Hate the sin but love the person...except when voting?

Americans overwhelmingly find homosexuality a moral behavior. They deserve it, and there's no reason not to give it to them.That's why.

Well, if you're going to try to shape society for the benefit of others, you have a pretty substantial burden of evidence to meet that your changes actually will be beneficial for the people whose rights your trampling all over. I've not seen that you've even tried to meet that burden, you've just assumed that it's in the Bible, therefore it must be good for people. Well, no, actually, you don't. It's called the "Lemon test", and its a form of the principle of the First Amendment, which is that laws should be justified only by secular purpose, not religious justification. Not if the reasons for your objection are fundamentally theological.

Do you think they asked gay people when they "determined" that?How about when society "determined" that Africans should be chattel slaves? Doesn't that indicate that maybe the people of "society" making these "determinations" may not have known what would turn out to be best for everybody? You may not feel any need, but you're not a gay person who wants to marry their partner, now are you?

So, you're expecting homosexuals to bear a considerable burden in exchange for the rest of us having a society that is better, in some way.Does that seem fair to you? Obviously, the burden of our society is not going to fall equal on all. But I think equalizing that burden to the greatest extent possible, and shifting a larger share only onto those who volunteer for it, is a moral imperative. And I can't see how someone of your moral character, which I would describe as "high" despite not knowing much about you, could possibly countenance the notion that we should build a more Godly society on the backs of gay men and women. "Hate" is an imprecise word; bigotry isn't really hate, it's disregard. In the 18th and 19th century American South, some number of people - perhaps implicitly - determined that they would build their better society on the backs of African slaves, carted in by the boatload. I wouldn't describe their attitude towards "the Negro", as they would have said, as being one of "hate." But I definitely consider the moral reasoning you're engaged in, here, just as bad as theirs.

Trust me, IC, no gay couple is desperately holding their breath for your imprimatur on their relationship. What they want are the federal and state benefits afforded to married couples. Even in the states where gay couples receive those benefits, people like yourself are perfectly free to continue to consider their behavior gross and their relationship a sham.You're not being asked to approve. You're being asked to stop obstructing the recognition of their constitutional rights. Indeed. But you're not being asked whether or not gay sex is ok. You're being asked to allow loving couples to marry each other. Voting against gay marriage isn't going to prevent people from being gay.

Even a godful person has to believe that it's wrong to try to build a better society on the backs of an oppressed class. Don't you read your Bible?

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The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

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"If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." 36And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and(E) taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37(F) "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me."

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And the LORD says, "Destruction is certain for Jehoiakim,* who builds his palace with forced labor.* By not paying wages, he builds injustice into its walls and oppression into its doorframes and ceilings.

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I could go on but the Bible is pretty clear on the morality of shifting the burden of your "better society" onto an oppressed or powerless class. I'm sorry but there's absolutely nowhere in the Bible where it says that it's more important to build a society on a principle of denying legal benefits to gay men and women than it is to build a society based on fairness. Have you so quickly forgotten the ministry of Jesus? You know, the one where he spent all that time ministering to the oppressed peoples of his time - the prostitutes, the poor, the uneducated - and preached that in the Kingdom of God, those who bettered themselves at the expense of others would be lowest and those who were exploited by others would be considered most holy."The meek will inherit the Earth." Even if you've forgotten every other part of your Bible, that alone should tell you whose side God expects you to be on, when the issue is the creation of a "better society" at the expense of some poor unfortunates. The message of the Bible - abundantly, indisputably - is that there is no difference between unfairness/inequality/oppression and unholiness/sinfulness. Have you so forgotten the ministry of Jesus? "It is not that which goes into a man which makes him unholy, it is that which comes out of him." It's believed by you, for religious reasons. That's the reason your 2 and 3 cannot be legitimate political acts in the United States. Now, some of your co-religionists have attempted to do the heavy lifting in terms of providing secular justification for the prohibition of gay marriage, but those arguments have never withstood scrutiny. Not by God. When did you stop reading your Bible, Iano?

I already do interpret the Bible to condemn homosexual behavior, so, let's just confirm that we're coming at the Bible from the same perspective, with the proviso that you believe in the existence of the Bible's God and I don't. Abundantly, the Bible says homosexuality is a sin.But the message of Christ, abundantly, is that our social obligations to an egalitarian, peaceful society are paramount, and of far greater importance than people's individual sins. That just can't be denied. That the ministry of Jesus was pretty clear that it's a greater sin to exploit an oppressed class for the betterment of some than it is for individuals to be individually sinful.Try to remember that the ministry of Jesus was directed primarily to hookers, tax collectors, Gentiles, and other people regarded as sinful and unclean by Jewish society. Do you recall who it was that discovered the empty tomb? That's right, the first eyewitness to the majesty of the Risen Christ was a prostitute. It's not homosexuals or adulterers that Jesus proclaims have less of a chance at heaven than of a camel (or rope, depending on whether you think that's a Greek misprint) passing through the eye of a needle, it's rich men profiting unfairly off the labor of others. (Make no mistake, the message of Jesus is that no one can be rich except by exploitation.) It's the meek, the low, those who may be unclean but at least they're not hurting anybody, that Jesus promised will inherit the Earth, not the holy elites.I think that should tell you all you all you need to know about God's views on the notion of building a better, holier society on the backs of an oppressed class. No, quite the opposite. Jesus's revolutionary ministry was a radical, political one. "I come to bring not peace, but a sword." That's not a call for actual violence but the revolutionary tenor can't possibly be denied. But of course there were no Christians in the time of Jesus, so clearly his message was to all. There's no indication that the Sermon on the Mount was delivered or intended for anybody besides those who merely showed up to hear it. And what God hates even more than sin is hypocrisy in the guise of holiness:

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And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

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You know, the kind of holy hypocrisy that would say "it's better for everybody this way. Well, everybody but the gays, I mean." The Bible couldn't be clearer that the notion of a supposedly "holier" society built on the backs of an oppressed class for the good of everybody else is a stink in the nostrils of God. But that's exactly who Jesus was saying it to - prostitutes, tax collectors, slaves, dung-gatherers. In the ministry of Jesus there's absolutely no distinction between worldly underdogs and spiritual ones - they're the same. The same people.

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And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

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No, it does condemn homosexual activity, prostitution, the lending of money at interest, the collection of taxes. But what it most condemns, what indeed was the message of the entire ministry of Jesus is that it's a much greater sin in the eyes of God to structure society such that the burden of the "greater good" falls on an oppressed underclass, because it is these oppressed who are the most beloved and most holy in the eyes of God - regardless of their individual sins.When you set up a society where gays suffer in the name of holiness, you're taking a determined stance against God. You're of the Pharisees, not of the Christ.

Right, and the criteria for separation was their charity and philanthropy to those worse off than themselves, not their individual holiness sexual purity. The Bible never says, in fact, that gay men and women won't go to heaven - but it does literally say that about those who amassed great wealth. Why do you suppose that is? Well, it's right in the passage:

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If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.

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Clearly, this is a statement about the godly person's relationship to society. C'mon, Iano, read your Bible. Has it been so long you don't even recognize its message? That's a troubling flaw in someone who claims to be motivated by the desire to create a godly society, but it's hardly a flaw I've come to be surprised by. Untrue. Where the words of Paul are in contradiction with the words of Jesus, I think the resolution is clear - Jesus wins. Clearly it's Jesus and not Paul who has the authority to speak on the subject of God's will. Whether you are or not, that's the message of Jesus. Straight from his own mouth (according to the Bible.) Jesus insists, in fact; repeatedly throughout the Bible is the implication that his ministry is fundamentally a political one. It's funny to hear a nominal Christian describe the words of Christ as "so little." I guess that's the kind of Christian it takes to completely ignore the message of Christ and try to build his "holy society" on a basis of oppression. Iano, they'll meet as soon as you open your Bible and read it.

Well, no. I would say that Corinthians is intended, as you supposed, to cover all human beings.But clearly the message of the Bible is not "nobody gets to Heaven", it's that Heaven is only accessible by the grace and sacrifice of Jesus, not by any person's innate virtue. But, across all the words attributed to Jesus by the Bible - all the instances where it is literally the words of Christ, not the scripture of anonymous epistle writers - the one class of person all but barred from entry to Heaven by Jesus himself is the wealthy.Iano acts like Matthew 19:23-24 says "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a gay man to enter the kingdom of Heaven." But that's not what it says at all - it specifies "rich men", and of all the words of Jesus in the Bible, rich men are the only class of person so specified.I think that's telling, and I think it indicates that the God of the Bible (and the ministry of Jesus) is a hell of a lot more concerned about how fairly you're treating your fellow men, women, and children than he is about what kind of sex you're having. No one can earn entry into the kingdom of God, IC. You can only disqualify yourself from the grace of Christ by not being Christlike. As Jesus himself says, such disqualification includes exploiting the poor and disenfranchised, and being insensitive to their plight and suffering:

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And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

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The Bible isn't very hard to read. If your understanding of the Bible is that it says "gays must be persecuted for the good of all", then I wonder if you've ever even read it.

According to the Bible, it all is. But the Bible doesn't say that all of the Bible is scripture. Surely "Paul" could not have been referring to the epistles written after 2nd Timothy, for instance, because he could not have had access to them to judge their worth. I'm not sure it's likely that "Paul" was even referring to his own epistles - he was just writing letters to the early Church to help them spread and understand the words of Jesus. Surely no reasonable person in that situation would have believed they were writing Holy Scripture.Therefore where the words of Paul contradict the words of Jesus, we have to go with Jesus. I mean, you're a Christian, not a Paulian, right? Rich in money, clearly; and it's clearly the assumption of the Bible that it is more or less impossible to amass great worldly wealth without the exploitation of others, which is why the Bible connects worldliness and worldly success with corruption and sin, and suffering and being oppressed with holiness. Right, and the means by which one is to love God is to love the "least of these", the oppressed, the low, the marginalized, the powerless, because as you do unto these, so do you unto God. And in this case you're putting your distaste for the sin of homosexuality ahead of God. You can't have it both ways - you can't claim to be building a "holier society" on the backs of a marginalized gay class and claim to be loving God. God is very clear how he wants to be loved, and it's by demonstration - by your relationships to your fellow men, particularly the ones least accepted by society. No, it's not literally the rich - God isn't going to run an audit on your finances to see if you qualify for Heaven Welfare. But the Bible is pretty clear about the relationship it expects you to have with the oppressed and the marginalized - you're supposed to be on their side, God's side, not the side of the wealthy and powerful who exploit and oppress them. When a boot is on someone's neck, God never ever sides with the boot. Never ever.

Only if you interpret the Bible as saying no one will go to Heaven. Obviously, it doesn't mean that, so clearly it doesn't mean that gay men and women are barred from Heaven. It's traditionally attributed to "Paul" but everybody realizes those attributions are just legends. Nobody knows who actually wrote the epistles. Indeed. Yet sinners go to Heaven, do they not?Or are you literally saying that absolutely no one goes to Heaven? Surely that's not the case? Homosexual acts are not named specifically; they're given the same treatment as liars, as fornicators, as those who wear cloth of different fibers, as those who plant different kinds of crops in the same fields, as those who eat shellfish, and so on. In other words - sins, but not specifically disqualifying for Heaven.Being rich, on the other hand, and exploiting the downtrodden and oppressed? Specifically barred from Heaven. Not so. Not at all correct. Throughout the messages of Jesus he has hardly any time to talk about sexual sins; it's primarily those who have sinned by shirking their responsibility to their fellow people, or exploited the downtrodden for material wealth. That's the message of the Gospels, certainly. If you don't get that then it's not likely you've even read them. That's because I've read more of the Bible than you. I'm sure you have one around your house, you should open it once in a while. I'm not having it both ways. Like I said:

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No one can earn entry into the kingdom of God, IC. You can only disqualify yourself from the grace of Christ by not being Christlike.

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Christ's strongest possible denunciations were reserved for those who oppressed others and exploited others for material gain. There's nothing at all in the Bible that says you shouldn't love certain kinds of people. Quite the opposite. You'd know that, IC, if you'd ever read your Bible.

Yeah, I'm sure male bonobos are sucking each other's cocks just for practice.You really are a gem, IC.