neo-x wrote:And that is precisely my point...you are shaming someone on something they have really no control of and over...how effective is that?
Extremely effective, as it turns out. How many people "came out" fifty years ago when it was a shameful thing? Hardly any. And now that it is being accepted as normal, people are, as expected, "coming out."
But more importantly, we are not shaming people for something they have no control over. We do not shame for a
desire. A desire is an emotion. We shame them for their
act of will in response to their emotion, and that is a very important distinction.
A child who is born gay, even if you leave him in a population of 1 million heterosexuals, that child is gonna come out gay and the vice versa is true for heterosexuals. Your straight child isn't gonna turn gay just because he is raised among gay people. Gay children come normally from houses of heterosexuals.
This has nothing to do with worrying about homosexuality being "contagious," and I've not even hinted at such an absurd concern. You seem to have an underlying utilitarian ethic here -- that things are only right or wrong, or things only ought to be endorsed or condemned, based on the effect they have on individuals. But utilitarianism has long been discredited. My point is that it is
wrong on an absolutely
objective level, homosexual behavior is wrong, and in that, society has both a right and obligation to supress that behavior.
And what if they are created by God this way? What if we find that yes sexual orientation takes place in wombs?
Whether or not people are born gay is irrelevant. The act is still disordered, and that because of human nature--the nature that God did create. We need to see homosexuality for what it is:
a disorder. Something in these people are broken. It's something we should have compassion on them for, for sure. That's why I said we shame the behavior, and that is as much for the person's benefit as for society's.
How natural or unnatural is that? And how adequate is the natural law for this type of thing.
This is precisely where natural law is most adequate. You've misunderstood the idea. "Natural" has absolutely nothing to do with what a person or thing does in an untrained, uneducated state. It has to do with the nature of the thing itself. It is the nature of dogs to bark, of cats to meow. Part of human nature, as in all sexual beings, is procreation, and it is the nature of the procreative act to lead to procreation. To engage in the procreative act in that way is
disordered. It is contrary to nature. You can be a stark raving atheist and see that. Evolution designed the male and female genitalia and related body parts in such a way that one is for the other, and they are for one another to the end of producing children. And the process doesn't stop there. The human nature is such that for the first several years of its life it is defenseless and requires training and education in order to survive. Part of that training and education has to do with relationships and bonding, and from a strinctly biological and psychological perspective, we see that his or her relationship with the mother is of extreme formative importance. But so to is that of the father. And so we are not surprised to see that human society would,
by nature, produce an institition in which that child is cared for by the mother and in which the father provides extensive support, both emotionally and physically. That instition is called marriage. As such, the sexual union cannot be divorced from marriage. They go together, naturally. When we engage in the passions in a disorderly manner, we start breaking things, and that is precisely what we mean when we say something is wrong. And that is precisely why society has the right and responsibility to repress what is wrong.
There is simply NO defense for the basic order of homosexual behavior. It is disordered by any argument, and being disordered, society, by
its nature, MUST repress the disorder. If it does not, the society has violated its own nature and done something wrong. It has become an unjust society, and unjust societies are not pleasant places to live.
Homosexuality is a sin, the bible clearly says it, I have no moral confusion in that regard. But the natural law view is inadequate to address this because it assumes that it is out of sinful lust that such unions take place. The problem is not "sodomy is not natural" since that doesn't happen in female-female unions, the problem is of same-sex being together in all and every way, families aren't shaped this way. And I agree with you that such union is unnatural, but I also contend that it is not anything to be shameful of by the society I can understand it being shameful in the church but outside of church its only odd...but why shameful?
It is shameful because it is disordered. Female-female relationships are just as shameful because they are just as unnatural. It's also silly for you to pick on sodomy in particular, because it was never claimed that sodomy is the sum total of the debate. Sodomy is a
particular example of a universal type, the universal type being disordered acts.
In any case, you
are morally confused. You apparently have equated religiosity with morality, such that because you recognize homosexuality is a sin (which is a religious point), you therefore are not morally confused (the moral point). But that's incorrect. Morality is not about religion and vice versa. We would certainly expect religion to deal with and enshrine moral truths in its systems of teaching; good religion does just that. But the moral point is the moral point whether we are thinking about religion, and the basis of morality is order and disorder. To say that something is disordered but not wrong is self-contradictory. Now that which is disordered is shameful, to say that something is disorderd but not shameful is moral confusion.
As I said to Mallz before, I am NOT talking about the Church. I am talking about
society. That you continue to bring the Church into this demonstrates your moral confusion. And this, by the way, is important from an apologetics perspective. We argue, rightly by the way, that if objective morality exists then God exists and that because objective morality exists God therefore exists. But if morality is
objective, then it has nothing to do with religious standards. This is one example, neo. Your riff earlier that we just "know" and that it is "self-evident" that gay people have the right to marry shows that you've failed to understand the nature of
morality itself.
Outside of church our biblical values don't necessarily apply. Your definition of right or wrong is a biblical definition, its not democratic in nature, its theocratic...but outside the system is democratic or non-theocratic to be precise, that system has its entire own structure of assigning values.
Muslims do marriage, every other religious or non-religious groups do marriage, marriage is not exclusive to Christianity. We can regulate marriage inside the church but outside of it, that is a different problem.
Don't get me wrong Jac, I clearly see the problems the church face...I am not advocating that we allow gay marriage in church, but outside of church, I really don't see why not. And really don't see what we lose, and I do see what we gain, some trust, some confidence, may be some openness to the gospel, may be less hostility.
All of which has nothing to do with anything. I'm not talking about the Church. I'm taking about society--what a just, moral society looks like and how it operates. The society you are positing is unjust and immoral, and unjust, immoral societies are dangerous places to live. They are contrary to human nature because such societies prevent humanity in general and humans in particular from actualizing their God-given potential.
The real question, which in fact takes priority above all, is where do gays stand in the kingdom of God?...as a teacher, and outreach guy this is my supreme concern. At the end of the day, I want to save a gay teen, a gay lady, a gay guy, why not...and my question is what is their status in the church, are they saved brothers and sisters or are they people who are not welcome in the church but are saved nonetheless? Marriage is just a trivial matter in the bigger picture. The bigger picture is we alienate the gay community, or do we reach out to them?
Again, you need to drop the religious riff. It's a complete red herring. It's aslo terribly wrong to asy "marriage is just a trivial matter in the bigger picture." That's very wrong and demonstrates your moral confusion. You are saying order does not matter, which is identical to saying morality doesn't matter, and that is immoral.
My personal interaction has left me wondering a lot about this...gay and christian are at complete odds but should they have to be? And at what cost? At any forum, Christians have stereotype that leaves gay people quite scared for their own self respect. and yet somewhere I do believe that Gays if they believe in Christ, shall be saved, regardless of their sexual orientation.
Just some time ago, I held a gay teenager, crying over my shoulder because he was so willing to commit suicide that his family was pushing him to marry a girl and they would not accept him. What do I tell this guy? Stop being gay?...believe me I tried, didn't help. Stop having thoughts of sex? that hasn't helped either. Moreover he is a christian, I don't doubt he loves God. And my question is where does this boy stand? I can tell him that this is sin but I get blank stares in return, his obvious question was he can't be with a girl, that repels him and I can't blame him because I feel the same if I am to be asked to be gay.
And my concern is for asexual and transgender people too.
You empathize with him on having a powerful emotion. You tell him plainly that the emotion, though, is disordered. That does not make HIM a bad person. It makes him a broken person, like all the rest of us. You tell him that while he cannot deny what he feels--there is no need to lie about it, after all; emotions exist whether we like it or not, and often we don't--but that he must practice restaint and not act according to those emotions. That doesn't mean he has to marry a girl. Perhaps he just doesn't marry. There are worse things in life than celebacy. Paul extolled its virtues, after all. In all that, you don't question his salvation. If he has trusted Christ, he is saved. If he hasn't, it doesn't matter if he acts on his sexuality or not. He is not saved. You tell him that God loves him. You affirm his intrinsic worth.
You do not, cannot, must not, condone disordered acts. That is to condone sin. That is immoral, and you do the boy positive
harm when you do that.
I would
highly encourage you read a (very short) book titled
Feeling and Healing Your Emotions by Conrad Baars. You can get it for about $7.50 on Kindle. You can read through all of it in about two good sittings. You have a lot of things mixed up, and while I don't doubt in the least your sincerity and even love for your family and for the LGBT community more generally, you are harming them; and not just them, you are very unintentionally harming society as a whole.
