homosexuality and the Bible

You've answered your own question. Alcoholics harm themselves and those around them.How do we tell the difference between a genetic condition that's harmless, and one that's harmful? By the harm it does.Gay sex isn't any more dangerous than straight sex. Less risk of pregancy, in fact.On the other hand, if a person with the alcoholic gene wanted to drink, and could do so without putting themselves or others at risk, more power to them. Just like anybody else. My moral fabric is inclusive of homosexuality, so there's no unweaving to be done.I guess I don't see what your point is. Alcoholism tends to wreck lives. Gay people live happy, well-adjusted lives. Where's the comparison?

Or could live them so if they weren't hounded by people who are incapable of minding their own damn business.

The untraversable rift in this sort of argument is that the notion of harm is in the eye of the beholder. Your moral fabric may be inclusive of homosexuality, but this is not so for many. Like I mentioned, I don't want to get into this side of the argument because I think we all know the points that will be covered on both sides. I know many people, Christian and likewise, who would argue vehemently that homosexuality wrecks lives, causes harm, and leads to much of the same stuff that results from alcoholism. I won't argue that here, though, because this is where that rift comes in . Thus, I'll leave it at this.One thing to note is the Exodus International website. A grain of salt may be in order, but there are some testimonials where "ex-homosexuals" claim homosexuality ruined their lives until they found Christ. I know most of you will scoff at these accounts, and I'm not using the organization to argue anything, but I was a little surprised with some stuff I came across.Cheers,
Jakeedit: ’ ’ ’ – ’’ ‘ 10 ’ ‘’ ’’’ ’ is the websire if you have some time to kill.[This message has been edited by Jake22, 08-21-2003]

Now you've all got me thinking here, and I had a headache before I even logged on here. I am a bisexual female. A few years back I did delve a little into the research of whether or not being homosexual was genetic. Now, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if being either heterosexual or homosexual is not a choice, but rather a genetic factor, where do bisexuals fit in? Have I simply made a choice? Am I really one way or the other and just afraid to admit to that? See, I really do find both men and women equally attractive. I really have been in relationships with both men and women. And my relationships have always been only 2 people exclusively, no room for "it's not cheating if it's with someone of the same sex" or any of that kind of thing. I've never left a man for a woman, or a woman for a man. Have there been any studies done on the genetic possibility of bisexuality?I know one side of the argument is that sex is to be between a man and a woman for procreation. But really, every single time people have sex they are supposed to procreate? Or at least that's the main goal every time you have sex? No one does it simply because it feels good?Some on the other side of the issue would argue that homosexuality is mother nature's way of fighting against overpopulation, yet the actual drive/desire to have and raise children isn't necessarily any less in a homosexual arrangement, it's just not feasible to actually procreate.And I certainly don't buy into the "maternal instinct" perspective. I am a 33 year old single female with no children and I don't want children, ever! In fact, I am having my tubes tied to ensure that I do not have children. Should I just never have sex then, since I have no desire whatsoever to have children? Should I not be allowed to get married? Because I would like to get married someday, if I find someone, but obviously it won't be because I want to raise children.There's a children's poem by Shel Silverstein, I don't know what it's called but it has something to do with "if god turned out the light everything would be alright." One of the points in the poem has to do with race (color), but it always struck me as fitting for this topic as well. I mean really, if you're in a room with absolutely no light and you don't know who is in there and they start kissing you, would it feel good? Yes, because sex feels good. Then someone turns on the light and you discover that it's someone of the same sex and *gasp* you're not supposed to like that, so society says.Sorry if I rambled too much, I actually have a killer migraine at the moment and it makes it hard to put thoughts together.
Melissa

Well, it's my opinion, and I think the research largely bears this out, that women's sexuality tends to be far more fluid than men's. For instance women tend to be aroused by images of both men and women in sexual situations, regardless of their own sexual preference. Also it seems like women are more likely to be truly bisexual (as opposed to incidentally homo- or -heterosexual) than men. Ergo I would submit that women's sexual preference is considerably less affected by their biology. Depends - do they have a moustache? (I have this "moustache" rule about sexuality that all my friends laugh at.)

Crashfrog~Thanks for your input, I appreciate it. As for the moustache factor, some women have moustaches. Not me, of course! Your point is very interesting. It reminded me of a similar debate on another board of whether or not men were even capable of being bisexual.Melissa

Hi Melissa,I don't remember just what this book had to say about bi-sexuality, but a very good book on the miriad variations in femininity/masculinity and sexual preferences is "Brain Sex" by Anne Moir. Its been several years since I've read it, but it goes into various studies done on maternal hormones in utero. I also, don't remember just what it had to say about genetic predispositions, but it is a very good read on the topic.I liked Crashfrog's reply. Most of my women friends, (at least those who don't subscribe to the fundamentalist extreme aversion to homosexuality), whom I've discussed this with agree that, while they themselves might not find themselves sexually attracted to other women, it isn't aborant to them. In fact most agree that one can find many thing sexually appealing about both sexes. I think that the fact that most women can look at another woman and say "She's beautiful," or "She has a great figure" shows this also. Most men that I know find it very uncomfortable to make a general statement like this concerning other men. Many claim to be totally unable to make a judgement on whether or not another man is attractive.------------------
Asgara "An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

Jake22 writes:

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I know many people, Christian and likewise, who would argue vehemently that homosexuality wrecks lives, causes harm, and leads to much of the same stuff that results from alcoholism.

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But the question is: How?For example, we can gauge how alcoholism leads to harm by noting things like being unable to hold a job, spending all one's money on alcohol, causing disturbances while under the influence, etc.What, specifically, is the harm of being gay? Does it make you incapable of holding down a job? Does it make one become violent? Does it make one likely to molest children?

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One thing to note is the Exodus International website. A grain of salt may be in order, but there are some testimonials where "ex-homosexuals" claim homosexuality ruined their lives until they found Christ.

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Um...you do know that the two male founders of Exodus fell in love and got married, yes? The UK branch of Exodus, "Courage," was disbanded back in 2001 because its leader, Jeremy Marks, admitted that: "None of the people we've counseled have converted no matter how much effort and prayer they've put into it. There is much more benefit to the honest view." Notice that John Paulk, the poster boy for Exodus back in 1998 (he even made the cover of Newsweek) has been excised from their literature when he was caught buying drinks for other men in a gay bar in DC.Yeah, yeah, there are lots of "testimonials" about the so-called "ex-gays," but long term study of those who go through "reparative therapy" find that they don't actually change their sexual orientation. Instead, they wind up sublimating it at best. When asked if they still find people of the same sex arousing, the answer is yes. The thoughts and feelings never go away.You can convince somebody that his immortal soul is on the line and thus he will do what he can to avoid behaviour that he thinks will put it in jeopardy, but there is a difference between a person who has sex with someone of the opposite sex because he has to and someone who does it because he really wants to.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

A_Christian responds to crashfrog:

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Has anyone done experimentation to see if DNA markers can be altered
through lifestyle applications

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(*blink!*)You didn't just say that, do you?Do you really think you can change genes just by thinking really hard?'Cause you know, I've concentrated really, really hard trying to change the color of my eyes and the ability of my skin to get a tan, but it's never had an effect.A_Christian then responds to me:

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Now Rrhain, which list does HOMOSEXUALITY fit under

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Dunno. Where does HETEROSEXUALITY (is there some reason you're shouting?) fit into the list? HOMOSEXUALITY would fit in the same place.

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You say that I was a adult at 19. Does a 19 year old possess the
maturity and experiance of a 45 year old man?

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Legally, yes. That's why it's called the "age of consent." It means you're old enough and have the requisite maturity to make your own decisions.By your logic, a person who is in his 40s should never have any sort of intimate relationship with someone in his 30s because of the "age difference."

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Funny, I thought one
needed to be 35 to be president of the USA

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So? Since when did running the country become the same as having sex? You only need to be 25 to be a Representative and you can drive in a lot of places as young as 14.

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and 21 to drink in many
states.

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In all the states. It didn't used to be that way. 18 was the limit for consuming alcohol.

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Now just what were our Founding Fathers thinking..?

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That there is a difference between representing a community and being the executive of the entire nation.Now tell me, what does one learn between 18 and 35 with regard to sex? Are you suggesting that we should raise the age of consent with regard to sex? Extend the Romeo and Juliet laws so that all people more than 10 years apart in age are not allowed to have sex?

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I did the same thing that Joseph did when approached by his master's
wife. He was OLDER and panicked. I did witness to him about Christ.
Isn't that what Christians SHOULD do?

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Not unless you're asked to. Jesus told you not to make a show of your religion among man for you only do it to gain favor from other men.Do the words, "No, thank you," mean nothing to you? Is your faith so fragile that you cannot help but go on and on about it lest you lose it?

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Do you believe a person can be phyically injured?

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Of course.Were you in any danger? How does getting hit on physically harm you?

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What about
psychologically hurt, isn't that possible?

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Of course.Were you in any danger? How does getting hit on psychically hurt you? I dare say if you, at 19, had such a fragile ego that having somebody of the same sex tell you that he finds you attractive and wants to have sex with you, then you had no business being anywhere without a guardian to look out for you.I am well aware that age of consent laws are nothing more than a convenience. There is nothing special about being 17, 364 days, 23 hours, and 58 seconds that makes one incapable of having sex compared to someone who is 18 and 2 seconds. The ability to give consent is a process and just as there are people under the age of consent who have the requisite mental abilities to give consent (thinking abstractly, understanding the consequences of actions, being in a position to take responsibility for those consequences, etc.), there are people who are over it that don't have the ability to consent. But since we cannot afford to test everybody, we make a reasonable attempt to find an appropriate age where we can assume that people are capable of giving consent. Those underneath it who wish to be emancipated early can go to the courts and those over it who seem to be unable can be remanded to the custody of others.Are you suggesting you were of the latter? That you were unable to give consent?

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Well I believe that
GOD teaches through the BIBLE that man can be Spiritually damaged
as well.

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And is your belief in god so fragile that it cannot survive being hit on by someone of your own sex? What possible spiritual harm could there possibly be by somebody simply talking to you?I dare say that if your fundamental values can be changed by somebody simply talking to you for less than 10 minutes, then those weren't your values to begin with.

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If you are not a Christian, you cannot understand this.

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Excuse me? Only Christians have faith?

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What I was suggesting is that Satan uses deviate sex to hold the
unsaved in bondage and destroy the testimony of believers.

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What does that have to do with anything? What you are being asked is what it would take for you to go gay. I want to know if you truly think that you would like to have sex with somebody of your own sex. I understand that you think it would put you in arrears with your god, but that isn't the question. If god were to remove that restriction, would you consider having sex with someone of your own sex? If god were to come to you and tell you that you had a choice between either being gay or being celibate, which would you choose and why?

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You
seem to have no clue that it isn't about what YOU think---it is
ALL about what GOD WANTS.

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No, I understand that perfectly. If you don't want to have sex with someone of the same sex because god doesn't want you to, that's one thing.But I'm not asking you that. I'm asking if you don't want to have sex with someone of the same sex because you don't find it sexy. For example, there are dietary restrictions in many religions. Jews are not supposed to eat pork. That doesn't mean they don't like pork, just that they're not supposed to eat it.My question to you is irrespective of your god's position on gay sex, do you find it appealing?

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Ask yourself the question, "What would
Jesus do?"

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Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. I guess he doesn't care.

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I don't see people beating down the church doors to become Anglican
priests or even just to attend one of their churchs. I don't see it.

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And this was happening before the ordination of Gene Robinson?

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Maybe it is different in England. Have the countries that endorce
Homosexuality become more spritual and godly since doing so?

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It would seem so. They don't have nearly the level of problems that we do in this country. They have lower levels of crime, lower levels of teen pregnancy, lower levels of abortion, lower levels of divorce, and more church attendance.

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What would Jesus say and do?

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Again, Jesus said nothing about it. It seems it wasn't a big deal.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog writes:

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Jesus NEVEr says anything about sex in the Bible, did you notice that?

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Not quite. Jesus does talk about sex...heterosexual sex. For example, Jesus says that it is permissible to divorce your wife if she commits fornication:Matthew 5:32: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.Matthew 19:9: And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.And then there's the comment he made to the woman who was going to be stoned for commiting adultery (John 8): "Go and sin no more."Instead, Jesus says absolutely nothing about gay sex.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Jake22 writes:

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How are programs like Exodus International different than Alcoholics Anonymous?

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The people who go through AA tend to go on to lead more productive lives.The people who go through "reparative therapy" actually tend to go on to lead less productive lives. It's only when they give up the charade that they can change their sexual orientation that they learn how to be happy with themselves.Remember, even the founders of Exodus couldn't change.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

hollygolightly writes:

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I mean really, if you're in a room with absolutely no light and you don't know who is in there and they start kissing you, would it feel good?

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As someone who has had intimate contact with both sexes, are you seriously saying that being kissed by a man feels the same as being kissed by a woman?Aren't you forgetting things like a beard?And sex goes beyond that. Like it or not, men and women have different parts. Some people are not attracted to the set one sex has and are attracted to the set the other has. Even in the dark, a woman doesn't have a penis. It will be very hard for someone who finds being with someone who has a penis sexy (and only someone who does) to be attracted to someone who doesn't have one.It tends to be the case that sexual relationships are much more than one person performing careful oral sex upon the other such that the only contact made is the parts inside the mouth.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog writes:

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Well, it's my opinion, and I think the research largely bears this out, that women's sexuality tends to be far more fluid than men's. For instance women tend to be aroused by images of both men and women in sexual situations, regardless of their own sexual preference. Also it seems like women are more likely to be truly bisexual (as opposed to incidentally homo- or -heterosexual) than men. Ergo I would submit that women's sexual preference is considerably less affected by their biology.

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You mean it might not have something to do with women having two X-chromosomes while men have only one? One of the genetic markers that have been found is on the X-chromosome. Since men only have one, it would seem that they might be more likely to be binary than women. Add to that the possibility that there might be something on the Y that contributes to it, and we might not necessarily expect the etiology of sexuality to be the same in men and women. Many of the studies of sexuality seem to find that there are more men who consider themselves gay (rather than bisexual) than women (the Kinsey study put it at about 14% of men and about 7% of women), so it might be that more men hit "gay" because they have a single copy of a gene that has such influence while women have two (or, if it's on the Y, none at all).And then there is the question of the differences in wiring of the brains of men and women. Men's brains tend to function in more focused ways while women's brains tend to function in a more spread way. Stimuli in a man's brain tends to produce response in specific, localized areas. The same stimuli in a woman's brain tends to cause reaction across many areas. It may be that women are more capable of being attracted to both sexes because their brains can "see the appeal" since the stimuli is having a broader effect.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

You obviously did not read the paper and obviously do not understand genetics if you 1) offhand dismiss solid data from MULTIPLE different studies 2) claim that your offhand comments are more valid than studies that EXCLUDED environmental contribution to see if the null hyphothesis (that homosexuality has no genetic component) was rejected or not....the rejection of the null hypothesis by the multiple data sets is the evidence of a genetic contribution..this is how genes are mapped and have been successfully....oh yeah, I forgot, you prefer unsupported assertions like a pink unicorn wrote the bible than actual work i.e. hypothesis testing and evidence gathering..must be nice..

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I would submit that you don't KNOW me at all. You don't KNOW my
tastes or friends. You don't KNOW about my youth or my family.
You don't even see my facial expressions. You would judge me
by debate?

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In a debate on the genetics of homosexual behavior I don't care about you as a person..only the evidence that you can bring to the table in support of your assertions and thus I do judge your ARGUMENTS based on the merits of the support of your assertions.

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I would also submit to you that through the middle of the 20th
century, most criminals were considered to have genetic disorders
and that their behavior was hereditary. This supports the Bible's
stand that sin is passed down from father to son to the third and
fourth generation among those that HATE GOD.

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And for a long time the French thought that tying a string around your left testicle while having sex would increase your chances of having male children....and that was wrong to....criminal behavior studies only rarely support a strong genetic component to such behavior in SOME families with specific alleles of the monaminoxidase gene which also affects mice in a similar fashion. However criminality is not a mendelian trait but quantitative and thus there is no direct transmission of the behavior from father to son so thus you are incorrect....transmission of behavioral traits is like transmission of height from one generation to the next..it has an environmental component and a genetic component and thus tall people can produce short children but have a higher tendency to produce taller children i.e. the genetic component in action....but nothing supports you assertion of a direct transmission of a behavioral trait among whatver you mean by people who hate god...