Dwight, I don't think we all agree that homosexuality is a sin. Of course we can accept that you view it as a sin, but not that everyone involved in the discussion does. Incidentally, the Protestant and Catholic churches out here in California are filled with homosexual worshippers, and there are gay priests and ministers, and at least one gay archbishop. Are you saying that these people simply believe they are Christians, but they are not? Who decides?
I don't know any homosexuals who would argue that child molestation is anything but a crime--a crime committed by people who are ill, heterosexual as well, and that in fact child molestation has absolutely no correlation with sexual identity. Are you saying that it does?
There is significant new scientific evidence that homosexuality is predetermined by prenatal and perhaps early childhood events, that it is involuntary. How could someone's state of being, something that he or she comes with, be anything like a crime of violence?
I am becoming more aware of this as I get involved in this discussion, and I am also interested in archaeology, so I realize that there is much physical evidence that many events described in the Bible occurred.
However, it does not seem logical that simply because these tribal peoples were living in a particular time and place where natural events happened, that the hand of God is necessarily in them, since there are plausible scientific explanations as well.
And of course I would also have to say that the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah does not logically mean that God punished these people because of homosexuality. The Bible is open to interpretation, and cultural factors must also be considered. Certainly, the different interpretations offered by gay priests and ministers, who have also spent years studying the Bible, illustrate that point. |
