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Homosexuality and Homosexual Marriages: Why do Christians Care?
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
Skwim and saint frank,
Don't trust every poll you read. Remember the presidential election. While pew research isn't necessarily a liberal organization its methods of gathering data maybe similar i.e. Phone calls and some written surveys. How they phrase a question either verbally or written can and does influence a result. For instance I'm catholic I agree with the church that the homosexual act is gravely disordered. Yet, I'm an American I live in a pluralistic society, I acknowledge that people with homosexual tendencies carry a huge cross and should refrain from acting on it. That said I'm not the religious police. Gay people don't have to do as I say. I won't sue them if they disagree with me. Yet, the liberal media paints religious people like Catholics as insignificant or as bigots and the government has used its force of law to support them at least in New Mexico. I go to church weekly and try to practice my faith. How many of that pew research group of Catholics do the same? I do not believe in gay marriage.
Don't trust every poll you read. Remember the presidential election. While pew research isn't necessarily a liberal organization its methods of gathering data maybe similar i.e. Phone calls and some written surveys. How they phrase a question either verbally or written can and does influence a result. For instance I'm catholic I agree with the church that the homosexual act is gravely disordered. Yet, I'm an American I live in a pluralistic society, I acknowledge that people with homosexual tendencies carry a huge cross and should refrain from acting on it. That said I'm not the religious police. Gay people don't have to do as I say. I won't sue them if they disagree with me. Yet, the liberal media paints religious people like Catholics as insignificant or as bigots and the government has used its force of law to support them at least in New Mexico. I go to church weekly and try to practice my faith. How many of that pew research group of Catholics do the same? I do not believe in gay marriage.
It's a multipoint answer. Each reason being a valid on it's own.
1. This issue hasn't just stayed a private matter between others. Dr. Michael Brown has accurately differentiated between those who want to privately practice homosexuality from those who are pushing a societal homosexual agenda on various fronts. I believe he puts it best when he says that at first they said all they wanted was tolerance, but after they got tolerance that wasn't enough, now they demand that we openly celebrate their lifestyle choice with them and teach our kids that it's ok for them to do the same. Schools are being pressured to adopt pro-homosexual teaching agendas. Kids are told they can be whatever gender they think they are, sowing confusion. You can't object to being involved in homosexual weddings withing being sued and put out of business. If the people pushing this aggressive ideological agenda had their way it won't be long before you are jailed, as a pastor was in Canada, for simply saying that homosexuality is a sin according to the Bible. Freedom of speech and religion is at stake, so when Christians resist what is called "the homosexual agenda", they are resisting attempts to reshape society and take away their freedom more than they are trying to tell individuals what to do.
2. If you love an individual, then speaking to them as an individual you will tell them they are doing something that is against God's design for them; because anything that goes against God's design for us is always harmful to ourselves and others. God's design and plan for their life holds with it better promises than they would have by choosing to remain in their sin.
3. If you love your community, you will in the same way seek to tell them the truth; that life will be better if they align themselves with God's will and forsake what God has warned them not to do. This is not just for their sake, but for the sake of those you care about who live in that community. It is akin to wanting to see a community with a severe alcoholism problem find freedom from that sinful lifestyle of addiction and self destruction; not just for their sake, but because the people you know and care about in that community are being put at risk by increased crime, drunk drivers, and may be more likely to become addicted by being exposed to all that is going on around them.
Sin has consequences to the individual, but also has consequences for society if enough individuals embrace it. An example of this would be heterosexual sin, such as adultery and fornication. In a couple generations it has destroyed the family unit in the USA. People have broken relationships because they don't sexually bond to one person at a time as God intended. People are killing unwanted children by the millions in the womb because they want sex without responsibility. Fatherlessness is rampant, which has broadly negative impacts on kids that effects their whole life.
Christian children are being swept up into all this more as time goes on because the pressure of society around them, peers, media, public education, is becoming a stronger on them than the values they grew up with.
It's not unlike living in a society where corruption is rampant in police and government, where no justice is done. Yes, it is of value to other people that the system be reformed; but it also becomes in the interest of the Christians to tell society they need to line up with God's will concerning equal justice and uncorrupt judges, because if society doesn't change then their family may find themselves being victimized by the sinful system they live under.
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Skwim
Veteran Member
Read the next two posts after yours.
That's why Christians are generally seen as bigots.
Tom
Prestor John
Well-Known Member
This just proves that the younger generations are not practicing Catholics.While the church itself opposes same-sex marriage most of its members favor supporting it, which is encouraging, particularly among its younger members.
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Prestor John
Well-Known Member
Wouldn't this information support the theories and fears of those Christians who oppose homosexuality and "same-sex marriage"?
Skwim
Veteran Member
An individual you love I can understand, but the caring goes way beyond this. Christians care what complete strangers do in the bedroom, and involve themselves in trying to stop some of it. Would you appreciate Muslims insisting that you or your female significant other wear a hijab and niqab in public, and actively backing laws that insist it be done?
Obviously then you perceive what homosexuals do in the privacy of their homes to be detrimental to the community. Care to lay out these detriments?
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Skwim
Veteran Member
They are practicing the Catholicism of the future.
Tom
I trust the poll more than your anecdotes. The graphic Skwim posted included Mass attendance in it. Even Catholics who attend Mass weekly or more are still more likely to be supportive than not. So you're in the minority now.
Which "theories and fears"?
But Islam is pretty strict on its views with homosexuality, why is bigotry automatically seen as a Christian ''trait?''
You ignored point #1.
It's not kept in their home. It's not even merely flaunted in public. It's been taken to a new level where there is an agenda to forcibly resocialize the country through the media and public education to have us all view this lifestyle as normal, even admirable, and to stigmatize anyone who disagrees with that lifestyle on religious grounds as someone who is on par with a racist. If they had their way, they'd start jailing Christians just for speaking their opinion publically too.
That's where Christians have an obligation to legally and politically push back for the sake of their own freedoms, and to guard the moral integrity of their families and communities against a powerful minority in media and politics that want to force them to change their values.
The real question that first has to be asked is: Did God design us, and design us to live in a certain way, where there are consequences for rebelling against God's design?
If you say yes to that question, then we can start to talk about what the difference is between violating God's law and violating man's law. The later doesn't have a negative impact on society unless you are violating God's law as well.
I would say a lot of muslim law reflects man-made legalism, and because of that it actually has a harmful effect on society rather than a positive one.
In contrast, no society is going to be made worse by trying to more faithfully apply the teachings of Jesus to their life and community - Because it is the most pure reflection of what God's design, character, and values are. Society will only be made better by it.
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McBell
Unbound
Oh the poor poor Christians.
Sad they dislike the taste of their own medicine.
You do know that Christians are the most persecuted people in the world, right?
Especially in the USA.
Tom