I am a thirty-something gay male who has been in a loving, monogamous, and thriving relationship for nearly a decade. All of those in my life consider me the most successful person they know in all elements of life, from family, work, and faith. I came across your website and with all due respect, I am deeply offended — not that you’re condemning homosexuality, but that you’re making so many innocent children around the world feel terrible about themselves, particularly around being oriented homosexually instead of heterosexually.<\/p>\n
I understand that the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin. I respect your beliefs and the way you wish to live your life.\u00a0 However, since equally a sin is consuming shrimp, I’d just like to understand why you are making so many children around the world feel terrible about experiencing the “sin” of same-sex attraction and\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0equally condemning other “sinful” acts that the Bible points out. I’d also like to understand why the effort to\u00a0expand<\/strong>, not\u00a0redefine<\/strong>\u00a0marriage is so important to the Christian community but banning\u00a0divorce<\/strong>\u00a0is not important to your community even though the incidence of divorce is much more likely among your followers than homosexuality?<\/p>\n\t So you believe that a person can hold a belief contrary to your own, so long as he does not express it. You believe that a person can hold a contrary belief, but he cannot teach his reasoning or persuade others to hold the same belief. You would disallow someone with a contrary belief to your own from debating the issue or presenting evidence that shows your belief to be wrong. Yet, you do not hold yourself to the same rules.<\/p>\n Of course, a person feels guilty regarding sins that they are involved in. That is true whether the sin is lying, stealing, fornication, or homosexuality. Christianity is not about the avoidance of guilty but of correcting wrongful behavior so that there is no need to feel guilty. I have no problem telling people that their lives need to change and to no longer sin. “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. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God<\/em>” (I Corinthians 6:9-11). My teachings and beliefs are consistent.<\/p>\n That you are currently successful while living in sin is not evidence that your chosen sin is acceptable to God.<\/p>\n If I had said, “I will speak thus,” behold, I would have been untrue to the generation of Your children. When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me — until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, so, Lord, when You awake, You shall despise their image<\/em>” (Psalms 73:1-20).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Your attempt to portray the Scriptures as outdated is poor. You demonstrate little knowledge of what the Bible teaches and are only repeating what you have heard others state. It has never been a sin to eat shrimp. Shellfish under the Old Law, which ended with the death of Christ, were considered unclean. A person who ate shrimp would become unclean and had to go through a process to become clean again. See Uncleanness<\/a> for details. That was not the same as homosexuality which has been a sin under both the Old and New Laws. See\u00a0Homosexuality<\/a>\u00a0for a list of verses.<\/p>\n You also do not make a distinction between being tempted to sin and the sin itself. Being tempted to lie does not make a person a liar. Being tempted to have sex outside of marriage doesn’t make a person a fornicator. Nor does being tempted to have sex with someone of the same gender make a person a homosexual. Yet, you want to confuse people on this last point to broaden the numbers whom you want to claim are homosexuals and to seed doubt in people’s minds about what is right. It is an artificial expansion of the true definition of what homosexuality really is.<\/p>\n Expanding a definition is a redefining of the definition, so your argument that you are not altering the definition of marriage by pushing the ignorant in government to accept homosexual marriage is also false.<\/p>\nAnswer:<\/h2>\n
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