I recently saw an article about an Oregon Bakery, Sweet Cakes by Melissa, who refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, citing Christian beliefs as the reason.And here is where I really have to take issue with anyone with an anti-gay agenda calling themselves "Christians," because to be a Christian is to follow the teachings of Christ, and as I've actually read and studied the Bible from the time I was 5 and all the way through college, I have some jarring news for those people:
Christ was not a bigot. In fact, Christ wasn't anti-gay at all.
As someone who was dutifully schooled in Catholicism, including attending the oldest Catholic university in the country, I really take issue with any church (and this wholeheartedly includes the Catholic church) picking and choosing a couple outdated passages, usually from the Old Testament, to try to support an anti-gay agenda that isn't part of Jesus' teaching, while ignoring more repeated warnings against, say, adulterers and divorcees and shellfish.
Picking and choosing the teachings and passages you like is called Cafeteria Christianity, people, and I'm not impressed.
Those of us who have actually read the Bible have also learned that there were 10 Commandments. This the absolute most important rule set issue forth in the Bible, straight from God to Moses, and "Thou shalt not be gay" is simply not in there. Other translations of the Bible (including many of the Jewish ones, which should probably be taken a bit more seriously than a later Anglo version mandated by a British King, particularly given that the King James version did away with any mention of a female apostle - gasp! - yes, earlier translations actually mention Junia the woman) entirely disagree on the meaning of the passages that the Cafeteria Christians use to make themselves feel righteous about being bigoted and afraid.
Now, these anti-gay "Christian" folks might add a little weight to their love of Leviticus if they actually lived their lives by all of its mandates, as opposed to the few they feel self-righteous about. This of course means that any anti-gay Christian who claims to be following the Bible's word needs to immediately (1) avoid shellfish and (2) execute adulterers, which means that they have to (3) execute divorcees who remarry.
Leviticus 20:10: "'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death."
Luke 16:18: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery."
Mark 10:11-12: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
And, if one is going to live by every word of the good book, it turns out that you also have to stop playing football, among other things, so for those of you who want to be anti-gay on behalf of the Bible and not be a hypocrite, here is an excellent list of 11 things that the Bible bans, but you do anyway.
So, stop doing those things. Amen.
Now, since Sweet Cakes by Melissa has refused service to the gays, I certainly expect to see this bakery refusing service to adulterers, divorcees, football players, bowl-haircutted people, the tattooed, shellfish lovers, and eunuchs.
And I do hope that these self-righteous anti-gay Leviticus-loving Christians will start a funding ballot initiatives toward outlawing divorce and instituting the death penalty for the adulterers and divorcees out there, in the name of God and all. (Yes, this means you, Focus on the Family.)
Otherwise, these people are bastardizing the Bible to support an agenda of bigotry and hate.
Jesus wept.
Well, It's you who is the perfect example of a cafeteria christian. You choose to ignore verses that condemn homosexual acts in both old and new testaments.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter if you attended catholic school or not, if you did not study and follow the church's teachings, your years in a catholic school is worthless. The vatican openly does not support gay marriage because of their study of the scripture, period. You should have known that. So stop acting like you're a great catholic. There is not one catholic priest who would say that same-sex marriage is ok. Not one! So you're either not catholic or you never cared for the catholic religion. Stop being a poser.
Even putting religion aside, it makes sense for a regular non-religious person to be against gay marriage because "gay" is not a valid sex at all. There is only man and woman. There is no such thing as a gay gene.
Actually, I choose to ignore literal interpretations of the Bible, period, and no Catholic school I ever attended taught me to take it literally.
DeleteIt's called critical thinking, not ignorance. I know this must be a difficult concept for you to comprehend.
Per your other comment, if you don't think that Catholics commit venial sins constantly, you must not know any Jesuits.
Using hyperbolic absolutes isn't a very good way to make yourself sound credible. Sorry to rain on your homophobic parade, but: http://www.stmonica.net/gay-and-lesbian
No, "gay" is not a sex. Who on earth are you debating here? The entire point as to marriage equality is that marriage as a legal definition should not be determined by gender.
You do get mad points for using "gay gene," though, which is almost as good as "gay money." Rad.
if you're a true knwledgeable catholic, you'd know that there are sins aside from the 10 commandments which are not mortal, but venial. Not correcting venial sins, doing them again and again makes them mortal. Homosexual acts is one of them. It's very basic catholic teaching.
ReplyDeleteI'm doubting that you attended catholic school. MAybe you just did not pay attention.
And about your tag - Christ wasn't anti-gay at all. That was so stupid, only morons would believe that article.
ReplyDeleteEunuchs are men who have been physically castrated, or were impotent. Homosexuals are different from them. They are not synonymous. That article was for idiots.
This may be a shock to you, but the Bible wasn't written in English.
DeleteI know, it's very surprising to some people.
Re-read the article with that in mind and see if you can use your powers of deduction to figure out what the author was saying about the word "eunuch" in that context specifically.
I find it ironic that so many high-ranking Catholic priests (and lower ranking ones we just haven't found out about yet) - the ones who are supposed to teach and lead the rest of the ranks in how to live their lives as "sin-free" as possible - are the ones who seem to break the homosexual rule quite regularly until they are caught (and possibly afterwards - who knows because they're removed from "the public eye.") The Catholic church, rather than God it seems, has deemed that the men must live with only men and the women (nuns) must only live with women, and then they say "but don't lust after each other or do anything else sinful while we force you to live that way." So, when people are frail and commit sin as they are wont to do (or why would anyone need forgiveness?) gee, who does the Catholic church make sure the priests and nuns are around the most? People of the same sex... (Kind of like prisons - you sin with what's available when you give in to temptation, even it's momentarily.) If it's so unnatural, why force your "spiritual leaders" to live in such "unnatural" conditions so that they are most likely to commit a homosexual act when they slip? (Or is the church trying somehow to say that a homosexual act is less "evil" than would be a priest who married and slept with his lawful wife? Their current way of keeping them from marrying makes me wonder, not to mention given how many times the (homo)sexual abuse cases get swept quietly back into the shadows...) The "logic" of the situation escapes me.
ReplyDelete