Is homosexuality a sin?, page 3

Originally posted by deeprivergal
I got this in an email forward, I wanted to get some feedback on what some of our board members thought about it. Peronally, I believe that homosexuality is a sin.

Homosexuality is NOT a sin. All scripture passages
aside, when it's all said and
done, sin is something you CHOOSE to do. I know of
no one, myself included, who chose
to be homosexual. I know of no one who chose to be
Bi-Sexual, or Lesbian or straight, for
that matter. It is what we are, and a part of who we
are.
It's not surprising that the Church would condemn homosexuality,
since, as a whole the church has a history of condemning sexuality in
and of itself. For example, The Church
says that it's a sin to have sex before marriage.
That's not biblical. Some churches say
you can't kiss passionately, or masturbate. That's
also not biblical. Some churches say
that you can't live with someone of the opposite
gender before you marry them. This
too isn't biblical.
The Church's condemnation of homosexuality is only
one link in a line of
condemnations regarding sexuality that the church
has taught as "truth". The real truth
of the matter is that it's a sin to teach that
you're sexuality is evil or sinful. It's a sin to
teach
that one sexuality is right and that any other kind
of sexuality is wrong. It's a sin for the
church or anyone else, for that matter, to shame you
because you desire sex, or
because you find it pleasurable. God created sex,
God designed your sexuality.
When someone, even a priest, a minister or a pastor,
condemns you for your sexuality,
they're automatically condemning God, because God
created your sexuality.
What about scripture ? Doesn't scripture agree with
church doctrine ?
Absolutely not ! Scripture has been pulled out of
context to make it appear to agree
with church doctrine. For example, the religious
right loves to quote Leviticus 18:22
"...You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.
It is an abomination. .."
First of all, when you present scripture to anyone,
you present more than just
one sentence. When you read the bible, you read the
whole paragraph, or the
whole chapter, if need be, to find out what's going
on and who's being spoken to.
For example, if we look at the same passage of
scripture, and start reading it at
the beginning, it says "The Lord spoke to Moses
saying " Speak to the children of
Israel, and say to them: I am the Lord your God.
According to the doings in
the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not
do; and according to the
doings in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing
you, you shall not do; nor
shall you walk in their ordinances. You shall
observe My judgments and keep
my ordinances to walk in them: I am the Lord your
God. You shall therefore keep
my statues and my judgments, which if a man does, he
shall live by them: I
am the Lord. ..." Following this, he gives the
Israelites the sexual code where
Leviticus 18:22 comes from. This puts a whole
different spin on Leviticus 18:22.

Egypt was a pagan culture, as was Canaan. God was
telling the Israelites,
"People, you left a pagan culture and you're going
to go to a pagan culture, but you
are NOT to act like a pagan culture. You are not to
copy their religious practices,
nor are you to follow their laws. Do as I tell you ,
and you will survive."
Leviticus 18:22 is talking about a pagan religious
rite. In fact, notice that
in that particular passage, God calls this practice
"an abomination". In Hebrew that word
is "towebah" (Tow-ay-bah) it means "idolatry" This "homosexuality" was
in fact a religious rite. This had nothing to do with
affection, or love. This was about
religious obligation, "duty to the GODS", that kind
of thing.
More importantly, if Leviticus is so important a
book to them, why don't
they follow the rest of the commands given there.
For example, in Leviticus 19:19 it
says that you shall not let you livestock breed with
another kind, or that you shall not
sow your field with mixed seed, or that you shall
not wear a garment of mixed linen and
wool. Leviticus 19:27 says that you shall not shave
around the sides of your beard
nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. How
about the laws concerning
clean and unclean animals ? (Leviticus 11:24-47) How
about the forbidden foods
in Leviticus 11:1-23). These are thing that "the
religious right" never mentions,
and yet, they're part of our daily lives. For
example, just about everyone wears
clothes that are poly-cotton blend. Most people who
have beards, shave them a bit so
they look neat and presentable. Both in direct
violation of Leviticus. Also, how many
of them do you suppose like football? That too, is
in violation of scripture. The ball
is pigskin, which according to Leviticus, is unclean
to eat or to touch . My point here is
that you can't just piecemeal scripture that way.
You can't just obey one
part here and one part there and cut out the parts
you don't like. That doesn't work , but yet,
that's just they attempt to do when they pull
passages out of the Old Testament like that.
Another one they love to quote is 1 Corinthians 6:9,
which in some translations
of the bible actually uses the word "homosexuals".
That word in Greek, it turns out, is
"arsenokoites" which means, literally, "man-bed",
"man-couch", "man - chambering"
NOT "homosexual". Paul's history was that he was
very direct in what he said,
he didn't mince words. He was also a very
intelligent man, he spoke Aramaic and
Greek, he was able to write Greek as well. So with
that in mind, if he wanted to
write "homosexual" why wouldn't he have used the
word "homophilia" which means
homosexual ?
Bear in mind, also, that Corinth wasn't exactly a
"squeaky clean " town either.
Corinth had a reputation for being a town of drunks,
hookers (only, they called them
"Courtesans") and basically, corrupt people. Their
type of worship before Christ
was introduced to them was the worship of Aphrodite.
(believe me, they got pretty
lewd in their "worship practices of her") . It kind
of makes you think, that when Paul
was referring to "man-beds" he may have been
referring to the "courtesans"
(they had both male and female at that time).
Finally, if homosexuality really was a sin, it would
bear the fruits of sin. Jesus
tells us in Matthew 7:17-19 that a good tree bears
good fruit and a bad tree bears
bad fruit. In that case, what are the fruits of
homosexuality ? There really aren't, are there?
You can't say that A.I.D.S / H.I.V is a fruit of
homosexuality , because if it were, then
straight people wouldn't get it, neither would
children be born with it or die of it.

So, when people tell you that homosexuality is a
sin, don't believe it !

Men and women are designed for having babys - expanding the human existence.
A mans pensi (spelt deliberate) is designed for the womens virgian (again spelt deliberate) - and visa versa.

Therefore regardless of the written word, men and women are for each other - men & men are not designed to play together, likewise the same with women & women. - scientific fact im afraid. - hope ive answered ya question without entering the foggy areas of such a sore discussion topic.