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Post by christian on Oct 29, 2008 7:24:48 GMT -5
One must be circumspect about citing Kinsey. The vast majority of his study subjects were prison inmates who volunteered to participate in his studies. This self selected group has a much higher incidence of homosexual experiences than the general population. Kinsey's main desire was to find a way to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals. He was apparently successful in accomplishing this for many individuals. He also apparently purposely overstated the prevalence of homosexuality in hopes of getting more funding.
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Post by Sojourner on Oct 30, 2008 14:45:16 GMT -5
"He was apparently successful in accomplishing this for many individuals." A citation would be helpful to determine whether his own work substantiates that assertion, or whether it is your interpretation we are called on to accept.
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Post by christian on Nov 9, 2008 8:00:01 GMT -5
I have looked for a citation, but I garnered this fact by watching an interview of a Kinsey biographer on PBS. This biographer, who was quite sympathetic to Kinsey, stated that one of Kinsey's aims was to re-orient homosexuals and that Kinsey claimed success at this in several cases.
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Post by Sojourner on Nov 12, 2008 14:15:13 GMT -5
Thanks for looking. I'm skeptical of his claim. I don't understand why, if he was this successful, he did not leave protocols that could be replicated, and with that replication, similar results observed.
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Post by wtxdaddy on Mar 8, 2009 23:07:35 GMT -5
For me, religious marrige, or Christian marriage is plainly intended for one man and one woman. I do not believe the church should "marry" same-sex couples. Nor do I think, the church should "bless" them. Now, the couples (and gay individuals for that matter) should not be excommunicated, or kicked out of church, or discouraged from attending, or participating in the life of the church, but rather should be encouraged. I know three gay couples. They have never "married", nor sought to be (to my knowledge) and they all live in Texas. I have no doubt that in the couples, each one loves the other. How they live their lives is no business of mine and I like all of the men in these couples.
As for a civil union being sanctioned by the federal government, or individual states, that is fine with me. I am not going to campaign for, or against such a thing, should it appear on a ballot. My opposition to the church sanctioning gay marriage is rooted in my belief that sex acts between people of the same sex cannot be sanctioned by the church and is always sinful - it is not sex within a marriage. Now, I do not believe this is the worst sort of sin out there - we all know there are a lot more hurtful ways to sin, which cause damage to other people, but gay sex does seem to affect the very temple within which we, as Christians, invite the Holy Spirit to live.
My fear for gays is that, they may be led astray by the church, not repent of their sin because the church tells them, it's not sin and then adversely affect their eternal life. I do not know for certain that repenting of all sin, save one, cancels out salvation, but I would not be willing to risk it myself.
Look, I know God loves the gay people as much as He loves the heterosexuals. I do not think being gay is sinful, it is engaging in the behavior, or lusting which is sinful. I hate that the phenomenon exists and is causing so much trouble in society and in the church. But I would not want the gay people I know and like to be ostracized, or mistreated by anybody for any reason.
I am currently talking about this matter with my rector. He is helping me understand this better. If the ECUSA could demonstrate that God approves of these relationships, then it would be a non-issue for me. Otherwise, my objection to the church doing it at this point is because of the danger it poses for gay people and potential lethal effects on their eternal life.
I pray the Lord will reveal His will to us on this question and that He will grant happiness & health to us all.
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Post by Uriel on Mar 19, 2009 10:38:17 GMT -5
You know, as for "lusting," I think all sexual beings "lust," that is, feel sexual desire. To say it is not sinful to be gay, but it is sinful to lust, is to me an oxymoron. How would you know whether you were gay or straight if you did not feel physical desire?
While I agree with the idea that behaviour is where sin resides, nevertheless, I think that "sin" is in disrespectful, loveless sex, not in who your partner is. This is not a new idea, but I do think it bears repeating. Love is love.
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Post by christian on Mar 19, 2009 11:05:27 GMT -5
Sex outside of marriage is sinful. At the very least it disrespects marriage, the relationship for which God made sex.
Within marriage lustful sex, sex to express love, and sex for procreation serve to cement the marriage relationship. And sex for procreation insures the survival of the human race.
If you truly love someone you will not violate their body and yours by having sex outside of marriage.
These are simple truths stated in the Bible and by Jesus.
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Post by Uriel on Mar 20, 2009 10:13:05 GMT -5
And gay people, no matter how much they may want to, are supposed to get married how? Obviously, this is an argument with an old, predictable ping-pong.
I sometimes remember a moment years ago during a reception celebrating my then-upcoming marriage. A gay couple, friends of our hosts who lived across the street, where they had lived for at least a decade in the house they had bought together, offered us congratulations. One of these men shook my hand and offered his good wishes, and the look of longing on his face seemed to me unmistakable, and I was moved. I felt a bit abashed.
"Marriage" is a red herring, in my opinion, as long as gay people in most places cannot marry. My feeling about marriage is that it is (or can be) a very good thing, and offers a sense of security, a sense of social definition, which for most of us requires that legality. So I congratulate and admire my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who have been able to build a life, and a life commitment, with their partners without what for me has been a sustaining structure available to me because my orientation is the socially-convenient one.
The argument that sex out of marriage is sinful (okay, but not the greatest sin in the world) does not apply where marriage is impossible. Especially where the commitment of marriage exists without benefit of clergy.
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Post by niniqtw65r5 on Mar 20, 2009 12:28:07 GMT -5
I hope I remeber this correctly-I'm sure someone out there will correct me-but even the Catholic church acknowledges that the plege of marriage is between the partners, the priest only officiates. So, marriage exists even if not blessed by clergy.
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Post by Uriel on Mar 20, 2009 12:43:35 GMT -5
I believe that is correct, actually. There are benefits to "official" (ecclesiastical and legal) marriage, but I think you are right - such official status doesn't create its existence.
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Post by christian on Mar 20, 2009 14:21:59 GMT -5
Marriage is considered a sacrament in the Anglican Church. A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. While it is theoretically possible that a marriage can exist sans the outward and visible sign, as a practical matter one must wonder if the inward and spiritual grace exists if the couple refuses the outward and visible sign. The two really go hand and hand. One does not exist without the other.
Christian marriage exists only between members of the opposite sex. The old testament makes this clear, the new testament makes this clear, and Jesus says it. You are entitled to your opinion about whether God has changed his mind on this or not, but you are not entitled to your own facts. The Bible insists that marriage is between a man and a woman. No convocation of a few poorly educated bishops or misinformed laity can change this. You ignore God's word at your peril.
That you would find sobering moments even at your own wedding is not surprising in a fallen world. But further attempts at casting God out of this world as man is want to do in order to get his own way seems like a fruitless endeavor to me.
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Post by Uriel on Mar 20, 2009 16:10:11 GMT -5
"One must wonder if the inward and spiritual grace exists if the couple refuses the outward and visible sign."
One might argue that the observable relationship itself is the sacrament, the lived exchange of trust and commitment. Secondly, the couple does not refuse the outward and visible sign - in the case of gays and lesbians, it is refused to them. That's the whole point of legalizing gay marriage.
The OT doesn't make it clear (besides which, I'm sure not even our friend "christian" lives by everthing in the OT), Jesus has nothing to say on the subject, and Paul isn't Jesus and doesn't think anyone should get married anyway. What we derive to our spiritual benefit from the Bible has little or nothing to do with the marriage choices of consenting adults.
And what - I shouldn't find sobering moments at my own wedding? What is that about?
Oh - and it's "as man is wont to do," not "want to do." Look it up.
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Post by christian on Mar 20, 2009 20:28:26 GMT -5
Have a peek at Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5:31, and Matthew 2:24. In general "christian" goes to great lengths to obey commands from the old testament,especially if they are repeated both by Jesus and in the new testament. I am not sure how "christian's" virtue has anything to do with the facts put forward or the logic used to reach conclusions. I would tend to reject the argument that if Uriel can be shown to be of less than stellar character then anything he/she says can be rejected out of hand. I tend to be in the school that says the truth is true whether uttered by Charles Manson or Jesus Christ, and a falsity is false whether uttered by Uriel or christian.
In the Anglican tradition a sacrament is an event presided over by a priest or bishop. It would hardly be Eucharist if we simply sat at home listening to the radio imagining the bread and wine sitting on the altar.
I'll have a word with the spell checker in my word processor. It's vocabulary seems to be smaller than mine. It doesn't seem to know what to do with the word canon either.
I assume your wedding was a joyous occasion. I was referring to that fact that that joy was punctuated by some melancholy over the unmarried status of you friend who apparently defines himself by his sexual proclivities. Or perhaps you define him thus.
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Post by Uriel on Mar 21, 2009 3:59:23 GMT -5
You "go to great lengths" to obey commands from the Old Testament? Really? Are you sure you don't want to modify that claim?
Your spell checker is apparently also incapable of distinguishing the verb phrase contraction "it's" from the possessive "its."
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Post by Canadian Phil on Mar 22, 2009 13:12:33 GMT -5
Uriel;
On your comments about lust, can I suggest that equating it merely sexual desire is a little confusing? Lust is clearly related, of course, in the sense that both are sexual and both are desire, but there is a clearly negative connotation to the word which suggests that it is sexual desire pushed to an extreme. That is, sexual desire itself isn't necessarily wrong in that it can be expressed in appropriate ways and with an appropriate person. Lust is raising that desire to a point where it is easy to objectivize the person one is lusting after and can be raised into an idol which can become so important it displaces even God.
Mind you, as far as this debate goes, this is a red herring in the sense that both hetero- and homosexual people can and do feel lust.
As for the discussion on marriage and its withholding of that sacrament from gay people, I don't see any way to adjudicate between christian and Uriel here. I think christian's description of marriage as a sacrament is correct (which I think Uriel does as well) and that he raises a good point in asking whether one can properly be said to partake in a sacrament if engaged in a practice that is not acceptable to Scripture (which, pace Uriel, does seem to assume heterosexual unions as the norm and gives no credible evidence for corresponding homosexual unions). Yet, Uriel's point that this sacrament is withheld from gay Christians is correct as well and there is logic in saying that the Christians who hold this position have no call to critisize gay Christians for not marrying and for living in 'common law' (as we would call it in Canada) union or civil partnerships.
Unless, of course, one calls the sexual practices sin in which case this debate over what is marriage and what is not becomes entirely pointless.
Which is pretty much where I am right now.
Peace, Phil
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