Posted on 02/22/2002 6:17:19 AM PST by ArGee
Q: Why should society be involved in personal issues such as (marriage, drug use, homosexual sex, etc.)?
A:People exist in society not by convenience but because people are social by nature. We do not exist well in a vacuum. Part of the function of our society is to maintain norms of interaction that will allow us to survive. We call these norms our culture. Historically, cultures must be based on concrete fundamental truths. They can't be based on the whims of the moment or they will fall apart. In fact, historically, those cultures that have lasted the longest were based on concrete fundamental truths and they fell only when the societies stopped enforcing those rules. To date, only one culture in all of human history has been able to reconstruct itself after it fell, and that was because it returned to those concrete fundamental truths and cherished them until it could regain its land. I'm talking about Jewish culture and Israel.
America was founded on concrete fundamental truths. France was not. Both governments had similar ideals, but America had a culture to sustain those ideals and the government has been working here for over 250 years. You can't say the same for France because their culture is not based on concrete fundamental truths. If America lets those truths go, we will go the way of France, which is headed for the same fate as Babylon or Ninevah or Rome or any other ancient culture.
Q: Why should society care what individuals do?
A: If decent human beings don't stand up and fight for our foundational culture, our republic will be lost, because as moral values are tossed aside, the government will be there to regulate the behavior produced by those loss of morals. A climate of immorality only gives the government an opportunity to expand.
Q: Social and/or legal discouragement of homosexuality won't reduce the occurance of SAD
A: If the practice of homosexuality is shunned people would be more eager to overcome the defects in their lives than succumb to them. SAD is curable, you just have to want to be normal again. Unfortunately in today's society we support these SADs in their sickness giving them no motivation to be cured.
Society is essentially enabling the deviants to live a comfortable life as a deviant instead of encouraging them to seek a cure.
Q: If gays were allowed to marry like normal people then the negatives (promiscuity, disease, domestic violence) associated with existing gay (male) lifestyle would decrease.
A: A 'monogomous' SAD couple were responsible for the rape and torture of Jesse Dirkhising. The incidence of monogomy in the SAD culture is extrememly small. What makes you think that a piece of paper will cause people to be monogomous when they spend all their time now being promiscuous? The only thing that will stop SAD promiscuity is SADs getting healed.
Q: Why should evidence that one can discourage welfare dependence by making welfare unavailable tell us anything about whether we can discourage homosexuality by keeping marriage unavailable?
A: They are both behaviors. Make the results of the behavior unpleasant and the behavior will eventually go away. The problem now is that SADs are coddled rather than forced to face their perversion and it's results. Therefore they choose to remain in the SAD lifestyle instead of seeking a cure.
NOTE: This isn't just a SAD issue. This applies to all sexual deviancy.
Q: Why would allowing 'gay' marriage mean allowing other perversions to marry? Leaving aside that marriages to dogs or dead people or children cannot be consensual, and are therefore not comparable to the mutual commitment of two adult humans (of the same or different sexes), why can't we just say "yes" to one and "no" to the others?
A: The union of two men or two women is not comparable to the union of one man to one woman as the SAD union has no potential to produce children (which as we all know are the future of our society). So right now our laws do say "yes" to one and "no" to the other. We say yes to beneficial marriages (those that have the potential to produce new members of society) and no to detrimental marriages (those that have no potential to produce). Rather than start down the slippery slope of allowing all perversions to marry lets just say no to all of them.
(Note that inability to have children due to impotence etc in a normal couple is usually not known until after the marriage. The institution must support the potential to have children which ONLY male-female *normal* marriages provide)
Q: Comparing 'gay' marriage to bestial (pedophilial, necrophilial etc) marriage is not a valid comparison.
A: If we break the definition to include one detrimental type of union we will eventually have to break it to allow all of them. Look at how the pedophiles are lobbying the APA to be delisted as a disease (or they may already have been) they are about 15-20 years behind the SADs. History shows us that compromise on our core values always results in the death of those values.
After all pedophilial marriage is not comparable to beastial marriage because its two humans involved. And bestial marriage is not comparable to necrophilial marriage becasue two living things are involved. Etc ad nauseum. There will always be a reason why the next favorite perversion is somehow better than the second next favorite perversion. Let's just sidestep the whole thing and disallow all the perversions (which is what our laws do now)
Q: But I also think that gays can only be more likely to behave in manner more supportive of good social order if society treats them as if it expects such responsible behavior.
A: You are correct. The practice of homosexual sex is not now, nor will it ever be, 'responsible behavior'. Therefore we must expect, and make that expectation known, that the SADs seek a cure to their behavior.
Q: Shutting gays out of "respectable" society and its institutions only encourages rebellious and self-destructive behavior.
A: The problem is that SADs are not shut out of respectable society. You can't fire someone just because they are a pervert. You can't kick them out of rental property you own, you can't socially penalize them in any way. If we did, we'd have less SADs. The practice of homosexual sex is not now, nor will it ever be, "responsible behavior"
Q: Homosexuality is genetic. Therefore it's ok
A: No study has ever found a 'gay' gene. In fact studies using identical twins have shown that there is no genetic component to SAD.
For the sake of argument however, lets assume that a 'gay' gene is found. SAD then falls into the area of other genetic diseases like alcoholism. Just because an alcoholic is genetically predisposed to the disease should society excuse his self-damaging behavior and let him drink as much as he wants? NO! Society demands that he control his behavior and stay sober in order to be a member of respectable society. Drunks aren't welcome in most places including most places of business.
Likewise, if SAD is genetic, the SADs should be shut out of respectable society until they control their behavior. This includes shutting them out of any place where children or respectable people will be. Socially repugnant behavior is socially repugnent whether it is genetic or not.
Q: Can you prove that homosexual behavior is harmful?
A: To individuals? The medical evidence is overwhelming. To society? The only way to "prove" such a thing is to design an experiment where there are two groups of societies where the only distinguishing feature is that one allows homosexual behavior and the other doesn't. Then we have to watch and see what happens. Even if we could do such a thing, wouldn't it be a tad unethical to try?
A more telling question is, can you prove that homosexual behavior is not harmful to a society. Remember we started with a society that didn't permit homosexual behavior and was doing well. In all of history, homosexual behavior has been shunned, or the society did not stand. While that does not constitute proof, it does stand as evidence. We have a standard that works. Now you want to tinker with that standard. The risk to our children is great if homosexual behavior is inded harmful. Why should we let you tinker? Give me something concrete that says you aren't doing any harm before I let you experiment with my society. The burden of proof is on you, not me.
Q: Why do you focus on homosexuality? Aren't adultery and fornication just as much an abomination to God? Those are heterosexual sins. Why don't you pay any attention to them?
A: Christians don't just focus on SAD. But in the public policy arena the adulterers and fornicators are happy to keep the issue private. When such issues become public Christians do respond, as when Gary Hart had to withdraw from his presidential bid, or when Bill Clinton was impeached. We even respond to our own, as when Jimmy Swaggart was caught with a prostitute, or when Gary Bauer was meeting with a female junior staffer behind closed doors for long periods of time. Homosexual Activists are the ones who force Christians to address SAD as a public policy issue. If they had been happy to keep their sexual deviancy a private issue, Christians would be happy to be focusing on other things.
But while all sin is sin from the moral perspective, there is a progression from less destructive to more destructive from the social and personal perspective. There is also a progression from soft heart (like King David) to hard heart (like Pharoah). Adultery and fornication are wrong and destructive. And they are more wrong and destructive than greed and gluttony, which are more wrong and destructive than white lies. Picture a slippery slope on the way to a completely hardened heart. Some sins are closer to the soft hart, other sins are closer to the hard heart. The Bible, especially Romans 1, makes it clear that SAD is the final step. Romans tells us that "God gave them up..." God doesn't give up easily. SADs are very nearly completely hardened. Ex-gays will tell you how hard it is to come out of that lifestyle. They will also tell you how important it is.
Well, you know by now that he's only suspended. And, while I might be tempted to take insult and never return, I hope our friend Khepera does come back after the suspension and roll up his sleeves and get to work. Despite his tongue-in-cheek post to me at the beginning of this thread, he is one of the better soldiers against the army of perverts on FR and we need him.
Shalom.
OW! OW! OW! You hurt my brain.
Shalom.
Q. Remember, the devil did not make ten percent of our population left handed nor ten percent gay. It was our God in heaven who created man. Perhaps Gods image includes the capacity to love and tolerate.
A. God made man in His own image. God does not have SAD. (in fact God sees the practice of homosexual behavior as abomination, something so evil that those who participate in it should be killed instantly) Therefore God did not create anyone to be homosexual. Why would He create something He finds abhorrent?
God Save America (Please)
If God wants homosexuals to be killed instantly, then why doesn't he kill them? Or are you perhaps suggesting that God wants his followers to kill them for him?
Therefore God did not create anyone to be homosexual. Why would He create something He finds abhorrent?
Didn't God create Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, and Osama bin Laden?
It would seem your line of reasoning is faulty here.
If God wants homosexuals to be killed instantly, then why doesn't he kill them? Or are you perhaps suggesting that God wants his followers to kill them for him?
All through history God delivered the law and expected his people to live it and enforce it. His role in punishing the law-breaker happens after death.
While the command to kill the law-breaker is not enforced after New Testament days (Thank you, God, for mercy) God's disgust at the behavior is still the same.
Didn't God create Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, and Osama bin Laden?
Excellent examples!! (thank you.) God created these people, just has He created those who would become infected with SAD. He did not however, twist them into the things they became, just as He does not infect people with SAD. Man through his rebellion and pride brought these diseases upon himself. The hitlers of the world arise not because of God but because man tries to elevate himself above God.
Adolf Hitler as a baby was just as cute and lovable as any other baby. He was not born evil. Somewhere along the line though he was damaged by his contact with this evil (just as young boys are damaged by their contact with SADs) and grew to become the twisted person we know as the tyrant Adolf Hitler.
All tyrants are atheists. A Christian cannot be a tyrant as a Christian KNOWS that there is One mightier than him and that the true Mighty One will require him to be accountable for his actions.
It would seem your line of reasoning is faulty here.
It would seem that while you may be 'one who knows' you are still not 'one who understands'
GSA(P)
Amazing.
It should be very clear that SASU (such as it is) does not advocate violence against anyone, period. The Torah did call for a theocratic state to be developed and for that theocracy to make SAD punishable by death. G-d did not intend for lynch mobs to kill SADs. He prescribed a legal system that would handle SAD just like it handled anything else. Not personal violence but state justice.
Nobody suggests that the United States should become a theocracy (well, at least nobody serious). But the requirement that Israel make SAD punishable by death says something about the destructiveness of that particular perversion in G-d's eyes. G-d allows evil to survive for a long time without destroying it because His desire is that the people would turn to Him. He will let them live while He can, even if they harm the ones He loves (as Hitler obviously did) to allow them every opportunity to repent and be redeemed.
Some have hardened their hearts so completely that they will no longer hear the call to repent. When that happens they become nothing more than a snare for those who can be redeemed or those who are redeemed. In that case, G-d will "take them out" for the sake of the rest. Throughout the Bible He has rarely used this ultimate tool to protect His people, but He has done it.
Likewise, there were a few sins that demonstrated such a hard heart that the people were considered too dangerous to be left alive and G-d's people were to make these capitol offenses. They were capitol not because they were so evil, but because the sinners were so dangerous to the society around them. Murder is one such sin. SAD is another.
That reveals quite a bit about the nature of SAD.
Shalom.
So in your mind, consenting adult homosexuals are the moral equivalent of murderers?
Moral concussions suck!
you->Amazing.
Obviously you still fail to understand. Let me try again.
One of the characteristics, if not the defining characteristic of a tyrant is that he places himself above all others, including the people he rules.
One of the characteristics of a Christian is that he serves all others, including the people he may rule.
Christianity and tyranny are mutually exclusive concepts. If someone is a behaving as a tyrant then you can bet that they are not a Christian as they are violating Gods word by being a tyrant.
Try to understand what Christianity really is before you attack it next time
GSA(P)
Incorrect. The defining characteristic of a tyrant is disrespect for the rights of others.
One of the characteristics of a Christian is that he serves all others, including the people he may rule.
If someone is "ruling" others, then he's not "serving" them. And furthermore, it is absolutely impossible for a human being to place all others before himself (without dying of course)
Christianity and tyranny are mutually exclusive concepts.
I would think that history would tend to disagree with your observation..... strongly.
If someone is a behaving as a tyrant then you can bet that they are not a Christian as they are violating Gods word by being a tyrant.
Can you give me a few examples of "benevolent" (non-tyranical) Christian "rulers"?
Try to understand what Christianity really is before you attack it next time
I haven't attacked it at all. I'm simply having a frank and honest conversation (which I guess tends to bring out the worst in some).
We aren't talking about what's in my mind. We're talking about what's in the Bible.
From the perspective of the kind of harm they do, SADs are worse than murderers. Are you familiar with "The Threepenny Opera" otherwise known as "Mac the Knife?"
Shalom.
Bump!
Shalom.
It's clear that there is still a lot you don't understand.
All true rulers are servants, and the greatest of all is the greatest servant.
Shalom.
And glad to have you back.
It appears our mutual friend JMJ333 has taken a break from FR. I will miss her as well. From what I can glean, she is a little tired of the good guys getting suspended while the perverts have free reign. I tried to encourage her but did admit to her that this may not be the venue G-d is calling her too. Maybe I should have lied?
I hope we can maintain a conservative contingent on Free Republic without chasing all of them off.
Shalom.
I would think that inasmuch as you have given your endorsement to what you think the Bible instructs in this regard, We are talking about what's in your mind. And you have suggested that homosexuality among consenting adults is the moral equivalent of murder. Do you want to stand by that position?
From the perspective of the kind of harm they do, SADs are worse than murderers.
Consenting adult homosexuals are morally worse than murderers?
Do you honestly believe that?
Are you familiar with "The Threepenny Opera" otherwise known as "Mac the Knife?"
No.
Who are the perverts?
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