Ok, a lot you people posted on this thread when you should not have--he asked for Christians to explain why they are opposed to the legalization of same sex marriage.
First, some disclaimers. The language below is very frank. Homosexuals are loved by God as much as everyone else. Homosexuals can be saved and go to Heaven, and are no better or worse with respect to sin than anyone else. I myself am deeply sinful, including with regards to sex, so by no means am I condemning people, only behavior. When God looks at us, he sees people, not gay people or straight people. He makes no distinction between different types of sin. If you are willing to admit youre sinful, and repeat and accept Jesus, then the gates of Heaven will be open to you, regardless of anything youve done.
You say this, yet for some reason you want to deny people civil rights based off of this one sin (speaking only of legal sins). There is no movement to prevent gamblers from marrying, despite the large chance their spouses and children will suffer from having the money they need gambled away. There is no movement to prevent adulterers (including those who remarry for causes other than divorce) from remarrying, despite the fact they are living in sexual sin. And there is no movement to deny civil rights to those who don't follow the greatest commandment, loving God. Instead, they actually have protections to allow them to continue living in their sins without interference.
This is why people have trouble believing Christians, especially when there are the various "pro-family" groups that not only oppose mostly this one sin but both campaign to deny homosexuals civil rights AND lie about them to do so (as has been pointed out on this forum and this thread).
Anyways, here is why I oppose homosexual behavior and gay marriage:
1. I am afraid that God will weaken or destroy societies that condone homosexual behavior, as he did with Sodom and Gomorrah.
As The Maneki pointed out, Sodom was not destroyed for homosexuality and lawtonofeagle pointed that even the sexual crimes were rape, not anything consensual.
The Bible clearly states the sins of Sodom:
Ezekiel 16:49-50 said:
49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
Archeological evidence of the completely desolate area of S&G shows the area full of 98-99% pure sulfur balls, consistent with the Biblical account. The area is by many definitions the most desolate place on earth. It is the lowest point of elevation on the planet. Only a few forms of life live there--a couple microbes and a few other scattered species. There are no buildings or any other human activity, save a trickle of tourists and researchers. I conclude God continues to make an example of the ancient cities to this day.
There is a wide spectrum of opinion among archaeologists about where Sodom may be located, they do not all agree on the site you mention. There are no less than 5 different sites that are believed they could be Sodom, and most have rejected the area around the Dead Sea (where your site is) as where Sodom was located.
Further, reading about the "discoveries" at the site you mention makes me very skeptical. The major claim that I have problem with is their claim of finding gold coins, yet that the fire was so hot that it burned the gold and left gold ash. Problem is, gold is an element, it will not burn and leave ash. While there may have been impurities in the gold that burned, that would not create "gold ash". As such, all their claims become highly suspect.
God created men and women to mate with the opposite sex, not mate with each other, and homosexuality is not consistent with his physiological design of our bodies.
Actually, this is a logical fallacy as the Bible claims no such thing. To make these claim, one must make and argument from silence. It's like stating that because there are only baseball and basketball scores in the newspaper today means that football and soccer do not exist.
Because of this, God has decreed that homosexuality is wrong, and has proscribed the death penalty as the civil punishment of homosexual acts.
Again, where in the Bible does it state that this is the reason. Care to provide chapter and verse? Instead, this is your opinion which cannot be proven from the Bible.
Note that homosexual orientation is not punished, only when a persons thoughts lead to acts is it punishable. Its very rare to find societies throughout history and many religious traditions that have not levied extremely severe punishments on homosexual conduct. Modern societies seem to be the exception.
False, there are a large number of ancient societies that had no problem with homosexuality. This would include most of the ancient Greeks, Romans (of which we have a few homosexual marriage records that survive), America, Japan, China, India.
2. Marriage is a government subsidy, and there are compelling reasons not only for the government to decline to subsidize homosexuality using marriage laws, but also to actively disincentivize homosexuality. If one assumes that AIDS would have taken an extra five years to spread rapidly throughout the United States (1986 instead of 1981) in the absence of homosexual conduct in the US, then between 1.5 and 1.8 million people have died of AIDS in the United States as a result of homosexual activity. Thousands of hemophiliacs who died because of the bad behavior of others. About 75-80% of homosexuals in the last 30 years have died of AIDS (updated statistics are growing increasingly harder to find, for obvious reasons).
I'd love to see your source for that (though I know you can't find proof since it isn't true). I suspect that that claim is based on Cameron's "research" that has been completely discredited.
Further, your argument doesn't make sense. You point out that promiscuity in the homosexual community contributed to the spread of AIDS, and then argue that we should not discourage promiscuity amongst homosexuals?
This is actually an argument for gay marriage, as providing incentives for monogamous behavior (like with heterosexuals) is one way of helping to stop the spread of STDs like AIDS.
Based on probability distributions of homosexual activity, homosexuals ON AVERAGE are locus points of disease transmission. "In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in the Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al. found that "the modal range for number of sexual partners ever [of homosexuals] was 101-500." In addition, 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent had between 501 and 1,000 partners. A further 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent reported having had more than one thousand lifetime sexual partners." Statistics such as these are likewise getting squelched to hide the truth. So the average homosexual has had over 100 sexual partners. This is awful, and consistent with the notion that practicing homosexuality ignites a bonfire of desire within a person, and makes it far more difficult for that person to control their sexual behavior. So theres no particular reason why governments should make any overt act to encourage this sort of behavior. I also cant imagine what long-term joy a person might derive from having sex with hundreds of strangers.
A lot of falsehoods in this part of your post. The Maneki has already pointed out your misuse of the statistics of the Van de Ven study, that it actually contradicts what you are attempting to say. In fact, studies that actually compare homosexuals against heterosexuals show that heterosexual men have more sexual partners in their lifetime (7.3 partners) compared to homosexual men (only 4.4 partners). (
Fay, R. Prevalence and patterns of same-gender sexual contact among men. Science 1989 (243): 338-348). This studies finding were duplicated by a similar study (
Billy, JO. The sexual behavior of men in the United States. Family Planning Perspectives 1993 (25): 52-60 ) that showed heterosexual men had an average of 7.8 partners, homosexual men only 4.2. Shall we take these results to mean we need to deny marriage to heterosexual males? And don't forget, lesbians have even fewer sexual partners, and a much lower risk of STDs.
3. Marriage is enforced by the government because they are seeking to incentivise certain behavior. Government wants marriage because it protects children and encourages fertility.
While this is a reason, it is not the only reason. If the sole purpose of marriage was for children, we would not allow marriage for those who are unable to have children (those infertile from birth defect, disease, injury, or age). I would think we'd have a law similar to one proposed in Washington state a few years ago, that required children for a couple to get/remain married. Strange how that law had zero support from those that claim marriage is
only to encourage children.
Again, as mentioned above, a major reason for marriage is that it promotes stability. A study early this year found that over 90% of couples that do not marry will break up; it found that for whatever reason marriage encourages stable relationships.
Marriage is vastly better than having children out of wedlock by virtue of the fact that one person is one hand to raise the child while the other person brings home the bacon. My wife and I cant figure out how single parents manage their lives. Being married is incredibly convenient for us and has made us financially prosperous.
Yet what about homosexual families that have children? The fact is that studies show that homosexual couples are equally capable at raising children in all measurable aspects as heterosexual couples and every major American health and psychological organization supports the rights of gay couples to raise children.
The debate over marriage is far more important with respect to discouraging single motherhood than it is with regards to homosexuality, which is more of a side issue, considering the few number of homosexuals as a percent of population and the rare number of homosexuals as a percent of the homosexual population that wants to marry someone else of the same sex.
I'd ask you to support your claims about homosexuals who want to marry but I know you can't provide that. In fact, the claims you make based on the arguments on ex-gay websites contradict each other. On one hand, they claim that gays don't want to marry and to "prove that" they overstate the number of gays. An examination of marriage licenses issued to gay couples in Massachusetts and Canada show that gays are marrying at the same rate as heterosexuals.
Governments also incentivize marriage to encourage fertility, which is necessary to ensure solvency of national entitlement programs and to ensure national security. Countries need to maintain populations to secure the balance of power. Homosexuality by definition produces no children, so theres no reason to pay homosexuals to have relationships through the tax code and other benefits.
Again, as mentioned above, the "fertility" claim is nothing more than a red herring. It cannot be supported by the facts, or even the reasons listed in government documents and court decisions for marriage.
Further, this argument is false. It falsely assumes that if gays do not marry they will contribute more children (or that if they marry they won't have as many children). Since neither of these are true, rather it is more likely that gays will have more children (though insemination, adoption, etc.) when they are in stable relationships that provide protections for their children.
Since allowing gay marriage will not decrease the number of children, and would in fact encourage more children, the argument fails.
4. When I go out in public with my wedding ring on, I want people to know that I am heterosexual and have committed myself to a lifelong relationship with one woman. I dont want the symbolic power of my wedding ring diluted by people who get divorced, by people who cheat on their wives, by people who marry more than one woman, and by people who marry of the same sex. If you want to do those sorts of things, create your own terminology and jewelry. Please dont make me create a new word for marriage and a new piece of jewelry that symbolizes the sacred institution of marriage that God intended.
Yet you would appear to already need a new word for "marriage". There are plenty of adulterers that remain married, there are those in open relationships. Then you have people like Britney Spears who marry for a weekend and then annul it. That you aren't trying to create a new word shows that you aren't serious about this claim. Not to mention, the odd fact that you feel that other people's marriages somehow make yours "less". In fact, marriage has always been what the couple makes it and has nothing to do with anyone else's marriages success or failure.
To repeat my disclaimer, when God looks at us, he sees people, not gay people or straight people. He makes no distinction between different types of sin. If you are willing to admit youre sinful, and repeat and accept Jesus, then the gates of Heaven will be open to you, regardless of anything youve done.
And to repeat, you claim this but then appear to be a hypocrite when you insist that we treat homosexuals differently than other types of sinners.
