There have been many things which have turned me against religion and churches. Sure, my thinking matured over the years(an invitation for you critics right there, if you so choose) and I realized that the things I had been programmed to believe since childhood was just not sound at all. In fact, they were incredibly unsound. Helping to put me on a more logical path, however, were the horrible things that I saw or heard in the churches I've attended.

 

The church I grew up in was a rather large, very mainstream Southern Baptist Church. I attended that church regularly there for the better part of a quarter century. I still remember my last service there. It was during a revival on Sunday morning. The visiting preacher was talking about homosexuality- the great abomination. I vividly recall being taken aback by his repeated use of the "Q" word when referring to gay people. With a lot of nods in the affirmative it seemed as though most of the congregation approved of the preacher's verbiage. As someone who has a very close relative who is lesbian, I had an epiphany. This was not the place that I needed to be spending my time. I came to realize that God was not spending His time there either. In fact, he likely had never been there in the first place.

 

Christians seem to think there is a special place in hell for the homosexual. Churches rail against homosexuality ; some almost obsess over it. Kim Davis maintains her religion and its views on homosexuality prevents her from doing her job . Yet , this terrible abomination is mentioned pretty infrequently in the Bible .

 

How do you view the Church's take on homosexuality? Should Christian churches soften their stance on homosexuality ? Allow gays and lesbians to be leaders in the church? Or should the church maintain a hard line on this "sinful" behavior?

 

For you folks who are fervent believers in the "man above," do you think He really hates homosexuality as much as His "bride," the church, does?

 

While Jesus , according to some, affirmed that heterosexuality is the norm, did he specifically condemn homosexuality? Can/should those actively engaging in homosexuality be good Christians and even play important roles in Christian churches?

Define sexual immorality and what it includes and I'll play along.

Define sexual immorality and what it includes and I'll play along.

 

I wouldn't include homosexuality in the definition. If a person has an attraction and love for someone of the same sex , I don't believe that is immoral or wicked or evil. I don't believe love, whether it be hetero or homo , has a negative vibe. I don't believe it does harm to those involved. Sexual behavior that harms others- trafficking of women and children, abuse of all sorts, of course, is terribly wrong. None of that sends any kind of positive vibe out into the Universe and does tremendous harm.

 

What do you think? I know many would say homosexuality is highly immoral but I don't think so as long as no harm is being done to others in the process. I see absolutely nothing wrong or immoral with gay marriage. Just my take.

I wouldn't include homosexuality in the definition. If a person has an attraction and love for someone of the same sex , I don't believe that is immoral or wicked or evil. I don't believe love, whether it be hetero or homo , has a negative vibe. I don't believe it does harm to those involved. Sexual behavior that harms others- trafficking of women and children, abuse of all sorts, of course, is terribly wrong. None of that sends any kind of positive vibe out into the Universe and does tremendous harm.

 

What do you think? I know many would say homosexuality is highly immoral but I don't think so as long as no harm is being done to others in the process. I see absolutely nothing wrong or immoral with gay marriage. Just my take.

Well I have a different perspective than some. Purely biologically speaking I think we are designed (intelligently BTW) to procreate. So my definition of immorality may be fostered more from a biological sense than a "moral" one. As for the stones thrown at all of the old testament Levitical translation and such, I would refer to the charge Paul gives the church(es) in his letters to guard against any sexual immorality. So, the moral part for me is totally subjective. In our culture, a man in his 30s would be imprisoned for sexual relations with a 14 year old for instance. In other cultures that would be cool. So, I'll yield to Paul for his blanket of immoral sexual behavior. Rape and the like, adultery, and yes homosexuality, sex with a horse, or a corpse, or a corpse of a horse would all qualify in my opinion. However, even if you decided on one of your sabbatical seasons to rape a horse corpse, I'd still have a brotherly love for you no matter what immorality you've partaken in. I'd still pray for you, hope that someday when you met the righteous judge that you were prepared. And I profess Christianity. So, there's my take.

Well I have a different perspective than some. Purely biologically speaking I think we are designed (intelligently BTW) to procreate. So my definition of immorality may be fostered more from a biological sense than a "moral" one. As for the stones thrown at all of the old testament Levitical translation and such, I would refer to the charge Paul gives the church(es) in his letters to guard against any sexual immorality. So, the moral part for me is totally subjective. In our culture, a man in his 30s would be imprisoned for sexual relations with a 14 year old for instance. In other cultures that would be cool. So, I'll yield to Paul for his blanket of immoral sexual behavior. Rape and the like, adultery, and yes homosexuality, sex with a horse, or a corpse, or a corpse of a horse would all qualify in my opinion. However, even if you decided on one of your sabbatical seasons to rape a horse corpse, I'd still have a brotherly love for you no matter what immorality you've partaken in. I'd still pray for you, hope that someday when you met the righteous judge that you were prepared. And I profess Christianity. So, there's my take.

 

Ok. Thanks for your take. Do you think there are degrees of sexual immorality? In other words, is butt sex between two mutually agreeable men more or less worse than raping a horse corpse?

Ok. Thanks for your take. Do you think there are degrees of sexual immorality? In other words, is butt sex between two mutually agreeable men more or less worse than raping a horse corpse?

Well, I don't know that degrees are my responsibility to judge. If it's amoral then does the degree matter?

Well, I don't know that degrees are my responsibility to judge. If it's amoral then does the degree matter?

 

I can't get the words, "raping a horse corpse," out of my head. Thanks a bunch. I don't know if its immoral or not but it sure as hell has a negative vibe to it.

I like this thread topic, but while I love the tactful and thoughtful responses from both SF and spindoc I have reservations that it will garner much action or if it does remain respectful to differing opinions.

 

Regardless, this board had an incredible amount of discussion related homosexuality over the summer. To that end, I don't foresee any situation where I could ever be convinced that the Court got the Obergefell decision wrong, and I similarly feel that Kim Davis completely drastically overstepped her bounds.

 

Religiously I approach this subject from a Catholic perspective, so its hard for me to not refer to the Church with a capital C, but feel like my opinions apply to Christianity in general regardless of denomination.

 

On one hand I hesitate to say that any religion should up and change its views and practices since there is generally some sort of text or tradition that has formed these views dating back to the religions inception. On the other hand, I wish the church felt differently. I understand the position that you can't pick and choose what to believe because you're going to be wrong somewhere along the line, but try as I might (and I've since given up long ago) I just can't look someone attracted to the opposite sex and fault them for not living a lie.

You lost me at "very mainstream Southern Baptist Church".

In the view of the Catholic Church, two gay man engaging in sexual intercourse is immoral for the same reason a straight man and woman is wrong. Sexual intercourse is wrong outside of marriage, regardless of gender.

 

Also, the Catholic Church teaching marriage is between a man and a woman.

Although in modern times, because of more open dialogue, many heterosexuals have come to develop an understanding about homosexuality as a true natural psychological/physical reality for a certain portion of society, however for as far back as history can document, the general heterosexual society mostly displayed a distaste (except for perhaps the ancient Greeks) for homosexuals with very little sense of understanding.

 

Considering that most straight people could not fathom what could possibly make someone interested in having same sex relations, because they themselves did not have these feelings, and the majority of the world existed as heterosexuals, it's easy to see where many would instantly react to this foreign idea as unnatural, considering it was unnatural to them.

 

With, or even without religious or societal rules at play, people in general throughout history, and even now would just knee jerkingly be appalled at the idea, and see it as unnatural, and condemn it while reinforcing others to condemn it as well.

 

With this in mind, it's not too much a stretch to see how the authors of the Bible, being human as they were, would just like most heterosexuals who couldn't fathom this foreign practice, would also condemn it within their writings.

 

While the writings of the Bible have had a major impact on every generation since it's inception with its devout followers, with references of condemnation of homosexuals written by other heterosexuals likely having no understanding of homosexuality, then every generation that has followed these writings have used them to reinforce that which they already knee jerkingly find to be unnatural, so for them it's easy to see how "in their minds" the Bible is correct on the matter.

 

Since these ancient writings have a bigger influence on today's followers than does current consensus among the modern society and those in the field of Psychology, we still have a large portion of society that still consider the practice of homosexuality unnatural.

 

With the root of their belief system being that of religion mixed with their own knee jerk disapproved reaction towards homosexuality, it is outwardly visibly apparent how so many individuals today will still fall into the category of those who find it to be an abomination and find it to be unnatural.

 

With this, dialogue between modern society and the religiously devout can at times be strained where either side can have feelings of frustration and difficulty coming to an agreement on the matter. Both sides can have great difficulty understanding how the other side sees things the way they do, and although middle ground at times can be reached by some, so very many others remain deeply divided on the topic.

 

For me growing up gay from as far back as I can remember, while also being raised Christian, until perhaps age 15 I was deeply divided because on one hand I knew that I didn't choose to be gay, and my religious indoctrination had a strong effect on me at an early age before I could think rationally.

 

Aside from religion, I saw society in general speak negatively about homosexuality, and often times saw people act as if it was ok to ridicule someone for being gay, even to the extreme of seeing punks with no serious religious background bully and gay bash, where no one would seem to object, while still objecting to gays.

 

The hatred, and the general acceptance of the hatred didn't make sense to me, and all the while most gays guys were the least likely to start fights unless they were battling with a gay identity in themselves provoked by religion and society, and wanted to make sure that nobody thought that they were.

 

It seems that religion and society's punks weren't too far apart with their condemnation.

 

With that, at about 15 I came to realize, (and I can still picture in my head where I was), and came to the conclusion that society and religious were misinformed, and absolutely didn't know what they were talking about to have them draw the conclusions that they did.

 

It really didn't feel much different than realizing that Santa didn't exist. This realization set me on a path to start questioning just about everything that I once had trusted in what society and religion had tried to convince me of. I started thinking that if they were wrong about this, (and they most definitely are), what else were they wrong about?

 

At about 11 I even considered that my gayness might've been a calling from God to be a priest because I knew that I would never get married.

 

Little did I know at the time that many gay priest or nuns went through the same thing, and actually did become priests and nuns either because they thought they were being called, or to save face with family and friends.

 

With that, and during that era I completely get how and why there are so many gay priests and nuns deciding such matters about their path in life before they were even mature enough to understand life to begin with.

 

I want to make it clear to not confuse gay priests with pedophile priests, as in many cases they are not the same, but with that said I can see that if a pedophile priest was raised with a strong religious background they too might've confused it as a calling to be a priest thinking that they could control themselves only to find themselves around children daily. Some may have sincerely wanted to stop, while who knows, others may have calculated that their path would put them near children regularly.

 

The general public would expect celibacy from their religious leaders, and would be appalled to learn about them otherwise, and often were certain they were because they falsely had the perception that their leaders were somehow supernaturual, when they're just like anyone else with their sexual desires, and even being tempted to act on them, and many did.

 

What also sucked was that these confused gay priest and nuns if asked would have to defend teachings that homosexuality was wrong, and it kind of sucked when I aged and reality hit me that the same religion that I was raised in also had a high percentage of closeted gay leaders.

 

In the Catholic Church's defense, they didn't nearly drive home that being gay was wrong as much as other Christian churches do, so it wasn't like they beat us up with this misinformed myth and outright lie, but we certainly knew that in it's teachings homosexuality was considered to be immoral. To me the definition of immoral is being lied to by your religion when they haven't the first clue of what there's talking about, and live in secrecy with a do as I say, not as I do behavior.

 

I've come to understand all of this for what it is and no longer feel angry towards the church because I realize that gay priests didn't intend to become priest to confuse and mislead, because they initially were just confused and mislead themselves to begin with. They were human, while the members of their own church never allowed them to be.

In the view of the Catholic Church, two gay man engaging in sexual intercourse is immoral for the same reason a straight man and woman is wrong. Sexual intercourse is wrong outside of marriage, regardless of gender.

 

Also, the Catholic Church teaching marriage is between a man and a woman.

 

I should add that the Church also says that having a homosexual inclination is not immoral, but acting upon those feelings is where sin occurs.

 

"Hate the sin, love the sinner." B-Ball-Fan would has a more hands-on experience with the Church, but this above quote is what I have always been taught (I say taught, not indoctrinated, as I have questioned the teaching and done my own research to find out the reasons and history of the teaching - and from that I have come to find that attitude valid and not irrational).

I should add that the Church also says that having a homosexual inclination is not immoral, but acting upon those feelings is where sin occurs.

 

"Hate the sin, love the sinner." B-Ball-Fan would has a more hands-on experience with the Church, but this above quote is what I have always been taught (I say taught, not indoctrinated, as I have questioned the teaching and done my own research to find out the reasons and history of the teaching - and from that I have come to find that attitude valid and not irrational).

 

Let's assume that I agree with the church's teachings, here's what I can't but help to say in response.

 

"Thanks a whole lot God for giving me inclinations that I can't act on that naturally born straight people can, even though my hormones are active, and the urge is just as strong, because religion and society, while not understanding it, frown on it,... and while I'm at it thanks also for having me be born on this planet when I was because from puberty until now roughly 40 years of my sexual peak would have gone unquenched if I had actually bought into the rules that humans claim were yours. Now depending on how you look at it, your church still doesn't recognize gay marriage, but society does, so legally I can start now to have loving sexual activity with a partner if I marry them, but still need to look over my shoulder at the church because they're not on board with that. God why do your humans come up with so many ridiculous illogical rules that obviously defy reality and nature, and apply them in your name?"

 

"Tell me please God, and since you're all knowing I imagine that you can do a better job than your humans have in making sense of it all, because so far now all they continue to do is make themselves look like ignorant fools purporting their interpretation of your wishes and claiming that it's what you demand. Did you create them in your image, or did they create you in theirs?"