling at all. Good Christian you are… ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/42 "2015-07-11T06:09:27Z")
> [@Eternal\_Truths](#): > > I’d just like to mention that there is a major misuse of the term “sex” going on here. That term denotes the act between a man and a woman which produces offspring. Actions between two men or two women which make use of the same sexual functions is not “sex”, it is “sodomy” (the term used by all news outlets and courts of law to describe that action), Cool. Then two men may engage in it in a public place, and it is not “public sex.” (And the laws against sodomy have already been struck down.) Hey, guys, we just won another big legal victory, by nothing more than a dictionary citation! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/43 "2015-07-11T06:27:24Z")
> [@Eternal\_Truths](#): > > Marriage=procreation except in defective cases. Such as between Dutch people. Nothing makes the union of Dutch people natural, desirable, Godly, or, in the relevant and correct sense, _sex_, because it is correctly viewed as sodomy. Seriously: Can we as a society really pretend that the union of two Dutch people qualifies as a marriage? Have we lost all sense? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/44 "2015-07-11T07:03:11Z")
> [@Eternal\_Truths](#): > > Marriage=procreation except in defective cases. These aren’t my definitions lol, where are you getting your denotations from? Where did you get your definitions from? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/45 "2015-07-11T08:13:58Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > Homosexuality isn’t a Christianity issue; it’s a social issue dressed up in vestments. Or am I missing something? Emphasis added Yes. That’s transvestitism. 🙂 But, in all seriousness, who are you to tell Christians what they should or should not believe? Next, you’ll be telling them that the host doesn’t _really_ transubstantiate into the Body of Christ. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/46 "2015-07-11T08:53:11Z")
> [@Eternal\_Truths](#): > > I’d just like to mention that there is a major misuse of the term “sex” going on here. That term denotes the act between a man and a woman which produces offspring. Actions between two men or two women which make use of the same sexual functions is not “sex”, it is “sodomy” (the term used by all news outlets and courts of law to describe that action), Bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/47 "2015-07-11T09:57:02Z")
> [@Pinmin](#): > > I’m guessing you’d rather just bash Christians than have a true discussion, but you must know that the Old Testament laws were a contract between God and the Isrealites. Christians are under no obligation to follow any of those laws. They are if they think that the Mosaic laws dealing with morality (as opposed to the purely ceremonial laws) are the basis of the absolute morality they like to talk about, and not just God fucking with the Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/48 "2015-07-11T11:40:54Z")
> [@Pinmin](#): > > I’m guessing you’d rather just bash Christians than have a true discussion, but you must know that the Old Testament laws were a contract between God and the Isrealites. Christians are under no obligation to follow any of those laws. I am no bible scholar, but if I understand the OP right, it says that the only bible quotes which \*clearly \*speak out against homosexuality come from the old testament along with those other laws learjeff has quoted. Is that true? If yes, then today’s Christians seem to actually think these laws must be followed today - why else would they condemn homosexuality and justify that with the bible? Personally I believe that the laws laid down in the bible simply reflect the moral standards of the people who wrote it and thus of the society they were living in. But society and its moral standards have changed over time. A good example is our attitude towards slavery. When the bible was written it was widely accepted as a fact of life. As long as a slave oner refrained from unduly mistreating his slaves few people would have objected and neither does the bible. Today of course we live in a society where the notion that one person can own another is universally rejected. The reason why no Christian is quoting bible passages to justify slave ownership is simply that they don’t want to. Turn back the clock by some 150 years, and I’m sure you will find Christians who did just that. The change in attitude towards homosexuality is a much more recent development. Until well into the last century it was illegal in most western nations, and in other parts of the world it still is today. So I don’t find it surprising that conservative Christians still are looking to the bible for justifications to reject homosexuality - something they would never do for slavery. They aren’t bigots. They just aren’t there yet. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/49 "2015-07-11T12:07:19Z")
> [@Pinmin](#): > > Nice strawman / ad hominem combo there. I know many Christians who feel as strongly about divorce or adultery among other things. However, no one is getting sued for not making a divorce cake, so it doesn’t make the news. That’s because nobody asks for a divorce case, as I am sure you are aware. However, millions of “marriage after divorce” cakes are made every year, and I have never heard of a baker refusing to make a second marriage cake–despite the fact that Luke 16:18 says, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.” There are no lawsuits on the matter because there are no refusals on the matter. > [@](#): > > There also needs to be a distinction made, especially as it relates to politics. Like many groups, there are social Christians who claim the label based on occasional visit to a church or what label their parents had. Then there are religious Christians who attempt to follow Jesus and the teachings of the Bible. I speak for the second group. I know you believe you speak for the whole group. I am reminded of the words of my favorite Christian writer: > [@Kahlil Gibran](#): > > Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon. And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, “My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree." ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/50 "2015-07-11T12:29:28Z")
> [@Hiker](#): > > I am no bible scholar, but if I understand the OP right, it says that the only bible quotes which \*clearly \*speak out against homosexuality come from the old testament along with those other laws learjeff has quoted. Is that true? > > If yes, then today’s Christians seem to actually think these laws must be followed today - why else would they condemn homosexuality and justify that with the bible? Some of them base it on the condemnation of homosexuality in Corinthians, which was always read as such by anyone who understood Greek until the 1970s, when it was magically discovered that the Koine word for “homosexuals” actually meant “prostitutes” or even “whoever does whatever we consider at any place and time to be sexually immoral, which may or may not be anybody” despite no linguistic evidence for this novel reading whatsoever. Others acknowledge that some parts of Leviticus were maintained and some weren’t. The problem with “you’re just hypocrites selectively reading the Bible” is that is has never convinced anyone. What Christians believe is what Christians believe. “You should interpret the Bible differently than you do” is a religious exhortation, just as much as “you should be a Muslim instead of a Christian” or “you should be an atheist instead of a Christian” is. It’s the sort of masterstroke-in-your-own-mind that you can easily get into when you spend all your time among like-minded people, but it doesn’t actually do anything in a real argument with a real Christian homophobe. They already know that you believe differently than they do, and you adding on that you are playing armchair Bible scholar based on something you read on Facebook neither changes nor strengthens that argument – it just makes you seem disingenuous. After all, you don’t really believe that people should follow the Bible at all, so what are you doing making an argument about which interpretation of Jesus’s supposed abrogation of Levitical law is correct? Homophobes/Christians are evil and stupid. But they’re not as stupid as you think they are. They know when you’re bullshitting like this, and this tactic has never succeeded in changing anyone’s mind about anything. Social shame, demonstrations that the sky doesn’t fall when there are equal rights, and appeals to basic humanity from showing gay family members and friends to outright “if your religion is telling you to treat people in an evil way, abandon your religion” work. Tendentious attempts to pretend you care abut Biblical interpretation when you are way in over your head and just coming up with off-the-cuff nonsense on that topic don’t. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/51 "2015-07-11T13:07:00Z")
> [@Pinmin](#): > > A religious Christian should love all regardless. That doesn’t mean they have to agree that everything that person does is good and right. And disagreement is not hate. I love Christians. I just find the practice of Christianity to be an abomination. > [@Pinmin](#): > > The orthodox Christian view is just because someone has desires, that doesn’t make them right to follow through. Hence the belief that sex is intended only for a man and woman who are married. > > … > > What is wrong with celibacy for someone with same sex attractions? > > … > > Can you define the mistakes God made? I don’t understand how that follows. God’s mistake, or maybe it’s a cute little practical joke, is creating an entire subset of people who by his own supposed moral laws can’t ever have sex. ---
**Author:** ![Eternal\_Truths](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Eternal\_Truths](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal_Truths)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/52 "2015-07-11T13:16:25Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Speak for yourself. When I have sex, the primary end goal is pleasure. > > or procreation comes about as an unintended side-effect. > > This much, at least, is accurate. And that should tell you something about the primary end goal[s] of the people who engage in the practice. > > Marriage is the documentation and legal registration of the forming of a family. > > On the contrary, the outcome of _Obergefell v. Hodges_ is strong evidence that, collectively, our sense is becoming stronger and more sensible. I am not talking about the way things work in your created universe. I’m talking about the way things work in the unchangeable universe that you and I both inhabit. In this universe we find both unchangeable purpose and meaning. For one to deny one or the other is simply a misuse of the intellect. It is obvious what “nature” intends when sex is happening, and the pleasure is not the purpose. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/53 "2015-07-11T13:25:57Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Some of them base it on the condemnation of homosexuality in Corinthians, which was always read as such by anyone who understood Greek until the 1970s, when it was magically discovered that the Koine word for “homosexuals” actually meant “prostitutes” or even “whoever does whatever we consider at any place and time to be sexually immoral, which may or may not be anybody” despite no linguistic evidence for this novel reading whatsoever. > > Others acknowledge that some parts of Leviticus were maintained and some weren’t. > > The problem with “you’re just hypocrites selectively reading the Bible” is that is has never convinced anyone. What Christians believe is what Christians believe. “You should interpret the Bible differently than you do” is a religious exhortation, just as much as “you should be a Muslim instead of a Christian” or “you should be an atheist instead of a Christian” is. It’s the sort of masterstroke-in-your-own-mind that you can easily get into when you spend all your time among like-minded people, but it doesn’t actually do anything in a real argument with a real Christian homophobe. They already know that you believe differently than they do, and you adding on that you are playing armchair Bible scholar based on something you read on Facebook neither changes nor strengthens that argument – it just makes you seem disingenuous. **After all, you don’t really believe that people should follow the Bible at all, so what are you doing making an argument about which interpretation of Jesus’s supposed abrogation of Levitical law is correct?** That’s not how I see it. I am merely pointing out that the bible is full of contradictions and asking them to look at the very thing that drives their faith and since they are “choosing” which parts to follow anyway, why not go with the ones that do no/less harm to their fellow humans. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/54 "2015-07-11T13:28:38Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > They are if they think that the Mosaic laws dealing with morality (as opposed to the purely ceremonial laws) are the basis of the absolute morality they like to talk about, and not just **God fucking with the Jews**. (bolding mine) Godomy? ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/55 "2015-07-11T13:29:14Z")
> [@Eternal\_Truths](#): > > I am not talking about the way things work in your created universe. You may want to hold off on accusing people of being in an alternate universe. So far not a single person here has agreed with the definitions you are using. Your definitions can’t be found in dictionaries or in law. **Kaylasdad99** may not be in your reality but it would seem he is in the same one as the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/56 "2015-07-11T14:11:26Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > That’s not how I see it. I am merely pointing out that the bible is full of contradictions and asking them to look at the very thing that drives their faith and since they are “choosing” which parts to follow anyway, why not go with the ones that do no/less harm to their fellow humans. On an emotional level, this works – it’s basically a way of appealing to “be a good person instead of a religious person” while letting them save social face by not repudiating their church entirely. I’m just saying, don’t pretend it is some great intellectual argument. It’s arrogant to pretend that Christians haven’t come up with explanations for why homosexuality is bad and shrimp is good over the last 2000 years. These explanations are _stupid and evil_, but pretending they don’t even _exist_ is narcissistic; basically, it’s proclaiming that if some discussion took place before you personally became interested in the issue, it didn’t really happen. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/57 "2015-07-11T16:11:19Z")
> [@Eternal\_Truths](#): > > I am not talking about the way things work in your created universe. I’m talking about the way things work in the unchangeable universe that you and I both inhabit. In this universe we find both unchangeable purpose and meaning. For one to deny one or the other is simply a misuse of the intellect. It is obvious what “nature” intends when sex is happening, and the pleasure is not the purpose. If sex were only for procreation, women would be interested in sex only when procreation was possible. My dog was like that when she was a breeder. So, either your claimed knowledge of what God wants is faulty, or God screwed up. Not to mention that my father got remarried when he and my stepmother were well beyond the age of reproduction. Was his marriage wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/58 "2015-07-11T16:17:55Z")
So a guy who knocks up a 10 year old is having Bible approved sex, but my sister and her wife are sodomites? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/59 "2015-07-11T16:18:30Z")
> [@Pinmin](#): > > That is taken out of context, but that’s not the point of my reply. > > I will agree with you somewhat on this. I believe too many who claim to be Christians are looking to make America a theocracy rather than doing what they should be doing as Christians. They should live their beliefs regardless of country, form of government, etc. However, Christians can and should vote according to what they believe is best for the country just like everyone else. If some Christians feel that SSM is wrong, they are free not to partake of it. But if they want to impose their views on those of us who are not Christians, they need to explain why these views are good for the rest of us without reference to God. The attempts to do this in court cases failed miserably. Attempting to impose religious morality on others is exactly what theocracies do, so the accusation has some merit. And of course goes directly against the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810/60 "2015-07-11T16:34:47Z")
> [@Pinmin](#): > > There also needs to be a distinction made, especially as it relates to politics. Like many groups, there are social Christians who claim the label based on occasional visit to a church or what label their parents had. Then there are religious Christians who attempt to follow Jesus and the teachings of the Bible. I speak for the second group. No, you don’t. There are a lot of deeply religious, deeply observant Christians who support gay rights, up to and including marriage rights. And by “deeply religious, deeply observant,” I don’t just mean “goes to Church regularly,” I mean, “has joined a monastery.” I’ve marched in marriage rights parades alongside Dominican monks. I have a friend who is becoming a Franciscan friar. Last time I talked to him, he had open blisters on his fingers from working the food line in a homeless shelter. You don’t speak for those guys. Not on this issue, you don’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-gay-christians-are-merely-bigots/724810.md?page=4)