What about the separation between church and state?
So what do you think should be taught about homosexuals? Anything at all?
Also, I don’t remember learning in school that any particular group of people are should be ‘accepted’. What class and curriculum are you talking about?
Well, I definitely don’t want “Heather has Two Mommies” (the correct title–do your homework) taught in classrooms because I am a conservative Libertarian who believes that sex education should be left up to the parents. I support the elimination of prohibition against gay marriage for the same reasons–the state has no business legislating who may not be married.
I don’t support that either.
What I do support is teaching tolerance. You don’t have to love gay people, you don’t even have to like gay people, but you also may not hit them or discriminate against them.
If you want to teach Bible-based hatred of gays in your religious school, I won’t fight you; it’s your religion and your school. But you can’t force your religious anti-gay views to be taught in public school because that belongs to everyone, not just the fundamentalists.
DrChuckie, I must say I agree with this post, especially the last part where you said that until the Bible is a required part of school curriculum you’re not willing that the “rightness, etc.” of homosexuality be part of it, either. I see a double standard in our schools. Anything goes, but the Bible and it’s truths. Bravo, DrChuckie.
Sounds like someone has pitted you (BarBQue Pit) according to one post I read. They’ve done the same to me.
You, know, Chuckie, I think you’ve aready pretty much exposed youreself, but I’m curious, why would you think a Greek translation o the OT was any moev accurate than an English translation? Also, why don’t you want to learn Hebrew if your so interested in accuracy?
I think I know the answer, I just want to hear you say it.
I pity you, Mr. Cynic. I will pray for you.
But it is harming this great land of ours! It’s going against the Word of God!
Leviticus, chapter 11:
9 " 'Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.
10 But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales-whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water-you are to detest.
11 And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat and you must detest their carcasses.
12 Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you.
Here we have this very clear, unambiguous prohibition against eating shellfish – in fact, a decree to detest shellfish – and yet people all over this great land of ours are traipsing around flagrantly ignoring this edict. Why, even the great American city of Boston, Massachusetts (home of the Boston Tea Party and other similarly patriotic things) now prides itself on serving a chowder made out of clams!
Something has to be done!!
What school curriculum are you talking about? I don’t remember any homosexual rightness classes.
Because, His4ever, homosexuality is NOT a religion! The Bible and it’s so-called “truths” IS.
I think that DrChuckie has provided this thread with an excellent example of why I want so much from Christians. His type of attitude has been prevalent in churches of many denominations for decades, and has done immense harm to hundreds of thousands of people, whose only crime is that they want to love each other.
I believe that part of what we’re seeing as this attitude fades into obscurity, as so many prejudices thankfully have, is a backlash based on guilt. If discrimination against gay people is wrong, then the people espousing it have been harming their fellow human beings needlessly. And that’s a hard burden to live with.
So we see some people lashing out, making outrageous claims against gay people, trying desperately to justify bigotry in the name of God. Oddly, this is probably hastening the process of acceptance for homosexuals that’s begun in the US; the more the fringe elements foam and froth about evil gays, the more centrists are moving away from them, and into a position where reconciliation is possible.
One of the reasons that I think that the churches need to start reaching out towards gays and making amends, starting the long process of repentance and redemption, is because so many religious people are beginning to realize what the churches have done, and are having trouble reconciling that with the idea of a loving God. I believe that repentance is good for the soul, and in this case I think that repentance and redemption will be good for the churches as well. If they can help guide their parishioners through the process of acceptance, they’ll be fulfilling their duty as spiritual leaders admirably.
All I can demand from Christians like DrChuckie is this: don’t pray for me. Don’t do me any favors when you want to eradicate something that makes up a core part of my soul and life: my romantic attraction and drive. The God I know and cherish has his ears closed to your prayers to forgive something he has created me to cherish. So don’t waste your breath.
See, I’m a horrible, evil, militant homosexual. I believe Jesus Christ and God love me just precisely the way I am, that the only sin I can commit which involves homosexuality is to hide it like the man with one talent who buried it away. I believe I deserve no less than full acceptance as a member of the human race, in thought, action, and word. I will do whatever I can to make this world one in which any and all queer people can find and even expect such treatment. If that makes you uncomfortable then I’m sorry, but that isn’t my problem to cope with. If you wish to condemn me, I don’t care.
I will work and bend all my might towards creating a world for the next generation of gays which does not require them to fit roles to find tolerance, but a spectrum of opportunities in which they can be themselves and be celebrated for the unique and holy child of God that every single one of us is.
So no, don’t pray for me. Don’t pray for any queer person out there, because we don’t need it and I spurn your condescension. I don’t need pity, I don’t need to change to find Jesus Christ’s true love, and I don’t need any of you to tell me what a horrible sinner I am for being gay, because I’m not pathetic, I have already found Jesus’ true love and acceptance, and though I am not perfect, homosexuality is not on my list of sins.
Priam, may I just humbly say “Bravo”?
Please, as the originator of this thread, please don’t let me insist that we stay on topic just to give you weasel-room when a hard question is thrown your way - you certainly didn’t stop posting off-topic after posting this, so now, please, let’s continue the (De Facto)completely acceptable diversion from the topic for a moment, while you answer, in your own words, MrVisbile’s question; here it is again:
DrChuckie, do not use hate speech (slurs, insults based on race, religion, gender, etc.) on the Straight Dope Message Board.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope
DrChuckie, are you also out to outlaw malice and gossip in this country? Those are sins which Paul also condemns, often in the same passages in which he condemns sexual immorality. How about divorce and adultery, which, unlike homosexuality, were specifically condemned by Christ?
We’ve had several discussions on this board about whether homosexuality is a sin. If you do a search on this issue in Great Debates, you’ll find that some of us Christians disagree quite strongly with your position. In the meantime, I’ll ask you one of my stock questions. Who is more worthy of condemnation in your eyes – the kid who pulled a knife on me in high school because I was different, or the gay kid who comforted me?
CJ
I think now more than ever (but perhaps still only in a very small way), I can empathise with the plight of homosexuals because, you see, there is something else that the loud voices of so-called Christianity want to outlaw.
It is something I was born for and is as natural to me as breathing and is an intrinsic and essential part of what I am.
I don’t think I could change it if I tried, even if I did want to.
This thing they would like to outlaw is called thinking.
Hyper-Fundamentalist Christianity can take control of my brain when they pry it out of my cold, dead cranium.
DrChuckie: You’re an idiot. Period. End of story. See how that puts a crimp on a debate?
Mangetout: You rock.
Thank you, Mangetout for speaking up. You rock! 
Well, Priam, it only took five posts for me to find something to disagree with you on, but I don’t think you’re going to be too upset.
I do intend to pray for you – that you will grow in grace, that you will see fit to continue sharing your wisdom here, and either (a) that you will find the man with whom you can have a happy and fulfilling committed marital relationship, if you have not already, or (b) if you have, that you and he will continue in a loving covenanted marriage so long as you both shall live. Oh, and one other thing, that you will not let the hatred and spiritual blindness of some harm the love that you have found in Christ.
Got any problem with that? 
Polycarp, Priam was asking that “Christians” like Dr. Chuckie not pray for him. I’m sure he’d be happy to have the prayers someone like you!
What norinew said. Prayers for things that will lead to true improvement of my life are always welcome. Prayers that I see the light and come “back” to heterosexuality, or things in similar veins (forgiveness for my horrible sins, etc.) are not, because they’re prayers for things that need no forgiveness or change as requested in them.
I have no problem with religion, nor with Christianity (I consider myself a devout Christian, although at the moment non-denomenational), but only those who believe, often devoutly, something I simply cannot support or claim is correct under any right-minded system of ethics/morality: that my love is false, inferior, a rebellion from God. If that makes me non-PC and judgemental myself, I can live with that. I believe I have a right to judge those who would infringe on my life and my happiness for no reason other than they wouldn’t do it themselves and are ignorant as to why anyone else might think differently.
I am a good person. I am not a perfect person, and I never will be, because human nature is not perfection. I struggle, I fail, and sometimes I do the wrong thing. I do sin.
But my love is no sin. It can be as pure as any straight person’s.
I have loved with such intensity that I would have given my life for the other person’s safety and happiness. I have loved foolishly, I have loved well, I have had requited love, and I have had love unrequited. I have loved without hope of any sort of return or gain for it. I will continue to love throughout my life, because it tells me one more reason why I should get up in the morning when the world seems dark and hopeless. That doesn’t matter, because my life can be lit by one simple smile, a tender touch of a hand.
Those who say this love is a biological or psychological error to be corrected do not understand its beauty. Those who say it is an inborn trait I must suppress do not understand its power. I will do neither, because God would not wish it.
Jesus believed and understood the power in all forms of love. He wished for his disciples to spread love far and wide, without reservation or hesitation, because it is the one gift we can give to the world without expectations, yet receive back a hundredfold.
I will give every form of love I can. I love my family, I love my community, I love my country, the world, and all things in it. And one day I will hopefully love a husband, with all my heart, mind, body, and soul.
Why? Because Jesus wants me to.
(PS: This was not precisely directed at you, Polycarp. I just sorta got on a rant and it flowed from there.)