LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

Except that's a perversion of the Love the Bible means too. It means to show them respect, not to change them to fit your needs.

Yes, they're perverting it. They're the bad guys, not everything that's written in the Bible. And only certain Christians do that. And certain Catholics. And many other certain members of certain groups that use the Bible.

Your generalization is false here.

If there were many Christians who supported equality for homosexuals, it wouldn't be an issue. The very fact that the pro-equality group has had to rely on the courts, rather than the legislature, shows that support for equality is not popular or prevalent among Christians. Consider how back in 2008 you had Mormons, Catholics, and evangelical Christians, groups that normally don't get along, unite in order to pass a constitutional amendment in California to ban marriage equality.

I've asked before and still haven't received an answer: Can you name some prominent American Christian leaders who actually believe there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and who support legal equality for homosexual people?

edited 2nd Nov '12 7:52:42 AM by Lawyerdude

That doesn't change what I said.

I did not specify "majority or minority" of members. I said that only certain members of each are the bad guys. They're the wrong ones, not all of a certain group. That's our point. Blaming it as a whole doesn't do jack. Stopping the ones who actually are against it is the key. And getting more on our side through various healthy ways.

No, your generalization is still false. If I was talking about a majority, I would've meant that.

@ Lawyer Does the head of the Episcopal Church count? They have over two million members.

That guy who was in charge of the Episcopal Church?

Edit: And suddenly, ninjas. One of them.

I wouldn't say "silent"...

edited 2nd Nov '12 7:59:58 AM by Morgikit

And based on my observations, the "certain members" you refer to comprise the current and past leadership, and the vast majority of the current and past membership. Face it, the pro-equality Christians are an insignificant, silent, powerless minority.

EDIT: Got Ninja'd there.

edited 2nd Nov '12 7:58:49 AM by Lawyerdude

So uh, by the church saying that they don't hate homosexuals but they don't want to encourage them by letting them get married... I mean by not allowing them to legally commit to each other, isn't that kind of doing the opposite?

@Shima: OK, Katharine Jefferts Schori. There's one person who presides over a two-million member denomination. That's something, although not much compared to the nearly one hundred million people in the United States who belong to the Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, United Methodist and LDS churches, all of which are officially anti-gay.

edited 2nd Nov '12 8:11:30 AM by Lawyerdude

In Lawyerdude's defense, Schori is widely considered a symptom of the Episcopalians' catastrophically dwindling membership. If they were anything close to their 1950s numbers, or their mid-century level of representation in American society, it's unimaginable that she'd have an individual church to preside over, much less the entire denomination.

The churches with vigorous and stable/increasing memberships mostly aren't bending over backwards on marriage issues, and they're mostly disinclined to wave away traditional Christian teachings w/r/t homosexuality where they clash with other people's feelings. In short, I'm not sure one should go inferring any trends based on the fading remains of mainline Protestantism.

It is kind of tragic that the churches that are increasing in membership tend to be the most bigoted and hateful branches, though

They'd probably describe it as "more concerned with what God demands of them than with evading all risk of being called 'bigoted and hateful.'" And they might (whether or not they mention Episcopalianism) observe that a church that exists to embody bien-pensant opinion, and fears to offend it, ends up a church without much reason to exist.

Frankly I couldnt give two shits what theyd frame it as. If they need to lie to themselves to make themselves the hero, thats not really my concern.

It still makes them rather evil for preferring some insane narrative to remembering that line about not judging lest ye be judged or loving thy neighbor.

edited 2nd Nov '12 10:39:43 AM by Midgetsnowman

Saying that they're lying to themselves is more than you or I can know. And there've been a few millennia of rigorous Christian thought invested in squaring Christ's various instructions to the believer—some of which look contradictory on the surface—and in maintaining the virtue of charity while still not being too intimidated to call right and wrong by their proper names. (At first blush, your final sentence could be taken as a violation of the two precepts it quotes—you see, it gets complicated!)

We already have a system of laws to determine what's right or wrong. And fortunately it's not based on "what these guys thought god was telling them 3000 years ago". Well, it shouldn't be because that's stupid.

Well, if someone actually believes that the punishment for homosexual acts is eternal damnation, then it would make sense that they would strongly oppose gay marriage while still not outright hating gay people. After all, they are (theoretically) just concerned about their salvation.

...It's a crazy belief, but it's a self-consistent one if you're a maltheist.

edited 2nd Nov '12 11:16:22 AM by HilarityEnsues

Maybe. except my personal belief is even if God is real, if he'd seriously do things like create gay people while simultaneously declaring them an abomination, then I'd rather burn in hell than live in any definition of what he'd consider heaven.

I think even most anti-gay Christians feel that way if they pose that theoretical to themselves. Not for nothing is the 'gay is a choice' idea still heavily in vogue. Relatively few people are comfortable with the idea of simultaneously condemning homosexuality and also believing that gay people can't be turned into happy straight people; our culture is not one that's friendly to the idea of lifelong chastity.

The problem with that worldview is it leads to non-heteros being treated as Card Carrying Villains, who only pretend to love For the Evulz. Is it any wonder they have such a low opinion of conservative Christianity?

If celibacy is your thing, go for it. That's cool. Just don't try to coerce people into it with threats of supernatural horror.

Call me crazy, but I wouldn't send the biggest asshole I know to hell. Frankly, it says a lot about someone that they think eternal suffering is justified.

edited 2nd Nov '12 11:44:41 AM by Morgikit

It's entirely possible that being a flagrant asshole can send a man to Hell ... and I'm all too certain that God created me that way. But it doesn't let me off the hook. We do not come into the world flawless and fit for God's purposes, and sometimes it seems impossible to become what He requires short of partially unmaking or destroying ourselves—short of rejecting much of what the world defines as "happiness." And depending on the particular crosses one is created bearing, or acquires later in life, the burden can seem ghastly indeed.

I understand your post. I'd rather be all right and acceptable just the way I am. I'd rather be such a well-tooled, virtuous person by nature that "being true to myself" could serve as an avenue to righteousness. But it hasn't shaken out that way. And though I pity and sympathize with all the ways in which we aren't automatically created okay, it won't do to ignore them, or to dismiss those people who feel they have no prerogative to ignore them as bigots.

edited 2nd Nov '12 11:39:34 AM by Jhimmibhob

There's a pretty big difference of magnitude between personal character flaws and one's entire sexual orientation.

And you might want to be careful not to confuse condescension with compassion.

I don't think it'll do much good to assert that homosexuality is wrong with nothing to support your claim besides ancient dogma, either. Maybe the whole idea of being true to yourself sounds like nonsense, but it certainly has more substance to it than "God said it". At least you have proof that you exist. God has no such thing.

I actually agree that we should strive to change ourselves, the only difference is in what areas we need to focus on. Sexuality happens to not be one of them. It is intellectually dishonest to equate being okay with homosexuality to being against the concept of self-improvement.

edited 2nd Nov '12 11:55:45 AM by HilarityEnsues

What I said was a response to Midgetsnowman's particular argument, and shouldn't be taken as my complete thoughts on the subject. Nonetheless, one man's "personal character flaw" is another man's "fundamental building block of identity"; the differences of kind or magnitude aren't always as great as Karkadinn might imagine.

And I wasn't aware that this thread was dedicated to whether God exists, or whether it's okay to have religious convictions. I thought it was an exploration of how religious people square (or might square) their convictions on the subject of homosexuality with the requirements of the public square. Saying that such convictions are obvious non-starters is not only a weak assertion, it seems more like an attempt to wish the discussion away than to conduct it.

edited 2nd Nov '12 12:10:45 PM by Jhimmibhob

I didn't say it was wrong to have religious convictions, only that your reasoning is not somehow more sound because it is backed by a faith.

And God's existence is entirely relevant, because without it, God-based arguments against homosexuality fall to pieces. With all due respect, I think anyone who tries to hide from this is the one who, as you put it, is trying to wish away discussion.

If a mod says this isn't the appropriate sort of thing to discuss here, I'll stop talking about this. But with the way this thread tends to go all over the place, what is "on-topic" seems to be incredibly vague these days.

edited 2nd Nov '12 12:31:52 PM by HilarityEnsues

Jhimm, your premise can only be valid if you feel comfortable ignoring several decades of majority consensus conclusions from the psychiatric community. I know mental health isn't one of the hardest sciences ever, but that doesn't mean it's completely worthless.

Flip flopping your orientation is NOT the same as, say, learning to control your temper.

Period.

Actually, it doesn't need any such thing to be valid. I'm no psychiatrist, and am fine with deferring to their opinions, but they change nothing. As generations of Christian martyrs could attest, doing the right thing is sometimes inconsistent with staying physically alive. By the same token, there's no guarantee that obedience to God is any ticket to a psychiatrist's idea of mental or emotional health—depending on the individual, those could also be inconsistent goals.