11.23.08
More Musing
Proposition 8. It was an unexpected event for me. The liberal tendencies of California had me pretty much ignore the proposition up until it was actually passed. I suppose it is a natural outcome after the earlier requirement that gender ambiguous marriage certificates be issued by churches, regardless of whether or not those churches supported gay marriage. For the record, I did not vote on the issue, even though I live in California. It’s my philosophy to let non-Christians destroy their own lives if they don’t want to listen me. While America is a country greatly influenced by Christianity, it is not a Christian nation. The time when the followers of Christ will be in charge is during the Day of the Lord, when we will be placed in power in the Kingdom. Until then, non-Christians will have their chance to condemn themselves if they so choose.
And condemning themselves many people are. The excuses are quite often pretty flimsy from a Christian standpoint. In a speech class I took a while ago, I recall a lesbian saying that God only condemned homosexuality once in the New Testament.
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (I Corinthians 6:9,10)
Furthermore, it presumably referred to men, not necessarily women. It’s easy to respond, of course. First, how many times must God say something before it becomes true? How many times did God have to command the earth and the heavens to be formed before they came to be? It isn’t “God only said it once.” It’s “God said it once.” That’s assuming God did indeed say it only once.
…Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men… (Romans 1:26b-27a)
That seems like a pretty negative description of such acts. Notice also that women are included at the beginning of the quote. It doesn’t seem like God is partial between men and women on this point.
Now, a lot of people would say that these verses were written by men, not God. I assuming, as do my fellow Christians, that the Old and New Testaments were inspired by God, even if the physical pen was held by a man. If you take issue with that, go talk to another apologist, because I’m not exploring that right now.
There are plenty of other arguments that gay supporters come up with to try to support their case. One of these I read on a reviews page on StumbleUpon. It was that anti-gays are practically the same as anti-“black” racists. The fallacy here was in comparing a natural physical attribute (dark skin) gained through inheritance to an action. North Korea does some pretty nasty things to its own people, but I sure hope no one calls me an anti-Asian racist for saying that.
This review was for an image of a billboard stating that God doesn’t hate people for being gay. There were a number of reviewers who agreed, saying that God hates sin, not the sinner. There was somebody else who said he or she didn’t buy that claim. But really now, do parents hate their children if they do something wrong, or only the act their children have committed. Well, I guess there are bad parents out there who do actually hate their children, but I’m talking about good parents, since I’m drawing an analogy to God.
There’s another argument that’s been quoted on the news. This is that “straight” people are allowed to commit fornication and adultery without direct legal hindrance, so why should the government provide obstacles to gays? It seems to be the next step of the feminist argument “if it’s acceptable for guys to have an affair, it should be acceptable for women as well.” Let’s carry this further: Billy gets to play with matches, so why can’t I play with this knife? The reasonable solution isn’t to take away all restriction, but rather to enforce the restrictions better in the first place. Guys, don’t have affairs.
To finish things off, there’s another article StumbleUpon brought me to that showcases another lapse in reason (and morality). Some gay person was hoping to “turn the tables” by refusing to acknowledge any marriages. His idea would be to use terms such as “girlfriend” instead of “wife”. See how those oppressive “straight” people feel being put in a gay person’s shoes! The article was, of course, secular, and so treated marriage as a simple social contract that is recognized by society. In reality, Christians know that marriage is a sacred contract made between a man and a women which is sealed in heaven by God. Basically, the article is a call to all people who already trample on God’s commandments to add the insult of spitting in God’s face.
