Jesus Fucking Christ: evangelical bigwig opposed gay marriage "because it takes the dirt and danger out of clandestine sex with rent-a-men"

True.

But Old Testament the story of Soddom and Gommorah is terribly misinterprited as a story about God hating teh ghey when its really a story about God punishing bloodthirsty rapists (hetero or homo).

but I agree in general abt the narrow interpretation of the story as being specifically homosexuality. Tho I believe there are several other OT passages commonly cited as "proof" that god hates fags. I forget where, Leviticus...? so many OT "laws"...

Leviticus 18:22 "You [masculine] shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."

Leviticus 20:13 "If a man lies with a male as a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them."

Now Jesus, for his part, did explicitly deny the necessity to follow all the rules laid down in the OT, so you can ostensibly combine that rejection of Jewish moral traditions with his "hey I love everybody" attitude and extrapolate from there that he woulda been cool with Rip Taylor or whoever, but I think we should all be able to agree that that's stretching it quite a bit.

It should also be noted that there is a considerably large movment within Evangelical churches to admit that the ways in which the church has dealt with honosexuals hasn't been Christ-Like©. This movment seeks some kind of reparations with the Gay community and encourages openly homosexual families into thier churches in order to treat them as Jesus would have and perhaps gain understanding from them... but still defines homosexuality as a sin only redeemable through a life in Christ.

It's a nice sentiment, but if you're only going half way, just fucking forget about it.

Shakey OTM re: Chick tract on Soddom and Gommorah.

Re: other OT passages, yes there's at least one in Leviticus. There's a hilarious "Open Letter to Dr. Laura" floating around the net where someone goes "gee, thanks for setting me straight on Leviticus' commandments regarding homosexuality. Can you set me straight on a few more?" ...and goes on to ask her stance on shearing sheep, disposal of moldy clothing, stoning of adulterers, and other things Leviticus goes into inane depth on. quite teh funny.

v. gene, where's yo' POWAH?!?!??

threads like these almost make me glad i done grown up episcopalian.

They make me completely glad I did!

Guess which column "lying with a man as a woman does" falls in to????

(not to be read as snarky at all)

what does that have to do with what we're talking about? Is it that you relate more to a group discussion that listening to a speech?

pretty much, yeah. especially by choosing the authoritative leanings of my high school sunday school teacher(an engineer for GM/Delphi) than the increasingly authoritarian/conservative leanings of our pastor.

but i mention this things just as background for me.

the website isn't there any more and i didn't take proper notes abt who the rabbi was, or what his school was

Well the Old Testament is totally packed with prostitutes, so I can't claim to be clear on when exactly that became on par with an "abomination." I mean, through those first dozen books or whatever, the Bible has more to say about the filthiness of menstruation than on anything having to do with whether prostitution is right or wrong.

oh yeah, Onan. Another example of God obviously stacking His book up with events that you can totally misinterpret whichever way you want if you wish to force whatever doctrine on your kids. And let us thank the Victorians to re-enforcing that.

vs

metaphorical = masturbation into a tissue/mouth/apple pie?

(sorry grady, is that what you mean?)

so frot's OK?

xpost No, seriously, the Old Testament is chock full of rape, dismemberment, warfare, slavery, intensely homosocial love, polygamy, prostitution ... I mean, if Paul Verhoeven directed a literal adaptation, it's certainly not anything you'd let your kids watch (which incidentally OMG, how can we help make that happen?).

xpost

yeah, literally. Story of Onan, dude. Instead of impregnating his brother's widow, he pulled out and shot it all over her lower back tattoo.

That explains Huntington Beach, at least.