Originally Posted By mawnck >>As much as it politically helps the cause, there is no equating the two.<< Uh-huh. Riiiiight. See you in 2163. ;-)
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Problem here is that there is nothing in the Bible that states it is ok for ANYONE to be prejudice against another human being because of the color of their skin.> What ecdc said. Of course, you could say people simply took passages in the Bible and twisted their meanings to match their own prejudices. And you'd be right. And you'd be totally missing the irony. <There ARE in fact passages throughout the Bible that label homosexuality as wickidness, perverse and sin.> Not really. Not to the degree a lot of people think. The Sodom story, for instance, isn't really about sex at all (and if it is, it's about unwanted sex, aka rape, which is obviously always wrong); it's actually about turning one's guests over to his enemies. Jesus Himself clarifies this. Yet the word "sodomy" confuses people about this. The famous Leviticus passage is about something ritually unclean for Jews, but not forbidden to others, like eating pork. The Hebrew translation tells us this. Yet it has also been twisted to suit... see above. The only real admonitions against homosexuality come from Paul and are essentially one man's opinion. He also had some iffy opinions on women, for instance. But they remain his opinions, in his letters. That's pretty much it. There are more admonitions in the Bible against masturbation than homosexuality, and ditto with birth control. Yet most straight people reserve the right to birth control for themselves, and if masturbators could be denied equal rights you'd have a very small elite at the top indeed, filled only with repressed people I don't think most of us would want to know. Or hypocrites. <As much as it politically helps the cause, there is no equating the two.> Actual civil rights leaders (Julian Bond, John Lewis, Coretta Scott King) disagree with you strongly. And they have, shall we say, a tad more credibility on the matter.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer How about not relying on what a pastoral bronze age culture has to say about anything regarding human psychology and sociology? Taking advice on human relationships from a culture that advocated dashing babies against rocks and taking non-Jewish young girls as slaves is probably ill-advised at best.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf Thanks, josh. I actually had dinner with my LDS brother last night and we chatted about this issue. He said that they had a lesson at church yesterday about tolerance, especially when it comes to homosexuality. We were completely on the same page, which is more than I can say about most religious Americans I know.
