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 Monday, November 14, 2005
Gay Marriage and God/San Francisco Chronicle
Gays push to recast marriage on morals: Meeting for gays focuses on God It's time to reclaim moral values debate, speakers tell crowd Carrie Sturrock, San Francisco Chronicle Monday, November 14, 2005 The reverend's words drew affirming nods and loud applause at the Sunday morning gathering. "God is on our side, and God has been on the side of those who struggle for right and righteousness from the very beginning," thundered Dr. Yvette Flunder, founder and senior pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ in San Francisco. It sounded like she was offering a sermon to a congregation of churchgoers, but Flunder's voice rang out in a ballroom full of activists gathered for Creating Change, the 18th annual conference of the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement. Attendees did not hear much spiritual, God-heavy talk in years past. But gay rights leaders say new times require them to think and speak in new ways about the struggles in their community. "Only people of faith can demand the religious right repent from its homophobia," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C. He said the movement needs "to reclaim the moral values debate." The movement should shift from talking about getting "our rights -- as if we get a better dental plan -- into what this is really all about, and that's our basic humanity." . . . 
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In order to claim moral values in a Christian context you must do more than just invent beliefs. You must have some foundation for your beliefs other than what you and your friends personally make up. As long as your teaching is diametrically opposed to biblical teaching or unconscious of biblical teaching, you cannot claim to be Christians. You need to use your own name to describe the perspective that you have invented. You cannot purport that Christ is the author of your teaching if the only means by which one can objectively lay claim to Christian teaching is through acceptance of the principal source of His teaching: The Bible. Reconcile your understanding with what the Bible teaches with respect to marriage and then you may claim a Christian moral foundation to your views on marriage.
Make a sober study of Christ's words and those of the disciples He sent out to teach the world how to live. Remember, it's your salvation that's at stake if you fabricate a new confounded teaching for your pleasure's sake.
I'm pleased that many churches are speaking out for the respectful treatment of gays. I'm not surprised that a lot of this is occuring in the North East where I grew up since this formed the heart of the abolitionist movement 150 years ago. While the Bible promotes slavery, we all now find treating blacks this way to be morally repugnent. The sooner we realize that mistreating gays is morally repugnent as well, the better off we, as a society, will be. Jesus told us to love our neighbors. He didn't exculde the gay couple that lives in the house down the street.
Jose Solano: As long as your teaching is diametrically opposed to biblical teaching or unconscious of biblical teaching, you cannot claim to be Christians.
Shall we conclude, then, that those "Christians" who have forgotten that Jesus told them in Matthew:
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
and told them again:
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was ahungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
The "Christians" who look upon lesbians and gays and do not behave towards them with the same love and respect that they would show to Jesus Christ, are diametrically opposed to biblical teaching or unconscious of biblical teaching, and are, by your own admission, Jose, not truly Christians.
Jesurgislac, you entire comment depends on a hypocritical misuse of the very words you quoted.
look upon lesbians and gays and do not behave towards them with the same love and respect that they would show to Jesus Christ
"Lesbian" and "gay" are political assignations, and do not classify all human individuals who experience same-sex attraction. But even ideological opponents are commanded to respect the human dignity of the individual. That does not directy translate into endorsement of the proposed changes to society, and to the law, that are campaigned for by lesbian and gay activists. Likewise for those who oppose such campaigns. The individual is not the campaign.
Now, you may be borrowing the hypocritical mususe of the quoted words. So I will not say you, as the commentator, are hypocritical in your comment. Perhaps you are merely ill-informed and/or are led astray by the rhetoric of a particular irreligious ideology.
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