Christians FOR Gay Marriage... they are and always have been

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: Boadicea

IF it is a sin, it is not a sin against me, and not my place to judge nor justify.

This is the one thing that many Christians seem to forget. Not even the Pope has the right to judge people for their sins that right falls to God alone.

Actually that's false. We all have the right to make judgments, just as long as we remember we will be judged the same way. The ultimate judgment falls on God alone.

a reply to: ketsuko

It's not for me to stand in their way

Then don't.

, only to speak out which is what I think we were also enjoined to do.

WHY?

Why do you care? Who appointed you the bedroom activity monitor?

WHAT business is it of yours, or anyone else's, what two grown people do consensually, or how they act when they are alone and having no effect on anyone else, ever, by doing those things??

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Gay marriage has no business in a Christian church

But divorced and remarried adulterers do?

Hypocrites!

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Gay marriage has no business in a Christian church

But divorced and remarried adulterers do?

Hypocrites!

Can you show me where I talked about that?

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Gay marriage has no business in a Christian church

But divorced and remarried adulterers do?

Hypocrites!

Can you show me where I talked about that?

That's the problem. You, and all the other steadfast Christians against gay marriage, have no problem with divorcees remarrying. You have no problem participating in church weddings that sanction adultery, but heaven forbid a gay couple should seek your blessing.

Jesus never said anything about same sex/gay marriage, but he did say that marrying a divorcee is equal to adultery. He also said that lusting in one's heart is the same as "doing it". So really, why single out and throw your stones at gay marriage, when you steadfast Christians live in such fragile glass houses?

originally posted by: windword
That's the problem. You, and all the other steadfast Christians against gay marriage, have no problem with divorcees remarrying.

Actually I do. I do not believe in divorce. I do not believe in remarriage.

Nice job making yourself look a fool.

I am never divorcing my wife, under any circumstance. As long as she is alive I will never marry anyone else.

That's what marriage means.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Yet you sit in your church pews next to people who are remarried and do not single them out, take them aside and insist that their marriage is invalid and that they're living in perpetual sin.

And, even if you are that ONE Christian who thinks that divorcee marriages have "no business in a Christian church, but they should be welcome and loved..." well, there's plenty of Christians who are divorced and remarried, some in this very thread, who think that they aren't sinners, that Jesus blessed their church wedding/marriage, but believe it's their duty to make gay people feel like sh@#.

Maybe we haven't uncovered your Achilles Heal if sin, but it's there, and you're a hypocrite just the same.

originally posted by: windword

Yet you sit in your church pews next to people who are remarried and do not single them out

Remember what happened last time you made comments based on what I believed and did? At least you have moxie, doubling down on your foolishness. Not sure how that helps you though now being twice a fool.

a reply to: windword

You make an awful lot of assumptions.

Some of us are still married to the same person, and think it's wrong to divorce in almost every circumstance. Matthow 19 deals with it, and even then, Jesus says that most will not accept that word of his teaching. Even the disciples ask "Isn't it better to never marry at all?"

It's not easy to take it seriously when you say death do us part in today's world of no fault divorce, but sometimes, you do find people who mean it. And I have never been angrier than I was when I found that a former friend of mine allowed himself to be used by a woman to commit adultery and provide an excuse for her to dissolve her marriage.

He then married her himself, and we warned him she would likely do the same to him. It took some time, but we were right. By then, friendships had been damaged. It's hard to think the same way about someone who takes such a cavalier view about marriage when your own is very real, very sacred and not something to be mocked or taken lightly.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
One can love someone and disagree with what they do. Gay marriage has no business in a Christian church, though all gays should be welcome and loved.

At least some early churches disagreed, hence the "brother-making" rituals.

But I do adamantly agree that gay marriage should not be forced on a church -- Christian or otherwise -- but neither should it be denied, if the church so believes.

That's freedom of religion... freedom of conscience... just plain freedom.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

We all have the right to make judgments, just as long as we remember we will be judged the same way. The ultimate judgment falls on God alone.

I agree that we not only have the right to make judgments, we must make judgments every day about many things, and that's why we have physical senses to take in information and a mind to analyze and evaluate that information... it's natural law. but I would qualify that to say we have the right to make judgments for ourselves, about ourselves. We have no right or duty to impose our judgments on others, nor to punish or penalize others for not living up to our judgments.

originally posted by: Boadicea

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
One can love someone and disagree with what they do. Gay marriage has no business in a Christian church, though all gays should be welcome and loved.

At least some early churches disagreed, hence the "brother-making" rituals.

But I do adamantly agree that gay marriage should not be forced on a church -- Christian or otherwise -- but neither should it be denied, if the church so believes.

That's freedom of religion... freedom of conscience... just plain freedom.

I've always acknowledged that some Christian denominations are on the gay marriage train. Of course, your thread title is sort of absolute as though those Christians are the only real ones.

originally posted by: ketsuko

I've always acknowledged that some Christian denominations are on the gay marriage train. Of course, your thread title is sort of absolute as though those Christians are the only real ones.

Wow. I put no "absolutes" in the title -- nor did I add any quantifiers. And given the very loud and vocal Christians who oppose gay marriage, there is no need to point out that not all Christians support gay marriage.

I do appreciate, however, that you have -- albeit in an indirect and probably unintentional manner -- highlighted the obvious oppression and tyranny of some Christians imposing and forcing their will on other Christians... just like our founding fathers warned us about and tried to protect us from.

a reply to: Boadicea

This is blunt, but sometimes bluntness is needed. It seems to me that you have distorted or ignored some of what the Bible says because you don't want to step on peoples toes. Yes Jesus Christ is all about love, but you've equated love with the desire to have sex with a certain someone. First read Leviticus 18:6-23. It bans any type of sex outside of sex between a man and a woman.

Then Leviticus 20:10-21 gives you the punishments for pretty much everything on that list. It is quite clear that sex outside of marriage is a sin. Men cannot get married to other men, and women cannot get married to other women. Just because you find somewhere that accepts it and says you are married doesn't mean you have actually been married in the sight of God. Jesus confirms that God instituted marriage between male and female in Matthew 19:3-7. Sexual immorality is all sex outside of marriage. Hebrews confirms this as well, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

.....32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

It seems to me that you are most likely aware of the Levitical laws concerning sexual immorality, but you come here trying to give approval for sin and its dangerous. People who do struggle with lust need to realize that the thought itself is sinful and that we need a savior from that sin. I will be the first to say that lust is probably my biggest temptation . I struggle with it, but I would never trick myself into thinking that what I do or think is not a sin.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

So you haven't ignored anything in Leviticus? You live your life EXACTLY according to all the rules in Leviticus? I'm sure you know what all of them are, so I don't need to list them.

a reply to: Boadicea

In other words, Jesus is all about the love. First and foremost. In fact, Jesus then took it one step further and pretty much made that love for one another thing an absolute MUST -- if you want to be a Christian anyway!

Did he also do away with hell? So if He sentences people to hell why would He demand you do something that He would not do?

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Remember what happened last time you made comments based on what I believed and did?

I remember YOU getting on your high horse and proclaiming that "gay marriage" has no business in the Christian church, climbing on the "holier than thou bandwagon", taking your cues from those who would single out homosexuals for persecution and alienation based on personal prejudices and the ick factor. Yet, you turn a blind eye to those Christian churches that give remarried divorcees a free pass on living in sin, but homosexuals need to go and sin no more.

You're a hypocrite because you hold one sin as more abhorrent, homosexuality, than another, adultery.

a reply to: ketsuko

You make an awful lot of assumptions.

You might think so, but from my vantage point you have left yourself wide open for such attacks.

Some of us are still married to the same person

So what? Are you saying that some of you Christians, who feel compelled to shame and alienate homosexuals, are themselves without sin?

originally posted by: kaylaluv
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

So you haven't ignored anything in Leviticus? You live your life EXACTLY according to all the rules in Leviticus? I'm sure you know what all of them are, so I don't need to list them.

I guess that means he does not have pork or certain seafoods..

a reply to: kaylaluv

So you haven't ignored anything in Leviticus? You live your life EXACTLY according to all the rules in Leviticus? I'm sure you know what all of them are, so I don't need to list them.

I never said I did, in fact I said quite the opposite "I will be the first to say that lust is probably my biggest temptation . I struggle with it, but I would never trick myself into thinking that what I do or think is not a sin. "

It seems you are not aware of the purpose of the Law. The purpose of the Law(The First Five Books or the Pentateuch) is to show us that we are sinners, because even when we try to keep its requirements to the best of our ability we will come up short. It also seems you are not aware of the differences between OT and NT. In OT times God was not at peace with the world, and because of his nature as a perfect judge he had to judge the world. The reason the punishments seem so harsh to us is because its hard for us to look at sin through God's eyes rather than the worlds. Jesus came and died for the sins of the world. This allowed God to be at peace with the world and still be inline with his nature or his essence. This is what some people call the age of grace. Its the time Jesus bought for people to accept the peace treaty. That peace treaty requires accepting that you are a sinner. Those who accept it will be covered by the righteousness of Christ and those who don't will be judged accordingly. If a person doesn't think they are sinner when theyparticipate in same gender-sex then they are not on terms with the peace treaty, and they are lying to themselves.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

So it's okay if we don't stone our children to death for being disobedient, as long as we accept we are sinners for not doing so?

So we can be as horrible as we want: we can rape and murder women, we can eat the flesh of babies, we can lie, steal, kill and cheat -- as long as we admit we are sinners, we're good with God?