Turbo Monk said:
Who the fuck cares why a person is gay? If they're not doing anything that impacts your life, why do you give a shit whether it's genetic or environmental?
Usually when people say fuck or shit in a response, I steer clear until their blood pressure lowers and they're more inclined to have a reasonable discussion.
To answer your question, who cares about anything? What's the point of posting on a message board anyhow?
The profanity was used merely as an emphatic tool, not to indicate my level of emotion. I personally don't care one bit whether you change or maintain your view on the issue. The world will go on changing whether or not you, I or anybody personally agree with the direction the changes take, so your personal mindset on the issue matters not a whit.
Of course, I'd rather that you change your mindset because I feel overall it would be more beneficial to society than if you didn't do so, but even if you don't, your mindset and the collective mindset of all those who agree with you will not be enough to withstand the course of evolution if that is in fact the path that evolution is taking, which it appears to be.
My point was to inquire how tolerating someone else being homosexual and fully accepting them as members of society with all of the ancillary rights thereto TANGIBLY, NEGATIVELY, EXTERNALLY impacts someone who is NOT homosexual. Sure, it may be at odds your personal beliefs or engender distaste in you, but those aren't TANGIBLE external effects. You may negate those psychological effects altogether by simply choosing to ignore them.
Explain how tolerating homosexuality tangibly impacts YOU personally, not God or some other fictional entity such as an organized religion, in a negative fashion. And remember, saying "I don't like seeing them, thinking about what they do, thinking that I'm condoning sin by tolerating them, etc., etc." is NOT a tangible external effect, since you and you alone have the ability to control whether or not those thoughts affect you.
No one is arguing that churches MUST agree to endorse gay marriages by marrying them in the church. Since I don't ascribe to faith in any organized religion, I personally don't care whether or not churches EVER come around to recognizing homosexual unions. That's their business, and since I don't want anything to do with them I don't give a damn how they administer their rituals. What I DO care about is that our society treat all similarly situated individuals equally under the law, and that is currently not the case with homosexuals. When homosexuals have the right to have their unions recognized by the State as marriages they will have full equality under the law, and whether or not civil law agrees with religious law on the issue is irrelevant.
I would make the following points about your desire to prohibit homosexuals from being married in the Church, however. If, as you say, all Christians are sinners, then how is it that some sinners are allowed the sacrament of marriage and some aren't? Doesn't that create classes of sinners? Aren't you, as a heterosexual Christian sinner, somehow BETTER than the homosexual sinner since you have the right to participate in one of your God's sacraments and he or she doesn't? Does God let some sinners go to the head of the class, while others have to sit in the corner wearing the dunce cap?
Isn't it the case under your religion that ALL sinners are saved ONLY by God's grace, not by ANYTHING you (as the sinner) do, think or say? So if that's the case then, then isn't it also true that whether or not you (as the sinner) have been able to reform from whatever sin or weakness you personally suffer most from, whether it's gambling, adultery, homosexuality or whatever, is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to whether or not you're accepted as a child of God? Isn't it true that God will accept a sinner who commits the same sin OVER AND OVER AGAIN as long as he or she believes in God and accepts God's grace as forgiveness for his or her inability to overcome that weakness? Wouldn't that same sinner still receive God's grace even if he or she was NEVER able to overcome that weakness during his or her ENTIRE life?
Suppose two degenerate heterosexual gamblers came to the Church and asked to be married. Would the Church deny them the sacrament of marriage unless they could prove they had completely reformed from the sin of gambling? By your logic, the Church SHOULD deny them that right since the degenerate gamblers, although admitting that they were sinners, could not prove that they would never commit the sin of gambling again, and thus had not repented and were not worthy of receiving God's sacrament of marriage.
Or suppose two couples, one homosexual and one heterosexual in orientation, came to the Church seeking to be married. Both couples were asexual in practice, however. The homosexual couple swore before God that although they loved one another, they had no intention of engaging in homosexual sex or even THINKING about engaging in homosexual sex. Likewise, the heterosexual couple swore before God that although they loved one another, they had no intention of engaging in heterosexual sex or even THINKING of engaging in heterosexual sex. Both couples swore that they intended to express their love for one another in only nonsexual ways.
It's not the case that the Church would require the heterosexual couple to swear to engage in sex before agreeing to marry them, is it? Would the Church say to the heterosexual couple, "You're not worthy of receiving the Lord's sacrament of marriage because you are not choosing to express your love in a manner that we deem worthy of the sacrament"? Is it the Church's place to judge the value of any couple's love? I wouldn't think so, but under your God's view, the heterosexual couple would be married and the homosexual couple wouldn't, despite both couples being sinners in spite of their best intentions, despite both couples loving one another in honor of God's Commandment to love one another and despite God's law that NOTHING they could do, think or say would save them anyway.
Under the last hypothetical, how is it possible to conclude that your view doesn't view some sinners as better than others? It doesn't seem possible to me unless you employ a little good ol' fashioned hypocrisy, but of course that's always been a time-honored tradition in Christianity.
