Gordon Howie is at it again, issuing this "Howie Homily" exhorting the "Body of Christ" to "take a bold stand" against Barack Obama and Joe Biden's "full frontal assault" (oh, the language characters like Howie use!) on the "sacred institution of marriage."
I guess I just have to keep saying this: Barack Obama cannot destroy my marriage. Gordon Howie cannot destroy my marriage. All the fear and hatred and cries of a bogeyman "homosexual agenda" cannot destroy my marriage.
Only two people can destroy my marriage... and neither one of us snuggle-bunnies seems inclined to do so.
If you think a politician can destroy your marriage, you don't need to holler at that politician; you need to talk to your spouse.
Gordy looks like Hell: Paranoia the Destroyer.
MJ and I have been married for 26 years and are still going strong. I guess the gays haven't found us. My sister isn't so lucky two up and two down in less than ten years. For some reason the gays just won't leave her alone.
Howie's kinda got that Willy Loman look....
Well, he couldn't be more clear about his intention to deny people their rights. Howie is going to have to decide which he honors more. His faith, or the constitution. And for that matter, whether he understands what 'love your neighbor as you love yourself' means. I'm just sayin'.
"Barack Obama cannot destroy my marriage."
But he can destroy your kids marriage.
Bill, our rights come from our Creator (see the DOI). Does God consider the gay lifestyle a right or a sin?
C'mon, Steve: you've been so good, i've been so patient. Don't blow it now.
When Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself, I don't recall in the literature that he specified gender or lifestyle. I'm assuming the suggestion was to do it unconditionally.
So Bill, where does it say that love means promoting sin? Still waiting for the answer regarding rights coming from God includes sin.
Yes Steve, Homosexuality is a sin. But then we are all sinners. We are saved by God's Grace alone, not through our own actions or who we vilify during this life. It is not up to us to decide who's sins are worse, ours or others. God's greatest commandment is, "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.†Matt 22, 37-40.
Now I'm not a Bible scholar but I don't here anything here that says, Treat sinners that you view as worse than yourself as second class citizens. For the bigoted hypocrite will be rewarded in Heaven.
Just the thoughts of one sinner.
People used to think those of us who are left handed were sinners. In fact, the latin word for left handed is 'sinister.'
I don't think being born left handed or gay is sinful, sorry.
The John Edwards saga is a great example of American sin on trial.
I confess a lack of confidence in the courts to render decisions void of religious activism: a constitutional convention is long overdue.
Too many minority rights are being marginalized by plutocrats using wedge issues to divide and conquer us.
The most non-Christian thing about the negative side of this issue is the contining demonization of homosexuality. it's doubly 'sinful' to encourage self-loathing on another person, to make them despise themselves for who they are, and then expect them to love others 'as they love themselves.' How could they, if you've convinced them to hate themselves instead?
Stop it.
This general moral blindness is the essence of the overly judgemental puritanical mindset. It should perhaps be noted that many gays and lesbians feel themselves to be morally superior to small minded religious bigots as well.
But in the best of all possible worlds, everyone would adopt an 'I'm okay, you're okay' attitude of acceptance.
I understand that as being both Christian and democratic, and find no conflict there either spiritually or politically.
"Now I’m not a Bible scholar but I don’t here anything here that says, Treat sinners that you view as worse than yourself as second class citizens."
Frank, your are right. The point that I am making is that there are those who deny sin. It is they who put themselves above sinners.
"I don’t think being born left handed or gay is sinful, sorry."
Then Fleming takes a breath and says:
"The most non-Christian thing about the negative side of this issue is the contining demonization of homosexuality. it’s doubly ‘sinful’ to encourage self-loathing on another person..."
How can it be "doubly sinful" if you deny homosexuality is a sin? Isn't 2 times zero, zero?
The solution to sin is repenting and turning your life over to Jesus Christ. No need for self-loathing.
The sinners are the people hating gays, Sibby. like you for example. First, you break Jesus's second commandment by not loving your neighbor as yourself, and next you encourage your gay neighbor to hate their nature, telling than they are wrong and sinful and in need of repentance.
I submit they are no more in need of repentance for their gayness as I am in need if it for my left handedness.
Nowhere here have I accused any homosexual of being sinful. I'm only pointing out that puritanical Christians like yourself appear to be in violation of Jesus' second commandment on two levels and suggest that if it's a 'sin' not to keep those commandments, you are perhaps sinning twice. Once by dying a person's nature, and another by insisting that the person whose nature you loathe deny it as well.
P.s. Sibby, there are plenty of homosexual people who have surrendered their lives to Jesus and who also remain gay/lesbian/etc. Apparantly, JC doesn't seem to be all that worried about it.
Bumper sticker on Santa Fe Hummer: "Where are we going and why am I in this hand basket?
"The sinners are the people hating gays, Sibby."
And who are they Bill? I am simply stating that denying sin is not love.
And I'm saying that judging someone's nature as sinful is sinful, or at a minimum, delusional. Suppose you thought being blonde was sinful? Would you want everyone to dye their hair so they can get to heaven?
This is the harmony thing I was talking to you about, Sibby. You guys only play in one key and only allow three chords. There is a whole array of changes, progressions and modulations out there that you refuse to access. It limits your ability to play and hear the true song of the cosmos, brother.
oh shit here we go
how was mexico, bill?
No worries, Larry. That's all I've got for today. Mexico kind of takes the fight out of me. ;-)
I'm still here, Larry, watching whales, pelicans, and the magnificent frigate birds. Won't be home until next week. Hasta luego amigos.
P.s. book recommendation for all:read Tom Robbins's 'B is for Beer.' Great. Short. Fun. Dazzling.
cory's got this, bill: good to smell you, too.
See also: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/1112/1224307456103.html
Steve, the idea that Barack Obama can destroy any future marriage you posit for my daughter is preposterous. She grows up, she finds a suitable partner, she makes a lifetime promise like the one she sees her mom and dad carrying out every day... explain to me how Barack stops that or why he wants to.
As for denying sin, Frank's point is spot on. He takes me back to Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2):
...use every man
after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less
they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
I've used this before, but it's so good! Take the Christian worldview (and I don't mind if you do), and none of us deserve as much as day-old bread, let alone the Blessings of Liberty. The Bill of Rights doesn't come with a rider saying it applies only to the pure of heart. Dr. King did not propose his dream only blacks who had never cursed or fought or drunk too much. I don't kick kids out of my classroom because they may have acted licentiously last weekend (although I do tell the boys to hitch their dang pants up).
Under our Constitution, we all get liberty. We all get equality. We all are part of the brotherhood (oops! that's France. ;-) ). Your status and my status as a sinner does not exclude us from our civil rights.
Nobody can twist the bible like a homophobe.
It is not a sin to be homosexual. If Leviticus is your guide, then you must also stone your daughter if she is adulterous.
Paul did not mention gay men. "Homosexual" is an incorrect interpretation of first century Koininia Greek.
Jesus had absolutely no concerns about LBTGs. He spent most of his time talking about how poorly heterosexuals behave.
Sodom was never about sex. It was about brutality and lack of hospitality. Look up all the other biblical references to Sodom. I think there are 6-8. Only the last one mentions sex. Pretty odd if sex was the issue.
It's so sad to me that Christianists seem to be so familiar with any "fire and brimstone-ish" texts, but apparently know so little about how deeply and passionately God loves us.
My favorite verse, Isaiah 43.4: "You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you."
Oh yeah, you can find many scary, mean-spirited, horrific things in the Bible. And lots of truly wonderful, loving support. Try Psalm 139, another of my favorites.
I think love is a much more important biblical topic than hate and fear. Read the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to learn what Jesus had to say. Look at all the healing, the compassion, the caring, etc.
Geez. You'd think the Christian God is a god of hate and terror from what many Christianists say. Geez.
you rock, woman: the horse was the weapon of mass destruction when those words were written.
Baby boomers are products of bad jeans....
Thanks Larry.
careful, girl: i'll teach you how to run with scissors....
Bishop, I love Psalm 139 too, especially verses 13-16.
"Koininia Greek"
LOL
Isn't this a nation of religious freedom. Wasn't this country founded by men and women looking to escape religious persecution?
Why then are we trying to use Christian beliefs in an argument about the legal recognition of marriage?
The United States of America is not a Christian Nation. The United States of America is a nation of religious freedom where no mans beliefs are to be put before another mans.
The argument of Homosexuality being sinful in Christian belief has zero to do with the argument about Homosexual marriage rights. Zero.
Do we as a nation deny the rights of Hindus? Atheists? Muslims? Scientoligists?
Of course we don't.
Do we deny marriage on the basis of color of skin or education?
Of course we don't.
Why then did we decide that our Homosexual citizens do not have the right to be married?
How care we claim to be a country of freedom when we openly and unabashedly denounce an entire sector of our population on the basis that some people interpret some parts of the (man written) Christian Bible as being against Homosexuals.
What an absolutely ridiculous argument.