What do you think of the growing power of gay activists?

The world isn’t in any more bad shape than it’s ever been. Ever look through a history book? Aren’t you glad you live here today?

Our country isn’t an “atheist” country - it’s a free country. You’re free to have your beliefs but I don’t want them shoved down my throat.

Every human being should have the same freedoms as the next. Gay activists is a good thing. They are fighting for equality. Just because your religion says that homosexuality is bad doesn’t mean it is. I understand that matrimony is sacred in your religion but not everyone wants to marry because of holy baloney religion, they want to marry to show their love and to be LEGALLY together to have the same basic things such as to be able to secure joint property, make safe wills, be able to have hassle-free hospital visits and so forth.

We’re sowing the seeds of freedom, hopefully the weather stays nice so we can reap it.

xox Sika

The whole reason for the bible to begin with, is to show us how to relate to God. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit, for our guidance. Jesus came to set up the Kingdom of God on earth, and it is still growing. There are many different kinds of sins, and we understand more about what is wrong and what is right, in Gods eyes, as we go along, provided we have a heart that wants to know, otherwise, we can be in the dark, our whole lives. America has always been considered a Christian country, however, that is changing before our very eyes, great strides away from Godly teaching and precepts have taken place in our lifetime, the forces that be, are determined to rid this country, of every thing having to do with God. Man rationalizes and reasons his way thru everything, however, this is directly opposite what God teaches. He gives his word, as his law, and will, and expects it to be obeyed, by his children. More and more people are going gay, every day, if you don’t think so, read the posts made by young people, multitudes are being swayed in this direction. God calls homosexuality, an abomination, in his word, that is the strongest language used concerning sin. In the old testament two whole towns were destroyed because of this sin. A person is very wrong indeed, if they think for one minute that this sin, does not concern God. It does, and it is imperative that Christians stand against this. If they are silent, it is the same thing as condoning it. God does not hate the gay people, but, he does hate the sin. A person can be delivered from this, thru the power of the Holy Spirit. Many, want to bring up other sins, when this one is discussed, in order to take away from the discussion at hand. One cannot deal with every sin at one time, however, we are expected to deal with one at a time. God calls his people to seperate from sin, and from sinful people, it is not his will that the sin allowed in a person that cares less about what God thinks, should infect his children. We are to be of the world, but not like the world. and if that is offensive, I am sorry, I choose to follow and obey Gods word, to the best of my ability, and it is my job as a Christian to speak up, concerning sin. A Christian should love the homosexual, and show that they are concerned about his/her welfare, as well as their salvation, and they should also be willing to stand up for what the bible teaches, and to proclaim it. Everyone then has the right to do as they please, for they and only they will be accountable for the way they lived their life. A Christian should vote people into power that are closely aligned with biblical precepts. They should support people that will fight for their rights, as Christians. This is their God given right and responsibility, if they fail to do everything within their power to keep sin at bay, pretty soon, we will have a nation where anything goes, and it will not be fit for a Christian to live in… Then, may I ask, where are we going to go? This place was established by Godly men, at great cost, to assure us a place where we were free to worship God. Our influence must not be silenced, by the forces that are in all out attack against what we stand for. A quote that I love is : “All it takes for evil to prevail, is for good men and women to do nothing.” And this is so very true. What kind of legacy are we going to leave the next generation? What kind of battles are our children and grandchildren going to have to fight? Our troups are fighting on foreign soil, are we loosing the battle at home?

It’d probably not be a good idea, however, to kick back and wait for the end…might as well get a job, and act as tho the world will go on…just in case it doesn’t end in your lifetime…

Frankly, if God is going to end the world, he’ll probably be much more spectacular than a lousy hurracane…think meteorites…

phrannie

Isn’t that some urban legend that’s been circling around for a while?

Anyway, I think everyone should be treated equally under the law and civil marriage is a civil right.

let us be aware that we are in the last days, I agreed with sister silverwings that a whole town was destroy because of gay, I was chatting with a boy at myspace.com and he told me am I marriage to a boy or a girl while he knows that iam a man , even though I told him iam not yet marry , he said am I a ‘gay’. he told me in america that is what they practice and they like it.I was try to convince him but he went away from me in the chat room.so you see where are we hearding towards, please let us pray together.it better to do the will of god

I’m glad to hear it made you uncomfortable, Flossheal. I have nothing against Christians or religion in general, but get frustrated when I come across things like the above chain mail.

I agree wholeheartedly that corporate morality needs to be taken into serious consideration. I also firmly agree with your stance on Katrina (which is refreshing, since I know a number of Christians who decided the whole “vengeful wrath!!11” stance was acceptable).

With this being said, what are your actual thoughts of the growing power of gay activists?

What Sika said, America does not have an atheist government, it has a secular government. Our government should stay neutral with respect to religion, neither promoting any religion or prohibiting any. Most of our founding fathers saw what a toxic mix politics and religion created in the old world and they wanted none of it. Political power corrupts religion and claiming devine authority corrupts governments.

Well, I’ve decided, first of all to look at the email bro-kwame shared with us, and let you know which bits of it make me uncomfortable, and why:

The ‘confession’ by Ben Stein – no problem with most of it. It’s not in the original round-robin email I received, and I’m aware that most people of other religions in Britain feel like he does I.e. the celebration of Christmas as a Christian/quasi-Christian festival is not offensive to them. Thanks to bro_kwame for this section.

Is America an atheist country? As people have already stated, it isn’t. In Britain I grew up in a country with an established church, where the state is explicitly linked to the church. In France, where I live now, the state is secular and I believe that is the case in America too. This means that state organisations (schools particularly) in Britain may well be linked to a local church, and that general religious education (but not usually specifically Christian education) are seen as part of a school’s role. In France and the US the schools are not linked to a church and are, by law, not meant to promote one religious belief above another.

In England one often (but not always) finds prayer and Bible stories in the state schools – given the link I’ve described that’s logical, and in fact British law states that ‘acts of collective worship’ in schools should reflect Britain’s Christian heritage – not exclusively, but just in order to be representative. As a Christian teacher, I’ve sometimes found these ‘acts of collective worship’ pretty excruciating – people with no particular faith being expected to lead something they didn’t believe in. At other times I’ve seen them being used very positively.

Prayer and the Bible, obviously, are not a part of the French school system. Our two sons pray with us at home, and in church, but we respect the laws of the country we live in and would never expect that those laws would be broken to allow corporate prayer in school. Of course children of any faith can say private prayers anywhere – my 8 year old son prayed during a Spanish test when he was in a total panic, and he said his prayers were really answered! But there is, legally, no place for collective worship in the French system. Unless the American church/state separation is completely different, I feel that asking a state school to have specific links to a religion is just illogical.

In fact, I was interested to read the American Christian, Phillip Yancey, who wrote that the link between Church and State has, historically, often been good for any given State but has always been bad for the Church concerned. I think his argument is that the State may gain authority, but that the Church will loose integrity. I’m not a member of the Church of England but I would say that its link with the British State is not good for it.

Well, along with Anne Graham, I do believe that God is a gentleman (or a ‘gentlebeing’), because he doesn’t force himself on anyone. But I don’t see the ‘keeping state and religion separate’ issue as related to Hurricane Katrina. And in plenty of other secular states, the terrible school shootings that AG mentioned are not happening. It’s pretty obvious to those of us outside the US that these occur because guns are just so readily available in the US. They are spreading elsewhere, because disturbed people will copy ideas, but if that’s a judgement on America I believe it’s because of lack of gun control, not any more indirect sin.

I’m particularly uncomfortable to the reference to the murder of Madeleine Murray O’Hare (I don’t really know who she was, but obviously she was very contentious). Making a point over someone’s personal tragedy is rather unfair. Ditto the tragedy of Dr Spock’s son, assuming that’s true. I’ve not paid much attention to Dr Spock, and I have sometimes smacked my sons, but I’m not into trashing popular psychology because we think we know better. There are elements of modern psychology which are invaluable and I hate hearing them trashed just because some conservatives are too rigid to recognise the truth in them. (You may realise from the strength of my language here that I actually heard such ‘trashing’ in a recent sermon and I was very angry.)

Finally, I’m not comfortable with the moral blackmail at the end. As a thinking Christian, I’d like to believe that each of us who received that email would only have forwarded it if we genuinely believed in it. Thus, we shouldn’t need the ‘feel-bad factor’ to prompt us to forward it. I think it was perfectly acceptable for bro-kwame to post it on this website, because if he believes it’s true he has a right to share it. But, despite sharing bro-kwame’s Christian faith, I can’t share the negative outlook of this email. The figurative image that is coming to me is that Christians are in the world to show people ‘photographs’ of Jesus, and for some reason most of us are showing the ‘negatives’, instead of the ‘positives’.

Wait a minute, who thinks America is an atheist country? Have you ever checked out the statistics for how many Americans are Christian? How many believe in the devil? How many are convinced they have seen or are protected by a guardian angel? How many condemn Evolution?

In addition, the lack of Christianity isn’t why there are murders and suicides. As was already mentioned - look up history. Look at the wonderful golden era of the 1950s, where there were no rapes (it was improper to tell anyone), there were no fags (just “confirmed bachelors”) there wasn’t any racial prejudice (just darkies getting what they deserved for having the audacity to stare at GODLY white women).

As with Sika, I agree that gay activism is a good thing. An incredibly good thing. Activists are the reason why blacks are now considered equal, that women are now considered equal, that more people weren’t unnecessarily killed in Vietnam, that waves of meat shields aren’t being thrown into Iraq, that it’s illegal to set puppies on fire.

What’s more, I can’t take your intolerances of anything Biblical seriously while Christians pick and choose what they want to see permissable and what they want to see made illegal. Cite me somewhere, anywhere in the New Testament where Jesus mentions anything about gays. In the Old Testament where homosexuality is frowned on, look at all the other things you’re not supposed to be doing that you casually dismiss. Look for the REASONS why homosexuality was frowned on in the time period, why certain meats were considered unclean, why it’s a sin to wear clothing made of two separate materials, why it was considered fine to own slaves so long as they were from another country, and a plethora of other outdated sins that Christians blow off that, according to their hatred of homosexuality, means they’re sinning on a daily basis.

Well, I may answer that question when I have more time, but my initial thought is that the initial round-robin email actually (and perhaps surprisingly) doesn’t mention gay rights activism! I’ll get back to you on the rest when I have time to give a proper answer. Thanks.

Well, as is often the case, I posted the above and then got to rethinking my wording. So I hope you’ll accept my revision of the final sentence:

“The figurative image that is coming to me is that Christians are in the world to show people ‘snapshots’ of Jesus, but in voicing opinions like this we are for some reason choosing to show the ‘negatives’, instead of the ‘positives’.”

I felt it wasn’t fair to suggest that ‘most’ Christians are mainly focusing on ‘negatives’, when I was only talking about one email. There are some very positive examples of Christian witness too.

I’ll be honest - I recieved the bulk of this email as a ‘chain email’ several months ago. I’m a Christian and it was sent to me by a Christian friend, but I’m not comfortable with its theology. It’s very America-centric and very focused on individual morality rather than corporate morality. Yes, sexual activity can sometimes be sinful. But in my opinion the corporate sins of our countries (e.g. neglect of the environment) are a more reasonable explanation for the horrors of Hurrican Katrina.