I’m not sure why billorites would extrapolate from President Carter’s mentioning the *sin* of lust to the proposition that sex outside marriage is just fine. (Admittedly, Carter went bats, but ...) Sin is sin. Whether an attitude is lust, or just (ahem) admiration for a gentleman’s intellect and style, is something the individual has to address personally.
I will admit I’m partial to glancing at that photo of young Binyamin Netanyahu....
Just a glance of admiration! He’s also a great man, if he were an evil leftist I’d never want to look at him.
Handsome is as handsome does!
I think that is an unfair and inaccurate characterization of my remarks.
Wrestling with sexuality is a common and shared experience of human development. We do so within, or without, some framework of moral teaching. Carter acknowledged that. No more, no less.
I'm rereading my remarks in order to understand how they might be construed as condoning infidelity, sex outside of marriage, etc.
I will sit on Jimmy's side of the room, though, with the other sinners who had an impure thought once or twice...when I was young...or drinking...
I don't think the moral instruction I received as a youth regarding sex and sexuality in my mainstream Protestant church was very accurate, useful or constitutes a coherent code that I want to transmit to my kids. Maybe it's different now forty years later.
I'll ask the Bishop or his life-partner.
Sigh...