Should Christians in the USA support or oppose the legalization of homosexual marriage in their state?
I put this debate topic in this sub-forum because I’m not really interested in atheists’ opinions here, but I do wonder what Christians think.
On the one hand, we do not have to look far in our world to see what happens when people try to enforce their worldview on others. The result is always disastrous. I do not like the idea of Christians trying to legal enforce their worldview.
On the other hand, recent history has shown us that when gay marriage is legalized the right to oppose, or even abstain from involvement, is quickly lost. Opposing or abstaining from homosexual marriage is outlawed on the charge of discrimination. If gay marriage is legalized then we should expect, at the very minimum, that those who are morally opposed to homosexual action will still be required to act in support of homosexual actions if they wish to do business in their state.
I am unsure of the right approach. What do others Christians think?
Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Moderator: Moderators
Post #41
I just had to ask for clarification of this statement from Wissing. Since there are many Christians whose stance is supportive of homosexuality ...what - precisely - IS the accurate portrayal of "a Christian stance" on homosexuality? I mean, doesn't it all come down to one's personal opinion regarding the topic?Wissing wrote:My Purpose Here
My specific goal in this subforum is to portray a Christian stance on homosexuality.
A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ (not Paul, not Jude, not even God) and Jesus never made it known about His particular stance on homosexuality.
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jrobert484
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #42[Replying to post 1 by bjs]
Christians who feel violated by other people living their own lives are enemies of Christ but Christ said to love your enemies. This article talks about how some gay christians are setting a good example for hateful christians.
http://www.broowaha.com/articles/20975/judas-feet
Christians who feel violated by other people living their own lives are enemies of Christ but Christ said to love your enemies. This article talks about how some gay christians are setting a good example for hateful christians.
http://www.broowaha.com/articles/20975/judas-feet
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Danmark
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #43Welcome Robert!jrobert484 wrote: [Replying to post 1 by bjs]
Christians who feel violated by other people living their own lives are enemies of Christ but Christ said to love your enemies. This article talks about how some gay christians are setting a good example for hateful christians.
http://www.broowaha.com/articles/20975/judas-feet
I looked at the site and am certainly impressed by the guy who is giving $150,000 to the 'Christians' who got nicked for discriminating against gays. I appreciate the 'love your enemies' approach. But I do not understand compensating people for the natural consequences of evil behavior masquerading as following "God's will" when what they are really doing is just being mean and unfair to others and blaming their religion for their boorish behavior.
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Nickman
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #44If they want to. Or if they don't that is also fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and vote.bjs wrote: Should Christians in the USA support or oppose the legalization of homosexual marriage in their state?
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Aaron Lindahl
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Same-sex marriage is not something 'new'..
Post #45I begin first with the birthplace of our Western civilization... which is Greek and Roman civilization, and after that, go into a detailed history of the Church on this subject:
The first speech in Classical history praising male-male relationships is that of Phaedrus. The Phaedrus (/ˈfi�drəs/; Greek: Φαῖδ�ος), written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. (The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC, around the same time as Plato's Republic and Symposium.) Phaedrus cites as the ultimate in love and commitment the maxim that "love will make men dare to die for their beloved; and women as well as men."' He goes on to provide as one example of this sacred commitment Alcestis' willingness to die for her husband Admetus, and as another Achilles' willingness to die for his lover Patroclus.
Pausanias next spoke, delivering an impassioned defense of companionate same-sex relationships:
“Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature; any one may recognize the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments. For they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. And in choosing them as companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and to pass their whole life with them, and be with them ..�
The consensus among modem historians is that republican Rome, like classical Greece, was tolerant of same-sex relationships. Moreover, the Romans accorded some same-sex unions the legal or cultural status of marriages. To take one early example, Cicero, the great Roman lawyer and orator, persuaded Curio the Elder to honor the debts that Curio's son had incurred on behalf of Antonius, to whom the son was, in Cicero's words, "united in a stable and permanent marriage, just as if he had given him a matron's stola." (The stola was garb distinctively reserved for a married Roman woman. "Te a meretricio quaestu abduxit et, tamquam stolam dedisset, in matrimonio stabili et certo collocavit.")
Cicero's legalistic advice suggests that same-sex relationships were not only socially accepted among Roman society, but that they also potentially carried with them legal obligations and consequences, and hence were marriages as we understand the term. Records describing Roman social customs during the imperial period survive in far greater number, at least in part because many, if not most, of the emperors enjoyed well-documented relationships, some of them legally sanctioned marriages-with other men. The evidence suggests that during the same general time frame when companionate long-term marriages were being institutionalized for different-sex couples, they were likewise becoming more common for same-sex couples, who were entering into relationships akin to those discussed in Plato's Symposium.
By the time of the early Empire the stereotyped roles of [sexually active] "lover" and [sexually passive] "beloved" no longer seem to be the only model for homosexual lovers, and even emperors abandoned traditional sexual roles for more reciprocal erotic relations. Many homosexual relationships were permanent and exclusive. Among the lower classes informal unions like that of Giton and Encolpius may have predominated, but marriages between males or between females were legal and familiar among the upper classes.... By the time of the early Empire references to gay marriages are commonplace. The biographer of Elagabalus maintains that after the emperor's marriage to an athlete from Smyrna, any male who wished to advance at the imperial court either had to have a husband or pretend that he did.
Martial and Juvenal both mention same-sex public ceremonies involving the families, dowries, and legal niceties. It is not clear that only aristocrats were involved: a cymbal player is mentioned by Juvenal. Martial points out that both men involved in one ceremony were thoroughly masculine ("The bearded Callistratus married the rugged Afer") and that the marriage took place under the same law that regulated marriage between men and women. Nero married two men in succession, both in public ceremonies with the ritual appropriate to legal marriage. At least one of these unions was recognized by Greeks and Romans, and the spouse was accorded the honors of an empress .... One of the men, Sporus, accompanied Nero to public functions, where the emperor would embrace him affectionately. He remained with Nero throughout his reign and stood by him as he died.
Same-sex unions were noted in popular Roman culture and literature as well. The novel Babylonica, an early version of the pulp romance, had a subplot involving the passion of Egypt's Queen Berenice for the beautiful Mesopotamia, who was snatched from her. After one of the Queen's servants rescued Mesopotamia from her abductors, "'Berenice married Mesopotamia, and there was war between [the abductor] and Berenice on her account.' " Of even greater renown, the Emperor Hadrian's love for Antinous attained the status of legend, acclaimed for generations in sculpture, architecture, painting, coins, and literature.
The popularity of Hadrian and Antinous as a couple, may have been due in some part to the prevalence of same-sex couples in popular romantic literature of the time. Everywhere in the fiction of the Empire-from lyric poetry to popular novels-gay couples and their love appear on a completely equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts.
Homosexuality flourished for over 1,300 years within the Greek culture, and for almost 900 years of Roman culture without causing any 'downfall' of civilization as some people today claim will happen if gay couples are allowed to marry each other. Yet, within a little over 100 years after Christians gained political dominance in Rome, the entire civilization collapsed... not from the barbarians, but instead after they had forbade freedom of religion under pain of death, freedom of thought, shut down the Olympics, the theaters, the gymnasiums, and schools of learning. Knowledge of realistic artwork and sculpture was lost, scientific knowledge and civic engineering withered and died. They basically killed civic culture and classical civilization.The public libraries were either closed or abandoned since within only 2 generations the majority of the people had lost the ability to read.. after all, you were told the world was going to end at any moment, and that you only needed to know what your priest or pastor told you to believe, you were told that interest in secular subjects was no longer advisable.
'Let us Christians prefer the simplicity of our faith to the demonstrations of human reason ... For to spend much time on research about the essence of things would not serve the edification of the Church.' – St Basil.
"What purpose does knowledge serve – for as to knowledge of natural causes, what blessing is there for me if I should know where the Nile rises, or whatever else under the heavens the 'scientists' rave about?" - Thus wrote Lucius Lactantius the first Latin 'theologian' and propagandist for the newly Christian emperor Constantine. Appointed tutor to the emperor's son Crispus – a job he lost when Constantine had his son executed for adultery with his stepmother.
The ancient world had been a relatively tolerant place in the world of religion. There were occasional bursts of persecution of this or that sect but as a rule many religions existed side by side. During the years 342 CE to 390 CE all this changed when Christianity established itself as the only religion in the Roman Empire and launched an all out campaign of religious terror against all other beliefs. Even though Christians had suffered from persecution from time to time, this does not justify what they did upon coming to political dominance, and had gained the ear of an emperor, whose word was law.
It was not until the Roman world was forcibly converted, and succumbed to an unforgiving and dictatorship-like form of Christianity (completely unlike the earlier peaceful and loving form of Christianity), that we began to embark upon the Dark Ages.
On December 16, 342 AD, the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans, under advice from their bishops, issued the following edict.. a law specifically outlawing marriages between men, which had previously been legal and allowed, which reads as follows:
"When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men, what does he wish, when sex has lost its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed into another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be guilty, shall be subjected to exquisite punishment." (Theodosian Code 9.7.3)
Then, 48 years later, Christian emperors Theodosius and Arcadius on Aug 6, 390, under the advice of their bishops, issued the following edict.. an edict that would begin an evil persecution towards gay people that would last well over a thousand years: "All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind by being burned to death in the public sight of the people." -Codex Theodosius IX. Vii. 6
I post this so that Christians who desire to persecute or condemn gay people over the way they are born can see the errors of their way on this, and to realize that we as Christians have a lot to atone for all the violence and murder done in Christ's name to homosexual people over the past 1600 years.
For the first 300 years of Christianity, gay people were not persecuted, but instead were welcomed as brothers and sisters in Christ... but as soon as the bishops in the early 300's gained political dominance, look how quickly and brutally things changed.. this is why our Founding Fathers wisely chose to separate Church and State:
305-306 – Council of Elvira (now Granada, Spain). This council was representative of the Western European Church and among other things, it barred homosexuals the right to Communion.
314 – Council of Ancyra (now Ankara, Turkey). This council was representative of the Eastern European Church and it excluded the Sacraments for 15 years to unmarried men under the age of 20 who were caught in homosexual acts, and excluded the man for life if he was married and over the age of 50.
342 – Under advice from their bishops, the first law against same-sex marriage was promulgated by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans.
390 – Under advice from their bishops, Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public.
498 – In spite of the laws against homosexuality, the Christian emperors continued to collect taxes on male prostitutes until the reign of Anastasius I, who finally abolishes the tax.
529 – The Christian emperor Justinian I (527–565) made homosexuals a public scapegoat for problems such as "famines,earthquakes, and pestilences."
589 – The Visigothic kingdom in Spain, is converted from Arianism to Catholicism. This conversion leads to a revision of the law to conform to those of Catholic countries. These revisions include provisions for the persecution of gays and Jews.
693 – In Iberia, Visigothic ruler Egica of Hispania and Septimania, demanded that a Church council confront the occurrence of homosexuality in the Kingdom. The Sixteenth Council of Toledo issued a statement in response, which was adopted by Egica, stating that homosexual acts be punished by castration, exclusion from Communion, hair shearing, one hundred stripes of the lash, and banishment into exile.
1120 – Baldwin II of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, convenes the Council of Nablus to address the vices within the Kingdom. The Council calls for the burning of individuals who perpetually commit homosexual acts.
1179 – The Third Lateran Council of Rome issues a decree for the excommunication of homosexuals.
1232 – Pope Gregory IX starts the Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending homosexuals and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders.
1260 – In France, first-offending homosexuals lost their testicles, second offenders lost their member, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts could be mutilated and executed as well.
1265 – Thomas Aquinas argues that homosexuality is second only to murder in the ranking of sins.
1283 – The French Civil Code dictated that convicted homosexuals should not only be burned but also that their property would be forfeited.
1370s – Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were two men executed in Antwerp in the 1370s. The charge against them was same gender intercourse. Aersdone and Case stand out because records of their names have survived.
1432 – In Florence the first organization specifically intended to prosecute homosexuality is established, the "Night Officials", which over the next 70 years arrest about 10,000 men and youths.
1451 – Pope Nicholas V enables the papal Inquisition to persecute men who practice homosexuality.
1475 – In Peru, a chronicle written under the Capac Yupanqui government describes the persecution of homosexuals with public burnings and destruction of homes (a practice usually reserved for conquered tribes).
1483 – The Spanish Inquisition begins. Homosexuals were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for homosexuality.
1532 – Holy Roman Empire makes homosexuality punishable by death.
1533 – King Henry VIII passes the Buggery Act 1533 making anal intercourse punishable by death throughout England.
1620 – Brandenburg-Prussia criminalizes homosexuality, making it punishable by death.
1721 – Catherina Margaretha Linck is executed for lesbianism in Germany.
1836 – The last known execution for homosexuality in Great Britain. James Pratt and John Smith are hanged at Newgate prison, London after being caught together in private lodgings.
1895 – The trial of Oscar Wilde results in his being prosecuted under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 for "gross indecency" for having sex with other males, and is sentenced to two years hard labor in prison, ruining his health.
1903 – In New York on 21 February 1903, New York police conducted the first United States recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston Hotel Baths. 26 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.
1945 – Upon the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces, those who were interned for homosexuality, and who miraculously survived.. are not freed, but required to serve out the full term of their sentences under Paragraph 175.
1954 – June 7th –Mathematical computer genius and WW2 hero Alan Turing commits suicide by cyanide poisoning, 18 months after being given a choice between two years in prison or libido-reducing hormone treatment for a year as a punishment for homosexuality.
For further analysis, please click here: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers
The first speech in Classical history praising male-male relationships is that of Phaedrus. The Phaedrus (/ˈfi�drəs/; Greek: Φαῖδ�ος), written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. (The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC, around the same time as Plato's Republic and Symposium.) Phaedrus cites as the ultimate in love and commitment the maxim that "love will make men dare to die for their beloved; and women as well as men."' He goes on to provide as one example of this sacred commitment Alcestis' willingness to die for her husband Admetus, and as another Achilles' willingness to die for his lover Patroclus.
Pausanias next spoke, delivering an impassioned defense of companionate same-sex relationships:
“Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature; any one may recognize the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments. For they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. And in choosing them as companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and to pass their whole life with them, and be with them ..�
The consensus among modem historians is that republican Rome, like classical Greece, was tolerant of same-sex relationships. Moreover, the Romans accorded some same-sex unions the legal or cultural status of marriages. To take one early example, Cicero, the great Roman lawyer and orator, persuaded Curio the Elder to honor the debts that Curio's son had incurred on behalf of Antonius, to whom the son was, in Cicero's words, "united in a stable and permanent marriage, just as if he had given him a matron's stola." (The stola was garb distinctively reserved for a married Roman woman. "Te a meretricio quaestu abduxit et, tamquam stolam dedisset, in matrimonio stabili et certo collocavit.")
Cicero's legalistic advice suggests that same-sex relationships were not only socially accepted among Roman society, but that they also potentially carried with them legal obligations and consequences, and hence were marriages as we understand the term. Records describing Roman social customs during the imperial period survive in far greater number, at least in part because many, if not most, of the emperors enjoyed well-documented relationships, some of them legally sanctioned marriages-with other men. The evidence suggests that during the same general time frame when companionate long-term marriages were being institutionalized for different-sex couples, they were likewise becoming more common for same-sex couples, who were entering into relationships akin to those discussed in Plato's Symposium.
By the time of the early Empire the stereotyped roles of [sexually active] "lover" and [sexually passive] "beloved" no longer seem to be the only model for homosexual lovers, and even emperors abandoned traditional sexual roles for more reciprocal erotic relations. Many homosexual relationships were permanent and exclusive. Among the lower classes informal unions like that of Giton and Encolpius may have predominated, but marriages between males or between females were legal and familiar among the upper classes.... By the time of the early Empire references to gay marriages are commonplace. The biographer of Elagabalus maintains that after the emperor's marriage to an athlete from Smyrna, any male who wished to advance at the imperial court either had to have a husband or pretend that he did.
Martial and Juvenal both mention same-sex public ceremonies involving the families, dowries, and legal niceties. It is not clear that only aristocrats were involved: a cymbal player is mentioned by Juvenal. Martial points out that both men involved in one ceremony were thoroughly masculine ("The bearded Callistratus married the rugged Afer") and that the marriage took place under the same law that regulated marriage between men and women. Nero married two men in succession, both in public ceremonies with the ritual appropriate to legal marriage. At least one of these unions was recognized by Greeks and Romans, and the spouse was accorded the honors of an empress .... One of the men, Sporus, accompanied Nero to public functions, where the emperor would embrace him affectionately. He remained with Nero throughout his reign and stood by him as he died.
Same-sex unions were noted in popular Roman culture and literature as well. The novel Babylonica, an early version of the pulp romance, had a subplot involving the passion of Egypt's Queen Berenice for the beautiful Mesopotamia, who was snatched from her. After one of the Queen's servants rescued Mesopotamia from her abductors, "'Berenice married Mesopotamia, and there was war between [the abductor] and Berenice on her account.' " Of even greater renown, the Emperor Hadrian's love for Antinous attained the status of legend, acclaimed for generations in sculpture, architecture, painting, coins, and literature.
The popularity of Hadrian and Antinous as a couple, may have been due in some part to the prevalence of same-sex couples in popular romantic literature of the time. Everywhere in the fiction of the Empire-from lyric poetry to popular novels-gay couples and their love appear on a completely equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts.
Homosexuality flourished for over 1,300 years within the Greek culture, and for almost 900 years of Roman culture without causing any 'downfall' of civilization as some people today claim will happen if gay couples are allowed to marry each other. Yet, within a little over 100 years after Christians gained political dominance in Rome, the entire civilization collapsed... not from the barbarians, but instead after they had forbade freedom of religion under pain of death, freedom of thought, shut down the Olympics, the theaters, the gymnasiums, and schools of learning. Knowledge of realistic artwork and sculpture was lost, scientific knowledge and civic engineering withered and died. They basically killed civic culture and classical civilization.The public libraries were either closed or abandoned since within only 2 generations the majority of the people had lost the ability to read.. after all, you were told the world was going to end at any moment, and that you only needed to know what your priest or pastor told you to believe, you were told that interest in secular subjects was no longer advisable.
'Let us Christians prefer the simplicity of our faith to the demonstrations of human reason ... For to spend much time on research about the essence of things would not serve the edification of the Church.' – St Basil.
"What purpose does knowledge serve – for as to knowledge of natural causes, what blessing is there for me if I should know where the Nile rises, or whatever else under the heavens the 'scientists' rave about?" - Thus wrote Lucius Lactantius the first Latin 'theologian' and propagandist for the newly Christian emperor Constantine. Appointed tutor to the emperor's son Crispus – a job he lost when Constantine had his son executed for adultery with his stepmother.
The ancient world had been a relatively tolerant place in the world of religion. There were occasional bursts of persecution of this or that sect but as a rule many religions existed side by side. During the years 342 CE to 390 CE all this changed when Christianity established itself as the only religion in the Roman Empire and launched an all out campaign of religious terror against all other beliefs. Even though Christians had suffered from persecution from time to time, this does not justify what they did upon coming to political dominance, and had gained the ear of an emperor, whose word was law.
It was not until the Roman world was forcibly converted, and succumbed to an unforgiving and dictatorship-like form of Christianity (completely unlike the earlier peaceful and loving form of Christianity), that we began to embark upon the Dark Ages.
On December 16, 342 AD, the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans, under advice from their bishops, issued the following edict.. a law specifically outlawing marriages between men, which had previously been legal and allowed, which reads as follows:
"When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men, what does he wish, when sex has lost its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed into another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be guilty, shall be subjected to exquisite punishment." (Theodosian Code 9.7.3)
Then, 48 years later, Christian emperors Theodosius and Arcadius on Aug 6, 390, under the advice of their bishops, issued the following edict.. an edict that would begin an evil persecution towards gay people that would last well over a thousand years: "All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind by being burned to death in the public sight of the people." -Codex Theodosius IX. Vii. 6
I post this so that Christians who desire to persecute or condemn gay people over the way they are born can see the errors of their way on this, and to realize that we as Christians have a lot to atone for all the violence and murder done in Christ's name to homosexual people over the past 1600 years.
For the first 300 years of Christianity, gay people were not persecuted, but instead were welcomed as brothers and sisters in Christ... but as soon as the bishops in the early 300's gained political dominance, look how quickly and brutally things changed.. this is why our Founding Fathers wisely chose to separate Church and State:
305-306 – Council of Elvira (now Granada, Spain). This council was representative of the Western European Church and among other things, it barred homosexuals the right to Communion.
314 – Council of Ancyra (now Ankara, Turkey). This council was representative of the Eastern European Church and it excluded the Sacraments for 15 years to unmarried men under the age of 20 who were caught in homosexual acts, and excluded the man for life if he was married and over the age of 50.
342 – Under advice from their bishops, the first law against same-sex marriage was promulgated by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans.
390 – Under advice from their bishops, Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be burned alive in front of the public.
498 – In spite of the laws against homosexuality, the Christian emperors continued to collect taxes on male prostitutes until the reign of Anastasius I, who finally abolishes the tax.
529 – The Christian emperor Justinian I (527–565) made homosexuals a public scapegoat for problems such as "famines,earthquakes, and pestilences."
589 – The Visigothic kingdom in Spain, is converted from Arianism to Catholicism. This conversion leads to a revision of the law to conform to those of Catholic countries. These revisions include provisions for the persecution of gays and Jews.
693 – In Iberia, Visigothic ruler Egica of Hispania and Septimania, demanded that a Church council confront the occurrence of homosexuality in the Kingdom. The Sixteenth Council of Toledo issued a statement in response, which was adopted by Egica, stating that homosexual acts be punished by castration, exclusion from Communion, hair shearing, one hundred stripes of the lash, and banishment into exile.
1120 – Baldwin II of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, convenes the Council of Nablus to address the vices within the Kingdom. The Council calls for the burning of individuals who perpetually commit homosexual acts.
1179 – The Third Lateran Council of Rome issues a decree for the excommunication of homosexuals.
1232 – Pope Gregory IX starts the Inquisition in the Italian City-States. Some cities called for banishment and/or amputation as punishments for 1st- and 2nd-offending homosexuals and burning for the 3rd or habitual offenders.
1260 – In France, first-offending homosexuals lost their testicles, second offenders lost their member, and third offenders were burned. Women caught in same-sex acts could be mutilated and executed as well.
1265 – Thomas Aquinas argues that homosexuality is second only to murder in the ranking of sins.
1283 – The French Civil Code dictated that convicted homosexuals should not only be burned but also that their property would be forfeited.
1370s – Jan van Aersdone and Willem Case were two men executed in Antwerp in the 1370s. The charge against them was same gender intercourse. Aersdone and Case stand out because records of their names have survived.
1432 – In Florence the first organization specifically intended to prosecute homosexuality is established, the "Night Officials", which over the next 70 years arrest about 10,000 men and youths.
1451 – Pope Nicholas V enables the papal Inquisition to persecute men who practice homosexuality.
1475 – In Peru, a chronicle written under the Capac Yupanqui government describes the persecution of homosexuals with public burnings and destruction of homes (a practice usually reserved for conquered tribes).
1483 – The Spanish Inquisition begins. Homosexuals were stoned, castrated, and burned. Between 1540 and 1700, more than 1,600 people were prosecuted for homosexuality.
1532 – Holy Roman Empire makes homosexuality punishable by death.
1533 – King Henry VIII passes the Buggery Act 1533 making anal intercourse punishable by death throughout England.
1620 – Brandenburg-Prussia criminalizes homosexuality, making it punishable by death.
1721 – Catherina Margaretha Linck is executed for lesbianism in Germany.
1836 – The last known execution for homosexuality in Great Britain. James Pratt and John Smith are hanged at Newgate prison, London after being caught together in private lodgings.
1895 – The trial of Oscar Wilde results in his being prosecuted under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 for "gross indecency" for having sex with other males, and is sentenced to two years hard labor in prison, ruining his health.
1903 – In New York on 21 February 1903, New York police conducted the first United States recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston Hotel Baths. 26 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.
1945 – Upon the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces, those who were interned for homosexuality, and who miraculously survived.. are not freed, but required to serve out the full term of their sentences under Paragraph 175.
1954 – June 7th –Mathematical computer genius and WW2 hero Alan Turing commits suicide by cyanide poisoning, 18 months after being given a choice between two years in prison or libido-reducing hormone treatment for a year as a punishment for homosexuality.
For further analysis, please click here: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/ ... fss_papers
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help3434
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #46Is not baking a cake for a wedding that they don't agree with really "evil"? I don't think that it would be too difficult for them to find another bakery that would bake their wedding cake in Oregon.Danmark wrote:Welcome Robert!jrobert484 wrote: [Replying to post 1 by bjs]
Christians who feel violated by other people living their own lives are enemies of Christ but Christ said to love your enemies. This article talks about how some gay christians are setting a good example for hateful christians.
http://www.broowaha.com/articles/20975/judas-feet
I looked at the site and am certainly impressed by the guy who is giving $150,000 to the 'Christians' who got nicked for discriminating against gays. I appreciate the 'love your enemies' approach. But I do not understand compensating people for the natural consequences of evil behavior masquerading as following "God's will" when what they are really doing is just being mean and unfair to others and blaming their religion for their boorish behavior.
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Danmark
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #47Evil can be subtle. This is a good example. Simply refusing to wait on a customer may not seem evil to some. Refusing to perform a service one promises to perform for the public seems rather tame compared to pulling out fingernails or flaying the skin off a person while he screams.help3434 wrote:Is not baking a cake for a wedding that they don't agree with really "evil"? I don't think that it would be too difficult for them to find another bakery that would bake their wedding cake in Oregon.Danmark wrote:Welcome Robert!jrobert484 wrote: [Replying to post 1 by bjs]
Christians who feel violated by other people living their own lives are enemies of Christ but Christ said to love your enemies. This article talks about how some gay christians are setting a good example for hateful christians.
http://www.broowaha.com/articles/20975/judas-feet
I looked at the site and am certainly impressed by the guy who is giving $150,000 to the 'Christians' who got nicked for discriminating against gays. I appreciate the 'love your enemies' approach. But I do not understand compensating people for the natural consequences of evil behavior masquerading as following "God's will" when what they are really doing is just being mean and unfair to others and blaming their religion for their boorish behavior.
Yes, I agree, the local barber who refuses to cut the hair of his 'negro' neighbor doesn't think of himself as evil. After all, his neighbor can probably find some barber somewhere to give him a haircut.
Put yourself in the position of the person who walks into a store and is refused service because of something inherent in his nature, something he knows the majority of his neighbors despise him for. If you have no understanding for how that person would feel, then you are correct in your implication of your understanding of evil.
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dianaiad
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #48Is it evil for someone to put a sign in his store that says "no shirt, no shoes, no service?"Danmark wrote:
....Put yourself in the position of the person who walks into a store and is refused service because of something inherent in his nature, something he knows the majority of his neighbors despise him for. If you have no understanding for how that person would feel, then you are correct in your implication of your understanding of evil.
Or to use a tattered old analogy...is it evil for a Jewish Wedding planning service to refuse to serve ham at...or even cater...a Christian wedding?
Is it evil for a monastery that raises money for its retreats by selling custom decorated and fired ceramic Christmas ornaments to refuse to make one in the shape of Baal?
Is it evil for a Catholic to rent his renovated 'wedding barn' to a couple of divorcee's who want to marry someone ELSE?
Is it evil for a photographer who has been 'shooting' events for a family for many years, to refuse to shoot a birthday party that includes strippers?
Is it evil for a baker to refuse to make his women employees wear the hijab at a Muslim wedding?
Is it evil for a Christian baker, who has provided cupcakes and goodies for a gay couple for birthdays, graduations, and a myriad of other celebrations, to refuse to participate in (that is, provide the cake for) a gay wedding?
Is it evil for a Baptist farmer, who has provided horses, meals and lodgings for gay couples for events and simple outings...to refuse to do so for the wedding?
Serious questions...because there is a HUGE difference here between discriminating against something inherent (such as being homosexual, or being a 'person of color' or something one cannot alter) and refusing to participate in an event that violates one's own religious beliefs.
Last questions: is it evil for an atheist to refuse to pray along with others when a prayer is offered in a public venue?
Is it evil for an atheist to refuse to decorate his store for the holidays?
Is it evil for said atheist to be the only guy on the block whose house isn't ablaze with holiday lights?
SINCE WHEN IS IT LEGAL, IN ONE'S PERSONAL OR BUSINESS LIFE, TO BE FORCED TO PARTICIPATE IN RELIGIOUS EVENTS THAT VIOLATE HIS BELIEFS?
IF all these bakers, photographers and farmers discriminated against gays all the time, in all ways, because they were GAY...you'd have a point.
However, the problem isn't their gayness. It's the wedding. The RELIGIOUS meaning of the wedding.
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Danmark
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #49[Replying to post 48 by dianaiad]
It is evil to allow one's religious sensibilities that are not based on anything rational to give one an excuse to mistreat others. "We don't serve your kind here" is evil.
Making absurd comparisons to rational, health based laws or sanitary practices, like wearing shoes and shirts where food is served does not help the argument you present.
You've said yourself that despite your religious convictions re: same sex relations being sinful, you would not personally discriminate. I suggest that is because you appreciate the difference between true participation in 'sin' and imposing unnecessary religious customs to discriminate against individuals in ways that are unkind.
This is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he said "You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!"
Matthew 23:
Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. 4 They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10 Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. 11 He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; 12 whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If any one swears by the temple, it is nothing; but if any one swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘If any one swears by the altar, it is nothing; but if any one swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ 19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and he who swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it; 22 and he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity. 26 You blind Pharisee! first cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.
__ Steven Weinberg
It is evil to allow one's religious sensibilities that are not based on anything rational to give one an excuse to mistreat others. "We don't serve your kind here" is evil.
Making absurd comparisons to rational, health based laws or sanitary practices, like wearing shoes and shirts where food is served does not help the argument you present.
You've said yourself that despite your religious convictions re: same sex relations being sinful, you would not personally discriminate. I suggest that is because you appreciate the difference between true participation in 'sin' and imposing unnecessary religious customs to discriminate against individuals in ways that are unkind.
This is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he said "You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!"
Matthew 23:
Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. 4 They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10 Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. 11 He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; 12 whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If any one swears by the temple, it is nothing; but if any one swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘If any one swears by the altar, it is nothing; but if any one swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ 19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and he who swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it; 22 and he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity. 26 You blind Pharisee! first cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.
__ Steven Weinberg
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dianaiad
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Re: Christian response to homosexual marriage?
Post #50You mean 'rational' as defined by you, yes? As in 'if I think it's rational, it's rational, and if I don't agree with it, it isn't?"Danmark wrote: [Replying to post 48 by dianaiad]
It is evil to allow one's religious sensibilities that are not based on anything rational to give one an excuse to mistreat others.
None of the examples I gave you involved 'we don't serve your kind here.' Indeed, most of them were examples of people who did indeed 'serve your kind here,' but simply said "we don't believe as you do and don't think you should have the right to force us to participate in your religious rites any more than we have the right to force you to participate and abide by ours."Danmark wrote:.........."We don't serve your kind here" is evil.
I only gave one example of that sort of thing. None of the rest were examples based upon what you term to be 'rational, health based laws or sanitary practices,' and even THAT was for the purpose of finding out if a merchant had the right to make rules of any sort in his business or establishment.Danmark wrote:Making absurd comparisons to rational, health based laws or sanitary practices, like wearing shoes and shirts where food is served does not help the argument you present.
Perhaps I should have led with "does a restaurant have the right to insist that men wear ties to dinner?" Because, frankly, they do.
I would not...because I don't think that if a gay couple wants to get married, they shouldn't be able to, within government rules and their own belief systems.Danmark wrote:You've said yourself that despite your religious convictions re: same sex relations being sinful, you would not personally discriminate.
However, if such a couple insisted that they be married in one of our Temples, I would have a problem with that...exactly the way I would have a problem if someone insisted that everybody has to be married in a Catholic cathedral by a Catholic priest if they want to consider themselves 'married," and for the same reason.
But don't you see?Danmark wrote: I suggest that is because you appreciate the difference between true participation in 'sin' and imposing unnecessary religious customs to discriminate against individuals in ways that are unkind.
That is EXACTLY what the gay rights activists are doing themselves! I don't understand, really, why you don't see that this is EXACTLY like forcing an atheist child to participate in public prayer, or forcing a Jewish child to be one of the Wise Men in a Christmas pageant, or forcing a Christian woman to wear a hijab...
I would go ahead and photograph, or cater, or offer my back yard to a gay couple, because it is not against my beliefs to do so.
However, if it were against my beliefs, I absolutely have the right to say 'go find someone else."
Just as I absolutely support the rights of the local "Christian" school to refuse to hire me simply and only because I would/could not sign their 'statement of faith.'
It's a matter of the first amendment, Danmark, not of political correctness. We have fought too hard to see to it that we CAN believe as we wish, worship (or not) as we wish to go backwards here.
And yes, sometimes that means that a couple can't force someone who disagrees with their lifestyle to support them in an event that celebrates that life style, specifically...like a wedding.
Sometimes that means that a teacher isn't going to get a job in a school owned by folks with different religious beliefs.
It's not about skin color. It's not about homosexuality or anything else that can't be changed. It's about things one chooses to do and believe.
I wouldn't go to a photographer who specialized in gay weddings and force him to shoot my straight one just to make some political point. I wouldn't ask a Baptist preacher to officiate at my wedding; I'm a Mormon. I'd want my Bishop.
I wouldn't go do a Kosher caterer to handle my birthday party. I LIKE ham sandwiches.
And I certainly don't expect any of them to 'do it my way' because I think my beliefs are more politically correct than theirs.
Sometimes, Danmark, being free is NOT politically correct, and hallelujah for that.
