My roommate is gay. I love him with all my heart. I'm straight obviously but my girlfriend and I have had many double dates with him and his boyfriend. I don't see anything wrong with homosexuality, at all. As long as you're in a committed relationship.
Most young people will appeal to this sort of anecdotal evidence as a contributing factor to their view of homosexuality. They know a homosexual and they think he/she is a nice guy. They become friends and find out that the homosexual is even pretty cool. Then the thought process works like this: it starts off "Homosexuals aren't as bad as I thought they were" and ends up like this "Homosexuality isn't as bad as I thought it was."
I'm not saying that this is *your* thought process in particular (but what other value do you think the anecdote has?). Really the fact that a homosexual can be witty, funny, nice, etc. shouldn't be surprising and is irrelevant to homosexuality being a sin. One of my family members has spent a number of years in prison for crimes that would scare some people and make other people think they are "dangerous" and "mean."
But if you were to meet this person, knowing nothing about their history, you would think they are funny, have a great sense of humor, and is very generous. Indeed, this family member *IS* funny, does have a great sense of humor, and is generous. I would describe this person as being nice and fun to be around, and often the life of the party. Does this mean that this person's crimes were not as bad as I thought or as serious as I thought? Of course not! It would be silly for me to take one characteristic that this person shows towards me, their family member, and use that to judge the person's other actions (and action towards other persons).
I'm sure we can find any sort of horrendous criminal and also find a charming person once we get to know them (consider the BTK serial killer). Clearly, any anecdote of being friends with such a person is irrelevant.
I've been taking an Old Testament class and reading different translations of many of the passages condemning homosexuality and in different translations, it appears they are condemning separate sins.
I'm not sure what passages you have in mind, but I am aware of how some people have tried to twist Scripture and make it say that it isn't condemning homosexuality. There are responses to all of those attempts to twist Scripture. Nevertheless, Scripture is sufficiently clear in its condemnation of homosexuality and the attempt to make homosexuality acceptable among Christianity is a recent invention. For example:
Postbiblical Judaism stressed the homosexual element in the Sodomites’ attempted rape of Lot’s male guests (Gen. 19:4-5; cf. Judg. 19:22), and Hellenistic Jewish writers denounced homosexuality as frequently as any sin… The Greek word arsenokoitai in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10, denoting literally (males) 'who lie [sleep] with males,' was almost certainly formed under the influence of the Septuagint text of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Although first attested in Paul, the term also occurs in Hellenistic Jewish texts (Sibyll. Or. 2.73, influenced by Pseudo-Phocylides’s Sentences). The church fathers universally condemned male homosexual behavior… They [the church fathers] clearly regarded it as contrary to the created constitution and function of men and women, and not merely to the dispositions of particular individuals."
(Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. 542-543)
And:
"...it is only in recent times that some writers have argued that the quality of a relationship, be it homosexual or heterosexual, is what determines its moral value"
(The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 786)
Obviously the attempt for Christians to accept homosexuality is a recent phenomena of our modern culture. As I've explained several times on this website in various threads about this topic, our moral attitudes can be greatly affected by cultural upbringing. Consider that the death penalty was once deemed acceptable punishment for forgery. Not only would most people be intellectually repulsed by that, but their moral sentiments (emotions) would be repulsed by that. What accounts for the different moral sentiment? Clearly it's not a purely rational process, since virtually no one today has gone through a rational process of determining the proper punishment for forgery. Rather it's most cultural conditioning. Over time we have adopted the general ethic that only things like murder deserve the death penalty and even that only on certain occasions.
The fact that the vast majority, even almost exclusively so, of the people on this website who defend homosexuality are young adults is evidence of this cultural conditioning. Our affections can be dulled by the impression that the offender is "such a nice person" and by the surrounding culture and our public education, which drill it into our heads that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. A lot of Christians who have grown up in this culture have accepted the ethics and affections of the culture.
So, I feel that God would want us to use our better judgment on the issue.
I think God would want us to follow his Word on the issue.
Respect people and don't say they can't be Christians just b/c of who they are born to be attracted to.
I can respect a person while telling them that their homosexuality is wrong. Same as I can respect a rapist while telling him that his actions are wrong, seriously wrong, and that he needs to change his ways.
A homosexual can be a Christian just like a rapist or an adulterer or a pedophile or an alcoholic can be a Christian. Namely, the can be a Christian by *repenting* and believing on Jesus Christ and then continuing to grow in sanctification (struggling against their sin, the precondition to which would be recognize that it is sin).
And to speak of "who they are born to be attracted to" assumes something that has yet to be prove, as I already demonstrated above.
Just my opinion. No haters please =P
I'm not sure what would constitute a "hater," but I think you're promoting some errors here and these errors need to be responded to. I don't think that constitutes "hate", rather it's my love. It's my love for the truth and it's my love for persons who I don't want to be deceived by falsehoods.
