Christianity and gay marriage

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Not really sure how to vote in the poll, but I don't really believe it's possible for a "Christian" to oppose gay marriage.  Such hatred and bigotry makes a mockery of everything Jesus ever stood for.

I share your position on gay marriage but I don't think you really understand by what reasoning Christians who oppose it so do. Or, more to the point, reasonings.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Not really sure how to vote in the poll, but I don't really believe it's possible for a "Christian" to oppose gay marriage.  Such hatred and bigotry makes a mockery of everything Jesus ever stood for.

I share your position on gay marriage but I don't think you really understand by what reasoning Christians who oppose it so do. Or, more to the point, reasonings.

Rank and file Baptists, etc., are against gay marriage because their preacher and/or politician erroneously told them that homosexuality is "sinful," and they don't have the knowledge and/or character to challenge that nonsense.  Just like they used to support Jim Crow, etc.

I meant among people who actually think these things through.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Not really sure how to vote in the poll, but I don't really believe it's possible for a "Christian" to oppose gay marriage.  Such hatred and bigotry makes a mockery of everything Jesus ever stood for.

I always chuckle when non-practising folks and liberal prots make sweeping declarations about who is and isn't Christian.

snip

So, just like Christians don't keep kosher or follow the cultural and religious laws of ancient Israel, they don't necessarily need to view homosexuality as wrong. 

I agree with you there.

It's just funny because you usually don't associate sweeping condemnations of heresy with theological liberalism.

So, is what you're saying here that while you obviously oppose gay marriage, especially in your church, it's not a question that you consider to be determinative of whether or not someone or someone's views are fully Christian?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Anyway, Anglican (hence ostensibly Reformed and Catholic at the same time, but voted Protestant); strongly in favor of civil same-sex marriage; in favor of religious same-sex marriage but would like to see a better quality of theological argumentation for it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Anyway, Anglican (hence ostensibly Reformed and Catholic at the same time, but voted Protestant); strongly in favor of civil same-sex marriage; in favor of religious same-sex marriage but would like to see a better quality of theological argumentation for it.

Hmm. You've never voiced that caveat before. I hope that give a few years you'll not have argued yourself into opposing it.

Oh, no, no, my desire for a better quality of theological argumentation is out of frustration at my cobelligerents within the Church on this, not because I myself am not thoroughly convinced, I assure you. If I weren't thoroughly convinced--or if the subject weren't so personal to me--this wouldn't frustrate me nearly as much. (In any case I've just started reading what seems so far like it will be a very good theological argument in favor of it, or at least against most of the arguments against it, that was recommended to me a few months ago.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't think anybody here is contemplating theological debate as a means to convince people of the legitimacy of civil same-sex marriages, or same-sex marriages in denominations other than the one in which the theological debate is taking place--at least I sincerely hope nobody is because you're entirely right that that's almost comically insular and ignorant of the rest of the world. The issue is that churches do (ought to or have to) have theological rationales to do or change much of anything, especially things that would require setting up new liturgical rubrics (the current liturgical rubric for marriage in the Episcopal Church can't be used for same-sex couples. It's structured in such a way as to assume on a pretty basic level that the people getting married are a woman and a man. So at the very least there needs to be a theological discussion of how to write a gender-neutral marriage liturgy, which really isn't the sort of question that can be answered just by looking at the broader culture).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm a Christian who is opposed to the government getting involved in marriage. Let the church decide.

Are you also opposed to the government getting involved in visitation cases, probate cases, spousal abuse cases, divorce and child custody and support cases,  and all the other manifold areas of family law that it really helps the government to be 'involved in marriage' in some capacity in order to enforce? What about people who want to get married but aren't religious or are estranged in some way from their religious bodies? It would be wonderful if people's religious communities were sufficient to help them with all these things, yes, but that's not actually the case, for reasons including but by no means limited to the fact that many people are in religious communities that would prefer not to marry them because of their sex.