Comments

"Homosexuality" is an obsolete Victorian era theory/social construct. In America, "homosexuality" is apparently a much abused straw man mostly used by greedy people who weren't raised right, who are full of ill will, and who rather nakedly covet Gay people's jobs and other resources.

Moral people. even people who might want to try that morality thing someday, don't really care if some people are Gay, unless they're looking for a date.

My Bible does not say that "homosexuality," or being Gay, or same-sex sexual activity is a sin in itself. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if the powers that be back then didn't approve of same-sex sexual activity...in public, but in private...?)

The usual clobber verses someone will no doubt start quoting are pretty much ripped out of context, to refashioned into clubs to clobber people into submission, but, that's apparently not working as well as it has in the past, is it? There is no reason to respect people who use clobber verses, given their use in America's history of preserving and extending slavery and Jim Crow activism by our conservative white evangelical descendants.

In any case, the clobber verses are about what was thought to be idolatrous activity. Idolatry, however, very probably doesn't cause people to be Gay, or to do same sex activity even if not Gay identifying. Biblio-idolatry, however, does seem to cause some people to talk, and sometimes even act, hatefully.

Are we ready to strike out a portion of the Bible?
"1 Cor 2:11 For Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him?" This legislation will stand AGAINST the word of God, be warned!

Gregory, you may call them clobber verses if you like. Indeed, there are many who seem to have less then the compassion of Jesus as a part of their earthly being. I am probably seen as being too simplistic at times, but simplicity has served me very well. I grew up on the family farm and taught agriculture before entering the ministry. I have simply observed God's world around me for many "answers" throughout life. AND I have yet to observe "same sex" activity running rampant in God's Amazing Outdoors, except in humans; and that is a very, very, very small percentage! Something you’d not know based on all the press it gets today!

I am continually amazed at how those bent on pushing "same sax" marriage down the rest of our throats, can consider it totally natural??? What "on Earth" is natural about it? The body was not designed to become as one with another of the same sex -- it SIMPLY does NOT "work"! God made MAN; and then realizing that HE was alone, CHOSE to make WOMAN.

You can deny the creation account if you like, but simply put, same sex "marriage" does NOT make a COMPLETE WHOLE. "Same sex marriage" is two halves -- TWO HALVES that can do things together for the rest of their Earthly lives if they beat the odds -- both statistically and medically -- however, no matter how close they claim to be emotionally, physically they will ALWAYS BE TWO, NOT ONE!

There’s a reason that we are created man and woman -- that TWO may become ONE! And, yes that CREATION might continue…

"Hate Bill" Favoritism

If "hate bill"-obsessed Congress can't protect Christians from "gays" as much as it wants to protect "gays" from Christians, will Congress be surprised if it can't protect itself from most everyone? If "hate bills" are forced on captive Americans, they'll still find ways to sneakily continue to "plant" Biblical messages everywhere. By doing so they'll hasten God's judgment on their oppressors as revealed in Proverbs 19:1. (See related web items including "David Letterman's Hate, Etc.," "Separation of Raunch and State," "Michael the Narc-Angel," and "Bible Verses Obama Avoids.") Since Congress can't seem to legislate "morality," it's making up for it by legislating "immorality"!

Greg, dude

What on earth are you talking about? I'm completely baffled by your post. How can congress legislate morality, when they are so immoral?

Is that like "christians" attempting to do the same when they thoo are immoral? You better get yourself out of peoples' houses - and deal with yours

Congress can't legislate morality because so many of them don't practice or even know morality. Listen to the news which makes sure the public knows every little detail of sin that congressional members do. And they get voted in over and over so I guess the public doesn't care about morality either. When you get congressional members with morals in those seats your laws will show this committment on the part of those writing and passing the laws. I agree with the 1% having so much influence in this country of the people, by the people, for the people. The people is 99% of this Repulbic and the laws and politicians should reflect the 99% not the 1%. No other 1% is allowed to have more influence than the 99% so why are homosexuals more special and important than the majority that makes up this Republic. Because of the money they empower and congress wants this money and wish to appease this particular group for fear of confrontation and no money. I know I wouldn't give any money to congress for what they do for me, all they do is pass more laws to restrict my freedoms. I can't eat what I want, I can't say or think what I want and congress cares less about my beliefs and my morals that come from my beliefs. All they want is taxes from me. We need another revolution from our new kings.

Anna girl,

You need to stop!!! You are becoming wuite paranoid. There are too few homosexuals for them to have that much power and money as you are talking about. With the way you talk about them, I can only but wonder if one of them took away your man or something?

We should be going after big business instead - you know like the oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies and the food companies that are making record profits while we can barely afford to live.

Gregory: If you mean by "clobber verses" you mean verses like 1 Co 6:9-10, well, they certainly DO make it crystal clear that homosexual activity is a sin. Now, I've heard all of the excuses as to why YOUR sin is not really a sin, but I ask you this: If these verses do not apply to you, can you tell me which verses don't apply to me? There are some things that God call sin that I think I'd like to try. Eating meat from strangled animals, maybe, is that a sin for me?

Given the context, "homosexual" is obviously not an appropriate translation in 1 Cor. 6:9-10. The verses generally refer to people who do exploitative, physically impairing and/or idolatrous activities. "Homosexuals" is neutral in those categories, as well as to gender. "Homosexuals" are people, people who are your neighbors, maybe even your children...not exploitative, idolatrous or physically impairing activities. Not to mention that "man, as opposed to people," is apparently explicit in Paul's writing, as near as I can tell.I'm hardly an expert, but I've learned from people who are.

The verses don't seem to be about one "being" who one "is" ...a "homosexual person." Our understanding of "Gay" is about one being a Gay person. "Gay" is an identity, a community, of being who one is...a way of living with a certain sort of integrity and honesty in a stupidly hostile and bigoted world. One can be celibate and be "Gay," but "homosexuality" is about sex first, not personal completeness and integrity, in which sexuality is an aspect of one's complete self, not that which solely defines one. A "Woman" is so much more than just about making babies...a "Man" is more than having sex with women to make babies, a Gay man is more than having sex with a man. Anyone can have sex with a man, after all...though don't do it without consent.

"Homosexual" was coined for scientific intent in the 1860's. An internet search says "1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert" who was arguing against proposed scapegoating "anti-sodomy" laws. The word, then the social construct of "homosexuality" came into English usage starting in the 1890's, with the translation of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's work. The word was mostly used in the 20th Century, and as both a social construct and scientific theory, started becoming obviously inadequate in America, at least, definitely by the 1970's.

Actually, Kinsey exposed the theory/social construct's inadequacy in the late Forties, I think.

Paul obviously did not use the word "homosexual, using the word, "Arsenokoitaiis," which people of ill will today immorally translate as "homosexual."

In Martin Luther's time, I'm told, arsenokoitai, apparently literally "man-beds," was interpreted as "masturbaters" rather than anything having to do with same-sex, mutually consenting, sexual activity. As "homosexuality" wasn't invented in Luther's time, let alone Paul's; the word would, could, only be used in the late 1890's and afterward, by any English speaking person.

Arsenokoitaiis' apparently first known usage was in Paul, only in one verse by Paul, I've read (and in Timothy which likely wasn't written by Paul, but well after Paul had been killed).

I'm told that Paul would have more likely used "paiderasste" to refer specifically to same-sex sexual activity, rather than "arsenokoitai."

So, I would think that a better translation would be "Men who exploit that which is done in bed, or only live for that which is done in bed," rather than any variation on "homosexual."

Man-Beds? ...Pimps who exploit women and others by selling sex in bed, and those who buy those services; lazy, indolent men who excessively stay in bed; male prostitutes who make a living in bed; male temple prostitutes who idolatrously conduct sort of religious-sexual rites in bed with men or women...and men who masturbate excessively in bed rather that get out of bed and do God's will, I would guess.

.............................

If my body was "designed," where do I file a suit for damages? I was, after all, born with a nasty little genetic time-bomb set to slowly and sneakily kill me, in a most horrible way, doing me in by my middle Forties...and which has cost me a great deal.

Thanks to multiple, Nobel Prize winning science, there is quite effective and affordable treatment (but no cure).My genetic time bomb has been defused, but not before it did permanent damage anyway. It's not the disease itself, but the sneaky, hard to diagnose "masked" variation of the disease that has cost me a lot. So, my "designer" would seem to have been extra wicked; not only designing in a genetic time bomb, but making it hard to detect until after it had done permanent damage to me.

Of course, evolution explains the problem quite well. I was just simply unlucky, and the disease could be inherited because it didn't kill before puberty, but after one normally raised children...and because in the bad old days, one often died by or in their Forties anyway.

But the religious right rejects evolutionary understandings...so I guess God is my devious, wicked designer, right? I'm not a victim of plain, evolutionary bad luck, of a random genetic mutation accidentally passed down to me, but instead, I'm a victim of a deliberately designed and intentional scheme...right? And, if God is my designer, that scheme was solely God's responsibility.

As an intelligent designer myself, a former graphics designer, if I made such a bad design that it cost someone a lot of money, I could well have gotten sued for damages. So, where do I go to sue the my designer?

If something is "unnatural," it's simply impossible. Same sex sexual activity isn't unnatural, because people do it. The "unnatural" label is a vicious attack on the humanity of Gay people, on the "other." Quite unconscionable. If Gay people are "unnatural," they're not really quite human, are they? They're something not human...not a natural human. That's evil rationalization...but something I sort of expect in religious right activists.

Sticking your elbow in your ear would be "unnatural," at least without amputation. God clearly finds sticking your elbow in your ear such an abomination, that God has made it impossible, right?

If we were "designed" to not have same-sex sexual activity, it would be quite impossible. We might be able to imagine it, but we could not actually do it.

Of course, simply because something is "natural," doesn't mean that it's a wise or moral thing to do, especially by everyone, all of the time, everywhere. It just means, "think before you act," admittedly easier said than done.

Regardless of sexual orientation, or the fuzziness, the category blurring consequences of the sexual continuum, sex has consequences. Learn what they might be...and think before you do. You still just might be unlucky in love, but you'll less likely suffer the consequences of being ignorant.

Diana: After you've been on this site a while you will know I'm not a girl and since I'm total woman, noone has taken away my man, especially another man. The % of a population doesn't determine how rich they are or how much influence they have in the media or Hollywood. Watch tv, check out a movie and you'll see how much the media is into sex and how much lobbying money influences politicians. Homosexuals destroyed the women's movement which they used to gain organizational power and get up high enough in government to push their agenda and once they got to where they didn't need to ride the women's movement's coattails, they kicked the women's movement aside. Homosexuals get to spend all their paycheck the way they want because they are not putting their money on kids and their time can go into organizing and spending years working on law makers because they aren't raising families. I'm all for women and men, Diane, not two men and two women because men can protect themselves simply because they have the physical strength of men, their murder rate does not make them deserve a special hate law, the murder rate of women and children deserves a special hate law. I have not mentioned the Bible saying you should not lay with a man as you would lay with a woman. I think the homosexual onslaught on the Church trying to get the Church to change its beliefs so the homosexual can have both their sex and the respect of the Church is destroying the work of generations of Church workers who built the buildings and raised the money to build their churches and now the homosexuals are going after one particular church to force their belief on the Church and to get away with not doing what the rest of us have had to do, to follow Jesus, you have to change, you have to stop your sin and sin no more. To do less means you are not following Jesus. So, now, Diane, I hope you know where I'm coming from. If I have to stop sinning, abstain from it, so do they. As for business, I don't see any business walking into my Church and telling us we gotta change our centuries old basic beliefs for the benefit of business. Auditors and laws made by government control businesses. Businesses don't control churches. Homosexuals are using the government to pass laws to help homosexuals force churches to submit to morals that are obhorrent to churches. That 1% is not for, by and of the people which is 99% of the population.

"The homosexual onslaught on the Church...?" The "Church" is acting in a very racist-like way towards Gay people; every tactic, every word directed towards Gay people comes, almost exactly from the anti civil rights, white privilege activists of my youth. The "church" has learned nothing, repented of nothing...well, I'm being too extreme. It has learned to bully, steal from and scapegoat a smaller group of people. "The church" was evil and immoral then, and "the church" is evil and immoral today.

Fortunately, there is the religious-right "church," represented by CT, which has a long and hypocritical history of passive aggressive, petulant hostility towards civil rights, especially civil rights leaders such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the real "pro moral" church. CT was deliberately formed to oppose the real "pro-moral" church, as represented by Christian Century. Ct's funding was the tainted money of the traitor and notorious bigot, J. Howard Pew. Pew also helped found that exclusive club for the apostles of greed, The American Liberty League, as well as that exclusive club for the apostles of privilege, the John Birch Society.

Pew didn't really believe in America's representative democracy, in equality under the law, in civil rights instead of inherited privilege. Pew believed in his inherited wealth buying propaganda to subvert, to undermine America's highest ideal of "All men are create equal." In funding CT, Pew had a new organ of unconscionable propaganda to undermine civil rights, which CT continues to crank out past Pew's death. Really, how do the CT editors sleep at night?

Actually, I suspect, very well. The self righteous cause insomnia in others, not suffer from it themselves.

Gregory, you're quite a trip, man! I love your imagination!

It has been a good while since I researched the history of CT for a newspaper editorial. It was Billy Graham himself, and not my imagination, who was the source of the notorious oil magnate, J. Howard Pew Jr's co-founding of CT. CT was explicitly founded as a the right-wing alternate to the usually somewhat moderate 'Christian Century.' (If memory serves, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was later an editor at large with 'Christian Century.')

I don't think I'm imagining CT's worry about the erosion of states' rights during the Civil Rights Movement era. Or CT's sympathetic "equal time for race segregationists" issue. CT was officially against segregation, and also passive-aggressively against most any and all attempts to abolish segregation.

States' rights, as near as this layman can figure out, is the political theory of privilege and duties, instead of individual rights. Of course, it's the duty of the privileged to determine the privileges and duties of everyone...often with assurances that God wants it that way.

If ancient memory serves, John Whitehouse of the Rutherford Institute, once wrote that God can condone most every form of government, except liberal democracy; that the Jesus race is in a perpetual "spiritual" race war with the unregenerate race, which must be dominated and segregated ...and that the wrong side won the Civil War. (He wrote a small book on the First Amendment, with an introduction by the pro-slavery, anti-democracy activist, Rousas John Rushdoony. CT both published Rushdoony, and then later to its credit, a piece by Rodney Clapp on Rushdoony's outsized influence on religious right leadership.)

I'm not imagining CT's well known petulant hostility towards Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his lifetime...despite claims in the last ten years or so that MLK Jr. was a close personal friend of the other founder of CT, and for many decades, chairman of the CT Board (though he's seldom mentioned, and then only in passing, in biographies of MLK Jr.)

I am not imagining the dubious ethics and morality of translating "arsenokoitai," "man-beds," as "homosexuals." I am not imagining that "homosexual" is of Victorian era coinage, and a word largely unknown in America until the 20th Century. In America, at least, "homosexuality" is an obsolete social construct much abused as a straw man and scapegoat by religious right activists.

I am an artist, a former graphics designer, so my imagination is likely not all that impoverished, but there is imagination, and then there are reliable or original sources...such as bound back issues of CT, often complete with an index for every volume, at many large research libraries.

Hey, one of the security words is completely illegible, except for a "d." Guess I'll reload.

There we go...subspace If

Anna, girl you need counselling is all I can say. What you've written is some of the most nonsensical things that I've read for a long while.

I don't understand if this is an American thing or what? I've attended conservative Christian evangelical churches since becoming a Christian 28 years ago. Not once have I heard a sermon denouncing homosexuality. That sexual activity outside of a male / female marriage is the standard is simply a given.

It seems far more productive, to me, to talk about what we should be doing than what we shouldn't be doing. Jesus said, "The one who loves Me is the one who obeys Me." It's up to the individual to seek out how to please and obey Jesus, NOT to look for ways to get around what we know He wants for us. Anyone who's had a spouse or partner cheat on you and lie to you or sneek around behind your back knows the truth of this.