The following are posts and responses to a few different people posting either outright attacks on Christians or putting up graphics that demean Christians from via the other side of the isle. While the below conversation is inherently political and I do take a stance that is conservative (I admit my biased views: I have my own interests and personal beliefs in mind when talking to others, spiritually or politically [Prov 21:2; Matt 15:19]), the below should enlighten both sides how to come at this issue, both with an informed and loving “apologetic” as well as informing (no matter what side of the isle you reside) your political positions with keeping the debate “issue based” and not setting up straw men arguments to tear down nor simply dismissing the other side ad hoc, or, outright as bigots (http://tiny.cc/gwseew).
This first response was after a very harsh response to a Christian on an acquaintances FaceBook, So I decided to chime in:
The question becomes why do many homosexual people and persons who are in committed relationships reject same-sex marriage. Religion has nothing to do with this argument. In fact, the homosexual should accept the Judeo-Christian aspect of what it means to be human. For in naturalism (philosophical materialism — all that exists is matter/energy), nature is much crueler. And since in nature “survival of the fittest” is the only ethic and it is (as Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote: Red in Tooth and Claw) violently protective of making sure survival is animistic, the Judeo-Christian ethic is the only view that gives men (men used in regards to humankind), all mankind humanity. For instance, lesbian pro-choicer, Tammy Bruce (a favorite author of mine) said the following:
Even if one does not necessarily accept the institutional structure of “organized religion,” the “Judeo-Christian ethic and the personal standards it encourages do not impinge on the quality of life, but enhance it. They also give one a basic moral template that is not relative,” which is why the legal positivists of the Left are so threatened by the Natural Law aspect of the Judeo-Christian ethic.” [….] …these problems don’t remain personal and private. The drive, especially since this issue is associated with the word “gay rights,” is to make sure your worldview reflects theirs. To counter this effort, we must demand that the medical and psychiatric community take off their PC blinders and treat these people responsibly. If we don’t, the next thing you know, your child will be taking a “tolerance” class explaining how “transexuality” is just another “lifestyle choice”…. After all, it is the only way malignant narcissists will ever feel normal, healthy, and acceptable: by remaking society – children – in their image
(Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values [Roseville:Prima, 2003, 35, 92, 206)
I continue in my chapter (in my book) on this topic:
This ethic that Tammy Bruce speaks of is entrenched in the idea of a Creator, she understands that man-made laws must serve and not defeat natural rights[21] as found in natural law. Black’s Law Dictionary gives a great definition of what Paul was talking about: “A philosophical system of legal and moral principles purportedly deriving from a universalized conception of human nature or divine justice rather than from legislative or judicial action; moral law embodied in principles of right and wrong.”[22]*
I think the elitist thinking here (that now, a liberal majority knows better than every moral teacher and thinker of the past: like Buddha, Jesus, Moses, and the like) is what is telling. It casts this as a religious debate not realizing that the law of biology demands that civil law recognize what nature has already destined.
Another well-respected homosexual sociologist/psychologist from Canada even bullet points the issue for us:
=====QUOTING a post of mine
Paul Nathanson, a sociologist, a scholar, and a homosexual writes that there are at least five functions that marriage serves–things that every culture must do in order to survive and thrive. They are (source):
✔ Foster the bonding between men and women
✔ Foster the birth and rearing of children
✔ Foster the bonding between men and children
✔ Foster some form of healthy masculine identity
✔ Foster the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults
Note that Nathanson considers these points critical to the continued survival of any culture. He continues “Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival, … every human societ[y] has had to promote it actively . … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm “that limits marriage to unions of men and women.” He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.”
Read more: http://
So you see that the issue, which is cast in very combative terms that would make gay people in committed relationship “homophobic,” is a bit deepr and more complicated than mere non-sequiturs, straw-man arguments, ad hominem attacks, and bumper sticker mantras (referring here to a previous statements by Alex Vogel and this post graphic: http://tiny.cc/e8keew, and this one as well: http://tiny.cc/aaleew). This makes what Terry Ray said right-on-the-money.
* See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/
After a couple of remarks that were not dealing with the topic at hand, I continued:
So people can better know what Alex is referring to, my recent post of mine on my site may help: http://tiny.cc/ejoeew
By the way, notice Alex does not typically respond to the topic presented, one of which is that many homosexuals themselves are against same-sex marriage. So not only would the Dalai Lama, The Buddha, Moses, Jesus, pre-Obama “evolution,” Zoroaster, etc be all homophobic and full of H8, but so too the many gay persons who reject it. You can see then how special rights and the liberal mentality corrupts categories and makes sweeping statements in attacking those who disagree with them, rather than working through an important issue such as this.
AND, in fact, a proper understanding of Buddhism does away with any real understanding of “love,” “person-hood,” “compassion,” “rights,” and the like. For those that wish to have a better understanding of Buddhism, may I humbly suggest a chapter in my book on this subject: http://tiny.cc/9xoeew
Also, for those who have the time, here are some audio segments on how liberalism warps common sense and judgement (some are longer than others):
1) Affirming Feelings, Not Truth
http://www.mrctv.org/
2) How Does the Left View the Right?
https://vimeo.com/album/
3) Positions and Policy Based on Feelings
https://vimeo.com/album/
4) Progressive Ideology Warps Judgment
https://vimeo.com/album/
5) Prager Discusses How Progressive Liberalism Shackles Peoples Thoughts and Actions
https://vimeo.com/album/
The above, although time-consuming, will help people like Terry Ray formulate both their understanding of the other side of the isle as well as starting to respond in a more affective manner.
In a recent response/post to a graphic with a Clint Eastwood quote on an acquaintances FaceBook, I said the following:
Unfortunately, like many others, this is what Thomas Sowell calls “stage one” thinking. Emotions based policy making without asking what affect a decision will have on society. The oldest (and most successful) adoption agency in Massachusetts (80-years in the field of placing children with families, Illinois and California are sure to follow) and DC had to shut their doors because of their religious option to prefer heterosexual couples when adopting to homosexual couples, from Universities ceasing to give insurance to their students and staff, to forcing chaplains in the military to marry gay couples. These are the early consequences to stage one thinking.
Another aspect of the above is that in no time in history has any religious or moral thinker (The Buddha, Jesus, Moses, the Dalia Lama, Zoroaster, etc) accepted or endorsed same-sex unions. So what is interesting is that these world religious founders and the many long-term monogamous homosexual couples who are against same-sex marriage (Elton John, Tammy Bruce, Paul Nathanson, and the like) are all — due to the shallow thinking and hyperbole used — homophobic, or sanctimonious, or full of H8 (like here in California).
Again, people are so use to allowing opinion to drive policy that they do not ask serious questions about what the outcome of a policy will be. (For instance, California owes about 500-billion in unpaid and unfunded retirement benefits/promises to just three unions in our state. It sounded good and these unions fought for what they thought was good without asking the next question[s], and they will lose out in the end and not protect those whom they said they cared about because they used “stage one” thinking.)
It is amazing that those who say those who stand against same-sex marriage are extremists when no world religious founder or moral thinker in history supported the idea, when even 50-years ago the idea wouldn’t be even thought of, or that gay couples are included in H8 and homophobia because they stand against the idea. Who are the extremists pushing an idea that has never been proposed in the history of mankind in America?
★ “A liberal society might, then, find it prudent to ignore homosexuality. It might well deem it unwise to peer into private bedrooms. However, this is not the issue before us. Today the demand is that homosexuality be endorsed and promoted with the full power of the law. This would require us to abandon the standard of nature, the one standard that can teach us the difference between freedom and slavery, between right and wrong.”
To repeat, “However, this is not the issue before us. Today the demand is that homosexuality be endorsed and promoted with the full power of the law.” This is the extremist position, and the “sanctimonious” one “Clint.”
In another FaceBook conversation I was responding to a “help wanted” sign at a Christian apologetics FB site I am a member of. One gentleman observes astutely that,
Quick thought: is love the only criteria for marriage? No. In fact some people who love each other deeply are excluded from marriage, and deep love doesn’t do it for them! Who? Brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters. Marriage is about love but it is more than this! It is also ‘described’ by law, not defined! Law describes something that is essentially timeless.…
To which I continued his thinking:
Continuing the thinking, the law of biology and natural law combine to support the reasoning that the government (any government) ~ when acknowledging marriage as between male and female in civil law ~ is not creating law but acknowledging what is already ordained by nature (atheist) or by God (person of faith can use both views). Here is a small portion from my old blog in response to a (at the time) my son’s 9th-grade friend:
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…However, there is a “created order,” or, even a natural order (if you do not believe in God). My argument for heterosexual (between a man and a woman) unions is usable both by the atheist (non believer in God) and the theist (a believer in God – in the Judeo-Christian sense). Here is the crux of the matter in regards to “nature’s order:”
❀ “…take gold as an example, it has inherent in its nature intrinsic qualities that make it expensive: good conductor of electricity, rare, never tarnishes, and the like. The male and female have the potential to become a single biological organism, or single organic unit, or principle. Two essentially becoming one. The male and female, then, have inherent to their nature intrinsic qualities that two mated males or two mated females never actualize in their courtship… nor can they ever. The potential stays just that, potential, never being realized….. Think of a being that reproduces, not by mating, but by some act performed by individuals. Imagine that for these same beings, movement and digestion is performed not by individuals, but only by the complementary pairs that unite for this purpose. Would anyone acquainted with such beings have difficulty understanding that in respect to movement and digestion, the organism is a united pair, or an organic unity?”
So you see, the two heterosexual organisms that join in a sexual union cease being two separate organisms for a short time and become one organism capable of reproduction. This is what the state and the church are sealing in a marriage, this intrinsic union. The homosexual couple can never achieve this union, so “natures order” has endowed the heterosexual union with an intrinsic quality that other relationships do not have or could never attain. Both the atheist and theist can argue from this point, because either we were created this way or we evolved this way. Either way, nature has imposed on the sexual union being discussed….
http://
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Take note that this thinking (inherent qualities) is fully referenced in my chapter on this topic and comes from Robert P. George (http://www.scribd.com/doc/
The above thinking is why homosexual sociologist (well respected in Canada, his home country) says the following:
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Paul Nathanson, a sociologist, a scholar, and a homosexual writes that there are at least five functions that marriage serves–things that every culture must do in order to survive and thrive. They are (source):
♚ Foster the bonding between men and women
♚ Foster the birth and rearing of children
♚ Foster the bonding between men and children
♚ Foster some form of healthy masculine identity
♚ Foster the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults
Note that Nathanson considers these points critical to the continued survival of any culture. He continues “Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival, … every human societ[y] has had to promote it actively . … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm ‘that limits marriage to unions of men and women’.” He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.” Read more: http://
By the way, I wish to ad that Christians are not thinking about placing this argument back into the court of the person they are talking to. Paul Nathanson does not believe in the Bible, he is in a committed homosexual relationship, and yet… he argues AGAINST same-sex marriage. When skeptics bring up the Old Testament or Paul in the New Testament, why? We view them as still under the law of sin, not yet set free by Christ’s finished work on the cross. They even admit that they are under the law of determinism. (The idea that in very minute, successive, historical events from the time of the Big-Bang to their leading to our environment and their “existence” and the chemical reactions in their brains reacting to it [environment] “determine” their actions/views. They are still under the law as their school master and not yet free to make moral decisions in Christ, rising above [not by our efforts or work] our naturalistic nature.)
Ask why homosexuals in committed relationships like Elton John, Tammy Bruce, Paul Nathanson are homophobes? Hash out the idea that under their thinking of “special rights” create societal issues that have nothing to do with Leviticus, but our 1st Amendment. This doesn’t have to be a “faith society vs. secular society” battle. Atheists and secularists can use the same ideas in rejection of same-sex marriage. If I were talking to a believer, I may engage more heavily in the hermeneutics of Scripture and how to look at these verses, but most of the time the people we discuss matter like these with reject the Bible wholly. So I would not bring it up or steer the person to how his or her views hurt the half of the less than 3% of homosexuals who will not marry.