jimmydanger wrote:You cannot choose to be gay. That is just ignorant. It is a biological condition imposed by the genes. It's like saying a tiger could choose not to have stripes. Really guys read a book, just no black ones.
Yod, please respond to my previous post if you can.
I know too many ex-gays to ever agree to that.
My parents were divorced twice by the time I was 6. Though I hardly knew my dad as a kid, I grew up to be just like him. Though he never revealed his true personality to me, I was born with genetic disposition of a drunk womanizer just like he had been. I knew my behavior was wrong and always wondered why I was that way. I was risking my wife and family to do things that I seemed helpless to avoid. Eventually it cost me dearly....
When my eyes were opened by the God of Israel, I was able to overcome that sin and several years later discovered that I had been exactly as my father was at that age. Completely unknowingly I had also followed the path of so many of my relatives into being a musician without realizing it, too.
We are ALL born with a genetic disposition towards some kind of behavior and/or sin. I was never tempted to be homosexual, but it's not much different than a womanizer with an insatiable sex drive except for the object of one's attention. Here is hope....it can be overcome through the grace of God when you are ready to be free from slavery to sin.
Because I do have SO many gay friends, I understand how people will hear what I'm not saying, so allow me to clarify that I do not have any hatred of gays, and it pisses me off to hear any preacher teaching his flock to fear or hate them. I'd rather share a room with a gay man than Westboro Baptist any day.
All people have immense value. Wives hold a special place in the continuation of the human species. Marriage is given to honor that commitment and it should be honorable.
Homosexual relationships can not produce families. I concede that they can imitate them, but that's not the natural order. It's a mockery of the genuine article.
I expect pagans to be pagans and do pagan things. How could they not be who they are? However, that doesn't mean that something as special as a family unit should be mocked. Gay marriage is an attack on the very building block of society. Currently there is an attack on free speech to disallow that perspective. Yet no other behavior (sexual or otherwise) is given civil rights status, and therefore common sense should be obvious and respected.
Why do homosexuals need to mock the institution of marriage if it isn't for economic reasons? No one is stopping them from committing their lives to each other, if it really is love they are sharing. If they want make a public profession of that commitment, there is nothing marriage holds that a civil unions doesn't also hold...except a sacred spiritual connection. One doesn't need a marriage license to have a spiritual relationship with another person, that only leaves mockery as the reason.
And I do not wish to stereotype homosexuals, because I know how offensive it is when Christians get stereotyped by them. However....it is a statical fact that the overwhelming majority of homosexual men will have
at least 50 partners, (some will have hundreds, even thousands) because they are controlled by their behavior. It's no worse of a sin than the adulterer...but it is a sin.
Emotions run so hot on this issue because of cognizant dissonance, but I hope we can continue to discuss this respectfully.
I'll go see if I can figure what other post you are referring to, Jimmy, and answer that separately.