A question for christians accepting of homosexuality

[HYHYBT]

Jesus fufilled the law and pretty much said you don't have to follow them anymore. All that is required is that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. And love your neighbor as you would yourself. In other words you follow those two rules and everything else falls into place on it's own.

Homosexuality IS a sin, yes...

See, I agree completely with your first paragraph, and therefore find the second one baffling. If you leave out the Old Testament laws, the only thing left to base "homosexuality is a sin" on is a couple of verses in the letters of Paul, which are much more likely referring to sex between men and boys, prostitution, or ritual sex... and that's leaving out his rather eccentric views on sex in general; he didn't even really approve of straight marriage except in a sort of "oh well, if that's the best you can do I guess it's OK" kind of way.

How do you hate something that is an inextricable part of who someone is, something they couldn't change if they wanted to...?

People do it ALL THE TIME. I hate diabetes and arthritis. I love my mother, who has both. Loving her does not mean I love the illnesses which make her life more difficult: just the opposite.

It's the same principle with sin, or at least is supposed to be. The main practical differences are that 1) so many people use the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner" when they are, in fact, hating the 'sinner' whether they realize it or not, and 2) they are mistaken in their idea of what is sinful and what is not.

And where, exactly, has it ever been suggested that they don't {have the right to marry gay couples}?

It's been more than suggested, many times and vehemently. Of course, that's ONLY ever by the anti-marriage side, and ignores all precedent, so it doesn't matter except so far as it gets people stirred up.

There's something I'd like to add: Even if someone could choose whether or not to be gay, there's still nothing wrong with it!

AMEN!

[Ghel]

The prejudices of the majority should never be used to decide the rights of a minority.

Hear, hear!

...something they couldn't change if they wanted to...

I see this expressed a lot. While I agree with it, there's something I'd like to add: Even if someone could choose whether or not to be gay, there's still nothing wrong with it!

[jackfaire]

The point of that idea was less asking for a definition of marriage and more asking "what's the first thing that you think of when you hear that word". I still believe the first thing most people think of is the ceremony..

If you were talking the word Wedding I agree most people would think the ceremony. The word Marriage however invokes images at least in me of the actual marriage the living together, the raising kids, the falling into bed exhausted. etc.

[ladyneeva]

The point of that idea was less asking for a definition of marriage and more asking "what's the first thing that you think of when you hear that word". I still believe the first thing most people think of is the ceremony.

First thing I think of is my ceremony. Which involved me, my husband, a judge, and a 30 minute lecture on how in the 1800's or whenever people had to wait six months or a year to get married because the judge only came through their town once or twice a year. In short, there was nothing of religion because religion or lack there of does not and SHOULD not dictate what is and is not considered a marriage.

I want separate and completely different in every conceivable way because they aren't even the same thing.

Yep, I can totally see how a man and a woman falling in love, going to the courthouse, signing a piece of paper and suddenly being the beneficiaries of hundreds of legal rights and protections is totally different in every conceivable way from two men or two women falling in love, going to the courthouse, signing a piece of paper and suddenly being the beneficiaries of hundreds of legal rights and protections.

The religious side of the argument will never fully accept the idea of gay marriage as it currently stands.

That should not even be a concern, at all, because the laws in our country should not be based on what some religion believes or what gets it's followers panties in a wad. This is a secular representative democracy, not a religious theocracy.

Plenty of religious people and a number of churches are more than willing to accept and honor the idea, but the majority of them are not, and that majority is the important part, because our legal system is based on majority votes.

If our legal system were solely based on mob rule (majority vote), slavery would still be legal, women would still be second class citizens and heaven only knows what new laws would be passed against the overweight and Hispanics.

The prejudices of the majority should never be used to decide the rights of a minority.

And the problem is, I don't want to be arguing about anyone's beliefs. I want to be debating the ethics of denying rights to one class of people.

When the only reason those rights are being denied is because of the words in some religion's holy book, it is impossible to debate the ethics of denying them rights without religion coming into it.

*sigh* I hate when people bring up laws in the OT. NOt that I want to ignore them, but because no one seems to understand why we don't follow the old Law anymore. We don't have to! Jesus fufilled the law and pretty much said you don't have to follow them anymore.

You don't follow the old law. Except for the parts about homosexuality. The only mentions in the new testament that have been translated to have any mention of the topic lump it together with these other horrible sins -- suing each other in a court of law (as opposed to a church tribunal), giving or receiving a blow job, cheating on your spouse, being a whore, stealing, drinking, slandering people, and following any other religion than Christianity.

And yet, I have never read a news story about how some guy was murdered because his wife gave him a blow job, I've never heard a news story about people accusing everyone who sues someone in a court of law being presumed to molest children, and most relevantly -- NONE of those 'sins' in that list will in any way prevent someone from getting married.

So regardless what your God may or may not think, it is plain that NOT all sins are being treated equally with regard to how many followers of your religion treat various sinners. Your neighbor cheats on his wife with the nanny, divorces his wife, marries the nanny? Sure. Might be a cause for community gossip for a while... but thats it. No scathing news articles about how 'his type' isn't welcome here, how 'his kind' are all pedophiles and animal rapists, nobody (except maybe his ex wife!) will deface his car by carving insulting slurs into it. And nobody will bat an eye down at the courthouse when he files for a new marriage license.

Homosexuality IS a sin, yes. But we're suppose to hate the sin and love the sinner.

How do you hate something that is an inextricable part of who someone is, something they couldn't change if they wanted to (and untold numbers of homosexuals have tried... and a few have tried so hard it killed or permanently maimed them) without hating a part of them?

Also, the things that many many people who consider themselves to be 'good Christians' say about homosexuals? That is not love. Telling someone they're sinners, that you hate part of them, that you "don't like what they do", that in short you disapprove of them and think they deserve to burn in hell for all eternity simply because of who they are attracted to... that is incredibly, incredibly hurtful. And yes, it does rise to the level of hate.

Hate isn't only one action or one statement. Hate can also be a thousand little things that taken one by one they aren't "hateful" at all, but when you hear them every single day, from everyone you come in contact with, and ALL YOU HEAR is how nobody likes you, you don't deserve to have the same rights, you are bad and sinful and evil... day in and day out...

Yeah. That rises well past the level of hate as far as how it feels to be that person who has to spend every day being slapped in the face with "you=sin, sin=evil, you=evil!"

however a church should also have the right to refuse to marry a gay couple.

And where, exactly, has it ever been suggested that they don't? Hell, even a straight couple can't just walk up to any church they like and get married in it -- churches deny couples the right to get married in their church all the time. The difference is that that couple can just go down to the courthouse and get married and tell the church to go hang. They don't have to engage in semantic athletics to appease the church, they don't get told oh, so sorry, but you can't have a marriage you have to have a civil commitment. It's just as good, honest. All the same rights. Just a different word because it's not really marriage, oh no, only normal people get to have that, not depraved sinners. But really, other than that, it's almost practically the exact same thing!

[SG15Z]

*sigh* I hate when people bring up laws in the OT. NOt that I want to ignore them, but because no one seems to understand why we don't follow the old Law anymore. We don't have to! Jesus fufilled the law and pretty much said you don't have to follow them anymore. All that is required is that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. And love your neighbor as you would yourself. In other words you follow those two rules and everything else falls into place on it's own.

Homosexuality IS a sin, yes. But we're suppose to hate the sin and love the sinner. Just because God hates the act of homosexuality doesn't mean he hates the person. Nor should we hate them.

Also even though I don't like what gays do, I hate even more the fact they don't have certain rights. They should be able to get legally married if they want. There's nothing wrong with letting gays do that. however a church should also have the right to refuse to marry a gay couple.


Now I want to address the verse again. God put the death penalty on that and pratically every other sin there was. Why? Because he was making the point that all sin is the same to him. Someone being gay is just as sinful and murdering someone. God doesn't have levels of sin, they're all equal in baddness to Him. Therefore he gives the same punishment for all of them. Eternal seperation for Him.

[Rapscallion]

So only religious couples get to use the term married? Thats odd, I haven't seen a single thing about heterosexual non-Christian or even non-religious couples being forbidden to use that term.

Well, yes, but let's face it - if we don't protect the atheists having a right to be married, then the married religious people will be next, and if we don't allow them to get married, then ...

Slippery slope - slippery in both directions

Rpascallion

[KabeRinnaul]

I stand behind my statement... the only time I have EVER seen anyone anywhere whine about the religious-ness of marriage was when they were trying to redefine the term to be solely religious.

I am trying to redefine that term, in exactly that manner. But you're making a big assumption about the reasons I have, and about the whine levels of my posts. And while Machinest makes a good point about having to change other laws to reflect a change in definition, that's not an exceptionally large hurdle, for two reasons:

1. You can introduce an addendum (or whatever the term should be, I've only ever had one law course) to state that the new term applies to the previous wording.
2. Just not get too terribly caught up in the wording to begin with. I can accept "Legal Marriage", "Secular Marriage", "Civil Marriage" or whatever. The point is to be able to separate the two.

Everyone else if asked will just say it's when two people are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together.

If marriage was only a religious thing, as you claim, there would be people campaigning seriously to ban divorce, to ban courthouse ceremonies, to remove legal rights from straight couples who are not married in a church or not members of a church.

The point of that idea was less asking for a definition of marriage and more asking "what's the first thing that you think of when you hear that word". I still believe the first thing most people think of is the ceremony.

It's not that marriage is a solely religious thing, otherwise a hardcore atheist friend of mine would never have proposed to his girlfriend at the time. The issue is just that many people, especially those who argue against gay marriage, conflate the legal and religious sides of marriage. So long as they do that, they will argue against any changes to marriage because they will consider it a change to the entire institution, including what their own beliefs allow.

My goal is to make it so they can't make the two issues out to be the same.

None of this is happening, so it is obvious that even the religious types don't actually give a flying fuck about if marriage is or is not religious in nature. They ONLY pull out that argument as an excuse to deny marriage to people they don't like.

I'd say that the "only" clearly isn't true because I've got no problem with gay people at all, and am all for them having every right a straight person does. But then I realized that it actually doesn't apply to me because I'm not arguing this based on a religious background, nor do I consider myself a particularly religious person.

Separate but equal isn't. We proved that the last time it was tried. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes, not repeat them just to appease the church, the racists, the sexists, or any other group that promotes anything other than 100% equal treatment under the law for everyone.

I don't want separate but equal.

I want separate and completely different in every conceivable way because they aren't even the same thing.

The purpose here is NOT to keep marriage for one group and give unions or whatever term you prefer to another. The purpose is to completely separate the concepts of a legal and religious union regardless of what we call them. The religious side of the argument will never fully accept the idea of gay marriage as it currently stands. And understand I am intentionally speaking in sweeping gestures, here. Plenty of religious people and a number of churches are more than willing to accept and honor the idea, but the majority of them are not, and that majority is the important part, because our legal system is based on majority votes.

Like I said above. I don't care what you call it - marriage, union, joining, bond, whatever. I don't care who you marry or even if you marry. It's not really any of my business and if you want it from a religious standpoint, I have no authority to cast moral judgment on anyone.

But people get hung up on definitions and meanings. Maybe if we tell them we're not talking about marriage, they won't be so defensive. But as soon as that word enters the debate, many conservative Christians (and yes, those of other faiths too, but I'm primarily discussing American law and thus will focus on the majority religion here) will immediately start trying to defend their beliefs.

And the problem is, I don't want to be arguing about anyone's beliefs. I want to be debating the ethics of denying rights to one class of people.

That's why I want to separate the two, and why I don't care what people call it but would change it if I can. If using a different word or changing the issue in that manner is what it takes to give equal rights to everyone, that's a compromise I am willing to make.

[HYHYBT]

Since the thread has wandered over that way anyway... one of the rights of civil marriage *is* the terminology. Churches already choose which marriages to recognize and which not to; there simply is no valid reason for this to be any different.

Though I'd gladly take 'civil union' over the nothing at all we have here

[machinest]

Another problem with changing the term used for "legal marriage "is that many of the laws pertaining to the rights and responsibility's of a "married couple" use that word and would have to be rewritten wholesale to refer to a civil union.

[ladyneeva]

I stand behind my statement... the only time I have EVER seen anyone anywhere whine about the religious-ness of marriage was when they were trying to redefine the term to be solely religious.

Everyone else if asked will just say it's when two people are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together.

If marriage was only a religious thing, as you claim, there would be people campaigning seriously to ban divorce, to ban courthouse ceremonies, to remove legal rights from straight couples who are not married in a church or not members of a church.

None of this is happening, so it is obvious that even the religious types don't actually give a flying fuck about if marriage is or is not religious in nature. They ONLY pull out that argument as an excuse to deny marriage to people they don't like.

Separate but equal isn't. We proved that the last time it was tried. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes, not repeat them just to appease the church, the racists, the sexists, or any other group that promotes anything other than 100% equal treatment under the law for everyone.

[jackfaire]

I never thought of Marriage as a religious thing nor did I think it ever was.

I always thought it was more, "Hmmm how do we stop two men from fighting over the same girl? I know create a union that is permanent and binding so as to remove the reason for fighting."

Boom you have marriage.

[KabeRinnaul]

Marriage stopped being a religious concept ages ago... now the word has come to mean any two things that are seen as being linked together.

Not to the majority of people. I think that if you took a poll on what people thought of when the word "marriage" was mentioned, you're get about 99% describing a ceremony in a church and performed by a priest, with the last 1% being split between talk of the legal matters involved and the very general definition you just used.

Trying to pass legislation to change the definition of the word marriage into meaning that ONLY Christians may use it would be as big of a joke as that guy that tried to get support for a measure banning divorce.

Yes, it would be. Which I why I never said that. In fact, I said the literal opposite of that. Here's what I said, emphasis added: "I just mean that the term 'marriage' shouldn't be solely the domain of heterosexual Christians."

The majority of people simply do not consider there to be any difference at all between a state sanctioned marriage and a church sanctioned marriage.

Yes. That's the problem, actually. So long as we continue to consider Law-Marriage and Church-Marriage the same thing, allowing homosexuals the same rights as everyone else in this area will be a difficult uphill battle. As it stands, any time someone talks about giving homosexuals equal legal marriage rights, it gets wrapped up in the religious debate on homosexuality (like the one this thread was started about).

And once that happens, the crazy choir gets started and nothing useful can be discussed over their incessant panicked screeching and Leviticus quotes. The entire goal I have in dividing the two is to cut the legs out from under that entire argument.

In fact, the only time anyone, anywhere, EVER makes a distinction between marriage as a religious sacrament and marriage as a legal contract is when they are trying to prevent homosexuals from engaging in the latter by claiming marriage is only the former.

Er, no. You've gotten my whole end goal backwards. I'm claiming that marriage is only a religious sacrament because a religious sacrament should be legally meaningless. I don't want only straight people or Christians to be married. I don't care who gets married by their own faiths. What I want is for "because we're married" to have as much legal standing as "because my pet dragon says so."

I'm dividing the two not because I want to deny homosexuals a legal marriage, but instead because I want everyone to have a civil union. The entire thing is, admittedly, just semantics. There are only two reasons I have for distinguishing between the two: to be able to explicitly state the difference in debates, and to remove the religious objections from the debate in the mind of the public.

[Kheldarson]

Marriage stopped being a religious concept ages ago... now the word has come to mean any two things that are seen as being linked together. Trying to pass legislation to change the definition of the word marriage into meaning that ONLY Christians may use it would be as big of a joke as that guy that tried to get support for a measure banning divorce. The majority of people simply do not consider there to be any difference at all between a state sanctioned marriage and a church sanctioned marriage.

In fact, the only time anyone, anywhere, EVER makes a distinction between marriage as a religious sacrament and marriage as a legal contract is when they are trying to prevent homosexuals from engaging in the latter by claiming marriage is only the former.

Actually, I'd have to disagree. First of all, again, I don't care if the government wants to allow you and your dog to claim legal rights on each other, that is their prerogative. Although that would be a little weird and excuse my hyperbole there. But still. Point remains. My political belief is that first, the federal government needs to get out of the marriage discussion and let states determine what constitutes a legal union.

Second, I'd disagree on marriage being a non-connotative word. Part of why we have all the arguments is because of word choice. Marriage is seen primarily as a religious ceremony, particularly by those of a religious nature/community/bent. Which happens to be a fair amount of the population, particularly the population that you want to stop fighting against the idea of legal unions.

So change the language. The end goal is to get the same legal rights for homosexual couples as heterosexual couples. So use terms that have an undisputed legal connotation. Civil union. Legal union. Union. Joining. Anything but marriage. This makes it clear on what exactly you are talking about and causes a distinction between the legal issues and the religious issues.

And an interesting personal anecdote on your last point. My parents were married twice. The first marriage was a legal ceremony in front of the Justice of the Peace. The second was a couple months later in front of a priest. This was because they were married in Germany, where it is my understanding that since the Reformation, the practice has been to separate the two types of marriages. The only one that is necessary for the government is the legal union in front of the judge. The other is optional for legal purposes, but important if you are even remotely religious, and the church you belong to determines if you can get married in its ceremony or not. This would be my end goal for the US. However, in order to do so, again, you have to separate the two concepts. One way to do so is to make a distinction between the two by using different terms.

[Ree]

In fact, the only time anyone, anywhere, EVER makes a distinction between marriage as a religious sacrament and marriage as a legal contract is when they are trying to prevent homosexuals from engaging in the latter by claiming marriage is only the former.

Ummm...nothing like speaking for everyone on something. That's a pretty broad statement there.
You might want to rephrase a bit so you aren't putting your own words into other's mouths.

[ladyneeva]

Marriage stopped being a religious concept ages ago... now the word has come to mean any two things that are seen as being linked together. Trying to pass legislation to change the definition of the word marriage into meaning that ONLY Christians may use it would be as big of a joke as that guy that tried to get support for a measure banning divorce. The majority of people simply do not consider there to be any difference at all between a state sanctioned marriage and a church sanctioned marriage.

In fact, the only time anyone, anywhere, EVER makes a distinction between marriage as a religious sacrament and marriage as a legal contract is when they are trying to prevent homosexuals from engaging in the latter by claiming marriage is only the former.