Gay Marriage

well as i see it christianity started all of this gay marriage is wrong and should be illegal crap. but look here in the gods book as they call it are 2 contradicting sentences that i know of.

The first one says the homosexuality is a sin and those that are homosexual, drunks, thieves and many others shall not inherit the house of god...

yet the other sentence says that the house of god has many rooms... Who says that in one of those you wont find a homosexual couple or a thief or heck even a poor drunk bastard drinking away his sins as means of redemption.

and for all you haters out there: If being gay is a choice when the hell did you choose to be straight?

@ yunor
It says "many rooms," not "room for everyone." You're kind of taking that out of context, because Jesus was saying that to his disciples, a small group of people, not the general public. I think if the bible is clear about anything, it's that there is not a place in heaven for everyone and not everyone will go there.

@ Kurtni
i think we might all agree that the bible is a book in which everyone finds something they like and something they dont like. and God is supposed to forgive his beloved sinners for all they have done. and frankly i dont care whether i end up burning in hell or up there chatting with my neighbour John as long as i have that special someone in my life. so what if they're the same sex as i am, so what if my local priest will send me to hell for loving someone, the point is that you shouldnt be punnished for something nature has chosen for you.

@ yunor
Christianity teaches that God only forgives those who are repentant for their sins and wish to do better. This is presented in many different forms (from confession to silent prayer to baptism) in different churches but the point is that it's not generally stated that God gives a free pass to every person.

Also, I don't think Kurtni was saying that being gay is wrong but that the contradiction you pointed out wasn't really a contradiction at all.

@ The Rumor
yes but Christianity also says that having sex is a sin if you do it for any other reason than making little new christians and its also a sin if you enjoy it. a few friends of mine like to spend their time looking for loopholes, stupid terms and contradictions in the "holy books". personally i don't want to critisize any religion or religious people. But i wouldn't want those same people to poke arround in my goddamn life and saying "YOU'LL BURN IN HELL YOU GAY BASTARD!". Well looky here as i recall it those same people go around preaching that god has made us all in his image... That makes perfect sense...

@ yunor
The bible says many, many things. That doesn't mean that what I said isn't a teaching of Christianity. I was merely correcting a statement made by you that 'God is supposed to forgive his beloved sinners for all they have done'. This is not what is taught by the bible or the church.

I'm not really sure what your point is. I never denied there were contradictions, I just said that the one you cited above isn't really a contradiction at all.

@ The Rumor
im sorry i guess i misunderstood your post. i apologize if i have made an incorrect statement regarding the bible. but that was just how i understood it when i first saw it =3

@ yunor
It's all good. That's what's great about the discussion threads. Sometimes you learn and sometimes you educate (and sometimes everyone just disagrees ;) ).

For the record, I am both Christian and gay so Christianity isn't always the bad guy. Some people just take religion and use it for the wrong purpose, in my opinion.

I don't think that gender should have anything to do with whether or not a couple can marry. If a man can marry the woman that he loves, why can't another man love the man that he loves? And what of those whose gender identities lie outside of the male-female spectrum? Or someone who is intersex? Legally, they may be one gender or another, but who can they marry or have sex with that would make them straight or gay? Gay marriage, straight marriage - they're one in the same.

On the topic of religion affecting the legality of gay marriage, I have one thing to say: separation of church and state.

@ The Rumor
i know religion isn't always the bad guy but in the past few weeks christianity has ruined more lives in my country than the government has in 2 years of financial crysis.

@ z o m b i e
i agree. marriage is supposed to be free of choice ever since the middle ages ended. so what the heck is the state trying to do now?

and on the separation of the church and state - you must realize that the church is one BIG business, ever since all this church thing started they have been taking money and land everywhere they can. and now when they're loosing this little iece of control that they have left the church is trying to mess with us as much as it can - at least from my point of view.

@ yunor
Can you elaborate? I typed the name of your country into Google and all the news stories I got were about financial crisis, so it seems like that's all it's ruining right now ... at least according to the news.

@ yunor
Separation of church and state isn't about the church having power and money; the meaning behind the separation of church and state clause is that the government (the state) can't favor one religion (church) and make that religion's ideals law. So, if someone wanted to ban gay marriage "because the Bible says so", their proposal is null because that would be favoring the Christian faith's beliefs. I also disagree with you. I don't think that the church is trying to cause harm - yes, there are some extremists (i.e. the Westboro Baptist Church) and there are some churches who are run by corrupt people, but the church hasn't had the power that it did in a long, long time. While I am not a man of faith, I don't think that the church is a bad thing or a bad influence in a person's life. I do, however, think that some faiths need to take a step back and look at what they're saying - the same book of the Bible, which was made irrelevant by Jesus in the New Testament, that says that being gay is an abomination also states that you can't come into contact with a woman when she's on her period and that eating shellfish is also an abomination. If being gay is an abomination and gay marriage should be banned, then eating shellfish, which is also an abomination, should also be banned, using the logic presented by those who use Leviticus as a reason for their stance against homosexuality.

@ z o m b i e
I disagree with you that the churchs' power is negligible, and I disagree that only extremists are to blame. Skippy Sally's Catholic church down the road is just as much to blame for marriage inequality as the Westboro Baptist church. In fact, it's the mainstream churches that actually impact people and persuade them.

You live in the United States if your location is accurate. Religious people, their organizations, and their (tax free!) money are solely responsible for the states with constitutional amendments banning same sex marriage. Christian groups were able to overturn gay marriage in one of the most liberal states in the US, California. Most of the lobbying for Prop 8 in California came from the Catholic Church and the Mormom church- and money was raised by Mormoms who don't even live in California. That's how much power religion has over policy today.

@ Kurtni
How would you know Jo Blo's church down the street is "just as much to blame for marriage inequality"? There are Christian churches that marry gay people and support equality. Are they all as much to blame?

(Or were we only speaking about Catholicism, in which case I still stand by my question. Not all churches support marriage inequality. Actually, churches don't really support anything because they're buildings. So when we refer to the church are we referring to the leader, the deacons, the congregration or what?)

Kurtni:

I disagree with you that the churchs' power is negligible, and I disagree that only extremists are to blame. Skippy Sally's Catholic church down the road is just as much to blame for marriage inequality as the Westboro Baptist church. In fact, it's the mainstream churches that actually impact people and persuade them.

Agreed. Here in the UK, the biggest opponents of the government's plan for marriage equality are (seem to be) the Church of England, arguably one of the most 'moderate' mainstream churches around, or at least in the country.

(Their main argument against it is their issue with "redefining" the "true meaning" of marriage, which I find slightly ironic considering that their church was founded upon the family values of Henry VIII, a big fan of divorce.)

@ dru's hammer.
Churches that support marriage equality are a minority compared to those that actively fight against it. My point wasn't that churches who support marriage equality don't exist, but that its completely inaccurate to believe that only "extremist" churches are against gay marriage, when most denominations in the US clearly lay out in their doctrines that they oppose it.

I did say Catholic for a reason, as the Catholic church is vehemently against gay marriage and spends boatloads of money to keep it, or make it, illegal. Whenever prominent figures without the church speak out for gay rights, they get excommunicated. Even though statistically, Catholics have relatively high support for gay marriage, they get ignored, and their money is still spent to smear gay people and homosexuality.

@ Kurtni
No, it wouldn't. But I don't like the idea that all Catholics are anti-gay either 'cause I know for a fact it's not true. In April, a Catholic priest donated 5,000 toward marriage equality.

I don't care about individual Catholics, I care about the governing organization that spends their money to discriminate against gay people anyways.

I think anyone who identifies as a Catholic and Gay Rights supporters is completely ingenuine. You can't claim to support gay rights while proudly belonging to an organization that successfully oppresses gay rights and hurts LGBT people.

@ Kurtni
I just certainly understand why religions non-discriminatory people seem to think everyone hates them because they never seem to make a distinction between whether they have a problem with the church or the people in it, and they never seem to be distinct either. I'm just sick of everyone blaming Christianity/Catholicism straight up and never thinking about maybe not being rude to GLBT allies/individuals who don't identify as Atheist.

@ dru's hammer.
They're not legitimate allies if they belong to an anti-gay church. They're supporting an organization that hurts LGBT people.