Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Real Christians who do their very best to be as Christ was. Who make people aspire to be like them.

I'm curious, who do you believe Christ was? Would you equate him more to Mr. Rogers or Ghandi, or would you equate him more with William Wallace (from Braveheart)?

BTW, I don't judge, as in condemn, but I do rebuke. There's a large difference. Were I to judge another and condemn them for what I see as being wrong, I would have to condemn myself or be the world's biggest hypocrite. I screw up. Bad. However, I have friends who call me to task when I goof, instead of just pretending it didn't happen or whatever. They force me to address things; there are times I disagree with their assessment and continue to continue. It does, however, force me to reassess my behavior, and I return the favor. However, they do no judge me. They do not condemn me. There is a difference between pointing something out that you think is wrong and condemning them for that action. If we are to go through life ignoring our friends weak points and allowing them to continue to exist, instead of excel, what kind of friends are we? Like it or ignore it, I will continue to point out things that my morality says are wrong. Just know it doesn't change my opinion of you (whomever "you" may be).

To be Christ like is to always be loving? Yet the Bible itself can be offensive, and Jesus himself acted out in anger towards others. He knew when to do so better than any Christian on Earth does. Being Christ like is not always about being nice and sweet to others. You may not know this, and probablly don't care, but Jesus got people so angry at him that they wanted to kill him. At one point a whole group actually tried to wanting to push him over a cliff.

Whether or not you asked for it, I forgive you. I'm sorry for lashing out in anger as well. My husband corrected me when he told me that it is still called marriage when two people get married in a court. I thought it was called a civil union. With my previous argument. That was only a compromise to aleviate the tensions between the two groups of people.

I will not apologize for believing that homosexuality is a sin, or the belief that marriage is a covenant between one man, one woman, and God. I am against homosexual marriage not only because it is immoral, but more importantly that once it is recoginzed on the federal level there will be those who will try to force all churches to recognize it. There will be those who will go to court and try to force a pastor to preform the marriage even though it is against his beliefs.

Benevolent Heretic I have no idea what you're talking about. I doubt they give a rat's patootie what you think. Or whether you accept them or not. They just want to live their lives with the same rights as everyone else.

Then you haven't had to face them the way I have or have had to stand up to their attempts of indocternation. They always tried to "reason" with me of why it should be accepted and did their best to try to convince me that there is nothing wrong with it. They would quickly shut up anyone who had an opposing view point.

intrepid Why should it matter what others do that really doesn't affect you.

There are those who see this as spiritual battle that affects the entire nation. It affects me and my children when they try to force their views and agendas on me and my children. If they had it their way, it would be considered a hate crime and proscute anyone who speaks out against it, or even say they do not agree with it.

I'd say Mr. Roger, not Ghandi, anyone who liked sleeping with naked little girls after giving them colostomies is wrong.

Anyways, IDK, just wanted to add that, and this, so no one sentance warning.

Originally posted by James the Lesser
I'd say Mr. Roger, not Ghandi, anyone who liked sleeping with naked little girls after giving them colostomies is wrong.

Err...Ok. Why? What about Him, or what you know about Him, is more closely tied with Mr. Rogers than William Wallace?

Originally posted by James the Lesser
I'd say Mr. Roger, not Ghandi, anyone who liked sleeping with naked little girls after giving them colostomies is wrong.

Anyways, IDK, just wanted to add that, and this, so no one sentance warning.

And you of course have proof of this happening, right?

Some kind of evidence?

Jake, I appreciate your question, but I'm not going into my personal beliefs about Christ. Suffice it to say that I really don't know who he was. But I know the stories well.

And before anybody tries to save me, I was raised in a home where we went to church at least 3 times a week, plus bible school, plus revival meetings, church camp and any other excuse they had to get us to the church, we were there. I was saved when I was 13 and baptized shortly thereafter. I probably know as much or more about the Christian (protestant) religion and the bible as either or both of you.

Mystery Lady, You are right. I have never had to stand up against gay people. Not one has ever tried to make me gay. There has never been any standing up to do. I see them and accept them as imperfect human beings, deserving of love, just like me. I don't weigh their sin against mine and think I have a right to point theirs out and tell them about it. They OBVIOUSLY don't believe it's wrong, so who's right? I'm right for me. That's all I need to worry about. I am not the savior or the judge and neither are you.

I don't happen to carry the judgment that homosexuality is wrong, but my mother did. Her attitude was that - all have sinned and come short of the glory of God - so it wasn't her place to try to change them. Nobody was pointing out her sins, why should she point out theirs? That's between her and God. She did, however invite them to church, love them with her whole heart, feed them and talk about her experience of her life in Christ.

You don't seem to understand that I don't care how you personally feel about homosexuality. You think it's wrong. Fine. Think that without apology. Nobody's trying to make you accept it. What I care about is you (and millions like you) taking action by dictating your morals to everyone else and enforcing your beliefs through law on others. You and millions like you who don't have anything to do with gay people telling them how to live. You think it's wrong, so nobody can do it. That's what I don't like. I'm not trying to force you to DO or BELIEVE something, I'm asking you to STOP imposing your morals on other people.

But somehow you feel you have that right. Is that a God-given right? To strong-arm others to behave in a way that doesn't offend you? Because that's how you seem to me. And probably to the others whose 'blood boils'. It's like if you can't attract them to religion, you think it's ok to force the behavior.

That's why I turned against organized religion. Because for some reason, they take their God-given rights to mean that everyone should behave in the same manner as they do and somehow, they've convinced themselves that God wants them to do this.

I could never tell a 'sinner', "What you're doing is wrong!" and then look myself in the mirror. I don't know how you do it. Maybe, thankfully, more of what my mother taught me sunk in than I had thought. I think if she was alive today, she'd probably turn against organized religion herself for this very reason.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
You don't seem to understand that I don't care how you personally feel about homosexuality. You think it's wrong. Fine. Think that without apology. Nobody's trying to make you accept it. What I care about is you (and millions like you) taking action by dictating your morals to everyone else and enforcing your beliefs through law on others. You and millions like you who don't have anything to do with gay people telling them how to live. You think it's wrong, so nobody can do it. That's what I don't like. I'm not trying to force you to DO or BELIEVE something, I'm asking you to STOP imposing your morals on other people.

While at the same time others put their morality into civil law? The true difference is that Christians openly admit it is their morality that causes them to seek change in government. Others don't. Why should gay marriage be permitted? Because it would be right to do so? Because it would be wrong to discriminate against some people? Those are moral decisions, not logical ones. As soon as the words "right," "wrong," and their synonyms enter the picture, we're talking about a moral discussion. Why should Christians not be permitted to try to exact change in government based on their morality while others are permitted to do the exact same thing?

Originally posted by junglejake

As soon as the words "right," "wrong," and their synonyms enter the picture, we're talking about a moral discussion. Why should Christians not be permitted to try to exact change in government based on their morality while others are permitted to do the exact same thing?

That's the very reason morality has no place in the law. It's against the law to discriminate. Whether or not it's morally wrong is a personal judgment. But the founding fathers (here we go again) said that in this country, all men are created equal. Therefore, we eventually realized that it was illegal for black people to be the slaves. And if we allow white people to vote, it's against the law to disallow black people to do the same.

If we allow citizens to get married to the people they choose (whether they love them or not) then it will hopefully, eventually be legal for any 2 people to choose to get married. Sex is the only restriction on marriage. You can marry for a day or as a business arrangement, or a joke! You can marry and get divorced 50 times if you want. You can marry the same person over and over again. You can marry in a moment's notice in Vegas while you're stinking drunk to a total stranger if you want!

Yet, we have loving life-long partners who would love nothing more than to make a public, legal commitment and covenant of their love and they are not allowed by law because of their plumbing. And why? Because the Christians think marriage is a religious institution and should only be allowed between the people mentioned in the paragraph above.

But a nation's morality is what drives the law. "All men are created equal" is a moral statement, not one that is a given based on observation. Some people are smarter than others, people are stronger than others. Individuals are not equal. Racial traits may even play a role in those aspects; we won't know because anyone who tries to research this is called a racist and their research is immediately ignored. We have hate crime laws, stating that if one person attacks another person because of their skin color, that is somehow worse than one person attacking another person because of their political belief or their ugly pink flamingo in their front yard. That's a moral decision. We have an income tax, which states that those who are successful owe a larger percentage of their income to society than someone just getting by. That's a moral decision. We have made law that states a mother has full right over her body, even if another living thing is dependant on that body, so we've made abortion legal. That was a moral decision. We have speed limits because people believe life is precious and the liklihood of a fatality happening with no speed limits is too high. That's a moral decision.

A lot of law is based on morality. By the very nature of our country, all of those laws can be changed or overturned by the population of the nation. Therefore, in order to address moral laws, morality has to enter into the picture. Since we're a representative democracy, moralities that don't coencide with your own are represented and have a voice. It may upset you at times, but they have just as much a right to try to have their morality forced on the country as you do yours.

The fact that the ffs used their morals to set up a structure of government does not automatically mean that every right or left wing ideal that comes along can successfully impose new morals on the government. It's already there.

If we refer to the documents meant to run the government of this country, everything we need is there. Many brilliant men worked long and hard to come up with a comprehensive set of rules for this nation to live by. And it has worked well for many years.

Now, those documents are being overrun and ignored by (at the very least) the current administration and the country is falling apart.

I'm simply tired of arguing what seems so very obvious to me. Everyone should have the same rights. It's so simple. You (and apparently Mystery Lady and millions of Americans) disagree. I can only imagine how tired the gay people are of this argument.

I'm sorry, Jake, but I'm not interested in arguing this any further. I don't want to convince you to think differently than you do. If you think that 'morals' are a good way to run a government, then that's what you think. I hear you and we disagree.

Not only do I think it's a good idea, I think everyone is guilty of doing exactly that, admitting it to themselves and others or no.