Gay Marriage
Against gay marriage, are you? Why? Is it because of your religious beliefs? Because you think marriage is supposed to be the union of a man and a woman for the primary purpose of having children? Because you think same-sex marriage will fundamentally alter our society for the worse? Because you personally object to legally recognizing a lifestyle that you find objectionable? Because you object to children being raised by two parents of the same gender? Or is it all of the above?
An interesting summary of numerous recent polls shows that about one-third of Americans support gay marriage. Almost two-thirds oppose it, with about half of that group agreeable to legal civil unions that give gay couples rights equivalent to married couples. So, according to the polls, if you’re against gay marriage you’re clearly in the majority.
And, in my opinion, you’re wrong. Let’s look at the objections you might have.
If you oppose gay marriage because of your religious beliefs, then you most likely consider homosexuals to be sinful people. Whatever your religion, I’m sure you can find ample basis for your position in religious doctrine. But I’m sure you also know that many other religious people who share your belief system accept gays as fellow human beings loved by the same God who loves you. They embrace gays as members of their congregations, and in some cases as ministers and church officials. Given that you share the same basic beliefs, how is it that they are wrong and you are right? If you’re going to risk error, then take that risk on the side of accepting and loving everyone. Isn’t that what your religion teaches you?
But let’s say that religious belief isn’t your reason for opposing gay marriage. Is it because you think marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman in order to produce children? Well, you’re right, to the extent that societies throughout history have recognized that the union of a man and a woman (or several women) is necessary to perpetuate our species. Moreover, encouraging the continuation of that union under law and custom ensures that children are protected and reared to adulthood. That’s fine, but so what? Do you think that permitting gay marriage will prevent other people from getting married and having children? Or do you harbor the idea that if we prevent same-sex marriage, then gay people will decide to marry people of the opposite sex? Nonsense.
If it isn’t religion, and you understand that gay marriage doesn’t interfere with marriage between people of opposite genders, is your opposition based on a conviction that same-sex marriage will alter our society for the worse? That begs the question, compared to what? With all the ills that infect our society, the presence of a relatively few married couples who are of the same gender is inconsequential. Better you should spend your time worrying about the threat of terrorism, drug abuse, violent crime, economic collapse–in other words, things that have an impact on your life and the lives of those you love.
Perhaps you oppose gay marriage simply because you object to legalizing a lifestyle you find objectionable. Well, if you find it objectionable, then don’t live that way. But by what right do you presume to prescribe how other people must live, given that their lifestyle doesn’t harm you or others and doesn’t prevent you from living as you wish? This is the weakest of all arguments against gay marriage.
Finally, there’s the issue of children being raised by two parents of the same gender. I confess to having a few concerns about this myself. In general, two women don’t equal a father, and two men don’t equal a mother. I think the healthiest environment for a child is a stable, loving family consisting of a mother, a father, and maybe some siblings. Unfortunately, the Nelsons and Cleavers were never real. Again the question, compared to what? Most families are broken today in one way or another. Unmarried teen mothers trying to raise children, divorced parents raising children alone, children suffering in abusive families that are far from stable. Compared to that, a child being raised in a loving and stable same-sex marriage is fortunate. The bottom line is it’s not the gender of the parents that matters as much as the environment the child lives in.
Gay marriage isn’t an issue of rights, at least in a constitutional sense. In my opinion, there’s nothing in the Constitution that confers a right of marriage, including the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. In fact, states can and do restrict and control marriage in many ways. However, others disagree. For a good discussion, go to A Stitch in Haste and read the opinion of a lawyer. Regardless of the question of rights in some formal sense, it’s really a question of humanity.
You can find a very wide variety of opinion on how many gay people there are in the U.S. The high is about 10 percent for men and maybe half that for women. This comes from the old Kinsey research, long discredited because of the survey samples and criteria used. Different research can be used to support different numbers, depending on the point you’re trying to prove. Realistically, most research with probability samples suggests that at least 3-6% of the US adult male population is homosexual, with somewhat fewer females. You can spend a long time looking for an answer, and you can find almost anything you want. Just accept that it’s a pretty small slice of our population.
I support gay marriage, and so should you. You don’t have anything to lose, and you’ll help a small number of our fellow citizens live happier and more fulfilled lives.
(This article was also posted at Opinion Forum.)
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Tinct, you’re exactly right. Freedom means people get to live the way they want to, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else in exercising their freedom. There are simply too many examples of people, sometimes even a minority, trying to make everyone else do what they personally approve of. As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t approve of gay marriage, then don’t marry someone of your sex. If you don’t approve of a certain program on radio or TV, then don’t listen to it or watch it. In these and all other regards, I don’t need anyone policing my morals or my behavior.
As long as it doesn’t affect you, don’t tell me how to live my life and I won’t tell you what to do with yours. The same applies to gays. And if God’ll smite them to hell for it, then let them be smote. That’s their problem, not yours. So why worry about it?
Larn, see, you don’t quite understand. Religion is just another way of living. Being unreligious is also a way of living. Do you agree, cause if you don’t then I guess I’m done?
There will always be issues where people won’t agree. In this society, usually the majority wins (regardless of way of living) That’s it. Nothing more to it. Whether it be religiously based or not is not the point. People live by what they believe is true. One cannot say that religion is true, nor can one say that religion is not true. So in that case, since we all don’t know what is true, then it just becomes what the majority of the people “believe” is true. If you can’t live with that, then I don’t know what kind of society you can live in.
above post from concerned
Treat others as my self. Well if I am sinning and I realize it then I repent. If it is my son I point out his sin and hope he will repent. The Bible is very clear on the penalty for sexual immorality, so to support gay marriage is to say it is ok. That is not love. If my son is doing something that will get him hurt I stop him because I love him. Turning a blind eye to something harmful is not loving, it’s indifference.
I get what you say, but just because it is in the bible does not mean it’s correct(that was my point about the accuracy issue) and that then means that american who are against it may be against it for the wrong reason(the original language can also translate as not performing sexual acts upon the altar). If we were to go by other parts which come up more uften(that of seeing all equally, god loving all his creations, to treat others as yourself, etc, etc)then that would suggest that to allow it would actually be a step forward. I’m glad that you pray for and love these people, nut please bear in mind you may be doing it for the wrong reasons. There are many definitions of family(and thats just within the christian viewpoint), to me family is where those who are within its boundaries are happy, loved, cared for and protected, etc. Their sexuality(not including pedos and beastials, etc) to me is not an issue. Divorce would depend on the reasons for and why and how they were married to begin with, child abuse is obviously wrong no matter the reasons and excuses.
That may be all fine but it does not change what the Bible says about homosexuality. It also doesn’t change that the majority of Americans are against it. To legalize gay marriage would be to take a step backwards. As a Christian i prey for these people and love them. That does not mean I should accept there idea of family. I don’t accept divorce, child abuse, and many other things either.
Your statement was not obvious, to write semper fie, etc does not automatically mean you are one nor does actually writing down stating you are mean you actually are a marine, as i’m sure you are well aware there are thousands of fakes out there from 9-90 years old who make claims such as that and yet wouldn’t know their stock from their barrel, etc.
I am not a soldier, nor have I ever been, unfortunately my life took a different turn, however that does not mean that I do not know how to use various firearms nor defend myself either without weapons or with only those close to hand(and no I don’t live in a militia compound).
I agree that by no means are they all devout but you cannot dismiss all because of a few. The catholic church is used simply for conveniance, I could as easily have said protestant, jehovah, mormon, etc. Frankly if you look at the vast majority of religions they are almost all in it for monetary gain. In regards the bible being wrong,(for the sake of this discussion I will avoid the plagarism factor regarding story origins, I.E. Sumeria) the answer based in the bible is no, simply because god gives you free will, the ability to think for yourself, to seek out the truth, if he was to step in then it would no longer be faith but fact. If you are studying the bible as you say in your own way then great, but part of that study is to check the facts, to put it in a marine situation, you wouldn’t go walking into a square block, 12 story high building to extract a hostage just because a local baker said the bad guys have all gone home for coffee and a cupcake. The problem with the bible is that what is in has errors to certain degrees, but the other problem with it is that there are sections of scripture missing and also there are scriptures that have deliberately never been included, that is why, to a degree at least the bible must be treated as being incomplete and to a degree inacurate. As, when or if the bible should ever be properly translated and put together in it’s entirity(without using second, seventh or fortieth hand tales written down centuries after the instances occured) then the bible can be held up as being as accurate as is available to being correct.
For someone who likes to read between the lines you sure don’t seem very capable. Not only am I a Marine, I’m also quite capable of defending myself without a gun.
Just because their Bible scholars doesn’t mean they are devout. Look at the catholic church you are so fond of bringing up. They are more interested in economic gain then anything else. Now let me point something out. If the Bible were wrong then don’t you think God would have done something about it by now? Or do you think that God would want everyone to be mislead all this time? As far as my credentials, the Bible says study to show thy self approved. I don’t like everything the Bible says but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Sounds to me like someone who doesn’t like checking any further than whatever he likes the sound of(P.S. A lot of people have used the bible to do whatever they want/wanted, surely being so intelligent you would know that?).
And the ramblings you refer to are by priests, bible scholars, etc, or do you claim to be superior in knowledge to those who have devoted their lives to god, the church/s, the scriptures, etc? If so I would gladly listen to you as soon as you confirm your credentials in this area of expertise.
USMC? What is that supposed to mean, are you claiming to be one? Or are you refering as to whether you need a gun or not, please attempt to make a coherent response.
sounds to me like the ramblings of someone who wants to discredit the Bible and use it as an excuse to do what he wants. As far as needing a gun to hide behind, USMC! Semper Fi!
No I merely proved that I detest people who refuse to allow others to be equal, you evidently cannot tell the difference.
You talk about not being a bigot? I quote “Bunch of dope smoking hippies”, you honestly don’t think that, that is a form of bigotry?
The catholics are where virtually all variants of the bible devolved from in it’s christian form.
I apologise if you misunderstand, i’m talking about accurate translations that have been and are being done by biblical scholars all around the world, as yes they do understand many of the languages that the bible has been translated into, unlike the early church scholars.
Leviticus is the third book of both the Bible, and the “Torah”. It was written by the Old Testament Patriarch Moses. Leviticus was written to the Hebrew people of Israel. The book has several main topics, some of which are the Jewish laws of sacrificing to God, and the work of the Priests.This book probably was written around 1400 B.C
Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans at the end of his third missionary journey after he had visited Corinth for the third time but before setting out for Jerusalem to deliver the money collected from his churches. This period time in Paul’s career as an apostle can be dated to between 54 and 58.
Paul founded the church in Corinth, then spent approximately three years in Ephesus. The letter was written during this time in Ephesus, which is usually dated as being in the range of 53 to 57 AD.
The three remaining Pauline letters—1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and the Letter to Titus—are called his “pastoral letters,” apparently because in them Paul provides instructions to two of his associates, Timothy and Titus, on the pastoral offices and their duties in the church.
The pastoral letters resemble one another in terms of vocabulary and style more so than they resemble Paul’s travel letters or his prison letters; it seems these three letters belong together, most likely because they have something in common with respect to their conditions of production. It is believed that the literary differences between the pastoral letters and the ten Pauline letters are too great to hold that Paul wrote them all; rather, it is generally held that the pastoral letters were written by someone who had been influenced by Pauline thought and wanted to use the authority of Paul to authenticate the ideas expressed in the letters.
These sections were taken from christian sites, it is interesting to note that paul is responsible or believed responsible for three of your quotes and the first is taken out of context from the original text, that of the torah, perhaps you should study your bible and where the portions you like come from before making assumptions. Try to remember, god did not write the bible, men did and man is a vain creature who always wants to put his mark or spin on everything he does.
Ok you just proved your the bigot. As soon as anyone is against gay marriage you automatically call them homophobe. Sorry but I don’t hate homosexuals but obviously you hate anyone who doesn’t think they should be allowed to marry. You can leave the Catholics out of it as well. I am not a Catholic. How many languages do you speak? because apparently you understand Hebrew, Arameic, and all the languages the Bible has been translated into. Now if you want to make references to what the Bible says the provide the passage you are referring to. I will.
Leviticus 18:22, 20:13
Romans 1:18-32
I Corinthians 6:9-11
I Timothy 1:9-11
I know i’m a hoot, but at least i’m not a bigot
Once again you have proved that you only pick out the bits that you like,
you talk about sexual perversion yet homosexuality has always been around, but if you want to get technical with the bible when it talks of matters of incest it forbids it in all aspects except fucking your daughter, do you agree with that, I mean according to you we should take note of what the bible says you can and can’t do
Yes I have read the bible, I have also read the hebrew texts from which it was derived, have you, and as regards all us pricks who say the bible has been mistranslated then I guess you are also reffering to all those pricks in the vatican as well who know just a little more about it than you, for your education look at the original arameic, then go through all the other languages it went through and while your at it take a look at the fact that the vatican originally did not want the bible translating into english, in fact it wasn’t even the vatican that made the first english translation of the bible.
As regards respect, on the contrary I have a lot of respect for both the usa and it’s people, I just don’t have any for intolerant homophobes who have no clue about the truth of things and would rather hide behind their ignorance and bigotry.
Oh by the way i’m sure you feel comfortable beind your AR-15, because lets face it, in a one on one people like you are all the same, cowards, you only ever feel tough either with a weapon or when there is more of your lot than the other guy
Oh, your a hoot! You make assumptions as to my character. One of the key words their was Creator. Sure we made mistakes with slavery and all that but now we should give in to all the sexual perverts? Have you read the Bible? Do you know what it says about homosexuals? Now go ahead and tell me the Bible has been rewritten or mistranslated. that is what all you pricks say. the truth is you have no respect for this country or the people in it. Now as far as my six iron, I would rather clean my AR-15 and get the sights set in.
Which forefathers? It’s interesting to note that little cut off point of yours, it would be interesting to have known what your ancestors would have thought of al this, and please don’t say you know or you’ll just embarrass yourself. Please note what the bible was originaly based on before uttering your shallow nonsense, in fact I beleive that if you actually read what has been written before you may be enlightened, but don’t worry I won’t hold my breath. Which standards do you mean anyway, you say back on track, which one? No votes for blacks and women, tie the woman to the household to make babies, keep house, be seen and not heard? How about putting the n****r back in the woodshed and only letting him out to work the fields while your raping his daughter, or have yourself a hanging if the boy done git uppity? Maybe y’all should round up them pesky redskins n drive into the sea? Dang, the good old days, when men were (rapist, bigoted, illiterate, drunken nogood curs) men and we’all could do what we liked.
Get stuffed you arrogant prick, the track you refer to if you bother to look at your history was a pretty piss poor one in many aspects, yes without a doubt there were many, many fine people throughout the history of the USA, but there was also a far darker side. Try reading ALL your history not just the bits you like.
Before you start bouncing up and down in your chair and pointing fingers, etc, yes you’re absolutely right, all nations including my own have a dark side, etc, but at least I don’t look through rose tinted glasses.
A quote from your declaration of independance;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
Notice all created equal, and unalienable Rights, that among these are the pursuit of Happiness.
Got it now? Good, now be quiet and polish your six iron.
Oh I don’t know, maybe the ones our forefathers had, like marriage being between a man and a woman. How about the fact that this is a Christian nation founded on Christian ideals. All this talk about separation of church and state. Some how i think people forgot that it was on the Bible our presidents were sworn in on. Not until these liberal pukes got involved did we start down this path of self destruction. Bunch of dope smoking hippies thinking it’s all good but can’t even live up to their own standards. personally I think it’s about time we get back on track and start letting it be Known that if you want to live in this country then you will live by our standards and that would be the majority who say no to gay marriage.
What standards or moral ethics do you think america has exactly?
You know all this is fine and dandy. But the truth is that America as a whole has a moral set of ethics. If the majority says no then it should be no. We may not always live up to them but that doesn’t mean we should throw them out all together. What does this country look like to the outside world when we can’t even live by our own standards?
To A.J.Tokker, preparation is good to ready ones self, but over preparation can be bad in that it also can narrow the vision, if you see what I mean.
In regards your polygamy scenario, I would have to say that taken in the view of no control factors being in place, then yes it would be very dangerous. Having said that, as long as sensible measures are taken(as is done in harem laws and rules), and that the group does not go crazy and essentially marry everyone then it would not be an issue.
A good way of looking into the matter is to research the laws pertaining to both harems and polygamy, obviously different countries have different legislation, etc but you can see that in the more sensible areas that there are limits and/or rules, logistics in the matter of how they are allowed to proceed.
Larn, next time I will be better prepared. I would however like to know if you think my scenario on polygamy was accurate?
To ?, you have not really explained in what way my conclusions and reasonings are, as you say “a bit off”. In your comment to A.J.Tokker regarding church and state, the answer is yes they can be seperated, albeit with difficulty, some countries have already done it, though one must admit that in certain countries their way was very strict(one might also say evil). This however does not preclude the ability for church and state being separate in a more civilised manner, you must remember that whilst some people say that a state without church inclusion is wrong, it’s also fair to say that if church becomes too involved then that to can be wrong(as history has proven).
To A.J.Tokker, i’m glad that you have enjoyed this as much as I have, i’m pleased that I have had the opportunity to debate with you and perhaps we will debate on other things in the future. Just to be fair though, I will let you know now that I debate on many different things under many names, the reason for this is so as to stop people from gaining too much data on me(I enjoy my anonimity), though I will say that if people compare the writing style, i’m sure that they will recognise some of my work. One more thing to admit is that sometimes I act as a devils advocate so as to get a discussion going(the things I say as an advocate are not generally those I believe in). In the instance of gay marriage however this is my true current position.
Anyway, here’s to many more debates,
yours, Larn. =)
?, religion is no longer an issue because in no way would gay marriage affect a persons ability to worship their God as they wanted to. the Church would have every right to refuse to marry two people of the same sex. I don’t think I can make it any clearer than that. Freedom of religion does not give anyone the right to force others to live by their religions doctrine, the individual in question has the choice to live by that doctrine.
In regards to polygamy, that would defeat the purpose of marriage all together. If a man has 5 wives and each of those wives has 5 husbands and each of those husbands has five wives and each of those wives has five husbands and so on and so on…..we might as well all be married and live in one big community house. Who would know who’s child is who’s and from which husband. The only certainty would be the child’s mother.
This scenario is completely insane and I can’t be any clearer as to why.
As far as separation of Church and state goes, well not only is it practical but necessary in a society that guarantees freedom of religion. The real question is whether or not people can accept it and whether the issue will be one of the many that destroy the American society. In studying history it is easy to see that no Nation stands for ever. So in theory separation of church and state is practical.
In a society that guarantees freedom for all (all being the key word) those freedoms only work if they do not infringe on the rights of others. So the majority can’t deny the minority the same rights they have or else it would be freedom for the majority.
Now let me ask you what any of this has to do with gay marriage?
A.J., I’m sorry but the thing about religion, I have no idea what you’re saying. Usually laws take the stance of the majority, whatever religion or way of thinking (including unreligious people). As I have already asked multiple times, is separation of church and state practical? Is it even possible?
As for polygamy, yes, women would have the same rights. Did I say this was only for men?
Larn, in no way am I saying your conclusion is wrong. I am okay with your conclusion (you support gay marriage). It is just some of the arguments that you use to reach that conclusion that seems a bit off.
To both of you, maybe you can view religion as a way of life/way of thinking. If that is the case, then religion is no longer an issue.
Larn, I have been looking at the same material that you mentioned above. I think I understand what I have been thinking. What I have been considering is the suppression theory and the natural instincts of man. The conclusion I have come to, is that while the homosexual community might increase in size it would level off at some point. It seems to me that homosexuality is a natural occurrence and therefore must have a natural purpose. There are many strange things in nature that are not understood but that does not mean they are without use.
As much as I would like to say it is wrong for this reason or that, the logic just isn’t there. From everything I have been looking at it might even be in our (humanities) best interest. If one looks at the population of the planet and the amount of people who are living in poverty they could easily draw the same conclusion.
I have enjoyed this discussion and would like to thank you for the links. They will help me explore the other subjects I have become interested in. I will also check back occasionally to see how this is going. It would seem we have nothing else to debate as I think we see eye to eye on this issue aside from religion.
?, I’m sorry, I forgot to respond to the issue of religion. Religion can not be a valid argument. For one there is the concept of separation of church and state. Therefore anyone is free to worship how they wish and any Church has the right to refuse to marry two people based on religious principle. This is evident in the fact that a public school is not allowed to teach religious principles yet a private christian school is. Second, the state would have to take a stand in favor of a single religion. Which religion would you chose? Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoist, or one of many others?
To A.J.Tokker, i’ll answer your china issue first, there were a few early forays into china regarding christianity from about 300 a.d. onwards but aside from a gradual arrival of persecuted christians arriving on chinese shores there hadn’t really been a great success, it was in the late 1500’s that it really started to roll when a man called mateo(I think) arrived at got to stay in the imperial palace, also if I remember rightly there followed an influx of jesuit(again i’m not quite sure which group) missionaries to push matters along. In essence, it was a case of everyones happy and then the christians arrive to say you all wrong, we’re right and that’s essentially how homosexuality began such an issue in china(I know that’s a rather short version but if I put in the whole thing I would probably take up 10 pages. =).(Please note that i’m not trying to offend christians with the way I wrote, it’s just a hell of a lot easier to describe this way).
In regards the impact of gay marriage on society should it become accepted, I don’t feel that there would be a great impact overall except possibly an increase in tolerance towards others, after all it was quite well accepted before religion got involved so it would probably ease some of the pressure in society(people should remember that it was considered outrageous in many societies to even think that a black man had a soul, let alone could be a christian. This intolerance was perpetuated by many christian faiths for a long time, but thankfully that nonsense has mostly gone). Without a reason to hate people in society tend to take their aggresive traits out in other ways, some positive, sport for example, unfortunately you will get the ones who go bad, but then that is something that society can deal with, at least it should do by now, there of course will be those who might say that soiety would get worse, but frankly if that’s true and it does just because it cannot handle reasonable equality amongst one another then, to be honest, society doesn’t deserve to be allowed to continue.
Humanity should remember just that, humanity.
I think i’ve covered it fairly well, if not I apologise, i’ve had a bit of a rough day, oh, i’m glad the links finally turned up from where ever they were hiding, I hope they are of some use.
To ?, i’m not going to rehash what i’ve said previously, I will say that all arguments are by nature flawed either by incompletness or misunderstanding or whatever, I don’t know what exactly is flawed, but then again I don’t know what your reasoning for your stance is on each topic as you have basically not given justification or, well anything really. To be honest you just seem to be sitting on the fence refusing to make any true opinion one way or another, if you wish to continue solely on the merits of gay marriage and whether or not you are for or against then I will be glad to continue.
Yours, Larn
?, In regards to polygamy and incest, they are not the topic. However, I will entertain your notions. first let us look at polygamy. First issue I see is equality. If a man can have more than one wife then what about a woman? Could she not have more than one husband? She is after all equal in society is she not? Now if this is the case then why can’t a man be married to a woman who has more than one husband or the other way around. That would defeat the purpose of marriage all together would it not?
Second there is the issue of diversity. Going by the above model it would be impossible to keep record of who’s child was who’s. So then we would end up having more birth defects. Sure there is always your screening process but that would not be affective on a large scale. It would cause the decline of diversity in our DNA which would lead to the extinction of the human species.
Larn, let me explain what it is that I’m thinking and maybe you can help me narrow my search. What I’m trying to do is come up with a hypothesis (I hope that is the correct word) on what the effects of gay marriage could have on society. Or maybe I should say the eventual acceptance of gay marriage. When I went back to check on the material about China I found that it was in 1644 that the first laws were passed against homosexuality. I am curious as to why it became an issue. From what I have been able to gather it does not appear to be religion. If you are growing tired of this discussion I will understand. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Since you don’t seem to understand, I am just saying that your premises for your argument/conclusion seem to be flawed.
1. Religion is a valid reason if following the laws of the land.
2. Pro gay marriage people should have no problem with polygamy (which you have already said you are ok with) and incest.
That’s all.
To ?, Please read what I wrote properly, it seems that you wish only to twist to suit your own concepts, if you cannot understand then please refain from deriding, you obviously have an agenda of some sort and no matter what any one says you are going to put your own spin on it, as regards arguments being weak, thus far you haven’t brought any indepth arguments to the table.
To whomever runs the site, can you help I put a series of links on forA.J.Tokker and they still haven’t shown up, can someone please let me know if there’s a limit, or some other reason as to why they are not showing, thankyou.
21%-31% compared to 20%-30%. You call that a significant increase in risk? Please don’t make me laugh.
As for the diversity thing. I think you misunderstood me. Were we not talking about kids from incestuous relationships having a higher risk of being born with a disorder? And you were the one using that as an argument against incest. That is why I brought up amniocentesis in the first place.
Lack of diversity? Interesting. Actually, not really. If you’re so worried about human diversity and that is what you want to prioritize, then shouldn’t we force all people to have kids? That will give you the diversity you want!……….I mean, this diversity issue really has nothing to do with this. I really don’t even know why you are defending A.J. in this case. Insignificant issue.
Any other argument(s) you may wish to bring to the table? Cause so far, your arguments are all weak, at least in my mind they are.
But at least we agree on one thing. Humans are flawed.
To A.J.Tokker, I put a load of links on for you about an hour or so after my last post, but as of yet they have not appeared, I don’t know if the system holds over or what, i’ll check again in a few hours or possibly tommorrow and if they still haven’t shown up I will try again.
To, A.J.Tokker, here are some links to the items you requested, please note that genetics/dna are essentially the same thing, also world history can be flawed as one persons idea of what happened in one country may be inaccurate, also another problem is where countries give false information, russia when it was the ussr was well known for falsehoods, another example is china, an example of this is that many of their new generation think that Tibet has always been a part of the chinese empire when in fact the majority of the world know this to be false. In this case in reccomend that you compare world hitory statements to that of the countries version, this can lead to some problems telling fact from fiction but with enough information you will find the answer(note, the links I will supply are world history links only, after that as mentioned you will need to find appropriate links for each country to compare).
GENETICS.
http://www.dnaftb.org/
http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/medical/about_genetics.html
http://www.frontiers-in-genetics.org/page.php?id=genetics-all_en
http://biology.about.com/od/genetics/Genetics.htm
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000141
http://www.nslij-genetics.org/seq/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080122101914.htm
DNA.
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/dna/dna.htm
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/basics/dna
http://www.dna.ac.uk/
http://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/notebook/courses/guide/dnast.htm
http://www.dnaftb.org/
http://www.eurekascience.com/ICanDoThat/dna_intro.htm
WORLD HISTORY.
http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html
http://www.historyworld.net/
http://www.fsmitha.com/
http://www.worldhistorycompass.com/
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001196.html
http://www.camelotintl.com/world/
http://www.worldhistory.com/index.php
http://worldhistorymatters.org/
ECOSYSTEMS
http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk/topics/ecosystem.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/ecosystems/ecosystemsresourcesrev1.shtml
http://www.fi.edu/tfi/units/life/habitat/habitat.html
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/ecosystems.html&edu=elem
http://www.springerlink.com/content/101552/
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/rhynie/
I will leave it at that for now, if you wish to get more info a good way is to prefix what you are after with wordings such as, all about, details on, listings regarding, etc or even just typing in the word itself. Anyway hopefully some of these will be usefull, enjoy.
To A.J.Tokker, i’m glad I could help, i’ll get back to you shortly with a few links regarding Genetics, DNA, world History and Ecosystems as soon as possible.
To ?, you say that a 1% risk is reasonable, but you as you mentioned it’s about a 20% to 30% risk naturally and then you are increasing the risk by taking the test which contains it’s own risk as mentioned and that risk is based on a competant clinician(note, that risk has be shown to increase with less competant clinicians), bear in mind these things always seem reasonable until you’re the one who has to undertake it.
I did not mention diversity, I think that was A.J.TOKKER, but to reference to diversity, i’m sorry but i’m afraid I must disagree, if you think logicaly the very fact of diversity in the human race helps to ensure it’s very survival, as an example let’s go back to the plague, if the human race had not been diverse then you and I would not be having this conversation as the plague would have eradicated us, the very fact of diversity is what creates the differences in the human genome which allows us have at least some chance of suvival when major outbreaks occur. What would you prefer, a homogenised race that could be wiped out because no one has a defence or a diverse one that has an increased chance due to it’s diversity?
Your right about it going against their teachings, etc, but as I have said homosexuals were fine until religion came along, so homosexuals have at least equal right in regards lifestyle as they had been living their lives quite happily until religion came along. Whether it’s right or wrong in the eyes of god(whomever) is irrelevant, the why of that is simple, if it’s wrong then those who are gay will be dealt with by god, and those who are not gay and who behave with understanding will be seen well in god’s eyes for showing tolerance. I saying it this way for simplicities sake.
No one would sensibly say that laws are the ultimate truth simply because laws are written by humans and humans are flawed. This is why the laws are so varieted, they either jump on one religion or anothers concept of right and wrong, or if dictatorial make up laws that seem justifiable in their mind.
I will be honest if there is a higher being I wish he/she/it would come down and shut everyone up by telling them all what is right/wrong, mind you even then people will still b***h and moan, such is the madness of humanity.
We are talking about 1 in 100 as high? It’s 1%, and that’s for a miscarriage. It’s 1 in 1000 (0.1%) for infection. It’s totally up to you to interpret how you wish, but 1% does not seem that high. It seems as though miscarriage probabilities have not been able to be determined, but from what I have gathered, it seems like people in the field think that miscarriages occur naturally in humans anywhere from 20% to 30% of the time. Of course, I cannot be totally confident in this, but if this were true 1% is nothing.
Now for screening out DNA losing diversity. Well, I guess that is true. But in this case, I don’t see diversity as a positive thing, and I would think most people would agree. That is why I even mentioned that there is a screening method.
And as for infringing ways of life. It actually does because it goes against the teachings for those people. They have a right to vote/protest/live in a manner in which they believe. If they are doing unlawful things in order to achieve this, then I totally agree that they are being intolerant. But if they are abiding by the laws of the land, then I see no problem. That’s their right, as much as the right of gay people to protest/vote their way.
Again, I view laws as just things that, more or less, make a society run smoothly. If it were about right and wrong, then why are there different laws in different countries? If laws are the ultimate truth, why not have universal laws which all countries abide by? Of course, as we grow up, we have the tendency to just think of laws as drawing the line between “right and wrong”, but that is mostly just the “right and wrong” that the majority of the people determined to be “right and wrong”. Again, this may differ from what is ultimately “right and wrong”, but since nobody knows what that is, this is how things happen.
Larn, I want to thank you for the direction you have given me in this debate. I come from a village just outside of Chajudana in south America. there is no formal education system where I am from. If not for yours and a few others feedback I would not have learned as much as I have. I apologize for using you as I have, but I was told that prejudice ran high in this country and that I should be careful about revealing that I wasn’t American. I feel guilty for trying to pose as an American with R.E. Degarian. I was simply trying to imitate the writing style of the books I had read. It obviously didn’t work, he caught on to it almost immediately. I was also worried that if anyone knew my age that they would not accept my arguments (I’m 14). I guess what I’m trying to say is that i appreciate your patience with me.
In reference to China I have researched a little more and discovered that you are correct. It was not until 1644 that laws were passed to suppress homosexuals. It would seem that I have a habit of trying to compare this issue with the wildlife from my home. Most of my insights come from those observations.
Would you please share some links to help me study further on Genetics, DNA, and world history. I know this is off subject, but I have not met many who would be willing to help me research this? I can understand what I read. Also ecosystems? I apologize once again for not stating my motivations in this debate at the beginning.
Amniocentesis can be viewed as having minimal risk in pregnancy, but this changes according to how far into the pregnancy occurs and also on the ability and experience of the clinician involved, also if you were the mother would you really want to take a procedure that carries an average 1 in 100 chance of causing misscarriage?
In regards the traditional family unit, if you take a look prior to christianity the gay unit existed quite happily alongside the hetero unit, it was not until religion got in on the act that the gay unit was ostracised, these gay units lived together for life as did the hetero ones so your point there is moot. In reference to your justice for all comment, this can be seen as redressing the fact that your religious freedom had represed the freedom of gays who had been living quite happily with everyone else prior to religious enforcement. In your comment being predominantly bhuddist you really need to recheck your data the suppression of religion by the state in china is one of the greatest examples of suppression in the world. Also in china prior to the communist takeover the was very little problems regarding homosexuality in the country.
You say about gay marriage infringeing on your way of life, well unless you are gay, how exactly would it affect you? If you cannot handle homosexuality then all you have to do is be courteous when you meet one and otherwise keep out of their lives, I hardly find it likely that a gay man is going to drag you to the alter insisting you marry him.
In the situation regarding separation of state and religion, you’re right it is a problem, the main one being that the church(I.E. vatican) is a political beast and doesn’t like it when people make decisions without their consent.
I’m in a bit of a rush so I appologise if this isn’t as clear as it should be, a lot of it is going off memory, so if anything needs redoing let me know, go to go, catch you later.
?, Valid points. I think in this case you are right in the fact that we do not know what effect gay marriage will have on society. I have been considering the “Traditional Family Unit”. Why has this tradition been so widely accepted for so long? Surely it isn’t just because of Christianity. If that were the case then it would not be a common thing in most societies but a unique trait of predominantly Christian societies. Yet if we look at China for instance which is for the most part Buddhist we see the same traditional family unit. This leads me to speculate that this “tradition” is a part of mans natural instinct. That is, to mate for life and raise their young as a unit. After all this is a natural occurrence all through out nature. It would be arrogant for us to think that nature doesn’t apply to us. All life is dependent on the natural world even ours. In other words if man were to disrupt the ecosystems in the natural world to such a point to cause mass extinctions it might very well cause our extinction. It would be arrogant to think otherwise.
So if this is correct then the suppression of homosexual behavior could very well be a natural instinct in man that is their to regulate population. If we were to accept gay marriage it very well could upset this natural balance.
This is my line of thinking thus far and I am still considering others as well so at this point I will wait for feedback on these thoughts. you are right to say that this issue is more complex than we have looked at so far.
on the issue of incest, you must consider the issue of diversity.
even if we can filter out defects, it does not diversify DNA to insure the survival of our species. That is all i will say on that issue because it is off topic.
Ok, first, the procedure I am talking about is amniocentesis. I don’t know if that is what you are also referring too, but if you actually do your research, amniocentesis is not dangerous as you say it is. In fact, it can be said that it is as dangerous as having kids normally. Of course, I recognize that it is not a perfect test, and it does not check for ALL disorders, but seems pretty adequate to me. Here are some places which you can learn more about the risks. You’d be surprised how low the additional risk is of undergoing the procedure:
http://www.thefetus.net/page.php?id=1914
http://www.rcog.org.uk/womens-health/clinical-guidance/amniocentesis-what-you-need-know
If you are referring to a different procedure, then I am sorry. Please enlighten me.
Second, I think you guys may want to reconsider what laws are for. I mean of course on paper it’s going to talk about “justice for all”, blah blah blah. But if you think about it, is that really the case? I think laws are just there to make society run in a smooth fashion. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not really about right and wrong. It’s just what the majority thinks is “right”, which of course may not be “right” in an ultimate sense.
And when people say, “everyone has the right to live as they wish.” Ok, how about religous freedom? In this case, I see it as a battle of preserving people’s religious freedom vs. gay marriage. I don’t see anything wrong with either. It’s just, I don’t see why people don’t accept religion as a valid reason. Again, it’s just a way of life. Please tell me how you separate your way of life from decisions that will affect your life. I mean it sounds great, and I agree, if possible, religion and state should be separated, but is it really possible? Maybe for some issues, but for things like this, I don’t think so.
?, On a personal level i still do not support gay marriage. But that is not what the article is really asking. In doing research into the law I discovered that regardless of my personal feelings or that of the majority of the population they have every right to live as they want. When I considered the implications of the constitution I realized that anyone of us could find themselves in their position and I would want my rights protected. If that is the case then I should not stand in their way. I would not support them but I would not oppose them either.
I also agree with Larn. You state that this is all superficial as if you are above any input in this conversation. I for one would welcome the chance to explore this topic more in depth.
Sorry, I forgot to put my name to the above post,
“Anonymous says: April 15, 2009 at 5:20 pm”
In the case of polygamy I believe I have already answered that.
In the case of gay marriage as previously written there is no reason why 2 consenting people (not crossing the age barrier)should not be in a relationship and allowed to be married when of appropriate age.
Regarding incest, in a sense you are right, in practical terms any 2 people(as long as the are old enough to understand, I.E, age of consent) should be allowed to be a couple, the issue arises from the factor of children, you talk about screening but you are wrong, the screening processes can cause damage themselves and are only good for certain defects, this then leaves open the problem of defects that cannot be detected untill too late, with this in mind the knowledge that children born through incestous relationships are many times more likely to be born damaged must be taken into account, certain steps could be taken but would infringe upon the couples civil rights, things such as vasectomy, etc.
You talk about religion as being a way of life, this is true, but people come from across all belief, and non belief(and all points in between) systems, this is why state should be seperate, thereby allowing the best combination of freedoms and restraints for the maximum percentage of the people for whom the state is meant to protect.
One last thing, you say that the talk here is way to superficial as though you can bring something better to this discussion, well please do as that would finally show not only that you are something more than a mere question mark, but it may also make those who thus far haven’t done any real thinking to actually do so, i’m sure that there would be some at least who would welcome a more in depth approach to the subject, The writer i’m sure would almost certainly appreciate your views of the subject of gay marriage.
To Larn, I still do not really see why incest is wrong. What is wrong with two adults or children in love (minus pedophiles)? If you find that wrong, then why is gay marriage ok?
This is what I find funny amongst the people that I have talked to that are for gay marriage. Most of them say they are against polygamy and incest, yet for gay marriage. Frankly, I see no difference. People mention birth defects and bring in genetics as reasons for being against incest, but there is a method to screen that kind of stuff out with today’s science/medicine.
As for religion not being a valid reason for going against gay marriage, why? Religion is just like everything else. It’s a way of life. People say separation of religion and state is important, but since religion is a way of life, that statement is very impractical. That is why we even have these debates.
Everyone has their own belief system, religious people just have religion as part of theirs. I don’t see anything wrong with that since nobody knows whether they are right or wrong. It’s up to the individual to live and believe in what they want, of course within the laws of the country they live in.
And no, I am not using this for a paper. Quite frankly, most of the points made here cannot be used; they are way too superficial.
Tom Carter, That is a good point. I humbly and respectfully withdraw my previous arguments. They have no merit in the American society as far as I can see. I am not even clear on why this is even an issue. If the constitution doesn’t protect the rights of all citizens then who’s rights does it protect? I foolishly argued from a point of personal beliefs rather than from a point of the laws that govern the society in question.
A.J. Tokker, I won’t say that some fool won’t ever bomb a church or shoot at a city hall where a gay marriage has been performed. That kind of criminal activity is always possible, no matter what issue is being discussed. But it seems highly unlikely that gay marriage would generate that kind of violent reaction.
The relevant point is that individual citizens have nothing to lose where gay marriage is concerned. Those who don’t approve are completely free not to marry someone of their own gender. They’re also free not to associate with gay people at all if they don’t want to. The concept we’re dealing with is really freedom and the right to live your life as you wish as long as you don’t harm others. To be against that, you would have to think that your personal beliefs must dominate society and dictate the way everyone else lives.
To Larn, One of the questions posed in the article was “what do you have to lose?”. This question got me thinking about the impact it might have on the American society. Trough my research on this subject I noticed that through out the various civil rights movements the aftermath that insued was filled with violence. As an example the abortion clinic bombings. Could this not be the case here as well? And if so, would it not be wiser to wait until the majority of the people are for it? I only ask because it seems that, according to the polls, over the years the movement has been gaining ground. If this is indeed the case this would minimize the damage that could result from allowing same sex marriage legally. what woulb be your take on this line of thought?
To A.J. Tokker, your use of grammer is very good, in many societies the trouble often comes from relgions wishing to impose their logic upon others whether those others are of their religion, sexuality, colour, etc. This has been one of the major reasons for conflicts, up to and including war for centuries, You only have to look at the bickering that goes on over the “holy places”, there is a site in jerusalem(I forget the name), where you have dozens of religions all squabbling over who it belongs to, as a result they are all crammed in like sardines and fighting has even broken out between the factions within the confines of the building, it’s pathetic. I have to be honest if I had the oppurtunity, I would kick everyone, regardless of their religious persuasion out, and then use all that lovely silica(sand), turn it all into hundreds of tons of glass and encapsulate the whole place in it. That way any religious figures who are buried there can finally get some peace.
To ?, If this topic does not interest you why are you asking others questions, you are either interested or not.
I would hardly define your response as one as you have given reasoning, etc as to why you are for or not, rather it sounds as though you are trying to get others to do the work whilst you do nothing, perhaps you are utilising us for a paper or something, if so then have the decency to admit it, if not then join in fully.
To answer polygamy, as long as the people involved are happy with their relationship and the way in which they are respected, etc within that relationship, then I see no real problem.
As regards incest that is a different matter, in the main I would have to say no I do not approve of incest as this is usually initiated at an early age where it comes within the confines of pedophilia and the child has no idea that it’s wrong. There are however instances which are harder to deal with, one example occured in britain several years ago, two children were born and on both occasions taken from the mother who was not fit to look after them, the children were both adopted and never knew about each other, many years later these two met and fell in love, it was only when they went to get married that the truth came out, the devastation they must have felt must have been horrific, the problem is that they were deeply in love, in this case is incest wrong, I honestly cannot give that a reasonable answer as they were victims of a rare and unforeseen circumstance.
Now would you give a fuller and more accurate opinion on the subject which is gay marriage and your reasoning so as this topic can finally get back to it’s original reason for being created.
Tom: read back, see how introduced. Can’t be left out there…think this whole thing is far enough off topic to now be pretty pointless.
In relation to this debate I decided that I should consider another view point. I felt that since this was an issue of law i should look at how the legislative branch works. In doing so I discovered this:
Amendment XIV (1868)
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
I would presume that this would in actuality protect the rights of homosexuals. If I am correct in that assumption then I see no reason why they should not be allowed to marry.
I have two reasons for this. first would be this:
Amendment I (1791)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
If I am correct in my interpretation of this it would mean that congress could not legally bar marriage to any individual based on religious principles.
My second reason is based on the definition of liberty.
Liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force, is generally considered in modern time to be a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will.
My only question concerning this is the wording of Amendment XIV. in it it states that no state shall make or enforce any law. Is this to imply that congress can make such a law? If not, I am not sure why this is even in debate. The only thing i can think of is the social impact. Am I correct on any of these points or is there something I am not aware of?
On a side note i would like to ask for some input on my use of grammar in this post. If that is inappropriate I once again apologize.
To Larn, My stance is quite simple.
Personally, I could careless if gay people get the right to marry or not. It doesn’t bother me either way.
I just think that if people are for gay marriage, then they should be ok with polygamy and incest.
And then I could get into a whole other thing, but let’s take things one at a time.
Was that good enough, Larn? Now can you give me an answer to my question?
Hi R E Degarian, which comment were you refering to regards objectivity, and in what context. I think you’re on about people lumping sexuality variants and murder, etc, but I just want to make sure.
Larn, did you mean objectively there?
I understand the quantum psychology position but as a general rule…
To Tom Carter. I apologize for the reference to pedophilia. I foolishly thought the two where linked based on some of the material I was researching on the subject. In further study I did however discover that this was at best inconclusive and bias because of the fact it was based on the opinion of the authors of the article. In the future i will try to relate only to proven fact and my own opinion as it pertains to this discussion.
In my previous statement I notice that it is only partially displayed. I
am not sure why this is but it is irrelevant as to the discussion at hand.
So i will leave it as it is.
Tom Carter says:
April 12, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Come on, folks. Pedophilia has no place in this discussion. To inject it lowers the level of any argument that’s being made.
I agree with you, the problem is that unfortunately people like ? will insist on dragging in other things such as pedophilia, etc because they have usually been educated to believe that homosexuality and pedophilia, etc are forms of human perversity and this rationalises their excuse for bringing the other things in rather than dealing with it exclusively.
Had you topic been say about murder for example, those same people would have brought in rapists, pedophiles and most likely homosexuals as well, because they just cannot separate them in their minds.
Only when people are better (and properly) educated to see things both separatly and subjectively will real progress be made.
Come on, folks. Pedophilia has no place in this discussion. To inject it lowers the level of any argument that’s being made.
To ?
Definitions of pedophile on the Web: pedophilia – Sexual attraction to a child; clinically, a person sixteen years of age or older who is at least five years older than the child. Pedophiles will prefer males, females, or both. Generally considered to be an incurable mental disorder.
I am taking mental disorder as disease, disease having numerous definitions but I am going for the idea of it not being a normal, healthy function. Thing is, would be nice if you dealt with the point as I am fairly sure you know what I mean.
To clarify though, I do not see homosexuality as a disease or mental disorder. Pedaphilia is generally considered to be this and by the look of it, has been since at least 1927…so not to date me thinks.
A.J pointed a link to an article that linked pedaphilia to homosexuals. My observation was based on arguing that link as being tenuous when dealing with the subject of gay marriage.
I have a friend who is straight whose elder brother is gay, they share a good family and are nice enough people (the older brother got the good looks and the manners) so I tend to lean towards genetics but this is anecdotal and I suspect not valid as an agument.
To my tiny mind it strikes me that societies should and do attempt to advance to higher levels of social order and acceptance. To alter or deny the rights of one part of society due to sexual preference, because it does not fit in with what the majority prefer, does not head in the right direction. I think the pedaphila argument is a red herring; if all homosexuals were murderers, pedaphiles, rapists etc. then there would be a valid argument but they are clearly not. The religious argument is particularly weak, as different religions have different tolerances and customs. If we tolerate other religions then why not other sexual practices?
I think I have the answer: homosexuals should declare themselves a religion.
To ?, I have noticed that you ask questions, but do not express your opinions on these subjects, so rather than giving you an immediate answer I would like YOUR opinions on the various subjects along with evidence to backup your reasoning, if you will bring your views to the table(as it were), then I will be happy to continue futher dialogue with you.
Please remember a discussion is only valid if both parties give their views and reasoning
To Larn, are you okay with polygamy and incest? If not, please give reasons why.
Just seen what had been written while I was writing my piece, the problem with pedophilia is the fact that a adult(both males and females can be and are pedophile) are manipulating the minds of young children, this is why it is wrong, they twist the childs perception of love to gain benefit for themselves and as soon as the child gets to old for their tastes they drop them to go and ruin another childs life. A person who is homosexual however is not a pedophile they fall in lust or love (just as heteroseuals do) with their partner and lead lives much the same as straights, you get the faithfull partners, the adulterous, the abusive, the ones who divorce, the swingers(I think i’ve covered most types),etc. They also contribute to society by working, inventing, paying taxes, etc, just like straights. So to my mind the problem is more of perception than anything else, for centuries striaght, bi, and gay relationships were the norm and then religion got involved and lumped gays with beastialists, pedos, rapists, etc. Once you separate them away from the others and look at the similarities then you begin to realise that there is very little difference. Anyway as I said in my previous post if I have not presented clearly then let me know and I will try to clarify
To A.J. Tokker, try copying one at a time, then open that link, this should work. I think your problem with them all opening at once is because you copied trhem together and as a result the search function is acting as though you have clicked on the “open all in tabs ” function.
People are naturally biased and as a result no statistical compilation or study or links can be relied on to accuratly reflect the truth of a matter. My personal opinion is that as long as you are of legal age (18/21 depending on your country)and both parties involved are happy with the relationship and does not push their way upon others whether gay straight or bisexual then there should be no problem. To compare this to pedophiliacs or murderers is unfair and misleading and muddies what should be a straight forward matter, an example is with pedophiles, the majority of pedophile abuse is done by adult males on underage females, so that should be considered when talking about the concerns expressed regarding adult homosexuals caring for male/female children. The gene question is of course still out, only about 10% of dna is used the rest is what they think is junk dna but they can’t be sure, the fact of the matter is they are decades away from knowing what everything does, likely human sexuality, eye colour, etc is a combination of genes, and enviroment(an example of the peculiarity of nature was quite well expressed in one case where a woman was impregnated by her partner and gave birth to twins one was black, one was white, both parents were black but she was accused of having sex with a white man, dna confimed that the black male was the father of both the twins, this shows how nature can do whatever it wants whether we like it or not. Some say well that makes it ok for pedophiles, this is where a lot of contention arises and I agree, pedophilia is where the young are manipulated by adults for their own benefit which is wrong and as a result should not be allowed. The case for homosexuaity is different in which many of those involved have always felt that way, this changes the situation in the regard that they have not been subjected to pedophile manipulation and as long as they are in suitable age relationships should be allowed to continue, I hope I have presented my logic clearly, if not please point out my error and I will atempt to clarify.
To RE, Let’s make it easier.
What is your definition of Mental Disorder/Disease?
To RE, Cant see the whole paper about pedophilia being a disease, but from what I see, it’s a 1927 article. If this is correct, then don’t you think it’s a little outdated?
And, I’m sorry but what do you mean by “pedophilia is a disease”? What is your definition of disease?
Er C.O.G, I said it was in the genes and had to go do some reading and found that the scientific community was still out on that one. So need a reference on that one, in case you know something or have found somthing I could not track down.
Human overcrowding does not consume resources as you say, it is human consumption that does this and at 2.6% to 10% of population as a gay regulatory system? I think you will find the deaths from starvation glabally outstrip being a shirtlifter many many times over.
Weren’t we talking gay marriage?
A.J, for six months your grasp of the English language is comendable. The idea of dropping ones culture is, to understand the ‘meta’ language, that is the framework of communication that is inherent culturally. For instance, language, as well as having meaning word for word, it is also a system by which we experience the world and how we reflect our experience. I am sure your host is not asking you to literally ‘drop’ your culture but maybe understand the difference in the meta language as in, how we use the same words and colloquial phrasing to reveal our experience. For instance, what I find amusing is often taken as insulting by people from other countries (first hand experience fool that I am).
I was going to go thorugh all the links but I still feel weighing up statistics and other peoples opinions is not the way to go. It is clear that each faction has an agenda and those who are believing they are trying to unbiased influence the stats just by an attempt to be unbiased. Then again, I looked at some negative stats and found the presentation of them was dubious, for instance, when did the right suitability to raise children have anything to do with demographics? It is all merit. 100% of murderers are human, therefore humans should not adopt is the sort of statistical conclusions I am addressing here.
Is it not fair to say that homosexuals (not all)can have balanced, loving, monogamous relationships and that a child could benefit from this environment? Is it not also fair to say that if we are not prejudiced against homosexuality then we woul dnot care if the child then grew up gay as gayness is accepted? Top say otherwise would be a statement of obvious prejudice. Yes, it is true that we wish to protect our children from perverts and pedophiles but, let us first understand that pedophilia is a disease (http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=PSAR.014.0189A) and none of the stats mention the occurance of pedophila in long term homosexual relationships. In these observances of demographics there is no consideration of merit. We must agreet hat the quality of the heterosexual populace is very diverse in terms of it capacity for quality parenting and it seems somewhat crass to expect perfection from the homosexual community. We only have to read the press to see the rediculous parents, raising children who go on about their rights to raise their children as they see fit. Yet, that fitness is clearly not of any standard. If you live in a trailer, have 29 children, claim welfare you have not committed any crime. Shocking.
If i dare to assume God intention in Genesis ( Old Testament ) that Eve was created to accompany Adam in Eden. They were not created to multiply. Never was so mentioned in bible. After eating from tree of knowledge and being cast out of Eden, they were doing what they obtain from know-how fruit to continue survival. Old testament were written by men during a very wicked and corrupted era. God sent his only son Jesus to redeem us from sin. Since then, we are forgiven and not to live with condemnation. Human overcrowding and will soon consume all of natural resources, maybe gay was a solution after all. Just maybe. It’s not a propaganda that we can brainwash and dupe people into it. Gay was proven scientifically, it’s in the genes. In old testament it was mentioned ‘prominent figures’ have more than one wives, then since when we have come to practice one man with one wife. And if she’s the only chosen one by God, why some church allows divorce and bless re-marry couple. 10 commandments said do not commit adultery. Adultery was define as sexual relationship before marriage. What marriage meant in that era? Bible preach love and forgiveness, but most so-called christian seems to forgot the basic after all. This is no end. Pray and He will answer you, listen with open heart.
Coin i appreciate the links but i can’t use them. I copied all of them at once and now when i try to open one they all try to open. Is that possible? where i am from we have no electricity so no computers and now i must reviel
Thank you Larn. I really appreciate you input. There are a great many problems i am having with this language. My host in this country says it is because i have only been using this language for six months and that i have not dropped my culture. I am not sure what he means. I would appreciate any advice i could get.
To Statistical: I apologize i was only responding to the statements beforehand. In my culture one does not insult anothers faith and so i responded in kind. I would very much like to understand your point of view.
I hope you accept.
To A.J. Tokker, “re” is a short way of saying “regarding”, it’s like when people say “hi” instead of “hello”, the english language is scattered with shortening of words and also words which have more than one meaning. I notice earlier on you and Statistical had a run in because of similar problems, I noticed that he got frustrated trying to explain to you his points and in a later post after he had gone you mentioned to another writer that english is not your native language, I think had Statistical known this, then he may not have got quite so angry, even people whose native language is english can still run into problems with understanding, one example is the word fanny, in american english it means bottom but in british english it means vagina, americans say things like i’ll pat your fanny(touch your bottom), if they were to say that to a woman in britian(to her it would mean touch your vagina)they would probably get a slap across the face or a swift kick to the balls.=)
thank you coin, i will try doing just that. I appreciate the advice.
On a side note what does re mean? It is not in my english dictionary?
I don’t know what just happened but I created a list of sites and when I submitted it, it disappeared, tried again and the system said it was already on. It may turn up later or something, if not then at some point when I have more time I will try again. In the meantime try typing in things like scientific studies re homosexuality, or evidence in nature for homosexuality, etc. I’m sure you get the idea, that should lead you to some, anyway, got to go, goodnight.
This link that you gave(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAMBLA) is about nambla who are an organisation who promote sex between adults and minors.
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This link that you gave(http://nambla.org/pederasty.htm) is by David Thorstad who is a proponent of the concept of underage sex and does not represent average homosexuals. It is also a nambla paper.
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The following are a few of the links I have to hand, I can’t remember off hand exactly which ones lead where as they are in a file that I have regarding homosexuality, for and against, but I think a lot of the ones i’ve picked are pro gay or trying to be balanced, when I have more time, and if I remember i’ll go through the file properly and pick out better ones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior
http://www.gaywired.com/article.cfm?id=11034§ion=9
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread403143/pg1
http://www.albertmohler.com/commentary_read.php?cdate=2004-04-15
http://levellers.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/sexual-orientation-the-scientific-evidence-such-as-it-is/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey
http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/kinseybio.html
http://health.discovery.com/centers/sex/sexpedia/alfredckinsey.html
http://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/ecom/MasterServlet/GetItemDetailsHandler?iN=9780801854408&qty=1&viewMode=3&loggedIN=false
http://us.macmillan.com/biologicalexuberance
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826612.800-editorial-why-homosexuality-is-not-unnatural.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826613.900-gay-brains-are-hardwired-at-birth.html
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/27/9403
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_3_29/ai_n11838786/
http://www.scienceagogo.com/message_board8/messages/354.shtml
http://www.debate.org/debates/homosexuality-is-natural./1/
http://www.sdakinship.org/anotherpov/07.htm
http://www.truthtree.com/gay.shtml
http://www.helium.com/debates/118879-are-homosexual-acts-natural-or-sinful/side_by_side
http://www.jefflindsay.com/gays.html
http://politika.lv/en/topics/human_rights/15875/
http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/49488
http://www.skeptictank.org/gaygene.htm
http://www.soulforce.org/article/644
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/01/homosexuality-genetics-usa
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=psychotherapists-trying-to-treat-pa-2009-03-26
Here is another link. This one is from the other side of this debate. I am only trying to demonstrate that i do not rely on hearsay to form my opinion on this or any topic. The purpose of the links i provide are to substantiate the claims i have made as to why i appose gay marriage. If you have anything to counter this please share. Also if you can provide any links to purely scientific data i would like to see it.
http://nambla.org/pederasty.htm
I found something else of interest. here is the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAMBLA
this it seems is non bias.
To A.J. Tokker, it should be noted that the article you are refering to(http://www.hli.org/homosexuality_not_molestation.pdf) was published by catholic christians
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The following are other items written by the same individuals:
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HOMILETIC & PASTORAL REVIEW | MAY 2005 | Brian W. Clowes and David L. Sonnier
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Call to Action or Call to Apostasy?: How Dissenters Plan to Remake the Catholic Church in Their Own Image by Brian W. Clowes
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Springtime Decay, a study of the decline in enrollment in seminaries since the close of the Second Vatican Council by David L. Sonnier
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Girl Servers Cause Sexual Confusion at the Altar by David L. Sonnier
(The Southern Renaissance is the best value in authentic Catholic Publications)
This is esentially denying girls the right to worship god in the same way as alter boys, as though girls are less in gods eyes(note, for the record i’m male)
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He also writes for lordylordyhavemercyonme.blogspot.com
as well as several other catholic blogs
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David L. Sonnier is also a member of “The Knights of Saint Thomas More” which is a Catholic Fraternity
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My list could go on for quite some time, but the essence of what I have shown is clear, whatever you read by these two individuals, you also have to take into account their religious views, if you look further you will see what I mean. Balanced information is best, where that is impossible then read all you can from both sides of the situation so as to avoid getting the wrong answer
Thanks A.J for the link and also thanks for the capitals, made your text much easier to read: appreciated.
Firstly, I study what creates opinion and belief, I have to in my business and often have to look at my own thoughts and review their legitimacy. Just as I had to slap myself over the ‘gay gene’ assumption, even though it was in error. It would have simply made my argument simpler had it been true.
The link was interesting.
If the question we are looking into is whether homosexuals should marry or be permitted to marry, with the same rights and priveledges as heterosexual unions then, I think they should. If the opposition to homosexual union is whether they should be allowed to adopt children due to a higher statistical liklihood of child molestation, then I think again, the union should be allowed because, the checks and balances for adoption, (if a homosexual couple), would be most stringent and a screw up by social services in this matter would be very well publicised.
A suitable couple to adopt is just that: suitable.
I do have a few issues with the way the statistics are reported and I do often run into not so much bias but are influenced shall we say, by the authors of such articles.
Lechat, yup.
I am currently learning english. So i will provide a link as to why i feel the way i do. I have many but this one should suffice. R E i apologize if i misunderstood you. I think maybe it is the use of this language that is the problem. I am force learning this language by replacing my computer with an english key board. Feel free to correct my use of this language. It would help me to learn it. Here is the link.
http://www.hli.org/homosexuality_not_molestation.pdf
? says:
April 9, 2009 at 10:35 pm
To Lechat, I was reading your response to A.J. and I found it funny cause it seems like your gay friend is also a case of black and white theory. That’s 2 for black and white and 0 for shades theory =)
I understand what you are saying but it only proves that in his instance he is at the higher or lower(whichever you prefer) end of the spectrum. To see it only as that would be like saying that there is no such things as gray, in nature there is no two thins identical even supposedly identical twins have differences in things such as fingerprints, height, etc.
Anyway after this lot I am going to see if I can get some sleep, if not i’ll catch you later, have a good morning, afternoon, evening, night, where ever you all are. =)
To R E Degarian, I saw your comment above regarding a gay gene, no one can say positively regarding whether there is one or not, just as they haven’t isolated what makes eyes different colours. A combination of factors have to come into being to affect the outcome of a child, we have already seen how diet, drug, enviroment(By this I don’t mean only pollutants, although these will obviously have some effect)population density, etc, and this is without including what genes the eggs and sperm are carrying in the regard of the ones which meet and combine. Researchers into this question and many others have got a lot of work to do on this so the answer is likely to be decades away.
As I said in earlier post, i’m tired so I hope this makes sense
To A.J.Tokker, hi, in regards you’re question regarding homosexuality, yes there is definately a premise to show that homosexuality is a part of natures checks and balance system, in many species where the population is becoming to big for the survival of that species in a proscribed area, the incidence of newborns being homosexual has been shown to be greatly increased, that is why I suspect that homosexuals are part of god’s design and also in nature where this occurs often times one sex will raise the young so this then raises the possibility that it is normal for gay couples to raise young, now I admit that in the regard of gay couples creating young through manipulation of the normal process disturbs people, but the gay couple adopting and raising orphans for example is ar more in line with the natural order. One of the things that we must remember is have nature proves time and again that it is far stranger than we humans understand, a good example is children who have been raised by other species, this alone shows that god does things in ways that are far beyond our understanding and because of that we have to be very careful in what we presume is right or wrong.
The point that was the nexus of this post which was should gay marriage be allowed, I feel it should be allowed, the fact that it’s called marriage should be irrelevant, it is a word that describes a state of relationship, to force couples to have a different name for their relationship I feel would be to detract from their feelings to each other. As was said, I think by yourself, it was the government who defined the word marriage as being solely for the purpose of containing that particular state of relationship and as a result any couple whether they were believers of a particular religion or agnostic or even atheist had to use this form of “contract” if you will so as to have the society and government, etc to recognise the rights of each partner involved, for an example where a couple are married, when one partner dies the other becomes the next of kin and has certain rights, where they are not married they have far fewer rights. Another way to look at it would be this, if lets say the bhudists were to gain control of the world and they claimed the word marriage as there own and forbade anyone of any other religious/nonreligious persuasion to use it and then forced each type of religious/nonreligious or sexual persuasion to have a different word to the one they have grown to recognise as meaning the devotional bond between one another you create resentment, cause them to be catagorised as lesser beings, etc.
I hope I don’t unduly offend someone, but when you look at it like this it seems logical to allow it.
P.S. If any of it doesn’t make sense or is loorly spelled or constructed I apologise as I haven’t slept in 30+ hours and the is a lot of noise today.
A.J, you clearly have no idea what an uncivil argument is (or argument) but let’s try this:
‘nowhere in nature can two members of the same sex produce young’
and then
‘there are species of toads that can change sexes to adapt to their reproductive needs to insure their survival, however that is not the case with humans’
Well, the caveat of this needing to apply to humans was not mentioned and we were talking in ‘nature’ so I took into account everything from bacteria up. My point was missed so I will try again (Idid warn you that attention wained when I type). Just because nature does or does not illustrate something does not make it right or wrong. The reason, I believe (my caveat there), that people might think that nature was the standard by which all things should be measured, is because they beleive that nature is the produce of some devine being. I do not believe this, and I kind of recognise that there are some seriously shitty parts of nature. If a porcupine masturbates by rubbing itself on a stick, you will understand I don’t really consider it some indication of a devine Will with regard my own methods.
Now, this thing with suppression and regulation: it is so obvious (to me sorry) that we left behind natural systems of regulation so long ago as to be, well, rediculous to consider them (don’t be insulted, I know you are sensitive), we let malformed babies survive, idiots vote (and take office), we keep people who can’t produce a service to the tribe live off the tribe… Seems to me we have suppressed enough regulatory systems without giving much of a damn: why pick on gays as a population regulatory subsystem if indeed it exists/existed?
Now, lets look at this obviousness of my non-understanding of christiantiy. You stated that there was nothing in the bible that said one thing, I said there is, you then introduce the whys and wherefores of why you ignore those bits. Now, you are an intelligent guy, is it not plain that you said something that was not true UNLESS you put rules and regulations on how YOU personally interpret that thing?
If I say, well, anything, what you read and therefore answer, the impression I give, is directly related to what I write. If you have a list that I have to conform to in order to be correct, please provide it, hense the misunderstanding with regards procreation and religious whatnot.
I am guessing that English is not your first language, only guessing as I did mention the war and did not remove that as a possibility but neither entertained it as one. My point was an illustration of how going against traditions does not always lead to something bad and that if it does, is the tragic ending not worth the final liberation/emancipation? It is obvious you agree as you said so, though, the next bit (about extra wars and so on) seems like you are talking to someone else as I have no idea what that has to do with my position.
Before I apologise to ‘?’ I will try and clarify without giving you the hump or using complicated English.
1) It is my contention that taking reference from nature as a guide for moral or ethical conduct is without merit.
2) Regulatory systems no longer apply to humanity only economics/geography.
3) Traditions and customs are often based on ignorance and society does not progress without shaking these off.
4) A majority does not indicate what is right or fair.
5) I was not rude at any point, I did suggest your ideas were naive and asked questions which illustrated historical artifacts for illustration of my opposing view. That is not rude. I may have a different standard of rude.
6) A capital letter goes at the beginning of each sentence to enhance readability: not using them unless you are not from a country/culture that uses this system is rude.
Finally, ‘?’ you got me. I went and looked up my references and found things had changed a bit. So the position I have been holding has shifted to a none proven position. Apologies for the abject arroganc of saying it was a fact. I can only defend that by saying I do not generally bother to keep up to date on genetics, so when RELIGULOUS propogated the myth, I fell for it like a putz. So I am now reconsidering how this affects my argument/assertion, as you can imagine, I did not think to check before making that statement.
Apologies.
there are species of toads that can change sexes to adapt to their reproductive needs to insure their survival, however that is not the case with humans. so your argument there is irrelevant. in humans it takes one person of each sex to produce a child. also in most societies people generally mate for life. now if we look in the natural world we see that this means that those who mate for life also raise their young together. nowhere in nature do two of the same sex produce young and therefore do not raise young. whether a percentage of that species is homosexual or not. so therefore one could assume that the reason for this is to regulate the population of said species. is that clear enough for you? i hope so, because if not this will have no meaning to you.
now if the suppression of such behavior in our society is somehow a part of this regulatory system then to remove it could have dramatic affects on the survival or our species.
now obviously you have no understanding of Christianity. if you did then you would not take thins from the Old Testament and throw them out of context. the complexity of the faith is more than i have time to write so i will suggest you read the New Testament to understand why we do not stone people to death.
as for women getting the right to vote and slavery being abolished, of course i don’t think it ended badly. i do think it’s funny that you would fail to mention the civil war. that was one of the most horrific wars in our history. the difference is other than the south the majority of the population was for abolishing slavery. now as much as you might not like it the majority of the population is a against the legalization of gay marriage. case in point, California. in light of this and the other wars we are currently fighting i hardly think that a civil war is going to help the cause. if you don’t think a civil war is a possible outcome then you should think about the Rodney King trial. there were many riots after that. people felt their rights were violated in that scenario and reacted accordingly. what do you think would happen if that took place nation wide. now a civil war scenario might be bit extreme but it happen in any society and no one knows what may or may not start it.
now butting in is fine as this is an open discussion but if your just going to be rude then whats the point. no ground will be gained on either side. so if you want to throw stones remember i will throw back, if you want to be civil i will be civil. only one is going to help gain ground in this debate.
To R.E., please provide support for your statement that there is a gay gene because I have never heard of such a thing. Thanks.
O.K, firstly we know that homesexuality does occur in nature, as does masturbation. We also know that you do not need a male and a female to produce offspring (in the natural world lots of strange things happen). So any argument based on what happens in nature being ‘right’ in some way, although common, has no meaning or content that directly relates to morality. I have seen wild fowl kill the runt: this happens in nature so can I then use this as justification to kill weak humans? No, of course not. The real question is: does anyone have the right to dictate who has the right to do what with whom when they have no understanding of those people or the what? Not wanting to say too much, I understand attention spans can wain when I start typing, if hetrosexual marriage can result in some of the most horrific acts possible, do we have the right to declare that people with the means and the love to raise a child should be dissallowed that chance? There is a gay gene (fact, so please no dogmatic bull), so a child raised by a homosexual couple is only more likley to feel more comfortable with being gay, as opposed to what many fear; that it would be more likely.
Tokker, if you are a Christian and you believe the Bible does not say to force people to believe as you do, then why do people get punished for the smallest infractions of law? Stoned to death for spilling your seed on the ground is somehow not forcing someone to follow your beliefs about masturbation? The idea that as a species we cannot circumvent nature (man can fly for starters) is highly naive. As for overturning traditions on a whim, I hardly think that what is being discussed is whimsical and by your rational of overturning traditions ending badly…I guess then you feel that women getting the vote and slavery being abolished ended badly some how? Or is your point that the American civil war could have been avoided if we had just kept slaves? The idea that nature regulates itself…well, firstly nature is not a conscious mother nature like entity and is not going to be saying to itself what is my long term strategy. If it did, the sensible thing would have to have disposed of us humans ages ago. All regulatory systems that are witnessed in nature are emergent balances and are not governed by a consciousness. As such, your pondered conclusion is based on an assumption with no evidence to support it.
Sorry to but in…
these are valid points. i do not think it is right to bully anyone. i’m sorry that you brother in-law was bullied.
my argument on this is purely based on homosexuals raising children. while i am a Christian nowhere in the Bible does it say to force others to believe as i do. nowhere in nature can two members of the same sex produce young. so to think that we as a species can circumvent nature is destructive to our species. we know far to little about the world we live in to think that we can break the rules and our society is to delicate to think that we can overturn our traditions on a whim. through out history when this has happened it has always ended badly.
i have thought a lot about this and have come up with a conclusion. please tell me what you think. nature seems to regulate it self with say checks and balances. if this is the case could we not say that a persons sexual orientation is in some way natures form of population control? i’m sorry i’m not as eloquent at writing as you but you seem to be intelligent enough to understand what i’m trying to say.
To Lechat, I was reading your response to A.J. and I found it funny cause it seems like your gay friend is also a case of black and white theory. That’s 2 for black and white and 0 for shades theory =)
To Lechat, well, it may be that way or it may not. Nobody can, at this time, say which is correct. But yea, that is definitely a valid viewpoint with which one may wish to view sexuality with.
I’m more of a black and white kind of person.
To ?, all I was refering to was the fact that a lot of people were saying you either were or were not gay/straight, I merely wanted to rectify this misconception and wished to point out that the gay/straight point of view of these people was not as black and white as they were portraying it, in fact it’s like black and white, you also have a lot of shades of gray in between. My aim was to inject a viewpoint apart from the either/or point of view.
Hi, i’m sorry but I must disagree with you concept that all homosexuals would be supressed, as you must know from your psychiatric work, not all people can be either completely or partially supressed, take a look at the various disorders and the treatments involved, some treatments are more successful than others on different types of patient and on some they just don’t work at all. Also you must allow for the factor of the religous involvement, prior to the main religions there was no particular restrictions involved, after the restrictions came in to whatever degree that automatically didn’t stop those who were gay from being gay, it merely pushed it underground. One thing I must point out is that quantum research has proven that anything being observed will change it’s behavior, this however does not throw out all research studies as all it means is that the responses of all those studied gay, straight, lesbian and of course blind studies will have all been affected by the fact that they were being studied, therefore that means they were all equally affected and thus give off identically altered readings. I have a relation who is gay and I asked how he knew he was gay, he told me he had always felt that way, he’s very open in how he knew he was homosexual, in fact he was bullied in school because of it, but because he was strong willed he didn’t change his view, now I know his parents, a normal male/female couple, and there has never been any hint of abuse either from them or for that matter from anyone associated with the family, he himself as i’ve already mentioned has said he’s always been attracted to the same sex and has had no attraction to females. That is why from that as well as research I have read indicates to me that homosexuality is not abnormal, if it were then how can he be explained, he appears perfectly healthy, there is no history of abuse, so what else in his instance can he be other than an normal creation of nature, and from that if he is normal then god must have created him. I hope I don’t offend you, it’s just that I decided to talk of this as it is relevant to the topic. Incidentally so that there is no misunderstanding, I am married to his sister, that is the nature in which he is my relative.
Lechat, so regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the notion that there is such a gradient, so what? Let’s assume that a gradient does exist. So what? What are you trying to say within the context of this debate? Please clarify, thanks.
to j smith i will respond civilly as you have been civil.
in response to your statement on some species in nature raising the children by themselves (whether male or female). i would like to point out that this is not the case with human beings. while unfortunately that does happen in some cases that in way makes it right.
in response to artificial insemination. just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. in farming this was useful to insure mating to replenish stock. if we did not do this then we would not have a reliable food supply. when we speak of people this has been done to help couples who could not have children to just that have children. the key thing here is that these people were trying to have children the natural way and could not. when we consider it for two people who have chosen to live with the same sex and therefore circumvent nature all together then we are saying nature is of no consequence. i do not think that to be wise.
now lets get to marriage. marriage is a religious concept. the term was adopted by the legislative branch of our government. i will admit though that it is not strictly a Christian concept. however when people start wanting to use that term they should remember that they are going to offend people of that faith if their marriage goes against that religion. so if they don’t want to provoke these people they should find another way to achieve their goals.
the priest. the priest were only an example. but if you look at the statistics you will see that most cases of child molestation are perpetrated by someone of the same sex. whether that is male or female. i do think a lot of the problem is that many faiths require their priest and nuns to remain celibate. surely suppressing ones sexual desires is not healthy. but then again that is a choice they made.
on same sex households you are wrong. i do volunteer work at a psychiatric hospital. in my time there i have met many children who were raised in gay or lesbian households. the majority of these children despised their parents because of their sexual orientation. that could have a lot of outside contributors but never the less the children still suffered. i hardly think it’s fair to the children to subject them to ridicule from their peers because a gay or lesbian couple wanted to raise a child.
please reread what i said about the tax break. i think you will notice that i did not think that any married couple should receive a tax break that did not have a child.
as far as children raised in orphanages i think we need to do a lot of work to reform those orphanages. there have been way to many crimes committed in these places that go over looked. i don’t care if your a priest or nun if you do the crime you do the time and anyone who tries to cover it up should get double the punishment.
lechat if you throw stones at me i’m going to throw stones back. it’s that simple. now as to your “study”. it’s flawed. if this were the case then by your own admission there would not be homosexuals in our society because our society would have suppressed those desires. you should also realize that it is impossible to study a persons natural responses to any given subject if that person is aware they are being studied because it changes all the variables.
p.s. j smith i am currently reading many different case studies that document the benefit of the male and female influence on children during their development.
To ?, Hi, You may be 100% straight, that’s fair enough. What I am refering to is psychological and biological in form, Humans are in fact easily repressed, to give a clear example, if you are naturally cheerful and I hit you repeatedly with a bat everytime you are cheerful I will at some point begin the repression process until eventually you either consiously or unconsiously sublimate your normal emotional state. Take a look into the ussian brainwashing techniques as another example of repression.
Note: These are obviously overt examples but will suffice to get you started should you wish to look into the field further.
In regards the gradients of sexuality, i’m talking again about forms of repression in which the society for example may be intolerant of homosexuals(take A.J.Tokkers stance for instance), what happens here is that the individual growing up learns this attitude from the society around them thus creating the unconsious repression by the persons own brain of their natural inclinations, this allows that person to then function in society as a “normal” person, and in fact may go through their entire life never consiously being aware of their true desires. This has been shown in many studies throughout the world in which the test subjects are submitted to a series of images, smells, etc that stimulate the physical and mental responses which are recorded and compared to other data which comes from the same study material which has been exposed to lesbian, gay, and straight. These are compared and have shown that the sexuality of people is graded much like, for example a food item such as say chocolate in which some love the flavour, some think it’s o.k and others who detest the flavour, and all the points in between.
I hope that this has helped in clarifying the matter for you.
A side note to A.J.tokker, I notice you make a remark about spelling in one of your comments, you are aware that a great many famous people could not write let alone spell aren’t you? In fact, you yourself have made spelling errors as well as have I. Spelling ability does not negate a person’s opinion or arguement, if that was the case then the bible itself would be invalid due to the spelling mistakes that exist in the original and in many later versions as well. I only point this out as you claim to be above throwing stones and yet appear to be doing just that.
I’m sorry A.J. you didn’t really explain what Lechat meant, which is what you said you would do.
It appears that the name calling has arisen because people were asked to show evidence of various subjects and have not done so.
There are species in nature where the males or the females only raise the offspring.
Artificial insemmination has been around for centuries, check into farming, it’s only that it has recently been used for humans that people think it’s new.
Marriage doesn’t have to be about children, it’s love that defines marriage.
Both male and female priests/ nuns(whatever the definition) in all religions are guilty of child abuse and that is on both boys and girls, so talking about only male on boy abuse is silly.
I notice some say look at the whole picture, and then promptly only use one viewpoint.
There is no valid evidence to show that children raised in one sex households are dysfunctional or confused about their sexuality. This claim has been made mainly by homophobes. Where real scientific studies have been done there has been no increase in the percentage of children with dysfunction or sexual confusion.
Interestingly A.J.Tokker you seem to bring in a subject that has no relevance which is that of the tax break, just because a couple is in a gay or lesbian marriage, should not detract from the fact where they are raising a child.
One more point, you say that a child that is brought up in either a soley male or female enviroment is wrong and yet many religions did and do just this in orphanages run exclusively by one sex for one sex.
?, i am not sure why you don’t understand. i will do my best to clarify. this debate is about whether or not gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry. i say no and statistical says yes.
aside from religion i have many reason. the most important being children. they are after all the result of heterosexual people. therefore should be raised by a man and a woman. of course the rebuttal will be that homosexuality happens through out nature. but this argument is actually in my favor since nowhere in nature do these homosexual animals ever produce a baby from their union. or it might be that children are being raised in dysfunctional families all over the place. but thats not a very intelligent argument either because taking a child from one dysfunctional environment to another doesn’t rectify the problem. it only compounds it.
now lets go to religion. many on the other side want say many things about my religion. all their arguments are in fact based on what people of that religion have done in the name of that religion. this is of course ludicrous. the actions of these people is in no way supported by their religion so they are the problem not the religion. i for one am appalled by these peoples actions and do not consider them to be a part of my religion.
? you can read statistical’s statement for yourself. i am not going to presume to speak for him. i will only say that from my point of view that his argument seems completely illogical. i don’t think it wise to jump on the bandwagon because it sound good. we must look at the whole picture before we make a conclusion about something or we risk making even more mistakes.
the simple fact is that these people want to be accepted as a normal family and yet can not have children. if they were seeking to change the laws of civil unions i would be on their side. i do not feel it is right to deny these people hospital visitation rights and the other rights that go with what we call legal marriage. i don’t think we should allow them to adopt children or give them a tax break. the reason behind a tax break for married hetero couples is to offset the cost of raising children and since they can’t have children should not be entitled to a tax break. a married hetero couple with out children should not either.
Lechat, I don’t quite understand.
Unless you are getting philosophical, I know at least one person in this world that is 100% straight. And I think that person is a part of nature indeed.
Plus, it’s quite simple. It’s either you like only men, only women, both, or none. There is no other option.
wow it seems that if anyone disagrees with you then you have to resort to name calling. by your own statements you have very foolishly done the very thing you accuse me of. is it suppose to be alright for you but no one else?
you are right about the catholic church at least. those people who are responsible for hiding the priest are not true Christians. neither are those priest. but thats besides the point because i am not catholic. i am also not guilty of any of those things mentioned above. but i will say this on that subject. the death penalty.
i have however studied a great deal about this subject. and as such understand the implications of gay marriage. what you fail to understand is that a part of marriage is children and those children have to come from somewhere. since a gay couple can’t have children naturally they will only have a few choices to obtain children. no matter how you look at it only one of them can be biologically related to the child. so now we have a child who will some day wonder where the truly came from. that is hardly fair to the child. but hey your not concerned with the rights of children unless it serves your purpose huh? that became evident in your remark about the priest. kind of ironic that those priest were men molesting little boys. you might not want to go there, it’s like a two edged sword.
as for my defending the church, well i didn’t. i defended my faith. if the church is guilty of a crime then they should be held accountable for that crime. after all it does say that the governments are ordained by God and that we should obey the laws of the land.
i could go on but i will be a good sport and give you a chance to catch up. oh but please learn to spell. and read the Bible before you judge it. people may do a lot of things in the name of religion but that does mean that there religion actually supports it.
I have just been reading some of this and a lot of you are saying that you either are or are not gay or bisexual or straight, I’m sorry but you are wrong, it’s like saying you are either only purely green eyed or blue eyed, or only ever exactly two foot tall or ten foot tall.There are gradients in everything throughout nature.If you wish to understand more about this I would advise you look into the diversification of nature, no two things are identical in nature, this includes everything from size, colour, shape sexuality, etcetera.
Sorry sunshine, I happen to have a life away from the computer. If all you can do is deride without anything to back up your statements then there is little point in attempting communication with you, as of yet you have not been able to refute the actions of your religion, you obviously have not checked into the history of your religion and as regards suppression being implausible you clearly have no understanding of psychological repression let aslone anything else. It would appear that you are only capable of derision as you clearly have made no attempt to seek out facts either for or against, this indicates a closed mind mentality. Oh, and you take asbout MY twisted morals, I treat people equally where your dear sweet vatican actually protects pedophiles, changes their identities and sends them back into unsuspecting comunities. You call me tisted for being fair minded towards gays and yet you defend the church regardless of it’s atrocities, lets see, in the crusades rape, pillage and torture, during the inquisition, torture of innocents, etc. What was one of those tortures, oh yes dunking “wicthes”, if they drowned they were pure, if they dared hold their breath and live, they were guilty and burned alive, and thats a nice example. WW2, the vatican shuts it’s eyes to mass murders committed, not just to jews but many other races as well, also accepting art, money, jewels, and lets not forget the gold that was melted down from dead peoples teeth, all of which the vatican has finally admited too. These are just a few examples of your religion, you arrogant, intolerant, hypocritical, asinine fool. As far as I currently am concerned most religions are money and power hungry businesses, hell the vatican has enough to put several countries on a stable footing, but their cassocks are more important. One thing that I have come across in my research is that Jesus did not preach hate, it’s a pity you suffer from it. Now to anyone else reading this I apologise for blowing out like this but every now and again I come across a narrowminded bigot who hasn’t got the sense to check things out and would rather sneer, this is why religious intolerance exists because of petty little fools who sit at their computers wailing at anyone who dares have a different(even slightly) point of view. To A.J.Tokker, i’ll be honest with you, if there is a heaven and it is filled with nasty narrow minded, bigoted, self righteous b******s like you, then I don’t want to go and I think even god, et al would fucking leave just to get away from you, you sactimonious no wit. Right now I think i’ll have a look at some other stories and maybe if i’m in a good mood I might come back to this one and see if a.j.nobrain has done any research, but just so you know dear a.j, I might not come tommorrow or the day after, etc, because don’t forget some people have a life, bye, bye.
?, i’m sorry. i thought you were talking to me. apparently statistical has ran out of a defense for his twisted sense of morals.
naw, that wasn’t directed towards you. It was for statistical.
Cause at one point he/she says that being gay is genetic. Then he mentions bisexuals being suppressed. If you can suppress something, I don’t think it’s genetic, at least it’s not 100% genetic. So that just seemed contradictory to me. That’s all.
?, what is that suppose to me? whether it is genetic or not doesn’t make it ok. people have pumped enough pollutants into the air to cause all sorts of genetic mutations. personally i think the bisexual is a sham. some people just think with the wrong head. homosexuals and bisexuals belong in the same category as child molesters. sexual deviants. after all most victims of child molestation where molested by some of the same sex. oh, but your right, lets let them out of prison. it’s just their sexual orientation, right.
If something such as being bisexual can be suppressed, then what does that say about it being genetic?
oh and by the way i said if the majority of the population was gay or BISEXUAL we would not be having this discussion. just another example of you people only seeing what you want to see.
you people love to “throw verbal stones” but as soon as someone else throws back you get all undignified. it goes both ways buddy. sorry this is not like racism. this is about sexual perversion. next you’ll say we have been to hard on child molesters because it’s their sexual orientation. sorry pal but the line has to be drawn somewhere. and i have been researching this topic. the scholars you speak of are catholic. they have molded the Bible to say what they want for thousands of years. this issue is covered in many religions and they all agree that it is wrong. even the Muslims agree with the Christian Bible. and why not there God is the same God. just because i don’t agree with you doesn’t make me ignorant it just means i am strong enough to stand by my convictions. the truth is the people need to be suppressed in order to insure the survival of our species. although some of us don’t need to survive.
I have twisted nothing, I merely point out the fact that in the original hebrew texts from which a large portion of your bible arises, it is written differently. As regards translation even the vatican and bible scholars admit that there were mistakes made which in fact they are currentely rectifying as we write.I did not say that ALL of the population increase was down to catholic repression, so please do not embarrass yourself. I merely pointed out that this has had an effect, whether you like it or not. Next if you bother to read properly I dide not say the bulk of humans were gay, only 5/10%, the bulk has bisexual leanings which are mostly suppressed, mainly due to church and people like you. Once again check your history, examples are everywhere. To place homosexuality with things such as rape, murder, greed, etc, is moronic and only shows how narrow minded you are. As regards racism, that is the same as you and your views of gays, after all what is that if not a form of racism, when you pick on someone because of their colour, religion, disability, sexuality, etc it is a form of predjudice, which god did not give you the right to do. It seems to me that when people like you start to talk, all you do is essentially throw verbal stones, and we know what the bible says about that. Do not have the arrogance to presume you know god’s mind, for then you become pridefull and pride always comes before a fall. Just think of all the innocents that were murdered by the inquisition, all those inquisitors were just like you, absolutely positive that they were right, I wonder how many are with god, and how many are not. Read your scriptures properly, understand what was written and learn, do not take the first meaning you see and state, “this is the way!”, be sure of your knowledge first, check that what you read is actually that which was written. I am quite happy to admit that I don’t know everything, that is why I continue to educate myself, and that is why my understanding of things change and evolve. Who knows where my opinion might be in years to come, but at least it’s not static. Learning is not a sin, try some.
your as guilty of twisting the Bible to say what you want as the catholic church. how is it that you criticize this but not you self? every time the
Bible says something you people don’t like you want to say it was translated wrong! the Bible says what it says whether you like it or not.
the reason for the population boom is longer lifespans not suppression of homosexual lifestyles by the church. if you where half as intelligent as you want to appear you would have known this. the truth is if the majority of the population was gay or bisexual we would not be having this discussion. the only thing you have been right about so far is that homosexuality has been present in the human race since the beginning. so has rape, murder, war, greed, racism, and so on. does that make it right? i didn’t think so.
Not wrong, don’t forget that the church, etc has long suppressed other forms of sexuality. If you bother to go back and check your history you will see, for example the romans found all forms of sexuality normal, also if you take a look at population increase up untill the beginnings of the modern relgions, population increases were quite slow, then when you get into the catholic, etc era, you see the population begin to increase much faster. One more thing, just because someone is bisexual doesn’t mean that they don’t make women pregnant. Just because you are to blinded by your religious belief, does not make the reality go away. As regards your quote “a man is not to lay with a man as a woman it is an abomination punishable by death.” I would suggest that you look into the hebrew as is mentioned in another post. It’s a pity you are not a very good christian otherwise you would know this.
wow, with statistics like that it’s a miracle we have managed to reproduce so much! the way you tell it the majority of the population is gay or bisexual. wrong! the truth is if you were correct then the heterosexual community would have always been out numbered and this would have been accepted all along. as far as artificial insemination goes that is a fairly recent development in the history of humanity and still requires a donor from a male or female. God made man and women for the purpose of reproduction. i don’t need to take it up with God, he has already said how he feels about it. a man is not to lay with a man as a woman it is an abomination punishable by death. you take it up with God.
To cosmo RO OHIO and A.J. Tokker, what’s the problem, has someone hit on you, maybe seen something that makes them think your gay? The ones who are homosexual are born that way, it’s a fact all throughout nature, if you don’t like it take it up with god, he designed everything. I have no problem with anyone who is gay, statistics have shown that about 5/10% of the population is homosexual, up to 60% is or have bisexual leanings with the remaining 30/35% being heterosexual. Take those statistics for a minute and then consider everyone you know, it means that if you have 100 friends/acquaintances, 5 to 10 will be gay(whether they admit it or not), up to 60 of them do or potentially swing both ways, leaving 30 to 35 of them straight, so frankly you’re in the middle between those who are gay and those who go either way. For all we know you yourselves may be vehement deniers of your own sexual urges.
Regarding everyone turning gay and the species becoming extinct, have you ever heard of artificial insemination?
BTW, implying that they’re like the kkk is a pretty low comment, you cannot compare inborn sexuality to cowardly scum who can’t look past the colour of a persons skin.
lets hope they fade into the back ground like the KKK. sure their still around but we don’t hear that much from these days. maybe if we give them want they will breed themselves out of the world. well if they could breed, lol.
lol without reading anything about gay marriage. lets think really quick. how many times you were told when you were little, if everyone throws their garbage on the floor like you, then we would have garbage all over. well if everyone in this world would turned gay at one point in time, do you even think we would be here today? i think we would become extinct in 100 years. no more kids, no more human race. its okay with me i guess. go gay marriage. no more humans clean nature right?!
religion was something to keep us on the right track even if you are atheist. what is there to lose if u are good. gay ppl would not be here today if their parents were gay like them. how can you be against ur self. it looks to me that you hate that you were born and u hate ur parents if you dont follow their way. maybe being gay is better. i hope this world will turn to the light one day cause if not our “eyes” will be useless.
to careless: i don’t think there is an answer to this really. if we look at the history of the human race we will see that we just keep making the same mistakes. sure we can put a different face on it, but it always comes back to the same thing. what has always perplexed me is that we fight these so called religious wars in the name of God when his very teachings are for peace. one of the things i think is worth some thought is the fact that this isn’t the same fight as racism. they are however very similar. both are about equality, but racism was about freedom as well. this issue is more about acceptance. if we are not careful we will end up repeating the same mistakes here that we did with slavery. prejudice is prejudice no matter whether it is against someone for the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. i was glad to exchange words with you. it was enlightening.
p.s. the Dead Sea Scrolls did not contain the New Testament, i was mistaken
To Anonymous, thank you,i’m glad that you are researching the situation and I hope that you find the answer. Although I myself am still researching many different questions that arise from the Bible, Q,ran, Torah, etc, one of the things that I have started to register is that the Deity referenced to is essentially a mercifull one and loves all his creations equally, this is why I suspect that a lot of the contradictions come not from “above”, but rather from the writers who were a product of their times. If you remove the contradictions the messages become much clearer, wether this will remain that way as I continue to delve deeper, who can say. One of the things I would like to suggest is to look at thepersons behind the writings and look at the times in which they grew up and what was occuring at the time of writing, another point to consider is that early christianity was an oral religion and many sermons, etc associated with the various important figures were not written down untill years or even decades later.
Anyway, good luck in your research
i have been reading a lot of this online myself and the one thing i have found is that this issue has caused a lot of division in the Jewish community. when it comes to the Christian Church i still have to say that Jesus stated that marriage is to be between a man and a woman. this is further reinforced by the book of Genesis. i do not think people claiming to be Christians should treat homosexuals any different than they do any other sinner as they themselves are sinners. if a homosexual wants to attend Church they should be allowed but they should not be married in the Church. the Torah defines marriage as the union of a man and women for the purpose of having children. in a same sex relationship it is not possible to have children so marriage is not feasible under those terms.as a Christian i would not hesitate to help a homosexual in need nor would i shun them if they attended my Church. i would not however support them taking leadership roles or getting married. the reasons for this are simple. in the New Testament it give specific guidelines for leadership in the church which they would not meet. please don’t think that i am putting myself above them because i wouldn’t meet the criteria either. i will continue to research this subject but as of yet i have found nothing to support gay marriage in the Christian Church. i will however state again that i do support equal rights to gay couples in our society. this is America after all not the Garden of Eden. if we as a country are going claim equality to all people under our constitution then we can’t pick and chose who gets those rights and who doesn’t.
i haven’t finished reading your entire post yet. i just wanted to say thank you for the info. despite the fact that some Christians want to bash on anything that contradicts what they think i am not like that. i welcome any and all knowledge. if God did not want us to think for ourselves he would not have given us free will. interestingly enough i am already reading something very close to what your first reference has to say. give me some time as this is going to take awhile.
The following passages, statements, etc are taken from various sites run by people of the jewish faith regarding homosexuality, as you will read it is not as clear cut as you think. You may find your friends are either rather closedminded or perhaps do not wish to offend you, depending on the particular form of jewish beleif, you must remember that the jewish faith is like the christian one in which there are many factions. Anyway have a read and as I say do some research of your own(in this you choose your own path, not mine), incidentally the search for these quick few pieces only took 10 minutes of which most was spent copy and pasting. Good hunting.
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The answer: As human beings and fellow Jews, individuals created b’tzelem elokeem, in the image of God. Judaism may disapprove of homosexual activity, but not of the homosexual himself. “He is as beloved in God’s eyes as any other Jew, and is as responsible as any Jew is in all the mitzvahs,” according to Rabbi Shraga Simmons of Aish HaTorah.
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Today, however, the gay individual is perceived asa person desiring love and companionship, just like the heterosexual, but who can only find this connection with someone of the same sex. With some scientific and psychological justification, he or she is seen as someone subject to his/her homosexual drive. This may even be considered unfortunate; some homosexuals openly declare that they wish they were ‘straight’. However, it is seen as the reality. As such, the modern response to homosexuality is one of sympathy and support.
While, we, in allegiance to Torah, cannot support this alternative, the valid reasons for sympathy for the homosexual’s dilemma has initiated new discussion of the subject with specific focus on how to respond to the individual. Rabbi Norman Lamm in “Judaism and the Modern Attitude to Homosexuality”, Encyclopedia Judaica Year Book 1974, introduced the concept of psychological ones, duress. Moshe Halevi Spero in Judaism and Psychology: Halakhic Perspectives, chapter 11 and Handbook of Psychotherapy and Jewish Ethics, chapter 8 built on his psychological models of sin and neurosis. Rabbi Barry Freundel in “Homosexuality and Judaism”, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, Number XI, called upon us to view and treat the homosexual within an atmosphere of kiruv and outreach, the same way we relate to other individuals who sin. The arguments are worthy of review and are catalysts for further discussion and debate. What criteria, for example, are to be employed to clarify when a person’s inner drives approach the ones level? What comparisons are to be made between the unmarried heterosexual with no Halachically sanctioned outlet for his/her sexuality and the homosexual? There is, one issue, though, that is not addressed. Why did G-d create the homosexual drive? What is its purpose?
The simple understanding of the homosexual drive is that it is a perversion of heterosexuality. The many reasons explaining the prohibition clearly support the Torah sanction of sexuality only within the husband-wife/family context. Some modern research, however, points to a biological basis for the gay interest. A foundation of Jewish thought has always been that everything G-d created has a purpose (see T.B. Chulin 56b; Iggeret haKodesh,[— Unable To Translate Graphic —]chapter 2). The Vilna Gaon in Even Shelaima 1:7, building on T.B. Shabbat 156a, implies that every drive has some form of outlet that is acceptable within Torah
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An important point to make from the outset is that Jewish law does not teach that it is forbidden to be a homosexual. On the contrary, Jewish law is concerned not with the source of a person’s erotic urges nor with inner feelings, but with acts. The Torah forbids the homosexual act, known as mishkav zakhar, but has nothing to say about homosexuality as a state of being or a personal inclination.
In other words, traditionally, a person with a homosexual inclination can be an entirely observant Jew as long as he or she does not act out that inclination.
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Jewneric: A New Platform for the Jewish Voice
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Posted June 2 2008
by Jonathan Kamens
Torah Judaism, Homosexuality, and Gay Marriage
The Torah does not like gays.
For some Jews, this is not a difficult challenge to overcome. The Torah may have been inspired by God, but it was written by men. Its intolerance toward homosexuals can be written off as the outdated bigotry of a bygone age.
For others, it is not a challenge at all. The Torah is the unchanging word of God. Since it describes homosexuality as an “abomination,” then that is how it should be treated.
And then, there are the rest of us, who try to take from the best of both worlds and are faced with the challenge of reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable.
I believe that the Torah is the word of the living God. I believe that every word in it has meaning, and that we don’t get to pick and choose which parts to believe. I believe that the Sages who have interpreted the Torah throughout history, while they are not infallible, have transmitted our tradition to the best of their ability, and we cannot simply dismiss the teachings we don’t like.
It is difficult for people outside of this belief system to understand the scope and complexity of the laws and traditions followed by observant Jews. They are referred to collectively as halacha, which literally means “the way.” Halacha weighs in on everything from the prohibition against murder to instructions for how to put on one’s shoes in the morning. Halacha is hierarchical in nature, with some parts (e.g., the shoe-donning instructions) less important than others, and with some parts more amenable to adjustment. The prohibition against homosexuality lies within the category of halacha that is important, stringent and unchangeable.
I believe that I am enjoined by God to follow halacha. I believe that following halacha makes me a better Jew, a better person, and a better citizen of the world. I believe that by following halacha, Jews make themselves a holy people and a light unto the nations.
And yet, at the same time, I believe that homosexuality is inborn and not an “aberration,” that gays deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and to be allowed to live as full members of society, and that discrimination against gays is utterly and completely unacceptable
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Question: Does Judaism Allow Homosexuality?
Like many religions, Judaism has a complicated relationship with homosexuality.
Answer:
The answer to the question of Judaism’s view on same sex relationships will be different depending on the type of Judaism you are talking about.
Partly, that because Reform, Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal groups have traditionally been more accepting of the GLBT community than have Conservative and Orthodox Judaism.
Many of Judaism’s traditional ideas about homosexuality come from a few passages in the Torah. (The Torah is often called the Old Testament by non-Jews, and it refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). One passage that is referred to a lot comes from the book of Leviticus. It states, “A man should not lie with another man as he would like with a woman.”
This passage is often used to justify the claim that Judaism is opposed to homosexuality.
However, many people have pointed out that there are many more prohibitions for heterosexuals spelled out in the Torah, than there are for homosexuals.
Additionally, there is nothing written in the Torah about sex between women at all. Yet, people opposed to lesbian relationships have often applied what is written about men, to women.
In modern times, both Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have allowed the ordination of openly gay and lesbian rabbis. They have also recognized same sex marriage since the 1990s.
In April 2008, the leading Conservative Seminary, the Jewish Theological Seminary, changed their policies to allow openly gay individuals to become ordained as Rabbis.
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What is the Jewish view on homosexuality?
by Rabbi Tzvi Shapiro
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(continued)
The Short Answer:
In Judaism homosexuality is an act, not a person1. The Torah2 prohibits the act, but it doesn’t ostracize the individual who desires it.
The Askmoses Answer:
Getting It Straight
There is much confusion when it comes to the issue of homosexuality and Judaism, not the least of which is the misconception that Judaism doesn’t like homosexuals.
For the record: Judaism has nothing against an individual who has an attraction to members of his/her gender.
The Torah doesn’t even recognize the term homosexual. Judaism sees people, not sexual labels. And all people are respected equally.
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P.S. Sorry if this comes out a bit messy as I didn’t have time to tidy it up
i think it is still a matter of respect. if a gay person chooses to attend church that is one thing. it is a completely different thing to want to be married in one. i think the real problem here is the way many Christians have treated people they did not agree with. i myself have wondered why they act like this. these attitudes are not in my opinion supported by the bible. many Christians seem to forget that they are suppose to love the sinner and hate the sin. they act SELF RIGHTEOUS instead of being righteous. they should know that this is a sin and God views this the same as homosexuality. in Gods eyes if you have committed one sin you have committed them all. since this debate began i have seen a lot of sites talking about books that have been left out of the Bible, but i have yet to see one that had any tangible proof that the translations were wrong. if you truly know of a site that can substantiate any of your claims then by all means share it. if you can’t do that then why bring it up? here is the simple truth of it: the Jewish Bible, the Torah, is the same as the old testament and if it had been mistranslated there would a lot of evidence out there. regardless of what is in the new testament the old testament takes a stand on this matter. if you know anything about the Jewish people you would know that they would never allow the Torah to be mistranslated. i know quiet a few Jewish people and they all can speak and write in Hebrew. some even write in Aramaic. now if these people were given a book and told it was the Torah they would immediately know if it had been changed. i have spoken with them on the subject and they have confirmed that homosexuality is a sin in the eye’s of god. now if this is the case why would a gay couple want to be married in a church? it is the same as a black man wanting to join the KKK.
In reference to which scholars there are many all around the world who work on these things, an interesting point is that the vatican refused certain sections to be translated accurately and also in the original bible arameic mentions gods, not god, if you really want to look into it I recomend that rather taking my word for it you check out your own sources as any I put down will instantly be smeared as liars, deceivers, charlatans, etc, that’s how I went about it, by getting a lot of sites, books, articles, and spending a lot of time in the library. I believe that there may well be a creator, but i’m sure in my mind that he/she/it loves ALL equally and without the predjudice that humans seem to need to cling to, as if needing someone to be superior too. I know i’m not better than anyone else and as a result I would not wish to judge others as many “christians” do, It often seems to be love one another as long as it’s my way, a most disturbing trait amongst those who claim they are believers. One thing I know is that I treat people fairly and help those I can and if when I die i’m told i’m not worthy because I refused to turn my back on someone just because they are gay, then so be it, at least my eternally condemned soul will have had more compassion than those who are sat at god’s side oozing vitriolic hatred(somehow I doubt god would be to impressed either).
The polls you refer to are on an average of about 1200 people, it says nationwide but does not say where(for all we know this could be polled in an abtigay rally, also it’s not truly two thirds as you have to take into account the don’t knows and the refuse to says, etc. Ironically in these polls very few have a problem with gays fighting for the rights of your counrty in conflicts, etc, rather hypocritical don’t you think, to say “yes save our way of life but don’t have the same rights?
i would be very interested to know more about these scholars who you say say that the original statements are ambiguous. i think it would be very hard to have mistranslated the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. while true the translations may or may not have missed the mark on some of the original words i doubt very seriously that the meaning of the story is lost to us. using the dead sea scrolls modern historians, both Christian and not, have verified the accuracy of the current Bible. in case your not familiar with the dead sea scrolls, they are the oldest surviving record of the original Gospels. they also contain the entire Old Testament and many other books that are not included in the Bible as we know it today. i think the reason for this could have something to do with the catholic church. they have shamed the Cristian faith since the beginning. the truth is this: a gay couple walking in to a Church to be married is like a black man trying to join the KKK. the two are in direct conflict with each other. marriage is not solely a Christian term so if they want to call it marriage fine. but marriage as defined in the Bible is very specific so they need to stop trying to force Christians to accept their lifestyle in the church. to careless: if you had read the article that started this debate you would know that almost two thirds of the American people oppose same sex marriage according to recent polls. that hardly seems presumptuous to me.
I read many books and look at many sites, you will find lilith in the original hebrew texts from which a great deal of the bible was lifted.
I have never considered popes/priests, etc as the voice of god and consider them to be nothing more than distorters of the bible who only benefit themselves rather than the people who look towards them for help, as regards christmas that was just a way of getting another religious group to fall within the belief system of the catholic church more easily.
You are rather presumptous to assume that your opinion is in the majority, I myself am heterosexual, married with children and I find no problem with gay or lesbian relationships, if you want to be foolish and proclaim that the bible is accurate then according to pedophiles the bible says it’s ok to have sex with your daughter, do you do that? I certainly hope not, the facts still remain that throughout all the translations, mistakes were made and until they are properly rectified you have no right to state homosexuality is wrong(the scholars who study the bible even admit that the original statements are ambiguous)
Love your fellow man and stop throwing stones as you are not without sin your self.
Wow did I open up a can of worms or not by standing up for what I believe in. I have read the posts and never thought this article would get such a response as it did. In response to Vincent first off no sense in verbally attacking me I wont you, because I will not lower myself to your standard of thinking. Of course you belive in God. I served as a medic in Vietnam and was with a young man as he lay dieing from a wound suffered in combat. His religion on his dogtags read Atheist. In base camp he and I and several others had many discussions on my beliefs and theirs. He knew that I read my bible and believed in God, in heaven, and judgement, he asked me to pray for him and my response to him, I already had and then he died. You can not tell me that sometime in your life that you have not called out to God for help, either verbal or mental, I am sure you have but it is up to you to admit it here or not. Even the beasts of the earth know that there is a God or somethings that gives them what they need. God gave man one thing that even the beasts of the earth does not have and that’s the power of reasoning and chosing right from wrong. Now if thats a bible thumpers way of thinking yes then I am one and proud of it.
To Carless, http://www.gotquestions.org/Lillith.html click on this link to answer your question. In response to your reference to the Cathloic Church thats the biggest farce ever created and has led more people to hell than any other created in history of mankind. Priests and Popes are mere mortals they have no more power to forgive sins than I do. Saying 3 hail Marys and putting money in the poor box only makes the church richer next I suppose your going to say that you believe in Christmas and Easter too ( now this statement will really get things going)!! heres a website for you to look at since you want to know the truth so much thercg.org/books/ttooc.html.
Folks I am not trying to force anyone to belive one way or the other you have that final choice. It is about time that the majority stand up and defend what is right and wrong instead of standing in a cornor and thinking ” if it dont effect me I guess its alright ” I am just standing up for what I believe in and this is my opinion nothing more. Thanks for taking time and responding to my opinion. I look forward to reading more comments.
to you are fools: i agree with everything you just stated except that i don’t think it’s right to call them fools. it’s counter productive in my opinion. this is how i deal with this issue. a few years ago my mothers church hired a gay bishop. this bishop still lives with his life partner. at the time this was the church i attended. not any more. i know in my heart that this is wrong and i will not support this in any church. i believe that if a person truly accepts Jesus as their Lord and Saviour they will turn away from there sin and Jesus will heal them of this. i was a drug addict for many years. one day i could not take it any more and quit cold turkey. i spent two very painful years struggling to stay clean. then one day i needed some help with rent and went to a Church i knew might help. the pastor there said he would but wanted me to help out on a mission project they were involved in. the mission was helping out at a facility for single mothers recovering from addiction. all he wanted me to do was cook hamburgers for the people working on the mission. when i was done cooking i could leave. i didn’t leave, i stayed. in fact i was the last one to leave. at that point in my life i felt a incredible change take place in me. it was instantaneous. that was three years ago and i have never struggled with addiction since that day. now i know many are going to read this and think yea right. that is fine but whether you want to believe or not it is true. that is why i know that Jesus can and will heal you if you have faith in him. faith without works is dead. that was my problem, while i had faith i did nothing with it. on that day i put my faith to work and it healed me. to Tom Carter: when we try and interpret something we can draw what ever we want from it. i take the Bible to mean what it says. i don’t interpret it to mean what i want it to. many religions use the term marriage so i have no hang up about what it is called. but i will not condone same sex marriage in the church. if the majority of our society wants to except it legally then that is fine. but it should never be allowed in the Christian Church. sorry about my punctuation, i am slowly learning to write better.
Most of the arguments that support gay marriage could, indeed, be used to support polygamy and other living arrangements among consenting adults. Who is harmed if one man has several wives, or one woman has several husbands, and they form a happy, productive family unit that creates a stable and loving environment in which to raise children? Wouldn’t those children be significantly better off than many children growing up today in broken and sometimes violent dysfunctional families often headed by a single mother living on welfare? Wouldn’t society be better off, too?
Many of you base your arguments on the Bible, or your interpretation of it. You seem to miss the point that our government is secular and law-based, not religion based. Beyond that, the Bible generally supports polygamy, and many significant biblical figures had multiple wives. So why wouldn’t you support polygamy, given that the Bible can be read to support it and that it wouldn’t hurt you or anyone you know?
Anonymous I re-read your post and your use of periods confused me. By improper placement of punctuation your whole meaning is confusing and lacking cohesiveness. I must apologize for my remarks concerning marriage.
I also believe what you said about washing your hand of the whole subject, but we can’t. You see if you open marriage up to the homosexuals as a minority group them we must open it up to the polygamists of the Mormons. And after that we must move to NAMBLA, so they can marry children and what about those who love animals, they are also a special interest group. Tell me when you open the flood gate when do you close it, is it when the homosexuals are offended, the Mormons, NAMBLA, when?
You see we must pick key battles to save our society and this is one of them. We can give them equal rights under a legal partnership. This way any couple can file for those rights. Call it domestic Partnership, work out some tax law but do not call it marriage. This way it does not need to be explained to your children in school that this is normal, because we both know it is an abomination before God.
This whole gay marriage thing is about making them normal. Since when did the minority rule. California passed an amendment to its constitution and it is held up in the courts, why because the minority seeks to be considered normal and by whom, society still looks at them like they are freaks. Hollywood disenfranchises the majority in their programing to prove they are normal and the ratings prove the majority doesn’t want to waste their time watching men kiss each other and they certainly don’t want it for their children. I know I don’t. Am I homophobic, no. I just know that behavior is unnatural. As posted earlier, even animals don’t act this way.
As far as sharing my faith, it is done in a loving manner to those who wish to know. I lead a life that is Christ centered and I am a light to others. I do refuse to kowtow to those who bash my faith and I will defend it.
The people who we have engaged in this forum are Christian bashing fools who will end with their eternity in Hell. I speak so loudly of that because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding. I have been over the top in some of my posts, that is because some people have forgotten just what the sin is and how bad it really is. It leads to an early death, ruined family relationships, ostracism from society, disease, suicide and a host of other things. I see no up side in type of behavior and see no reason to normalize it, in or out of marriage.
My comments are made to wake people up from their tolerant slumber and bring them back to the truth. Sin is Sin no matter how much you decorate it.
as i have said time and time again it is not right for gay couples to be married in the Church. where did i ever say that the Bible does not teach about marriage. i am sorry to say that we live in a free democratic society and as such should give the same rights to gay couples that married ones have. i do not support them being married in the church however. i am sorry you feel i am not standing up for the Church or my faith but you are wrong. i have been faithful to my beliefs and scripture. i have expressed over and over that it is a sin in the eye’s of God. that is my duty as a Christian, but i will not force my belief on someone who does not wish to believe as i do. i will however do as the bible says and wash my hands of them. you are wrong to say turn the other cheek only referred to other believers, if that was the case it would not need saying as a believer is not going to strike another believer. with your attitude you are more likely to push people away from the faith than bring them in. you do not have to be hateful to tell the truth in fact Jesus challenged the Sadducee and pharisee in a much different way. he turned their own questions against them leaving them pondering about something they couldn’t understand. it is funny that you bring up the money changers because it is the only time he acted in anger and that was in the house of his father. at the time the Muslims occupy that very temple and if you feel that strongly then i suggest you go over their and throw them out. as to Anon let the teachings of Jesus represent him rather than the action of sinful, greedy, corrupt so called priest. they are as the Pharisees and Sadducee. a true christian leads by example. to many so called Christians out there fail to follow the example of Jesus.
To Anonymous, the thing is that the bible has been corrupted in one form or another, whether that be through mistakes or in some cases deliberate alterations by biased humans, because of this you should recognise gays the right of marriage because as you say God says to love and respect your neighbour as thy self, this denotes equal rights to both straight and gay relationships, just because the church has condemned it does not mean that God ever did. Look at how many times the church has denied things only to be proven wrong,examples such as flat earth, the sun revolving around the earth, calling people witches and burning them because they held their breath so they would not drown while being dunked, etc. The church did not want any one other than themselves to have knowledge and vilified any who stood against them, until this attitude of we’re right and you have to obey us is removed then people will oppose them, just look at the greed that is involved in religion today, the pope wears a brand new robe every day at a cost of thousands per year, Jesus did not do that, so in a sense he is acting as though he is more important than Jesus was, nowhere does it show that you needed gold and jewels to be a priest and yet if you look at the senior vastican officials on up they wear enough money to feed an average family for a couple of years(Jesus kicked the money lenders from the temple and yet the vatican is full of wealth and has it’s own bank) the vatican bank alone has enough money to help several nations out of poverty, it is estimated that up to 50% of ancient art is kept hidden within the vatican vaults, also you must bear in mind that the church is also responsible for the desruction and desecration of many thousands of antiquities. They are basically saying just obey what we say don’t think for yourself. Jesus in the writings did not come in fine robes and bedecked in jewels, i’d have more respect for these greedy religions if they used their wealth for the good of mankind rather than for their own comfort. It states that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven, kind of makes you wonder how many smug popes and priests are knocking on the gates of heaven, or trying not to trip over their expensive attire whilst avoiding pitchforks in hell.
If the church truly desires reaching out to the people then it should get down off it’s pedastal and be as its originators were and went out and did good rather than telling everyone else to. It’s like in war time the leaders who got the greatest respect out of their soldiers were those who were willing to do the same as their men, those who hid in the background were often derided and ignored, much as the church is today. To order is not to lead, therein lies a lesson for the church.
Anonymous, I agree with all of you concerning the doctrines of the Catholic Church and their years of deceit. And the complicity concerning Priests that are pedophiles. But as I stated in my first post man’s nature is to sin. Catholic Priests are not above this truth as they are men.
Dual, you are correct that Jesus had brothers and sisters, you are incorrect about the virgin birth. This birth was to Mary’s first child only. The doctrine of the Virgin Mary remaining a virgin is Catholic doctrine and not believed by any others.
When I address the homosexual agenda with, as you say, a lack of love, you are incorrect. They must be made aware that their life style will lead to death and eternal damnation. If it is not loving them telling them the truth of their actions then I don’t know what else is. I also speak from a position of understanding. Everything I have said is true, but not candy coated for the benefit of tolerance or political correctness. And if you are as you say, a brother, then I must call into question your understanding of scripture. 1) We are called to share our faith boldly, not as one who is timid 2)When Jesus was speaking about turning the other cheek He was referring to other believer not the unbeliever. 3) Christ was not afraid to speak His mind to the Sadducee or Pharisee nor was He afraid to turn the tables in the Synagogue and throw out the money changers. 4) God is a long suffering God, but in the end He always disciplines his children (Old and New Testament)4) you say that marriage is not taught in the Bible, then I must ask you where was Jesus when His mother asked Him to help the bridle party with refreshments. I believe, and you can correct if you wish, it was at a wedding. 5) The church is also considered the bride of Christ, another reference to a wedding. 6) You are willing to compromise your faith to allow sinners to destroy what God has created, the union of One Man to One Woman and to become one in the eyes of God. 7) The Bible does not call for tolerance, it call us to speak out against sin and offer a way of relief from it. I do not believe Christ would be so tolerant in this world as you believe. Every time He saw sin He called those people on it, the woman at the well, the group of men and the woman who was to be stoned, Peter, Paul on the road to Damascus, need I go on.
I am sorry for my sarcasm, but in all my years as a Christian I thought meek meant to be silent and non combative, boy was I wrong. God tells us 365 time in the Bible “Do not be Afraid”. We will face persecution for our faith, but we must stand firm in our faith without swaying or being tossed about like flotsam a jetsam.
I guess you could say I am chastening you Anonymous for failing to stand with your faith and buckling to the desires of the sin filed homosexuals agenda.
to nature: i agree with you on the issue of the priest. in my eye’s they are not priest and the Church’s responsible for hiding them are as guilty as they are. they have broken the laws of man and the laws of the God they swore to serve and should be held accountable for their actions. to Duel: the one thing in the Bible that i don’t believe has changed is the importance of love. i believe that to love thy neighbor as thy self is very important. i am not going to say that the Bible is 100% truth in a literal since. i do believe it to be the word of God though. it might be stories God used to convey a point or it might be literal. i do not pretend to know. but i think the issue is whether or not we should condone gay marriage. i do not believe we should in the Church but i don’t think they should be barred from having the same rights as married couples. for me it is an issue of respect. to be married in the church is in it self against the teachings of the Bible. so to be married in the church is disrespectful to the faith. but at the same time as Christians if we want people to respect us we should respect them and to deny gay couples the same rights we have is to say they are not worthy of the very respect we ask for. we all share this world and if we can’t learn to respect each other and find the ability to agree to disagree then we may not share it much longer. we owe it to our children to learn to be tolerant of each other.
How can you say it’s not natural, it occurs all through nature, your logic is flawed. Although I myself am hetero I don’t scream about homosexuality, I do however find myself disgusted with religions who tell others to be good and then smuggle pedo priests out of the country so as to allow them to avoid prosecution, then change their names and set them up in another place so they can do it again. Before you castigate the gays, how about allowing all those pedo priests to be convicted of their crimes? Or is it ok to rape kids in the name of god?
The problem with the bible is that many of it’s writings are taken from different cultures and timelines this is why when you say the bible is fact, many people will turn and point out that your facts are taken from different religions, after all how can you say it is all true when the church itself admits this, as someone has already pointed out the birthday of Jesus is actually stolen from another belief system, also the claim about mary being a virgin when in reading the bible you will see that it is written that he 4 brothers and at least 2 sisters. The inconsistancies within the bible is part and parcel of the problem, in regards the passages that appear to refer to homosexuality many scholars now admit that there were serious mistranslation errors and that the passages themselves are ambiguous, the problem is that word meanings change over time IE gay now means “homosexual” as opposed to the original meaning “happy”, also poor spelling IE were, wear, where can alter understanding, plus that fact that many words have been assumed to mean certain things because the original meanings have been lost to tims and we have therefore extrapolated (guessed) meanings for them, also words that can be used in multiple context. A further thing to consider is that a word in one language said in another country can mean something else entirely, to apply a non verbal example I will give you thisif you shake your head in america or england it signifies no, however if you do this in russia it means yes. My point is that you cannot positively say that what you read now is what it originaly read as 2000 years ago
correction, when i say Muslim world i only refer to the terrorist extremist. i have known many Muslims who very peaceful people and do not wish to offend anyone who has respect for their fellow man.
in response to you are fools: it is not the things you say that i find offensive it is the way you say them. if you lash out at a person and call them a fool then you alienate them. if you are truly interested in spreading the good news of salvation then you would be more tactful. as it is i see you as being full of hatred towards those who do not believe in the Bible, or as you do. if you have to “lash out with the truth” then you failed to understand the truth. according to the Gospel was it not Jesus who said turn the other cheek? was it not Jesus who replaced the ear of his persecutor. and even more important was it not Jesus who allowed himself to be nailed to the Cross and die for our sins, mine included. in my statement i was able to convey what the Bible says about this subject without being hateful towards the other people involved in this debate. the way that you convey the truths in the Bible undermines those very truths. while you were right in my opinion in what you said the way you said it was as though the righteousness of God were your righteousness. i say what i say out of love because i believe that you truly believe as i do. but as a Christian it is my duty to chastise you for your method of delivery. also i do not mean to imply that you are filled with hate but that is how you come across. the Bible says to go out into the world and spread the word of Salvation through Christ. it at no time says to force people to believe. that is one of the things that separates us from the Muslim world and why i believe in the teachings of Jesus. the way i see it even if the Bible turned out to be wrong and there is no God the teachings of Jesus would be no less important because he taught of love and peace. on the same token that is why i believe in God. here is truth as demonstrated by Jesus: you can not teach love through hate, the two are incompatible. one more thing Judge not lest you be judged accordingly.
i don’t believe it’s a religious issue. but look at all or at least a very large majority of creation …. male and female. that’s enough for me. i don’t believe in gay bashing but i also don’t except same sex anything as a normal way of living. you might say who’s idea of normal like i said before look at creation however things got here .. male/female. i don’t think anyone should be forced to accept same sex relationships. if someone wants to then fine. like i said i will not except it but to each their own just don’t force it upon people. and look at the bright side it’s the answer to the population explosion and more women for me.
To Anonymous, I have only lashed out with the truth as seen by the world. You see the gay community asks us to tolerate their activity without questioning what they do or how it effects society. They want us to let them be normal. If you are a Christian you are to love the sinner but hate the sin or in simple terms you must call them on their sin. I might be a little more graphic then you would expect from a fellow brother but what I have said is the truth. It may be whispered to avoid being politically incorrect, but none the less it is what is being said. After all we must speak the truth so that the sinner can repent and turn from there sin. Now those who are outside of the gospel cannot be expected to fall under the same standards that is why they attack our faith with falsehood and contrived lies.
I did look for the web pages that Fact Seeker alluded to. I found them fascinating to say the least and full of speculation about our faith, these were based on some apparent mythology and how you could tie it into our bible. Unfortunately it was based on supposition and hearsay some what similar to evolution or global warming, interesting yet unprovable or based on faulty science, although people believe it like it’s true. Those are the belief systems I find remarkable. As disproved as they are people just can’t let them go.
The Christian faith, not religion, is based on the word of God as presented in scripture. I grant you that human beings will distort, profit and generally give it a bad taste to many. Those people will get to the judgment in Heaven and God will say I do not know you, same as the gays who flaunt the sexuality before God asking for the right to marry, as if it would ever be ordained by God. No, man in his arrogance will do what his free will allows, particularly thumbing there noses at God to prove that they are in control. Unfortunately, in the end (no pun intended) God will judge them and they will all go to Hell.
To anonymous, you are welcome, all I wish for people to do is to either come to their faith(whichever variant that may be), or decide against faith by using their intelligence and learning. I find those on both sides of the religious debate who castigate the opposition by shouting “I’m right and you’re wrong” to be reprehensible. The links I supplied are just a small portion of what I have available, all that they were for is to show that learning from both sides is easily available to anyone who truly wishes to learn.
I hope that this latest translation of the original writings is both accurate and is allowed to be printed, I also hope that at some point in the future that the church has the courage to release the other writings of the time. It’s long past time that the church released these writings and allowed the world to see the truths that they keep hidden.
to you are fools: if your going to claim to be a Christian then carry yourself like one. you soil the name of Jesus when you lash out in hatred in his name. is it not said to prey for your enemies? i understand why so many hate Christians when confronted with this type of attitude. to be righteous is one thing to be SELF righteous is another. there is nothing to be gained in a debate when you can not show mutual respect for your adversary. if i have shown disrespect to anyone involved in this debate i apologize i simply wanted to express my views. to Godfinder: thank you for the links, the definitely warrant further examination. i also would like to apologize for the last part of my previous statement. i had no right to be sarcastic towards the issue of children.
God finder you are aware that your links confirm the fact that the Bible is the most accurately translated book on earth aren’t you? i find it odd that you would provide links that substantiate the claims made here by Christians. the fact that there are many books left out of the Bible in no way detracts from the truth contained in the ones that are included. i agree however with some of those links. the Church has no right to withhold any of the books related to the Bible or any book for that matter. those of us who believe in Jesus must use what we have. we can all find reasons to hate, but it is a true expression of free will to learn to love one another. Jesus said to prey for your enemies. who preys for those he hates? the gay community seems to want to be acknowledged as married rather than having civil union. why is this? is it because you want the love of God? well God does love you, but even if you were married in a Church by a priest it would not be acknowledged by God. as said previously “a man is to leave his family and cling to his wife”. it does say however that to lay with someone of the same sex is an abomination in the eyes of God. next we will argue whether or not gay people should have the right to raise their own children. well sure if the two of them can have them. two being the key word there.
To Tinct, you wrote “Thanks for giving those of us who still have our own will a laugh”. Beautifully put, this is the irony of certain types of christian, they say that god gave us free will, but the minute anyone puts it into practice regarding the bible and starts questioning it, the gates close, the ramparts are filled with soldiers, the cannons are loaded, the oil is boiled and the inquisitors sharpen their torture devices(all in the name of gods free will of course). A wise man once wrote that whilst it is noble to believe in a cause, it is foolish not to make sure that your cause is just.
To all I say, “LONG LIVE FREE WILL”
To Non-ignorant Christian:
“I don’t see why gay’s should be able to get married. Not that I don’t think they shouldn’t be together, because I’m not into controlling everyone’s daily life. Nor do I oppose this because homosexuality is a sin (which it is, but it’s not my place to hate them for it).”
I’m sorry, I don’t usually flame people online, but I just had to tell you how #*$*ing funny it was to read this in the context of your chosen name.
Thanks for giving those of us who still have our own will a laugh.
To “you are fools”, Wow you really are frightened of checking out the facts aren’t you, you dismiss anything that goes against your multiple rewrite book “the bible”, then start chanting da vinci code, and suggest a biblical scholar(a person whose career relies on bible as truth)for facts. The very few links I posted was merely to show that there are a munber of ways on line alone that can give contrary evidence. I also note that you refuse to answer the questions raised with real evidence, as regards my personal beliefs, all I can say is that I am not a person who finds something that sounds good and then sticks to it(unlike some frightened fools), I prefer to look at ALL the data and base my opinion on my own findings, not those I have been indoctrinated with, my “faith” or lack is an ongoing thing with which I educate myself on rather than hiding behind dogma, if you are as knowledgable as you claim then you will know for a fact that even the church itself admits that jesus’s birthday is actually that of a god that was usurped by christianity, the parting of the red sea came from(along with quite a few other things) sumerian legends, the list goes on. All of that which I have quoted has been admited both by bible scholars and the vatican, as regards the gutenberg, you should also be aware that it is an incorrect copy due to mistranslations when the writings were first translated from the original arameic to greek then to latin then to old french, etc, you will also be aware that the vatican tried to stop the bible from being translated into english, all of this is historical and religious fact, even as we write there are vatican(and other) scholars, going back through the original writings and correcting many mistakes that are known to be within all editions(including the gutenberg) of the bible.
Also admitted is the fact that they have no evidence in the original arameic of homosexuality being a sin, the more responsible scholars admit that this was most likely introduced by later preachers of the early church.
So to sum up, you are attacking me because you don’t want the bible to change but the fact is that the bible has already been changed and the vatican and many scholars are currently doing it again right now, tell me will you attack the church if when the revised bible comes out it contains something you don’t like?
I also get the idea that you think i’m gay, sorry, wrong again, I’m happily married with children and eat good food so I am statiscally likely to live longer than someone who stresses out because some people have the temerity not to agree with you. Get YOUR facts straight before you attack someone.
i never said we should not be tolerant. i think that they should be able to have the same rights as married couples but i do not think they should be married in a church as it is clearly stated in the Bible how God feels on this issue. if the gay community wants respect they should acknowledge this fact and show respect to the very people they seek respect from. to seek marriage in a church is a slap in the face to the Christian community and the values and beliefs they have. how ever anyone claiming to be a christian who admonishes a group of people with hatred has not upheld the teachings of Christ. the Bible clearly says to love thy neighbor as thy self. whether the person is gay or not they are still your neighbor. Tom Carter i am not sure where you find any of the things you commented on in my previous statement. i at no time ever said that we should not respect the rights of others. as for factseeker the Bible is the most accurately translated book there is. this has been proven over and over. it is peoples understanding of the words in it that have been distorted. this is a human trait. the proof of this lies right here in Tom Carters interpretation of my previous statement.
Hello lack of fact seeker.
You are quick to dismiss the Bible as an irrelevant book. You toss false information around like it is truth and yet you back it up with conspiracy theory or better yet the Da Vinci code. A book based on fiction but presented like fact.
Please seek a biblical scholar and get informed. You can go to the Huntington Library and view an original Gutenberg Bible. I grant you they will probably not let you near it because you probably don’t have the credentials needed. Again I will tell you there more original manuscripts to validate the bible then any other book on this planet. You cannot say the same about Plato, Shakespeare or possibly one of your life heroes, Darwin, the great deceiver.
You must understand that every copy of the Bible can be destroyed and it could be put back together again in its original text from all the sermons that have been presented from it. I also note that you are quick to use scripture to prove your point and like all heretics and false preacher, you put it out of context to suit your self serving purposes, how very liberal of you.
You wish to have homosexual marriage yet you cannot offer any real reason for this atrocity other them attacking people who have the truth to draw from. The Bible is the word of God whether you wish to believe it or not. The Bible also says “we are created in His image, both male and female”, he never said both male and female, homo and lesbo, no just male and female. He also said that a man shall leave his family and cleave to his wife, not his or her same sex partner. You see God is a God of order and specifics. He said to engage in sex with the same gender is an abomination both in the Old Testament, the Torah, and the New Testament. And even though I don’t subscribe to it but it is also in the Quran, Book of Morman and a belief held by the Jehovah Witness.
What I see is a small group of people that are deviant in their behavior and want the rest of the world to accept them as normal. Sorry but it is not normal, it is, as God says, “an abomination”. It is unnatural and causes discomfort for most heterosexuals. I’m sorry again but we view you as a freak show and you generally present yourselves that way.
Your life style leads to an early death (statistically true). I don’t see much joy in it except for your freedom in sex, which without love is nothing more then an animal act which is why I think Darwin must be your hero.
Below are just a few links that I personally have that might help those christians who are unasfraid of research to check and then start their own study of fact and fiction within the bible/church, perhaps some might have the courage to put their faith where their mouth is and take off the blinkers,
http://www.biblediscoveries.com/content/view/31/45/
http://www.bibleufo.com/anomlostbooks.htm
http://www.answering-islam.com/allah.htm
http://www.ibsstl.org/bibles/about/15.php
http://www.askelm.com/restoring/index.asp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/11/books.humanities
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/23/vatican-rewrites-history_n_153232.html
http://www.christianorder.com/features/features_2002/features_mar02.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8173486.html
http://www.tboyle.net/Catholicism/The_L_and_The_S.html
http://www.tldm.org/directives/d182pdf.pdf
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/pagels.html
http://www.uuclr.org/Programs/Sermons/2006/2006Apr9.pdf
http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-orthodox-catholic-christian-bible-books.htm
http://www.bible.ca/catholic-vs-orthodox.htm
http://www.lightingthewayworldwide.org/LentHasNoBasisInScripture.htm
http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/catholic.html
http://www.gty.org/Resources/Articles/A245
Ttruth is only true when proven.
Interesting how none of these christians are willing to deal with the fact that the bible they read is the result of misinterpretation, rewrites and deliberate fabrication, also the fact that the churches has had to alter their stance on many things after being proved wrong time and again. As regards verification, the fact is that the church has over 1.5 million documents that refer to the “authenticity” of the bible that they refuse to release as they are considered “detrimental” to the writings in the bible, if the bible is the absolute truth why do they persist in denying access to these other documents, ask them yourselves to see either the original or at least an uncensored copy of these documents, after all these are historical documents that should by rights be available to the whole world, let us not also forget that the church, “by it’s own admission” has been involved in the theft and destruction of documents, etc that they don’t want in the public eye. So please, to those of you who quote the bible as “gospel”, please be aware that you are propagating only that which you have been told, not that which is true, try answering some of the questions before reciting doctrine, it makes you sound just like someone who is brainwashed rather than someone who is actually willing to check the facts. It is said that a wise man will look before he leaps, whilst a fool shall follow blindfolded, nowhere does it say that to obey without thought is the route to heaven.
To quote a phrase which is believed to have been said by Jesus, “Let him who be without sin, cast the first stone”, It seems a lot of you are doing just that without true evidence that, A, you are without sin, and, B, that you have the right to do so
Anonymous, as far as I’m concerned, the Bible is not the ultimate authority on this or any other subject. But many people who are religious find room in their belief system (and in the Bible) to be tolerant of those who are different from them. Jesus taught love, tolerance, and respect for others. Maybe you need to re-read those parts of the New Testament.
Back to the basic question–what do you or anyone else have to lose if a very small minority of people want to marry someone of the same sex? How does that harm you or anyone else you know?
it’s simple. it is not whether or not i am right or wrong. it is what the bible says. that is the ultimate authority on this subject. as for whether i judge them a sinner or not, i do. but we are all sinners including myself. the bible says to repent for your sins. repent means to turn away. there is no repentance in gay marriage. i personally do not wish do condemn anyone to hell, it is not my place. but what we must understand is that the bible was not written for us to pick and choose what was right but rather to give us a guide line as to what was right or wrong. as a recovering addict i had to learn this the the hard way. remember that if we call are selves Christians we must strive to live as he would have us live not how we want us to live. other wise we soil the name of Christ.
“wouldn’t do each other” **
Hey all,
I disagree with this article. I don’t see why gay’s should be able to get married. Not that I don’t think they shouldn’t be together, because I’m not into controlling everyone’s daily life. Nor do I oppose this because homosexuality is a sin (which it is, but it’s not my place to hate them for it). I think we should give gay’s every right that accompany’s being married without actually calling it “marriage”. Yes, I know that sounds trivial and silly, but at least hear me out. Names in our society have become very important. And I don’t see why the gay community wouldn’t want to stand out, and have a union of two people be under their own name. But marriage is a sacred name, a sacred institution between a man and a woman.
To stress my point, how would many Americans feel if I built a crummy shack in my back yard, and officially called it the World Trade Center Towers? I bet they would be pretty put off.
Also, to the others, I am sorry you seem to hate Christians so much, but it seems you have a few of your facts mixed up. First of all, I would love to see some evidence that Eve was the second wife of Adam and not actually the first woman. And secondly, if there were people in the Roman empire willing to die for their beliefs why would they change those beliefs just so a few dudes would do each other? That sounds highly unlikely. And if you know anything about history than besides the Greeks every other society has focused most importance on literal translations and making sure everything gets passed down right. And yea Jesus never said anything about man not laying with man, but then again it never came up. Paul said it, and if Paul was inspired by God (which belief in the Bible implies) then God “said” it.
God doesn’t hate homosexuals. God views every sin the same. So to ME (the other commenter, not me) if you will lose your soul just by condemning gay marriage then the next time you sin go ahead and sign your soul away because its all the same to God. And please, please, please stop posting your “christian” views that just make us all look like idiots.
Yes God created Man and Woman. No he did not create Homosexuals. Man, in his sin filled nature, chose to have sex with the same gender. If, and I don’t think I am going to far out on the evolution limb, you believe we were not created by God, but through some primordial ooze. Then you homosexuals cannot exist either. Survival of the fittest and all that crap would have eliminated all of you long ago. You know not being able to procreate and all that. The closest thing your type of sex can produce is a steaming turd.
That being said, your life style is a choice, unlike the black brother who cannot chose his skin, you can choose to be straight or gay, scientifically proven folks. So all this hullabaloo is a guise to gain tax relief from the federal government.
Now for the few of you who truly love your life partner why are you destroying 5000 year of tradition, is it so you can appear normal, fat chance, you will never appear normal. Kids will still point to you and ask their Mommy “Why are those people doing that? It’s not right!” This is why you want to indoctrinate them through the Pubic School system so you can feel normal and have a new pool to practice your deviant behavior on.
There are quite a few of us who understand what it is you are really after and it’s the children.
As far as the Bible goes, there are more then 15000 manuscripts available to verify its authenticity. That is more then any other book on this planet. Josephus, a historian of the times verified much of what happened in the biblical times. Along with the dead sea scrolls, the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, to name a few, the entire bible can be verified as true and exact to the original documents.
It is so tiresome to listen to you uneducated people slandering what you clearly do not understand to make yourself right in the eyes of man so that you can live your sin filled life out in the open instead of in the darkness where it belongs. What you should be really be worrying about is what God going to do with you for eternity because Hell will be the eternal price, but I guess if you came from ooze it really doesn’t matter does it.
In response to “Me”: you are the dumbest fucking idiot there ever was. Now, I don’t believe in god, but consider this: if god hated gays and lesbians, why let them exist if just to torment them throughout their life and then condemn them for an eternity of torture just for being different? Consider this; the bible that you call “holy” was written 1800 years ago by early Christians persecuted for their beliefs as a piece of cleverly disguised bit of propaganda against the Romans. All the writings that say that marriage is between a man and woman and a man shall not lay with another man was put into the book merely for the sake of propagating the species due to the horrendously low birth rates and the amount of women who died in childbirth; you needed every baby you could get to continue the species. However, now, with all our technology that will aid women in childbirth, there is an extremely lowered risk of death and an even lower risk of still borns. In addition, nowhere in the bible does it say that lesbianism is “against god” as you call it. Of course, I don’t know why in the world I’m arguing this with you seeing as you’re nothing but a bible-thumping, god-pushing drone incapable of making decisions on your own. If you were a true Christian, you would know that god loves all his children equally and that a policy of absolute non-discrimination should be the way you live considering your ancestors, the first Christians, nearly didn’t survive due to the discriminatory practices of the Roman Empire.
All idiots aside, gay marriage shouldn’t be an issue in this country since our Declaration of Independence against the British included the phrase that all men had the inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the Pursuit Of Happiness.” In other words, all citizens have the right to live freely while pursuing a lifestyle that pleases them so long as it doesn’t infringe on these same rights of another person. And so long as a person’s lifestyle does no harm to another, we have no right whatsoever to infringe on their right to live it.
To Me, In the beginning the bible did not have the statement you made it has also been rather badly misstranslated from the original Arameic writings, furthermore the bible has been rewritten and altered so many times that the original meaning has been distorted out of all recognition. If you don’t wish to believe this than you might want to ask the vatican why it refuses to publish the writings of Jesus.If you read what few quotes come through from Jesus, nowhere does he say that man may not lay with man. I would also recommend that you at least learn to spell properly, IE Sodom not sadom, etc, as regards “god created adam and eve, umm, you do know that eve was his second wife, don’t you? Lack of intelligent knowledge combined with blind faith is dangerous.
To T. Carter, in regards your question, I have no peoblem re gay marriage, my brother in law has recently married his long term partner which I support fully. Those you see such as “ME” who quote the bible conveniantly forget that the bible as they read it now was rewritten in medieval times by the catholic church when they needed more people to fund the church, therefore needing people to be hetero as opposed to homo because that was the only way to produce aforementioned populace.
I agree, gay marriage should be allowed. I don’t particularly agree with the lifestyle but I am certainly in no position to play God. God gave us free will and if some government decides they are going to step in and take away our free will by not allowing ANYONE to choose how to live their life then we are in big trouble. I am shocked that California of all states voted No to gay marriage.. stunned actually. Anyway, it’s legal where I live and glad that people have the right to choose here.
Further, if my son were to tell me one day that he was gay, I would love him just the same as I do today (and that’s alot!!) and any struggles I had with it I would keep to myself because I have no right to tell someone how to live their life, especially if they are safe, loved and happy.
Jackie in BC Canada
In the beginning their was God and God made the heavens and the earth and saw it was good. Male and female he made of all the beasts of the earth. God made Adam and saw that Adam need a companion and put Adam in a deep sleep and took from Adam a rib and he woman and called her Eve and God saw all was good. If it be for religious beliefs or morale beliefs homosexual is totally wrong. If I condoned homosexuality I would be damning God and I am not about to do it. Someday great and small will stand before him and be judged. You say if I support gay rights or bisexuals I have nothing to lose your wrong I have my soul to lose and in my heart I know its wrong. What do you think caused Sadom and Gamorra to be destroyed it was because of sexual perversion of all kinds. Well to end this because I don’t think anyone will read it but God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve or Eve and Bev. You dear writer would not be here without the aid of a man and a woman even if you are a test tube baby.