LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

The bible says no sex with anyone but your spouse. At least in the new testament, they don't say the gender of said spouse.

Using this thread rather than the other to be on the safe side. Pat Robertson is upset that gay people are no longer stoned to death.

Fortunately, Robertson is stoned enough for the entire gay community.

Archbishop of Canterbury Welby believes Christians worldwide are at risk of persecution because England legalised gay marriage.

The deluded fool is supposed to be trying to be a moderating influence on the COE, but is no more tolerant of homosexuals than his predecessors, even if at least he recognises that it's not a fight he can win.

Okay...let me see if I can wrap my brain around this. According to this guy, there is a faction of people in South Sudan who strongly associate Christianity with homosexuality, and actively kill people associated with both. And the solution that is being presented is that...rather than have us come together against a mutual enemy, he thinks Christians should be more active in opposing equal treatment for LGBT people. Instead of supporting each other, he wants to throw us under the bus.

I have nothing to say to this.

At least he thinks it is dangerous to officially support LGBT.

I believe christians as hostages against a GSM is new.

He actually said they'd be at risk of persecution if the church recognised it, not because the nation does. Though the stupidity still stands.

Frankly I doubt he believes anything he's saying, as a member of the Co E hierarchy it's his job to be spineless and try and appease all parts of the Anglican faith (including the kill happy African parts...), so he's searching for any reason imaginable to justify the Church's stance, when the real reason is that they're afraid of the homophobes packing their bags and going to another faith.

For Americans, if you can imagine the Episcopalians on one hand and the Christian Reconstructionists on the other. Now imagine both of them under the same roof, with one guy who has to lead them. That's the Archbishop of Canterbury's life, and he has to try and stay neutral to keep the whole thing together. And, as Prussian proverb say, "being neutral is like living in the middle floor of a house, being smoked out from below and shit on from above."

In fairness to the man, you can't blame him for spinelessness; spines break, but jelly does not.

Here's a map of the Anglican Communion Provinces[1]◊. See the spread of churches and the many different types? He's the nominal man in charge of them all, but he has no power over them.

It's no wonder that they only accept spineless people into the Co E hierarchy, if they put someone with a spine in charge than the entire Communion would break into a thousand different parts.

The sad part is I can't bring myself to feel sympathy for what's going on in South Sudan. Yes, killing people is wrong, but then they turn around and blame us? There's only so much you can take.

edited 5th Apr '14 1:15:00 AM by Morgikit

So, I was talking with my mom about my situation again, and she let slip that she considers the ban on homosexual sex to be one of the "pillars of Christianity", which is utterly baffling to me. It doesn't fit. She mentioned the others as being the commands Jesus gave which boil down to "Love God" and "Love your neighbor" and the 10 commandments. Fine. There's nothing in those that encourages discrimination (except maybe "Have no other gods before me", but that's kind of standard in religions so whatever), so this one rule doesn't fit. She says it's because Paul reaffirmed it, but she doesn't cover her hair in church. That's mentioned about as often by Paul, so...yeah. She doesn't get my argument though that you can't say one law is paramount, when you ignore another law that gets exactly the same amount of mention by the same guy.

Honestly, I'm getting more and more iffy about Paul. He's the one who said the Scripture is divinely inspired, he's the one who put down the "New Testament Laws" and he defined Christianity far more than anyone else. But everyone I know seems to get queasy at the possibility that Paul may have been mistaken.

edited 8th Apr '14 5:05:55 PM by Zendervai

Paul was a fruit loop. No seriously, he was off his rocker. We have plenty of records that him and Peter among other Jewish leaders and Roman leaders too. He didn't skirt along the edge of the empire for nothing.

If I had a son like you, I would just shut up and be proud. What more could a mom want?

"Love thy Neighbour... NO NOT LIKE THAT"

Seriously though if "no bumsex" is one of the pillars of your belief system then you have a rather dumb belief system.

just pull out Matthew 22:36-40.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Literal Word of God, those most important things. People can argue what else matters, but to say anything but those two are most important is disagreeing with Jesus himself.

edited 8th Apr '14 5:13:56 PM by joesolo

The Bible always seemed to me to be a pick-and-choose book. Take what you want and discount the rest.

Living wholly by it is probably insane, so if you're living by it at all you should probably take the parts that are best for the society you're living in.

If I were going to pick and choose from the Bible for how to live my life, I would choose the cleansing of the Temple.

I would chose that bit where those bros bust open a dude's roof to save their one crippled bro.

That was a nice story.

I find this franky insane, she's putting three doggy mentions of something by the guy who thought we should all give up sex anyway, on the same level as the direct word of Jesus and the ten commandments? What the hell kind of Christianity is this?

I assume that there's no hope for explaining the context behind Paul's words? Not the him wanting us all the give up sex forever stuff, but the fact that the kind of homosexuality he knew and spoke of wasn't the kind that is seen today, you can find lots of Jesus fighting against abuse of the weak, which is largely what homosexuality was then, there's a serious argument that that is what Paul was condemning (though he certainly wouldn't approve of modern homosexuality, but he wouldn't approve of sexuality in general).

I know that my bible states "the abusers of themselves with mankind" and not "homosexuals", there's a big difference between the first and the second, a lot of Christians need to recognise that.

You want a key commandment from the Bible, trying to rule against lying, that's mentioned a lot. Plus there's nto passing judgement on others least you be judged, I always liked that one. both of those get a lot more push that homosexuality by the way.

it's not that it's pick and choose but that the rules have changed over time.

Meaning no disrespect to Mater, that "pillar of Christianity" business strikes me as a bit of an Ass Pull assertion. A lot of theologians believe that the sinfulness of homosexuality follows pretty clearly from various more fundamental commandments and the natural law, both Testaments have some explicitly disobliging things to say about it, and the Catholic Church, at least, has drawn some decisive conclusions based on those considerations. None of that, though, amounts to a "pillar" on the order of the Commandments, the Gospels, or the early Christian creeds directly derived from same. At best, it's a peripheral, second- or third-order dogma (though not necessarily to be ignored on those grounds).

Also as a general rule if you say X is a pillar of Y most of the time my pre-existing opinion of X is going to affect my opinion of Y and not the other way around.

That's how I see it. It wasn't included in any of the "big rules" parts, it's really more of a side thing.

Crossposting from the Christian Tropers Coven

So I got a card this weekend from Christian Homes & Family Services, a Christian adoption agency, inviting me to a dinner with a guest speaker. I had donated to them some years back through my old church a couple times and this got me curious to look up what their requirements for adopting couples are:

Now, the marriage requirement got me wondering whether they'd allow same-sex couples to adopt once marriage equality inevitably becomes law here in Texas. I've just sent an email and am interested to see the response.

If they allow multiple marriage recipients to adopt, then they can't really claim sanctity of marriage.

Why not? Ever heard of widows or widowers? Annulment? Even divorce is recognized by many Christian denominations.