[kg_veteran]

Originally posted by: sturm und drang
Kiki, without quoting your long response:

I think you meant kg, but I digress...

You ask what my belief is rooted in. I believe very strongly that homosexuals are born that way - that there is absolutely no choice involved as to their orientation. And as my Sunday school teacher once told me long ago, God don't make mistakes. I believe that, too. I don't see why God, in his infinite wisdom, would make one out of 10 of his children innately defective, innately sinful.

Two points here. First, we are all born innately sinful. We are born with a "sin nature". Thus, we all have a predisposition, if you will, to sin. That doesn't mean we don't have a choice of whether or not to sin.

Second, your rationale begs the question of whether people are "born gay". IF God created people with an attraction to the same sex and then declared that to be a sin, that would seem cruel. However, the Bible suggests just the opposite. A couple of examples:

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." - Genesis 2:24

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." - Romans 1:26-27

I challenge you to cite to one instance in the Bible that suggests that people are born or created gay.

In all his teachings, Jesus never mentions homosexuality. Not once.

He did, however, address marriage:

"3Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
4"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'[1] 5and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'[2] ? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." - Matthew 19:3-6; Mark 10:2-9

These comments from Jesus make it clear that God created marriage as a union of a man and a woman, not of man and man or woman and woman.

Jesus also spoke out against adultery and sexual immorality. Jesus may not have used the word "homosexuality," but his position was (and is) clear.

In the NT, Paul is the only person to speak of it. And as you can see from the Ephesians quote I used earlier, Paul's words (like many other throughout the Bible) have to be viewed in context of the culture in which they were made. Just as most all Christians would admit now, the "slave, obey thy master" dictum he set forth has to be... well, what do you do with it? Do you toss it away? To you attempt to justify it?

You justify Paul's advocacy - nay, enforcement - of slavery thusly:

"Paul's perspective as he wrote the letter you refer to (and others where he makes similar statements) was that of how we should respond to the circumstances of life in light of that relationship with Jesus. Paul was lobbying for personal transformation, not social change."

Interesting. If we can read Paul's dictum on slavery in such a forgiving, interpretory light - why not his mentions of homosexuality? Are we to read some of his statements in contemporary and personal context, but accept others as the infallible word of God? If so, how do we discern between the two?

Paul isn't advocating or enforcing slavery; he's advocating how the slave should respond to his master and how the master should treat the slave. He's essentially saying that they shouldn't be treated like slaves. I'm not interpreting anything; I'm just reiterating what he said. Jesus didn't condemn slavery either, but he condemned many other human practices. That doesn't mean that Jesus approved of or sanctioned slavery. It just indicates exactly what I'm saying: Jesus was looking to effect transformation of lives on a personal level, not political or social change.

Also, how can you interpret what Paul says about homosexuality to mean anything other than what he said? You can't. You have to IGNORE what he said.

And to your ridiculous extrapolation theory - "if we let them damned homos marry, wha's next? Polygamy? Parents marrying their kids? Animals? Dead people?" - I ask you to turn it the other way. If we now exclude certain people from marrying, what's next? Whites can't marry blacks? Christians can't marry Muslims? The healthy can't marry those with special needs? (Particularly Nuremburgian, that one...)

I never said that one thing would lead to another. I said that society chooses to draw the line in all of those other examples (on moral grounds, no less), and you have no problem with it. Yet, when society draws the line on homosexual marriage you do have a problem with it. That is illogical.

As for your examples, they really don't hold water since society ALLOWS all of those types of marriages.

You ask me superciliously why I – simplistic, thick-skulled imbicile that I no doubt am – can't see that slippery slope, why I can't see that including homosexuals in marriage wouldn't inevitably lead to polygamy, pedophaelia.

Again, that's not what I asked you. I asked you why you had a problem with society drawing the line on a form of marriage that you favor while not having a problem with society drawing a line on forms of marriage that you are against.

Also, I had to look up supercilious, but I wasn't patronizing you or being haughty. I'm surprised you would accuse me of that.