Posted on 12/04/2004 5:17:59 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Note: The following commentary includes graphic descriptions. This is not suitable for children.
“I’m at my wits’ end,” the young woman wrote. “I’ve asked pastors, friends, parents, God, and message boards this question and still haven’t received an intelligent answer that I can live with. Why are homosexual acts wrong? I’m a Christian and believe in the Bible, but this part always stumps me.”
According to my friend, Dr. J. Budziszewski, author of the excellent new book, Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students, disturbing questions like this show that church leaders aren’t providing young people with the whole picture about sexuality. They may be faithfully teaching God’s rules, but when asked why God made these rules, too often they say, “Take two aspirin, and wait for the questions to go away.”
The good news, says Budziszewski, is that we can answer disturbing questions. Where are the answers found? In our creational design.
“People say homosexuality isn’t natural,” the young woman complained in her letter, “but that can’t be true because it’s found among animals.” Budziszewski answers, “But our nature is how God designed us. What’s natural for human beings isn’t whatever you can find some animal doing; it’s whatever fulfills our design. Men and women were plainly designed for each other—not men for men, nor women for women.” Children can be born in no other way.
“But homosexual acts don’t harm anyone,” said the young woman. Budziszewski answers, “The idea that homosexual acts don’t harm anyone isn’t even close to being true; they harm those who perform them at every level. To begin with the most obvious level—the physical—how could it not harm a man to suffer physical trauma because body parts are repeatedly forced into bodily openings that were designed for a radically different function?” And the rates of a long, long list of diseases are also much higher among practicing homosexuals, and contrary to popular belief, this is true for lesbians as well as for “gay” men.
At the emotional level, Budziszewski explains, the damage of homosexual acts is just as grave. God designed the male-female pair to balance each other; by contrast, same-sex mating drives them out of balance. If you want an example, think of the anonymous, no-brakes promiscuity of men who have sex with hundreds, even thousands, of other men.
“And what about spiritual harm?” asks Budziszewski. “In homosexual acts, you’re seeking union with someone who is only your own mirror image, so in a way, you’re still trapped inside yourself. You haven’t experienced the power of marital sexuality to take you beyond the Self; you’re rejecting the challenge of union with someone who is really other. In that way, homosexual acts are less like marital intercourse than like masturbation with another body.”
That’s frank, even startling language, but what’s happened to our culture is startling too. When young people confused by the culture ask questions, they need clear, unvarnished answers to set their thinking straight. That’s why I recommend this great new book Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students.
God’s rules for sex are never arbitrary; they are based on how He made us. As Budziszewski rightly says, it’s all in the design.
Reasoning from Scripture and reasoning from the environment we live in just gives us more ammo, when we use them in concert. See post 25.
Excellent post, MAP.
If you can find a movie called The New Centurions with stacy Keach and George C. scott, you can even see how those laws, and enforcement of them, used to work in California.
Just curious.
I believe that you mean "Rich Mullins".
Not really.
There is an objective, concrete standard for the meter, backed up by a metal rod in Paris. If a group started claiming that a meter is 12 inches long, that wouldn't change the objective measure.
See post 47. If you still think I'm off, come back to me.
Jesus "fulfilled" the Law.
What part of the Ten Commandments are now invalidated?
The Ten Commandments define God's nature, not man's. None of His nature is invalid or invalidated with the coming of Jesus to live amongst us and redeem us from our fallen state.
That an IronJack original?
Strong stuff.
I've long thought the same thing. That which makes us ugly from the inside out cannot be of God's will.
This moron believes in a Bible she's obviously never read.
Interesting question. I would say that no one has collected enough data to make good conclusions about the effect of homosexual parentage on children, especially in those children's eventual sexual choices. Being raised by two openly gay parents is a very recent social phenomenon, and the sample groups would be small in any case.
Secondly, if one is going to maintain that gay parentage is equivalent to heterosexual parentage, one must then say that neither mothers nor fathers are of any real, particular value. Of what value is motherhood if the mother can simply be replaced by a man? Of what value is fatherhood if the father can simply be replaced by a second woman?
Humans are not aftermarket parts that can be slapped into the same slot the original was intended to occupy. Children need a mother and a father, and short-changing them will never be right, no matter how we rationalize it.
And by the way, my lovely nursing student wife informs me that one of the predictors for anti-social disorder is not having a parent of each sex. Now, they aren't only discussing homosexual parents in that conclusion, but it is an indicator. The relational styles of the two genders work in concert to bring a child to a healthy maturity.
More accurate to say they're seeking someone that is the exact opposite of themselves. Is that the same thing as what he is saying? These guys are trying to cannibalize qualities from others that they do not see in themselves...
Is it circular to say it's Un-American to censor political speech and establish a state religion?
Mentally defaulting on the perpetuation of self, is an anti-life, dirt-road, cul-de-sac.
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