Give it up, prisoner. Until you tell them what they want to hear, they’ll still hate you, and no amount of explaining yourself is going to change that.
In our defense, a lot of our beliefs are under constant attack. However, that is not a good justification for the statements made against homosexuals.
Yep. They are. I find that to be reprehensible.
Oh, I’m quite aware of it. I used to be one of the attackers. But you know what? I realized that there are real people out there, with real feelings, really dying solely because of their sexuality, and I decided that my opinions were no longer going to be guided strictly on the basis of a book. That’s not to say that the Book does not have good lessons contained within, but I take the good and discard the bad. In my mind, that is what being a good Christian is all about. “Love one another as yourself” are good words, and I try to live them, but sometimes I fall short. Some people don’t even try, which is despicable.
Some of us do care. I have gone to the wall defending you guys against all manner of bigotry, something that is not at all easy to do while you’re wearing a uniform.
And that is perfectly understandable. Just keep in mind that there are converts. Me, for instance.
Ok. Touche’. While I don’t think anyone believed that in the '80’s (or '60’s, or ‘20’s, or 1890’s, or 1820’s…) Look at it from the perspective of the faithful. They were told in 1500 ish that Copernicus’ ideas were ludicrous. Blasphemous. This same finding was not corrected thru the 1500’s. Or the 1600’s. Or the 1700’s. Or the 1800’s… You get my point… GENERATION upon generation were left hanging in the wind, blindly following a PAPAL praoclamation instead of scientific FACT! That is persecution of the very people they were charged with watching over. Spin it as you will, there is NO honor in the Catholic Church. This is just one small example.
And don’t flame me, I didn’t say Catholics… Catholic CHURCH.
Oh, please. Gimme a freaking break! I’d hate him even if he did tell me what I wanted to hear.
I need to stay away from The Pit. bows out embarrassed
You actually hate him? Wow. That’s unfortunate. Hate isn’t healthy.
Props for admitting it, I guess.
Wait a second, Abbie Carmichael. Who hates prisoner? I don’t. I think his opinions as he’s presented are completely worthless. I think his actions, fighting to suppress the rights of me and other people who share a trait with me, are evil and sinful. I think his hypocrisy is evil and offensive. I think that his unwillingness to back up his opinions is cowardly. But I don’t hate him.
Err, that doesn’t sound very satisfying, does it? And yet somehow, I’m supposed to be fine with what he says, and what you have said in the past, in that you don’t hate me personally, and yet you are still opposed to and will still speak out against and vote against and fight against the very idea that my love is a legitimate one and that my rights are as valid as anyone else’s.
And you refuse to give any validation to this. In the past, you (you personally, Abbie Carmichael, not “you” in the sense of some vague group of “conservatives”) have simply said that you’ll vote against my right to marry the person I love and when asked why, you simply said “because it’s wrong, obviously.” Nothing else. No justification. No reasons. What is that? How is that not “hate?”
The only part that you got right is that we’re not hearing what we want to hear. You know what I want to hear? Reasons. Justification. Anything other than “that’s my opinion, and I’m welcome to it, and I don’t have to justify it to you.” For whatever reason, I along with tens of thousands of other homosexuals, have been put into the position where we have to justify ourselves and explain ourselves before we’re extended the same benefits and acceptance that millions of other people take for granted.
And we’ve stepped up to the plate. We’ve opened our lives for inspection. We have spent far too much time defending ourselves against accusations of perversion and hedonism and loose moral values. We have explained why it should be legal. We have explained how religious arguments have no place in civil law. We have explained how
sexual orientation and religion can be compatible and don’t have to be eternally at odds. We have done this in an effort to fight for family, to fight for love, to fight for honor and commitment, whereas you are simply granted these things just by being born “right.”
And still we’re called “weak” and “worldly” and “sinful” and “deviant.” And then the counter-arguments just dry up. It always gets reduced to “well, that’s the way I think, and I have the right to my opinion.” And that’s it. No resolution, no possible indication that you’re remotely willing to challenge your opinions or reconsider anything, just the silent acknowledgement that despite everything you’ve heard, you will continue to fight against me.
And you won’t explain why. And that is what this thread is about, and that is what gets spectrum, and me, and the rest of us, so pissed off. You call it “hateful.” I call it “frustrated, past the breaking point.”
Don’t for one second act like you’re the martyr here. You – you, personally, Abbie Carmichael – have attacked me – me, personally, SolGrundy – by voting against and speaking out against my rights. If you claim you don’t hate me, then it is your responsibility to explain to me why you would vote against me unless it’s out of hate. Because you’ve given me no other explanation.
Explain yourself. This whole message board is your forum, your chance. Bring it, and listen to me and the rest of us when we respond to that. And don’t run away and stick your fingers in your ears and moan “why do they hate me? Why can’t they just let me have my opinion? That’s just a gay liberal message board, their opinions don’t matter” Make the effort to prove to me that you don’t hate me, and that you do have a reason for voting against me.
Until you and prisoner show that you’re willing to challenge your opinions and defend them and are open enough to at least consider the validity of what other people are saying, then your opinions are worthless. Worthless, and still for some reason powerful – because unlike me, you can vote on your opinions and deny me my rights.
I agree with all that and just want to remind you and the rest of us who consider ourselves Christian that you don’t have to throw out the book just yet. People who are much better theologists than I am have been able to make convincing arguments that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality but instead condemns promiscuous and purely carnal and lustful homosexual relationships. And without “watering down” the Bible or “picking and choosing the parts you like” at all.
The argument that religious belief has no place in civil rights is a perfectly valid one and the most compelling one, of course. But at least for me, I like to be reminded that I don’t have to reject my religion in order to support equality for homosexuals.
I can only imagine. Actually, it’s the day-to-day assertion of what’s “right” that’s a lot more difficult than arguing about it over a message board. I can’t count the number of times I’ve held my tongue and let comments in real life just roll off unchallenged, instead of pushing a debate, and I’ve got a more personal stake in the issue than a lot of others do.
Prisoner, you kinda lost me when you played the victim & the Devil comment (tho I do believe that you weren’t intentionally referring to Polycarp, I can’t say it didn’t look that way).
Still, not to add anything to the discussion but just to speak up…
I believe God made marriage, defined it as between man & woman, tolerated but did not favor polygamy, reinforced the heterosexual monogamous form of marriage in the teachings of His Incarnation as Jesus & of His faithful messenger Paul (and the other apostles) & His Catholic-Orthodox-Reforming Church. I believe that it takes a man & a woman to make a child & ideally that is the best arrangement in which to raise children and that society departs from God’s model of heterosexual monogamous marriage & child-rearing at its peril & I will vote accordingly.
Other than that, I believe Gov’t should stay out of adult private consensual sexual behavior and that people should be able to choose to legally bond with whoever.
For this I shall be called a Pharisee (which isn’t a totally negative term) and a homophobe. Oh well. Cry havoc and set loose the dogs of Pitting.
(bolding mine)
Your beliefs are your own, no havoc from me. Just questions, because the two parts I bolded seem to be in conflict and I’m not clear on what you mean by them. If you will vote according to your belief that heterosexual monogamous marriage is God’s model of the ideal relationship, but also believe that the government has no place in consensual adult relationships, how do you reconcile the two? Are you saying you’d vote in favor of civil unions for same-sex couples but not marriage?
I’m also unclear on how society at large is “at peril” by acknowledging the relationships of monogamous relationships (not just sexual behavior) of the small but significant percentage of its population who are homosexual, and the even smaller but still significant percentage of the population who practice polygamy. Or for that matter, how homosexual monogamous couples are failing to follow God’s “model” just by virtue of their being of the same sex.
I don’t believe Gov’t should make laws against adult consensual pre-marital sex, adultery (until the cheated spouse makes a civil claim for breach of marital contract), polyamory, or gay sex. I think the SCOTUS ruling striking down anti-sodomy laws was completely proper. I also do believe civil unions should be available for same-sex couples.
I’d even possibly concede the marriage issue if it were decided through referendums, rather than court decisions. Tho of course, I would vote against it, I would also acknowledge that society at large decided to redefine civil marriage, then I’d fight like hell if society ever tried to enforce it upon churches.
Well, that just leads to the same questions that are at the core of the issue. What is the legal justification for voting against civil marriage for homosexual couples while allowing it for heterosexual couples? Why are atheist heterosexual couples granted the legal right to “marriage,” while Christian homosexual couples are only allowed “civil unions?”
And I have to ask how deciding it through referendums is any kind of concession whatsoever. If you’re making a vote that affects you in no way but infringes on my rights, how is that any more fair than a court decision that benefits me but still has no affect on you in any way? Why is it better that thousands of people who don’t know me can vote according to their beliefs and decide that I am not entitled to marriage, instead of a court voting according to the law and decide that there’s no reason I shouldn’t be entitled to marriage? This isn’t just an argument, but a question, because that’s never been satisfactorily explained to me.
And for the record, if the government tried to force a private religious organization to act according to its beliefs, I’d fight against it as well. And when a private religious organization tries to force its beliefs on the rest of society, I’ll fight against that, too. Religous tolerance goes both ways; it has to.
Sorry, was a joke.
I don’t know prisoner well enough to hate him.
I have a hard time hating people anyway. It takes too much energy.
Got any reasons for this belief, or did it come to you in a dream?
I don’t recall Jesus taking this stance. As for Paul, he was anything but a faithful messenger of Jesus’s word. Jesus preached the doctrine of doing the Will of the Father. Paul invented the cult of Jesus-worship, something which I believe Jesus would have condemned.
There’s not a thing I could say to convince you that I don’t hate you, Grundy (as if I have the time and energy to think about you enough to work up hate :rolleyes:) . You’ll believe what you want about me until I change my mind and agree with you.
No, it’s not worth the effort. And of course I don’t have to justify the way I vote, it’s none of your business, just like how you vote is none of my concern. If you paid attention, you’d see that my state hasn’t voted on anything re: gay marriage, so I don’t know why you’re even whining about my voting practices to begin with.
You think that I haven’t listened to your opinions and others. Of course I have, and you probably know every argument in the book against gay marriage. You see my reasoning as not good enough, same as I see your reasoning as flawed. You take this to mean that I’m not “listening.” Is someone only listening in your book if they change their mind?
It’s New Year’s Eve. I’ve spent enough time on this subject.
Just four, by my count.
And here Polycarp has discovered evidence that Jesus not only condones gay oral sex, but that he commands swallowing rather than spitting. Hallelujah!
I can only hope that applies to women as well.
Yeah I agree with polycarp. Don’t get banned spectrum. i’ll continue to lurk and read your posts in like 2 hours when it’s Jan 1st over there. Thanks for caring.
Probably more like 4 hours.
No, I’ll believe what I want to about you until you give some indication that you’re listening, other than saying that what I believe is not worth the effort and you don’t have the time or energy to care enough about what affects me.
And that’s where you’re mistaken. If you vote to deny me the right to get married, it sure as hell is my business. How would you feel if by some bizarre turn of events, a vote was opened to every homosexual in the country to decide whether the relationships between Republicans could be called “marriage?” And as a result of the vote, your marriage, if any, was nullified, and you had no option to get it other than leaving the country. And what if I said that I voted against your right to marry, and I didn’t have to explain why because it was none of your business and it wasn’t worth the time and effort to justify it to you? Would you take it with no complaint, or would you start “whining?”
Err, because I’m not incredibly short-sighted and self-serving? Even if your state, whichever it may be, didn’t have a vote concerning same sex marriage, several states have. And they voted to deny it. And I can’t just say, “Whew, good thing I don’t live in Ohio or Missouri, or I would’ve been worried!” I already live in a state that doesn’t allow it; that doesn’t mean it sucks to see it happening elsewhere, moving in the wrong direction.
And in previous threads, you have spoken up that you would vote to deny it. And in this thread, you advised another poster to move along and not bother with it, because we’re only listening to what we want to hear. In other words, vote against other people and don’t bother to justify or explain your vote, because you are entitled to deny me my rights without giving me any explanation. (And as we’ve heard over and over again elsewhere, this is somehow more “fair” than a court decision.)
So that’s why I’m “whining.”
No, I don’t say your reasoning is not good enough. That would be unfair, because I have never seen nor heard any indication of your reasoning. It’s just been “I’m against it, and I don’t have to explain why.” I’m not saying people have to change their mind; I’m saying that they owe it to me and other homosexuals to explain why they’ve made up their minds in such a way.
Because the situation as we have it now is grossly unfair – no, you can’t get married, because 80% of the people who live in your state think it’s too different or wrong somehow, but you’re not entitled to hear why and you’re not entitled to take it to a higher court that is required to explain itself, because that somehow goes against the concept of democracy.
But enjoy your New Year’s. And that’s sincere. And take a moment to be thankful that you can just drop the subject when you don’t want to talk about it anymore, and your life will go on unchanged. Because some of us can’t.
Reason for believing God ordained marriage to be hetero & monogamous-
Genesis 1:27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 2: 23. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Reason for holding that Jesus reinforced that-Matthew 19
- And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan;
- And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.
- The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
- And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
- And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
- Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
- They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
- He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
- And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
- His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
- But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
- For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
And I totally disagree with your assessment of Paul’s creating “Jesus-worship”-
Jesus in the Gospels repeatedly referred to himself & accepted honor from others in ways appropriate only to God. If anything, Jesus was more Torah-enforcing than Paul. The reason Jesus did not address same-sex relations is that it was a non-issue among his Jewish audience. Paul as messenger to the Gentiles had to address it, and did so faithfully to Noahic & Mosaic Torah, and there is no reason to believe Jesus would have differed in any way.