The bible says that having a gay or lesbian relationship is not the way to go. I believe everything in the bible is written there for a reason, and I also believe that God — as a father who loves us and wants the best for us — only warns us against things for our own good. Who am I to say that someone living a gay or lesbian relationship or not a good person. All they are doing is sinning and I cannot say — as no one can — that I have not sinned. “Let he who hath not sinned cast the first stone.”

Going by the fact that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, I think we can fairly safely say that attacking someone because they sinned is unfair. In this case, both Wellington Boone and almost everyone who has commented on this article (and even the person who wrote it) are in the wrong. Sure, Wellington seems to have attacked gay and lesbian people, but doesn’t you turning around and slandering him for a mistake he made make you just as bad?

I can’t say that I agree with everything Wellington said. I also can’t say I agree with everything all of you have said. I agree with what the bible says and in what I believe in my heart. Let’s face it — we are just going to have to agree to disagree on the subject as a whole, are we?
I know I believe VERY strongly what I believe, but I know that all those who are for gay and lesbian marriages believe VERY strongly what they believe, too. What is me telling you I think it’s wrong got to do with it? Is that going to change your opinion? No. Is it going to make you repent and start going to church? No. Because you don’t believe that it’s wrong and you’re not going to. Likewise, you are never going to make me believe that it’s right.

Either way, we can’t keep judging each other for slips of the tongue or opinions we don’t agree with, or this world’s just going to get more and more torn apart by hate.

“Hate the sin, not the sinner.” I try to live by that.

NO!

He’s coming to kick ass and kick even more ass!

Now or never we have to protect our childrens from these lowlifes:

Faggots, lesbians, zoophilians, feminists, necrophilians and pedophiles!

We should destroy…no, we should BURN them!

So mock away you faggots and non believers!

You will burn in hell anyway, so who gives a f*ck what you think?!

Repent!

Hypocrites.

Homosexuals — you don’t believe you have “issues”? Get outta here! You know in your innermost heart that something is wrong about what you do. Right? (I’m ONLY talking to those of you who actually have a listening ear combined with some sense of reasonability, prudence, and honesty.) Behind your burning members, I believe, is a real person with real feelings — one of which is the feeling you have to admit is one of knowing homosexuality REALLY IS wrong. C’mon, reach deep now — I’m talking to the ones that really have a sense that this is NOT how it’s supposed to be. As a matter of fact, I imagine, even as I write, a homosexual getting ready for relations with a new partner. I imagine thoughts of “is this the one that’ll give me AIDS? Why doesn’t this feel ‘all-the-way’ right? Is it possible that what those narrow-minded Christians say actually IS right? What if there is a Hell? Is it true that I will or even might go there? I just don’t know. I wish I really knew.” See, if you’ve had thoughts like these, which I believe more of you have than those that would be willing to actually admit, this shows that you have a good conscience. That’s awesome! Celebrate that!! You’ve got an innate sense of right and wrong! Isn’t that tremendous? It’s the same conscience used help you not to curse your parents out (for SOME of you), the same one used to not murder people, the same one that’s used to be faithful to a spouse! Greater than the mere fear of being caught in each of these scenarios, folks, is the power from having yielded to your good conscience.

So, “Yeah, I’ve got a pretty good conscience! Now what?” Consciences reveal that there is a certain, built-in awareness of a “standard”, let’s call it, with which our consciences identify. Well, here’s a logical question: “Is it possible that my standard isn’t the higher or even highEST standard? OK….doesn’t your boss or company layout the standards upfront when you get a job? Of course! Whether or not you PERFORM to those standards, the standards exist! You don’t even have to acknowledge them, right? However, if you perform beneath them, you’re, at some point, going to be accountable for not performing to the standards. There are always negative consequences to sub-standard performance. OK…hey…I don’t want to belittle anyone — my point is obvious, right? (Sorry.) The point is that the conscience is a built-in awareness of higher standards, obviously from something/someone higher, that are to be adhered to and maintained.

“Who are you, Mr. Writer?”, you may ask. “What do you WANT!?” Well, my story is this: I was a person filled with sexual drive and thievery. It would [now] embarrass me to tell you how many sexual partners I had over a short span of time. All-the-while, I was responding out of being hurt (cheated on) in my only serious relationship. While outwardly I felt like I was “The Man” then, inwardly I felt like I’d literally “shared myself” with more people that I initially intended to. I did yield to my good conscience about SOME things — for example, I never had alcohol, I never smoked, I never did any drugs — I never even had a cup of coffee (due to the fact that I thought caffeine was too CLOSE to being a drug)!!! However, I did have permiscuous sex, stole, lied, cheated and manipulated. So, I yielded to my conscience in some areas, and ignored it in others. As a matter of fact, I found that if I ignored my conscience enough, the less frequent it would remind me of the standard. I even went so far as to be totally desensitized to it in some areas. Is this you? Are there some of you who KNOW you have an excellent conscience that you simply ignore? How about others of you who may have HAD a good conscience, but have ignored it so much that it now seems that it no longer exists in the area of sexuality?

“So, what happened to you, Mr. Writer? How do you know now that you’re at the RIGHT place? What was YOUR ‘answer’?” I found out that there IS a higher standard, that I actually CAN keep the standard (with help), and that keeping the standard is an issue of being changed on the inside. I, (never having been a Christian, never a reader of the bible, actually being an arguer against Christianity) after being tired of living without boundaries and according to my own pleasures, decided to do something I’d never done before. I heard a man on a tape discussing the standards of God as it relates to dating, and, while I didn’t agree at first, I began to identify with what I heard. In the midst of a terrible act, my conscience awakened the “inner me” like NEVER before. I then [ME, mind you!] actually prayed, “God, IF you exist, and IF there are some other standards and reasons for living beyond that which I know to-date, I need you to let me know NOW. Further, if there’s something wrong about the way I live, communicate it in a way that only I would understand — just for me, or else I promise to continue living like I do.” (For more of my story, you’ll have to email me at ICareAboutHomosexuals AT Yahoo DOT com.)

What are you going to do? Are you going to continue trusting your own thoughts and desires as a standard of living? I mean, c’mon!!! Can you not sense the sincerity and reality in what I’ve shared? The hardest thing for me to admit was that I MAY be wrong. That was a step of humility — something I’d never really done before. I expect to get blasted by narrow-minded haters, consumed with their own passions and desires!! But, I’m wondering if there’s ANYBODY out there who can muster the strength to actually pray the prayer I prayed!! I started off a little strong in my opening statements, but I hope you hear that I care about homosexuals enough to take my time to write this (on what’s typically a sleep-in Saturday morning), telling on myself about my own life and thoughts. So, again, what are YOU going to do?

–ICareAboutHomosexuals AT Yahoo DOT com

I am offended as a black man that gays, or what the Bible calls “sodomites,” would make a civil rights issue out of their sexual preference. This is a rape of the American Civil Rights movement.

God made me black. I cannot change the color of my skin, which to God is something good, but sodomites can change their perverse sexual behavior, which God calls an abomination.

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
—Leviticus 18:22

What blacks have gone through to gain their freedom relates to their culture and race. What gays are dealing with relates to their behavioral preferences and a desire for sex.

There is no biological evidence that homosexuality is inherited. There is no identifiable gene for homosexuality. It is a sexual preference, not a permanent state. You can find examples of homosexuals who were converted and are now married to someone of the opposite sex, but no black person ever became a white person.

The drive of blacks for equality was called a “civil rights” movement, but the justification for striving to regain our rights was the fight for inalienable rights that come from God and are guaranteed by our founding documents. Some laws and practices in America were contrary to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with its Amendments, and we sought a legal remedy.

Civil rights are those granted by man. Inalienable rights are those granted by God. When the laws of man conflict with the laws of God, I’m standing with God.

Blacks who were enslaved and killed had not broken any of the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” They were entitled to live as free citizens, but their just rights had been taken away by unjust laws.

Sodomites are people who willfully break the laws of God and the laws of the land. The two situations are not at all equal.

Black Americans have endured significant bondage and destruction at three crucial points in history:

 Slavery
 Margaret Sanger and the creation of Planned Parenthood
 The gay and lesbian movement

Black men and women have a disproportionate number of AIDS cases, with 36 percent of those diagnosed from 2001-2004 being African-American.

Many blacks, including black ministers, are dignifying what the gays are saying instead of rejecting it outright as an abomination against God, totally contrary to Scripture and the movement.

“And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.”—1 Kings 14:24

The legal term “sodomy,” which includes the illegal, perverted behavior of same-sex relationships, including oral and anal sex, comes from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18-19.

The Bible uses these words to describe homosexuals and their behavior:

 Abomination—Leviticus 18:22; 20:13.
 Corruptible men—Romans 1:20-32
 Uncleanness—Romans 1:24
 Will not inherit the kingdom of God—1 Corinthians 6:9-14
 Lawless—1 Timothy 1:8-11
 Men who become like Sodom and Gomorrah through fornication and sexual perversion—Jude 7

If you followed same-sex marriage to its logical conclusion, it would bring an end to our society as we know it. It would mean the annihilation of the human race. Gay marriage is the opposite of the nuclear family as God created it.

If it’s all right to define marriage as a man lying with a man and a woman lying with a woman, then let there be no mixing of the sexes, because when you want to have a child, guess what you have do? You mix the seed of a man with the seed of a woman. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with the woman or the man? Don’t change your mind about what you want to do. Do it all the way. If you do it all the way there will be no children. We better wake up.

When God said in Genesis 1, “Let Us make man in our image, after our likeness,” He also said, “It is not good that man should be alone. Let Us make a helpmate for him.” The helpmate was not another man. The helpmate was a woman. God said a woman would come together with the man, not a man with the man.

To quote Steven from comment #459, “It’s about time a minister spoke on personal beliefs with examples of why he feels that way.” I am a minister. I am not, however, a Christian. I am just as religious as any other minister, it’s just that my beliefs are not in the God of Abraham.

“A MAN of GOD is a MAN of TRUTH…” I am a man, I worship Goddess, I speak Her words just as a Christian minister speaks the words of the God of Abraham. My words are just as much TRUTH as those who speak on behalf of the God of Abraham, yet just as they, such words are truth ONLY to those who believe such and are willing to follow such words.

Just because one is an ordained minister with credentials on file with whatever church does not necessarily make them any more truthful to those who do not follow that belief.

My teachings, my words, my truth is shared by many, but they are not truth to others of other faiths. Similarly, their words are not truth to those who follow my beliefs.

It is not the person, nor the religion, nor even the system of beliefs that is the truth…it is the path that one is on to REACH that truth.

To quote the words of Symmachus, a scholar who lived in the 5th century, “We gaze up at the same stars, the same universe covers us all, what does it matter, therefore, what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue only may we arrive at so tremendous a secret.”

Just because this particular pastor hates homosexuals does not make homosexuality “wrong”. In fact, in the King James VERSION (key word there) of the Bible, the condemnation of homosexual behavior is fairly recent in terms of Biblical accord, not having been included in prior VERSIONS of the Bible. If you were to consult, say, the 5th Century Latin Vulgate, there is no such condemnation except by Paul. Further, in newer VERSIONS of the Bible, the inclusion of the word “homosexual” is more than just a misnomer, considering that the term did not come into existence until the latter 18th century – early 19th century.

So, whose truth is “MORE” true? Because it is listed in a later VERSION of the Bible, or those VERSIONS that existed prior, or those teachings and writings that are NOT from the Middle-Eastern-derived religious philosophy of modern-day Christianity?

And who holds these “Men of God” accountable for their own prejudisms and personal bigotry?

Religion is about faith in the unknown and unknowable. Even Paul acceded to this when he noted the faith and righteousness of a Roman centurion during his proclamation on the steps of the Aeropagus, stating that he had not found such faith, “Not even in Israel”.

One person’s God is another’s Devil. So who is right? Who is wrong? Is the Bible right? And what of earlier VERSIONS that do not correspond with the modern texts, nor even those of James VI of Scotland, later crowned King James I of England? Is his version “more right” than earlier versions, even though certain proclamations in the KJV are not present in earlier versions?

And what of those who are “Men of God” but intermix their own hatreds and prejudisms into the mix? No one seems to support Fred Phelps yet he believes he is doing God’s work. Even members of the KKK believe they are doing God’s work. Would you support them because they are religious and voicing their opinions “with no room for sugarcoat”?

Bless you, Coach.