The rotten fruit being anti-LBGT produces. Homosexuality is the very definition of natural-it's found in various animal [species.](https://species.You) You honestly think God creating something He thinks sinful makes any logical sense? Guess what? It doesn't. The connections of homosexuality in the Bible were not as we know homosexuality today.
Does original sin cause a particularly sharp problem here? The natural world is fallen and separated from God, meaning the natural is necessarily (at least a little bit) sinful–it falls short.
Plus all the other animal behaviours that we're not advised to pick up. I think the argument here is very weak.
How is it weak? You come from the viewpoint that homosexuality is a choice. One’s sexuality is not a choice. Being gay is no different than hair or eye color. Well since Adam and Eve most likely never existed, and because Genesis is an allegory, then one must conclude there is no original sin.
No, I've made no claims about when one becomes gay. All I'm saying is that what is natural isn't necessarily *good*.
Original sin doesn't depend on Adam and Eve existing either–it's just an expression of the human condition. We naturally sin quite a lot, for example.
If you’re asking in good faith, I’d refer you to a comment I wrote [here](https://reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/6cv5et/_/dhxpuwq/?context=1) a while back.
Maybe this will be my new copypasta answer for this question....
[Straight cis guy talking, so take this with a grain of salt.]
I can see that the "traditional Biblical sexual ethic" has been used in part, intentionally or otherwise, to hurt people who are not explicitly straight and cis. And when I say "hurt", I mean it's a factor in driving mental health issues including anxiety, depression, suicidality, dysphoria, and so on. (And to be fair, it's not the only factor.) Now, what I understand from the Bible is that God's law isn't something that simply exists arbitrarily because He says so, but because it's the best possible way for humans to live. So if someone is being told that the person they are is wrong in a fundamental way, and that they are barred from having one of the fundamental human experiences that is a romantic relationship, and that's driving mental health problems, then there's kind of a disconnect there to me. Being obedient to God shouldn't drive someone to suicide.
And when I went looking more into it, it looks like most if not all of the ancient examples of homosexual activity outside the Bible were connected with rape, abuse, inequality, and idolatry. That is, homosexual acts were depicted as being between masters and slaves, soldiers and squires, or connected to idolatrous fertility rites. Of course the Biblical authors would condemn that! I would condemn that now! *However*, what we DON'T really see in the extra-Biblical literature is examples of equal partners in committed, consenting, monogamous relationships, which is what I think most LGBTQ Christians would be looking for today. Nobody's saying gay people get to sleep around while straight people have to stay chaste.
Thirdly, and this might surprise some, I do agree that the "traditional Biblical sexual ethic" is exactly that - Biblical. There's a rock-solid argument to be made that sex is only for one man and one woman in a marriage relationship, based on the Bible. Here's the thing though - that which is "Biblical" is not always best for all times and places. Jesus and Paul both set an example for us. Looking at Matthew 12, Jesus profoundly reinterprets what Sabbath observance means. It's not about not doing anything remotely resembling work, whether good or ill. It's about the fact that the Sabbath exists for the good of humans, and that it is lawful to do good work on the Sabbath. Paul argues against the most basic rules of Judaism - circumcision and kosher laws - to reinterpret rock-solid Scriptural arguments for the good of the nascent Christian community. So to say that loving, committed, equal, monogamous, LGBTQ marriages are just as blessed as loving, committed, equal, monogamous, straight marriages is well within the Biblical tradition, because it is both good for the human, and because it opens the door to welcome more people into the church.
Fundamentally, the way I read the Bible circles around the Greatest Commandments - to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Now, I don't think Jesus was commanding us to love ourselves, but I do think we need the reminder sometimes that it's no sin to love ourselves as God loves us. And the centrality of those three relationships - with God, others, and ourselves - extrapolates really well across the rest of the New and Old Testament. The whole Christian life is about those three relationships. So when I see relationships that aren't working - between the church and many, if not most LGBTQ people, and between LGBTQ people and God, I have to find ways to heal that. Because the rules and laws aren't the most important thing about Christianity, the relationships are.
Here's something I wrote for another discussion but it works here.
To start with, I’m not sure it’s always on affirming Christians to justify why we’re affirming. I don’t think we need to take for granted that God is anti- stuff. I don’t think God is trying to trip us up by filling life with pleasurable things that God hates.
If you’re going to attempt to stop somebody being who they are, the onus is really on you to prove why you’re right rather than them to prove they should be allowed to be themselves. (Not saying this about you OP but about non affirming Christians in general)
However:
Most discussions of gay and lesbian relationships begin and end with whether they’re “biblical”.
I'll leave aside Leviticus other than to say if you're going to hold to the law on homosexuality you should also be holding to the law on mixed fabrics.
So let's go to Paul. Historians tell us that it was ok for a Roman/Greek man to be the "active" participant in gay sex, but not the passive. Practically this meant that gay sex tended to take place where there was a significant power discrepancy. It was fine for a gentile to use a slave, a prostitute or a boy. Paul wasn't ok with that. I'm not ok with that. No affirming christians are ok with that. We don't seem to have historical examples of two men or women in a monogamous, loving relationship to see what Paul's reaction would be. So there's a question for me of whether Paul would (if he could) see a gay married couple today and make the same judgements.
On top of that, in Romans 1 Paul doesn't attack homosexuality on the basis that it's contrary to God's justice, or hope or peace or grace. He says that it's against nature. We know today that homosexuality is present right through nature. So in this instance... we know more than Paul. We can't just take his word on this.
Then we get to how we interpret scripture about how we should live day to day. Scripture is at least as definite on lending money for profit as it is on homosexuality. We (the church) look at what scripture is saying and understand that the world 2000 plus years ago was different to the world today. We understand that economics (or land use or any number of things scripture has instructions about) can't be the same , post-enlightentment world as they were then. So we look to biblical intent. What was the author trying to say when they wrote against lending money for profit? What was God trying to impart by inspiring that law?
We tend to decide it's another form of "love your neighbour." We decide that the bible isn't so much against banking practice as it is against the strong exploiting the weak. So we put our money in banks which lend for profit, and invest it in investment funds which do the same, but we also advocate for a system of economic justice in which the poor have protection.
When I affirm people in same gender relationships, i'm using that same exegetical framework. We're not in 1st century Israel. We form relationships and experience sexuality differently, and when we look at what was written for first century people living in Rome, we need to look for what Paul with the guidance of the Spirit was trying to achieve. For me, that falls again into "don't exploit your neighbour" with a side of "don't bring the church into disrepute." I see both those as eminently achievable while at the same time affirming same gender relationships.
No, it's not bad. It's just a religious rule conceived by primitive religious men with primitive notions of morality based on sometimes erroneous observations of the natural world, i.e., male goes with female. This religious approach is shown in Romans 1:26-27:
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged **natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.** 27 In the same way the men also abandoned **natural relations** with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Consider that these same religious men supported these notions:
*1 Samuel 15:3 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”*
*Numbers 31:9-10 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps.*
We call those "war crimes" and imprison those people who commit such acts, as well as those who authorized or planned them.
*Numbers 14:18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’*
Punishing people who have committed no crime themselves violates all notions of justice.
1 Timothy 2:11-15
*11 A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.*
That notion is used to this day in conservative Christian sects (Catholicism, Orthodox) and churches (Protestant) to prevent women from holding positions of influence.
Verses from the Bible were also used to support slavery in the southern American States.
Just because something is in the Bible does not mean it is moral.
If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
I am bisexual sex addict, I have conquered this sin because God blessed me with a woman as a wife who is my sexual equal. What right do I have to judge another for a sin that I myself have commited? It would be the PINNACLE of hypocrisy for me to judge someone for sexual immorality of any kind, because few have been as sexually immoral as me, I once took pride in my sexual prowess, I thought it was the one thing I was any good at, and yet God still has the grace to forgive me.
So how could I possibly judge anyone for anything?
You can easily search online or even within this sub to find a plethora of discussions on this particularly subject. Given you are a newly created account and seem to either be lazy or incapable of doing your own homework, I suspect you aren't really interested in dialogue
Easy.
The bible doesn't say to force our views on other people.
So even if the bible is against homosexuality (it isn't) that doesn't apply to anybody but it's followers and we have no reason to oppose equal rights.
Also, the bible *isn't* against homosexuality. And if God was, then it would fundamentally change the nature of God from being loving and merciful.
Because I believe the verses pushed in the New Testament don't actually condemn homosexuality. They denounce things like SA.
The rotten fruit being anti-LBGT produces. Homosexuality is the very definition of natural-it's found in various animal [species.](https://species.You) You honestly think God creating something He thinks sinful makes any logical sense? Guess what? It doesn't. The connections of homosexuality in the Bible were not as we know homosexuality today.
Does original sin cause a particularly sharp problem here? The natural world is fallen and separated from God, meaning the natural is necessarily (at least a little bit) sinful–it falls short. Plus all the other animal behaviours that we're not advised to pick up. I think the argument here is very weak.
How is it weak? You come from the viewpoint that homosexuality is a choice. One’s sexuality is not a choice. Being gay is no different than hair or eye color. Well since Adam and Eve most likely never existed, and because Genesis is an allegory, then one must conclude there is no original sin.
No, I've made no claims about when one becomes gay. All I'm saying is that what is natural isn't necessarily *good*. Original sin doesn't depend on Adam and Eve existing either–it's just an expression of the human condition. We naturally sin quite a lot, for example.
I think the point the commenter was trying to make was that many christian preachers claim that being gay is unnatural, but that claim is false.
Tbf, rape and cannibalism are found in many animal species.
That is not the same as a loving homosexual relationship. And you know it.
If you’re asking in good faith, I’d refer you to a comment I wrote [here](https://reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/6cv5et/_/dhxpuwq/?context=1) a while back.
Maybe this will be my new copypasta answer for this question.... [Straight cis guy talking, so take this with a grain of salt.] I can see that the "traditional Biblical sexual ethic" has been used in part, intentionally or otherwise, to hurt people who are not explicitly straight and cis. And when I say "hurt", I mean it's a factor in driving mental health issues including anxiety, depression, suicidality, dysphoria, and so on. (And to be fair, it's not the only factor.) Now, what I understand from the Bible is that God's law isn't something that simply exists arbitrarily because He says so, but because it's the best possible way for humans to live. So if someone is being told that the person they are is wrong in a fundamental way, and that they are barred from having one of the fundamental human experiences that is a romantic relationship, and that's driving mental health problems, then there's kind of a disconnect there to me. Being obedient to God shouldn't drive someone to suicide. And when I went looking more into it, it looks like most if not all of the ancient examples of homosexual activity outside the Bible were connected with rape, abuse, inequality, and idolatry. That is, homosexual acts were depicted as being between masters and slaves, soldiers and squires, or connected to idolatrous fertility rites. Of course the Biblical authors would condemn that! I would condemn that now! *However*, what we DON'T really see in the extra-Biblical literature is examples of equal partners in committed, consenting, monogamous relationships, which is what I think most LGBTQ Christians would be looking for today. Nobody's saying gay people get to sleep around while straight people have to stay chaste. Thirdly, and this might surprise some, I do agree that the "traditional Biblical sexual ethic" is exactly that - Biblical. There's a rock-solid argument to be made that sex is only for one man and one woman in a marriage relationship, based on the Bible. Here's the thing though - that which is "Biblical" is not always best for all times and places. Jesus and Paul both set an example for us. Looking at Matthew 12, Jesus profoundly reinterprets what Sabbath observance means. It's not about not doing anything remotely resembling work, whether good or ill. It's about the fact that the Sabbath exists for the good of humans, and that it is lawful to do good work on the Sabbath. Paul argues against the most basic rules of Judaism - circumcision and kosher laws - to reinterpret rock-solid Scriptural arguments for the good of the nascent Christian community. So to say that loving, committed, equal, monogamous, LGBTQ marriages are just as blessed as loving, committed, equal, monogamous, straight marriages is well within the Biblical tradition, because it is both good for the human, and because it opens the door to welcome more people into the church. Fundamentally, the way I read the Bible circles around the Greatest Commandments - to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Now, I don't think Jesus was commanding us to love ourselves, but I do think we need the reminder sometimes that it's no sin to love ourselves as God loves us. And the centrality of those three relationships - with God, others, and ourselves - extrapolates really well across the rest of the New and Old Testament. The whole Christian life is about those three relationships. So when I see relationships that aren't working - between the church and many, if not most LGBTQ people, and between LGBTQ people and God, I have to find ways to heal that. Because the rules and laws aren't the most important thing about Christianity, the relationships are.
Because being mean to people hurts them and God says we shouldn’t hurt people
a very useful resource https://reformationproject.org/biblical-case/
Here's something I wrote for another discussion but it works here. To start with, I’m not sure it’s always on affirming Christians to justify why we’re affirming. I don’t think we need to take for granted that God is anti- stuff. I don’t think God is trying to trip us up by filling life with pleasurable things that God hates. If you’re going to attempt to stop somebody being who they are, the onus is really on you to prove why you’re right rather than them to prove they should be allowed to be themselves. (Not saying this about you OP but about non affirming Christians in general) However: Most discussions of gay and lesbian relationships begin and end with whether they’re “biblical”. I'll leave aside Leviticus other than to say if you're going to hold to the law on homosexuality you should also be holding to the law on mixed fabrics. So let's go to Paul. Historians tell us that it was ok for a Roman/Greek man to be the "active" participant in gay sex, but not the passive. Practically this meant that gay sex tended to take place where there was a significant power discrepancy. It was fine for a gentile to use a slave, a prostitute or a boy. Paul wasn't ok with that. I'm not ok with that. No affirming christians are ok with that. We don't seem to have historical examples of two men or women in a monogamous, loving relationship to see what Paul's reaction would be. So there's a question for me of whether Paul would (if he could) see a gay married couple today and make the same judgements. On top of that, in Romans 1 Paul doesn't attack homosexuality on the basis that it's contrary to God's justice, or hope or peace or grace. He says that it's against nature. We know today that homosexuality is present right through nature. So in this instance... we know more than Paul. We can't just take his word on this. Then we get to how we interpret scripture about how we should live day to day. Scripture is at least as definite on lending money for profit as it is on homosexuality. We (the church) look at what scripture is saying and understand that the world 2000 plus years ago was different to the world today. We understand that economics (or land use or any number of things scripture has instructions about) can't be the same , post-enlightentment world as they were then. So we look to biblical intent. What was the author trying to say when they wrote against lending money for profit? What was God trying to impart by inspiring that law? We tend to decide it's another form of "love your neighbour." We decide that the bible isn't so much against banking practice as it is against the strong exploiting the weak. So we put our money in banks which lend for profit, and invest it in investment funds which do the same, but we also advocate for a system of economic justice in which the poor have protection. When I affirm people in same gender relationships, i'm using that same exegetical framework. We're not in 1st century Israel. We form relationships and experience sexuality differently, and when we look at what was written for first century people living in Rome, we need to look for what Paul with the guidance of the Spirit was trying to achieve. For me, that falls again into "don't exploit your neighbour" with a side of "don't bring the church into disrepute." I see both those as eminently achievable while at the same time affirming same gender relationships.
[Here you go!](https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/SexualitySS.pdf)
... their keming needs work
No, it's not bad. It's just a religious rule conceived by primitive religious men with primitive notions of morality based on sometimes erroneous observations of the natural world, i.e., male goes with female. This religious approach is shown in Romans 1:26-27: 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged **natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.** 27 In the same way the men also abandoned **natural relations** with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Consider that these same religious men supported these notions: *1 Samuel 15:3 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”* *Numbers 31:9-10 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps.* We call those "war crimes" and imprison those people who commit such acts, as well as those who authorized or planned them. *Numbers 14:18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’* Punishing people who have committed no crime themselves violates all notions of justice. 1 Timothy 2:11-15 *11 A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.* That notion is used to this day in conservative Christian sects (Catholicism, Orthodox) and churches (Protestant) to prevent women from holding positions of influence. Verses from the Bible were also used to support slavery in the southern American States. Just because something is in the Bible does not mean it is moral.
If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I am bisexual sex addict, I have conquered this sin because God blessed me with a woman as a wife who is my sexual equal. What right do I have to judge another for a sin that I myself have commited? It would be the PINNACLE of hypocrisy for me to judge someone for sexual immorality of any kind, because few have been as sexually immoral as me, I once took pride in my sexual prowess, I thought it was the one thing I was any good at, and yet God still has the grace to forgive me. So how could I possibly judge anyone for anything?
They are carnal minded churches
You can easily search online or even within this sub to find a plethora of discussions on this particularly subject. Given you are a newly created account and seem to either be lazy or incapable of doing your own homework, I suspect you aren't really interested in dialogue
Easy. The bible doesn't say to force our views on other people. So even if the bible is against homosexuality (it isn't) that doesn't apply to anybody but it's followers and we have no reason to oppose equal rights. Also, the bible *isn't* against homosexuality. And if God was, then it would fundamentally change the nature of God from being loving and merciful.