I agree that sin is what separates man from God. My question still stands: how does homosexuality do this?
I woke up this morning, having read the latest doses of public figures explaining how Jesus hates homosexuality – at least two Florida politicians, the self-proclaimed Pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, KS, demonstrating in favor of the Chief Judge of Alabama’s Supreme Court and his bigotry, and realized that it was time (again) to speak out as a Christian who loves gays. (I know you excluded me from the people you asked the OP to, Hamish, but since Mangetout felt free to respond, so do I.
First, you are my beloved brother, as are Esprix, matt_mcl, Freyr, gobear and the others, and as andygirl and the others are my beloved sisters.
Second, it’s extremely clear from the words of Jesus Himself that God loves all people, and makes no bones about their gender, race, age, eye color, previous state of servitude, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation, or anything else that ingenious man can come up to draw lines between “us” and “them.”
I affirm you as a human being whom God loves just as you are, and whom I love as well.
I am one unemployed administrative assistant in a small town in North Carolina, active member of an Episcopal (Anglican) church and redeemed by the grace of Christ, with no right to speak other than what He gives me as an individual. But I am so disgusted by people hating other people in the name of Christ that it’s necessary that I speak out.
To try to answer your questions:
Monty and others have handled this well. Effectively, evangelical Christians believe that the Law is still in effect for those who turn to God, but that while the ritual and dietary laws were lifted by revelations to Peter and others (e.g., the anonymous author of Hebrews), the moral law remains in place and is binding. (Note that this covers much more than the prohibition on (male) homosexual activity, but that seems to be a major emphasis on their part for some reason.
It’s important for you to realize what the meaning of “sin” to a Christian is – because there’s Scripture that “all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Quite simply, if one turns to Christ and accepts Him as one’s Lord, the job becomes to follow His commands as ideals – to love God with one’s total being, to love every other man as oneself, to be perfect as God Himself is perfect, to refrain from judging as you yourself fear that judgment, and so on. Being human, we fall short of those ideals, every one of us, and God, who loves us as a perfect Father loves his children, forgives and helps strengthen to avoid further sin.
Most intelligent evangelicals realize that if sexual orientation is not chosen, then it is not sinful – but since they’re bound by the idea of the Law as still in effect and the idea that if the Bible says thus and so, it must therefore be the Word of God that thus and so is true and binding on people, homosexual acts are still sinful, and the gay person is expected to live a life of celibacy – unless, of course, he is capable of making a heterosexual marriage and satisfying his desires with his wife. (And of course read “she” and “her husband” for the Lesbian.)
For most of us liberal types, as was already noted, we have enough problems trying to measure up to those ideals ourselves – and are commanded to love you and all people, and to show Christ through our love for you and all people, and not to judge you. So whatever I might personally think about your sexuality, it’s quite frankly none of my business.
I will add that for me and Homebrew, and for others hither and yon (but I happen to know Homebrew agrees with my take on this, the prohibitions on gay sex both in Leviticus and in Paul are mixed in with a variety of other sins which are in effect giving vent to lust (and in a couple of place others of the Seven Deadly Sins). So on our interpretation, if God made you and caused or allowed you to be gay (in orientation) without your choice, and He condemns gratifying lust but approves of a covenanted marriage and of sex in marriage, then clearly the prohibition is against your going out and cruising, not against your falling in love and marrying the man you decide to spend your life with. (And I note that Quebec is in the process of permitting you to do so legally; congratulations.)
In short, you can sin by having gay sex, just as you can sin by having straight sex or by being uncharitable or cheating a customer or being a loan shark or any other sort of thing – but there’s at least a way in which you can have a happy, fulfilled life that includes a loving life partner – including sex partner – to share your life with. But, unfortunately, most evangelical Christians don’t see it in those terms – being “immured in the gay lifestyle,” you obviously (to them) cannot have the same feelings as they do towards someone they love. (Don’t get me started!)
As you may note from my marathon answer to (a), yes, I do draw that distinction. But I don’t judge whether anyone else’s sex life is sinful. I was merely trying to give an idea how I would evaluate the moral situation if I were in your shoes, by way of guidance and information – and if you did find Christ, counseling as a brother and friend. I personally do get all that you point out, including that you can love another man, and approve wholeheartedly of marriage in general, including that between two gay people. And I’m alive and aware to the irony implicit in your last comment.
First, even the people who are vehemently opposed to gay rights among conservative Christians denounce Fred Phelps and his hatred. To quote a friend in the religious right, “I wish that all gay people would see the light and turn from their sinful ways to God’s love, but I cannot abide anybody like Phelps who says that God hates them.” Nearly all of them are opposed to anti-gay violence, but most of them compartmentalize their views enough that they don’t see that condemning gay people as evil and sinful leads in the minds of some people to the idea that gay-bashing is OK.
And, of course, I’m steadfast against it. One of the two things that’s made me so outspoken on gay rights was an incident in my recent life. Growing up, I was always the small, geeky kid picked on by others, and am not a particularly large man – on the small side of normal, short and until recently skinny. Just after we moved to NC, Matthew Shepherd was killed. Before returning to Wyoming, Matt had attended college in NC and lived in Raleigh. The following week, the Independent Weekly (alternative weekly newspaper here, similar to the Chicago Reader) ran a memoir by a gay staff member who had been friends with him. I picked up the paper and read the article sitting at a bar table nursing a drink – and discovered that Phil had written about sitting and talking with Matt. At that bar. At that table. “There but for the grace of God go I.” And Martin Niemoeller’s line about “They came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I was not a Jew” repeated for anyone that gets discriminated against. Right then I knew I was being called to do things like, ultimately, speak out on threads like this one, and lobby for gay rights, and whatever else I can do.
Absolutely not, to both things. My foster son, now adult, has a five-year-old boy whom I suspect is (will be) gay, and whom I love intensely and unconditionally. I think part of my destiny will be to be there for him when he reaches puberty and comes out.
And I would encourage any children we might have had to befriend GLBT youths, because they are often isolated and need friends.
I’m for equality under the law, for gay rights, and don’t keep my religious beliefs separate, because I’m pledged by the Baptismal Covenant of my church “to respect the dignity of every human being and to seek justice for all men.” And “homosexuality” is an abstract noun – homosexual activity, not limited to sex, may or may not be immoral depending on circumstances but should not be restricted by law (other than a prohibition on doing it in the streets and scaring the horses!;))
Well, Eve (the woman in Genesis, not the poster) started life as the rib of a man, so the story goes. Hmmm— is history repeating itself? 
I understand how a man could be attracted to another man far better than how a man could internally feel himself to be a woman (or the reverse, in each case) despite the somatic evidence suggesting otherwise, but I have no problem with people who do feel that way, just a problem of stretching my empathy to “grok their condition.” And I’m surely not hostile about it.
Polycarp’s Moral Law: You do what you feel to be the right thing to do, yourself, and avoid trying to run somebody else’s life, because you’re having enough trouble with your own.
I don’t much care whether the origin of homosexuality is genetic, congenital (flood of hormones theory), inculcated in early childhood, or results from eating too many jujubes before one’s fourth birthday. People are who they are, and it’s my job to accept them and love them, not change them.
Final comment, having seen the last few posts: Puddleglum, without any intent to hassle you personally, I think Steve Wright’s question is important. Please do a step-by-step analysis of the thinking behind this, because I don’t understand the A-implies-B theory held by you and others who think like you, and I thought I had a pretty good handle on the idea of sin in evangelical thought.
Steve, it separates you from God, if you let someone convince you that God does not want you. Please don’t do that. I don’t think you should let anyone tell you God does not want you. Puddleglum has an opinion, and he has reasons for holding it. Some of those reasons may be because of his faith, and some of them may be because of his prejudices, but you cannot know which. That doesn’t matter. He is not God, and has no authority to speak on God’s behalf.
Sin begets fear, and fear can drive you from God. But almost everything you do, aside from giving of yourself to others without desire for recompense is sin. There are no perfect souls, and imperfections are not ranked. Whether your sexual feelings, or actions are sins is not something someone else can judge, because they don’t know your heart. Driving you from the Lord is not their office. That job has been reserved for Satan, and his servants.
My task, as a Christian is not to sit in judgment over you, but to join you, as a fellow human, frail, and filled with iniquity, and seek God together. My opinion on your worthiness, or sinfulness is of no importance at all, unless it happens to lead me away from the Lord, in which case it could well destroy me, forever.
Tris
“Lord, give me patience.
Um, Lord, I need that patience now, please.” ~ Triskadecamus ~
Tris, that was beautiful. (And said perfectly in three paragraphs what I took about 20 to say limpingly.)
I have a ghastly feeling I’m misleading people with my stance here… I’m a practising Christian (even an evangelical one, with a small “e”) and heterosexual. (According to a gay friend of mine, obviously heterosexual.) My question to puddleglum is, from my point of view, entirely theoretical. But it still stands, and I think it’s important to have the answer.
Poly,
If you limp, please know, where you have limped, others are well served to run, and even dance.
Tris
Steve,
Well, my feelings are pretty much the same, if you are stratight, or gay, Christian, or Wiccan. Let us love God, and each other, 'cause we want to!
Puddle,
Please, when you answer the man, consult your heart, as well as your head, before you reply. And don’t hold it against him that he isn’t gay.
Tris
Tris, my stance (which seems to be less than satisfactory to all concerned but not enough to flame me) is that, while the unborn fetus may in fact be a human being, actually or potentially, with whatever rights may accrue to him or her in that state, it is the moral decision of the woman herself whether or not to carry him/her to term – not something that should be legislated.
I would encourage a pregnant woman to carry her child to term if she asked me for my opinion, because I believe that that possible baby does have a right to live and that giving him/her life is her moral duty – but I would never be party to forcing her to do so, and would stand against those who would try to.
Huh.
The above post from me was in response to a post on abortion by Triskadecamus that was here when I began a response. Although it looked like a bit of a hijack, I assumed that it was a side issue someone had raised – it being another case of a sexual morality issue, more or less.
If a moderator moved Tris’s post to a thread where it was intended to go, would he or she be so kind as to make mine follow?
Actually, puddleglum pretty much sums up my theory on why most folks in general disapprove* of homosexuality:
My response, of course, is to get over it, but few take my advice, so I choose to educate instead.
Esprix
*Rather like, to quote one of matt’s favorite quotes, “disapproving of rain,” but there it is.
Ha ha, Poly!
I fell to the evil demons of multiple window posting.
I asked that it be deleted here, and then posted a cut and paste in the Bald eagles versus baby thread.
I don’t know if moderators, with all their mystic power can actually move a post or not.
Tris
“Actually, puddleglum pretty much sums up my theory on why most folks in general disapprove* of homosexuality . . .”
Hey—I’M icky! You’re sinful. Let’s keep this, umm, “straight” here, Esprix!
Yes, but you’re icky in a sinful sort of way, you ravashing temptress you.
Esprix
Yes, well, I can’t argue with you THERE . . .
I can see that the dietary laws are perhaps a bad example, given Acts 10 of the New Testement, but I have to wonder about other sins that aren’t sins any longer.
For most of its history, the Christian world was dead set against usury – the loaning of money at interest. Dante’s Inferno puts usurers side by side with sodomites in a single circle of hell. Luke 6:35 seems to have Christ condemning usury. Christ never mentions homosexuality, IIRC. The only mention of it in the NT is a comment of Paul’s, in passim, in Romans.
What changed? Is it still a sin? If so, why doesn’t anyone make a fuss about it? The banking industry is omnipresent, and growing in power all the time. There’re no protests, there are no attempts to make banking illegal, bankers generally aren’t told they’re going to hell. Has a Christian parent, in living memory, disowned a child who decided to become a banker? Why is there no god-hates-bankers.com?
And if it isn’t still a sin, what does that say about how the perception that homosexuality is sinful? Is it simply a cultural prejudice being given a religious mask?
Thanks. That’s actually part of the reason I started this thread.
What worries me even more, though, are those who’ve been taught to hate themselves. I spent one-and-a-half years as a peer counsellor, and I now find myself cast into that role, informally, very often.
I hear the same stories constantly (using first initials to protect anonymity).
D. – who oscillates between self-flagellating repentence and drug-and-sex binges, which he regrets afterwards. He’s come close to a relationship several times, but refuses to enter one, because he would see that as a futile attempt to legitimize a sin. He was taught that homosexuality is wrong under any circumstances, and people who try to legitimize it are lying to themselves.
P. – who’s gotten married as two children becuase he’s terrified to come out to his very religious parents. He sneaks out and has sex in saunas. He lives a life of increasingly-intricate lies.
B. – whose father beat him repeatedly when he came out, and for the longest time he stayed at home, because he thought he deserved it, that he was a sinner.
A few representative stories, but I’ve known dozens of other cases that were slight variations on these themes. Most of the people I’ve known have either left Christianity or continued their downward spiral.
What do I say to people who don’t want to do either, but who can’t find any way to resolve their Christianity with their sexual orientation?
I recently had a conversation/debate with one of my brethren about if and how we should react on that day that a homosexual couple stroll into the church and sit down; it was quite interesting.
Firstly, I think it’s a pretty much universal doctrine amongst evangelicals that sin is sin and there isn’t really a scale of seriousness.
So even accepting that homosexuality (of any kind) is sinful, we must conclude that the only real difference between the homosexual couple that stroll in and the middle-class family that they sit next to is our awareness of (what we percieve to be) their sin (assuming, perhaps a little shakily, for the moment that there is some obvious way to tell that the homosexual people are such).
So the gay people are sinful and are to be treated differently because we are aware of (what we percieve to be) their sin, whereas the middle-class family are respectable because they do most of their sinning in private and cover their tracks very well?
No, I’m not having that; it’s unacceptable; we say that God is omni-everything and then act as if he needs our help in deciding who is righteous? bah! Sorry, that’s not a job I have time for.
QUOTE]*Originally posted by Homebrew *
**Here’s a link to different groups and their positions, both affirming and anti-gay: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/resesrch_homosexuality_religion.html
There are gay-supportive movements inside many of the mainline Christian demoninations. Following the link above, I was surpised - shocked really - to find out that there are even a few among the more evangelical groups, including Pentecostal. **
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. The quotes helped, but they raised just as many questions as they answered. I followed one trail of linked pages to a site refuting the various claims made by Christians who feel homosexual sex is immoral. Among the most interesting arguments:
a) While some evangelical Christians split the Leviticus/Deuteronomy laws into ceremonial, civil, and moral, this division is not made in the Bible. The guy who wrote this site suggested that Christ’s covenant was an entirely new one, and none of the original laws applied.
b) The terms generally translated as “sodomite” or “pervert,” and even the famous exhortation in Leviticus use words that could be better translated as “temple prositute” (“Qadesh,” for instance)
c) In the story of Sodom, and the very similar story in Judges, the crime involved is not homosexuality, but inhospitality.
I’m curious how those Christians who feel homosexuality is wrong respond to these arguments. Are they valid? Have you heard them before?
**Polycarp wrote:
First, you are my beloved brother, as are Esprix, matt_mcl, Freyr, gobear and the others, and as andygirl and the others are my beloved sisters. **
Thanks, Polycarp, it’s always nice to read this. 
…and realized that it was time (again) to speak out as a Christian who loves gays.
I need to engage in a slight hi-jack here.
To the moderate and liberal Christians here on SDMB, I see a problem. It is not the loudness of those who identify as Fundamentalist or conservative Christians, it’s the quietness of those who aren’t.
It’s fine to sit here on SDMB and debate the issues, but the real battle is out THERE in the real world. Everytime some member of the Fundamentalist or conservative camp raises his or her voice decrying homosexuality in the national or local press, where’s the voice of the moderate or liberal Christians? The silence can be deafening at times.
Agreed, sensationalism makes news and the Fundamentalists and conservatives can do that very well (thank you, Fred Phelps!). But if they can do it, so can you!
The next time the Fundamentalist and/or conservative Christians make the news, call or write the editor or news manager. Demand that they give you equal time. Implore them to show BOTH sides of the issue. Don’t let the Fundamentalists and/or conservatives allow themselves to be the only voice for the many Christian churches.
Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to take your word for it. Phoenix is a little hard to travel to by foot from Montreal, and I really don’t have the money to travel right now