Unsure if serious.







Sure, the Bible doesn't have a problem with homosexuality. Those who practise it should just be killed.

As for people the vast majority of religious people not having any problem with homosexuality... I don't even know where to begin. While I respect that there are many Christians who don't have a problem with homosexuality, I wouldn't ever agree that it was anywhere near a vast majority.

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The Bible itself actually says that homosexuality is perfectly fine, if only implicitly. In the Old Testament/Torah, homosexuality is in the same category as breaking kosher, and all of those rules were overturned by Jesus in the New Testament. That said, the Torah and Qu'ran have yet to have ammended the particular sections dealing with homosexuality, being even older than the New Testament. Really, texts from several thousand years ago should not be applied to modern life the way they are.

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Tahu 1000 - Former Member

Are you aware that all of these referred to prostitution, not homosexuality? It helps to have more than a cursory understanding of verses you have stored.

And yes, I would gladly argue that the vast majority of Christians don't have a problem with homosexuality, because they don't. The extreme conservative is a minority that just so happens to be vocal: see, Southern Baptists, Missouri Synod, etc. Most sects of Christianity heavily influenced by humanist scholars (especially Lutheranism, Episcopalian, and most parts of Presbyterianism) treat straight vs. gay the same: keep yourself in check sexually and don't screw around, more for your moral sake than to impress anyone else.

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Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: But that trick never works!

It doesn't seem like he invalidated or overturned anything, more so that he reaffirmed the Old Testament.

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Let's break down some Bible history and dig into this a little more, shall we? The word "abomination" is translated from the word to'evah, which means a taboo, especially a religious one. This includes stuff such as eating shellfish or worshiping a false god. It is not actually condemned in the same way of, say, having sex out of wedlock or any other sexual taboo.

Why?

Well, once upon a time homosexuality was a natural part of human nature. Infact, so natural that the temple of Jerusalem practiced homosexuality in some of their sacred religious ceremonies. Don't believe me?

And he broke down the houses of the male prostitutes, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the idol pole. ~ II Kings 23:7 KJV

Oh, and by "women" its referencing men who were castrated and wore women's clothing as part of a religious practice. So the Bible actually counts transgendered people as the gender the identify as. Fun fact.

This wasn't only practiced by Hebrew culture but also by the Babylonians, Canaanites, Egyptians, and Assyrians. In a time where Israel was trying to establish itself as a nation and cut ties with the outside world, a homophobic leader came to power. His name was King Josiah. He was the meanie that destroyed the part of the temple where all the homosexuals lived, and then he made that rule in Leviticus. He then decreed that is is bad to commence in homosexual religious ceremonies, which is the reason behind the Leviticus's words. So, today's culture has interpreted it as:

Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. ~NIV

When in the reality people would love to deny, it actually means:

Don't practice ceremonial buttsex. That's a religious taboo.



Mostly a reference to prostitution. Male prostitutes were really common back in the day, before we created this false stigma against homosexuality (that only exists in Christian/Jewish/Islamic cultures, really).



The Bible also demands that you kill nonbelievers.

Deuteronomy 17
If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

Also, you must not suffer a witch to live, you must kill fortune tellers, anyone that cheated on a spouse, and probably anyone who has been within a mile radius of shellfish.

If you want to have this close-minded attitude about what the Bible says, take it all or leave it all. When you're ready to be rational and find out what your faith really says about the world around you, then we'll talk.



I mean, you can continue to believe whatever you want about homosexuality. But don't pretend it has any Biblical backing, because that's a lie. And when you stand in front of your Creator and He asks you why you twisted His words of love and care into those of cruelty and hatred, don't ask me for any pity. I warned you about those care's, bro. I told you, dog!



All right, then let's get back to slavery!

But no really, it's over.

The Greek for 'fulfil' is pleroo. It occurs on many New Testament occasions, including Matthew 5:17. The range of meanings for this word are, 'to fill up,' 'to fill to the brim,' 'to level up' (that is, in the sense of levelling up a hollow). Figuratively, the meaning would be 'to satisfy,' 'to execute,' 'to finish,' or 'to complete.'

Any concept that Matthew 5:17-19 somehow places Christians back under the Torah – or even any part of it – is completely unbiblical, and would necessarily make many other New Testament statements especially by Paul and the writer of Hebrews to be heavily in error.

~Source

But you know, if you want to go ahead and not believe that the Old Testament is fulfilled, than be my guest. You can go around killing your neighbors, avoiding shellfish like the plague, not working on Sundays, and burning any piece of clothing that comes into contact with semen.

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Natemania! The Nateman sensation that's sweeping the nation!


Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

Thanks, Nate. You explained way better than I could have the time to say.

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Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: But that trick never works!

Maybe under our definition of homosexual and heterosexual, the Greeks were gay but back then they never used said terminologies. I can't remember the exact Greek translation but it came out to something along the lines of the one that penetrates and the one that get's penetrated (which would include both women and men) in relation to the demos. I'm surprised you didn't call out the Greeks for being pedophiles since man-boy relationships were quite common back then as well.

While this isn't specifically directed at Razick, sex and gender are not interchangeable words. Sex is rooted in biology aka male, female, or intersex, while gender is a socially constructed ideology usually relating to one's sex (masculine for males and feminine for females) but it can also relate to social status as well.

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Props to steve-loser on the old sig.

You sure make a habit of that.

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Quit calling me names.

We can't all have the free time between dance, school, sightseeing, and fending off roomies to research bible quotes and historical examples.

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Goten is dead!

I won't lie and say that I've followed any of this debate, having really only read the most recent page. Isn't this debate supposed to be about the legal status of gay marriage, not whether homosexuality is morally or ethically "right or wrong"?

Also, Nate, you argument about King Josiah and Leviticus seems to be based on the assumption that Leviticus was written after the reign of Josiah, wherein Josiah influenced the text of it. Do you have any evidence backing this? As I had always been led to believe that Leviticus was written before II Kings, I think your argument might be weakened. That quote you said was about the temple during years of lawlessness and godlessness. It was a time when Israel had turned away from God's commands, and this manifested in the uncleanliness of the temple. In that same verse it was talking about women weaving for asherah, a caananite god. So saying that homosexuality was part of Jewish temple life is like saying that smoking marijuana is a part of church life because some guys broke in and lit up.

I don't see why this is relevant? In order to understand the legal status of it, we must understand the history of homophobia. And the farce that this history is. Bascially, we hate homos because our parents hated them, and they because theirs did, and so forth. Until we get to some interesting characters who set the chains in motions - most of them being popes, priests, or religious figures. So religion's very much at the heart of the debate.

I don't think the debate hinges on that timeline. Even without it, the translations are pretty clear - homosexuality was never an "abomination," and it's not the only place in the Bible where acts relating to homosexuality were purposefully mistranslated to be seen in a negative light.

I Corinthians 6:9-10 reads, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." "Effeminate" is a poor translation of the Greek word "malakos" which means "soft". The word is not translated as "effeminate" anywhere else in the Bible.

~Source.

But I don't think the timeline's wrong, either. That excerpt from Leviticus is from the Holiness Code (H). H may have been a separate entity at one point, or maybe another collection of older laws, or perhaps just entirely fabricated from it, but it was added to Leviticus sometime after the Priestly Source (P). P was written about 500 BC, mere decades before King Josiah's rule. Coincidence? Maybe. But I'm not history major, I'm not going to open up that can of worms. Despite whether or not H came after the majority of Leviticus, my argument still stands.

And you proved its point.

We've gone through centuries of conditioning to obtain our present mindset about homosexuality. And your grouping of it in your sentence with the Jewish practices of it confirms it. King Josiah chased out these priests because he thought the performance of these acts as religious ceremonies was bad. We nave no documentation that he did anything to anyone about any other forms of homosexuality. But you just threw together a string of logic saying that he chased them out because being a homosexual was bad. By that same string of logic, we could argue that money changing is also unacceptable in all circumstances.

And there we have it. That's the line of thought that we've been bred for. That's the line of reasoning that creates homophobia and hatred. An irrational, illogical jump that tells everyone, "Hey, being gay is wrong." I'm not 'calling you out' for it or trying to talk you down for that line of logic -- most people, myself included, would make that same mistake. It's engraved in our culture.

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Natemania! The Nateman sensation that's sweeping the nation!


Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

I hate to double post, but this was such a nice topic and allowed us to address all of the misconceptions there were about homosexuality. And I found something really nice to it to add that deals with a particular aspect of the debate that I felt wasn't covered too well on my end:

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Natemania! The Nateman sensation that's sweeping the nation!


Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

So, if we lowered the age of majority in the United States to ten, you'd have no problem with a grown man or woman marrying a 10-year-old boy or girl, because it would suddenly be legal to do so?

If we allow gay marriage, we must also allow polygamous and polyamorous marriages too. If everyone consents, there is no difference and it would be discrimination against people in such relationships to deny them that right. I notice this wasn't covered in your chart, and I wonder why.

Do you support polygamy, Nateman?

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Quit calling me names.

So, you're saying if we gave 10 year olds the right to consent to marriage, we'd have to deal with grown ups marrying them? Er, yeah, but why would we do that...?

I guess you could've read the last page of this, where we talked a ton about polygamy and stuff, but making a slippery slope fallacy that has no logical basis is good too.

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Natemania! The Nateman sensation that's sweeping the nation!


Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

Because we're talking about law, that's why it matters. That comic poses that marrying kids is against the law, so even though they can feel love, they can't get married. Why not lower the age of majority to 13? They can feel love, so isn't it only fair that we allow them to marry?

Polygamy isn't a slippery slope. It is what's next. It deals with consenting adults agreeing to marry each other. If two grown men should be allowed to marry each other, why not three? If everyone agrees, there shouldn't be any problem with it. These people aren't dogs or inanimate objects that can't even understand the concept of marriage; they're human beings, and if three or more adults want to get married to each other, they should be allowed to do so. It's the same argument that is applied towards gay marriage.

Or do you only support equal rights when you like the people you're granting rights to?

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Quit calling me names.

Because they're too young to understand the ramifications of making such a life altering decision, as stated in the comic. He isn't an adult, he can't get married. Same with drinking, voting, etc. You have yet to give me any good reason why you are lowering the age to 13, while posing hypothetical situations that revolve around it.



Well, for one, we could talk about all the inadequacies that children from polygamous families have with social adjustment and self-esteem. Also boundary issues. Also in polygamous relationships, one person's going to inevitably feel "left out" or "inadequate." There's psychology studies showing that the stress of polygamy can lead to somatic symptoms such as body aches, headaches, insomnia, fatigue, breathlessness, and assab (which is a state of nervousness and tension). And of course, depression. Obviously beyond the levels of normal stress from marital relations, or else it would not be relevant.

NOW, you might have some idealistic ideas over what polygamy could be, but let's be honest: polygyny would be the most common form of this, and things such as polyandry or general group marriage would be rare in comparison. And really, this is just a terrible thing for any woman to go through. And the authoritarian structure Mormon polygamy is pretty relevant here too - you can't legalize cocaine just because you and a couple of your friends promise to be reeeeaaalllly careful with it. Others will inevitably abuse it.

No matter how you situate it, almost all polygamous relationships will fail because of the authoritarian structure. One person will often have control over the relationship, not unlike monogamous relationships. The difference is this control will be emphasized by using the other two as witnesses and perpetrators. They become witnesses to beatings or abuse, and then don't speak up about it. Suddenly the victim doesn't think they have the right to complain or that it's okay that they're a victim, since others are witnessing and accepting of it. Or worse, they are perpetrators of the abuse themselves - they seek validation from the "dominant" person, and become combatants for their affection. Don't think it will happen? Oh wait, survey says WRONG. About 80% of societies have practiced polygamy at some point or still are. So it's not like we don't have research material to see what a bad idea this is.

I don't quite understand your ad hominem attack against me. I don't like polygamy, so how dare I not support it?

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Natemania! The Nateman sensation that's sweeping the nation!


Thanks for the sig, Viruz.
"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

I say 100% yes. No i am not the same as them but why should they be called different? If they wat to be with a guy for they're life then let them!

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[

I know this debate has been pretty much concluded, but I saw this and thought I should add it

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"What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."- The last words of General John Sedgewick, killed by a sniper in the American civil war

Fallacious image. This has no reflection on my stance on gay marriage, just saying.

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Awesome Squall sprite courtesy of Goten! Check here if you'd like a runescape or game-themed sprite!

Nate makes a good point. We're not trying to establish new laws allowing for some sort of special form of marriage for gay people, we're attempting to include them in the existing marriage laws. In fact, distinct non-marriage civil unions for gay people would essentially be separate but equal, something which the Supreme Court has ruled against in the past.

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Tahu 1000 - Former Member