Homosexuality and religion

[sojourner]

Yes, you are right, there is. Having temptations towards people of the same sex is not a sin. It is when one acts on that temptation that it becomes a sin.

No. It isn't. Rape is sin. consensual sex isn't.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Not necessarily. There are men who after exploration discovered that their attractions were merely a deep platonic love that was rarely, if ever, examined. They could never hold hands with another boy when they were young children, never express the words "I love you" to another boy, or never kiss another boy on the cheek as an expression of platonic adoration.

These behaviors are highly discouraged by our culture by suggesting that such affections between boys are sexualized or homo-erotic. And, again, such behaviors aren't necessarily sexual affections.

It is these types of cultural hang-ups where I believe boys are at a terrible disadvantage compared to girls. Girls can hug, kiss each other's hands and cheeks, and freely show adoration and affection freely without much in the way of shame. But because of the cultural disgust we have toward male-on-male sweet affection, there's a lot that is missed.

One of the dance videos I often share with people still rather new to dance is a 6 minute montage of many different people of all ages describing why they love dance. One of the groups that is featured is all males over 50, dancing contemporary dance together. In the video interview, one of the men said so simply while placing a supportive, soft, and loving hand on another male dancer's shoulder:

"I love this class because here I can touch another man. And it's just me touching him."

There's a lot of truth there.

Kissing a man on his cheek and holding his hand are a lot different than having sex with him...

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Once its out there in the public arena, it can't be ignored. Your apparent level of entitlement is astounding -- that is, of course, unless you're just yanking my chain for your own jollies.

I already told you I'm serious. I wouldn't call it a sense of entitlement, at least I don't feel more entitled to freely express my opinion than anyone else is. Anyone can say whatever they feel, regardless of how I feel about it. I might tell them they're wrong, but I would never try to shut them up because they could potentially be hurting someone's feelings. If anything I'd say the over-sensitive people who try to censor and suppress free speech in the name of their precious feelings are the ones being pretentious.

 

[sojourner]

I already told you I'm serious. I wouldn't call it a sense of entitlement, at least I don't feel more entitled to freely express my opinion than anyone else is. Anyone can say whatever they feel, regardless of how I feel about it. I might tell them they're wrong, but I would never try to shut them up because they could potentially be hurting someone's feelings. If anything I'd say the over-sensitive people who try to censor and suppress free speech in the name of their precious feelings are the ones being pretentious.

Tell that to Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, Irish, Polish, women, homosexuals, or any other group that has systemically been discriminated against. They'll tell you about their precious feelings.

I invite you to stand in the middle of Harlem and yell the "N-word" several times. That's "freedom of speech" -- but be aware: you might get your "precious feelings" hurt by a group of very large gentlemen of African descent who don't take kindly to your label of them... Then we'll see if their "overly-sensitive" version of "you're wrong" doesn't shut down your pretentiousness.

 

[sojourner]

Kissing a man on his cheek and holding his hand are a lot different than having sex with him...

So is bending someone over and penetrating an orifice against his wishes different than "having sex with him?" I think it is!

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Tell that to Blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, Irish, Polish, women, homosexuals, or any other group that has systemically been discriminated against. They'll tell you about their precious feelings.

I invite you to stand in the middle of Harlem and yell the "N-word" several times. That's "freedom of speech" -- but be aware: you might get your "precious feelings" hurt by a group of very large gentlemen of African descent who don't take kindly to your label of them... Then we'll see if their "overly-sensitive" version of "you're wrong" doesn't shut down your pretentiousness.

1)I am Hispanic and could honestly care less what people have to say about it. Anything anyone has to say about me won't cause me physical pain and my pride can bear it. Everyone has the right to hate me and my people as they please...
2)My father's black, as is a large portion of my family, I grew up using the "N-word" on a daily basis; you might suffer for using it in Harlem, but I'll be just fine. Not everyone on this forum is a privileged white kid you can scare with your overblown violent picture of minorities...
3)Funny how you're lecturing me on cultural sensitivity yet use the term "Orientals"

 

[Enai de a lukal]

It's an abomination.

You'd better hope not, since homosexuality is, judging by all the evidence, a natural phenomenon. It occurs in various animal populations. It appears to have an evolutionary function (e.g. controlling overpopulation when resources are scarce). And so if you believe God created nature, then you'd better hope homosexuality is not an abomination, and that Leviticus is wrong- because if it is, it's God's fault... Oopsies, eh?

 

[sojourner]

1)I am Hispanic and could honestly care less what people have to say about it. Anything anyone has to say about me won't cause me physical pain and my pride can bear it. Everyone has the right to hate me and my people as they please...
2)My father's black, as is a large portion of my family, I grew up using the "N-word" on a daily basis; you might suffer for using it in Harlem, but I'll be just fine. Not everyone on this forum is a privileged white kid you can scare with your overblown violent picture of minorities...
3)Funny how you're lecturing me on cultural sensitivity yet use the term "Orientals"

Doesn't matter who you are or how you feel about yourself. You and I both know that systemic discrimination continues to be harmful for the LGBTQ population -- just as it was in the past for your family, they would have been forced to drink from the "other water-fountain." We're forty years removed from the pinnacle of the racial equality fight. You appear to have the benefit of the salve of time. But the LGBTQ equality fight is at its pinnacle right now, and the people who identify as such have every right and expectation to be sensitive about the use of terms, as your family likely would have been back then.

Funny how you say you're part of a community who has historically been systematically screwed over, yet the entitlement in your own posts only serves to perpetuate the same kind of discrimination that has harmed our society for far too long. I guess you feel it's OK for you to do that, though, as long as you're not personally hurt...

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Doesn't matter who you are or how you feel about yourself. You and I both know that systemic discrimination continues to be harmful for the LGBTQ population -- just as it was in the past for your family, they would have been forced to drink from the "other water-fountain." We're forty years removed from the pinnacle of the racial equality fight. You appear to have the benefit of the salve of time. But the LGBTQ equality fight is at its pinnacle right now, and the people who identify as such have every right and expectation to be sensitive about the use of terms, as your family likely would have been back then.

Funny how you say you're part of a community who has historically been systematically screwed over, yet the entitlement in your own posts only serves to perpetuate the same kind of discrimination that has harmed our society for far too long. I guess you feel it's OK for you to do that, though, as long as you're not personally hurt...

I haven't made a single anti-gay comment throughout this whole thread; the only people I've "offended" are rapists... You would love to paint me as some sort of gay-hater for the benefit of your argument, but me calling a rapist gay is not the same thing as equating all gays to rapists. If I say Dr. Phil is fat does that mean I'm saying all fat people are Dr. Phil? And also, my grandmother and my older aunts and uncles who lived through the Civil Rights era are less offended by hate speech against them than you seem to be for them. They're reasonable enough to realize that it's over and nothing anyone says can take their rights away. Minorities are just fine and you shouldn't let white man guilt make you so overly sensitive that you infringe on others' rights to free speech

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Kissing a man on his cheek and holding his hand are a lot different than having sex with him...

It can be. It can also be romantic. It can also be sexual. But how are people to know for sure when they are so starved for any clarity of what male-to-male appreciation looks like? It's like asking somebody to discern the subtle differences of oregano and marjoram when they haven't had any italian herbs in their whole lives.

For example, what is the first thing that people think when seeing two men holding hands? What did people do when Carlos Santana won his Grammy and kissed Rob Thomas on the lips at the Grammy Awards? People when sexualizing all male-to-male forms of affection, and then stigmatizing that affection, create a barrier for these types of love and affection to be expressed authentically from the beginning. In this culture, it's frowned upon, and joked about, when two men show love and affection to each other. It's why the joke "No homo" became popular in our urban dictionary for making sure the recipient of the affection is reassured that the love isn't "creepy" or anything.

It's my short take on the theory of stigmatizing what is deemed homo-erotic behavior in males in our culture. Men are not immune to being bi-curious.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Funny how you say you're part of a community who has historically been systematically screwed over, yet the entitlement in your own posts only serves to perpetuate the same kind of discrimination that has harmed our society for far too long. I guess you feel it's OK for you to do that, though, as long as you're not personally hurt...

As far as this statement goes, I don't claim any sort of entitlement because my people have been screwed over in the past, and to do so is just petty. Every race has dealt with some sort of oppression if you dig deep enough into history. I don't see anyone as any better or worse, or more protected from other people's opinions than anyone else, and neither should you.

 

[allright]

I'm saying it's violence to label other people in public, if it's a label they wouldn't choose for themselves.

Better tell Jesus

Mathew 23:33 "Serpents, brood of vipers. How can you escape the condemnation of hell"

John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you want to do".

 

[sojourner]

I haven't made a single anti-gay comment throughout this whole thread; the only people I've "offended" are rapists... You would love to paint me as some sort of gay-hater for the benefit of your argument, but me calling a rapist gay is not the same thing as equating all gays to rapists. If I say Dr. Phil is fat does that mean I'm saying all fat people are Dr. Phil? And also, my grandmother and my older aunts and uncles who lived through the Civil Rights era are less offended by hate speech against them than you seem to be for them. They're reasonable enough to realize that it's over and nothing anyone says can take their rights away. Minorities are just fine and you shouldn't let white man guilt make you so overly sensitive that you infringe on others' rights to free speech

Yes, you have made such comments, and you have said things that may offend some who identify as homosexual. When you reduce one's sexual identity to an act that may be identified as an act of violence, it is a comment that's "anti-gay." Since violence is detestable, it equates that sexual identity as something that is also detestable. And when one's sexual identity is detestable, one's very self is detestable. It's a very slippery slope. You are predicating both the rape and the identity upon the same act.

Of course your family members realize that it's "over." But the same cannot be said for the gay rights mvt. It's just now gaining momentum. And things people say can and do jeopardize the rights they (and others) are fighting to obtain. Some minorities are "just fine." The ones you purportedly identify with may be. But the LGBTQ minority isn't "just fine" yet, while their equal treatment under the law is still under debate. And when one minority is vulnerable, we are all vulnerable.

This doesn't have anything to do with "white man guilt." I have nothing to feel guilty for. It has everything to do with resisting systemic violence wherever it is found, even if it is in the "free speech" that serves to perpetuate the discrimination against at-risk minorities. Do you have the right to say certain things? Yes, you do. But while it may be legal, it certainly isn't beneficial to anyone but yourself -- and, IMO, is complicit in the systemic violence of discrimination. And I reserve the right to speak out against that violence.

Perhaps you should consider the more mature POV that you live in the context of a society, whose viewpoints may differ from your own.

 

[sojourner]

As far as this statement goes, I don't claim any sort of entitlement because my people have been screwed over in the past, and to do so is just petty. Every race has dealt with some sort of oppression if you dig deep enough into history. I don't see anyone as any better or worse, or more protected from other people's opinions than anyone else, and neither should you.

I didn't say you did claim such a thing. But to say "I have the right to say whatever I want, and so what if it offends someone" is to participate in entitlement -- whatever its source.

Everyone should be protected from opinions that undermine a societal vulnerability, and you should be mature enough to realize that.

 

[sojourner]

Better tell Jesus

Mathew 23:33 "Serpents, brood of vipers. How can you escape the condemnation of hell"

John 8:44 "You are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you want to do".

Not the same thing. These are examples of metaphor, not labels of identity.

 

[Kerr]

Or they could just be heterosexual rapists.

Or they just dont have any woman around. What I read, that was partly why homosexuality was common in ancient Greece. If what I remember is correct, they lived in a very segregated society. So segregated some people would seek intimacy with the same sex rather then having no intimacy. Could be wrong, of course, I am not that well versed in history.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Everyone should be protected from opinions that undermine a societal vulnerability, and you should be mature enough to realize that.

Everyone should be their own man regardless of how the people around them feel about it. I have 10 times more respect for a blatant racist than I do for someone who's scared to use the word "black" for fear they might upset someone.

 

[sojourner]

Everyone should be their own man regardless of how the people around them feel about it. I have 10 times more respect for a blatant racist than I do for someone who's scared to use the word "black" for fear they might upset someone.

The disregard for the feelings of others has a name: sociopathic. Sociopathy exhibits a lack of moral responsibility and/or social conscience.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

The disregard for the feelings of others has a name: sociopathic. Sociopathy exhibits a lack of moral responsibility and/or social conscience.

It's actually apathy. But I have been called a sociopath before.

 

[allright]

Not the same thing. These are examples of metaphor, not labels of identity.

hogwash