Is Homosexuality a sin?

[afleitch]

The idea that homosexual attraction is 'sexual lust' like 'any other type' begs the question; what is the other type/s? One would assume that the comparative act to a man sleeping with a man would be a man sleeping with a wo-man. One would therefore assume that the comparable act to a man sleeping with a woman is a man sleeping with a man. Therefore it would be logical, even with a conservative interpretation, to treat such matters as the same.

The problem for many Christians is that no homosexual acts can ever be moral or be removed of 'sin' by being within the context of marriage. Neither can love. So to some there is no way whatsoever that those sexual acts can ever be okay. Of course there are various degrees of disagreement over what sexual acts are okay within an opposite sex marriage; is it purely for procreation, can it be romantic, can it be carnal. Can it be be touch, and kiss, and breath and holds and heart racing? Can it be kink? We know what has been okay in the past within the context of Christian marriage and indeed is still acceptable in some circles today; marital rape for example. I make no apologies for being blunt but it is perverse to take an act of force and violence and make it and acceptable behaviour within the context of a religious marriage yet condemn even light sexual bonding, based on consent and love between two men or two women.

And this is where Christianity really struggles. Many strains evidently do not understand love as it is. Not love as they would like it to be, but as it actually happens between two people. They of do not understand where there is deep love or even where that love has receded.

When you fall in love with someone, what is it about them that you fall in love with? The answer that we should give; the ‘right’ answer is that you love them because of who they are; for their faults as well as what makes them special. That love should pay no attention to how people look, or what other people think of them. Love should be about the essence of that person and the joy that you bring each other. Sex should be secondary.

And that is a very key part of human relationships. A relationship built on love and pair bonding should be sexual, it is healthy to be sexual, but that is always secondary to love. The idea that same sex couples are somehow more carnal or experience lust over love is a complete and deliberate blindness to what people are actually experiencing.

What traditional Christian understanding of sexual love does inadvertently is be over sensitised or predisposed to the physical even when it illicits a prudish attitude to what is carnal. ‘Love can only exist in marriage; marriage is about procreation. Only one man and one woman.’ You cannot get more ‘physical’ or more base than statements such as these being rooted as they are in sex, gender and physical acts of reproduction. Love, actual love is almost secondary to sex.

When confronted with the love between two men, then that love is charged as being lesser on the basis of their physical 'incompatibility', the very fact that they have a specific sex or gender or on the basis of not being able to have children. By extension, there is an underlying assumption and an often neglected one, that the merit of a man or of a woman is in having their own children, not in being responsible for raising or supporting the children of others. In this mind-set, there is little scope for acknowledging the love of the ‘person’ as opposed to the body. Or the familial love of people who do not come from a union of those two bodies. Furthermore, amongst opposite sex couples within the traditional Christian understanding of love and marriage, the physical takes prominence over the person in matters concerning the relationship itself.  Within the context of what happens when the physical compatibility remains in that they are one man and one women perhaps with children, but the personal compatibility is breaking down, this has led to a rather unsympathetic and intrinsically unhealthy view towards separation and divorce.

I do not consider that the secular and permissive response to sex and relationships  is unhealthily concerned with matters of sex. Quite the contrary, I think those responses are broadly healthy. It is the traditional Christian view of which I would say is not fully formed; of sex, relationships, men and women that is overly concerned with the physical and the carnal even within the mandated confines of marriage.

[afleitch]

To think something is a sin and to love doing it is truly depraved and in this it also confirms the worst opinions of those who are homophobes.

Seems pretty easy to reconcile to me. Follow along:

1) I accept that some people have need for a category of actions they label "sinful".
2) To them, homosexuality falls into that category.
3) There is some overlap between what they would consider "sinful" and what I would call "wrong", but that overlap is not complete.
4) Homosexuality is not in that overlap.
5) Therefore I can accept that homosexuality is "sinful" (a category which means nothing to me) while not thinking it morally wrong, and enjoy it as I will.

Bleh.  Playing with semantics doesn't in the least affect the point you perfectly well knew (or should have known) that I was making.  It doesn't matter what you call it, sin, wrongness, blameworthy, etc.  To think that something is something that should not be engaged in is nevertheless something you enjoys doing is completely depraved.

First of all, it's clear that the posters were simply having fun. It's a good way to deal with what is a deeply offensive proposition in the first place. Christians have a tendency to take out the 'clicky pen' and label various actions, sexual actions or body choices as 'sinful' (which by definition is 'towards god') and therefore place on it a status that in many ways is quite demeaning, without any concern for the effect that has on anyone but themselves. So if someone says to me 'so sleeping with men must make you a f****t?' I could reply 'well it must mean that I am a f****t then.'

Personally, other than as a turn of phrase, I don't consider anything 'sinful' for it's effect on a deity is of no concern with me. I may however consider things to be good, bad or indifferent which may just happen to dovetail with some of the 'sin' tick boxes.

[afleitch]

I'll concede that some people use "sin" to refer exclusively to actions deemed wrong by a deity, but I've always used it in a more generic sense, and I think my quote made clear I was using it in that sense, albeit with a bit of mild humor concerning the contrast with the theocentric sense, humor that apparently got lost and by now has been totally obliterated.

There's really two ways to think of those quips

1) Doing something one knows is wrong
2) Sticking a thumb in the eye of the socons

I think everyone was doing the latter, which is a bit immature, but not nearly as bad as the former option.

Meaning?

[afleitch]

Why would god create, at all times and in every culture a group of people; whether it's 5% or 10% who mostly have an exclusive attraction to the same sex, not just in a sexual fashion, but in terms of bonding, intimacy, love, commitment and being generally completed as a person by being with that other person...and then condemn it. What a stupid god. And what an even more stupid person you are for accepting that.

[afleitch]

This may not seem fair to you, but the point of a religion is often that one must give up pleasurable things in this life to inherit a reward in the next one.  Just as the prohibition of homosexual sex exists, there would also be a prohibition against extramarital sex for heterosexual people. 

So it goes like this;

HETEROSEXUAL? Sex bad. Unless married.
HOMOSEXUAL? All sex bad. All intimacy bad. All romance bad.

What a cruel god this is. To f-ck up and f-ck with ten percent of his creation. And then to give free rein to the remaining ninety percent to f-ck with them as well.

[afleitch]

This may not seem fair to you, but the point of a religion is often that one must give up pleasurable things in this life to inherit a reward in the next one.  Just as the prohibition of homosexual sex exists, there would also be a prohibition against extramarital sex for heterosexual people. 

So it goes like this;

HETEROSEXUAL? Sex bad. Unless married.
HOMOSEXUAL? All sex bad. All intimacy bad. All romance bad.

What a cruel god this is. To f-ck up and f-ck with ten percent of his creation. And then to give free rein to the remaining ninety percent to f-ck with them as well.

Your going to have to take your complaints up with the big man upstairs.

Big man? He's no better than a boy pulling legs off of spiders.

[afleitch]

If one is going to argue the impossibility of sexual orientation being a sin, one needs a better argument than mere logic.  Logic is silent on this topic.

No it isn't. Logical is very vocal here. You have a god that allows evolution to run rampant in which a small but continuing minority of animals attempt to copulate with the same sex. The greater the degree of bonding in an animal group, the greater the instance of same sex bonding all the way up the chain to us. And that steady percentage persists generation after generation; a group of individuals who are completed emotionally, regardless of sexually, by bonding with the same sex. And after millions of years and countless human generations later God releases his one and only 'Greatest Hits' and says that it's wrong. It is punishable by death. This is later downgraded by several hundred years of Christian handwringing to 'okay we won't kill you because Jesus, but it's not right'. Later, for some, there's a tacit admission that sexuality is inherent and unchangable but don't have sex. In fact don't even form a couple, because that has sexual connotations. Live alone, love Jesus and stay celibate. Celibacy is masked as some sort of 'calling', when actually it's a demand. There is no choice in the matter; there is not one single way in which coupling or sexual intimacy with a person of the same sex is acceptable. Even though that's how you were born. Even if it means being alone, all the way till you die alone in your bed having never experienced love, in Jesus' loving embrace.

Logically, that's f-cked up. Logically, that's not love. Because he gives heterosexuals a choice; it could be a very constrained anti-sex choice but he gives them one. You can feel, and love and be loved and be intimate but only if you marry. To homosexuals he offers no choice, at all. Period. Despite there sexuality being 'gifted' by him.

[afleitch]

I'm pretty sure it's sin (normal, Bible-believing Christian.)  But that being said, I have nothing against homosexuals as people.  God loves them as much as everyone else, and Jesus died for their salvation, just as He did for everyone else.  Showing homosexuals love and respect as people does not mean we accept or condone their behavior and lifestyle choices.

Is a strong forty year exclusive relationship between two men or two women based on selfless mutual love, support and care, continuing through sickness and through nursing and tending to another in death, a sinful act?