Gay marraige and the end of the world

I don't know much about other cultures but certainly there is a well documented tradition amongst many north american peoples of men and women occupying cultural positions opposite those associated with their biological gender.I also found this page which has some details of a variety of transgendered roles in a number of areas in Asia. The degree to which such roles are accepted varies and it is sometimes hard to see if the modern attitudes are similar to traditional cultural attitudes to those in transgendered roles.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 17-Jan-2006 03:18 PM

i think he thinks you meant Old Testament when you said Off Topic. but he seems to be a very confused boy today.

That would explain the strange request for 'verses'. The original post was actually ReverendDG not me.TTFN,WK

i was wondering about that..i'm not sure how you get old testiment from OT but interesting, but yes i was talking mostly about north american indian cultures, they also revere transgender people, interestingas for the topic I really don't see anyone as having the right to dictate who should love who, who could marry who, even religious texts show bias of the views of the authors - including the OT

riVeRraT writes me:

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I want you to know, that I really have been praying to God about this for a long time. I do not get any answers. It is one of the few things that I do not get an answer for. That fustrates me.

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Is it possible that God in fact is telling you something, like maybe that he trusts your judgement? You've been opposed to gay marriage for a long time, but you say you've been thinking about it a lot. Why do you think you can't get it out of your mind? I've been talking with you for years and I don't have any sense that you're gay, so I don't think that could be the reason. Maybe you keep thinking about it because you really have been wrong, and God won't let you quit thinking about it. Maybe he's continuously challenging you. Is that possible?

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#1, since I am not gay, I need to some how understand why people are gay. This has not been explained rationally yet, and has not been proven in science yet.

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When you put it that way, rat, I don't really have a satisfactory answer. I don't really know what causes it - probably a variation in the brain's development, but I truly have no idea. What I can tell you, with the very certainty with which I know my own name, is that I never made any choice. God made me this way. I've been attracted to other boys for as long as I can remember; when I hit puberty boys were absolutely all I could think about, and I thought about them every bit as intently as straight boys thought about girls. But I couldn't tell anybody. Not anybody at all. Even on the rare occassion that I might get to have some fun with another guy, I had to treat it as though it was almost accidental and didn't mean anything, when I knew damn well it meant everything. So even when I got to "do it", I didn't get to talk about it. It was too shameful.

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Is it possible that if you were born gay, that there may have been an experience that turn you gay that you were not aware of?

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That would be some sort of so-called "repressed memory" and I'm not sure I believe in such a thing. The science seems dubious to me. But even if there were something to the idea of a non-remembered incident that made me gay, why should that have any bearing on the way I'm treated by the state? Why should that affect whether or not I'm allowed to marry for love?

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Tell me, do you think as a Christian, should I accept gay marriage or not?

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Let me put it this way: the more Christians like you do come to accept it the more likely it is that my faith in God might be restored.I can't tell you why you should do it from a Christian standpoint better than arachnophilia can so I'll defer to him on that point.I would like to thank you again, rat, for keeping your mind open.

Please read this article from the Indianapolis Star about a real-life Brokeback Mountain-type situation, only one where the two do get together and operate a ranch and raise kids. This one ends in a different type of tragedy, one which shows why this fight over gay marriage is so important.Please read it.

You asked You also mentioned that you have been praying about this, but God hasn't answered you.I think God has answered you. He's led you to start questioning your position. I've always believed that God doesn't respond directly to us, but enables us to deal with the problems we face, rather than removing the problems for us.To give you an example, when i was studying for my Honours Finals, I wasn't working hard enough because I couldn't be bothered. I knew I faced failing my exams and, lazily, prayed for God to help me pass my exams.Now, God could have just popped all the info I needed into my head and ensured that easy questions came up, but that would mean I passed without deserving to pass. Instead, what I found was that studying became easier, I didn't get distracted, I started wanting to study and even enjoyed it. The amount of work I put in was enormous, more than I'd ever managed to do. There was never any sense of God having a hand in this, yet I was changed in my opinion of studying and this enabled me to put in the effort required to pass my exams.I honestly believe that we have all the information we need to decide how we should respond to people who are "different" from us. All of the teachings of Jesus taught us to love one another and to do unto others as they would have them do unto us. We're also taught that God doesn't want us to judge others. So who are we to believe that gay marriage is "wrong"?Also, consider this. Suppose that being gay is due to a developmental "abnormality" in certain parts of the brain, due to environmental, genetic or hormonal factors. This would mean that a person has no control over whether they are gay or not. Other conditions which are thought to have a similar combination of causes include clubfoot. Now, how would God react if you end up standing in front of Him and He asks you why you objected to clubfoot marriages?We don't know for sure why some people are gay. There is some evidence that it is physical, not psychological (ie it isn't a choice you can make, but the way you are born). Given that we don't have definitive evidence of the cause, should we condemn gay people? Or should we give them the benefit of the doubt? What if it turns out that it is due to physical causes? Would you have a leg to stand on when you finally get to God and He asks why you behaved the way you did towards gay people who could no more help the way they were born than people with clubfoot can help it?If there is the slightest chance that the cause of homosexuality is physical, then that is doubt enough for me to say "This isn't for me to judge, this is for God to judge."To be perfectly honest, even if it were demonstrated to me that homosexuality was a lifestyle choice (and I don't for a minute believe that it is), I would still refuse to judge and leave it to God. I'm not convinced that it matters to God, since the Ten Commandments say nothing about it. They condemn covetousness, adultery, theft, lying, yet no mention of homosexuality.I hope this rambling response help you in some way to your final decision. The decision is yours to make, God will not make it for you, but He will help you in vague ways to reach it. I think He's already started helping you and I'll pray that He continues to help you until you get to where He wants you to be.

Ever consider thats why you don't want to have kids? Whats the problem?You can't control my mind, I can think what I want. Why get all fusterd about it? What's the big deal? I am not impossing that you change or that you should consider yourself not married.Lighted up, for real.Besides, I really don't have a problem with a man and woman marrying. Man and woman become one. I understand that, because I can relate to the desire.I can even relate to wanting multiple wives, for it would be one of my own desires. But I can also see how that would not work, or be a practical thing. It only serves a selfish purpose. How could everyone love each other?What should the ground rules for marriage be? Love and consent? Is that all?So then we should allow people to marry thier sisters? Where does it end?Tell me schraf, do you understand gay desire?
Explain it to me.

that's absolutely horrible.

i already explained it to you. you didn't listen.

What on Earth makes you think that people haven't been marrying their sisters for thousands of years? It's only in recent times that we've made this invalid; it's basically a kind of human eugenics.Weren't Adam and Eve brother and sister? Twins, in fact? It ends where it is now; the right of adults to enter into binding agreements and partnerships with each other.

Didn't Cleopatra marry two of her brothers?Brian.

No folks, I'm straight. I do not have the physical "signature" that gays are known to have in a certain part of their brains. I wish I could remember the source.Being homosexual is natural. Why? Because it occurs in nature. It just isn't prevalent. I believe that since God is the author (creator) of all then God must be responsible for ALL the human types on the planet. It is an opportunity for us to realize what really is behind all this, to decide to set aside irrational fear and to trust that God (something here about infinite wisdom) knows what He's doing.I wonder why anyone in their right mind would "choose" to be gay when they are fully aware of the social penalties. Gay marriage? Why not? I see no spiritual conumdrum in the issue. I do and have known more than a few gay men in my 63 years. Each, without exception was of above average intelligence, creative and artistic. I have never known a stupid gay man.In the old testament we read about "abominations before God.....etc". The author then was no different than some of us today. Vocalizing his opinion based on what he feared and believed. The motivator then was tribal stability throuh family strengths under a patriarchial system. Anyone found "outside the box" was dealt with. Sound familiar? Many Middle Eastern cultures have never managed to divest themselves from the old ways. Beliefs do not have to have any basis in anything but in those far off times a leader was always looked to for guidance. A liberal minded patriarch would not have lasted long. Funny how fear has such amazing longivity.The idea of gay marriage is non-threatening and quite in keeping with the social ideals we so often espouse. Let them marry. After a year or so the fuss will die down and we will know that nothing bad happened after all and the man who lived in the Light of Christ will be certian then that it was correct to abide in what the Father has ordained.So often we hear, "the practice of religion divides people". Each religious group has a dark side which finds easy access to the unwitting. It is quite pointless to combat ignorance and fear with unfettered logic. So all parties in the great game are positioned to gain by practicing tolerance. If we learn this we will have followed where God leads and how can that be a bad thing?

Actually "eve" was a transgendered clone if I understand the story right ...

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we can't legislate love. that leaves consent. this is a good question, though not especially on-topic. the anti-gay marriage crowd likes to bring up examples like this to propose a slippery-slope kind of idea.

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