Twelve Reasons Against a Ban on Homosexual Marriages

Concerning the currently debated verses, I think that debate can be sidestepped by simply reading Romans 1:26 -

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

This makes the Bible's position on homosexuality seem quite clear to me.

JeTmAn said:

Concerning the currently debated verses, I think that debate can be sidestepped by simply reading Romans 1:26 -

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

This makes the Bible's position on homosexuality seem quite clear to me.

Click to expand...

i'm still not sure what bible verses have to do with law at all. last time i checked the united states wasn't (thankfully) a theocracy. remember, it's not polite to push your religious views on others, or try to codify your religious morals into law. actually i think it's also against everything the constitution stands for, as well.

theeyesoftammyfaye said:

i'm still not sure what bible verses have to do with law at all. last time i checked the united states wasn't (thankfully) a theocracy. remember, it's not polite to push your religious views on others, or try to codify your religious morals into law. actually i think it's also against everything the constitution stands for, as well.

Click to expand...

...I'm not sure what the law has to do with my post, which was simply about the Bible's stance on homosexuality.

As far as the law and gay marriage are concerned, homosexuals should not be denied certain benefits merely because they are homosexual. However, that doesn't give them the right to be called "married" any more than a white person has the right to demand he be referred to as black on a national census. Marriage is not a right, it is simply a term bestowed on certain people by a given society. It's our society's right to decide whether this term should apply to homosexual couples or not. I vote no.

JeTmAn said:

...I'm not sure what the law has to do with my post, which was simply about the Bible's stance on homosexuality.

As far as the law and gay marriage are concerned, homosexuals should not be denied certain benefits merely because they are homosexual. However, that doesn't give them the right to be called "married" any more than a white person has the right to demand he be referred to as black on a national census. Marriage is not a right, it is simply a term bestowed on certain people by a given society. It's our society's right to decide whether this term should apply to homosexual couples or not. I vote no.

Click to expand...

i was using your post about the bible's view on homosexuality in a thread entitled "reasons against a ban on homosexual marriages" as a starting point for my comment about my uncertainty over why some people believe their religious views should dictate governmental policy. it wasn't necessarily directed at you.

theeyesoftammyfaye said:

i was using your post about the bible's view on homosexuality in a thread entitled "reasons against a ban on homosexual marriages" as a starting point for my comment about my uncertainty over why some people believe their religious views should dictate governmental policy. it wasn't necessarily directed at you.

Click to expand...

Well, let me be quite clear that I don't think it's the job of the government to legislate morality. If we legislate one sin, it's just a big old slippery slope until we're living in Saudi Arabia. Which is why I agree with civil unions for homosexual couples. I do not believe that homosexual couples should be denied the same benefits heterosexual couples receive, simply because they are homosexual. After all, many people commit worse sins than homosexuality, sins like murder and rape, but they are not denied the benefits that a marriage brings, as long as they marry someone of the opposite sex.

This doesn't mean that homosexual couples have a right to be called "married", though. I don't think anybody, regardless of sexual orientation has the right to be called married, but this term is a privilege designated by society.

One last point; technically, the citizens of the United States are not barred from marriage based on their sexual orientation. They're barred from marriage based on the sex of their marriage partner; e.g. a homosexual man may marry a homosexual woman, but two straight men may not marry each other.

JeTmAn said:

...I'm not sure what the law has to do with my post, which was simply about the Bible's stance on homosexuality.

Click to expand...

Thing is, many believe that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality. I'm sure if you do a search of forums, you'll find verses like Romans 1:26-27 discussed over and over again

As far as the law and gay marriage are concerned, homosexuals should not be denied certain benefits merely because they are homosexual. However, that doesn't give them the right to be called "married" any more than a white person has the right to demand he be referred to as black on a national census. Marriage is not a right, it is simply a term bestowed on certain people by a given society. It's our society's right to decide whether this term should apply to homosexual couples or not. I vote no.

Click to expand...

Then I suggest that the government stops using the term "marriage" altogther. Marriage is now as much a legal term as it is a religious one.

Unfortunately, I don't think your vote counts at all. Because this is seen as a civil rights issue, it won't be put to public vote; civil rights issues never are. Besides, as I said before, marriage is also a religious term. There's nothing stopping a gay couple who enter into a civil union calling themselves married.

Here's a nice paragraph from an article on gay marriage in The Economist:

The Economist said:

"Civil Unions Aren't Enough"

The reason, according to Mr. Bush, that gay marriage is destructive to a "fundamental institution of civilization" is that this would damage an important social institution. Yet the reverse is surely true. Gays want to marry precisely because they see marriage as important: they want the symbolism that marriage brings, the extra sense of obligation and commitment, as well as the social recognition. Allowing gays to marry would, if anything, add to social stability, for it would increase the number of couples that take on real, rather than simply passing, commitments. The weakening of marriage has been heterosexuals’ doing, not gays’, for it is their infidelity, divorce rates and single-parent families that have wrought social damage.

Click to expand...

I want to answer your courteous reply at some length later -- but I need to flag this one -- it was not intended as an accusation of you -- flowerthief -- but the generic "you" for which I should have used the pronoun "one." Sorry for the inadvertent snarkiness!! I tend to get a trifle polemic when arguing a POV, and try to fight any snottiness that creeps in as a result. Missed this one!

Click to expand...

We're all good then.

But the way I look at it is that I'm not "in a civil union" with my wife. We made vows before God to take each other as husband and wife to have and hold, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. That means a whole lot more to me than "we contracted a civil union," for whatever purposes one might have for one. And it is to me the height of egotism to say that my promises mean more to God than, say, an atheist or Moslem making the same vows without reference to God or to his and her concept of who God is, or two Christian women like the couple at my church who believe that sex outside marriage is sinful and who made the same vows before God and received His blessing on their marriage.

Click to expand...

Is it the State's business to be honoring vows made before God? The State recognizes contracts made between its citizens but I don't think it recognizes promises its citizens have going with God. If marriage is a three-way covenant made between you, your spouse, and God, it's only the part of that covenant between you and your spouse that the State has an interest in.

You don't need government applying the word "marriage" to your contract in order to feel that you have a marriage and that it is special. Nobody does really. But heterosexual couples have a stronger claim to that word IMO.

Exactly. But the question of what tax breaks a married couple ought to receive is a quite separate one of whether or not a given couple may be married at all. If I have a massive stroke while sitting here typing and am hospitalized in a coma, my wife can visit me in ICU, make the medical decisions I would want to have made, and when I die she is entitled to all my estate and I can rest assured that the law will not act to take it from her. Now contemplate two gay people who may love each other just as much as she and I do, and have made the same commitment. The tax breaks are not the question. Fair and equal treatment is.

Click to expand...

But as long as tax breaks are included in the marriage package, fair and equal treatment requires that there be a rational basis for granting these to some but not all of the population. There are 1000+ benefits the federal government grants you if you have a marriage license, and 400 or so that your state girants you. They include the basic provisions for securing property and child custody that we'd expect as well as extras like tax breaks on Estate tax and such. In order to justify granting a marriage license to a part of the population, either we need to get those extras out of the package or else we need to have a rational basis for this special treatment.

Well, we don't know that, because we don't know how many committed lifelong vowed relationships between gay people have turned out not to be that. There's a survey that suggests that the typical gay relationship lasts something like 18 months -- but that compares to couples dating steady, not to marriages.

Click to expand...

Is there anything stopping us from finding out if we want to? We don't have to wait for the law to change in order to observe committed lifelong relationships among homosexuals. Not that this has much bearing on our debate.

(However, there are some -- not all -- "pro-family" sites that are not above forging or skewing statistics to try to make their case.)

Click to expand...

Let's be fair, this can happen on both sides. Anyone can print anything on the internet without any regard for accuracy.

In general, I agree. One of the "liberal" issues I most agree with is universal access to health care, with tax dollars ensuring that doctors and hospitals do not go broke providing it. But compulsory process does not work, and as I mentioned in the post your comments were in response to, neither does relying on private charity. Can we agree that we ought to work towards a world in which the sick are tended to as Christ expects of us, and agree to disagree on how best to get there?

Click to expand...

Okay, that's very reasonable.

But when a court says that it's not right for a cop to trick or con a confession out of a suspect, and he needs to know what his rights are, people get upset.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I followed that analogy. Do you mean that some people think that when a cop recites a suspect's rights that the cop is conning a confession out of him?

Think that through. Anything else would be an abdication of the SJC's oath to administer the law (not "laws" = "statutes", but "law" = the code we've agreed together to live under) fairly and do justice. A declaration of unconstitutionality would be decried as judicial activism. A finding that it doesn't matter what equal rights guarantees are in the constitution, this law is what the state voters want, would be to say that guarantees of rights aren't worth the paper they're printed on, when the public decides that some minority has no rights. (As an LDS, I'm sure you've been on the wrong end of some minority-bashing yourself.) A read of the majority opinion in Romer v. Evans is pretty worthwhile -- Justice Kennedy wrote some of the finest language about what it means to be living in a country where equal justice under law is guaranteed that I've ever seen in tht decision. And it directly impacts this argument.

Click to expand...

Your logic makes sense. I need to go back and check up on the facts of the case again before I can agree on your final analysis. Be back tomorrow or soon.

MissFirerose said:

Funny, because in the past it was interpreted as something completlely different. Now, why would that be? It seems that it changes with whatever is being currently condemned. I'm not sure that you read what I posted before, so I'll post it again.

Some sources in the early Church interpreted the phrase as referring to people of soft morals; i.e. unethical. That may well be the correct meaning, because presumably people from that era would have still known the meaning of the word arsenokoitai. Others in the early Church thought that it meant "temple prostitutes" - people who engaged in ritual sex in Pagan temples. Still others thought that it meant "masturbators." At the time of Martin Luther, the latter meaning was universally used. But by the 20th century, masturbation had become a more generally accepted behavior. So, new translations abandoned references to masturbators and switched the attack to homosexuals. The last religious writing in English that interpreted 1 Corinthians 6:9 as referring to masturbation is believed to be the [Roman] Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967.

That was just a little while ago, it seems to have changed to "homosexuals" around the time gays started making more noise for equal rights. How ironic.

But Oute was used to separate not just the two words we were talking about, but many other words in the list as well, so how is it relevant to the specific two words we are talking about? Perhaps, if oute was only used to separate malakos and arsenokoitai, it would be relevant, but it was used to separate other words listed as well. And also, if you want to debate with me, fine. But please don't wrongly accuse me of propogating. If you want to attack me, please find something valid to attack. Thank you.

Click to expand...

I have something valid to attack. Your lack of knowledge on the subject.

It has been "homosexual" for thousands of years, no matter what your biased eisegesis says. Right from the day Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthians. I'll explain in a minute.

The oute separates all the words because Paul is saying "you, NOR you, NOR you, NOR you, NOR even YOU are going to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven at the pace you're going". You're argument, is beyond weak. It's non-existant.

You must consider the context of the words, the ancient history and who Paul was writing to. You are considering none of these things.

At the time Paul wrote this letter to the believers at Corinth, 14 out of 15 Roman emperors had been homosexual. Nero was emperor at the time. He took a small boy named Sporus, had him castrated, and then married him. He later married another man and became the wife. This is the type of actions Paul was speaking out against.

[edited by moderator-No trolling.]

keithylishus said:

Thing is, many believe that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality. I'm sure if you do a search of forums, you'll find verses like Romans 1:26-27 discussed over and over again

Click to expand...

Personally, I feel that anyone who would choose to argue with such an explicit and strict passage has their own agenda and isn't looking to truly discover what the Bible says.

Then I suggest that the government stops using the term "marriage" altogther. Marriage is now as much a legal term as it is a religious one.

Click to expand...

That's a possibility. Make everything civil unions, have the churches call them "marriages."

Unfortunately, I don't think your vote counts at all. Because this is seen as a civil rights issue, it won't be put to public vote; civil rights issues never are. Besides, as I said before, marriage is also a religious term. There's nothing stopping a gay couple who enter into a civil union calling themselves married.

Click to expand...

Seen as a civil rights issue by who? Gay rights activists, certainly. As for the rest of us...it's only a civil rights issue if enough people say it is. So my vote does count.

"Civil Unions Aren't Enough"

The reason, according to Mr. Bush, that gay marriage is destructive to a "fundamental institution of civilization" is that this would damage an important social institution. Yet the reverse is surely true. Gays want to marry precisely because they see marriage as important: they want the symbolism that marriage brings, the extra sense of obligation and commitment, as well as the social recognition. Allowing gays to marry would, if anything, add to social stability, for it would increase the number of couples that take on real, rather than simply passing, commitments. The weakening of marriage has been heterosexuals’ doing, not gays’, for it is their infidelity, divorce rates and single-parent families that have wrought social damage.

Click to expand...

This kind of logic is akin to suggesting that a bridge with weak foundations just needs another swift blow to its base to be fixed. Gay marriage would NOT help the sorry state of marriage, if anything it would only move it further away from what the basics of marriage have always been; a father figure and a mother figure coming together to make a stable home for a family. I believe this issue is far more about acceptance in society than it is about gaining titles.

MissFirerose said:

Funny, because in the past it was interpreted as something completlely different. Now, why would that be? It seems that it changes with whatever is being currently condemned. I'm not sure that you read what I posted before, so I'll post it again.



Some sources in the early Church interpreted the phrase as referring to people of soft morals; i.e. unethical. That may well be the correct meaning, because presumably people from that era would have still known the meaning of the word arsenokoitai. Others in the early Church thought that it meant "temple prostitutes" - people who engaged in ritual sex in Pagan temples. Still others thought that it meant "masturbators." At the time of Martin Luther, the latter meaning was universally used. But by the 20th century, masturbation had become a more generally accepted behavior. So, new translations abandoned references to masturbators and switched the attack to homosexuals. The last religious writing in English that interpreted 1 Corinthians 6:9 as referring to masturbation is believed to be the [Roman] Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967.



That was just a little while ago, it seems to have changed to "homosexuals" around the time gays started making more noise for equal rights. How ironic.





But Oute was used to separate not just the two words we were talking about, but many other words in the list as well, so how is it relevant to the specific two words we are talking about? Perhaps, if oute was only used to separate malakos and arsenokoitai, it would be relevant, but it was used to separate other words listed as well. And also, if you want to debate with me, fine. But please don't wrongly accuse me of propogating. If you want to attack me, please find something valid to attack. Thank you.

Click to expand...

No doubt you are absolutely correct about this. I also know you've been around long enough to know that being correct is irrelevant to those you ask to consider your argument.

Isn't it interesting that so many heterosexuals can be so incredibly obsessed with homosexual sex that they will spend coutless hours studying those acts, studying language related to those acts, collecting 'data' and hoarding it, and discussing endlessly about it. It makes one wonder. I still chalk it up to repressed homosexual feelings and desires, self loathing, and a perceived need to over compensate by condemning homosexuality relentlessly.

Firscherscherling said:

No doubt you are absolutely correct about this. I also know you've been around long enough to know that being correct is irrelevant to those you ask to consider your argument.

Isn't it interesting that so many heterosexuals can be so incredibly obsessed with homosexual sex that they will spend coutless hours studying those acts, studying language related to those acts, collecting 'data' and hoarding it, and discussing endlessly about it. It makes one wonder. I still chalk it up to repressed homosexual feelings and desires, self loathing, and a perceived need to over compensate by condemning homosexuality relentlessly.

Click to expand...

It's easier to agree with an eisegesis that twists the facts than face the facts that oppose your lifestyle.

As for the rest of your post, see this post...

drfeelgood said:

It's easier to agree with an eisegesis that twists the facts than face the facts that oppose your lifestyle.

As for the rest of your post, see this post...

Click to expand...

Hmm. I wonder what a post about the term homophobe has to do with anything. I guess you need to reread my post and see if the term is there.

Or maybe you can answer this question. Why do you spend countless hours obsessing over homosexual sex, looking for studies about it, and posting relentlessly about why you think it is bad? And I challenge you to actually answer rather than 1. responding with a qusestion or 2. saying a bunch of pointless drivel about how you know what I am up to and how you are on to me.

Firscherscherling said:

Hmm. I wonder what a post about the term homophobe has to do with anything. I guess you need to reread my post and see if the term is there.

Or maybe you can answer this question. Why do you spend countless hours obsessing over homosexual sex, looking for studies about it, and posting relentlessly about why you think it is bad? And I challenge you to actually answer rather than 1. responding with a qusestion or 2. saying a bunch of pointless drivel about how you know what I am up to and how you are on to me.

Click to expand...

The post actually deals with your tactics of lies, hatemongering, mindgames, psychological warfare, jamming and other phenomenon known to your persuasion, used against dissenters of your ideology. Look at the bigger picture.

Firscherscherling said:

Hmm. I wonder what a post about the term homophobe has to do with anything. I guess you need to reread my post and see if the term is there.

Or maybe you can answer this question. Why do you spend countless hours obsessing over homosexual sex, looking for studies about it, and posting relentlessly about why you think it is bad? And I challenge you to actually answer rather than 1. responding with a qusestion or 2. saying a bunch of pointless drivel about how you know what I am up to and how you are on to me.

Click to expand...

Why do I do it? Because I'm interested in it. I'm also interested in the Bible and the context surrounding it. What I'm interested in, I pursue with a passoin.

I have people close to me that are homosexual, and there are so many lies and mind games on this board from the homosexual crew and sympathizers it's ridiculous, so I made it my business to search out the truth and expose the lies and psychological games for what they are.

drfeelgood said:

Why do I do it? Because I'm interested in it. I'm also interested in the Bible and the context surrounding it. What I'm interested in, I pursue with a passoin.

I have people close to me that are homosexual, and there are so many lies and mind games on this board from the homosexual crew and sympathizers it's ridiculous, so I made it my business to search out the truth and expose the lies and psychological games for what they are.

Click to expand...

Amen.


JUDE 1:3
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
JUDE 1:4
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

drfeelgood said:

Why do I do it? Because I'm interested in it. I'm also interested in the Bible and the context surrounding it. What I'm interested in, I pursue with a passoin.

I have people close to me that are homosexual, and there are so many lies and mind games on this board from the homosexual crew and sympathizers it's ridiculous, so I made it my business to search out the truth and expose the lies and psychological games for what they are.

Click to expand...

So you truly are obsessed with gay sex? That is your passion?

I feel for you man. My passions are my family, architecture, and art, among other things. And ironically, I think the homosexuals I know are 1000x less interested in the topic than you.

Good luck to you, though. I hope you find fulfilment.

I'm not obsessed with gay sex. I'm obsessed with knowledge and truth.

Don't play games with me.

drfeelgood said:

I'm not obsessed with gay sex. I'm obsessed with knowledge and truth.

Don't play games with me.

Click to expand...

No game intended. When I look back at the great thinkers of history, I don't see lives dedicated to the study and condemnation of gay sex.

I always knew knowledge and truth had more to do with that. In fact, it never crossed my mind that an obsession with any single subject was about knowledge and truth. Especially not obsession with gay sex. Such an obsession is not a means to an end. It is an indicator.

Firscherscherling said:

No game intended. When I look back at the great thinkers of history, I don't see lives dedicated to the study and condemnation of gay sex.

I always knew knowledge and truth had more to do with that. In fact, it never crossed my mind that an obsession with any single subject was about knowledge and truth. Especially not obsession with gay sex. Such an obsession is not a means to an end. It is an indicator.

Click to expand...

Actually, it's not the act, for the last time. I don't care about the act. That's your problem. Your time is coming and that right quick.

I'm more interested in the agenda, the lies and the controversies. I'm interested in attaining knowledge about any subject, law and computers in particular. I just wrapped up one very successful case today and have two more underway. This interest in the agenda was triggered in my mind due to all the hogwash I saw being posted in here. I knew it sounded like a line of garbage from the very first time I read it, and I set out to prove it for myself.

Interestingly, I was right. There's plenty of evidence of that stemming directly from homosexuals mouths that actually know what they are talking about and other schooled individuals with actual credentials.

As long as the rubbish and psychological terrorism continues on this board, there will always be a good application for it.

And hai, it gives me something to do when I'm bored.

drfeelgood said:

I'm obsessed with knowledge and truth.

Click to expand...

Amen.



6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;




The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1996, c1989 (Ho 4:6).