So I guess we should be grateful Lissener didn’t quote the poetry of Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge (or Grunthos the Flatulent’s poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in my Armpit One Midsummer Morning”)
LISSENER –
You called me a homophobe here, with zero proof that I meet any definition of the term, including your own:
Do not assume that just because you throw the term around so casually, the people you are labelling take it casually. I am deeply insulted by implications of homophobia or racism, and if you’re going to accuse me of such things, you’d better be prepared to either back the accusation up or have it stuffed back down your throat.
So if I make your broad-brush accusations of homophobia “less fun,” then I consider that time well spent. And if I appear to be busting your chops over this, that’s the reason why.
Well, speaking just for myself, I’d prefer they stop believing that homosexuality is a sin. And yes, I can even ask them to do so:
Hey, if you’re reading this, and you believe that homosexuality is a sin, please stop. It’s a stupid idea, and it hurts a lot of people. Thank you.
Not that I expect anyone to listen to me, of course. As a stop gap measure, I’ll settle for “Stop trying to turn your idiotic beliefs into secular law,” although that’s about the limit of where I’ll be civil with someone on the matter.
Esprix, um, could you please never, ever, every under any circumstances lump me in with Doorman and Aries again. Just 'cus, (as a quick perusal of my posts will reveal):
- I’m not christian. (I’m UU, if anything.)
- I am vehemently opposed to the idea of homosexuality as a sin, and think that those that hold this view are horribly misguided and ignorant.
- I think gay marriage is a splendid idea, support it completely, and will be a bride’s maid when my pal and his honey marry next year (yes, they’re both boys.)
I’m assuming in reading this behemoth of a thread, you accidentally lumped me in with those other posters, as I was interacting with them.
Please, Please, Please don’t do this. It would be like me lumping you in with Shodan.
So please. Don’t do that. And go and marry someone already. 
(Or don’t – whatever dude.)
I only referenced you, Alice, because you were involved in that particular hijack, but I know you were on the opposing side. Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Esprix
Not to worry. I just read your post and went ACK!, but it’s all good now.
Ok, I probably shouldn’t really wade into this mess. I certainly don’t wish to be seen as an apologist, and I am sure someone will accuse me of having some internalized homophobia because of my opinions (of course, how many gays or lesbians don’t have some?) but here it goes anyway.
Why do people seem to think that absolute acceptance is necessary? My Grandmother is of the opinion that homosexuality is a sin. We get along fabulously. She also thinks, BTW, that drinking any amount of alcohol, dancing, *thinking * lustful thoughts and any other variety of things that many people do on a daily basis are sinful. **BUT ** she thinks that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of god”. I am her favorite Grandchild. I’d love for her to be able to accept me completely, but it just ain’t gonna happen, and I am perfectly OK with
that.
I have absolutely no idea how to weigh the sins of one person against another in terms of the physical impact on their soul, or how it will ultimately affect them in their journey. I really don’t. If you’re asking me to attach a quantitative value to one sin versus another, all I can do is throw my hands up in the air and say “I don’t know.” I might point you to discussions on cuplability versus sinfulness per se: i.e., the act of theft is always wrong, but to somebody who, say, has no moral upbringing to point him away from it, their moral culpability might be eliminated because, darn it, they don’t know any better.
Short answer: if two guys are lusting, then as I understand it, it’s sinful regardless of the object of their desire. Where their souls stand isn’t up to me–in that respect, I might be in the same boat as Jodi.
OK, fair enough…I’d like to think I’ve weighed the consequences of my actions, too.
I’m not sure I can offer a full answer to those questions: off the top of my head, I’d say that, as a Christian, I’m called to spread word of God’s existence, God’s love, God’s truth, and so on. It’s not my intention to pigeonhole this into “homosexual behavior” is a sin issue; far from it, I’d rather just be telling people about who God is and how He’s influenced me in my life. The issue we’re discussing is, in some ways, a tiny part of my outlook on life; indeed, I can’t recall discussing it with this intensity before I was drawn into lissener’s continual raising of the issue in GD, which was directed towards people like me. Indeed, at this point I’d say that this is pretty much the only reason why I’ve stated it at this point. (Point of contrast: one of my good buddies is a pronounced lesbian. While she and I have skirted the issue, we’ve never had a conversation where she and I have clashed viewpoints or tried to convert each other, outside the time she jokingly suggested that I become a transsexual. I was flattered that she thought I’d make such an attractive woman.)
In other words, your question, to me, reads as though I’m some kind of anti-homosexual evangelist. I wouldn’t put it that way: rather, when asked about my faith, as lissener did with his discussion threads, I will address it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “harm.” If it comes down to offending somebody, or even going so far as to make them feel unwanted, then I suppose that’s part and parcel of any debate of this intensity. (I’ve felt the same way, especially due to some of the sarcastic replies in here. I’m much more willing to talk with those of you who calmly discuss than those who offer a snide comment which I read as a disguised “I don’t like you.”) I don’t intend harm. I do intend open discussion: after all, I assumed that this place was about a search for the truth.
I’ve gotta echo Jodi’s comments above. Additionally, I’ve given up on trying to “engage” with you–although, to be fair, you INVITE people to engage with you when you raise questions in GD of this nature.
My main disappointment with you is that your demands are not reciprocal. Your threads, as I read them, demand that Christians give patience, tolerance, understanding and unconditional acceptance to active homosexuals (especially in the parent-child context). However, you’ve clearly stated that these feelings cannot or will not run from yourself back to Christians. How can they provide what you want when you’re unwilling to set an example, extend the olive branch, and do the same? How is one to learn proper behavior when you yourself will not give it? And even to those on your side (i.e., Jodi)?
Sigh. Is it too much to ask for a group hug in this thread? The holidays are coming, people…
Oh, come on, MILLER. Surely you don’t think it’s that easy.
Morality and determinations of what is “wrong” and what is “right” are highly subjective, but that doesn’t mean that people ascribing to a particular moral belief do not genuinely believe it. It is not something they can easily pick up or put down, or something they can “stop” or “start” on request. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be, because if your moral beliefs are that transient and insubstantial, they are hardly worth holding, are they?
You have no more right to expect them to stop believing gay sex is wrong just to please you, than they can expect you to start believing it is wrong just to please them.
I realize this is a petty point, but would y’all please stop referring to my husband as “Doorman”? Yes, I know he’s a big boy and can open his own mouth, but it does bother me.
Thank you.
Robin
Once again, we come to the fascinating idea that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and the perceptions thereof, are static.
When I was in my first apartment, I got a big superball. I used to bounce it around the place, ricochet it off of walls, and practice little juggling tricks with it. It was fun. And then my neighbor came over from next door and, very politely, asked me to stop doing it. It was, understandably, driving him batty. So I stopped.
Very simple story, very simple message. When you’re doing something that you thought was harmless, and someone comes along and tells you it’s hurting people, you have a choice to make. You evaluate how much good the activity is doing, and how much harm it is causing. And if it’s causing more harm than good, you stop freaking doing it.
If I’d taken it into my head to keep bouncing that ball, once I knew it was disturbing someone, I’d have been making a completely selfish, immoral choice.
We’ve told the straight supremacists that they’re hurting us. We’ve asked them to explain what good their stance does anyone, and they’ve come up with nothing. We’ve asked them to stop hurting us. And yet, knowing that condemning us is literally killing people, they persist in condemning us.
The idea that there is a moral code out there that is good, always, no matter what harm it does to people, is abhorrent to me. If you can’t change your moral code in order to prevent harm to people, in order to make their lives better, at no cost to anyone, then you’ve left morality behind. And ventured into the terrain of immorality in the name of law. Lawful evil.
It just makes sense (to me). If I were gay I would be able to get a partner a lot easier (gay people hit on me all the time, women… not so much).
Once in a relationship I would most likely understand the person a lot better, as would he me. We’d most likely be more compatible and have to give up less to have a relationship.
And I assume that the sex would be a lot better, considering we would both know exactly how the others apparatus works.
And additional perks such as us being able to share clothes and not having to worry about birth control.
There’s not much social stigma regarding homosexuals here, I’m sure none of my friends would end our friendship over it, we’d (by the new law) be able to get married if we wanted… no real drawbacks at all other then procreating, which isn’t impossible just a bit more complicated.
So if I could ‘chose’ to be gay tomorrow, I would.
MR VISIBLE –
This is not what I said. I have said repeatedly that ideas of “right” and “wrong” are subjective and vary from individual to individual. They are in that sense not static. Now, for any one given individual, that person’s ideas of right and wrong should be more or less static – they should not be movable based on whim or convenience because if they are, they’re not very firmly held, are they?
Which is not to say that they should admit no change when a reasonable person comes to see that they don’t really work, or aren’t really moral. Everyone should be willing to examine, defend, and explain their ideas of what is right and what is wrong. Certainly, IMO, if an individual comes to see that a particular belief of theirs causing them to act in a way that in turn causes harm, that would be an excellent reason to reconsider whether it’s an belief worth having. But the belief itself without more does not cause the harm. And this of course posits that you are dealing with people who are intellectually honest and intellectually rigorous enough to examine their beliefs as opposed to stubbornly clinging to them without thought or consideration, in the mistaken belief that remaining willfully in ignorance of the consequences of their beliefs is itself a species of faith. I grant you that at least when we are talking about fundamentalists (be they Christian, Jewish, or Muslim), that level of intellectual honesty and rigor are the exception, not the rule.
ResIpsaLoquitor
This is what I’d surmised from Bricker’s post, which in turn led me to declare my point moot.
According to what I’ve read, you leave judgment to God and believe homosexual behavior is a sin. (I contrasted “popping a boner” and “buggery for gratification” in order to suss out the distinction.) You do not, however, believe homosexuality is a sin.
So if I, as a straight man, stomp off to the dockyard and get my salad tossed by a longshoreman named Stu, I’m committing a sin. Accordingly, it’s a sin if the object of my lust is a barmaid named Sally. Likewise, in your line of thinking, the same sin of lust applies to homosexuality. If I understand you correctly, that’s pretty much where the sin ends? Lust?
Regardless, I’ve got to hand it to you, Res; while I can’t say I’ll ever agree with you about homosexuality, I can say I respect your position. And while I generally squint with suspicion at anyone who clings so steadfastly to the portcullis of Sin, you make it hard not to like you.
lissener
Honestly, the last time I was treated to such tortured cock imagery, I’d just stumbled across Dali’s clocks painted in Day-Glo, on velvet. If you’re still here and not off sulking amongst stacks of bad poetry amounting to this empty scrotum/the pitted prune of my Destiny, please take note of your arch-enemy Res.
I never said it would be easy. Although it’s a lot easier to change a belief than it is to change an orientation. Which is why, ultimatly, the idea that homosexuality is sinful is going to go the way of the albatross. And the best way to facilitate that is to point out that it is a patently stupid, if not out-and-out evil, belief.
That certainly appeared to be the implication in “Hey, I can just ask them!” Realistically, you can’t. Because it’s not that easy, as you know.
And while you can certainly point out that it is stupid and/or evil belief in your opinion, I’m having a hard time seeing how that would encourage anyone to change their mind: “Don’t believe that.” “Why?” “Because I think it’s stupid and I told you not to.” “Uh . . . .”
Again, it’s all about education, IMO: Why do you believe that? Have you really thought it through, or is it something you just believe because you were told to? If the latter, is that really a good enough reason to believe something? Is this belief regarding God’s judgment consistent with your understanding of God’s nature? (For fundamentalists who believe in an OT, vengeful God, the answer to this might well be “yes.”) Does holding this belief lead you to think less of people and/or treat them differently and/or judge them? At the end of the day, what business it it of yours anyway?
You can ask people to think about what they profess to believe. If they refuse to (the “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” crowd), you can dismiss them because, hey, if they can’t be bothered to think about what they profess to believe, why should you? But you can’t just demand they change their minds because you think they should. It’s not a reasonable thing to ask, and they won’t do it anyway.
The albatross is extant, Miller, so unless you meant ‘homophobia as a sin’ is goin’ to sea, you prolly meant “way of the dodo.”
Man, am I an irritating person.
The albatross is extant, Miller, so unless you believe ‘homophobia as a sin’ is goin’ to sea, you prolly meant “way of the dodo.”
Maybe he meant that homophobia hangs around the neck of the ancient mariner.
I think it means Miller’s got a monkey on his neck.