Visitors should not expect their faith to necessarily be supported, but they should feel safe enough to participate without having those beliefs ridiculed. If you indeed see the world through that particular lens expressed above, a personal blog (or one devoted to such debate) is the appropriate place to express those views.

This is not a perfect system, but it works better than the alternatives in our experience. It allows participants to discuss the topics which have brought us together with the least amount of interference from certain emotions which tend to interfere with reasonable debate.

Most people act as if homosexuality is some sort of opinion, like they ‘believe’ in it or don’t believe in it. They agree with it or they disagree with it. This is absurd. That’s like saying (and many do) “I don’t believe in evolution.” So what? That doesn’t change the fact that we live in a Universe that has been around for billions of years, and we are a species that has evolved from a lower species.

Sexuality is built into us. We don’t choose to be gay, we discover, at some point in our development, that we are gay, the same way straight kids discover their attraction toward each other. Straight boys don’t decide to become obsessed with boobs, it just happens. Gay kids don’t decide to be attracted to peers of the same sex, it just happens.

Whether homosexuality is an ‘anomaly,’ or if it’s ‘on purpose (nature’s way of controlling the population),’ is still up for debate. However, for whatever reason it exists in nature, nature has allowed it to continue. It even appears at times that nature encourages it. We know by studying evolution that when something no longer serves a species, nature either removes it, or changes it. Yet homosexuality seems to remain consistent.

God did not create Adam and Eve (or Adam and Steve), God did not create a world in seven days, God did not ordain marriage or put a tree in the middle of a garden. We are not made in the image of God, we are made in the image and likeness of the Universe around us. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to oppose homosexuality.

The reason homosexuality was decriminalized is the exact same reason that interracial marriage was decriminalized. Science overrode superstition, and the Bible was recognized for what it was in this situation; prejudice and bias, and outright bigoted. These are the qualities of the Bible, and they are not only unsupported in nature, they have been proved absolutely false. The Bible is a lie told to humans by humans in an effort to suppress and control.

Unfortunately this isn’t a logical debate. It’s an emotional debate. We’re trying to discuss logic with people who still won’t acknowledge science. It’s like debate whether or not there’s a Santa Clause. They see the present under the tree, therefore Santa must have put them there.

The fact that Christians are so afraid that homosexuality might be taught in schools, or that children may be exposed to this ‘alternative’ lifestyle (death-style as some call it) is as absurd as their fight to keep evolution out of schools. This is nature and its science, and they might as well be arguing that those who believe in gravity are sinning.

I said all of that to get to this point. To call yourself a Christian means that you are taking on the ideology of Paul, you are taking on the superstition of the Bible and you are taking on the principles that book espouses. Even if you cherry pick the Bible, that doesn’t change the fact that the Bible endorses slavery, genocide, murder, hatred, violence, child abuse, crimes against women, megalomania, and crimes of all nature. To call yourself a Christian means that at some level you’re willing to participate in the crimes of scripture, and I don’t see how you could do otherwise.

Bless those Christians who support and love their gay brothers and sisters. Bless those gay men and women who choose to be Christians, but that doesn’t change the fact that Paul was adamantly opposed to it, even if that was his thorn in his side, nor does it change the fact that he built that philosophy into his theology and that it remains there to this day. It is one of the pillars of his church. There are many sincere peopel who participate in groups that commit agregious acts, but no matter how sincere they are, they still belonged to an organization that is based on pure evil and hate, whose sole purpose was to eradicate everyone they disagreed with, and I think this is a fair assessment of Paul’s church.

They were saying to the Ugandans, we can’t kill gays here, but you can, and we want you to do what we legally can’t. Christians hate homosexuality, and they hate it vehemently, and that hatred was built into Christianity from its inception.

Hang on! I’ll readily point out the absurdities of religion, and I certainly think it’s immoral: Any moral system which cares less about the suffering of people than it does about the idiosyncrasies of a sky fairy is ripe for criticism. Religious morality is bad because it is not, fundamentally, morality at all. Morality is about people.

However, let’s not paint with too broad a brush. Not all Christians “hate homosexuality”. There are some non-homophobic Christians out there; some genuine ones. And, of course, many gay people are themselves Christian.

The nice Christians are cherrypicking just as much as the nasty ones are, of course, because the Bible is no moral guide: it’s an incoherent mess. It’s a pretty good mirror, actually: what it tells a believer to do is often a pretty good reflection of the believer’s own character.

TRiG.

Ben– not if that famous thorn in his flesh was what several people think it was.

Projection and self hatred are hardly new emotions.

It always amazes me how Anti-Gay Christians will appear appauled at the likes of what is taking place in Uganda, or when violent acts occur against gays on their own turf, and yet, they are the very ones who initiated the whole ordeal. It’s like someone who has trained their dog to attack and then is appauled when the dog actually does it. Then they blame the dog for it and put it to sleep.

Sad to say Christianity, for most of its history, has made a list of who are worthy and who are not worthy to enjoy life on earth. And while the lists vary from denomination to denomination, the fact remains that it exists. Many feel they need to have enemies in order to justify their faith. In my understanding of Christ’s teaching, the enemy is ourselves, not those around us. But it is easier to shift the blame for the world’s problems onto someone else, having scape goats if you will.

If Uganda is doing anything appauling in the eyes of the Anti-Gay Christians of the West, it is holding up a mirror to them and showing them what it looks like to put their words into action.

if you define “moral” as the unseeing, unthinking, uncompassionate, unexamined, unreasoning, and lazy following of strictures that were laid down by desert tribes, but atrributed to their deity, 2500 years ago concerning subjects we might possibly understand 2500 years later.

TRiG.

* Ultra-traditionalist Roman Catholics who work in chemists’ shops and who have to sell condoms to customers who want them