LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

"And I leave you with this final commandment, upon which ALL others are founded. You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your body. You are likewise love your neighbor, as you love yourself."

Well actually Snipe, Elfive beat me to an answer.

This is the short answer. To elaborate further, each person's salvation is between them and God. And only they and God know if they are truly saved. Christianity isn't the sort of the thing you can Single-Issue Wonk over.

And besides all that; the Bible tells you that while all sin is wrong, there are sins of presumption, sins of victimization. You'll notice that the original Ten Commandments mention nothing of homosexuality, but they talk about theft, lying, honoring your parents, and not being jealous. Y'know the things that people habitually get wrong all the time.

Sadly, QFT. What much Christians don't realize, or at least, I didn't realize....is that if you want to convert people to your way then you must be your brother's keeper.

Most people think brother's keeper is to be a busy body and judgmental. That is NOT a brother's keeper. The Bible actually frowns upon busy bodies and gossipers. The Bible fully explains what it means to be your brother's keeper. There was a nice gentleman; a Samaritan, for whom laws about common decency are named. Those Christians need to look that up and learn what it truly means to be your brother's keeper.

You have my vote.

It was an honor

I would argue that you are probably mistaken on this. There is this idea that "Progressive Catholics" are somehow the same as "less convinced Catholics" and, therefore, easier to convert to other points of view; but I think that, if anything, the opposite is true.

"Progressive" Catholics are often frustrated by the policies and by the attitudes of the organizational structure of the Catholic Church, are routinely accused by "conservative" Catholics of being "fake Catholics" and "Protestants-in-hiding", and would nowadays face little to no stigma should they decide to leave the Church for a more "progressive" one. And yet they did not leave the Church, in spite of this opposition and of the fact that the transition would be very simple and unproblematic.

So yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath on that specific target if I were you

But again, assuming that you succeeded... congratulations, you left a big and influential organization in the hands of its more anti-LGBT and conservative members. I hope you're proud of yourself

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

(facepalm) is my reaction whenever the Roman Catholic Church tries to regulate human sexuality.

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

You make a good point. I held the belief that Progressive Catholics would be easier to convince because they tend to disagree with the leaders of the Catholic Church more than non-Progressive Catholics.

Is there really a long term solution to the consent problem of conversion therapy though? I mean even at 18 "go to conversion therapy or I won't love you" can still be pretty convincing.

The Philippines has been accused to be a "fake Catholic country" cause Filipino society is (too) tolerant of gays.

Lemme see... 80% of 90 million = 72 million fake Catholics

Yay!

edited 1st Mar '13 7:27:45 AM by probablyinsane

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

I wouldn't go that far, personally. Sexuality, like all other faculties, can be misused; and, I think, the Church is not mistaken in objecting to unbridled hedonism and to our society's excessive (and, by the way, rather unimaginative and singleminded) focus on sexuality.

I even agree with the Church's opinions according to which it is preferable to be celibate until marriage*

, one must be absolutely faithful during marriage, and one should not divorce under any circumstances whatsoever (although of course a marriage could be null and invalid from the beginning, for example if it was performed under duress: that's a different matter). I would enthusiastically support the idea of the Catholic Church allowing homosexual religious marriage; but then the same-sex married Catholic couples would be bound by these rules, precisely as the different-sex married Catholic couples are.

edited 1st Mar '13 7:32:05 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Crap, Card, sorry, I forgot to answer your question about that. There are two solutions.

1) We get society to a place where everyone understands that gays are not the harbingers of the apocalypse and they all don't have some dark secret agenda to convert everyone to their gay orgy ways. On the flip side, we get them to understand that not everyone who thinks their lifestyle is morally wrong is out to gas them.

As we've seen, that won't happen. Getting society to change it's prejudices and phobias is always an uphill battle.

So instead I suggest 2) We teach our children to be critical and independent thinkers of their own volition. We teach them to seek out the research and learn to separate evidence from rhetoric. Then we create safe spaces where they understand that while they'll have little freedom in the beginning, they'll be trained for the day that they make their own decisions and live with the consequences thereof.

I truly think we'll see the pinnacle civilization when we teach children from a young age to think for themselves.

Agreed.

edited 1st Mar '13 7:32:05 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor

Starship honestly I'd like to think that either one of those would work, I really would. I have my doubts though. While we could change our prejudices it is going to take way a long time and some will never change. Racism is still a thing in America despite over 50 years of opposition.

The other thing is a lot of people don't want their kids to be independent thinkers. They don't want their kids to question doctrine or their secular beliefs. After all "If a kid questions whether or not gay rights is wrong he may eventually not believe anything else the Bible says", or if the son of a atheists starts believing in God "They might start blindly following the same ideas Fred Phelps supports."

Edit: Added quotemarks to show I don't believe that. But that is thinking behind that.

edited 1st Mar '13 7:54:17 AM by Wildcard

Ah, I agree with how the RCC says that sex should be treated (not) casually and ya know - treated with respect (cause sex makes babies, ffs).

My (facepalm) was for the fact that the RCC has consistently FAILED in trying to regulate human sexuality and also cause it's still trying to ban birth control despite that most educated and well-off Roman Catholics just plain ignore their no birth control policy.

Also, totally disagree that homosexuality is a sin.

edited 1st Mar '13 7:50:41 AM by probablyinsane

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

Agreed on all of this.

I have no issues with priesthood requiring celibacy; but I think that the Church would greatly benefit from having more married people — and especially more women — holding positions of responsibility in the hierarchy and being able to make their voices heard.

edited 1st Mar '13 7:55:04 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Done. Well, mostly. -looks back at the last page or so- Though I'd like a bit more reassurance that someday my civil liberties won't be at the mercy of Well Intentioned Extremists.

Also Maxima what your proposing is a long term society solution. I'd also like a solution within the therapy itself to prevent this kinda thing so that we could eventually reach that day if it'll ever come.

@Starship

I don't think this is what the person you're answering to meant when they said: "Religion isn't about love, it's about power and control." xD

They were likely referring to organized religion anyway. :V

Do you think acting homosexuality out is a sin?

edited 1st Mar '13 8:06:49 AM by kay4today

I am pro-women priests. That's another thing I don't see eye-to-eye with the RCC.

Lemme think... I don't like the RCC's current stance on homosexuality, birth control, female priests.

Am also very wary when funds are misused for personal gain. Over here, we have priests driving very expensive automobiles. Highly questionable.

As for abortion... (sighs), am very divided on this (as it's very difficult matter) which is why I want birth control un-banned so we'll have less abortions to deal with.

Homosexuality - the homosexuals ain't hurting anyone (except perhaps bringing shame to family and friends, well ya know), and even if they're very promiscuous - they ain't going to breed (accidentally).

Honestly, unwanted pregnancies is the main reason why I agree with the RCC about being damn careful about sex. I don't really care what two consenting adults do to each other in private sexytiems. What I care about is IF sperm meets egg = baby.

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

@Starship:

But if I loved God with my body, wouldn't that make me gay?

edited 1st Mar '13 8:19:22 AM by Snipehamster

No. Did I leave the impression somewhere that I thought that?

I think that, ideally, homosexual acts and heterosexual acts should only be performed within the framework of a committed, lifelong relationship. But that's not a terribly important issue, really, not compared to many other rules of Christian behaviour that are more often ignored.

I believe that the ideal would be to avoid premarital sex, homosexual or heterosexual; but there are far more important matters than this, and anyone who believed themselves superior to others because they kept their virginity until marriage would be very much Not Getting It (and, by the way, I think that "purity rings" and such nonsense are among the most asinine things ever invented).

edited 1st Mar '13 8:22:33 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

@Carc

So you don't care much about what the bible says?

What do you mean?

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I think Kay is wondering how you justify this belief, in light of what the Bible says on the subject. I'm curious as well.

boop

Well, the bible calls it a sin. So if you don't think acting your homosexual desires out is a sin, you disagree with the bible. Or you don't care about this certain part, dunno.

edited 1st Mar '13 8:26:53 AM by kay4today

To me, sodomy (excluding bestiality) ranks somewhere around working on Sundays.

I think eating pigs is a bigger issue than homosexuality.

Btw, sodomy also includes oral sex and anal sex.

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

Where does the Bible ban oral sex?

boop

"Sodomy" basically means "all the stuff practised in Sodom, which we're all told was terrible". It... never was particularly described in any great detail was that "stuff" actually was. <_< Later it came to mean something a little more precise. <shrugs> Make of that what you will.

edited 1st Mar '13 8:53:37 AM by Euodiachloris

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy

Sodomy (/ˈsɒdəmi/) is any non-penile/vaginal copulation-like act, such as oral or anal sex, or sex between a person and an animal.[1] The word is derived from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in chapters 18 and 19 of the Book of Genesis in the Bible.

—-

Since I don't want to argue semantics on the word "sodomy", let's pick something else from the Bible!

This was somewhere in Numbers. Yeah, death penalty for working on Sundays.

So like can we pretty please not take the Bible literally?

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.