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Source: (consider it) Thread: Homosexuality and Christianity
Louise
Shipmate
# 30

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quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:
quote:
Louise said:
Heterosexual sex is something which can range from the sordid to the sacred but your attitude to the sexual lives of your gay shipmates seems to be that when they make love to their partners they can only be doing something sordid and that hence it is OK for Archbishop Akinola to go around denouncing them as out of their senses and doing stuff no animal would.

For once you’ve said something with which I can wholeheartedly agree. “Sordid” is exactly the right word for anal sex, whether practised in a homosexual relationship, or a heterosexual one. Don’t kid yourself that there is such a thing as “safe anal sex”. [Frown] I invite you to do some more medical research here.



I like to get my medical research from the BMJ:

Bell R. ABC of sexual health. Homosexual men and women. British Medical Journal 1999;318:452-5. (13 February.)
From the section on anal sex:
quote:

The ease of transmission of most sexual infections is similar for vaginal and anal sex, with the exception of HIV, which is much more easily spread by anal sex.

quote:
The greater incidence of hepatitis B is an indicator of a large number of partners, not of specific sexual practices.
But if you and your partner are STD free and faithful to each other, then what precisely is going to get spread to whom by anal sex? - which was my point above. The extra risk only means anything if you are out there shagging around. If you are not and you're partner is not - well HIV doesn't mysteriously appear from nowhere because you're having anal sex.

I happen to know a sexual practice which can lead to death, haemorrhaging, vomiting, fits, piles, hours of agonising pain, incontinence and vaginal and anal tearing: lovely procreative heterosexual sex. You can give me all the lovely theory you like about the female body being designed for it, but when that baby tears you all the way down your perineum, don't tell me that the design spec hasn't been exceeded!

Of course what this whole medicalisation and attempt to talk about human sexuality as if we were dealing with engineering spec for washing machines or writing a medical textbook neglects, is the way the positives of sex balance against the negative. The medical horrors of STDs pregnancy and birth, are for most people outweighed by the rewards of children. For people gay or straight for whom childbirth is not an issue for whatever reason, the risk of STDs is something you can keep as low as possible and which is outweighed by the joy of intimacy, bonding and sexual pleasure with your partner. It seems that when it comes to gay people making love to their partners, though, that some people are only interested in defining it in the most reductionist and negative possible way.

quote:
Faithful sheepdog said:
It’s perfectly possible to discuss one’s disagreement with a theological and moral outlook without degenerating into the racist and violent politics of Scotland in the 1930’s (and today, for that matter – I have witnessed a fist fight in Glasgow during an Orangemen’s March). Do you think that violent thugs pay any attention to what anyone in the church says today, least of all an African bishop?

Your historical analogy here is completely overblown, and far from being exact. In present UK society, gay sex and gay relationships are completely acceptable in a secular context. Even the Police are now represented on Gay Pride marches. I am unaware of any secular voices in the UK arguing against gay sex – possibly the military - but I may be wrong.

I was thinking of the situation in Nigeria where you do have violent religious politics and violence against gay people is accepted. There you do get religious people being quoted with approval denouncing gay people as part of a general chorus of intolerance which stops their situation from improving. For example this newspaper article is a good example of the cocktail of prejudices at work weekly trust Nigeria Whatever it is, it isn't harmless.


As for the UK, I'll come to that in a bit.


quote:
I will agree with you that megaphone rhetoric is far from ideal, and I would not have expressed myself in Akinola’s manner. However, you should acknowledge the blunt and offensive rhetoric that has already permeated this debate from the revisionist side. If you are going to cry “foul”, then at least acknowledge the provocation Akinola received.

I refer to the offensive likening of the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops to a “Nuremberg rally”, and the contemptuous dismissal of African Bishops whose loyalty could be bought for a “chicken dinner”, as well as the patronising attitude of effortless superiority well illustrated by Callan’s posts above.

The provocation Akinola received was the appointment of a celibate gay man as a Bishop. As for the Lambeth conference, I'm quite happy to condemn extreme rhetoric which reaches for Nuremberg similes and the 'chicken dinner' quote sounds nasty, however wasn't this the conference where Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma seized upon Rev. Richard Kirker, called him demon possessed and tried to exorcise him because he was gay? Why doesn't that figure in your analysis?

quote:


I could turn your whole thesis on its head, and discuss the actual violence already being meted out in the UK to conservative Christians perceived not to be in favour of the homosexual agenda, e.g.:

  • Martin Hallett of True Freedom Trusthas received physical intimidation and the disruption of his speaking engagements.
  • Archbishop George Carey had services disrupted and received physical intimidation from Peter Tatchell and Co.(ask Spawn).
  • Peter Tatchell and Co. invaded last year’s C of E General Synod, subjecting the synod members to verbal abuse and emotional distress. He was explicitly supported by at least one poster on SoF.
  • Bishop Oketch of Kenya was assaulted last year in London by two English priests, on account of his views on the immorality of homosexual behaviour. See here, and also this article, which mentions Oketch, as well as a church janitor in the USA beaten for a pastor’s sermon.
  • The official intimidation, including a Police interview, handed out to the Bishop of Chester for his fair and reasonable remarks regarding the possible value of psychiatric therapy to some people experiencing same-sex attraction.


The Okeya incident was discussed on The Ship at an earlier date between Dyfrig and I on this thread and we could find very little evidence for it - it seemed quite fishy. However let's be charitable about the rest, and say that we have some threats and intimidation, some disruptive protestors, someone got briefly questioned by the police because a member of the public was outraged by his views and someone was beaten up in America - so about a dozen, maybe if we are really charitable two dozen cases in all in the UK? The most serious of which being the most dubious case - which is an accusation of a direct assault - yet even that wasn't serious enough to need medical treatment, even if it did occur as was said. So if people were threatened and intimidated or assaulted, that is indeed wrong and wicked but is it anything like comparable with the scale of prejudice, violence and discrimation which gay people face?

Ok well let's look at a few examples of what is known about the pattern of violence against gay people in the UK

quote:
A recent survey of 4000 known homosexuals and bisexuals has shown that 34% of gay men and 24% of lesbians had experienced physical violence and 73% had been taunted in the previous five years because of their sexuality.
Health Education Authority. Mental health promotion and sexual identity. London: HEA, 1998
cited in bmj

In Edinburgh a 1998 study for the Scottish executive found that

quote:
57% of respondents had experienced some form of harassment over the previous year and that with three quarters of these incidents felt by the victims to be based on perpetrators antagonism towards gay men's sexual orientation.
and that

quote:
whilst gay men experience a similar level of 'sexual preference neutral' violence to heterosexual men, the anti-gay violence they also experience increases the prevalence of violence against gay victims to at least three times the national average
quote:
The survey asked local lesbians and gay men about their experiences of violence and harassment. Nine hundred and sixty three questionnaires were returned, almost 90% of them from Edinburgh and 90% of these from men. In brief, the survey found that of male respondents in the previous 12 months, approximately:

30% had experienced verbal abuse
10% had been physically assaulted
7% had been sexually harassed
2.5% had been raped
3.5% had been blackmailed as a result of their sexual orientation
no reports of blackmail or rape had been made to the police and, of the reports made concerning verbal abuse, physical assault and sexual harassment, none of the complainers were satisfied with the police response.

And of course there's the

Admiral Duncan pub bombing 1999 - 3 killed
where ironically the victims when a gay pub was targetted were a young married couple and their best man, not to mention 17 other people badly injured by a nail bomb. because it was a nail bomb injuries were horrific.Many had limbs amputated. Many of the injured were gay. The bomb was quite definitely intended to kill gay men.

The bomber was David Copland a racist and homophobe who planted other bombs.

I could go on and ferret out lots of other stuff on the phenomenon of gay bashing. I haven't even touched on stuff like job discrimination and the way Lesbian and gay people have been treated by the police. However you seem to have very little idea of the scale of the problem in this country. If you're that upset by the dozen or so incidents you've mentioned where you reckon people of your views have been threatened or intimidated, how much more should you be upset about the hundreds of gay and lesbian people who have faced similar and much much worse?

L

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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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Can I take this opportunity to say loudly and clearly that I also supported Peter Tatchell's action at General Synod. It is also my sincere belief that if delegates suffered 'emotional distress' as a result of it then they really do need to get out a bit more.

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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Let's take another slightly different direction.

Here's the sequence.

(1) No Christian tradition approves of forced celibacy.
(2) Christians against any form of same sex sexual intimacy require of gay people voluntary celibacy.
(3) Since gay Christians belonging to churches that follow the teaching in (2) above are frequently disenfranchised; the only way that a gay Christian can remain in such a church is by acting against his / her conscience. If that option is followed the celibacy is enforced and illegitimate.
(4) If the aforementioned gay Christian leaves rather than go against his / her conscience, (as he or she MUST) the church in question rids itself of the "problem" but only by the pain of excommunication; something that it probably thinks is good for that person. (I am well aware of the Apostle Paul's excommunication of a believer for incest ...which brings me to another issue ....)

Doubtless there will be responses here that this same argument against de facto enforced celibacy can be applied to illegal forms of sex as well. It could, of course, but the point is that homosexual activity is NOT illegal.

If the fallback position is then on medical grounds then no branch of psychiatry regards homosexuality as a pyschosomatic disorder.

The next fallback position is that it is unnatural. What is "unnatural" in the context of the prevalence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom? Re Akinola, ... perhaps I am missing something; I rather thought that humans were at least animals. I am aware that some Christians want humans to divest themselves of the animal characteristics of their (single and undivided) human nature, but frankly, this is not only a gross slander on the animal kingdom but also a denial of something God created in us ... that is our animality. We are not angels with desexed and emotionally crippled bodies / minds, (well I have met some Christians who have suffered from that monstrous "ideal").

The final fallback position (the crucial one really) is that homosexuality is immoral. I am willing to learn and some will find this an astonishing question coming from an Orthodox priest ... but what constitutes "immoral" in this context when the case for illegality, pathology and unnaturalness falls apart?

I suppose we just have to deal with the claim that "Christianity / God says so" from whatever basis that claim is made. If, however, every connection with legality, science and common experience / reason has been severed, what have we left except opaque and intractable fundamentalism?

Notice that I am asking questions here and suggesting incoherences / moral escalations (re. celibacy) ... nothing more.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525

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Originally posted by Father Gregory:

quote:
The final fallback position (the crucial one really) is that homosexuality is immoral. I am willing to learn and some will find this an astonishing question coming from an Orthodox priest ... but what constitutes "immoral" in this context when the case for illegality, pathology and unnaturalness falls apart?

I suppose we just have to deal with the claim that "Christianity / God says so" from whatever basis that claim is made. If, however, every connection with legality, science and common experience / reason has been severed, what have we left except opaque and intractable fundamentalism?

I wish I'd said that. [Overused]

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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15

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Top stuff, Gregorios.

--------------------
"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt

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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867

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quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Let's take another slightly different direction.

Here's the sequence.

(1) No Christian tradition approves of forced celibacy.
(2) Christians against any form of same sex sexual intimacy require of gay people voluntary celibacy.
(3) Since gay Christians belonging to churches that follow the teaching in (2) above are frequently disenfranchised; the only way that a gay Christian can remain in such a church is by acting against his / her conscience. If that option is followed the celibacy is enforced and illegitimate.
(4) If the aforementioned gay Christian leaves rather than go against his / her conscience, (as he or she MUST) the church in question rids itself of the "problem" but only by the pain of excommunication; something that it probably thinks is good for that person. (I am well aware of the Apostle Paul's excommunication of a believer for incest ...which brings me to another issue ....)

Doubtless there will be responses here that this same argument against de facto enforced celibacy can be applied to illegal forms of sex as well. It could, of course, but the point is that homosexual activity is NOT illegal.

There is a problem with the logic here. Abstinence from sexual intercourse is by no means the same as forced celibacy. Celibacy is a calling, abstinence is a decision or ultimately a lifetime of decisions. Many single Christians have been abstinent sexually for entire lives – this is not forced celibacy. It is true that these single heterosexual Christians have had the possibility of marriage, but neither is that beyond the realms of possibility for the lesbian or gay Christian (although admittedly that isn’t being true to themselves or their identity as it has been relatively recently defined). However I do know of two examples of Christian gay men who have been in very happy marriages for years.

quote:
I suppose we just have to deal with the claim that "Christianity / God says so" from whatever basis that claim is made. If, however, every connection with legality, science and common experience / reason has been severed, what have we left except opaque and intractable fundamentalism?

Notice that I am asking questions here and suggesting incoherences / moral escalations (re. celibacy) ... nothing more.

I am not convinced by your points. The natural law argument, for example, is rather more sophisticated than you give credit for. The causation of homosexuality is still not agreed widely. The fixing of sexual orientation around some rather political labels seems more problematic from a Christian perspective than you have acknowledged. And the wide variety of the experience of homosexual people is rarely acknowledged in such discussions.

This rather contradicts your suggestion that “every connection with legality, science and common experience/reason” might have been severed – leaving us with rather more than opaque and intractable fundamentalism.

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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Dear Spawn

In the interests of dialogue I must say that I don't think you have answered any of my points.

Sure, celibacy is a calling for some ... gay or straight and that is entirely honourable and as God-pleasing as the married state. However, that is not the position I described in my point-by-point sequence. I said, if you will recall, that celibacy for gays is de facto compulsory if they wish to stay in a Church that rules out sexual expression. Therefore, the honourable state of celibacy is not the point ... it's the conditions in which that becomes mandatory rather than a freely chosen calling.

If the natural law argument is more sophisticated; please elucidate. You have not; therefore, your case is not yet proven.

Political labels? Where?

Wide variety ... of course ... but you are simply repeating your first point and in so doing not addressing my concerns.

I don't think that those concerns can so easily be dismissed. Our reasoning has to be tight and clear. Too much is at stake.

--------------------
Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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TheOrthodoxPlot™

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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
The natural law argument, for example, is rather more sophisticated than you give credit for.

Yet, for all its sophistication, fails to find a significant number of adherents outside of religious traditions.


quote:
The causation of homosexuality is still not agreed widely.

Is this ethically relevant? People on both sides of the debate seem to hold that if homosexuality can be shown to be 'natural', in a reductive biologistic sense, then it is clearly OK. Starting from this premise liberals then argue that 'gays are born that way' and conservatives get some rent-a-psychologist to disagree with the liberals. Yet there are plenty of 'natural' things which are bad (disease, congenital defects with behavioural implications) and plenty of 'unnatural' things which are good (medical treatment, pizza). I happen to hold that, in as much as the nature/ society distinction isn't intrinsically misleading, there is a large input of social construction into peoples' sexual self-understanding. Yet I still hold that (some) gay sex is ethically permissible.

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Faithful Sheepdog
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# 2305

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quote:
Callan said:
When ECUSA consecrated Gene Robinson, Akinola claimed that ECUSA was under the control of Satan. Doesn't that bother you at all?

In the light of the subsequent convulsions that have engulfed both ECUSA and the Anglican Communion, it seems a perfectly reasonable remark for a sound-bite. Clearly there is scope for a much longer and more detailed analysis that doesn’t let us escape the issues of human responsibility.

quote:
GreenT said:
so using your reasoning oral sex is presumably out too

I don’t see how your conclusion follows from my premises, since the medical issues I mentioned relate only to anal sex. I don’t have any comment either way on oral sex. Some on the Ship seem to think it is explicitly referred to with approval in the Song of Songs, as the lover “grazes among the lilies”.

In passing I would note that it is quite possible to transmit STD’s via oral sex, both to the mouth and to the genitals. On the Internet somewhere are some quite spectacularly unpleasant photos of oral herpes (i.e. genital herpes in and around the mouth), but I’ve lost the link.

quote:
Divine Outlaw-Dwarf said:
Incidentally it does amuse me that, when it comes to sex, a certain type of evangelical thinks that God's exact purposes can be deduced from biology. That's very un-evangelical you know. You really ought to be about the otherness and incomprehensibility of God, the fallen-ness of nature and sinful humanity's need for revelation. At least this Anglo-Catholic thinks so.

DOD, please don’t patronise me with this ad-hominem baloney, you are quite capable of a much more sophisticated response. Louise is arguing her case in depth with skill and verve, I encourage you to do the same.

Tatchell’s invasion of the General Synod included an explicit incitement to violence, when he repeatedly taunted the synod members to put him to death, citing Leviticus 18 spuriously. I presume you’re saying that you support this kind of theological illiteracy mixed in with psychological violence?

I remind you that the evangelical and Anglican doctrine is summed up in the BCP, “Almighty God…who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live…”

Incidentally, in my professional engineering work I investigate actual and potential failures, so don’t assume they never occur. I suggest time spent with a lower bowel surgeon investigating the damage gay men inflict on each other.

quote:
Louise said:
But if you and your partner are STD free and faithful to each other, then what precisely is going to get spread to whom by anal sex? - which was my point above. The extra risk only means anything if you are out there shagging around. If you are not and you're partner is not - well HIV doesn't mysteriously appear from nowhere because you're having anal sex.

Louise, I will answer this with a quotation from the Nigerian article that you referenced:

quote:
In his scientific explanation to sodomy, Dr Sani Garba, an expert in preventive cardiology and consultant physician at the Ahmadu Bello University, said there are other risks apart from HIV/AIDS. In an exclusive chat with Weekly Trust, the preventive cardiology expert said same sex intercourse destroys the epithalial layer of anal lining, making the place liable to invasion by some micro-organisms. He went on to say that unlike the inner lining of a woman’s most intimate part, the anal lining is not so lubricated as to "withstand frictional movement".
I submit that there is an inherently damaging quality to anal sex that is not present in vaginal sex.

quote:
Louise said:
The bomber was David Copland a racist and homophobe who planted other bombs.

I was sympathetic to your presentation on the violence suffered by gay people, until I came to this line and you sneaked in the word homophobe, a meaningless boo word that means what you want it to mean. So now it means unspeakably evil and murderously violent criminal thugs who plant nail bombs in gay bars? I will remember that the next time any conservative Christian is accused of homophobia. I always did wonder what it meant.

I am not condoning any level of violence, but what is the evidence that gay people are suffering violence disproportionately to other identifiable groups, such as women, ethnic minorities, teenagers, even Christians for that matter?

I don’t deny that some gay people have suffered appalling violence, but your analysis falls down in not identifying who is responsible for the violence, nor what is motivating those who perpetrate it, not what would encourage them to stop. In particular, what proportion of the violence experienced by gay people was actually perpetrated by other gay people?

quote:
Louise said (on the earlier “Untrustworthy and Two-Faced” Evangelicals thread):
Whether such stuff triggers physical violence or helps create an atmosphere in which physical violence becomes more likely is a good question but it certainly (IMO) doesn't make the world a better place.

Our discussion began with your comment above on Akinola’s remarks, but I note that the Admiral Duncan pub bombing took place in 1999, well before Akinola spoke out, but in the year immediately after the 1998 Lambeth conference.

As I recall, most of the UK secular media was very hostile to the outcome of that conference, pouring complete scorn on the African and Asian bishops who influenced it so decisively. My then Bishop (Richard Holloway) was reportedly “gutted” at the outcome.

How would this have affected the pub-bomber David Copland? Is there any evidence at all that he had any contact with any Christian group? Has he made any allusions to a theological point of view, no matter how unsophisticated? Whence did he derive his violent hatred for gay people?

And equally, how did the hostile media response to Lambeth influence public attitudes to African Christians in particular and Christians in general?

I ask these questions seriously. From where I am sitting it is not UK Christians of any stripe who undertake the violence, nor who support it, but I do see a society gradually closing its mind and clamping down slowly on an open public discourse that will rebound on us all.

quote:
Fr. Gregory said
No Christian tradition approves of forced celibacy.

Fr. Gregory, I’ll query you on this one point. How am I to understand the Orthodox discipline regarding bishops; priests ordained when unmarried; priests whose wives have died; and those who have been divorced three times? As I understand it, marriage is completely forbidden under the Orthodox canons to these groups. Is that not forced celibacy?

I must say that the Orthodox websites I have studied on this subject are quite unashamedly explicit in their calls to celibacy for homosexual people, but I can accept that your conscience is informing you differently.

Neil

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"Random mutation/natural selection works great in folks’ imaginations, but it’s a bust in the real world." ~ Michael J. Behe

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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Quite so DOD. I want to integrate that critique into my comments on natural law. I do not naively assume that just because bonobo chimps are largely bisexual then that's OK for humans. I am rather suggesting as you are (I think) that no SURE case can be built either way on such foundations.

There is a very interesting piece on homosexuality and gender in the animal kingdom (including humans) in the New Scientist this week. A biologist from the States is basically arguing for a revision in Darwin's reproductive / bonding schema to explain the adaptive value of persistent same sex attraction amongst many animals, humans included.

--------------------
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Fr. Gregory
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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FS, I was being a little sarcy perhaps. But my point was that the possibility of deductive natural law is fundamentally incompatible with a classical protestant account of nature and grace, faith and reason. At least as I see it.

Yes, Fr. G., that is what I'm arguing. As is so frequently the case, we agree.

[ 16. January 2004, 13:40: Message edited by: Divine Outlaw-Dwarf ]

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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Dear Neil

quote:
Fr. Gregory, I’ll query you on this one point. How am I to understand the Orthodox discipline regarding bishops; priests ordained when unmarried; priests whose wives have died; and those who have been divorced three times? As I understand it, marriage is completely forbidden under the Orthodox canons to these groups. Is that not forced celibacy?

I must say that the Orthodox websites I have studied on this subject are quite unashamedly explicit in their calls to celibacy for homosexual people, but I can accept that your conscience is informing you differently.

I'll just concentrate on your points to me if you don't mind as I am going out.

In order to be a Christian, I don't have to be an Orthodox bishop. Belonging to a church as a communicant Christian is a different order question.

I have to be very clear about this here and elsewhere. In my ministry I have to make it clear that VOLUNTARY celibacy for gay people is the practice of our church. I don't quibble or dance around on that one. I know that this will sadly cause some very honest and loving and faithful gay people to leave and I do not like that one little bit.

My own personal position does not nor will ever become my teaching position. I am a "man under authority." Nonetheless I do feel obliged to make my personal views known to those of any Church or none who might SEEK them as a private citizen.

As far as the confessional is concerned no one is obliged to confess something he / she doesn't believe to be a sin. Personally, I preach the gospel ... not sexual ethics as a FIRST call on people's attention. Sexual ethics IS best left to the confessional. I CERTAINLY HOPE that this is not the ONLY thing that crops up in the confessional! I think that God may be interested in immoral practices at work for example. There's too much sex about! (Only joking!)

--------------------
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Fr. Gregory
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867

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quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear Spawn

In the interests of dialogue I must say that I don't think you have answered any of my points.

I evidently haven't made myself clear, although quite how you misunderstood the first of my points is beyond me. In the interests of dialogue, I'll reply at greater length later.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
(1) No Christian tradition approves of forced celibacy.

Tell that to Saint Jerome.

--------------------
Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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Faithful Sheepdog, if I trawled through lists of medical practitioners all over the world I could no doubt find individuals espousing all sorts of weird and wonderful positions. Do you have a thread of evidence that mainstream, scientifically founded, medical opinion regards anal sex as being dangerous?

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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Dear Ken

Christian Tradition is never what one person thinks be s/he a Jerome, Luther or Spong. Some saints and great teachers have said some pretty stupid things on occasion. The Church is an orchestra not a soloist. Discordant notes are soon found out.

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Faithful Sheepdog
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# 2305

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quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf:
Faithful Sheepdog, if I trawled through lists of medical practitioners all over the world I could no doubt find individuals espousing all sorts of weird and wonderful positions. Do you have a thread of evidence that mainstream, scientifically founded, medical opinion regards anal sex as being dangerous?

I doubt that medical professionals would use the term dangerous explicitly. They are more likely to use the language of risk and quote statistical rates of infection, dysfunction, trauma or whatever. I'll do some more research and get back to you in due course.

Neil

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Papio

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# 4201

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quote:
Originally posted by Spawn

Many single Christians have been abstinent sexually for entire lives – this is not forced celibacy

Um, sorry I am being rather dense here, but - why not? [Confused]

esp if they are practising "abstinence" because they are gay and/or because they cannot get a date?

(what is difficult about spelling because?)

[ 16. January 2004, 18:40: Message edited by: Papio ]

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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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I await your research with interest, FS. Actually, the medical profession, in the form of the BMA, has no problem about describing activities such as smoking and boxing as being dangerous.

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Rex Monday

None but a blockhead
# 2569

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quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:


...I was sympathetic to your presentation on the violence suffered by gay people, until I came to this line and you sneaked in the word homophobe, a meaningless boo word that means what you want it to mean. So now it means unspeakably evil and murderously violent criminal thugs who plant nail bombs in gay bars? I will remember that the next time any conservative Christian is accused of homophobia. I always did wonder what it meant.
Neil

I've been keeping quiet on this subject, but this one quote is beyond astonishing.

When I don't know what a word means, I look it up in a dictionary. In this case, I do know what the word means because I - like, I thought, everyone else, but clearly not - have seen homophobia at first hand and in very many places. I have had friends beaten up by thugs for being gay: I have had (older) friends express profound distaste and concern because I shared a house with a gay bloke.

It's very simple. Here's a dictionary definition.

ho·mo·pho·bi·a ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hm-fb-)
n.

1. Fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men.
2. Behaviour based on such a feeling.

(homo·phobe n.
homo·phobic adj.)

And yes, a violent psychopathic nail-bomber who hates gay people is a homophobe. So is someone who spits at a gay person on the street, and so is someone who expresses their disgust at 'shirt-lifters' in the pub to their mates. Or someone who decides not to employ someone because they're gay. It is a range of behaviours. This, I would have thought, was so obvious as to not need stating. Clearly not.

If you really don't know what it means, FS, you have utterly disqualified yourself from discussing homosexuality from anything other than an unthinking, emotive, subjective viewpoint, or as a mechanical process between fleshy machines.

I notice you do know what racism is. Imagine I was to say "Clearly, black people have the mark of Cain upon then and shouldn't be priests", but then say "Racism? That's a boo word. I've never known what it means. So a mad nailbomber who hates black people is racist? I'll bear that in mind next time a churchman is called one."

How seriously would you take my comments subsequently?

I'm prepared to believe you've never indulged in anal sex, either in the giving or receiving of rings, and that your obvious ignorance of the facts of the matter is genuine. But either you are employing such clumsy rhetoric over your professed ignorance of homophobia that your debating skills aren't up to the job, or your genuine inability to look around you or read a dictionary disqualifies you utterly from synthesising a cogent approach to what is a huge problem in the church at the moment.

There is a novel - I think it's Kingsley Amis - where at a dinner party, members of an English faculty at a university play a game where they admit which classic of world literature they have never really read. One character enters into the game with a little too much honesty, and his reply - something like Shakespeare - is so ghastly as to ensure he loses his job.

QED

R

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sharkshooter

Not your average shark
# 1589

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quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
Here's a dictionary definition.

ho·mo·pho·bi·a ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hm-fb-)
n.

1. Fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men.
2. Behaviour based on such a feeling.

This leaves out the other class of "homophobes" - those who have no fear or contempt of them but believe that homosexual acts are contrary to Scripture.

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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28

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this quote from faithful sheepdog has left me close to speechless:

quote:
I don’t deny that some gay people have suffered appalling violence, but your analysis falls down in not identifying who is responsible for the violence, nor what is motivating those who perpetrate it, not what would encourage them to stop. In particular, what proportion of the violence experienced by gay people was actually perpetrated by other gay people?


prehaps someone else would care to comment, as i find myself quite incapable of adequatly responding.

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Rex Monday

None but a blockhead
# 2569

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quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
Here's a dictionary definition.

ho·mo·pho·bi·a ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hm-fb-)
n.

1. Fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men.
2. Behaviour based on such a feeling.

This leaves out the other class of "homophobes" - those who have no fear or contempt of them but believe that homosexual acts are contrary to Scripture.
I'm not sure it does. There are any number of acts which are contrary to Scripture, but there is no sign of any coherent, active campaign directed against people who do them with anything like the anti-gay lobby. Not to mention the clear and in many cases extreme antagonism raised over the prospect of a celibate homosexual - look, no acts at all! - being made bishop.

There must be more to it than just concern over unScriptural behaviour. If it's not fear or contempt, then... what is it?

R

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Faithful Sheepdog
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# 2305

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quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
this quote from faithful sheepdog has left me close to speechless:

quote:
I don’t deny that some gay people have suffered appalling violence, but your analysis falls down in not identifying who is responsible for the violence, nor what is motivating those who perpetrate it, not what would encourage them to stop. In particular, what proportion of the violence experienced by gay people was actually perpetrated by other gay people?


prehaps someone else would care to comment, as i find myself quite incapable of adequatly responding.
nicolemrw, there is an unfortunate typo in the phrase "not what would encourage them to stop". It should have read "nor what would encourage them to stop". I only noticed this too late to edit. Whether that improves your speechlessness remains to be seen.

[edited for spelling]

Neil

[ 16. January 2004, 21:18: Message edited by: Faithful Sheepdog ]

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
There are any number of acts which are contrary to Scripture, but there is no sign of any coherent, active campaign directed against people who do them with anything like the anti-gay lobby.

What if one believes homosexual sex acts are sinful, but isn't part of the anti-gay lobby?

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rebekah
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# 2748

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Mousethief's question is an excellent one, there would be a lot of people in this category. When I say 'some of my best friends are lesbian and gay, and, for that matter, transgender', it's not a cliche it's true!

I truly struggle with what Scripture seems to say about same-sex intercourse, but I'm not interested in an anti-gay hunt. The church has better things to do, like live and speak the gospel.

Besides, where is there an adulterer hunt or lobby(in a Christian context) or, even more desireable an indifference to the poor and oppressed hunt?

The above discussion on celibacy is interesting. I am a single hetero-sexual person, I see no other way to live except in celibacy, but I dont think that the church or anyone else in FORCING me to celibacy, I'm choosing it because there is no other honourable lifestyle. Secondarily, I might be asked to resign from my postion as a priest, but that really is not my motivation! It's true that I could (theoretically)get married, but I did read somewhere that a single woman over 30 with a degree is more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to get married. And those statistics were pre 9/11, or as we Australians would put it, 11/9!

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Faithful Sheepdog
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# 2305

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quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:
...I was sympathetic to your presentation on the violence suffered by gay people, until I came to this line and you sneaked in the word homophobe, a meaningless boo word that means what you want it to mean. So now it means unspeakably evil and murderously violent criminal thugs who plant nail bombs in gay bars? I will remember that the next time any conservative Christian is accused of homophobia. I always did wonder what it meant.

I've been keeping quiet on this subject, but this one quote is beyond astonishing.

<snip>

I'm prepared to believe you've never indulged in anal sex, either in the giving or receiving of rings, and that your obvious ignorance of the facts of the matter is genuine.

Dear Rex Monday

Maybe my attempt at sarcasm wasn’t explicit enough, since you seem to have completely missed my point. I’m quite capable of using a dictionary for myself, thank you - English or Greek - but if you think that the word homophobia is adequate to describe a despicably evil act of violence with a nail bomb, then I can only fear for the future of the English language– as well as for our society.

I submit that the only reason you want to hang onto such a linguistically debased term is to make an implicit emotional link between the actions of a psychopathic killer and the views of conservatively minded Christians. You’d be better off saying we both breathe oxygen – at least that would be true.

And I’m still trying to figure out exactly what you meant by “the giving or receiving of rings”. In context it reads like a euphemism for anal penetration. If I’ve understood you correctly, then you do like linguistic whitewash.

You’re quite right when you say I have no experience whatsoever of anal sex. I’ve no experience either of nail bombs, but that doesn’t stop me having some forthright opinions on them. Maybe you’d like to tell us what is so good and holy about anal sex?

Neil

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Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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Dear Rebekah

Concerning celibacy ... the point is that in a Christian context as a heterosexual you have a traditional choice, (celibacy or married intercourse).

You can indeed say that option "A" is much more feasible / likely than option "B," but the point is that in so doing you never lose self determination within traditional Christian parameters.

A Christian homosexual has no choice if s/he wishres to remain in certain churches. Some "eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom" have both the calling, the disposition and resources to do that. Others don't. The only way out for these, short of denying their consciences and accepting unchosen and permanent sexual loneliness is to leave that church or deceive it by concealment. That's what I'm not happy about.

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Rex Monday

None but a blockhead
# 2569

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quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
There are any number of acts which are contrary to Scripture, but there is no sign of any coherent, active campaign directed against people who do them with anything like the anti-gay lobby.

What if one believes homosexual sex acts are sinful, but isn't part of the anti-gay lobby?
Not quite sure what you mean - there are plenty of people who are casual homophobes and don't join up in the organised fight against gayness!

I imagine there's a spectrum of Christians, from those who know in their hearts that homosexual acts are disgusting and wrong and find to their comfort that the Bible appears to support them, to those who don't believe there's anything wrong with gay sex and don't believe that the Bible says there is. Along that line, there may be people who don't understand why the Bible says its wrong, but it's the Bible so it must be. I'm not sure there's anyone who thinks that gay sex is wrong but thinks the BIble teaches otherwise, mind, but I'd be intrigued to find out.

Are you homophobic if you think there's nothing wrong with gay sex 'cept the Bible says so? I wouldn't think so per se, but I would (did) find it an uncomfortable position to hold.


(I can't see it as sinful, because I can't see it as immoral no matter how hard I try and I *can* see its scriptural proscription as codifying an atavistic human instinct. In fact, looking at history and - sadly - today's world, I'd call the scriptural injunctions against homosexuality as actively harmful.

But then, I'm no inerrantist.)

R

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Rex Monday

None but a blockhead
# 2569

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FS-

Homophobia is capable of expressing itself from the smallest way to the biggest. Where in the dictionary does it say that the term is limited to only the bomb-throwing end of the spectrum?

I don't know what you mean by it being 'adequate' to describe a nailbomb. Necessary but not sufficient, I'd say. But nonetheless, accurate.

Do you consider 'racism' a lingustically debased term?

I can see my puns, bad taste though they may be, are inappropriate.

Found that medical consensus against anal sex yet?

R

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Louise
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# 30

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quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:
.

quote:
Louise said:
But if you and your partner are STD free and faithful to each other, then what precisely is going to get spread to whom by anal sex? - which was my point above. The extra risk only means anything if you are out there shagging around. If you are not and you're partner is not - well HIV doesn't mysteriously appear from nowhere because you're having anal sex.

Louise, I will answer this with a quotation from the Nigerian article that you referenced:

quote:
In his scientific explanation to sodomy, Dr Sani Garba, an expert in preventive cardiology and consultant physician at the Ahmadu Bello University, said there are other risks apart from HIV/AIDS. In an exclusive chat with Weekly Trust, the preventive cardiology expert said same sex intercourse destroys the epithalial layer of anal lining, making the place liable to invasion by some micro-organisms. He went on to say that unlike the inner lining of a woman’s most intimate part, the anal lining is not so lubricated as to "withstand frictional movement".
I submit that there is an inherently damaging quality to anal sex that is not present in vaginal sex.


You're citing a Cardiologist as an authority on anal sex!

Not only that, but I cited that particular news article as an illustration of bad journalism and prejudice. To reproduce something from it as if it were a reputable authority is not very convincing.

Also your 'expert' apparently has never heard of lube.

But let's be serious here. If you have two monogamous folks using condoms and lube, you are not passing on STDs, and to quote from the BMJ article I referenced last time

quote:
Piles and anal fissures are no more common in gay men than in the general population
So I think you're overstating your case a bit here.

But even suppose, for the sake of the argument somebody is doing something more risky - where does your sort of analysis leave other deeply unnatural stuff?

Take cars for example: being conveyed in motor vehicles at speeds far higher than our fragile hunter-gatherer bodies were intended for can have terrible effects. I had one of those surgeons in the back of my car once and he said " Please stop! Slow down! Aaaaaaargh!". No seriously, if you want to see what's filling casualty departments with things too sad and horrible to mention - look out the window at the passing cars. Car driving kills and maims people, affects air quality and the environment and it is something which can never be entirely safe. Would you seriously suggest therefore that nobody should ever drive or be a passenger in a car?

And that's not to mention all the other high-risk human activities like flying, ice-climbing, deep sea diving. Humans will do stuff they find beautiful and meaningful and exciting and fun even if it's extremely risky. By comparison anal sex with your partner is boringly safe.

If, bless you, you're so terribly worried that someone, in the course of having a wonderful time in bed with the love of their life might get a sore bum (if their partner doesn't slap on enough lube), that you think it must be campaigned against at all costs, then er... shouldn't you be very, very busy indeed protesting all sorts of things which lead to much worse consequences?

quote:
Louise said:
The bomber was David Copland a racist and homophobe who planted other bombs.

quote:
I was sympathetic to your presentation on the violence suffered by gay people, until I came to this line and you sneaked in the word homophobe, a meaningless boo word that means what you want it to mean. So now it means unspeakably evil and murderously violent criminal thugs who plant nail bombs in gay bars? I will remember that the next time any conservative Christian is accused of homophobia. I always did wonder what it meant.

Well, here I'm afraid I think you have lost the plot. Homophobe is the word which has developed in the English language to mean someone who is prejudiced against gay people, in the way that racist is the word for people prejudiced on grounds of race. To try to dismiss a discussion of violence against gay people over the use of the word, in regard to a nail bomber who wanted to kill gay people, is as ridiculous as saying it's not OK to call Thomas Blanton, the Birmingham, Alabama church bomber a racist and therefore you can't listen to people who want to discuss violence against black people.

quote:
I am not condoning any level of violence, but what is the evidence that gay people are suffering violence disproportionately to other identifiable groups, such as women, ethnic minorities, teenagers, even Christians for that matter?

I don’t deny that some gay people have suffered appalling violence, but your analysis falls down in not identifying who is responsible for the violence, nor what is motivating those who perpetrate it, not what would encourage them to stop. In particular, what proportion of the violence experienced by gay people was actually perpetrated by other gay people?

On the basis of a very small number of incidents of harassment against conservative Christians you expected us to react as if it meant free speech itself was under threat and people of your viewpoint were under danger of being silenced. Yet from just these two studies, I cited earlier, we have hundreds of people reporting that they have suffered violence or harassment because of their sexual orientation. Hundreds. And yet you quibble with me and want me to prove to you that hundreds of people being assaulted is significant!

The Edinburgh survey carefully investigated how much violence against gay people was due to just the normal run of the mill violence anyone could expect and how much was gay-related (eg. involved stuff like people shouting anti-gay abuse) and the conclusion they came to was

quote:
Gay men experienced a similar level of 'sexual preference neutral' violence to heterosexual men, but anti-gay motivated attacks increased the prevalence of violence in the gay community to at least three times the national average. This estimate attempted to account of age bias in the sample, and excluded attempted and minor assaults (being spat on, or having objects thrown).
As for

quote:
In particular, what proportion of the violence experienced by gay people was actually perpetrated by other gay people?
Any such violence would count as 'sexual preference neutral' violence and so would not be counted.

Domestic violence and street crime (where the principal victims are adolescent males) are, I hope we would all agree, large scale problems we would want to work against, but we are not playing a zero sum game here, where worrying about one sort of violence means that other sorts can be written off.

I've looked for comparative stuff on racist/gay crime but can't find a good analysis because studies count things differently. Scotland has an ethnic population of about 60, 000 people and there were 2, 731 'racist incidents' reported to the police in 2000-2001 - figures for incident numbers here. All one can safely say is that both communities suffer high levels of abuse and both sorts of prejudice should be taken very seriously. Again if you consider about a dozen incidents regarding people of your own views to be so serious that it represents the potential end of free speech in the UK, then the fact that anti-gay incidents run into hundreds from one or two surveys covering limited periods, hardly gives you a leg to stand on for downplaying the seriousness of violence and harassment against gay people.

quote:
Our discussion began with your comment above on Akinola’s remarks, but I note that the Admiral Duncan pub bombing took place in 1999, well before Akinola spoke out, but in the year immediately after the 1998 Lambeth conference.

As I recall, most of the UK secular media was very hostile to the outcome of that conference, pouring complete scorn on the African and Asian bishops who influenced it so decisively. My then Bishop (Richard Holloway) was reportedly “gutted” at the outcome.

How would this have affected the pub-bomber David Copland? Is there any evidence at all that he had any contact with any Christian group? Has he made any allusions to a theological point of view, no matter how unsophisticated? Whence did he derive his violent hatred for gay people?

And equally, how did the hostile media response to Lambeth influence public attitudes to African Christians in particular and Christians in general?

I ask these questions seriously. From where I am sitting it is not UK Christians of any stripe who undertake the violence, nor who support it, but I do see a society gradually closing its mind and clamping down slowly on an open public discourse that will rebound on us all.

Copeland was a very very screwed up person, part of the influence on him was reading stuff from very extreme American Christian groups. Copeland the killer

As he put it

quote:
The Jew, devil's disciples and peoples of mud must be driven out of our land," he wrote.

"It is God's law and we must obey." "I bomb the blacks, 'pakkies', degenerates. "I would have bombed the Jews as well if I'd got a chance."

But you can't legislate for every deeply screwed up person. My point in mentioning him was to illustrate the spectrum of violence to which gay people are subjected - everything from abuse and assaults on the street to nail bombing - in the face of your attempt to claim that I was exaggerating when I spoke of gay people as a minority who are subject to violence.

My point is very simple. I think certain sorts of rhetoric do indeed amount to hatemongering. Comparing innocent minority groups to paedophiles, Nazis or animals or saying they are demon-posessed or satanically inspired are where I draw the line, because such rhetoric helps to dehumanise others and to make them seem like legitimate targets for others.

If you don't believe that such rhetoric is harmful, then why should you have any objection to people describing conservative Christians or African Bishops using such rhetoric?


I well remember the 'Keep the Clause' campaign in Scotland which was pushed by people like Brian Souter and Cardinal Winning, even some of my own friends got involved. The result was a great outpouring of anti-gay stuff in the media much of it from people identifying themsleves as Christians, and violence against gay people actually went up.


quote:
There have been more immediate casualties also - an increase in bullying, homophobic attacks and the reawakening of a latent prejudice in Scottish school playgrounds. There has been an increase in attacks on homosexuals and gay switchboards are finding that suicide threats have doubled.
Sunday Herald

In the survey I mentioned earlier, rates of violence against gay people in Edinburgh were three times the national average, in the survey taken at the time of the Section 28 furore they went up to four times the national average.

Assaults lead to climate of fear for Scottish gays NB - ignore the typo further down it's '4 times' not '14 times'


This law which was much championed by many Christians also allowed bullying of children who either were or were perceived as gay to flourish in schools.

BBC report of Education Institute research

The exact alchemy by which a tirade by 'A. Christian' about the evils of sodomy on the letters page of the 'Daily Record' or 'The Sun' or 'Evening News' turns into a pissed-up Edinburgher deciding that a spot of queer bashing on Calton Hill would make a nice alternative to a kebab is not something I am privy to. But that a lot of 'A. Christians' adding to the postbag along with the other 'A. Readers' with their views on how 'sordid' gay sex is, how gays 'spread disease' how 'they're a danger to our children' etc. has something to do with it, I don't doubt. Attacks against asylum seekers have been on the rise since the recent campaigns against them in certain tabloids.


That's why I was so shocked when in Purgatory I found you trying to claim that what Archibishop Akinola said was perfectly harmless ordinary Christian stuff. It wasn't. Once you start into rhetoric where you compare people to animals, particularly in an atmosphere where those people are already subject to violence, then you are becoming an accomplice to violence in however small a way. As John Huss said to the peasant who brought a single faggot to add to the pile to be used to burn him at the stake - 'O sancta simplicitas!'

Now you actually raise a good question. If you want to say something negative about a persecuted group in your society - how do you say it? And my answer is that if your conscience tells you you have to say it and you've checked your evidence, then you still say it but you say it very thoughtfully and carefully. For me that means to recap what I said above - I personally belive it's wrong to demonise people: no animal comparisons, no Nazi comparisons, no paedophile comparisons, no 'you're satanically-posessed' etc.

That's my opinion. I'm not enforcing it on others. I'm simply saying that's where I personally draw the line and why I took issue with your support for Archbishop Akinola's remarks

cheers,
L.

[Duplicated post deleted as requested]

[ 18. January 2004, 11:55: Message edited by: TonyK ]

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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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Basically what people are saying is, "any opinion on the matter that I don't agree with is based in hatred."

[Roll Eyes]

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Louise
Shipmate
# 30

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quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Basically what people are saying is, "any opinion on the matter that I don't agree with is based in hatred."

[Roll Eyes]

Mousethief, If you're referring to me then kindly quote where I have said or implied any such thing.

L

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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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quote:
Originally posted by rebekah:


I truly struggle with what Scripture seems to say about same-sex intercourse, but I'm not interested in an anti-gay hunt.

Pedantry on my part, perhaps, but I don't think Scripture says anything about female-female intercourse. Does it?

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Posts: 8705 | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Mousethief, If you're referring to me then kindly quote where I have said or implied any such thing.

Didn't have you in mind at all, my dear.

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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...

Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Faithful Sheepdog
Shipmate
# 2305

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quote:
Rex Monday said:
Found that medical consensus against anal sex yet?

Rex Monday, I notice that you have not even attempted to answer my question about what is good and holy about anal sex. Since you seem to have more knowledge and experience than I, maybe you would like to make a positive case for the medical safety of anal sex.

Neil

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"Random mutation/natural selection works great in folks’ imaginations, but it’s a bust in the real world." ~ Michael J. Behe

Posts: 1097 | From: Scotland | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Papio

Ship's baboon
# 4201

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quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf:
quote:
Originally posted by rebekah:


I truly struggle with what Scripture seems to say about same-sex intercourse, but I'm not interested in an anti-gay hunt.

Pedantry on my part, perhaps, but I don't think Scripture says anything about female-female intercourse. Does it?
well, the only verse I can think of would be Romans 1:26 which arguably does. But please review my other contributions to this thread before accusing me of anything, people.

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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Faithful Sheepdog
Shipmate
# 2305

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Louise, I must congratulate you on the depth in which you present and document your case. In summary it appears to be:
  1. Some homosexual people are suffering physical violence and abuse from others in society.
  2. Conservative Christian theology wrongly considers all homosexual sex to be a sin.
  3. Some Christians are inappropriately outspoken about homosexual people and behaviour, in a way that “triggers physical violence or helps create an atmosphere in which physical violence becomes more likely”.
  4. Therefore, inappropriately outspoken Christians are as guilty and complicit in the present-day violence to homosexuals as was the peasant who added a faggot to John Huss’s bonfire.
I hope I have summarised your views correctly. For now I shall leave it to the Ship to reach their own conclusions about whether you have substantiated point 3, and whether the evidence justifies the explicit link you then make in point 4.

In due course I may post more on the word homophobia, since I have obviously not made my linguistic point clearly enough.

Neil

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"Random mutation/natural selection works great in folks’ imaginations, but it’s a bust in the real world." ~ Michael J. Behe

Posts: 1097 | From: Scotland | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252

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quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:
Since you seem to have more knowledge and experience than I, maybe you would like to make a positive case for the medical safety of anal sex.

Neil

Burden of proof, anyone?

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Posts: 8705 | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
Father Gregory

Orthodoxy
# 310

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No sexual act comes without attendant medical risks. Any intimate human contact (so vital when appropriately conferred for our humanity and psychological / relational health) is contact with risk of infection.

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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™

Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Louise
Shipmate
# 30

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quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:
Louise, I must congratulate you on the depth in which you present and document your case. In summary it appears to be:
  1. Some homosexual people are suffering physical violence and abuse from others in society.
  2. Conservative Christian theology wrongly considers all homosexual sex to be a sin.
  3. Some Christians are inappropriately outspoken about homosexual people and behaviour, in a way that “triggers physical violence or helps create an atmosphere in which physical violence becomes more likely”.
  4. Therefore, inappropriately outspoken Christians are as guilty and complicit in the present-day violence to homosexuals as was the peasant who added a faggot to John Huss’s bonfire.
I hope I have summarised your views correctly. For now I shall leave it to the Ship to reach their own conclusions about whether you have substantiated point 3, and whether the evidence justifies the explicit link you then make in point 4.

In due course I may post more on the word homophobia, since I have obviously not made my linguistic point clearly enough.

Neil

Yes, basically, I'd say that's about right. I worry that certain sorts of rhetoric can be harmful and I think people often say strong things which unwittingly add fuel to the fire - resulting in things they never dreamt of, and would never condone.

cheers,
L.

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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
RuthW

liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13

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In regards to the dangers associated with heterosexual sex: I remember opening up my first pack of birth control pills and reading the insert that described the possible side effects. I was still hesitating about whether I wanted to re-arrange my body chemistry, but when I read that pregnancy and giving birth were more likely to kill me than birth control, I popped the first pill.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Laura
General nuisance
# 10

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quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:
quote:
Callan said:
When ECUSA consecrated Gene Robinson, Akinola claimed that ECUSA was under the control of Satan. Doesn't that bother you at all?

In the light of the subsequent convulsions that have engulfed both ECUSA and the Anglican Communion, it seems a perfectly reasonable remark for a sound-bite. Clearly there is scope for a much longer and more detailed analysis that doesn’t let us escape the issues of human responsibility.
I'm sorry, I let this slip by. Setting aside all the other parts of this argument, I really do expect that people won't make excuses for +Akinola. This sort of statement (which you call a reasonable sound bite) is so beyond-the-pale that there is no defense for it. The ECUSA under the control of Satan? Every time I read his remarks, I can't believe anyone makes excuses for him. It doesn't matter where one stands on the issue that provoked the remarks.

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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm

Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Alt Wally

Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245

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Callan said:

quote:
Akinola claimed that ECUSA was under the control of Satan.
Perhaps that explains the rather poor quality coffee I had at the last few services I was at.
Posts: 3684 | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Grits
Compassionate fundamentalist
# 4169

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Ah, we had been postulating about your decision to leave. Should have known it was the lame latte, the inexpressive expresso, the noncaptivating cappuccino, the motley mocha...

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Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff, and shut it when I've said enough. Amen.

Posts: 8419 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw-Dwarf:
quote:
Originally posted by Faithful Sheepdog:
Since you seem to have more knowledge and experience than I, maybe you would like to make a positive case for the medical safety of anal sex.

Neil

Burden of proof, anyone?
I'm surprised that there isn't more information about this kind of thing on the web.

I found one site called NARTH that vaguely, and not especially convincingly, mentioned the following:

quote:
"Classic sexually transmitted diseases (gonorrhea, infections with Chlamydia trachomatis, syphilis, herpes simplex infections, genital warts, pubic lice, scabies); enteric diseases (infections with Shigella species, Campylobacter jejuni, Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia, ["gay bowel disease"], Hepatitis A, B, C, D, and cytomegalovirus); trauma (related to and/or resulting in fecal incontinence, hemorroids, anal fissure, foreign bodies lodged in the rectum, rectosigmoid tears, allergic proctitis, penile edema, chemical sinusitis, inhaled nitrite burns, and sexual assault of the male patient); and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome."
But you would think that after all this time there would be reliable statistical studies. Most of what I read was angrily and self-righteously either pro or con and therefore not very helpful.

Or is it too politically sensitive for there to be actual unbiased information? You would think that people would be worried about this. [Confused]

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Callan
Shipmate
# 525

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My wife is a pharmacist, who specialises in the fields of sexual health and HIV. So naturally I asked her.

Naturally she replied: "Why do you want to know?"
[Paranoid]

Having reassured her that my interest was purely academic, her first point was that discussion of anal sex is not completely relevant to a discussion of the licitness of homosexuality because anal sex is practiced by more heterosexuals than homosexuals. There are attendant risks with anal sex, which can be dealt with by lube and good hygene.

I asked: "if anal sex could be bought over the counter at the newsagent in packets of twenty, would the government insist on a health warning".
To which the reply was that all forms of sexual activity require a health warning, but anal sex is no more inherently risky than any other.

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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton

Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Belle
Shipmate
# 4792

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Surely we aren't now debating 'anal sex and christianity'? Anal sex is not confined solely to homosexual relationships as far as I'm aware. Nor do all homosexual people necessarily practice anal sex. Homosexuality isn't about what is done sexually in a relationship is it? But about the fact that what is being done is being done by persons of the same sex.

I can't imagine many christians (of whatever opinion about homosexuality)disagreeing that knowingly or intentionally putting one's sexual partner at risk - of physical, psychological or emotional harm, is not a responsible or loving thing to do, and therefore cannot possibly be a Christian thing to do. However - none of those things are exclusive to homosexual relationships either.

Why is it that things done between monogamous adults in a committed, (married if you will), consensual relationship are acceptable only if the parties are of the opposite sex to one another? Don't those who want to take the debate beyond 'it's wrong because it says so in the Bible' have to come up with something other than things that can be levelled at any relationship whether gay or straight?

I think that for many Christians, 'it's wrong because it says so in the Bible' just doesn't cut it any more. There are other things in the Bible we ignore quite happily nowadays. I can't help thinking that we make such a fuss about this one quite simply because of a 'yuk' factor that has its roots way back in a prejudice learned by our ancestors - which may well have its roots more in a fear of anything which didn't perpetuate the tribal genes rather than anything else.

But that's only my opinion & everyone else has theirs. I think where more recent generations differ from those that preceded them is that more people think of the Bible as a historical text - a product of its culture and time - and are prepared to consider that if the law and the prophets proceed from the injunction to love others as we love ourselves, the 'rules' may indeed change over the millenia - not on a selfish whim, to suit ourselves but due to sometimes painful self examination and a recognition of true injustice and demonstrable harm to others.

No one is going to be forced to become homosexual (if such a thing were possible) by the simple recognition that for some people (and by no means the vast majority) the natural and healthy expression of their sexuality is within a same sex relationship. Nor is that recognition thus legitimising promiscuity or fornication. The Christian values that apply to heterosexual relationships (and in any case are often ignored or glossed over there by Christian and non-Christian alike) would/do apply just as surely to homosexual ones.

So what exactly are the reasons homosexuality is bad? Because the Bible tells me so?

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Posts: 318 | From: Kent, UK | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
Papio

Ship's baboon
# 4201

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Belle - the reasons that the anti-gay lobby (of whom I am not) give for disagreing with homosexuality include:

1) It is unnatural
2) We can see from Genesis that homosexuality is not God's plan for humanity
3) The Bible says it is wrong
4) the main point of sex is procreation and gays/lesbians cannot procreate.
5) Gays and lesbians deprive straight people of loving partners.
6) No-one is really gay, they are just confused

to which the following completely adequate answers can be given

1) Bollocks
2) Adam and Eve (who didn't exist) = the whole of humanity?
3) So is wearing clothes made out of two or more fabrics, according to the Bible.
4) Bollocks. My mum is a lesbian and she managed it and the idea that sex is for procreation has more holes than the average tea-strainer
5) Bollocks
6) Bollocks

Hope that helps. [Smile]

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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
My "LibraryThing" page

Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365

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quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
her first point was that discussion of anal sex is not completely relevant to a discussion of the licitness of homosexuality because anal sex is practiced by more heterosexuals than homosexuals. There are attendant risks with anal sex, which can be dealt with by lube and good hygene.
I asked: "if anal sex could be bought over the counter at the newsagent in packets of twenty, would the government insist on a health warning".
To which the reply was that all forms of sexual activity require a health warning, but anal sex is no more inherently risky than any other.

OK. Thanks. That's helpful. Except that it contradicts much of what I have read from other sources - probably biased sources.

It would be great to find some unbiased, hopefully statistical, information about this.

It's not that we're debating "anal sex v. Christianity", it's just that the question is out there as to whether this kind of sex is inherently unsafe.

I'm sure that it's debatable whether this kind of sex is more common in homo or hetero relationships, although I would expect to be able to find fairly reliable statistics about this if I looked.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged



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