By Francis Marion
From my personal archives, written in 2003.
I can’t get over the furor around the “same sex marriage issue.” It’s not that I’m for it, it’s just that I don’t understand the shock and dismay behind it. I keep asking myself: “In a society that allows government to license and therefore define a personal relationship, what do you expect?”
Moreover, does it really matter what the government says about the issue? Just because the state redefines an ancient and primarily biblical term doesn’t mean that term suddenly loses its meaning or intent. That is unless you consider marriage to be a strictly legal institution, in which case I say to you: sorry, you lose. The government wins. They (the courts and the legislature) do, after all, define all things legal.
Of course if you view marriage as a spiritual or holy union (and not a legal one) then you really have nothing to fear. Gays can’t be married in biblical terms no matter who redefines what in any legal dictionary, statute or code.
The Bible clearly defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. A union between a man and a man is sin – biblically speaking. There’s no getting around that fact. From a Christian view point two men living together in a carnal relationship is no more marriage than jumping out of an airplane without a parachute attached is flying.
22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:22-24
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Mathew 19:4-6
Undoubtedly, people from conservative and Christian backgrounds will have trouble separating the two concepts. Some will even argue that legally defining such a relationship as marriage weakens the institution of the family. To this I would simply answer that many things threaten the institution of every family. As for “The Family” as an institution or entity in and of itself, well it simply does not exist any more than the “Universal Church” does. What does exist is your family and mine, our church and yours. And our families and churches will survive this and much greater tribulations if we teach them Godly morals and the value of human liberty.
Indeed, although we may view gay relationships with dismay and pray for the salvation of those who are involved in them, we cannot tell people what they may and may not do or call themselves even if the dictionary or the Bible clearly states something “just isn’t so.” Ultimately, as my brother once said to me, “There’s nothing I can do for you but pray. The rest is between you and God.”
And finally, homosexuals who believe they’ve won some moral battle by having the state change the legal definition of marriage had better consider this: if the state requires you to hold a license for something you consider to be a “right,” is it then truly a right? Never forget, what the government giveth, the government may take away.
In an ideal world the gays and lesbians who started this thing rolling would have fought for the abolition of marriage licensing altogether. Alas, all they have done in this latest legal debacle is slip into the same trap we Christians did so many years ago, when we decided marriage should be a legal contract sanctioned by government instead of a holy union between a man, a woman and God.
@ EC
“Spic and greaser are a bit on the offensive side.”
Good to know. Thanks!
I refuse to pay homage to a God, or any man, that insists on creating discourse over someone elses love.
LOVE is the message Jesus tried to tell us over and over. The more I learn about the early Roman church, the creation of the old & new testaments, and the associated history of the many different Christian ways pre-Rome, PLUS the actual Aramaic to English translations, I have to tell you, following parts of that book may very likely put your own soul at risk.
We are ALL God’s children and until we quit fighting each other (over less than 3 percent of the population), quit hating each other and turn around and face together our common enemy that wants us ALL dead, we can expect results exactly like we are/have gotten.
Hatred and strife create hatred and strife. Selfishness creates lack. War begets war.
We create terrorists elsewhere by destroying their homes and killing their children, we create them here by claiming moral superiority while spewing vile.
You get what you give. Two gay men that only want to love are not freaking hurting you.
You, on the other hand ARE hurting them. And the entire collective. When you hurt, I hurt, a girl in Japan hurts. When you hate, others return that hate and those feelings.
You “conservative” religious have been playing this control freak card for millennia. Look around, is it working for you?
Cripes. My God wants me to live in happiness until it’s time to settle my debts and move onto my next soul journey. He wants me to help others live in the same happiness. He wants the love I send them to be sent to others.
Your God wants to wag fingers and encourage his followers to kill and mistreat others if they don’t follow some set of rules come up with by a guilt ridden Roman rich guy with a bunch of other guilt ridden pedophile rich guys.
You good Christians have, for CENTURIES, provided these true scum of humanity cover by running around demanding witches, and better off neighbors, be tortured, droning weddings and hospitals, shaming woman who have sex while secretly, or not, envying the men, demanding that humans of others colors/types be declared NOT human, closing down billions and billions of dollars in private industry when you allow your morality to be stoked by the government, big industry and your peckish, follow along to get the cash, preachers.
I have had enough of you haters disguised as the upright, chosen and moral. It kills me to know how bad each and everyone of you must be hurting inside. No decent human speaks, or thinks, of other humans in the way you all do unless they have deep wounds that they attempt to make feel better by filling it with others’ pain.
I now see exactly how “good” Christians stood back and allowed and encouraged all the atrocities that have ever been committed in the name of your God. You felt moral superior, and justified, and you enjoy it. But you repent that part. Well, some of you.
But, I also know that when we leave this plane we will face a choice, and that choice is if we want to advance our spiritual ascension and go through the review where we feel all the crap and hurt and horror that we spread in this life. Or not. Many have said that you can choose to not own up and come back. Go right ahead, but I’m praying I get to go somewhere other than here next go round.
But I know I sure as hell won’t be made to account to any God, for spreading love. Whether or not your elite inspired fantasies will come true for you.
Besides, it cannot be heaven if I have to live with the same hate-filled, bigoted, self-superior types I put up with here. You all can have.
Me and the gays will be laughing and praising God and joking with the angels. I’ll pray for you all. Peace.
There was a TBPer named Greg
Who loved to give John some head
While John’s cock was hard as titanium
That image is too much for my cranium.
“When I read the word there is not one single anti gay word in the book.” ———- Fabulous
Really? There are many verses in the O.T. — none, actually, by Jesus — but, several by Paul.
I’m not saying either way, whether I agree with them or not. And, I REALLY don’t want to turn this thread into a battle of biblical verses. So, I won’t say another word about it, regardless of your response.
I just think you’re being very dishonest in so blatantly saying — “not one single anti gay word”. Interestingly enough, gays never find an anti-gay verse while the religious find tons of them. Confirmation bias … funny how that works.
TE
You talk a lot about “my God” vs. “your God”.
“My God” — meaning, when you say it — comes across as rather personal and private. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You clearly arrived at your image/interpretation of “my God” only after many hours of study, contemplation, and prayer.
But, that begs the question; how is that we can know this same “my God”, if that God is only in your head? And why condemn/criticize those “your God” people for not knowing “my God”?
Don’t be mad I asked. I’m just curious. So, think about it.
“Please provide the verse where Jesus specifically condemns murder.” —— Iska Waran
Not necessary.
1. Did Jesus keep The Law perfectly, right down to the ‘jot and tittle”? Yes.
2. Is “Thou shalt not murder (kill)” part of the Law? Yes.
3. Therefore, Jesus condemns murder. What God is for, Jesus is for … what God is against, Jesus is against … for Jesus and the Father are ONE.
“I refuse to pay homage to a God, or any man, that insists on creating discourse over someone elses love.” ———— TE
What about priests (and other pedophiles) who love little boys?
Hey, I’m not picking on you. I’m just wondering if you’ve completely thought about some of these things thoroughly. Iron sharpens iron ….
Stucky, I think you’re making my point. Jesus said not one jot or tittle of the law would pass away. So, just as he didn’t have to affirm that murder is forbidden, so he didn’t have to affirm that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man. Of course, I’m not a sola scriptura person anyway, rather Sola Verbum Dei. The Christian Church has always opposed homosexual behavior, as it has abortion, sorcery, etc.
Judge: “What grounds do you have for divorce Mrs. Jones?”
Mrs. Jones: “My husband is a hobosexual, your honor”
Judge: “Don’t you mean homosexual, Mrs. Jones?”
Mrs. Jones: “No your honor, I mean hobosexual. He’s a bum lay.”
This is what I’ve always argued with gays, or those that feel the desire to fight for gay rights.
You think you are demanding the right to get married, but all you are really doing is begging a politician for permission.
Card802,
Yes.
This was the point of the article. About 100 years ago we all got screwed. Once central banks and the income tax were established the stage was set for governments and their handlers to begin the politics of division. They have been dividing us with preferential treatment through taxation ever since.
My assertion that marriage is a religious term that refers to a union between a man and a woman is true. Historically I cannot find an example that contradicts this definition (please share if you can find otherwise). But it should’t matter. Just because “marriage” is technically a _holy_ union between two people of the opposite sex does not preclude that gays cannot or should not fall in love and live happily. The point of the article is that the reason there is a debate over this issue at all is because the state has claimed a monopoly on defining what marriage is and has been able to do so via it’s ability to license, tax and divide.
Would gays have had to campaign at all if the income tax was abolished and licensing came to an end? Not likely – simply because they would have been free already to live as they choose and call it whatever they pleased regardless of the literal definition of the word. The entire debate would have been rendered more or less moot.
As for the assertion by TE that biblically we all ought to love one another I would suggest that this is true only in so far as we understand that the Bible and its author’s looked at love from more than one perspective. God’s love for man is Agape. It is self sacrificing and all encompassing. It is something we should aspire to but is neither brotherly nor romantic. The statement “I may not agree with what you have to say but I’d fight to the death for your right say it.” is an expression of Agape or perhaps as close as we mere mortals may come to it. It is caring for one another in the broader sense even though we may disagree or disprove of how one another lives. It is in a sense a very libertarian view on love and mankind – it does not however, preclude that we are required to LIKE one another. It simply requires that we respect one another and our agency to act in our own interest and perhaps to defend those rights when necessary. It’s sort of like TBP. I may not like or agree with what you have to say or who you are but I’d go to war for your right to say and be whatever you damn well please. Your founders understood Agape. Many more have paid the ultimate price int its name throughout history.
Hey for you who say that God didn’t condemn homosexuality just read the first 5 books of the bible If you believe Jesus is God and He and the Father are one then Jesus Christ Condemned any kind of sex outside of marriage.All sex out side of marriage is also forbidden by the commandment …You shall not commit Adultery… Homosexuality is spiritual adultery against GOD .Meatheads.
I have never bought this ….I feel homosexuality is ok…Put your Damn feelings in the trash can.It is Against God’s Commandments , against nature , against family and against Christian culture. If you read what Paul wrote in in Romans. You see homosexuality is a judgment from God as punishment for this type of Idolatry. God gave them over to the sexual sin of their choice. It’s called God’s wrath of abandonment. Then Sowing and Reaping the deathly results of this SIN.
Just throwing this out there …. when it comes to Biblical marriage, where are the REAL men and women?
REAL man; a real man won’t even get married … he’d rather cut off his balls !! …. and that’s according to Jeebus in Matthew 19:12. The only nutless guy here on TBP is bb. Go figure.
REAL woman: Let’s say you’re in a bar, ya get drunk, and a fight breaks out. The other guy is starting to whoop your sorry ass. Then your wife, a real woman, steps in, she grabs the guy’s balls and squeezes the shit out of them ………….. even though she knows the punishment for doing so is amputation at the wrist (of the offending hand). Deut 25:11-12 I yearn for such a woman.
Stucky , you know Damn well God forbids this SIN.
El Coyote , I don’t have sympathy or empathy for people or lifestyles that are deadly. Deadly for homosexual and deadly for us as a society. Homosexuality has been used as a weapon by the left in this nation for 50 years. It just another weapon to destroy Christian culture and you Damn well know this .
bb, you have the law down to a science. While these are things you can easily grasp, there are more important things to consider, things like faith, love, grace, mercy…
As Paul said, …against these things there is no law…
I think that is what Fabio is saying. He is a church-going homosexual. You might condemn him for that but little do you know he is forgiven anew every day while you continue to accumulate sins you hardly acknowledge year in and year out.
“Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
El Coyote / Stucky. A homosexual Christian is a manifest absurdity. Jesus Christ saves people out of their sinful lifestyles not so they can continue in them.
God what’s happening to my country????????
Biblical marriage …. it’s more than just “one man, one woman”
[img
[/img]
“Hey for you who say that God didn’t condemn homosexuality just read the first 5 books of the bible ….. “———- bb
Blow me, hypocrite. The first 5 books have all kinds of BIZARRE do’s and don’t ……. you ignore virtually all of them … because it’s convenient.
For example, bestiality is not allowed. Yet, you let your cat, little bb, lick your balls while driving your short FedEx truck. You said so yourself. Sinner!!
Stucky,
Sorry Stuck – as sad as the chart is (and I’ll admit our history is pretty sad in the way we treat one another) it’s still between men and women (even in the plural sense).
For in my inner being I delight in God’s Law. But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?…
bb, your a hard man. I used to think bad about your ex, I forgot there are two sides to a tortilla. Poor lady, give her my best, she’s been down 20 miles of bad road with you.
@bb
God saves people from their sinful ways indeed. As a Christian homosexual this pleases me, because it tells me my ways are not sinful or I would not have been born this way or been allowed to continue in them. By Grace alone, through faith alone on the basis of scripture alone. Amen.
Why all the down votes against IGOR’s comments — they reflect pure, if impractical, Libertarianism. You go, IGOR! Stay idealistic, for all the good it does you…
I can understand on economic terms as well as in terms of freedom, if the state defines marriage and wants to rule on who can marry, fuck that.
One of the charms of the horrid backwardness of Latin America and parts of the Hillbilly nation is that folks don’t bother with religious or state sanctions, they take a woman for their own and that’s about it, as laong as the dude is supporting her, she’s his old lady.
Now if two gentlemen share a house, call them roommates or faggots, I don’t know why we are so keen on peeping through their windows.
I certainly don’t want to be peeping through any of you TBPers windows, no telling what evil goes on there; drunkenness, masturbation, sloth, gluttony, and undressing the old lady with your eyes. Sickos.
@sticky
Your poem was quite funny. An actual laugh out loud for that one.
As for the not one anti gay word. With the living word it speaks to each reader as an individual. That is part of the Lutheran belief set. To my mind, if you read it with nothing but love and compassion and faith in your heart, you may read it as I do. When you set all of your personal feelings aside, and let it speak to you, do you ever note that before the sin comes, there is first a loss of faith from people who know who move away from God before their actions become sin? Paul in Romans all day long that everyone quotes but does not read.
@el coyote
I like what you said about your wife. Touching and sweet.
Fat chance faggot , you’re delusional.
El Coyote , just found out a couple ago my x wife is now going back to church. She got rid of black magic books. She got out of that witchcraft group .Bless her heart. After I get out of the hospital I’m going to call her.Should be interesting.
See Stucky , my x is a miracle by the grace of God.Miracles still happen.Eventually your will get rid of that ball and chain that’s around your neck. I have hope for you.
Faggot , explain to me how one becomes a faggot. Don’t give me this bullshit propaganda about being born gay.
@Stucky: “Please provide the verses where Jesus specifically condemns homosexuality.”
I remember reading it, with a Hershey Bar quote.
I’m unable to post vids. Who cares? I’ve heard 3 women in my entire life whose voices were so beautifully resonant, you could listen to them all day. My wife is one of those women. Her voice carries even when she is speaking on a normal level.
This teacher’s voice has changed a bit, but it was a close second to the top voice I heard many years ago, that lady had a voice that could have made you cream your shorts:
@bb
Someone feeling unloved today? Come let daddy give it a kiss and make it better. So angry. Sooo angry. About something that shouldn’t even concern you. Are you angry at the microcephally babies too, since they chose to be born with cute little itty bitty heads? Burning hatred from alleged Christians makes me laugh. Shall I quote you some Paul for that? Maybe a cookie? Perhaps you prefer I pray for you? Yes, that’s what I will do.
@el coyote
That was not at all what I was expecting. Pleasant though. Not the octave I was expecting.
You do need to pray for the bb. He’s been through a lot this year.
In the ‘not what I was expecting’ department: My wife is someone I didn’t expect. I used to gravitate more towards sluts and drama queens; women with alcoholic voices and a cackle for a laugh. Some of it may have been my own fear of having somebody better than me in my life. At least I can act superior here, eh?
I only except hugs from Stucky . I don’t hate you.What I do hate is people like you trying to push your lifestyle down our throats.
Besides I think you’re interesting. Keep posting.
@:bb
Get well soon. I have no hate for you. I wish to push my lifestyle on no one, please never take it that way. I just wish to be left in peace to live my life. A libertarian ideal?
When Jesus was on earth, he said he did not come to abolish the law, meaning Old Testament law, but to fulfill the law, and that law forbade homosexual acts. End of story. I know there are other verses where Jesus condemns homosexuality, but I don’t have time right now to find them. (I know you think I’m lying, but I’m not. When I have time to look them up, I’ll post them.)
Christians should never use and have never had to use government to fulfill God’s law. Many have thought it was necessary in order to spread Christianity, but it isn’t. It doesn’t matter what government says or does, as long as you act as a Christian, even if you die because of it. That’s why so many Christians were killed at the beginning of Christianity. To have a Christian society, you convert people to Christianity, and they have to convert voluntarily. There are some who will never convert. The Bible even says he will harden some peoples’ hearts. So, they will live their sinful life and you will live your Christian life. God sorts it out in the end. All you can do is pray for people and try to convert them to Christianity, but not aggressively and not by force.
There was that story of the art piece, a pair of hands clasped in a prayer pose. They are the hands of a man praying his gay lover would win an art competition.
There are no graduations of sin, telling a little lie is the same as sucking a big dick or acting like an assclown on TBP.
You ask for forgiveness (but not from men, they don’t forgive) and move on, placing your faith in God’s promise to forgive your sins if you confess them in Jesus’ name.
ps, Some of you morans would be better off having a gay lover praying for you, I’m sure you need the prayer.
Here are two versus I found in a quick search:
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 –
Wycliffe Bible (1382): “Whether ye know not, that wicked men shall not wield the kingdom of God? Do not ye err; neither lechers, neither men that serve maumets [neither men serving to idols], neither adulterers, neither lechers against kind, neither they that do lechery with men”
King James Version (1611): “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind”
Amplified Version (1987): “Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality”
1 Jude 1:7 –
King James Version: Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
New International Version: In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
English Standard Version: Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
____
And I don’t mean a party pooper but the Bible says fornication prior to marriage is a sin, for everybody. In fact, in the past, there were laws against fornication prior to marriage and for adultery. Although laws change with time, God’s law does not.
I care very little, however, if I am judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4My conscience is clear, but that does not vindicate me. It is the Lord who judges me.
5Therefore judge nothing before the proper time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.…