Thanks, Hamish. I suspect that you, as much as anybody, knows what a word of encouragement can mean. I needed it, and you came through. matt_mcl, would you please deliver him a great big {{{{hug}}}} from me?
Some background on Bishop Parsley of Alabama’s statement:
http://www.geocities.com/privacylaws/usa/alabama/alnews10.htm
At the risk of monopolizing this thread, I realized something this morning and feel like I ought to post it.
Puddleglum has very sincere beliefs, including a sense that effectively the world is morally headed for Hell in a handbasket, but is not usually one to state them in any offensive manner.
He responded to the questions of the OP as requested, giving the perspective of the sort of person which Hamish had asked to respond.
Many of us took his responses as the jumping-off point for a GD on the issues he raised. That’s fine, but in doing so I believe we mistook Puddleglum’s statements for debatable assertions, when I think they were intended to give Hamish the perspective he’d asked for.
So for whatever offense I’ve caused you, Puddleglum, in attempting to debate the issues behind your answers, I do offer my apologies.
But I really wish you’d address the objections I raised, anyway. 
That was precisely it. Originally, I conceived this as a GQ thread, but I didn’t expect it to stay there, long. And it seemed a tad too serious for an IMHO thread. But I really did intend it as more of survey.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from jumping into the debate myself. 
Three pages in might be a little late to enter the fray. My apologies.
I’m a lesbian Methodist. It’s not something that I talk about very much here (or anywhere else for that matter) because my faith is something that I struggle with regularly. I feel like a faith that isn’t questioned and examined is no faith at all, but that’s a bit of a tangent. Oh, and the fact that the SDMB has so many Christians that clearly outgun me.
The reason that I don’t talk about being a gay Christian very much is largely due to cowardice. I felt like I was caught between a crossfire- so very many gay people have been rejected by the institution of Christianity as well as many of its followers that the idea of a gay Christian is difficult. It’s like being a gay Republican. Yes, we exist, but it’s a bit odd because we’re working within the larger context of a system that largely despises us.
Which brings me to the Christians. I know many tolerant Christians. My minister is one. But if you listen to the vocal people- I have no idea how much of the population truely is fundamentalist Christian, or how much of the population is homophobic- their voices are the loudest, and it’s a constant grind.
This might sound odd, but faith is much more personal to me than sexuality. I’m a very vocal gay rights activist and I have been since my early teens. But Christians don’t really need a civil rights movement, and talking about “the God Stuff” is just… well, it’s hard to explain, but I feel that religion is extremely private. The way that I relate my faith to the world around me is probably best summed up by how I feel about abortion. I don’t think abortion is morally right, and my objection to it is based on my religion. Be that as it may, I also feel that my religion shouldn’t dictate what others should do.
I don’t think Methodism is the One True Path. It’s the denomination that I was raised in and it’s the one that, upon reflection, I have chosen to believe. If I’d been raised in a different denomination I would probably be that one unless they were so clearly homophobic that it was intolerable. I lucked out- Methodism is in the middle ground on homosexuality. Being a Christian is something that I chose, being a lesbian isn’t. I think that the distinction might help explain how I feel about public and private life.
I could sit here and list the things that I do and don’t think about Christianity, but it’s probably not necessary. I’m your standard issue liberal Christian in most ways.
I went through a very homophobic phase a bit before I came out of the closet. I was becoming friends with fundamentalists, and the idea of the whole thing was intoxicating. I was trying to run away from who I really was; I was trying to be the perfect straight girl. When I first started realizing that I was gay I would pray to be made straight every night until I fell asleep from exhaustion. When nothing changed- and I tried, I tried so hard- I then attempted to kill myself. I was a wreck on a variety of different levels, and the single thing that saved me was the moonlight reflecting off of the knife blade.
I don’t know why- it’s hard to explain these things- but I felt like I wasn’t alone then. Things went uphill from there.
So in time the realization came that either there was no God or I wasn’t being made straight because, well, I was made who I am. Option B was really the only option- as much as I believe in science and all of those things, there is a part of me that desparately needs to believe. Like I said, that’s a choice. Me being gay isn’t.
I hope that explains a bit of where I’m coming from. On to some of the questions.
Gay people are good scapegoats at the moment. All of the other historical ones have been removed to a certain extent- a politician cannot talk about those immoral Negros, but can denounce sodomy to thundering applause.
It’s hypocracy and the need for a victim, IMHO.
Reflexive values again. I feel that my religion doesn’t condone promiscuity, and I have chosen to follow this religion. Therefore I will not be promiscuous. In my relationship with my last girlfriend, she and I dated for just over three years and were sexually active for most of that. We were in love, we were having sex. Despite that it is over now, I don’t regret anything that happened during it and I certainly don’t regret that we expressed our love for each other physically.
You, however, can do what you please. Hopefully more than once on any given night.
And gays should be able to get married. This is the activist speaking here- society shouldn’t just allow the ones who clean up well their rights.
Anti-gay violence is a disgrace to society. I used to be homophobic too. I got over it.
No and no, clearly.
I think I have covered “do you keep your religious beliefs separate.” I don’t think homosexuality is against the Bible. It’s been debated for a long time now, there are a variety of opinions, I’ve stopped caring.
I don’t think there is one. And the trans movement is one that I fight for, so there you go.
My own experience and the experience of many others leads me to believe very strongly that in the vast, vast majority of cases it is inborn, or at least has a strong genetic basis. Homosexuality doesn’t hurt anyone. Bring on the hot gay love.
That’s about where I stand. I know it’s a bit muddled, Hamish, but I hope that it’s helpful.
It’s never too late to enter the fray. This is another perspective I was looking for.
I didn’t find it muddled at all. It helps me to understand how someone comes to terms with being both gay and Christian, since there are plenty of people who seem to think the two can’t be resolved.
In retrospect, I think I would have added a question about lesbianism and the Bible. All the passages I can think of condemn male homosexuality only.
Andygirl, the one Biblical cite I’ve seen used against Lesbians is the bit towards the end of the first chapter of Romans. However, it’s my understanding that there is Talmudic interpretation of stuff in the Law that suggests that a Lesbian relationship is contrary to Jewish interpretation of the Law (as opposed to explicitly forbidden in the Law itself). Chaim or Zev might be able to speak to this issue (although I know that they avoid speaking on homosexuality and the Law unless specifically asked, in order to avoid giving offense – since they are not compelled by their beliefs, as are evangelical Christians, to rub gay people’s noses in their alleged sinfulness.
For the record, some interesting stuff over on the Pizza Parlor in this thread directly relates to the subject here. I want to quote Joey Carmen’s response to something I said (excerpted in the internal quotes in his quote) as illustrative of the stance taken by many evangelical Christians on the subject – it explains for Hamish the “love the sinner, hate the sin” perspective in the context of one’s Christian duty far better than any paraphrase I could give of that viewpoint (especially since in general I do not concur in their POV):
I’m not promoting this POV, but does it help, Hamish in understanding where they are coming from?
Back again with **links[/b!!
These three threads contain some of the most interesting writing on the subject ever to grace these boards (as well as some of the most inane witnessing ever to disgrace anywhere!):
and
I haven’t read this thread in a few days so I’m a little late in affirming that Polycarp is indeed a strong advocate over there.
For Hamish, you might pick up the book Stranger At The Gate by Mel White for one conservative Christian Gay man’s point of view on Christianity and Homosexuality. Mel White was a speech and ghost writer for Jerry Falwell, Ollie North, Pat Robertson and Billy Graham before coming out in the early 1990s when he could no longer put up with their positions. He was raised in an evangelical home and spent many years in the evangelical movement trying to be straight. Eventually he couldn’t keep the facade up any longer and this book is his story.
[**Polycarp wrote:
Trust me, we’re trying. But voices of reason and compassion tend to get swallowed up. Our only hope is that after the earthquake, wind, and fire, that still small voice will persist.**
I know. I apologize to you for venting the way I did. Sometimes my own frustration builds I just want to scream. If you turn the other cheek to me, I promise only to kiss it 
Here’s some good news:
Your beard tickles!!
Seriously, the Southern Voice is one of the best-produced weekly newspapers, of any category, I’ve ever run into. Barb and I pick it up every week* – there’s a couple of places in Raleigh that carry it – and I review the contents. It’s not afraid to take contra-P.C. stances (as with the Jesse Dirkhising case) where it believes that justice and liberty demand it. And this tourism campaign was the lead story this week.
- By mutual agreement as to what we individually “feel called to do,” my issue is gay rights, hers is abuse of the poor, especially by agencies that are supposed to be helping them, we back each other as needed on our personal issues, and we team up on idiots trying to restrict Christianity to their particular POV.
Thanks for the links Polycarp. I only had a chance to skim them, but it does help me to understand the the homosexual-sex-is-wrong-but-that’s-just-my-belief crowd. But what about the Anita Bryants of the world, the ones who feel strongly enough about other people’s sex lives that they campaign for political and legal discrimination against us? Where are they coming from?
Many liberal-minded Christians have told me they don’t consider such people Christian, but the people who hold these beliefs obviously do consider themselves religious. Is there any Scriptural justification at all for carrying such beliefs into the political sphere?
It is very hard to understand that different is not wrong. It is even harder to accept that God might love someone more than you. It gets downright painful to admit that God might love them more, because they need more of His love. Keeping score is at least something you can understand. So, a lot of people are tempted to add up their sins, and keep score. That way, you can tell who is better than whom.
It’s all pointless, and accomplishes little, other than to bolster someone’s feeling of importance at the expense of another’s. But it is just another in the many ways that people sin. Of course it’s much easier to see those logs in other eyes, than to spend those hours removing splinters from your own. People are lost. All of them are lost. Although it is probably true that some are more lost than others, lost is lost, and finding the Way is the answer, not blaming the other people who got lost.
Love is the answer. Don’t worry about the question. It isn’t logical, and you can’t have proof. You can live without it, and die without it, but life, and death are both better with it. Let God take care of Divine Justice, and live in happy hope that someday Fred Phelps will embrace you with unfettered love. Until then, Poly, and I, and a whole lot of others will have to do.
Tris
Amen to what Tris said!
Uh, one thing I’ve found very strongly felt by many evangelical Christians is a sense of corporate sinfulness, with a wrathful God of justice all kinds of upset as to the tendency of all us humans to indulge our own pleasures instead of listening to Him. (Czarcasm and others have done near-parodies of this stance, since it’s widely publicized and much of the reason that people who reject the whole Christianity schmear cannot bring themselves to believe with any personal integrity, regardless of what they may conclude about the existence of any god or whatever – even if there is one, the apparent paranoid megalomaniac who created people with the capacity for evil so that he could have them tortured eternally that most people get from that POV is not the one that anybody in his right mind would believe in.
Whatever. Given that POV, though, both a concern for your salvation and a fear that God is going to start sending down punishment on all and sundry for the offenses committed against His will by some, heterodyne to produce the idea that maybe we ought to start making sure that all these sinners are kept from sinning insofar as laws will permit us to – and at least not condoning their sin by giving it any legal recognition, as in domestic partner registries, non-discrimination in hiring and housing, and all that sort of thing. Given the pissed-off tyrant they want to appease, it makes a perverted sort of sense.
(Obviously this is by no means my POV, but it’s the closest I can come to interpreting that viewpoint in response to Hamish’s question above.)
The God that Tris and I know, whose love includes a compassion for the needs of all His creation, who can weep along with andygirl at the pain she feels at the end of a relationship, is far from that tyrannical ogre-deity. But both can be supported by selective quotation from Scripture. I hold to the idea of the all-loving God because He is the one that Jesus portrayed in his teachings and lived out in his life. And if any part of Christianity has any validity whatsoever, it would have to be that Jesus had a handle on Who sent him. All the other stuff builds on that.