Comments

McCain the adulterer has gall to speak about marriage or its definition. According to Jesus, McCain should be considered an adulterer, not only because he cheated on his wife (the wife who believed in their marriage enough to wait 5 years for him) when she was incapacitated and landed in a hospital. Should a committed same-sex couple have fewer rights than McCain's adulterous relationship? The answer to that is no.

The difference is repentance. McCain is not asking for rights for unrepentant adulterers.

Collatinus, you might want to read John 8 about the woman CAUGHT in adultery and the forgiveness Jesus gave her after asking anyone at the scene who was without sin to cast the first stone at her. I'm fairly certain Senator McCain has sought forgiveness given his response tonight. May the LORD bless you with His love in the name of Jesus that you might understand this Scripture, the depth of His forgiveness, the power of His blood, and His mercy and grace. Amen.

Sarah. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I was once and alcoholic and drug addict. I have been divorced twice, was addicted to porn and much much more. However, God forgave me upon my request and I now have the "gall" to say all of the above was wrong. Just beccasue I was once in the wrong does not negate my telling people about their sin and the grace God affords us when we ask and believe.
Even if I messed up again today, I ask for forgiveness and try harder. God is more interested in my tomorrows than my yesterdays.

John McCain made a mistake in his life which required him to find forgiveness as well as I am sure you have had to do in your life.

As far as a same sex couple is concerned, they should enjoy personal rights afforded to everyone with the exception of marriage. Marriage is a God ordained institution that was put into place to procreate in a healthy way. Homosexuality is a mental condition that prevents otherwise healthy individuals from being attracted to the opposite sex thus preventing them from recreating. It is a condition that may be treated. But we do not let disease change the definition of marriage because it is against the common good.

As a Christian, we love everyone regardless of their abilities or disabilities. However, just as a clepto maniac may feel inclined to steal, he/she does not have to act upon that inclination. Same with a porn addict, sex addict, or homosexual. We all need God's grace and self control and maybe therapy (in extreme cases). But we definitely don't change the laws to suit the individual.

"McCain the adulterer has gall to speak about marriage or its definition."

Actually, you can't say that he's an adulterer unless you first know what marriage is. Just like a thief who admits his guilt must believe in property rights, an adulterer who admits his guilt must believe in marriage.

Perhaps someday the California Supreme Court will declare adultery marriag

"McCain the adulterer has gall to speak about marriage or its definition."

Actually, you can't say that he's an adulterer unless you first know what marriage is. Just like a thief who admits his guilt must believe in property rights, an adulterer who admits his guilt must believe in marriage.

Perhaps someday the California Supreme Court will declare adultery marriag

McCain had a really touching anecdote to share regarding getting a little comfort from a North Vietnamese Christian during his time as a POW. It was so powerful that most people won't realize that he didn't even try to answer the question which was:
"How does faith work out for you on a daily basis?" Did his faith only serve him 30 years ago? How does it inform him on a DAILY basis? Still waiting for an answer, but I don't think we should hold our breaths.

As a hetrosextual and a catholic I have found it increasingly hard to follow the church on its beliefs regarding homosextuality. I base this on my lifes experiences with meeting individuals who are gay. I find it impossible to believe based on talking to these people over my life time that their desire to be with the same sex can be cured. Its easy to see this is how God made them. There is no mental defect nor is there any way to CURE homosextuality. What we have seen is people who do to their religeous up bringing try to change what is a natural choice for a partner into something that just does not work. Can you retrain the brain to accept what comes naturally ? I think not. Nor do I think we should.My vote is for the gay community to be who they are and live a life blessed with Gods grace.

Marylynn: The story of the woman caught in adultery was not originally in the Gospel according to John, it was added by later scribes. Nice story though. Nonetheless, your argument is invalid. If he is truly repentant of his sin of adultery (i.e. remarriage), then he would remarry his first wife, since (according to Jesus) no man can rip a marriage asunder.

common sense: I don't think you qualify as a Christian after that screed. Whomever it is you are following, it most certainly is not Jesus Christ - or perhaps it is, but in name only. And you've completely failed to demonstrate that same-sex marriage is against the common good.

Francis Beckwith: You don't need to wait for that. All 50 states have no-fault divorce, and therefore declare the adultery that follows to be marriage.

Sarah, I'm fully behind you.

I read all of this with my mouth agape that such Right-Wing views are still practiced anywhere in spite of reason and especially in a country with such an apparently amazing constitution.

Same sex relationships are no more a mental disfunction than religion itself. All should have the choice to seek the love of a God or a partner as long as it's within ethical bounds. Seeking the love of God through villification of humans, stealing their rights to is losing the plot...

Homosexuals can NOT be treated. But there is no cure for being ignorant either.

Keep well and try open up your mind.

Phil- South Africa

I watched yesterday's forum truly interested about understanding more about Senator McCain's faith, and I left truly disappointed. It seems to me the Senator continues to hide behind his Vietnam experience as a cloak of his faith. He was asked about his daily walk with Christ, a question I thought to be right on point. Senator McCain never answered the question, which leaves me to believe that he does not hold Christ as being center in his life. This will be a tough choice this year, but I think I may lean Obama.

Kevin H:
First, I wasn't even talking about same-sex marriage so your statement that I failed to demonstrate that it is against the common good has no relevance whatsoever to my remark. I never said anything pro or con about it (for the record, marriage is a union between one man and one woman in God's eyes).

Now, regarding the Holy Scriptures, I suppose the woman at the well of John Chapter 4 wasn't a part of the original Word (you know, the one who'd been married 5 times); or, if it was, the woman probably wasn't forgiven by Jesus because she'd sure have a hard time making it right by going back and marrying 5 men! Or, how about that Mary of Magdala? She was a prostitute, so by Scripture, she was likely "married" to many men in the biblical sense. She was good enough to be the first to spread the good news of Jesus' resurrection, but Jesus probably didn't forgive her, either. He just used her. Dear Lord, please forgive my sarcasm. I just weep over people's unbelief and lack of understanding. May you help to show Kevin and others who limit the power of your great Love and the blood of Jesus that You desire that none would be lost, and we AREN'T when we truly repent and don't go back to our slop. We can't make our sins right, Kevin (like by going back and marrying our former spouse whom we cheated on); our sins are washed away by the precious blood of Jesus and He has forgotten and forgiven we who are repentant. Only one sin is unforgivable: blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

I praise the holy name of the LORD that I have been persecuted for His name's sake. What an honor.

Love in Christ, Marylynn

First of all, I am not Kevin, I'm Collatinus - named after the great Roman.

Second, the part about same-sex marriage was addressed to the person who had grossly misnamed himself 'common sense', not to you. And regardless of what you think marriage may be in the eyes of God, I was talking about civil law.

Third, you do have a point concerning Mary Magdalene. He did associate with her, a prostitute, when he had no reason to do so - other than the compassion he felt for his fellow humans. Presumably, Mary repented of her sins and was forgiven for them. You say that you can't make things right by marrying the person you married in the first instance. That is correct. If you are repentant, you need to marry the person you married in the first instance and ask for forgiveness for the sins you have committed in the meantime. However, John McCain is not repentant. Since in Jesus' eyes John McCain's initial marriage is still valid, that means that he is in a continuous state of adultery. He needs to remarry his first wife. Once he has stopped cheating, he can ask Jesus for forgiveness, and not a second earlier.

I presume that this whitewash of his misdeeds has more to do with the fact that you want to vote for him, than with any serious theology. I am always amazed at how easy self-proclaimed Biblical inerrantists find it to waive parts of the Bible that they find inconvenient.

Collatinus, thing is, McCain also said his greatest moral failing was the failure of his first marriage. You haven't taken his comments in the forum in their full context.

Even further, gay rights advocates say that what is done in the privacy of their own bedroom is their own business, yet then they march the streets asking for people to approved of it.

If McCain did commit adultery, that is truly repugnant. Yet, as the other poster said, he isn't pushing for special rights for adulterers (heaven knows, we'd probably in time give it to them in this country!).

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51121

As near as I can figure out from the Bible, a man can only commit adultery if he has sex with another man's woman. It's not about sexual immorality, it's about theft of property.

If Cindy McCain was not promised to, or married to, another man, then McCain didn't commit adultery if he slept with Cindy while married to his first wife. of course, it's none of my business if he did or did not.

So...I guess under Biblical law, McCain is sort of married to two women, but only keeping house with one. As I don't think his first wife ever remarried, and it was permissible in the Bible to have more than one wife...McCain isn't an adulterer by Biblical standards, right? Nor a bigamist by modern standards.

However, marriage is no longer about keeping women as exclusive property to men in order to produce "legitimate" heirs. Consequently, while no adulterer by Biblical standards, by today's standards, if McCain slept with another woman, period, while married to his first wife, then he is an adulterer. But as adultery is no longer a theft of property crime, it's not illegal, just likely unwise.

And, since marriage has been separated from the concept of women as cursed because of Eve's alleged sin, cursed to be their man's subservient property in producing male heirs to his estate, privileges and duties as a patriarch, then marriage is about whatever we wish it to be about...like love, commitment, partnership and and the family we wish to have, not have to have...and some Gay men want marriage and some not-Gay men don't.

Don't forget that conservative Christians once, not long ago, were against marriages...between enslaved people, between people of different religions, and between people of different "races," whatever that was. What a nasty little social construct to prop up a disgusting caste system. To conservative Christians, love seems to have little to do with it. Nice if you have it, not necessary if you don't.

Marriage wasn't really about raising children, as some claim, it was all about male heirs to patriarchy, who just happened to be children for a little while.

Marriage in the Bible is about curses and blessings, people as property, producing heirs at any price, by any means...rather "I Love Lucy" plots for birthrights sworn on penises, daughters "given" to men for a price, raped girls forced by law to marry their attackers...a town burned, ransacked, people killed or enslaved, because of a single man's illicit seduction and date rape ...of being tricked into marrying a less desired woman, of dominance and submission, concubines, and slaves all over the place. A murder by a king to possess the murdered man's wife, who already had multiple wives and concubines. Rather kinky, deeply immoral and very complicated by today's tame, simple, unimaginative, radical Golden Rule standards.

Marriage to many gay people is about being together willingly, of two people equal in their eyes to each other, to love equally, to honor equally and to be equal partners in life; not petty tyrants that think they're doing God's will, and glorified slaves commanded by God, they're told, to serve their masters. No wonder conservative Christians, understandably suspicious of equality, especially in marriage, are so afraid of the marriages of some other people.

"I watched yesterday's forum truly interested about understanding more about Senator McCain's faith, and I left truly disappointed. It seems to me the Senator continues to hide behind his Vietnam experience as a cloak of his faith. He was asked about his daily walk with Christ, a question I thought to be right on point. Senator McCain never answered the question, which leaves me to believe that he does not hold Christ as being center in his life. This will be a tough choice this year, but I think I may lean Obama."

I completely agree.

And the answer to the "evil" question was scary to me to see McCain go straight to terrorism and communism first when discussing evil. "“If I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."

First of all, God is the one who will bring him to justice, not McCain. Secondly, Satan is much more subtle. Terrorism is just a starting point for evil. Obama's answer was so much more closely aligned with the Bible's picture of evil.

“Evil does exist,” Obama began acknowledging the premise of the question as he ticked off the evils of genocide in Darfur, inner-city crime and child abuse. “I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals erase evil from the world. That is God’s task. but we can be soldiers in that process and we can confront it when we see it.”

“The one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, but you know a lot of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil,” Obama added. “Just because we think our intentions are good doesn’t always mean that we’re going to be doing good.”

I appreciate a candidate (Obama) who understands some of the failings of our country, rather than blindly parading America's riches as the ultimate gain (I believe McCain said something along the line of "I want everyone to be rich").

More and more it seems like the ONLY issue McCain has going for him is the abortion one. Not sure if that's going to be enough.

Being rich didn't keep Mrs. McCain from spending some time in rehab for drug addiction, I've read...often a sign of unhappiness over something, I'm guessing. I'm glad it was available and effective for her. Of course, why she might have been unhappy is none of my business, unless...

It also suggests that being rich, and she's very wealthy, isn't the cure for all of life's problems, including unhappiness...though it certainly can help with some of them. If this were 1908, or if I didn't live in a rich country, and maybe even if I didn't have adequate health insurance in this rich country, I'd be for at least ten years, from a very horrible way to die genetic disease...which is now easy to treat effectively at modest costs.

As far as abortion goes, reducing the number of procedures by standard medically and sociologically informed public policies, as Obama suggests, is probably the way to go at this time...and for that matter, for a great many medical procedures as well.

Why, for example, are there no nutritious, affordable snacks anywhere near my work place? But there is a Starbucks in the lobby, with a display case of pastries, and vending machines full of other stuff I shouldn't even think of eating. If I don't remember to bring something in, and I'm an artist who thinks about work, not coffee breaks, what am I to do?

Actually, although it "appeared" McCain committed adultery with Cindy years ago, he actually committed adultery when he married his first wife, a divorced woman. According to Jesus' words on the issue, McCain became an adulterer when he "married" his first wife. Though he didn't realize this, according to common ethics (which believes divorce dissolves all marriage), he was unethical in starting up a relationship with Cindy while he was still with his first "wife".