A lot of people laugh when priests are limited to men because no female apostles are acknowledged, too. Is that "an 'argument from silence;' a logical fallacy"?
This article is an opinion pretending to be logic. It picks and chooses amongst it's references and definitions in favor of its oft repeated preference for an answer. And the author is well aware of his abuse of logic, which is why he starts out by denying exactly what he then does.
The ridiculous levels of fear and loathing about this subject have been exactly the fuel that has enabled it to be used as a major cultural and - most dangerously - legal wedge in our society. What nobody can see through the rage is that enforcing general child protection laws and kicking the government out of the marriage business altogether would reduce the homosexuality issue to irrelevency. Instead, it's been agitated into paranoia, and endless arrogant and hate-filled claims of who Jesus loves and who he detests. It's utterly absurd, and makes Christians look like idiots.
“Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality....” The rest of the sentence remains unspoken for fear that laughter might break out. “Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality; therefore He approves of it.” First of all, that’s what’s known as an “argument from silence;” a logical fallacy.
A lot of people laugh when priests are limited to men because no female apostles are acknowledged, too. Is that “an ‘argument from silence;’ a logical fallacy”?
I’m a Protestant so you’ll need to take your questions about that issue up with a Roman Catholic priest or layman. The reason I personally believe the office of teaching elder and pastor is limited to men is from the teachings of Paul the Apostle in 1 Timothy 2:12: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”
As to the main topic of the article, I just wanted to address the liberal fallacy that “Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality” when Mark 7:21 and Matthew 15:19 as well as his definition of marriage in Matthew 19:4-6 show clearly what He did teach concerning this subject. There’s zero biblical evidence that he ever endorsed or advocated it.
Actually not--if you are at all familiar with the biblical arguments against female ordination. Those are based primarily not simply on the fact that the primary leaders Jesus trained and ordained, the Apostles, were men--but, over the fact that specific qualifications are listed (which refer only to men), more than once, in the New Testament epistles--making clear there were no female elders (pastors/priests) allowed in the Apostolic-era 1st Century Church.
Orthodox Christianity has always said that if you cannot find biblical warrant for a change in practice or theology of the Church, then you cannot find a good reason at all to change. This is why "innovation" in theology and practice is a dirty word in orthodox Christian circles.
I don't believe the author of this article is commenting on how homosexuality is being treated politically or socially in modern America--rather he's only replying to the utterly ridiculous, a-historical claim--often made in religious circles--that Jesus would of approved of homosexual activity--since there's no record He specifically spoke about it.
The author didn't mention it, but 1st Century Judaism (like orthodox Judaism of all centuries, actually) was appalled at the rampant sexual perversion promoted and found in the Gentile world of its day.... If Jesus had deviated from that Jewish standard there is no question he would of been pilloried for it--by those who pushed for His death, and He never was... Neither were Christians later accused of being sexually permissive...by rivals who hated them. That's not an argument from silence, rather a logical deduction.
If the Bible is a unified whole--as Christianity has always taught--than one would expect Jesus to be in accord with Old Testament sexual ethics....and subsequently that the Apostles would also be in accord with Jesus and those same OT sexual ethics. This is what one finds--if you have, as Jesus put it, "the ears to hear."