LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

Is that so?

Also, you're using a false dichotomy between religious people and the LGBTQ community. Is there not some overlap?

Edit: 2/10 pagetopper. Needs above post for context.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Mar 27th 2019 at 5:24:46 AM

Even when things on that list aren’t considered bad (which idolatry very often isn’t) the scale of badness applied to them is nowhere near as heavy as the scale applied to homosexual sexual acts.

We (thankfully) don’t see torture camps set up for teens that have expressed an interest in getting drunk but never even done it, people aren’t expelled from their church for following celebrities lives closely, so very many people who cheat are happily allowed into the flock of protastent churches, so very many liars (which in the case of the Catholic Church includes so very many priests who have covered up abuse) are not even reprimanded for their lies, ect...

A number of churches treat homosexuality as a sin of the magnitude of murder instead of the magnitude of idolatry or drunkenness.

Don't forget the number of tax evaders, dodgers and the poor, put-upon collectors who are happily accepted into congregations every day. Or the investment bankers whose bread and butter is basically usery.

Naughty, but concentual, sex between adults should never, ever go into the same bracket (or higher) as "extortionate slum lord". One has way more victims with a much wider social impact. :/

Again, it seems like a church's job to speak against things it considers sinful ... and it seems understandable that by & large, they'd need to expend less energy on those which most people already don't approve of (even though good old human weakness means they're always going to happen).

Sure. Now, if somebody outright says something implying that's what he's thinking, there goes the benefit of assumption.

And of course there are plenty of gay religious people, just as there are plenty of churches & religious groups who don't have a beef with the issue. I thought it went without saying that we were talking about the ones who do.

I don't disagree. But a church that holds such beliefs should probably be equally loud on both subjects, rather than equally quiet.

That translates badly to me.

So if a church believes so, gay sex is the same as extorting people?

oookaaay

...Or, maybe it can stop saying what people are and are not allowed to have consensual sex? Just maybe. That would be nice.

Also, Euo's point was that they weren't equal, so I don't see why they should be equally loud at all?

Sure, but I dispute your premiss that more people approve of homosexuality than approve of idolatry, alcoholism, adultery, lying and usery.

Particularly in the US, where you have an entire political party devoted to idolising usery and lying while being ferociously opposed to homosexuality.

Good luck convincing them. Rightly or wrongly, many churches seem to think the subject is well within their wheelhouse. Everyone's got an opinion.

And depending on a given church's doctrine, they might or might not find the two subjects equally worthy of tackling. No one really gets to tell them what their priorities must be.

Edited by Jhimmibhob on Mar 27th 2019 at 6:41:45 AM

...

Nope. Nope. Going to disagree with you there. I'm absolutely going to call them out for homophobia, regardless of whether they put a glossing of faith over it or not. You can be both religious and accepting of LGBTQ folk. People do it all the time. The fact that some churches don't is a personal and doctrinal choice of theirs, and they can face criticism from others and their own members over it.

Sure nobody gets to tell them what their priorities must be, but one can easily call out that their priorities show that they're more interested in hurting people and promoting hatred than actually following the message of Christ.

I'm going to bring back the topic of divorce, because it's always struck me as good example of how 'but it's in the Bible!' doesn't make any sense as a reason for why same-sex intercourse should remain unacceptable.

I mean, the Bible explicitly frowns on divorce in several places, right? And yet, the majority of Christian communities don't really care. I'm Catholic and we're not technically allowed to get divorces at all, and even my community just kinda shrugs. "Well yes, but we live in the real world and these things happen, why can't divorced people remarry and take communion, we should fix that".

Why do we not have the same flexibility when it comes to homosexuality?

Edited by LoniJay on Mar 27th 2019 at 9:07:54 PM

Because it's become untennable in modern society with fifty percent divorce rates to find a listening audience, but many worshippers of certain congregations still find it acceptable to be preached homophobia cloaked in faith.

It's pretty obvious that the reason homosexuality is still controversial and mixed fabrics or shrimp aren't is cos over time people stopped giving a shit about shrimp and mixed fabrics but stayed homophobic because people are all weird about sex.

The bible's got nothing to do with it.

Edited by Elfive on Mar 29th 2019 at 10:00:21 AM

I'm also Catholic, and there's no flexibility that I've noticed on the subject. Valid marriages are considered valid in perpetuity, and no Catholic whose situation materially amounts to adultery may receive the sacraments. In the cases of divorce and homosexuality both, the Church has well-defined limits that she won't cross, while also respecting the humanity and fallibility of its flock as much as is consistent with orthodoxy. Not seeing the distinctions here.

I’d argue that the catholic church’s hypocracy lies less with its treatment of divorce and more with its treatment of liars, the Catholic Church has for decades continued to treating lying to cover up a crime by the priesthood as either a good thing or a minor sin, not a huge “you must be expelled from the community and told you’ve turned away from god for life with your sinful ways” sin like homosexuality.

With Protestant churches the hypocracy is more centred around immoral money lending, divorce, adulatory and idolatry.

Well, I'm not talking about the official church doctrine here so much.

Firstly, your average catholic on the street - the majority of them are not hugely fussed about divorce and also many forms of contraception, in my experience. I've definitely seen 'the Church needs to be more accepting of divorced people' come up as a topic of conversation, in the context of the 2020 Plenary Council which is supposedly asking average Catholics for their views.

And secondly... well, people don't usually think that accepting divorce makes you somehow less valid as a Christian. Which was the initial point of contention, whether a church that accepted gay people was 'orthodox' enough. Why is it 'unorthodox' to permit homosexuality but not to allow divorce?

I've also never seen anybody in a Western country try to campaign to make divorce illegal, the way they campaigned for gay marriage to remain illegal. Nobody snidely informs divorced people that they 'just don't agree with your lifestyle' out of nowhere ( I mean... if you DO go around doing those things, congrats for being a little more consistent, I guess? But most people do not).

There is a special kind of judgement reserved for homosexuality, that doesn't have anything to do with the theological or theoretical reasons for it to be sinful. It's just because it's culturally a more acceptable target.

Leaving that aside, the majority of non-Catholic churches that preach that homosexuality is sinful DO permit divorce, and so my question still stands for them.

Edited by LoniJay on Mar 30th 2019 at 10:59:48 PM

"With Protestant churches the hypocracy is more centred around immoral money lending, divorce, and idolatry."

Looking right at you, Henry.

With your fucking codpiece.

Not realy, the Church if England is nothing like American churches, while the African branches are bigoted the actual Co E basically dosen’t bring up homosexuality, I know I’ve never heard it mentioned in church. Honestly I can’t even think of a sin that doesn’t get bought up in church, genrally I’ve never seen sins talked about as a negative, instead it’s virtues as a positive, like charity, kindness, support for the support, support for the unfortunate, support for foreigners suffering, ect...

I don't know if this is better fit to the LGTB Rights in America thread, but a big part of this is coming down to religion:

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/01/706944327/when-the-conversation-doesnt-include-you-lgbtq-sex-ed-in-a-small-town

This article has had me fuming all day as the people interviewed (who don't even have children at the school anymore) can say in the same breath that they understand religion cannot be taught in a public school, but don't want LGBT issues in education because it goes against their religion.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has repealed its policy against LGBT marriages.

Holy crap. That's ... unexpected.

Well that’s one way to make LGBT people belive in god, ‘cus that’s a fuck miracle if I’ve ever seen one.

...Wow.

I'd call it progress, but this is more like a 180, complete with whiplash.

Should be noted that they haven't embraced total equality, and same-sex marriages are still an offense, albeit a lesser one now.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Apr 5th 2019 at 4:29:50 PM

Try again. But seriously, despite their controversial theologies, etc. the Mormons have recently come off to me as an emphatic Christian organisation to the plight of the LGBT community, perhaps due to their own history, even if it hasn't always translated to action.

Edited by Grafite on Apr 5th 2019 at 8:33:31 PM

I mean, that does happen sometimes already. (^_^;;

I don't know if I've ever gotten that vibe from that Church, considering that to my knowledge there are Protestant branches that do accept LGBTQ folk. Still, its good to see that progress is being made, and hopefully more comes of it.