Don’t you dare change my mind, but why is homosexuality bad?

Answer:

Let's see:

• You claim to accept and respect any religion but you turn around and claim that the Bible, the core of Christian and Jewish faiths, is not from God. The statement is a mere assertion. It is not backed by any evidence. Yet you claim to be able to research subjects.
• You write to a preacher about why he opposes homosexuality, but you don't want to hear evidence from his religion. Nor do you want a preacher, whose job it is to teach, to teach you.
• You want to be treated like an adult while calling an adult mean and disrespectful.
• You claim to respect religion while calling the God whom I follow mean.
• You claim that taking an opposing stance to homosexuality is causing people involved in this sin to commit suicide; thus, you are blaming Christians for the deaths of those who took their own lives.
• When you oppose the condemnation of homosexuality, you call that a defense of your belief. When a Christian opposes homosexuality, you call that hatred.

It is little wonder that you get little respect since you only hypocritically claim to respect others. You wish to control the terms of how someone can respond to you, but that is not adult-like thinking.

Has the Bible been altered?

Let's start with the claim that the Bible has been altered over the years. Regarding the New Testament:

• We have 5,300 complete or mostly complete manuscripts
• We have 13,000 fragments
• There are 8,000 Latin translations of the Greek text
• There are another 8,000 manuscripts in Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, Coptic, Gothic, Slavic, Sahidic, and Georgian
• Not enough? A study done at the British Museum documented 89,000 quotes or allusions to the New Testament in the writings of early Christian writers.
• Oh, and we have 1,800 lectionaries, which are reading lessons from early church services dating from the sixth century.

Unlike other ancient manuscripts, we have copies which date to close to the original writing:

• We have several fragments dated to 40 to 100 years after the original writings
• We have several Greek manuscripts which date to 300 to 400 years after the original
• Some of the translations are older. Most, though, are from the 300's and later.
• The quotes and allusions in the early Christian writers date from 95 AD to the early 400's. Most come from the second and third century.

And in all that material, less than one-half of percent is in question. Therefore, your assertion is false. There is no evidence of alteration.

Why is homosexuality bad?

Homosexuality is unstable.

By the way, I oppose heterosexual relationships without marriage for the same reason. However, homosexual relationships are much more unstable than most unmarried heterosexual relationships.

"The word “promiscuity is usually used pejoratively, in such loaded statements as “The AIDS crisis is a direct result of promiscuity in the gay community.” It’s not a neutral description but a moral condemnation, and is used against gays by any group that condemns homosexuality. What constitutes promiscuity depends upon the speaker and his value system. One person will call a man who has two sexual partners promiscuous; another will reserve this condemnation for a regular frequenter of brothels. As a rule, gay men call someone promiscuous if he has a lot of sex with a lot of different guys." [Charles Silverstein, author of a book on homosexual sex].

Notice the redefinition of the terms. In the homosexual community "promiscuous" doesn't imply a monogamous relationship. As long as a person mostly sticks to one partner and only has a few side relationships, then it is considered consistent. Yet the same actions among heterosexuals would be called promiscuous. In one survey of homosexuals involved with a lifetime partner: 57% report having sex with 30 or more people; 35% report having sex with 100 or more people. That is 92% with a large number of multiple sex partners while in a “lifetime commitment”!

"Sexual relationships with multiple partners in not condemned in the homosexual community and is even looked upon as a potentially positive experience." [Larry Burtoft, Ph.D, Setting the Record Straight, A Focus on the Family Report].

"For same-sex couples who "wed" in one of the five states that allow it, many have marriage vows. But according to a stunning New York Times article, "forsaking all others" isn't one of them. Calling infidelity "a gift," several couples are brutally honest about the lack of monogamy in most homosexual "marriages." Just how common is this phenomenon? A study scheduled for release next month from San Francisco State University found that more often than not, "open" marriages aren't the exception to counterfeit marriages; they're the rule.

"The Gay Couples Study followed 556 male partners for three years, and half had "sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners." Some even had the audacity to say that heterosexuals have a lot to learn from this "evolution of marriage." On the contrary, it only exposes the mockery this movement is making of marriage. They want access to marriage only to destroy what should be its defining characteristic: fidelity! For years, FRC has argued against same-sex "marriage" on these very grounds. Now that the New York Times is confirming the trend, maybe even more people will start to listen." ["For Homosexuals, a Sad State of Affairs," Family Research Council (2/2/2010)]

Homosexuality is deadly.

"Study after study reveals that homosexuality, whether male or female, can take anywhere from 10, 20 to 30 years off of someone's lifespan. With all the attention on smoking, which the National Cancer Institute says takes from 7 to 10 years off someone's life, why not the same human outcry on homosexuality? Here's a behavior that's killing people 2 to 3 times the rate of smoking, yet nobody seems to care." [E. Fox, "Homosexual Lifespan," this page has a long list of evidence going back to the 1800's].

I oppose promiscuous sex among heterosexuals for the same reason.

"Remove your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel one; lest aliens be filled with your wealth, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner; and you mourn at last, when your flesh and your body are consumed" (Proverbs 5:8-11).

"Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul. Wounds and dishonor he will get, And his reproach will not be wiped away" (Proverbs 6:32-33).

The sad thing is that homosexual versions of sex contain an even higher risk of disease.

"Dr. Steven Wexner of the Cleveland Clinic in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, stated in a 1990 study published in Diseases of the Colon and Rectum that “up to 55% of homosexual men with anorectal complaints have gonorrhea; 80% of the patients with syphilis are homosexuals. Chlamydia is found in 15% of asymptomatic homosexual men, and up to one third of homosexuals have active anorectal herpes simplex virus.”" ["Diseases Related to Homosexuality"]

Recently the Center for Disease Control reported that AIDS rates are 50 times higher in homosexuals than in heterosexuals [LifeSiteNews, "AIDS Rate 50 Times Higher in Homosexual Men: Center for Disease Control"].

Homosexuality isn't how the human reproductive system was designed.

The human body was designed for heterosexual sex. Homosexuals must find ways to imitate intercourse by hand jobs, oral sex, or anal sex. The latter is the primary reason why homosexuals have greater problems with diseases. The human body is not designed for males to couple with males or for females to couple with females. We have plenty of evidence that people are born heterosexual, so, yes, it does have a genetic basis. We call one half "male" and the other half "female." The only way you and I were born is because of heterosexual relations. "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:27-28).

Sex is an act to both give pleasure and to lead to reproduction.

"And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it" (Genesis 9:7).

Homosexuality is a selfish act. Its partners participate in it solely for pleasure.

Homosexuality is sinful.

God doesn't give laws arbitrarily. The laws He gave men are what works in this world. "This is what the LORD says -- your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: 'I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea'" (Isaiah 48:17-18). History has consistently shown that the laws given in the Bible have always improved the lives of its practitioners and those around them.

Your disbelief doesn't change this one important fact. You might not believe in God or His Word, but it doesn't change the simple statement of truth: God said homosexuality is sinful, just as He stated that heterosexual sex outside of marriage is sinful. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10). See "Homosexuality" for a long list of verses condemning homosexuality.

My teaching the truth doesn't hurt the world. It just hurts your feelings because I have the audacity to tell you "No" to your choice of self-pleasure.

Homosexuality deludes its followers.

I read studies related to moral issues, such as homosexuality. What I know is that there has been no study to date that has proven the cause of homosexuality beyond it being a personal choice. The closest any have gotten is to claim that there might be a tendency toward a homosexual disposition. Even these studies have not been able to get verifiable results. For example:

"In a summary of the biological research, Byne concluded ‘what evidence exists thus far of innate biological traits underlying homosexuality is flawed.'" [Byne, W., 1994. "The biological evidence challenged," Scientific American 270(5):26-31 (p. 26). Cited in "Creationism and the problem of homosexual behaviour," Answers in Genesis].

Actual scientific evidence isn't of interest to those who only want to seek justification for what they have already chosen to do. Anyone claiming even the most remote support is clung to and rumor is spread without any questioning of its validity.

Homosexuals also want to play the victim card. They label all opposition as hatred of the vilest sort. When Christians say homosexuality is sinful they do not make a distinction between this form of sin or any other. All sin leads to death (Romans 6:23). To claim that your favored sin is not as bad as other sins is a meaningless position. "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law" (James 2:10-11). Christians are being even-handed in their judgment. It is the homosexuals who want biased decisions slanted in their favor.

A frequent claim is that suicide is higher among homosexuals. The problem is that it isn't backed by any evidence. [Benjamin Radford, Is There a Gay Teen Suicide Epidemic?, LiveScience]. "The assertion that sexual-minority youths as a class of individuals are at increased risk for suicide is not warranted." [Savin-Williams, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, December 2001].