Monday, November 15, 2010
Fiting the Antigay Crazies Again. AOL hilited today a story about a Protestant minister of a large church near Atlanta who came out as gay to try to help fite gay suicide. Hundreds and hundreds of Bible-thumping loons attacked gay people in comments after that story, so I replied to a bunch of them. In case you'd like some ideas as to the kinds of argumentation you might use to answer other crazies, you might like to read thru my argumentation, below. It comprises 93 comments, and about 4,500 words.
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There is no God. Morality has nothing to do with sexual orientation, but with how you treat the people you are attracted to.
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So no one at all should be allowed to marry publicly, nor refer to a "wife" or "husband". No one believes you actually believe that.
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Tho there is no God, at least your conception of a loving God is Christian, unlike the JEWISH, Old Testament God of Wrath. What kind of monster would worship a monster God?
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Now, now. Washing people's feet to show humility isn't a foot fetish. Washing one's own feet is standard practice in Islam before entering a mosque, so there is an element of cleanliness before (nonexistent) God to Jesus's act. You are, however, quite right that most of the good stuff in the Bible's "rewrite" -- which OVERTHREW Judaism -- is in the New Testament.
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I have never heard Steve Jobs say he is gay. Nor, certainly, that he is God. What are you talking about?
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It's infuriating that the work we did over 40 years ago didn't change much of anything as regards shame and cowardice on the part of gay men. I'm the man who in 1970 offered the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used, and it was my hope that even where people couldn't have "Gay Power" (the original thought), they might at least have self-acceptance and pride. But kids are still too ashamed to come to terms with their reality or stand up for themselves. If they did stand up for themselves, some of these gay kids could beat the crap out of would-be bullies.
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There is no God, no Harry Potter, no Heaven, no Hell. Get your head out of delusion and deal with the real world. You might like it, if you could let go of your fears and hatreds.
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How many people have considered that homosexuality might be Nature's mechanism for fiting overpopulation, the one most basic cause to all of the world's worst problems?
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There is no God; and a gay man, far from being a sinner, is following Jesus's Golden Rule as closely as anyone can: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
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If you are gay and open in Conyers, then you have a point. If you are NOT gay in Conyers, you don't know what you are talking about.
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Homosexuality is fully as normal as heterosexuality. There is no God. You cannot prove anythng you say in LOGIC, only superstition. And gay men don't want visuals of STRAIGHT sex. There's an expression in this country that you might have heard, but plainly don't believe in: "Mind your own business." There's another way you don't believe in: "Live and let live." You don't insult my sexuality, and I won't call you any of the unpleasant sexual names WE have for straight men. As for that "abomination" quote, it is from the OLD Testament -- Judaism. If you aren't a Jew, why would you heed it? The book from which that quote is taken also mandates ANIMAL SACRIFICE and Jewish dietary laws. If you don't perform animal sacrifice or obey Jewish dietary laws, you are a HYPOCRITE in citing to Leviticus.
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You know what is in Pastor Swilley's mind, do you? Do you own a crystal ball? Or did you ask your Magic 8-Ball? As regards teen suicide, there are MANY organizations devoted to suicide prevention, but GAY kids are not likely to call them and pour out their heart to presumed heterosexuals. And YES, Pastor Swilley's stance, along with those of other people who have only recently come out for getting gay kids past a temporary crisis, surely WILL save some kid's life. It will also open some people's closed little minds, when "one of us" turns out to be "one of THEM" too.
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More appalling, people pretend that the Jews' (Old Testament) God of Wrath IS the New Testament's God of Love. You CANNOT reconcile the Old and New Testaments; Christians should BURN the Old Testament, or regard it as literature, not God's word.
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In that there IS NO GOD, it is not necessary to prove that John whatever that is (it is not in standard Biblical citation form) or Leviticus or the Koran or anything else is not the word of a nonexistent critter. Prove that chupacabra sucks the blood of goats.
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I suppose you never heard of LAWS. The nonexistence of God does not mean the nonexistence of right and wrong. People establish morality by teachings and LAWS. And go ahead and take other people's property if you want. We will then take you and throw you into prison, flog you, or kill you -- by MAN'S laws.
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Gay men have children all the time, thru in vitro fertilization (witness Ricky Martin). The main biological function of homosexuality is to LIMIT population, something this planet desperately needs. All children conceived by gay men thru in vitro fertilization are WANTED, which, alas, is far more than can be said for children conceived as an accidental byproduct of heterosexual lust.
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Homosexuality is not a sin, but precisely follows Jesus' Golden Rule.
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Anyone who believes Revelation and selectively quotes from Leviticus (the overwhelming preponderance of which they violate every single day of their lives) is someone to be completely ignored by sensible people. If all you have to 'prove' the 'abomination' of homosexuality is a few lines from 2,000- or 3,000-year-old FICTION, you have no case whatsoever.
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God isn't. Not anything. Does not exist. Morality depends on humanity, not divinity.
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Believe your idiotic Bible if you wish, but don't force it on others. We reject your interpretation, and many of us completely reject the Bible, Torah, Koran, and every other work of poetry or fiction that pretends to speak for a nonexistent "God".
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You are mixing and matching things that have nothing to do with each other, such as killing and having sex. If you really cannot see the difference, you need professional help. No one says that "All truth is relative", only that many things are relative. No one, for instance, makes excuses for murder. And no one says "There is no personal responsibility for anything" -- except you, who are intent on creating straw men you can knock down. Nobody buys your line of "reasoning".
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There is no God, and if you have to heed fiction from more than 2,000 years ago to know how to behave in the world of today, you are irrational. So stop talking about a nonexistent God. You cannot prove the existence of any such critter, and sensible people know He is a figment of some control freaks' imagination to scare the stupid.
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A man who takes marriage vows voluntarily forswears other women. So adultery is a violation of a promise, and thus immoral for THAT, not for the sex. That is not at all comparable to homosexuality. You would forbid gay men to have sex with ANY other man, not just anyone he has not sworn faithfulness to. Nice try, but there is no God, Jesus was not God, just a generally very nice man who told us some good things like "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" and "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." Think about that last one, and you will understand that homosexuality PRECISELY follows that imperative.
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The only sin in mutally consensual sex is something like selfishness or sadism. When Jesus said "Do unto others...", he meant that as much sexually as any other way.
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So say you. What if I say the only right sexuality is between men? To me, I'm right and you're wrong.
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ddan, there is no God, no afterlife, no Last Judgment. The exact same thing happens to people at death as to cats, dogs, insects, or amebas. They just cease to live.
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Ken..., you are quite right that sin is a religious conception. Morality speaks of rights and wrongs, not sins. And morality is based on reason.
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Not everyone has the strength to stand against society and believe in the rightness of his desires. Not everyone has the good sense to say, "I'm a good person, and I wouldn't want this if it were immoral. But I DO want sex with men, so that cannot be wrong." I agree that gay men should NEVER drag women into their confusions. Elton John did it, when he was pretending to be that mythical creature, a "bisexual", and was terribly sorry afterward for having hurt his wife. If you don't want women, don't pretend to. Be a man -- with men -- and stand up for yourself, always.
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Sorry, cholly, but AIDS has nothing to do with sex, or it would be in every single nook and cranny of society. Actually, AIDS in the West is a DRUG INJURY, which is why it remains tightly confined, 30 years on, within minorities soaked in drugs. In Africa, it is a recasting of the same old things that have been killing poor people in that part of the world for thousands of years: www.virusmyth.com.
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But you think that gay men want to hear about YOUR sexual orientation, YOUR husband (or wife)? Until and unless you hide your sexual orientation and keep your sexual relationships a closely guarded secret, don't tell gay men that they cannot speak of their lives and loves as openly as you do.
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Heterosexuals have sex EVERYWHERE -- indoors, outdoors; in theaters, in parks; in men's rooms at concerts, in women's rooms at sporting events. Stop pretending that all those baby-mommas and baby-daddies producing children from loving, respectful, exclusive relationships in deep privacy.
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Before you preach at people, PROVE the existence of God. You can't do that, because in fact there IS NO GOD. And why the Bible? Which part, Jewish (Old Testament) or Christian? How about the Apocrypha? How about the dozens of Gospels that didn't make the final cut? How about the Koran, or Scientology's basic works? It's all nonsense written by control freaks.
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Jews should not be telling Christians how to live. And if you quote Leviticus, you are acting like a Jew, not a Christian. Do you also obey the Jewish dietary laws, advocate universal circumcision, and practice animal sacrifice, all of which are mandated by that Leviticus ONE of whose condemnations you love to cite? No? Then you are a hypocrite, and nobody pays attention to hypocrites.
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The basic difference [between Bible-thumpers and the people repudiating such crap], which makes ALL the difference in the world, is that we don't tell YOU how to live.
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I think the Ten Commandments -- which are JEWISH, not Christian -- are not and must not be in any courthouse in this country. But you are quite right that none of those Ten refers to homosexuality.
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The end times will be when the sun novas, and that is not expected for millions of years. There are no Saints, and, alas, the fine man Jesus died a very long time ago. Nobody comes back. Nobody. So do justice now, according to the Golden Rule. If you don't know what that is, look it up, and understand that it PRECISELY describes homosexuality.
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Judging: Matthew 7:1. Stone, John 8:9. Now kindly stop denying the authenticity of those Biblical imperatives.
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There is no God, and the Bible contradicts itself, starting in the first few pages: Adam and Eve are the only people on Earth, but their son Cain marries a woman from Nod!
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tgerardb, stop making up gay harassment of you poor, oppressed heterosexuals.
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There is no God, so your interpretation of what God says is of no importance. I also don't think Brits ("behaviour") should intrude into discussions of American issues. Mind your own business. NO one chooses to be gay just to tick people off. Stop making up nonsense. I skipped the middle of your longwinded but empty post. But your assertion early on that the Greeks were antihomosexual is WILDLY wrong.
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tgerardb, to the extent the Roman Empire fell at all (we speak a language filled with Latin words, our Capitol is plainly a Roman building, and the dominant religion of the West is Christianity, which was the state religion of the Roman Empire), it did so as did a whole bunch of other civilizations farther east, because of a chain reaction resulting from the irruption of violent nomads in East Central Asia who pushed outward and caused other 'barbarians' to run away from the rampaging savages, into the Roman Empire for safety. The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_roman_empire does not contain the word "homosexuality", because it played NO role in the decline/transformation of the Roman Empire.
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You equate attack and defense. Bible-thumpers attack homosexuals; gay men merely fite back. Not the same.
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Kindly point out ONE THING JESUS SAID in condemnation of homosexuality. Don't quote "Saint Paul", who started life as Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted early Christians 'even unto death' until his guilt caused a religious conversion. Quote JESUS. You can't. Jesus is supposed to be Christ, so if CHRIST said nothing to condemn homosexuality, then one can indeed be both a Christian and a homosexual. I do not accept your right to read Jesus's mind, and speak for him on a topic he did not address, and put an antihomosexual animus in his mouth.
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forcollegenow, if you believe that Adam and Eve were the only people at the beginning of the world, then you OF NECESSITY believe that their children had sex with each other and/or their parents, so the entire human race is the product of INCEST. People who believe in the godliness of incest are in no position to condemn homosexuality.
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In order to understand righteousness as against sin, kindly examine, and think about, Jesus's admonition, "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." That expressly and exactly APPROVES of homosexuality.
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If all pj512 has to justify his antihomosexual attitude is the pretense that his God disapproves, he has NOTHING. There IS NO GOD, but there are many conceptions of God that DO approve of homosexuality.
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The man was weak, "Superdad", and couldn't stand up to the bigots and bullies himself, but finally found his courage when he heard of other people committing suicide because of bullying. Yes, condemn his earlier cowardice, but praise his courage now. One must, however, wonder how many gay kids did commit suicide before he "came out" who might have held on past that awful crisis if he had been forthright, in his megachurch, long ago.
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So you wish his children dead, for never having been born, right? Very Christian. You are right that he should not have TRICKED some naive woman into marrying him, but the article says plainly, "He said his wife of 21 years, Debye, had known before they were married, but loved him anyway." We might agree that that was an odd and probably unwise choice, but it WAS her choice.
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Superdad, there are LOTS of heterosexual marriages of convenience. Some people just give up on finding love, but they commit to someone in the hope that they can have the benefits of marriage, and maybe they'll grow to love. If not, there's always the sex, or the money, or the job with the father-in-law. I trust you are fully as judgmental of those people.
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Ken... Perhaps Randy did choose to be straight, rejecting his actual, homosexual nature. A lot of the most adamant antigay militants are suppressed, self-hating homos.
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bowmakerkt, for a person whose empty-minded antihomosexualism derives from the Old Testament, it's a little odd for you to be talking about bacon. Let us review: there is no God, there is no Last Judgment, there is no Hell. Now, get a life, while you still can. And try to mind you own business. It will make your life easier, and that of everyone else near you.
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Kindly read the story before commenting. He told his kids before he made his announcement, and they backed his decision. So now it's OK to bully not just gays but also straights who have a gay relative?
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Anyone who believes in the silly fable of Adam and Eve -- which would mean that the human race arose from INCEST -- is too foolish to be reasoned with.
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I take it that "Your Highness" refers to drug use. Homosexuality is exactly as much an "affliction" as is heterosexuality. No, I take that back. Homosexuality is wonderful. We can have sex without worrying about knocking anybody up. Any children we have are conceived deliberately. We're not the ones destroying this planet.
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preciouslogic is precious short of logic. If God could just always have existed, then the Universe could just always have existed. Or are you saying that God created Himself? How would nothing create something? -- much less everything?
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bdvs143, you do not speak for God, nor for what any Biblical passage does and does not mean. You are not the Pope -- are you? Protestants tell us we should read the Bible, so they apparently believe that what the Bible says is what it means. But I guess you are the supreme authority on what the Bible means, because you assert with absolute certitude that you know what it means, while anyone who disagrees does not. It doesn't mater, however. You cannot quote any passage of the Bible as authority for anything, any more than anyone can quote a passage of any Harry Potter novel and use it as authority for something.
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How can someone like bdvs143 quote Christian scripture and say that God killed someone?
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Bible-thumpers like those who insist that homosexuality is a "sin" cannot find anything BUT quotations to "God" to justify their baseless assertions. Since there is no God, they have absolutely no basis for their assertions, so all sensible people IGNORE them.
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Jesus was over 30 years old and unmarried, in a society that required marriage. Think about it.
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There is no God, so stop quoting nonsense. You cannot produce a SINGLE logical reason for why homosexuality is "wrong", so just keep your superstitious nonsense to yourself.
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Asserting there IS a God does not make it true.
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Do NOT mistake Paul for Jesus. Paul was an antisexual lunatice who started life as a Jew and persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. Jesus was NOT antisexual, and also not antiHOMOsexual.
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Revelations is meaningless lunacy and has NOTHING to do with anything Jesus said. But everything Jesus said was just the word of an ordinary human being anyway.
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You cannot quote Jesus saying ANYthing about homosexuality -- not anti, no pro. But what Jesus said is just what one man said. You can agree or disagree without any penalty. He has been dead for almost 2,000 years.
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bowmakerkt has apparently never seen a tomcat grab another tom by the scruff of the neck and try to mate with him, nor male cats or dogs sleeping with each other, cleaning each other, etc. The anti-science crowd doesn't want these things studied, but some brave souls have studied homosexuality in the animal kingdom and found it very common.
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Robert, gay people do NOT "thrust their will and lifestyle" upon ANYONE, much less everybody else. You have it exactly backwards. You also do not know how many gay people there are. Nobody does, and as long as people are bullied into hiding their homosexuality, nobody will. The SAME rights are not "extra rights". In Sweden, being black is an "aberration"; in China, being blond is an "aberration". Why should we teach "everyone else's children" that being black or bond is natural? You wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you in the face.
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Kindly quote chapter and verse of where Jesus condemned homosexuality. You cannot DO that, because Jesus NEVER DID condemn homosexuality. Until you CAN quote Jesus against homosexuality, stop taking Jesus's name in vain.
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There is no God, and that "abomination" crap is from Leviticus, which prescribes animal sacrifice, circumcision, and Jewish dietary laws. So unless you adhere to EVERY SINGLE ONE of the over 600 prohibitions in Judaism, you should just shut up about the only one you pay any attention to.
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Adam and Eve supposedly were the only two people on Earth, but billions of people descended from them. How could that be unless their children had sex with each other? If incest is all right with you, what's your problem with homosexuality? And as for population, the world is being destroyed by OVERpopulation. Homosexuality is a natural brake on overpopulation. Embrace it as the blessing it could be, if legalized everywhere on this hugely overcrowded planet.
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wilhoover, Jesus was not antisexual. You have been sold a bill of goods by crazy people who hate the human body. Wake up, be yourself, enjoy the pleasures of the flesh in respectful, gentle, loving activities with men, and let the happiness that homosexual sex gives you fill your life and inspire you to generous activity for others.
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Everything Robert says is not only false, but the OPPOSITE of truth. The only way civilization has ever arisen is thru the actions of what would today be called "Liberals". The Conservatives always defended the institutions of the past, no matter how vicious or wrong they were, such as slavery, treating women and children as chattel property, and on and on. Jesus was a Liberal, who fought for the little guy.
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Who does? I'm homosexual, and I have NEVER called ANYBODY a "butt buddy". You are a clumsy propagandist, aren't you?
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Of course there are gay rabbis and imams. Islam was more tolerant of homosexuality during the West's Middle Ages than was Christendom, but Islam has been largely taken over by its most regressive preachers, as modern U.S. Christianity is under assault by its most regressive preachers. As Islam modernizes, it too will see more enlitened behavior. As for Judaism, there are gay synagogs or gay congregations that meet, with the approval of the predominantly straight congregation that rents them space.
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I'm glad jenjen shows her hatred of the Catholic Church, so we can all see what kind of 'mentality' we are dealing with here. Now she has got herself VERY seriously outnumbered, in taking on a BILLION Catholics, not just the gay population of the United States.
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Leviticus is JEWISH. Christians do not casually disregard the requirements of Judaism. They DEFY them. You then cite to Saul of Tarsus, a man who KILLED early Christians before a crisis of conscience made him convert, whereupon he changed his name to Paul. Find us, the religious and/or cultural critics of the United States ONE quote from JESUS that condemns homosexuality. You can't do it, because Jesus, who was supposed himself to BE God, did NOT, ever, condemn homosexuality.
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Oops. "Critics" should have read "Christians". My criticizing the stance of the Radical Right's misrepresentation of Christianity as Judaism got in the way of my intended statement.
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Homosexuality is barely ever mentioned in media; heterosexuality permeates everything in media. Something has made you hypersensitive. Hm. Hint: It's not outside yourself.
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Lonnie apparently thinks that the living world is divided in thirds, animals, plants, and people. No, human beings are part of the Animal Kingdom in science. But science doesn't mean anything to her. It's just the stuff that made it possible for her to post her silly remarks on the Internet. It has no real meaning.
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Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, or there would be no human race -- if you believe the Adam and Eve fable. If you do NOT accept that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, then you accept that Adam and Eve were NOT the only people at the beginning of the world. Everything you say is subverted by your Adam-and-Eve crap.
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Ah, there it is: the compulsory anti-Obama remarks from the Radical Right. Absolutely NO topic is so far afield that some Radical Rightists cannot bring it around to Barack Obama.
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The only choice he made was to come out publicly.
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yonkaddi, there was a series of gay suicides within a few weeks, including one prompted by a grotesque incident involving a Rutgers University student, and the enormous attention that SERIES of prominent suicides pushed this guy's conscience. Better late than never.
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Yes, of course people choose their orientation, as they choose their race, their place of birth, and their family's socioeconomic status. That is a very Hindu way of thinking. But no, not everyone is bullied mercilessly, tho everyone may be teased from time to time. And not everybody's sex life is streamed on the Internet without permission, which so humiliated a closeted gay college student that he jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
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Kindly cite to ONE condemnaton of homosexuality issued by JESUS. Exact quote, and chapter and verse, please.
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There is no God, and you cannot find any legitimate ground in reality to condemn homosexuality. As for its being a psychological disorder, the American Psychiatric Association says it is NOT a disorder, but you of course know better than the APA.
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Ah, I see. Sex is worse than murder. Of couse it is.
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Those do NOT relate to anything JESUS said. You are quoting Saul of Tarsus ("St. Paul"), NOT Jesus. Stop LYING. Both of those books state very plainly that what follows are the words of PAUL, not Jesus. Paul never even MET Jesus. He never heard a word Jesus said. In fact, he persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. And THAT is your source, not Jesus.
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We are not talking of a choice of actions but of NATURE. He was born homosexual, just as he was born white. There is no issue of a person "choosing to be white". And people cannot choose to "act on being white".
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Actually, reproduction no longer requires sexual activity between the people whose genetic material forms a new life, and in fact we would all be better off if the ONLY children conceived required a carefully considered CHOICE by the parents. This planet is being destroyed by overpopulation, that is, by heterosexuality.
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So you chose to be heterosexual, and could simply change that choice any time you wanted, right?
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The nonreligious people here hate the immorality of intolerance, but do not hate the person -- unless they never give up on thumping their Bible instead of thinking, so continue to justify their intolerance.
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Alas, it is not in the slitest true that the younger generation doesn't care about homosexuality. "That's so gay!" is just one example of the ongoing intolerance and stereotyping that younger people inflict on gay people they don't even realize are in their presence. Teenagers would not be killing themselves if their peers were tolerant. It would be nice if young people were openminded, and anyone could date anyone, of either gender, without being condemned, but we're NOT there yet.
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I suppose you believe the science of the first century too.
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The Bible is nonsense. You are entitled to believe nonsense if you wish, but not to condemn people who refuse that idiocy. Keep your religion to yourself. Gay people don't want to hear it.
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There is no God. Morality has nothing to do with sexual orientation, but with how you treat the people you are attracted to.
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So no one at all should be allowed to marry publicly, nor refer to a "wife" or "husband". No one believes you actually believe that.
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Tho there is no God, at least your conception of a loving God is Christian, unlike the JEWISH, Old Testament God of Wrath. What kind of monster would worship a monster God?
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Now, now. Washing people's feet to show humility isn't a foot fetish. Washing one's own feet is standard practice in Islam before entering a mosque, so there is an element of cleanliness before (nonexistent) God to Jesus's act. You are, however, quite right that most of the good stuff in the Bible's "rewrite" -- which OVERTHREW Judaism -- is in the New Testament.
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I have never heard Steve Jobs say he is gay. Nor, certainly, that he is God. What are you talking about?
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It's infuriating that the work we did over 40 years ago didn't change much of anything as regards shame and cowardice on the part of gay men. I'm the man who in 1970 offered the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used, and it was my hope that even where people couldn't have "Gay Power" (the original thought), they might at least have self-acceptance and pride. But kids are still too ashamed to come to terms with their reality or stand up for themselves. If they did stand up for themselves, some of these gay kids could beat the crap out of would-be bullies.
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There is no God, no Harry Potter, no Heaven, no Hell. Get your head out of delusion and deal with the real world. You might like it, if you could let go of your fears and hatreds.
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How many people have considered that homosexuality might be Nature's mechanism for fiting overpopulation, the one most basic cause to all of the world's worst problems?
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There is no God; and a gay man, far from being a sinner, is following Jesus's Golden Rule as closely as anyone can: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
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If you are gay and open in Conyers, then you have a point. If you are NOT gay in Conyers, you don't know what you are talking about.
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Homosexuality is fully as normal as heterosexuality. There is no God. You cannot prove anythng you say in LOGIC, only superstition. And gay men don't want visuals of STRAIGHT sex. There's an expression in this country that you might have heard, but plainly don't believe in: "Mind your own business." There's another way you don't believe in: "Live and let live." You don't insult my sexuality, and I won't call you any of the unpleasant sexual names WE have for straight men. As for that "abomination" quote, it is from the OLD Testament -- Judaism. If you aren't a Jew, why would you heed it? The book from which that quote is taken also mandates ANIMAL SACRIFICE and Jewish dietary laws. If you don't perform animal sacrifice or obey Jewish dietary laws, you are a HYPOCRITE in citing to Leviticus.
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You know what is in Pastor Swilley's mind, do you? Do you own a crystal ball? Or did you ask your Magic 8-Ball? As regards teen suicide, there are MANY organizations devoted to suicide prevention, but GAY kids are not likely to call them and pour out their heart to presumed heterosexuals. And YES, Pastor Swilley's stance, along with those of other people who have only recently come out for getting gay kids past a temporary crisis, surely WILL save some kid's life. It will also open some people's closed little minds, when "one of us" turns out to be "one of THEM" too.
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More appalling, people pretend that the Jews' (Old Testament) God of Wrath IS the New Testament's God of Love. You CANNOT reconcile the Old and New Testaments; Christians should BURN the Old Testament, or regard it as literature, not God's word.
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In that there IS NO GOD, it is not necessary to prove that John whatever that is (it is not in standard Biblical citation form) or Leviticus or the Koran or anything else is not the word of a nonexistent critter. Prove that chupacabra sucks the blood of goats.
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I suppose you never heard of LAWS. The nonexistence of God does not mean the nonexistence of right and wrong. People establish morality by teachings and LAWS. And go ahead and take other people's property if you want. We will then take you and throw you into prison, flog you, or kill you -- by MAN'S laws.
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Gay men have children all the time, thru in vitro fertilization (witness Ricky Martin). The main biological function of homosexuality is to LIMIT population, something this planet desperately needs. All children conceived by gay men thru in vitro fertilization are WANTED, which, alas, is far more than can be said for children conceived as an accidental byproduct of heterosexual lust.
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Homosexuality is not a sin, but precisely follows Jesus' Golden Rule.
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Anyone who believes Revelation and selectively quotes from Leviticus (the overwhelming preponderance of which they violate every single day of their lives) is someone to be completely ignored by sensible people. If all you have to 'prove' the 'abomination' of homosexuality is a few lines from 2,000- or 3,000-year-old FICTION, you have no case whatsoever.
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God isn't. Not anything. Does not exist. Morality depends on humanity, not divinity.
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Believe your idiotic Bible if you wish, but don't force it on others. We reject your interpretation, and many of us completely reject the Bible, Torah, Koran, and every other work of poetry or fiction that pretends to speak for a nonexistent "God".
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You are mixing and matching things that have nothing to do with each other, such as killing and having sex. If you really cannot see the difference, you need professional help. No one says that "All truth is relative", only that many things are relative. No one, for instance, makes excuses for murder. And no one says "There is no personal responsibility for anything" -- except you, who are intent on creating straw men you can knock down. Nobody buys your line of "reasoning".
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There is no God, and if you have to heed fiction from more than 2,000 years ago to know how to behave in the world of today, you are irrational. So stop talking about a nonexistent God. You cannot prove the existence of any such critter, and sensible people know He is a figment of some control freaks' imagination to scare the stupid.
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A man who takes marriage vows voluntarily forswears other women. So adultery is a violation of a promise, and thus immoral for THAT, not for the sex. That is not at all comparable to homosexuality. You would forbid gay men to have sex with ANY other man, not just anyone he has not sworn faithfulness to. Nice try, but there is no God, Jesus was not God, just a generally very nice man who told us some good things like "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" and "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." Think about that last one, and you will understand that homosexuality PRECISELY follows that imperative.
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The only sin in mutally consensual sex is something like selfishness or sadism. When Jesus said "Do unto others...", he meant that as much sexually as any other way.
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So say you. What if I say the only right sexuality is between men? To me, I'm right and you're wrong.
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ddan, there is no God, no afterlife, no Last Judgment. The exact same thing happens to people at death as to cats, dogs, insects, or amebas. They just cease to live.
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Ken..., you are quite right that sin is a religious conception. Morality speaks of rights and wrongs, not sins. And morality is based on reason.
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Not everyone has the strength to stand against society and believe in the rightness of his desires. Not everyone has the good sense to say, "I'm a good person, and I wouldn't want this if it were immoral. But I DO want sex with men, so that cannot be wrong." I agree that gay men should NEVER drag women into their confusions. Elton John did it, when he was pretending to be that mythical creature, a "bisexual", and was terribly sorry afterward for having hurt his wife. If you don't want women, don't pretend to. Be a man -- with men -- and stand up for yourself, always.
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Sorry, cholly, but AIDS has nothing to do with sex, or it would be in every single nook and cranny of society. Actually, AIDS in the West is a DRUG INJURY, which is why it remains tightly confined, 30 years on, within minorities soaked in drugs. In Africa, it is a recasting of the same old things that have been killing poor people in that part of the world for thousands of years: www.virusmyth.com.
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But you think that gay men want to hear about YOUR sexual orientation, YOUR husband (or wife)? Until and unless you hide your sexual orientation and keep your sexual relationships a closely guarded secret, don't tell gay men that they cannot speak of their lives and loves as openly as you do.
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Heterosexuals have sex EVERYWHERE -- indoors, outdoors; in theaters, in parks; in men's rooms at concerts, in women's rooms at sporting events. Stop pretending that all those baby-mommas and baby-daddies producing children from loving, respectful, exclusive relationships in deep privacy.
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Before you preach at people, PROVE the existence of God. You can't do that, because in fact there IS NO GOD. And why the Bible? Which part, Jewish (Old Testament) or Christian? How about the Apocrypha? How about the dozens of Gospels that didn't make the final cut? How about the Koran, or Scientology's basic works? It's all nonsense written by control freaks.
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Jews should not be telling Christians how to live. And if you quote Leviticus, you are acting like a Jew, not a Christian. Do you also obey the Jewish dietary laws, advocate universal circumcision, and practice animal sacrifice, all of which are mandated by that Leviticus ONE of whose condemnations you love to cite? No? Then you are a hypocrite, and nobody pays attention to hypocrites.
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The basic difference [between Bible-thumpers and the people repudiating such crap], which makes ALL the difference in the world, is that we don't tell YOU how to live.
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I think the Ten Commandments -- which are JEWISH, not Christian -- are not and must not be in any courthouse in this country. But you are quite right that none of those Ten refers to homosexuality.
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The end times will be when the sun novas, and that is not expected for millions of years. There are no Saints, and, alas, the fine man Jesus died a very long time ago. Nobody comes back. Nobody. So do justice now, according to the Golden Rule. If you don't know what that is, look it up, and understand that it PRECISELY describes homosexuality.
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Judging: Matthew 7:1. Stone, John 8:9. Now kindly stop denying the authenticity of those Biblical imperatives.
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There is no God, and the Bible contradicts itself, starting in the first few pages: Adam and Eve are the only people on Earth, but their son Cain marries a woman from Nod!
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tgerardb, stop making up gay harassment of you poor, oppressed heterosexuals.
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There is no God, so your interpretation of what God says is of no importance. I also don't think Brits ("behaviour") should intrude into discussions of American issues. Mind your own business. NO one chooses to be gay just to tick people off. Stop making up nonsense. I skipped the middle of your longwinded but empty post. But your assertion early on that the Greeks were antihomosexual is WILDLY wrong.
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tgerardb, to the extent the Roman Empire fell at all (we speak a language filled with Latin words, our Capitol is plainly a Roman building, and the dominant religion of the West is Christianity, which was the state religion of the Roman Empire), it did so as did a whole bunch of other civilizations farther east, because of a chain reaction resulting from the irruption of violent nomads in East Central Asia who pushed outward and caused other 'barbarians' to run away from the rampaging savages, into the Roman Empire for safety. The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_roman_empire does not contain the word "homosexuality", because it played NO role in the decline/transformation of the Roman Empire.
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You equate attack and defense. Bible-thumpers attack homosexuals; gay men merely fite back. Not the same.
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Kindly point out ONE THING JESUS SAID in condemnation of homosexuality. Don't quote "Saint Paul", who started life as Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted early Christians 'even unto death' until his guilt caused a religious conversion. Quote JESUS. You can't. Jesus is supposed to be Christ, so if CHRIST said nothing to condemn homosexuality, then one can indeed be both a Christian and a homosexual. I do not accept your right to read Jesus's mind, and speak for him on a topic he did not address, and put an antihomosexual animus in his mouth.
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forcollegenow, if you believe that Adam and Eve were the only people at the beginning of the world, then you OF NECESSITY believe that their children had sex with each other and/or their parents, so the entire human race is the product of INCEST. People who believe in the godliness of incest are in no position to condemn homosexuality.
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In order to understand righteousness as against sin, kindly examine, and think about, Jesus's admonition, "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." That expressly and exactly APPROVES of homosexuality.
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If all pj512 has to justify his antihomosexual attitude is the pretense that his God disapproves, he has NOTHING. There IS NO GOD, but there are many conceptions of God that DO approve of homosexuality.
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The man was weak, "Superdad", and couldn't stand up to the bigots and bullies himself, but finally found his courage when he heard of other people committing suicide because of bullying. Yes, condemn his earlier cowardice, but praise his courage now. One must, however, wonder how many gay kids did commit suicide before he "came out" who might have held on past that awful crisis if he had been forthright, in his megachurch, long ago.
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So you wish his children dead, for never having been born, right? Very Christian. You are right that he should not have TRICKED some naive woman into marrying him, but the article says plainly, "He said his wife of 21 years, Debye, had known before they were married, but loved him anyway." We might agree that that was an odd and probably unwise choice, but it WAS her choice.
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Superdad, there are LOTS of heterosexual marriages of convenience. Some people just give up on finding love, but they commit to someone in the hope that they can have the benefits of marriage, and maybe they'll grow to love. If not, there's always the sex, or the money, or the job with the father-in-law. I trust you are fully as judgmental of those people.
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Ken... Perhaps Randy did choose to be straight, rejecting his actual, homosexual nature. A lot of the most adamant antigay militants are suppressed, self-hating homos.
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bowmakerkt, for a person whose empty-minded antihomosexualism derives from the Old Testament, it's a little odd for you to be talking about bacon. Let us review: there is no God, there is no Last Judgment, there is no Hell. Now, get a life, while you still can. And try to mind you own business. It will make your life easier, and that of everyone else near you.
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Kindly read the story before commenting. He told his kids before he made his announcement, and they backed his decision. So now it's OK to bully not just gays but also straights who have a gay relative?
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Anyone who believes in the silly fable of Adam and Eve -- which would mean that the human race arose from INCEST -- is too foolish to be reasoned with.
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I take it that "Your Highness" refers to drug use. Homosexuality is exactly as much an "affliction" as is heterosexuality. No, I take that back. Homosexuality is wonderful. We can have sex without worrying about knocking anybody up. Any children we have are conceived deliberately. We're not the ones destroying this planet.
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preciouslogic is precious short of logic. If God could just always have existed, then the Universe could just always have existed. Or are you saying that God created Himself? How would nothing create something? -- much less everything?
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bdvs143, you do not speak for God, nor for what any Biblical passage does and does not mean. You are not the Pope -- are you? Protestants tell us we should read the Bible, so they apparently believe that what the Bible says is what it means. But I guess you are the supreme authority on what the Bible means, because you assert with absolute certitude that you know what it means, while anyone who disagrees does not. It doesn't mater, however. You cannot quote any passage of the Bible as authority for anything, any more than anyone can quote a passage of any Harry Potter novel and use it as authority for something.
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How can someone like bdvs143 quote Christian scripture and say that God killed someone?
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Bible-thumpers like those who insist that homosexuality is a "sin" cannot find anything BUT quotations to "God" to justify their baseless assertions. Since there is no God, they have absolutely no basis for their assertions, so all sensible people IGNORE them.
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Jesus was over 30 years old and unmarried, in a society that required marriage. Think about it.
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There is no God, so stop quoting nonsense. You cannot produce a SINGLE logical reason for why homosexuality is "wrong", so just keep your superstitious nonsense to yourself.
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Asserting there IS a God does not make it true.
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Do NOT mistake Paul for Jesus. Paul was an antisexual lunatice who started life as a Jew and persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. Jesus was NOT antisexual, and also not antiHOMOsexual.
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Revelations is meaningless lunacy and has NOTHING to do with anything Jesus said. But everything Jesus said was just the word of an ordinary human being anyway.
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You cannot quote Jesus saying ANYthing about homosexuality -- not anti, no pro. But what Jesus said is just what one man said. You can agree or disagree without any penalty. He has been dead for almost 2,000 years.
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bowmakerkt has apparently never seen a tomcat grab another tom by the scruff of the neck and try to mate with him, nor male cats or dogs sleeping with each other, cleaning each other, etc. The anti-science crowd doesn't want these things studied, but some brave souls have studied homosexuality in the animal kingdom and found it very common.
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Robert, gay people do NOT "thrust their will and lifestyle" upon ANYONE, much less everybody else. You have it exactly backwards. You also do not know how many gay people there are. Nobody does, and as long as people are bullied into hiding their homosexuality, nobody will. The SAME rights are not "extra rights". In Sweden, being black is an "aberration"; in China, being blond is an "aberration". Why should we teach "everyone else's children" that being black or bond is natural? You wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you in the face.
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Kindly quote chapter and verse of where Jesus condemned homosexuality. You cannot DO that, because Jesus NEVER DID condemn homosexuality. Until you CAN quote Jesus against homosexuality, stop taking Jesus's name in vain.
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There is no God, and that "abomination" crap is from Leviticus, which prescribes animal sacrifice, circumcision, and Jewish dietary laws. So unless you adhere to EVERY SINGLE ONE of the over 600 prohibitions in Judaism, you should just shut up about the only one you pay any attention to.
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Adam and Eve supposedly were the only two people on Earth, but billions of people descended from them. How could that be unless their children had sex with each other? If incest is all right with you, what's your problem with homosexuality? And as for population, the world is being destroyed by OVERpopulation. Homosexuality is a natural brake on overpopulation. Embrace it as the blessing it could be, if legalized everywhere on this hugely overcrowded planet.
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wilhoover, Jesus was not antisexual. You have been sold a bill of goods by crazy people who hate the human body. Wake up, be yourself, enjoy the pleasures of the flesh in respectful, gentle, loving activities with men, and let the happiness that homosexual sex gives you fill your life and inspire you to generous activity for others.
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Everything Robert says is not only false, but the OPPOSITE of truth. The only way civilization has ever arisen is thru the actions of what would today be called "Liberals". The Conservatives always defended the institutions of the past, no matter how vicious or wrong they were, such as slavery, treating women and children as chattel property, and on and on. Jesus was a Liberal, who fought for the little guy.
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Who does? I'm homosexual, and I have NEVER called ANYBODY a "butt buddy". You are a clumsy propagandist, aren't you?
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Of course there are gay rabbis and imams. Islam was more tolerant of homosexuality during the West's Middle Ages than was Christendom, but Islam has been largely taken over by its most regressive preachers, as modern U.S. Christianity is under assault by its most regressive preachers. As Islam modernizes, it too will see more enlitened behavior. As for Judaism, there are gay synagogs or gay congregations that meet, with the approval of the predominantly straight congregation that rents them space.
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I'm glad jenjen shows her hatred of the Catholic Church, so we can all see what kind of 'mentality' we are dealing with here. Now she has got herself VERY seriously outnumbered, in taking on a BILLION Catholics, not just the gay population of the United States.
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Leviticus is JEWISH. Christians do not casually disregard the requirements of Judaism. They DEFY them. You then cite to Saul of Tarsus, a man who KILLED early Christians before a crisis of conscience made him convert, whereupon he changed his name to Paul. Find us, the religious and/or cultural critics of the United States ONE quote from JESUS that condemns homosexuality. You can't do it, because Jesus, who was supposed himself to BE God, did NOT, ever, condemn homosexuality.
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Oops. "Critics" should have read "Christians". My criticizing the stance of the Radical Right's misrepresentation of Christianity as Judaism got in the way of my intended statement.
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Homosexuality is barely ever mentioned in media; heterosexuality permeates everything in media. Something has made you hypersensitive. Hm. Hint: It's not outside yourself.
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Lonnie apparently thinks that the living world is divided in thirds, animals, plants, and people. No, human beings are part of the Animal Kingdom in science. But science doesn't mean anything to her. It's just the stuff that made it possible for her to post her silly remarks on the Internet. It has no real meaning.
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Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, or there would be no human race -- if you believe the Adam and Eve fable. If you do NOT accept that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, then you accept that Adam and Eve were NOT the only people at the beginning of the world. Everything you say is subverted by your Adam-and-Eve crap.
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Ah, there it is: the compulsory anti-Obama remarks from the Radical Right. Absolutely NO topic is so far afield that some Radical Rightists cannot bring it around to Barack Obama.
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The only choice he made was to come out publicly.
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yonkaddi, there was a series of gay suicides within a few weeks, including one prompted by a grotesque incident involving a Rutgers University student, and the enormous attention that SERIES of prominent suicides pushed this guy's conscience. Better late than never.
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Yes, of course people choose their orientation, as they choose their race, their place of birth, and their family's socioeconomic status. That is a very Hindu way of thinking. But no, not everyone is bullied mercilessly, tho everyone may be teased from time to time. And not everybody's sex life is streamed on the Internet without permission, which so humiliated a closeted gay college student that he jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
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Kindly cite to ONE condemnaton of homosexuality issued by JESUS. Exact quote, and chapter and verse, please.
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There is no God, and you cannot find any legitimate ground in reality to condemn homosexuality. As for its being a psychological disorder, the American Psychiatric Association says it is NOT a disorder, but you of course know better than the APA.
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Ah, I see. Sex is worse than murder. Of couse it is.
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Those do NOT relate to anything JESUS said. You are quoting Saul of Tarsus ("St. Paul"), NOT Jesus. Stop LYING. Both of those books state very plainly that what follows are the words of PAUL, not Jesus. Paul never even MET Jesus. He never heard a word Jesus said. In fact, he persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. And THAT is your source, not Jesus.
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We are not talking of a choice of actions but of NATURE. He was born homosexual, just as he was born white. There is no issue of a person "choosing to be white". And people cannot choose to "act on being white".
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Actually, reproduction no longer requires sexual activity between the people whose genetic material forms a new life, and in fact we would all be better off if the ONLY children conceived required a carefully considered CHOICE by the parents. This planet is being destroyed by overpopulation, that is, by heterosexuality.
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So you chose to be heterosexual, and could simply change that choice any time you wanted, right?
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The nonreligious people here hate the immorality of intolerance, but do not hate the person -- unless they never give up on thumping their Bible instead of thinking, so continue to justify their intolerance.
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Alas, it is not in the slitest true that the younger generation doesn't care about homosexuality. "That's so gay!" is just one example of the ongoing intolerance and stereotyping that younger people inflict on gay people they don't even realize are in their presence. Teenagers would not be killing themselves if their peers were tolerant. It would be nice if young people were openminded, and anyone could date anyone, of either gender, without being condemned, but we're NOT there yet.
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I suppose you believe the science of the first century too.
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The Bible is nonsense. You are entitled to believe nonsense if you wish, but not to condemn people who refuse that idiocy. Keep your religion to yourself. Gay people don't want to hear it.
*
Bizarrely, I was reproached by AOL Terms of Service for one thing I said:Date: 2010-11-15 21:09:48.0I replied:
Nov 15, 2010 8:59 PM EST SN: mrgaypride Topic: Torn by Bullying Suicides, Mega-Church Pastor Says He\'s Gay Comment: Ken... Perhaps Randy did choose to be straight, rejecting his actual, homosexual nature. A lot of the most adamant antigay militants are suppressed, self-hating homos.
Our Terms of Service agreement, which was presented during the sign up process, allows AOL to be informative, entertaining and, above all, fun for all of our Members. Please be advised that further violations may result in closure of your AOLaccount(s).
NOTHING I said violated any terms of service. I pointed out that self-hatred is a common part of the dynamic of antigay propaganda. If it is "homos" you object to, I as a gay man can use that term. It is a short form, not a pejorative as I use it. Seriously, you are complaining about that, when people are telling everyone that gay men are going to hell, and that's all right with you? Please.
