Methodists affirm gay marriage.

[Outrider]

You can love a gay person without condoning what they do.

Qualified love, though, is a poisoned chalice - if you love someone despite who they are it comes across as love out of expectation, love of the role or the relationship rather than love of the person. You don't love them for them, you love them for something else.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Qualified love, though, is a poisoned chalice - if you love someone despite who they are it comes across as love out of expectation, love of the role or the relationship rather than love of the person. You don't love them for them, you love them for something else.

O.

I don't think Spud is talking of ''qualified love''.

[Nearly Sane]

I don't think Spud is talking of ''qualified love''.

And yet he and you want gay people to be treated as inferior by your church(es)

[Outrider]

I don't think Spud is talking of ''qualified love''.

By definition he is - claiming to love someone whilst condemning something that is a fundamental part of who they are and their life, such as their sexuality, is a qualified statement of love.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

By definition he is - claiming to love someone whilst condemning something that is a fundamental part of who they are and their life, such as their sexuality, is a qualified statement of love.

O.

In the context of Marriage though even holy matrimony is just for our life on earth and so presumably is gender and sexuality Since we will become spiritual bodies. These things may be fundamental if this is "The one life we have" Gay Marriage is legal and I support it.

From Spud's perspective since Marriage and sexuality are not fundamentals he is free to love anyone unconditionally.

[Spud]

Spud,

Ah, the old “hate the sin, love the sinner” perniciousness beloved of many a Christian.

First, it’s not your position to “condone” what gay people “do”, any more than it’s their position to condone what you do. What other people do in bed is none of your business. Try to understand that.

Second, if you “love” someone why would you also deny them rights and services? Surely you’d be concerned to ensure they enjoy equality with everyone else wouldn’t you?

It's the Church leader's responsibility to bring people to God; this involves among other things teaching what God says about sexual morality. If the Bible teaches that acting on same-sex attraction is immoral, how can a minister teach God's word while affirming a homosexual relationship by conducting a gay wedding? And is it more loving to lead people to think that they are obeying God when they are not, or to tell them straight?

[ProfessorDavey]

In the context of Marriage though even holy matrimony is just for our life on earth and so presumably is gender and sexuality Since we will become spiritual bodies. These things may be fundamental if this is "The one life we have" Gay Marriage is legal and I support it.

Pure assertion with not one iota of evidence to support it.

From Spud's perspective since Marriage and sexuality are not fundamentals he is free to love anyone unconditionally.

But he doesn't does he - even ignoring your baseless assertions his 'love' for gay people is clearly conditional in comparison with heterosexual people as he condemns their ability to express their love and presumably thinks they shouldn't engage in such activities. It is also conditional in that he won't afford the basic fundamental freedoms to get married to gay people.

Seems pretty darned conditional to me.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

In the context of Marriage though even holy matrimony is just for our life on earth and so presumably is gender and sexuality…

As “our life on earth” is the only version we can verify, so are all social conventions. 

Since we will become spiritual bodies.

Once again: you can’t have an unqualified faith claim as your premise. What you’re trying again here is akin to:

Premise: since leprechauns are great hoarders…

Conclusion: …it’s reasonable therefore to surmise that they leave their pots of gold at the ends of rainbow.

I’ve corrected you on this before, so why have you just made the same mistake?

These things may be fundamental if this is "The one life we have" Gay Marriage is legal and I support it.

No you don’t. You’ve told us that you support the plain vanilla, common-or-garden, non-“holy” version of equal marriage, but the “holy”, extra special, “God really likes this one” version you want firmly kept away from gay people right? You know, the homophobic part you keep deflecting from. 

From Spud's perspective since Marriage and sexuality are not fundamentals he is free to love anyone unconditionally.

Except he doesn’t though - far from it. He’s like a parent who’s given his twins lots of toys to show he loves them, only the really shiny new ones are just for little Tommy to enjoy but are permanently locked away from little Timmy (who by the way also gets to see little Tommy play with them).   

How should little Timmy feel about Spud’s “unconditional” love would you say?

[Roses]

It's the Church leader's responsibility to bring people to God; this involves among other things teaching what God says about sexual morality. If the Bible teaches that acting on same-sex attraction is immoral, how can a minister teach God's word while affirming a homosexual relationship by conducting a gay wedding? And is it more loving to lead people to think that they are obeying God when they are not, or to tell them straight?

The Bible was written by authors who attributed to god their take on life. To brand same sex relationships as immoral is stupid and very wrong. God's 'thoughts' need to be updated now we live in the 21st century.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Pure assertion with not one iota of evidence to support it.

Except this is exactly the model of holy matrimony you are campaigning for Gay Christians to have.

But he doesn't does he - even ignoring your baseless assertions his 'love' for gay people is clearly conditional in comparison with heterosexual people as he condemns their ability to express their love

but then so are you by campaigning for Gay Christians to have a version of the model acceptable to you. Own up you don’t really want churches or holy matrimony for anyone.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

It's the Church leader's responsibility to bring people to God; this involves among other things teaching what God says about sexual morality. If the Bible teaches that acting on same-sex attraction is immoral, how can a minister teach God's word while affirming a homosexual relationship by conducting a gay wedding? And is it more loving to lead people to think that they are obeying God when they are not, or to tell them straight?

What you’re telling us here is that your church is forced to behave homophobically because it thinks it’s carrying out the homophobic wishes of the homophobic god it believes exists.

Can you see now how faith beliefs can screw up our ordinary moral compass?     

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

Except this is exactly the model of holy matrimony you are campaigning for Gay Christians to have.

Yes. If gay Christians find meaning in it and want it why shouldn’t they have it?

…but then so are you by campaigning for Gay Christians to have a version of the model acceptable to you. Own up you don’t really want churches or holy matrimony for anyone.

Another dog’s breakfast attempt at reasoning here: what he (and I) want is a society that thinks that discrimination on the ground of innate characteristics is a bad thing.

The types of rights, the types of characteristics and whether the people arguing that would ever want them for themselves are entirely irrelevant to the argument. You know this already thought don’t you – your (presumably) would argue against “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish” signs in the windows of B&Bs even though you are none of those things and would have no interest in staying in the B&B either.

This shouldn’t be hard to grasp Vlad, even for you.         

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Spud,

What you’re telling us here is that your church is forced to behave homophobically because it thinks it’s carrying out the homophobic wishes of the homophobic god it believes exists.

Can you see now how faith beliefs can screw up our ordinary moral compass?   

Oh spare us. When I suggested that morality was homeostatic you dismissed the idea. And here you are talking of moral compasses. Compasses are homeostatic.

You don’t really believe in moral compasses but in moral hegemony and at the moment that means weaponisation of homosexuality.

As for a homophobic god you cannot conceive of a God and so are bound to cast this as homophobia by person.

You aren’t therefore campaigning for holy matrimony at all and don’t actually give a shit about gay Christians.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

Oh spare us. When I suggested that morality was homeostatic you dismissed the idea. And here you are talking of moral compasses. Compasses are homeostatic.

What fresh gibberish are you trying now? Evolution has given us innate behaviours we call “moral”: our genomes survive better in tribal societies than they do living alone, so “murder bad” for example has become embedded. That's the "moral compass".     

You don’t really believe in moral compasses but in moral hegemony and at the moment that means weaponisation of homosexuality.

You’ve had this mad stupidity detonated several times now without responding so I don’t know why you’re just repeating it.

As for a homophobic god you cannot conceive of a God and so are bound to cast this as homophobia by person.

I don’t need to “conceive of a God” – I just need to conceive of homophobia. If you want describe a god story that’s homophobic, so be it. 

You aren’t therefore campaigning for holy matrimony at all and don’t actually give a shit about gay Christians.

Just telling lies as your latest deflection isn’t helping you. I “campaign” for equal rights about equal marriage services in the same way I’d campaign about “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish” signs in B&Bs, and for the same reasons. Why don’t you?     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VtH,

Yes. If gay Christians find meaning in it and want it why shouldn’t they have it?
   

They can........see thread title.

Given that, Is your campaign now all clergy should be coerced into it even though they believe there isn’t or may not be actual meaning in it?

[bluehillside Retd.]

VtH,

Your latest evasions and deflections are noted.

They can........see thread title.

Which department of your church should gay people apply to to book a "holy" matrimony service?

Given that, Is your campaign now all clergy should be coerced into it even though believe there isn’t or may not be actual meaning in it?

Is your campaign that all all bus companies should be coerced into allowing black passengers to sit wherever they wish?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VtH,

Your latest evasions and deflections are noted.

Which department of your church should gay people apply to to book a "holy" matrimony service?

Is your campaign that all all bus companies should be coerced into allowing black passengers to sit wherever they wish?   Is this a holy bus company and when you say black do you actually mean gay? I DON'T think the Cof E dictates which seats Black Christians sit in......or gay Christians.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad the Homophobe,

Is this a holy bus company and when you say black do you actually mean gay? I DON'T think the Cof E dictates which seats Black Christians sit in......or gay Christians.

“Analogy (from Greek ἀναλογία, analogia, "proportion", from ana- "upon, according to" [also "against", "anew"] + logos "ratio" [also "word, speech, reckoning"][1][2]) is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject (the analog, or source) to another (the target), or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy

Your church and the racist bus company are analogous.

Try to understand this – it’s not difficult (or shouldn’t be).

[Alan Burns]

https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/heartbreak-and-hallelujahs-as-methodists-vote-to-allow-same-sex-marriage

Another example of the modern trend to "reinterpret" the apostolic teachings to comply with popular opinion.

The teachings of Jesus did not follow popular opinion - they gave us the divine message which leads to eternal salvation.  Ignore it at your peril.

[Outrider]

In the context of Marriage though even holy matrimony is just for our life on earth and so presumably is gender and sexuality.

Even if you presume for a moment that this spiritual post-season frolic is a real thing, why would you presume we leave our sexuality behind? God allegedly made us all in their image, right - man, woman, intersex, hermaphrodite, gay, lesbian, queer... why presume God isn't gender-fluid and pansexual and prepared to accept that we can be too?

Since we will become spiritual bodies.

If this flesh thing is fleeting, why the hang up with what pieces of flesh are put where - isn't the spiritual love connection the important bit?

These things may be fundamental if this is "The one life we have" Gay Marriage is legal and I support it.

Excellent.

From Spud's perspective since Marriage and sexuality are not fundamentals he is free to love anyone unconditionally.

No, being wrong doesn't mean that the love is unconditional, it means (if true) he doesn't appreciate why it's qualified.

O.

[Stranger]

Another example of the modern trend to "reinterpret" the apostolic teachings to comply with popular opinion.

The teachings of Jesus did not follow popular opinion - they gave us the divine message which leads to eternal salvation.  Ignore it at your peril.

Like all this modern 'reinterpreting' so people can't have slaves any more, eh?   

[Outrider]

The teachings of Jesus did not follow popular opinion - they gave us the divine message which leads to eternal salvation.  Ignore it at your peril.

I wasn't aware that the teachings of Jesus had anything to say regarding homosexuality - unless it was the general encouragement to love all, and not judge? He did, I'm led to believe, have something to say about religious administrators gatekeeping access to the church, though, didn't he?

Now whomever it was that was writing letters claiming to be St Paul seemed to be a bit of a homophobe, but that's not the same thing as Jesus purporting to have espoused it, right?

O.

[Alan Burns]

I wasn't aware that the teachings of Jesus had anything to say regarding homosexuality - unless it was the general encouragement to love all, and not judge? He did, I'm led to believe, have something to say about religious administrators gatekeeping access to the church, though, didn't he?

Now whomever it was that was writing letters claiming to be St Paul seemed to be a bit of a homophobe, but that's not the same thing as Jesus purporting to have espoused it, right?

O.

The Gospel teachings are quite clear that "marriage" is the union of a man and a woman.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The Gospel teachings are quite clear that "marriage" is the union of a man and a woman.

The Gospel teachings are just as clear on various matters that you think to be morally reprehensible. For some reason though you want to cling on to the homophobic bits specifically.

Why is that?

[Outrider]

The Gospel teachings are quite clear that "marriage" is the union of a man and a woman.

In the instances where Jesus talks about the point of marriage, nothing in it precludes those benefits being manifest by a gay couple; raising of children, two being better than one because there is mutual support and the like.

There is a specific reference that marriage is expected to be one man and one woman, but there is also the expectation that the woman is subservient to the authority of the man, and that there is no concept of divorce, and yet both of those ideas have been put aside by common-sense over time. Why still cling to the homophobia?

O.