Homosexuality & Religion

[tomato1236]

I have opinions and all that crap. I'm staying out of this convo. I want to indicate my presence, though. Bing!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

it doesnt matter to those who are not concerned with God

To those who are concerned with God, it matters to them because it matters to him.

Religious attitudes toward homosexuality cause untolled human suffering.

One of my school friends killed himself because of rejection by his family and his community, rooted in religious and cultural attitudes toward homosexuality (he came out after he and his family moved back to Botswana when he was a teenager. As bad as things can be here in North America for LGBT teens, I can't begin to imagine what it's like for them in Africa).

I don't give a fig about your God, but what you preach about homosexuality damn well does matter to me.

 

[MW0082]

Straight people hunt gay people to try to change them? That's bizarre.

Thats what those groups do, they prey on weak or confused homosexual men and try to convert them with scare tactics....

 

[painted wolf]

It's interesting how much some people focus on homosexuality as a major sin, when it's not mentioned in say the 10 commandments... but next to other evils like eating shrimp.

But adultery which is, is ignored... not to mention OMG's.

Apparently God is more concerned with a child having two mommies than people not keeping the Sabbath holy, or any of the other commandments. Or that Golden rule thing.

wa:do

 

[Rainbow Mage]

It's interesting how much some people focus on homosexuality as a major sin, when it's not mentioned in say the 10 commandments... but next to other evils like eating shrimp.

But adultery which is, is ignored... not to mention OMG's.

Apparently God is more concerned with a child having two mommies than people not keeping the Sabbath holy, or any of the other commandments. Or that Golden rule thing.

wa:do

Christians sure don't mind visiting the buffet after church to be gluttons, another sin according to the Bible.

 

[tomato1236]

Thats what those groups do, they prey on weak or confused homosexual men and try to convert them with scare tactics....

What groups? Do they trap gay people in nets and throw them in their anti-gay van? How do they try to convert them? I can see how a cultural doctrine that it's unacceptable to be gay would motivate (even if negatively) newly gay people to try to change, but I can't imagine that people are in therapy against their will. Except maybe some kids whose parents insist.

 

[Nerthus]

And they wonder why homosexual teens have a higher suicide rate... DUH. They have the various religions around them telling them God hates a part of them, other kids who believe that God hates homosexuality tease and torture them, their own parents sometimes disown them or try to change them... NO WONDER they see little hope in humanity when those around them don't treat them as humans!

Exactly!

A lot of the hate towards homosexuality comes from certain religious groups, and kids feel they have no other choice than to deny who they are, or kill themselves. It really is sad, and actually pretty awful.

 

[no-body]

I think anyone who is heterosexual and has the balls to tell homosexuals to stay celibate needs to follow Paul's edict that staying celibate is better than being married. Just so to be fair.

 

[Jeremiah]

God created humans a long time ago, Adam and Eve were perfect, but their children (us) were not. Imperfection has caused our biology to change somewhat, but that doesnt mean that God creates the changes.

I dont believe all homosexuals are 'born' homosexuals, however i think we have to acknowledge that there is some degree of 'biological' activity going on for 'some'.... im speaking about hermaphrodites here, we know they exist and we know that it is a biological issue but i dont believe ALL homosexuals are biologically affected. For others, there may be some hormonal issues that cause them to lean toward homosexuality and I think that also needs to be acknowledged, but I think we have the ability to correct our impulses if we want to. I personally know 3 homosexuals who were able to cease living a homosexual lifestyle by choice.

"I dont believe all homosexuals are 'born' homosexuals, however i think we have to acknowledge that there is some degree of 'biological' activity going on for 'some'.... im speaking about hermaphrodites here, we know they exist and we know that it is a biological issue but i dont believe ALL homosexuals are biologically affected. For others, there may be some hormonal issues that cause them to lean toward homosexuality and I think that also needs to be acknowledged, but I think we have the ability to correct our impulses if we want to."

So according to you only hermaphrodites are born gay?

How much do you really know about it? Ever read any books about it? Articles? Anything? Or do you just think you can know this stuff and no study is needed to understand it?

Here is a link to start educating yourself with; which clearly you need.

http://www.davidmyers.org/davidmyers/assets/Sex-Orient-9e.pdf


" I personally know 3 homosexuals who were able to cease living a homosexual lifestyle by choice."

Sure you do; and with such an inept and hostile view of homosexuality I am sure you are viewing it objectively.

The mass media and the Web are filled with claims these days from religious conservatives, orthodox psychoanalysts, anti-gay organizations, and even a professional football player claiming that people with a homosexual orientation not only can become heterosexual, but also should do so.
However, claims by the Family Research Council, Charles Socarides, Joseph Nicolosi, and others of "successful" conversions through reparative therapy are filled with methodological ambiguities and questionable results (for reviews, see Haldeman, 1991, 1994; see also Haldeman's 1999 review paper is available on the web in HTML and Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format). They are also ethically suspect. [Bibliographic references are on a different web page]
In many of these behavior-change techniques, "success" has been defined as suppression of homoerotic response or mere display of physiological ability to engage in heterosexual intercourse. Neither outcome is the same as adopting the complex set of attractions and feelings that constitute sexual orientation.
Many interventions aimed at changing sexual orientation have succeeded only in reducing or eliminating homosexual behavior rather than in creating or increasing heterosexual attractions. They have, in effect, deprived individuals of their capacity for sexual response to others. These "therapies" have often exposed their victims to electric shocks or nausea-producing drugs while showing them pictures of same-sex nudes (such techniques appear to be less common today than in the past).
Another problem in many published reports of "successful" conversion therapies is that the participants' initial sexual orientation was never adequately assessed. Many bisexuals have been mislabeled as homosexuals with the consequence that the "successes" reported for the conversions actually have occurred among bisexuals who were highly motivated to adopt a heterosexual behavior pattern.
The extent to which people have actually changed their behavior – even within the confines of these inadequate operational definitions – often has not been systematically assessed. Instead, only self reports of patients or therapists' subjective impressions have been available. More rigorous objective assessments (e.g., behavioral indicators over an extended period of time) have been lacking (Coleman, 1982; Haldeman, 1991, 1994; Martin, 1984).1
Some psychoanalysts claim to have conducted empirical research demonstrating that their "therapies" are able to change gay people into heterosexuals. Their studies have multiple flaws, including a lack of safeguards against bias and a lack of control groups. Rather than having patients evaluated by an independent third party who is unaware of which patients received the "reparative therapy," these studies are simply compilations of self-reports from psychoanalysts who are attempting to change their patients' sexual orientation (and who are highly motivated to report "success").
And even if we accept these studies' claim that change has occurred, they do not provide any evidence that such change resulted from a particular therapy. Individuals who changed might well have done so anyway, even without therapy.

Facts About Changing Sexual Orientation

It goes on and if you really want to understand homosexuality, instead of just making stuff up off the top of your head, you might want to read the whole web page. Then if you are really so concerned with homosexuality, instead of remaining ignorant, you might what to look at the other sections in the website too.

 

[Father Heathen]

It's interesting how much some people focus on homosexuality as a major sin, when it's not mentioned in say the 10 commandments... but next to other evils like eating shrimp.

But adultery which is, is ignored... not to mention OMG's.

Apparently God is more concerned with a child having two mommies than people not keeping the Sabbath holy, or any of the other commandments. Or that Golden rule thing.

wa:do

Yeah, it's adorable how they hypocritically cherry pick their holy book and then blissfully assume without any thought that their god is cool with that. Religious folk seem far more concerned about other people's sins rather than their own, and it isn't about saving souls, they want to see people burn in hell. The get some sort of sick satisfaction from the idea of a godless sinner getting their eternal comeuppance. And we as a society for some reason take them seriously.

 

[Father Heathen]

Do they trap gay people in nets and throw them in their anti-gay van?

They use a gayger counter to detect gaydiation.

 

[tomato1236]

They use a gayger counter to detect gaydiation.

And THEN they throw the net.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

but I can't imagine that people are in therapy against their will. Except maybe some kids whose parents insist.

Its not uncommon to send kids against their will. For adults a Psychiatric charlatan is just as bad Pharmaceutical charlatan. Buy any snake oil lately. You do know that people use to buy it under there own will get sick and die.

 

[tomato1236]

Its not uncommon to send kids aganst their will.

Which is why I made the exception to my imaginations.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

Which is why I made the exception to my imaginations.

So its ok to send adults to charlatans and not children?

 

[Smoke]

I think anyone who is heterosexual and has the balls to tell homosexuals to stay celibate needs to follow Paul's edict that staying celibate is better than being married. Just so to be fair.

At the very least, they should be as strict about divorce and remarriage for heterosexuals as they are about homosexuality. And I don't mean the Catholic solution, where they just call their divorces annulments.

If your first marriage fails, that's it. You're celibate for life or you're out of the church. That's absolutely no hardship at all compared to the way they expect gay folks to live, i.e., celibate for life with no chance at all of having an intimate relationship.

Christian heterosexuals are not even expected to follow their own rules. I know a woman who has had four divorces, and has married five different men in the church. I know dozens of Catholics and Orthodox who have been divorced and had their second marriages blessed by their churches. I know Episcopal clergy who are divorced and remarried but have left the Episcopal Church because they won't tolerate the church's acceptance of gay people. In the LDS Church even if you marry in the temple "for time and eternity" you can still get a divorce and marry somebody else in the temple for time and eternity.

I don't care what they do, but such shameless hypocrisy is one of the reasons I have little respect for Christianity. If they expect gay people to abide by the arbitrary rule of "one man + one woman," then they had damned well better be prepared to abide by that rule themselves. But the churches will accommodate the straight folks while pretending no accommodation is possible for gay folks, because the pulpits and the pews alike are filled with bigots and hypocrites.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

At the very least, they should be as strict about divorce and remarriage for heterosexuals as they are about homosexuality. And I don't mean the Catholic solution, where they just call their divorces annulments.

If your first marriage fails, that's it. You're celibate for life or you're out of the church. That's absolutely no hardship at all compared to the way they expect gay folks to live, i.e., celibate for life with no chance at all of having an intimate relationship.

Christian heterosexuals are not even expected to follow their own rules. I know a woman who has had four divorces, and has married five different men in the church. I know dozens of Catholics and Orthodox who have been divorced and had their second marriages blessed by their churches. I know Episcopal clergy who are divorced and remarried but have left the Episcopal Church because they won't tolerate the church's acceptance of gay people. In the LDS Church even if you marry in the temple "for time and eternity" you can still get a divorce and marry somebody else in the temple for time and eternity.

I don't care what they do, but such shameless hypocrisy is one of the reasons I have little respect for Christianity. If they expect gay people to abide by the arbitrary rule of "one man + one woman," then they had damned well better be prepared to abide by that rule themselves. But the churches will accommodate the straight folks while pretending no accommodation is possible for gay folks, because the pulpits and the pews alike are filled with bigots and hypocrites.

This is also my central problem with modern American Christianity.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

First you would have to know why the dog humps my leg sometimes, is it because it believes my leg will have puppys, I think not. I dont think they really know, It would seem its because of hormones, but I dont really know. Natural is a big word,I think homesexuality is against Gods Word.I think it is a spiritual illness. I think it is a desire of the flesh, an over indulgent.

The dog is humping your leg to tell you he is your boss. It is dog talk for your my B***h

 

[tomato1236]

So its ok to send adults to charlatans and not children?

Haha you're really stretching for an argument, aren't you. Who exactly is forcing adult gays to therapy again? First you ignore my exception, then you ignore the other half of my post. Yikes.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

At the very least, they should be as strict about divorce and remarriage for heterosexuals as they are about homosexuality. And I don't mean the Catholic solution, where they just call their divorces annulments.

If your first marriage fails, that's it. You're celibate for life or you're out of the church. That's absolutely no hardship at all compared to the way they expect gay folks to live, i.e., celibate for life with no chance at all of having an intimate relationship.

Christian heterosexuals are not even expected to follow their own rules. I know a woman who has had four divorces, and has married five different men in the church. I know dozens of Catholics and Orthodox who have been divorced and had their second marriages blessed by their churches. I know Episcopal clergy who are divorced and remarried but have left the Episcopal Church because they won't tolerate the church's acceptance of gay people. In the LDS Church even if you marry in the temple "for time and eternity" you can still get a divorce and marry somebody else in the temple for time and eternity.

I don't care what they do, but such shameless hypocrisy is one of the reasons I have little respect for Christianity. If they expect gay people to abide by the arbitrary rule of "one man + one woman," then they had damned well better be prepared to abide by that rule themselves. But the churches will accommodate the straight folks while pretending no accommodation is possible for gay folks, because the pulpits and the pews alike are filled with bigots and hypocrites.

I know three different Catholics who have undertaken fertility treaments/procedures that run counter to Church teaching. One of them has a bunch of frozen eggs waiting for in-vitro fertilization, a procedure that the Church considers to involve an act of literal murder.

Actually, this sort of thing is why I think there's hope for same-sex couples in the Catholic Church. I know that they say that their doctrines never change, but if homosexuality is condemned the way that other supposedly heinous sins are "condemned" today, then the Church might actually become a livable place for LGBT people. Not perfect, but livable.