Should Same Sex Marriage Be Allowed?

[ShockV1.89]

Since religion seems to be the topic of homosexuality and gay marriage here...

 

Homosexuality is mentioned in three places in the Bible.

 

The book of Leviticus. Homosexuality is described as "an abomination." However, it is also among a list of other ridiculous "abominations," such as shellfish, shaving, and mixed fabrics. I think it's safe to say that any logical God would have no problem with any of the three, and so this casts huge problems on the divine reliability of the condemnation of homosexuality based on Levitican law.

 

Corinthians seems to mention it. However, I see a big problem here....

 

In the original translations, "homosexual offender" and "male prostitute" was not included. The word "effeminate" was present, though. This roughly translates to "wimp." However, many modern versions circulate verses that say just that!

 

Finally, there is the book of Romans, in which Paul states ...

 

1:25

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

 

1:26

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

 

1:27

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

 

Read that carefully, now. Paul is talking about pagan rituals! At the time, many pagan rituals included the process of men and women "switching" off. That's what he's condemning.

 

 

 

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. But to me, there's enough question there to basically say: We can't know for sure what the Christian God really wants, because it's not clear. Therefore, we cannot make laws according to that (aside from the fact that it would be totally unfair to atheists, deists, agnostics, muslims, hindus, and any other non-christian religion).

[toms]

interesting, i wish i had the time to research this stuff in more detail. It does show the problem of attemoting to interpret the meaning of god from an imperfect source written by men and translated by men.

 

What is up with mixed fabrics?

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Let's drop religion. Please.

 

This is not a thread for discussing God's view on homosexuality. This is a thread for discussing whether or not a certain minority group should be given a certain right.

 

Either way, religion has already been debated to death in these forums.

[Kain]

It would be great to drop religion, Dagobahn, but most of the people against it say 'My religion tells me its bad, so I listen to it'.

 

Know what religion has told me recently? Grope small children, so says the Catholics.

[toms]

was there anything in the bible that said preists had to be celibate? or was that another iffy interpretation that was added in later on?

 

sorry DE

[Weiser_Cain]

I think they added the no sex thing later, but if you need the bible to tell you to leave children alone...

Thats it I'm unsubscribing from this topic...

[toms]

sigh. what i was suggesting was that it must be the celibate laws and lifestyle that drives a lot of these preists to do this sort of thing. After all, denying your natural urges for your whole life can't be healthy.

(either that or there is something in the worship of god that either turns people into peadophiles or attracts them, which seems unlikely. )

 

This should be a very good lesson to those advocating that those who are born with homosexual tendancies should just abstain...

 

Since there is no commandment to preists to be celibate in the bible it is just another of those weird things that has become institutionalised in the church, and no-one can even really remember why.

[C'jais]

The lot of you anti-Gays need more contact with just that. Phobias are cured that way, you know.

 

Secondly, I doubt many of you have any idea how many people are actually bisexual.

[Kurgan]

Originally posted by Kain

It would be great to drop religion, Dagobahn, but most of the people against it say 'My religion tells me its bad, so I listen to it'.

 

Know what religion has told me recently? Grope small children, so says the Catholics.

 

Now that's flame bait if I ever heard it!

 

The Catholic Church has CONDEMNED the behavior of those priests and ministers who have done that, so it's nothing but trolling really.

 

I have yet to read pages 2-8 (loooong thread, came late) but a couple of things.

 

Hitler forced people to become Christian??? I never heard that before. I know that many Jews BECAME CHRISTIAN (or pretended to) in order to avoid being arrested (Pius XII was credited with issuing thousands of false baptismal certificates for example), so I guess in a sense they were "forced" to become Christian. Sadly, this didn't save many of those people because the Nazis considered Jews to be a "race" rather than just a religion (the race/religion issue of Judaism could fill entire books).

 

Also, what was up with the Bible prohibiting the eating of fish? I think people meant to say "pork." Because the Old Testament doesn't prohibit the eating of "fish" per se (though certain types of sea creatures are forbidden for the Israelites to eat).

 

It's true that no religious body follows the entire Bible. It's simply impossible! The way that most Christians "get around this problem" is by demonstrating that there was an "Old Covenant" (with Abraham & Moses) which had certain rules and a "New Covenant" (the one instituted by Jesus) which has different rules. The trouble is when people cite the Old Covenant Rules to prove something that they aren't following under the New Covenant.

 

Jesus doesn't outright condemn homosexuality, however he does condemn lust and infidelity. His Apostles urge their disciples to avoid all sexual impurity and scandal.

 

So the interpretation has been that homosexuality fits into that.

 

If homosexuals were married and monogamus in loving households that would negate those objections.

 

However still most Christians, Jews, etc would say that God created Man & Woman (ie: made genders) for the purpose of the bonds of marriage (with the end result being procreation, although the bonding of sexual love is not wrong but there to strengthen marriage) and thus homosexual marriage simply isn't what was intended by God. People have the freedom to sin, but they ought to choose not to, in other words.

 

But yes, apart from the religious arguments, it's very hard to argue against homosexual marriage, but as others pointed out, why should we also disallow other kinds of marriage such as polygamy or close relatives being married or even interspecies marriages?

 

Marriage is a social instutition (Christians would say a religious instutitution, but of course there are also civil secular marriage rules that we're following even if we're not religious in this country) and so it's based on what the LAW SAYS which is (suppposed to be) what the consensus of rational people believe.

 

Homosexual sex (as it can only be practiced) has a higher chance of spreading certain STD's, but then those practices (I won't go into detail here) can also be practiced by heterosexuals. Likewise STD's are spread through promiscuity, which is a problem for bisexuals and heterosexuals not just homosexuals.

 

A complex issue.