Turbo Monk said:
glowbug,
"But to keep me from being puffed up with pride... I was given a painful physical ailment, which acts as Satan's messenger to beat me and keep me from being proud." (2 Corinthians, 12,7)
I have a painful physical ailment stemming back to an accident from my childhood. This keeps me from being puffed up with pride because I know that any given breath could be my last.
From 1 Corinthians 7:1-3:
"Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.
But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
The husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband."
When Paul states it's good for a man not to marry, he's stating a man can better serve God when he's not catering to the whims of his wife. If you notice the specific sexes associating husband and wife you will clearly see it's a man/woman union.
That quote from the Episcopal bishop is biased to say the least - Episcopalians are libs and are pioneers of sanctioning same-sex marriages.
First, as a preliminary matter, you yourself admitted that much of the information I cited was drawn from a published book on the subject. And then you attempted to refute it with a "good mate's" unpublished, uncredentialed blog...nothing like quoting bloggers over published works. 8) At the very least, those blog sources in my link are no less credible than your unpublished mate's blog. If your good mate is an authority on the subject, you sure ain't submitted anything to prove it.
With respect to the "painful physical ailment", if indeed he was a self-loathing homosexual, of course Ru-Paul would call it physical, since A) he was ashamed to admit its true nature, and B) even the Greek literature of the time ascribed sexual arousal as being primarily physical in nature (e.g., Aristotle) rather than psychological.
Moreover, let's use a little common sense here...if indeed the ailment was purely physical in nature, why would Ru-Paul continually beseech God to remove it from him? The answer is, he wouldn't...he would eventually accept his ailment and deal with it, much as you have with your back ailment. Let's assume Ru-Paul was born with 4 fingers instead of the usual 5...now knowing that fingers just don't magically grow no matter how much one beseeches the Creator, why would Ru-Paul continually ask? Was he just stupid that way?
But THOUGHTS and SEXUAL DESIRES, on the other hand, may be repressed to the point of blissful ignorance of their existence, if the person in question works hard enough at it. If the desires in question are so strong, however, as sexual desires typically are, then the person would be unable to repress them completely...hence, Ru-Paul's frequent supplications to God to relieve him of the occasional surfacing of the "wicked" desires.
I've saved my best response for last, though...ah, dear Turbo, you have fallen into a trap of your own making with your explanation of 1 Cor 7:1-2. So Ru-Paul states "a man can better serve God without being hindered by the whims of a woman"...let's play a little logic game here. Under Christian principles and Ru-Paul's doctrine, serving God is one's highest calling, is it not? And logically speaking if anything hinders one's highest calling, it should be removed, correct? So logically speaking, if the "whims of women" hinder men from better serving God, then women are evil creatures of Satan, are they not, and men should cast them aside and have nothing to do with them, should they not?
Does it not follow, then, that marriage between a man and woman is not only NOT sacred, but in fact EVIL? In fact, isn't DIVORCE more sacred to God then, since men will be better able to serve him once freed from the "whims of women"?
Since God is infinitely more logical than Ru-Paul or any of us puny humans, it's logical to assume that under your view God, being a supremely logical being, would also elevate divorce to a sacred place above marriage. Let's hear it for God's holy sacrament of DIVORCE! WHEEE!
Just taking your view to its logical conclusion...wasn't that fun to follow along? Since heterosexual marriage apparently isn't sacred under your view, I'm surprised you Christians aren't BEGGING for those deviant homosexuals to get married...cast them down in that pit of unsacred marriage where they can be led even farther astray!
With respect to your bias comment, ALL opinions are biased, so that's not necessarily a pertinent criticism...the question is whether the bias toward one side of the argument is more well-grounded in reason than the opposing bias. I would note that you had nothing to say about Nock (a Doctor of Divinity and noted Ru-Pauline scholar) agreeing that Ru-Paul's "thorn in the flesh" may very well have been his sexual desires.