That’s interesting, because I made no such statements.
I’ve stated that I’m prohibited from enjoying the same benefits as heterosexuals in similar relationships, however.
Interesting. I didn’t make that argument either. I believe that a calling sexual relations between two consenting unrelated adults who love each other a sin is ridiculous to the point of insanity, however.
You may want to actually argue with me, as opposed to with what you’d like to think I said. Makes things less one-sided.
I didn’t see this thread before it got moved into GD. But I tried to explain my own understanding in terms that would make sense, even if they didn’t get agreed with, by both “sides” in the issue at hand, and I’d be very much appreciative if somebody would comment on my post above.
Are you being rude on purpose?
Mr. Visible
I think that it’s rather obvious that in that case, “your” is being used in the plural second person sense. Furthermore, you did imply that you object to people saying that expressing love is prohibited.
I didn’t say that you did.
Perhaps you should take your own advice.
I read it all, Poly and here’s my reaction to it.
Well, some people may think that including someone on a health insurance policy isn’t an act of love. Or that being able to sit with them in the hospital isn’t an act of love. But these routine actions fall into the love column in my opinion.
The Ryan, I don’t confuse sex with love. But I do know that sex can be part of an expression of love, and I know that it’s still illegal in some places for same sex partners to express physical love. And I know that it still gets people beat up, too.
Many christian churches have the audacity to state that they love homosexuals as long as they don’t commit the “deed” with someone of the same sex. Well…isn’t that lovely? Sexless relationships? Riiight.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ThatGuyWithPants *
**You said yourself it nearly drove yourself to suicide. You answered your own question. Do all gays have that responce? no. I answered what you wanted to hear: a physical reaction to a sin. There doesnt always have to be one. Its the spiritual damage that is important, not the physical.
Gay and Lesbians having a higher suicide rate is not because of their sexual orientation,Its because they cannot deal with the Bigotry of Judgemental,“holier than thou” hypocrites. Godspeed,Monica
Polycarp, I read your post above days ago, when you posted it. I am, as always, impressed with your compassion and your clear reasoning, and really had nothing that I could add to it. It’s encouraging to me that you’ve applied the principles of Christian compassion and generosity to the issue of homosexuality, and I can only hope that other people will find their way to the same position.
Paging Cessandra and ThatGuyWithPants – Great Debaters don’t bite! Really! (Well, with a few exceptions… ;))
I’d really hate to see this thread die, just because Czarcasm moved it.
The Ryan, are you saying that homosexuals can be in love, they just aren’t allowed to have sex?
-Guin, living the life of a straight, single unemployed college grad on Paxil withdrawal.
Hey, let’s not read things into The Ryan’s post. I grasped the point he was making – that attribution of “sin” to behaviors and classification of those behaviors as “a lifestyle” is not necessarily an intent to be insulting, but to express a point of view. And he didn’t specify that it was the POV he held, just drew a distinction.
However, my intention in doing “the homosexual lifestyle” paragraph was to put people on notice that they are indeed stereotyping and that it does come across as offensive, as much in the interests of fighting ignorance as anything else. If somebody uses the N word to refer to blacks because that’s what they’ve learned as the term for them, but doesn’t mean to insult in using it, that person is going to be mystified and upset when somebody flames him/her for using it. (Highly improbable in this day and age, but I can hypothecate a possible setting for its happening.) I’m seeing conservative-Christian use of “the homosexual lifestyle” as the same sort of ignorance as to pejorative connotation.
Give TheRyan a break on this, willya? He’s a prickly sort of individual, at times, but I’ve never known him to be intentionally trollish. I think he was trying to make a valid point about how the term is used by some people, and a number of people took it as him expressing his own views on homosexuality. And I’ve seen him do this sort of semantic clarification before, and get into fights about it when people jumped him for something he hadn’t actually said. I’d like to avoid that here if we can do it.
I apologize if bumping threads from their graves is an offense here, but its my first post so please be gentle about customs :). I got a link here from another thread and just couldn’t resist.
I must say the fervor surrounding such a non-issue as sexual orientation astounds me to this very day, because it is ultimately such a completely neutral characteristic. Let me see… where to start
Disagreements:
To me, that rings false. We do not, as a society, simply boil heterosexuality down as something that occurs within the sheets. It also blends into our relationships, romances, and (obviously) loves. Surely no one here would consider love a small part of a person which could, or even should, be separated from that individual.
I believe that was what MrVisible was getting at in one of his posts which became misconstrued: he was not talking limp-wristed lisping stereotypes, but rather how much the bare essence of sexual, emotional, and romantic deep attraction can mould our lives.
Ok lets break this bad boy down. First off, you can’t simply call for a literal reading of every word and commandment in the Bible, because we’re all in violation of a lot of Leviticus. Along with homosexuality, it condemns the consuming of pork, the wearing of garments with two types of thread, and the touching of a woman during menstruation. All of these, IIRC, are “abomination”.
So we’ll dump Leviticus and go to Paul. Jesus came down and formed a new covenant with the world that invalidated a lot of rules (hooray!). What about the parts of Paul’s letters which say slaves should obey their masters? Or that women should at no time teach or lead in their church? Or, furthermore, even ask questions within church?
Lets face it, folks: we read the Bible the way we, or our Churches, wish us to. We read it through a lense of our own reason, emotion, and bias. Using reason, then, what makes homosexuality a sin if we cannot solely use the Good Book to determine such a fact?
“Marriage is about sanctified, procreative sex!”
If you’re a Protestant with no issues on contraceptives, this stance is very hard (although not impossible) to pull off. So I’ll assume this statement carries the usual Catholic riders (sex outside of marriage = bad, no contraceptives, etc.)
You’re right. Gay men will never, within the present bounds of physics and the universe, no matter how many times we have sex with eachother, produce miracle butt babies. It just ain’t gonna happen.
But then again, a lot of very heterosexual couples can never have kids themselves. Some women have no uterus, some have non-functional ovaries, some men have no/low spermcount, or sperm that won’t swim, and many are simply wonky reproductively. Why can they be married and not I? They are just as effectively infertile.
“Because a miracle might occur between the man and the woman!”
Well yes, but a woman with no uterus would need the same kind of miracle a gay man would require: serious circumvention of reality and laws as we know them today. Just because she needs a little less than he does wouldn’t change that simple fact.
I don’t think anyone’s said the “gay lifestyle” (which I simply define as sleeping with the same gender) is, in and of itself, unhealthy or disordered. So if it hurts neither party, it cannot be considered on par with moral violations such as alcoholism (hurts me), and speeding (potentially hurts everyone else on the road and me.
Taken just from this assessment, the only thing that holds up is Biblical quoting, but that simply cannot stand alone as enough.
Of course its possible I missed something…
Priam said, “Gay men will never, within the present bounds of physics and the universe, no matter how many times we have sex with eachother, produce miracle butt babies.”
There’s a great sig line in there somewhere!
Oh, and welcome to the boards!
Miracle Butt Babies = Band Name!
That is one of the finest first posts I’ve ever seen, Priam – welcome to the SDMB and Great Debates!! 
Something that people tend to miss in the Christian threads is that for a Christian, self-fulfillment is not a goal to be sought after, but rather a fringe benefit of the real purpose to his or her life – the following of God’s will in his or her life.
Among other things, that means that one’s sexuality is somewhat delimited – not that Christians are any different from anyone else in what turns them on, but rather in that they attempt to seriously confine their sex lives to mutual satisfaction within a lifelong committed relationship. Part but not all of the purpose of sex in such a relationship is procreation, but the “physical underpinning of the commitment” through good sex and lovemaking generally is tied into that.
And, of course, your point that one’s life is far more than sex is a very good one. In a few minutes, I will get in the car with my wife and drive into town, where we will have dinner at a little local café and then pick up some groceries. Afterwards, we’ll come home and probably play some games we both enjoy together. And I’m just imagining how much Mr Visible would get challenged, in some posting situations, by describing himself and his boyfriend doing just the same things.
IMHO, that sort of lifelong committed relationship is quite possible, if somewhat difficult to achieve, for two gay persons who have fallen in love. And I have no problem calling it a marriage, support the wing of my church which considers it a marriage, and am in favor of the law recognizing it as such.
In this I differ strongly from the more conservative Christians who see gay sex acts as always sinful and feel that anything which attempts to enshrine the relationships in which they are performed with social approval is making a mockery of marriage. In view of some of the things that some heterosexuals do with marriage (Married by America, Newlywed Game), I find that stance laughable – but I must face the fact that their spiritual commitment is such that that’s a firmly held point of view.
