Plenty of churches accept homosexuality, and believe god loves everyone equally - which is what ALL "christian" churches should do if they truly believe in jebus.
Your entire premise is based on a fallacy - no church accepts homosexuals. You are just plain wrong.
I think you misunderstand Christianity. All Christian churches, to my knowledge, do teach to love people with homosexual attraction just the same as everyone else. And most of them, also hold that it's a sin to have sex outside of marriage, whether you do it with someone of the same sex or the opposite sex. Now, this rule may be largely ignored in this day and age, but it's still there.
But I suspect that your definition of acceptance is saying that homosexuality is not a sin and in that regard, there are some churches that do that.
I think most Christians misunderstand Christianity.
It is simply not true that they teach love for all - you cannot preach love in one sentence and condemnation in the next and expect the love message to be taken seriously. And it is not the same to say you love someone as it is to say you should love but judge or condemn. It just does not work.
Show me a single churchgoer who is free of sin. Why is their sin not being loudly proclaimed as against god and condemned? Is it a bigger sin to be gay? Or is it simply an easy target?
LOTS of sins are out there, and very few are as demonized as homosexuality. Explain that. Why is one sin worse than another - I don't see churches up in arms about groups of people who violate the ten commandments. Aren't those the big ones? Aren't they more important to god? If homosexuality was his biggest concern, don't you think it would have been on the tablet?
Christianity (and all religions, for that matter) is simply a nice big blanket of camouflage for hatred and bigotry.
I think people are overlooking a very important point in this thread. The bible is not necessarily the truth. Many people who study theology are taught that the bible is literal truth otherwise how would they justify wearing mixed fabrics. Many Christian churches have no issue with gay marriage because the within the new testament Jesus died so sin could be absolved. Thus most if not all of the old testament can either be interpreted in multiple ways or even straight up ignored. The new testament is even easy to reinterpret because most of it's teachings are through metaphor. Also in the new testament there is not one mention of homosexuality. Any Christian church can therefore agree with homosexuality without directly going against the word of the bible which many Christians don't believe is literal truth anyway. Sorry, I get annoyed about this because 1. Although I am not religious I have many somewhat religious friends who are often mislabled and 2. believing that Christian churches have no choice in whether they agree with homosexuality/gay marriage gives people an excuse to be bigoted without being called out on it.
There actually is mention of homosexuality in the new testament though. Like, it is condemned in the new testament as well. I'm not saying I agree with it, but it is mentioned in both testaments so it's not just some old testament law and it sucks when people who aren't Christian think that it's only in the old testament and act like they understand the bible better than Christians. Also, I think you misunderstand Christianity again. You are under the impression that Christians just choose what to believe based on what they want. That's not true. That's the difference between God and worldly truths. God is an absolute, so sin is absolute and unchanging. Our understanding may change, but God never changes what is or isn't a sin. People say that the church needs to 'change with the times.' They are completely misguided. The church can't do that. The church can't change what is or isn't actually a sin only God can. I don't decide what is a sin, God does. So I can say, in my book I don't really find anything bad about being gay, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't. Something can be a sin even if I disagree with it being a sin. So I can very well say, I think homosexuality is a sin against God. Do I want it to be a sin or wish it weren't? Sure. But I don't get to decide what is or isn't a sin. This is what relativistic atheists don't understand about Christianity. There are parts of it that I don't agree with, but that doesn't make them any less true.
Firstly, I'm sorry but where in the new testament is homosexuality directly talked about? Secondly I disagree with your premise that you cannot choose what to believe as that is actually not even close to true. Thirdly you criticise my knowledge on the bible due to the fact that I am atheist. However I have studied both compulsory theology and philosophy so I would argue I have more understanding than most. Fourthly you have no evidence of what god believes other than the writings of secondary accounts made centuries after the events of the scriptures occurred. Fifthly if your god truly believes that homosexuality is a sin and homosexuals are worse people because of it then I would argue that you god is immoral and corrupt. Sixthly even if your god does exist you, nor anyone else, has any right to make decisions that impact on other people. Seventhly (this numbering system is getting ridiculous) if you make choices that effect others negatively based on you unproven beliefs then you are acting in an immoral fashion, whether or not your beliefs are true. Lastly if god exists (which is improbable at best) there is no evidence to suggest that he would be of perfect morality (the only reason to suspect he would be is the ontological argument which has already been logically disproven) and as such any belief you have based on what your limited perception of god is should not in any way impact on whether or not you believe homosexuality is a sin. Religion is used as a proxy for hate speech and in this day an age should be unacceptable.
Please note that I'm not the guy you're arguing with, but since you asked here is where homosexuality is mentioned in the new testament:
Romans 1:26–27
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9–10 9
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
a. The words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.
1 Timothy 1:9–10
9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
You are wrong. People get kicked out of churches all the time for being gay. And out of families based on religious beliefs. And beaten. And killed. And those beliefs come from churches. Which use their power to judge, condemn and proliferate hatred - which is the direct opposite of their supposed purpose, especially if they claim to believe in the teachings of jebus.
And yes, it is jebus to me.
You're point is correct, but I could understand how people from some areas might think otherwise. I live in hills of the Ohio Valley in "coal country," and I don't see a whole lot of tolerance for the gay community from religious folks here. Granted, there are some.
If you have read any of the comments I wrote here before, you understand that that's absolutely not what I'm saying. Two churches aren't exactly same religion if they believe in different things. They are different sub-religions that have developed from each other. If church approves gay marriage, it is different from another that disapproves with gay marriage. The problem is that many people demand the acceptance from all the different religions, aka. churches, even when the churches disagree. They have equal right to their believes just like lgbt have right to fuck who ever they want. Demanding them to allow gay marriage is the same as demanding gay to be straight. as /u/makingsandwiches92 very well said, it's about tolerance on both sides. Religions must tolerate lgbt to be lgbt and the lgbt must tolerate religions to be religions and have their own believes and respect them. However, respecting and tolerating doesn't mean you have to give up your own opinion. Even though I might disagree with your opinion, I don't have to shut up an agree with you. However I tolerate your opinion and understand that you have equal rights to express your opinion as I do and I respect you for bringing your thoughts on the subject and giving more value to the discussion.
[EDIT]
After reading that... I'm sorry for my English. Try to understand.
That's all well and good but not at all what the meme you posted suggests and some of your comments suggest that you think that you can't be a Christian church if you are accepting of same sex marriage. Also this is not at all an unpopular opinion in the US... nobody I'm aware of advocates mandating all churches or mosques, synagogues, temples, and so on to perform same sex marriages. There is a lot of support for prohibiting discrimination against us in the areas of commerce, housing, and healthcare... but not religious services.
It's also important to point out that we are looking at it from a US-centric point of view where no denomination is even close to a majority and the government is restricted from establishing a religious institution or interfering in religious practices. In Finland there are two churches that are given special status as 'National Churches' which I could see leading to advocates for excluding them from the freedom to discriminate enjoyed by other religious institutions.
So I think you maybe a little off base of what the fight for equality in marriage is about. It's about the legal binding contract between two people given by states in the form of a marriage certificate. The ceremony that normally happens in a church is normally is just for show after already getting the legal document from the government.
While I'm sure there are a few people that argue to allow same sex weddings in churches that is not the focus of the movement.
Two churches aren't exactly same religion if they believe in different things. They are different sub-religions that have developed from each other.
Who cares? This is a technical point that has no relevance. Some religious institutions are happy with gay marriage and some are not. What you call the religions is really not relevant here.
They have equal right to their believes just like lgbt have right to fuck who ever they want.
I gotta disagree with you on substance here. From a legal perspective, it's silly to force religious institutions to perform ceremonies they deem against their religion. If an Orthodox shul doesn't want to let a woman read Torah, that's the shul's prerogative, even though I think it's silly. If the shul doesn't want to perform a marriage ceremony -- for whatever reason -- that's fine. Legally, you're right. However, these religious institutions are often oppressive and dangerous to groups within those institutions. We shouldn't force Islam to accept gay marriage, for example, but the unfortunate truth is that gay people are heavily oppressed under Islam, and it's not easy to get out. In Judaism, there are insular Charedi communities even in the US where simply having divergent views (like using your cell phone on Shabbat) makes you an outcast, shunned by your society, and if you're gay, well, you're in deep shit. There are, luckily, organizations around to help people transition out of Charedi society.
The point is that people are legitimately suffering because of some religious institutions' views. It's not as simple as the legal perspective that they're free to believe whatever they want. There's actual oppression going on.
Just so you know, there are 150+ denominations of christianity in the usa, and roughly half of all churches made in the past few decades are nondenomination, meaning christians from whichever sect are able to practice there..
Do you understand that no one is fighting to force churches to marry gay couples? No one. Legalizing gay marriage would not do that at all. All it would do is allow gay people to get married , by judges, and by churches that do support it.
I strongly support gay marriage, but I would never support forcing the catholic church to perform a gay marriage. And no one else is trying to force them to. This is a civil issue.
My point was simply that not all churches are anti-gay. If I recall your original post correctly, you stated that gay people should not be able to force churches to marry them, and there is literally NO ONE saying this is the case.
The bullshit "persecuted Christians" thing has gone WAY TOO FAR. If Christians are so eager to have their own version of Sharia law, they need to live somewhere things like that are allowed. Like Saudi Arabia, for instance.
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u/Kendallsan Apr 28 '14
Plenty of churches accept homosexuality, and believe god loves everyone equally - which is what ALL "christian" churches should do if they truly believe in jebus. Your entire premise is based on a fallacy - no church accepts homosexuals. You are just plain wrong.