Homosexuality and Homosexual Marriages: Why do Christians Care?

[kaoticprofit]

Sure you have. You thought the NBC article was true, when it's really just a parody. That's being snookered. And you know it. And we all know it


No, you asked Shad. Not me. Skwim ≠ Shad. And Shad's source is the same as yours. Only difference is that you failed to see it for what it is, and he did.

I'm not the one who posted any sources. I didn't research it or know whether to believe or not believe it. I asked for sources because I didn't read all the replies on the thread.

 

[columbus]

One woman did go to jail for a short while for not issuing a marriage licence.

This did not happen. It's the sort of disinformation Christians are accustomed to spread.
Kim Davis went to jail for not doing her job.

She could have just let other people do it. She could have stepped down when the job changed in a way she didn't like. Instead she chose to take a government office hostage to her religious beliefs in an extraordinarily bigoted way. That is what caused the problem.
Tom
ETA ~I have never issued a marriage licence either. I have never been in danger of going to jail for it.~

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I would like for one of these people who talk about the US being founded on "Christian values" or "Christian principles" to define that. Can she explain what "Christian values" are? Maybe they also mean that divorce, bacon double cheeseburgers, cotton/poly blends (well... ), peel 'n eat shrimp, crab legs at the all-you-can-eat Asian buffet (that's two sins for the price of one... shellfish and gluttony) should be outlawed; Sunday blue laws reinstated and enforced. They could take a lesson from God-fearing Bergen County, NJ where blue laws are still on the books. People who talk about the US being founded on "Christian values" or "Christian principles" crack me up. No, actually they make me want to weep for them.

I can see that. Heres the thing. One of the reasons America broke off from britain was the Church. We had protestant values (though slavery, etc wouldnt have seem like a value today) but then, yeah.

We werent raised on christian values but a splish splash of church views and being a teen and want to do our own thing at the same time.

We're a mess.

 

[Rise]

Do you really think that everyone I have served at my job I personally agree with? That I have not implicitly provided avenues for things I find "sinful?" On a morality level I mean.
Nope. You know why? Because my work life is not my private life. I have to act like a professional, work with people I don't like, serve people I probably would find repugnant in real life, because that is the job I have.

They aren't refusing to work with them because of what they believe.
They aren't merely providing products or services that could be misused by someone to sin.
They are being asked to personally participate in sin.

I thought I already made that distinction clear in the post you quoted.

A Jewish photographer will turn down your request to work at a wedding if it is held on a Saturday, based on religious convictions - And you don't get to sue them for that. You can't pass a law forcing them to violate the Sabbath by working on it, and therefore sin before God. They don't give up their individual religious liberty just because they participate in the marketplace.

 

[McBell]

They aren't refusing to work with them because of what they believe.
They aren't merely enabling them to commit sin.
They are being asked to participate in sin.

A Jewish photographer will turn down your request to work at a wedding if it is held on a Saturday, based on religious convictions - And you don't get to sue them for that. You can't pass a law forcing them to violate the Sabbath by working on it, and therefore sin before God. They don't give up their individual religious liberty just because they participate in the marketplace.

Wait...
Your claim now is that merely baking a cake used in a same sex wedding is somehow participating in same sex acts?

You gonna have to explain that one.

 

[Jainarayan]

A Jewish photographer will turn down your request to work on their wedding day if it is held on a saturday, based on religious convictions

Not the same thing. The photographer would be actually working. The baker is not, nor is he or she participating in sex or part of the wedding. The baker has never seen the couple have sex, never will, does not even know if the couple is capable of having sex. It's a judgment the baker has no right to make. It's a temper tantrum and an attempt to control something they have no right to control.

 

[McBell]

One woman did go to jail for a short while for not issuing a marriage licence.

Who?
I sincerely hope you are not talking about Kim Davis.
Cause if you are, you really need to get your facts straight.

 

[Rise]

According to the Cato institute
...
People's ratings , their view of freedom has plumetted all the way to 15th in the world. With the US at 23rd.
....
Both Sweden and the USA measured 10/10 for religious freedoms, btw.

Subjective abstract ratings are just that - Subjective, and they don't necessarily deal with reality.

Let's stick with the reality that they tried to jail as pastor for teaching the content of the BIble to his congregation, and this is seen an acceptable course of action by enough of the people in the country that it became law and is enforced by those in government.

A pastor who is put in that position is no longer do the very thing that they are commanded to by God - Teach the world to follow Jesus.

Do you realize that this is what China does? They may have come to terms with the fact that they cannot prevent the spread of the Christian church in their country, but they decided the next best thing was to put restrictions on what pastors can teach about from the Bible. You're not allowed to teach that your loyalty and obedience belongs to God above everything else. You're not allowed to talk about the return of Jesus and setting up his rulership on the earth.

They are preventing people from actually doing what Jesus commanded them to, by restricting them from being able to preach and teach the whole truth to their people.

It should concern you anytime you see people using the power of government to silence Christians from speaking what they believe the truth is. At that point you're abusing the power of the state to protect the ruling paradigm from competing ideas. You don't have enough confidence in what you believe, and why, to let it be challenged by competing worldviews in open and peaceful discussion.

 

[columbus]

Let's stick with the reality that they tried to jail as pastor for teaching the content of the BIble to his congregation, and this is seen an acceptable course of action by enough of the people in the country that it became law and is enforced by those in government.

Which Fake News story are you referring to now?
Tom

 

[Jainarayan]

they tried to jail as pastor for teaching the content of the BIble to his congregation

Who, when, where? Give a credible source.

 

[McBell]

I see no reason to provide a list for something so apparent.

Because it is not as apparent as you seem to think.
But no worries.
I figured it was yet another bold empty claim

I can tell you fi something is immoral or not. Just ask.

That you want me to take your word for it is rather amusing.
Especially given your track record in this thread.

 

[Rise]

Who, when, where? Give a credible source.

I already did. The link has been posted several times.
I'll post it again for you though:
Swedish Pastor Faces Jail for Preaching against Homosexuality - Research - Chalcedon
Åke Green - Wikipedia

 

[Shad]

Fake news??? Where's your source!

Did a Vermont pastor get sentenced to prison for refusing to marry a gay couple?

Vermont Today - Vermont News, Vermont photos, Vermont business, Vermont Events

Shotgun Wedding

You can even fact check everything they state. Also NBC.com.co is a fake news site itself, you can look this up and verify this

 

[McBell]

I already did. The link has been posted several times.
I'll post it again for you though:
Swedish Pastor Faces Jail for Preaching against Homosexuality - Research - Chalcedon
Åke Green - Wikipedia

"First of all, if you read Pastor Ake Green’s sermon (see reference) you will see that he openly invited the media to hear him preach on homosexuality. In other words he was not innocently preaching and got targeted. He made himself a target. Read it for yourself in his sermon. Additionally when his sermon was not well attended he had it put in the local paper (link). So it was made available to the public. "

Source​

Seems your claim is, once again, bogus.

 

[Rise]

Wait...
Your claim now is that merely baking a cake used in a same sex wedding is somehow participating in same sex acts?

You gonna have to explain that one.

I'd be happy to explain why you are grossly mischaracterizing the issue: but you still haven't answered a simple question I posed to you:

I asked you a moral question, not a legal question.
I gave you a specific case example:
http://chalcedon.edu/Research/Artic...ces-Jail-For-Preaching-Against-Homosexuality/
Is it morally right or wrong that they are trying to jail this Swedish pastor for publicly expressing his view in a peaceful way?

Are you saying you don't want to render a moral judgement, but are content to say that whatever is legal is right just because it's legal?

Where do you draw the line and start making moral judgments independent of whether or not it's legal? Are you saying you'd have no problem with the government rounding up Christians to throw into gas chambers so long as the government had passed a law saying that was now legal?

Are you not prepared to take an intellectual stand on such a basic issue and own up to what you really believe?

 

[McBell]

I'd be happy to explain why you are grossly mischaracterizing the issue: but you still haven't answered a simple question I posed to you:


Are you not prepared to take an intellectual stand on such a basic issue and own up to what you really believe?

Please see post #195 before you further mischaracterize the Ake Green situation.

Now seeing as you are unwilling to move forward without a blunt to the point answer AND I now have several more facts of the situation..
Yes, I agree with his arrest.
He set out purposely to violate the law by making himself a target.

So was his arrest moral?
Damn right it was.
Why?
Because the second he had his sermon printed in the paper he was not "simply preaching to his congregation"

 

[Rise]

"First of all, if you read Pastor Ake Green’s sermon (see reference) you will see that he openly invited the media to hear him preach on homosexuality. In other words he was not innocently preaching and got targeted. He made himself a target. Read it for yourself in his sermon. Additionally when his sermon was not well attended he had it put in the local paper (link). So it was made available to the public. "

Source​

Seems your claim is, once again, bogus.

All the relevant facts remain undisputed by your post.
The law exists.
He was tried based on the law, for preaching a peaceful sermon on what the Bible says about homosexuality.
He was found guilty and sentenced to jail.
He was saved from it on appeal only by European law overriding Swedish law.

Whether or not he wanted to be a target of the law doesn't change the fact that he was tried and found guilty for preaching what the Bible says. It wouldn't surprise me if he did. The real question is why you think that changes anything, or why you have a problem with that.

Do you think it's wrong for someone to highlight the injustice of a law that forbids otherwise benign activities by engaging in that activity and forcing prosecution?
If that's the case, you put yourself against Dr. Martin Luther King and Ghandi, who used that as their primarily tool to bring public awareness to the injustice of the government's laws.

Edit: You answered the question:

So was his arrest moral?
Damn right it was.
Why?
Because the second he had his sermon printed in the paper he was not "simply preaching to his congregation"

I don't believe you've thought through the ramifications of your position.

You would have been on the side of the racist establishment in the 1960s, saying that Black people should have been prosecuted for sitting in "white only" restaurants as a way of highlight and protesting the inherent injustice of those laws. You would have condemned them for breaking the law purposely.

The were peacefully but purposely breaking a law that was unjust as a way of forcing society to come to terms with the injustice of it's laws.

 

[columbus]

I'd be happy to explain why you are grossly mischaracterizing the issue: but you still haven't answered a simple question I posed to you:

No you don't.
You post links to false and grossly misrepresented information. I've watched you do it.
Did a Vermont Christian get jailed for preaching the Gospel or not?
It's a yes or no question.
Tom

 

[Jainarayan]

I already did. The link has been posted several times.
I'll post it again for you though:
Swedish Pastor Faces Jail for Preaching against Homosexuality - Research - Chalcedon
Åke Green - Wikipedia

That's Sweden. What does that have to do with the US? That cannot happen in the US.

 

[McBell]

All the relevant facts remain undisputed by your post.

Except the claim that he was arrested for preaching to his congregation when the fact is he was arrested for putting it in the paper...

One wonders what your god thinks of liars?

He was tried based on the law, for preaching a peaceful sermon on what the Bible says about homosexuality.

Here is the bold faced lie once again.

rather difficult to take you seriously when you have no problems being so loose with the truth.

If that's the case, you put yourself against Dr. Martin Luther King and Ghandi, who used that as their primarily tool to bring public awareness to the injustice of the government's laws.

you can talk what ever BS you like.
Fact is you are promoting a bold faced lie in order to play the martyr.

Any deity that supports such dishonesty is not one I want anything to do with.