First of, if you are not a believer in any religious way but the average gbatemp gay friendly or hateful rebel youth browsing such thread with a passion for controversy, it may be wise to skip my post as my language might fly out of your radar and misinterpreted as homophobic. I'm an adult and i can take it anyway but trust me as i state i'm not trying to pick any fight or argue here, only expressing my honest feelings about the topic at hand, just like you, in a civil manner.
If you are open to disproval from other people and willing to know different opinions, and a person mature enough to at least consider them, then by all means read my post. Thanks.
For the record i am a fervent Christian myself and, as such, i feel the need to react about this concerning OP and people's posts cursing the Bible for homophobic values and the likes..
There is no need to argue and debate about the Bible. Holy Scriptures are here for us to learn and to know about the personality of the Abrahamic God, the one and only God of the three main monotheist religions of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Scriptures teaches us about God's Will for us, who to become and how to behave as His creatures. Even more for Christians, as His Children! Context is different but most of the depicted situations are still remarkably reliable in most cases. Read it, understand it, just believe it or not. Scriptures are Scriptures, and God's norms are the same today as they were yesterday, and to be tomorrow. They are not to be re-written by passing civilizations to soften or adapt with current flowing social norms, gaining more followers and believers that way is losing more people to their sins providing them with a fake peace of mind and a twisted freedom of act.
The Scriptures clearly state homosexuality to be a sin. I know it, you know it, we know it. No point twisting the Scriptures involved by interpreting and extrapolating like "David and Jonathan" suppositions, it will get nowhere but here, there is no changing Holy Scriptures. While homo-affective feelings are normal elements within any genuinely deep friendship, twisting it and taking it into the act of homosexuality is the sin.
While it is said a sin, it is just among many others such as lust, greed, theft, adultery, fornication etc.. None greater or lesser than the others sins, so there is no particular discrimination against homosexual people in the Scriptures.
About same sex "marriage", the Truth of the Scriptures teaches God's marriage law an Holy institution set by God Himself. "So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them." So God gave marriage as the answer for Adam finding someone who is a suitable companion and partner, Eve, blessing forever and exclusively from other creatures their union to multiply and fill the Earth.
It teaches also homosexuality was severely punished by death in the times of Moses law's Israël Theocracy, and Jesus-Christ re-affirmed God's Will about marriage and divorce, and the complementarity of the man and the woman. "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
As for Christ's Two Great Commands, "Jesus, which is the great commandment in the law? and he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. this is the great and first commandment. and a second one is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."
It is a totally wrong idea to take the love of the neighbor as homosexuality being approved.. Love as Jesus-Christ teaches us and command us to have for the neighbor is kindness, respect, compassion and charity, not romantic or sexual passions.. !! Those are exclusive to married couple and exclusive to each other as married partners. Any sex outside the Holy institution of God's marriage law is fornication, and sex with another partner than the spouse, adultery. Exclusive to straight heterosexual married couple have i to clarify, and sadly i have to in this day and age, where homosexuality is expanding at an alarmous rate, trying hard to be seen as a viable alternative to God's Will and natural, biological ways..
With that out of the way, don't LGBT already have the same social rights than straight married couples does with civil partnership, PACS and such..? So why the offense with this man's words.. ? Don't see them LGBT going much after Muslim religion and Islamic countries lapidating homosexual people on a daily basis.. Usualy common and safer to pick on Christians and criminalising the Bible as homophobic. That's really low as most of us are tolerant and keep our arms, hearts and minds open to homosexual people just the same as for any people, even more in this day and age. Hate the sin, not the sinner. Call it hypocrisy but in most cases, the compassion is real, and the will to save such people is genuine. The choice is here and ours, at anytime, anywhere as long as we're alive and breathing it is available as a grace!! But the real deal is, do we want to be saved by conforming our whole being to God's norms, and not to our own norms or social norms.. ?
Personally i don't care that much about a person's sexuality and accept people for who they are and how they behave toward others, as long as they are consenting adults involved they are free to do whatever they want in the privacy of their home, their business. As for public and social behavior, discretion is advised, but not any more or less than straight couples rules, no obvious sexual gestures in public so no discrimination here.. Are they non-Christian people, i have no word to say. Are they Christians, my part to point out their sin and to try and save them, otherwise i would silently approve their ways and commit a sin just as much, knowing what i should do and not doing so.
For myself.. The celebration and blessing of same sex "marriage" is not a civil right by any means the society affair, while i am firmly against traditional religious wedding and God's blessing for them (that might just be my zealous, bigoted feeling as i can admit it to an extent at least) my main opposition, that i have a right to fight for as a person, is about LGBT hidden/obvious goal from their push on our traditional family unit (since they already have civil partnership and such why would they go after traditions anyway.. ? For God's blessing i think few still care) namely, same sex couples adopting children in masses using civil laws, and this is not any less than totally terrifying and unacceptable for our future.. Imagine, a new world order with no other pre-requisite than "married" couples with $$$ financially stable situations granting any right to homosexual couples to take away children from their natural, real parents as it goes on... TERRIFYING!
Please read me and understand me.. Children.. Adoption.. No woman, no cry.. One does not exist without the other.. A man and a woman are clearly made for each other as the Scriptures says, as natural conscious says... A penis fits perfectly to a vagina for a reason.. In all ways, body, mind, soul a man and a woman feeds and edify on each other.. This, is the True dynamic of our human lives and needs. Affective, spiritual, sexual needs.. New lives born from it.. Whoever denying our human genders complementarity and natural, biological purposes to pefectly fit with each other as males and females correspondances is greatly in the wrong.. Such wonders of nature should be enough to actually prove God is our Creator for non-believers, if anything!! Remember, this is how you and i were born, alive and breathing right here and now, from our parents both natural and blessed union from God's Will.. This is the Truth. There is no sexual union possible with the lack of corresponding, complementary organs. The only genuine sexual encounter is between a penis and a vagina, i will get rude and crude now if you excuse me but homosexual people can cry out all they want, it wont make rectums naturally lubricate for deviant purposes and sexual toys mighty pulsating with flesh and blood. I'm sorry to come out raw on this but it has to be said once in a while to get through and now's a suitable time.. As human beings we exist as men and women, as people with distinct and complementary organic functions and affectivities for a purpose. To rejoin and edify ourselves as a family, developing our societies, our human race. How unique and undescribably rich and deep opportunity is offered to us as a precious gift, as a grace!! Such opportunity to take part through the Holy institution of heterosexual marriage to unite our will as a blessed union with God's Will of creating and promoting new lives.. The male and the female genders are simply meant for each other, in this Holy way as far the Scriptures says and as any healthy natural conscious can only bow down to as being right, and as correct truth.. Denying our genders perfect correspondance on our factual biological reality basis is just silly, but rebellion against God's Will for our human race with pushy civil rights and laws for same sex "marriages" and adoptions is way much wrong, and a lost cause with could lead to terrible consequences such as civil wars and bloodshed.
Homosexuality is indeed a threat to our traditonal family unit and values.. Now religious marriage and we all know next comes adopting children.. No biased studies diagnostics and panels matter, as it is a moral decision. Children are HUMAN BEINGS, not statistics or things to dispose of. Financially stable situation is not enough as pre-requisite, children MUST be protected and nurtured within the traditional family unit of a father and a mother. The balance of both distinct complementary role models for both genders can not be replaced and ignored.. The well being of Children are to come first, before the desire of couples to adopt regardless of their sexuality. Your life is not even your own, your fragile breath, it is God's.. Now to dispose of the lives of children.. ? NO!!
Nothing new stating it but : Majority > Minority; Mankind > Human Being; Society > Civilian. The good of the most beats the good of the few. It is a matter of survival and social order!
That said, most of people on this forum community are not even adults, and there is so much left to know and to grow, to mature at any age of life.. But the most of our principles and aspirations take its shape during the childhood and teenage.. If you are not a believer you are free to do as you wish and will probably curse me for my opinion and my preach. Consequences of homosexuality won't make a difference either way, believe me or not.. Read ambiguous relationships, shameful feelings, genders confusion, invasive thoughts etc.. If you are a believer, you will understand my message as a selfless, clever and heartful warning against dangers and temptations of the sin of homosexuality.
If my honest, inspired Christian message can help people suffering from homosexual tendencies or even people with active homosexual behaviors, as legit and healthy as they seem, to think twice about it then i have reached my goal and saved a few, if just one person... Find help in local churches, in Bible teachings, in online communities such as here, in prayers.. Homosexuality is not an illness, it is not a genetic curse, it is just a sin and we can all be saved from our sins if we confess and recognize them as they are, with the firm will to change our ways conforming our whole being to God's norms for us to become and behave as His Children.. As for any sin, temptation is the one and only root, and the only suitable response to temptation is none other but to cut it off from its roots.. So pray, don't give up to it! None is responsible for their tendencies and feelings, but one is fully responsible for his/her actions! Flee far from the risks of being tempted and watch yourself carefully on you friendships, books and mangas readings, video games, tv shows, movies, songs, internet use etc.. No one is alone as we are all linked together as one spiritual family in Christ with no discrimination for any reason... As a fellow temper and Christian, Amen!
Edit : Link to a good FAQ about homosexuality and the Bible, with no biased answers :
http://www.twopaths....mosexuality.htm