In Reply to: Re: I vote for accepting one another's individualities. posted by Farmer on March 26, 2007 at 16:15:27:
You are right that I have not read John in a long time. Sodom was judged by God according to religous viewpoint, but if you look at even the bible it is clear to see that it was a rapacious society gone awry. That is what I got from the biblical description of Sodom. BTW, I don't understand a person being righteous in God's eyes who would offer his own daugthers to the rapacious crowd to protect his angel guest. Make some sens out of that for me.
I've always wondered if Paul had homosexual tendencies that he fought against. As far as Paul's opinions, according to biblical interpretations, some say women should cover they heads, not cut their hair, not speak in the church, be subservient to men etc. Jesus didn't say that and Jesus clearly had women in his inner circle that were very active and trusted. I wonder if Paul realized how much damage his words could do because of people that believe that every word written in the bible is literally from the mouth of God.
It's supposed to be a big sin to eat shrimp or pork. There was a reason for that at the time because of health risks prior to clean processing and inspections of meat sources and understanding of things that could not be seen at the time, like microscopic parasites and such.
I could see the possibility of Paul having his own opinions thrown in with what he had learned from Jesus.
As far as Christian churches go, there are many in this day and age that accept homosexuality as a normal variation of sexuality rather than as a sinful deviation from normal sexuality.
Many churches do advocate for the rights of same sex marriage and I think that is great. At one time interracial marriages were outlawed in many states and was looked upon as disgusting. It took awhile, and their are still prejudices and difficulties for children from mixed marriages due to societies reservations to accept what is not more common.
I do believe that private social groups or public organizations have the right to choose whom they choose to recognize for marriage. Even though I believe it is based in ignorance to deny same sex couples. I believe it is reasonable in a free society for a church to say their pastor will not perform same sex marriages as long as there is an option for marriage in any town or city where there is a court house.
I haven't met any people that are pro- same sex marriage who want to force religions to marry them any more than KKK churches marry African American couples. Ignorance is allowed in the name of freedom and to protect everyone's freedom there have to be allowances for that.
My viewpoint was clear. It wasn't telling you how to believe or how your church should believe or that society should be forced to agree with whatever is politically correct. It was just in response to the sort of "Love the sinner, Hate the sin" type of accepting a person but not who they are.
I respect your right to your viewpoint and I just wanted to add mine. :)