Bramble

Well, since this thread is already off to a pi$$ed off start I doubt I can do it any ruin-- So, is it love to expect a homosexual to be celibate their entire life(unless they change into a heterosexual)? Is it love to deny marriage to homosexual couples? Is it love to expect homosexuals to work on changing their sexuality via change them ministries? Should homosexuals be denied admittance into the military? I've yet to see any of the 'it is not okay with the Bible to be homosexual' posters explain how their doctrine benefits homosexuals.

I'm out, it pi$$ es all the Biblical researchers off that I posted on the doctrinal thread, so I'm sure it will Pi$$ others off if I post on a godly love thread. I posted my bit on the doctrinal--I don't think you can divorce doctrine from practice--though it is all so much cleaner and neater when you wrangle greek words instead of actual human lives. The doctrinal forum used to have some lively discussions from different views, seems those days are over.

Roy, here's how I'm seeing your doctrine work in the real world. One of my daughters has a very close friend, a gay boy, call him Freddie. He's known he's gay for a long time but he is only sixteen. Funny, but other people who know him have thought he was gay for years, but somehow his parents never noticed. This kid is a hard worker in school, in all honors classes and at the top of many of them. He pretty much sweeps awards ceremonies at the school. He is also a class leader, spearheading all types of community and school service activities. He has very demanding parents, the type who will freak out over a 'c' grade. They belong to a fundamentalist church and believe that homosexuals are abombinations etc. Freddie has many friends but this year he met a boy on a debate trip who ives in a different city. Boyfreind Jay has accepting parents, he has pretty normal teenage boundaries as a far as I can tell. Freddie decides he must come out to his parents. They totally freaked out, ground him, began arguing about his gayness, take away his computer and search his room and take pictures of Jay away(these were Jay on the debate competition pictures, not x rated). Freddie lives 17 miles out of town, so being grounded is very isolating. A few months later parent file for divorce--his dad tells him he caused it with his gayness. Nice. Kid is distraught and depressed. Parent do not want to consent to counseling though Freddie asks for help. Gay boy camp comes up. Freddie wants to run away, quit school, get a job. Me and another mom tell Freddie he calls us if he runs away, we don't want to see him on the streets. Freddie get counseling, finally. I and the other mom transport him to every debate meet for the rest of the season, parents have washed their hands of him, because he is of course still gay. We also buy him snacks for the bus trip and make sure our kids have enough money to cover him. Neglect--I think so, but not enough to concern the state. Parents talk about boarding school. Parents consider changing highschool for some reason, but decide to let him stay because he is in all AP classes and they don't want to mess up his grades. This is all very upsetting to freddie. How do you think it all looks to the gay boy? He's a a failure. He is responsible for his parent's marriage problems. He is scared of gay camp and boarding school. Both are religious, he does not accept his parent's religion anymore. He is in love with Jay and upset he can't even email him, Romeo and Juliet angst. Friends carry messages between the two. He doesn't know how to not be gay. He rebels and emails, also contacts a gay support groups. Two different families have offered him a home if things get worse at his, which has to be confusing. He feels life would be better if he could be emancipated and get away from home, but how will he get $ . If he accepts and lives his parents doctrine: He can't be in love or be attracted to anyone unless he becomes hetero, because of course he is attracted to boys.. He doesn't know how to change himself into a hetero(--and I for one am glad he is not using my daughter or another teen girl as 'cover.') His future as this type of believer means no love life, no sex, no spouse, unless he changes into a hetero. What I think--I think Freddie will wrangle a good scholarship, and probably one out of state. i think he will leave home the minute he is eighteen if not before, and I don't think he's coming back. I think he'll replace his family with people who like and care for him, and he won't have a hard time finding such people. I think he'll stay gay. I doubt he will turn into a promiscous party boy since he has a great deal of discipline in his life already at sixteen. I think that despite his gayness, he will have lots of success in lifebut I also thnk the type of rejection he has experienced with his own parents will affect him. I think someday his parents will realize they're getting old, and they forced him out of their lives.

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Lindy, I think it would be interesting to learn why the more liberal Christian churches think differrently than the more conservative churches on the subject. In my area both the Episcopol church and the United Church of Christ/Congregational welcome gays into the congregation without that drive to change them--gay families etc. Maybe Eyes has some links, I haven't had the time to go through all her links on the other thread. And I don't think we have any posters from those churches here.

Roy, thanks for a civil reply. i disagree that a house bugler will always have the desire--I think plentyy of ex criminals overcome those desires or whatever motivated them. Alchoholism is an addiction. Is addiction a sin? I guess I thought it was closer to an illness. No offense, but your doctrine demands a lonely and unfulfilled life for the homosexual. Not everyone is cut out to live alone with no love life their whole life. I am not surprised that a homosexual Christian would leave the church, find a church with different views or become an unbeliever under such a belief.

Lots of conditions aren't normal, doesn't make them sin, an evil act. How does a homosexual quit sinning and becme not a homosexual? They can obviously be celibate, or fake it in a hetero relationship. But that is outward, not inward change. I thought people were supposed to quit sinning? Confess, receive forgiveness etc. A house burgler--they can change their behavior, move on. How does a homosexual change their sex drive? Does not seem to be the same type of sin at all.

*Shrug* Never said the Bible was a hateful document. The Bible can and has been interpreted in many different ways, some pretty ugly. Sometimes people assume doctrine equals Biblical research, though that has not been the standard in these doctrinal forums for as long as I've been around here. I am surprised that those who have the doctrinal answer to homosexuality can't or won't explain how their doctrine helps homosexuals. What good is doctrine with out application?

Homosexuality is more than just an act, and more than a sexual practice. One can be celbate and still be homosexual. How does the doctrine of homosexaulity is not ok according to the Bible help any one? Does it prevent homosexuality? change homosexuals into heterosexuals? Protect us non homosexuals from them in some way??? How did they become homosexuals according to this doctrine? How does this doctrine fit in with God is Love? Where's the deliverance? How's that doctrine going to help that gay couple down the street? You have your Bible verses. How's that all working in the real world? Oh, wait, I forgot, that doesn't matter in a doctrinal discussion.

I believe the Bible has truths, but not that it is THE truth. People still have to excercise their hearts, minds, conscience and be honest. In a bully's hands it becomes a bully's rule book, in a nurturer's hands it becomes a book of nurture. It's not the book, it's the heart and life of the person holding it that matters, IMO.

I think that discussing how a doctrine helps or hinders real people in the real world is a valid point of discussion, WW. As far as the Bible doctrine--there will be no definitive answer, there never is. Christian doctrine is all over the map and all based on the Bible. This discussion will end up in 'camps' like thay all do. But maybe some people will read it and think.

The only value I see in doctrine is how it is applied among people. If the best researched doctrine in all of Christianity leaves vulnerable people in even worse circumstance...what good is it? We may all be sinners(not my personal doctrine, but i am familiar with it), but homosexual sinners are worse--they are not allowed to legally marry, while hetero couples, while still sinners, can marry. As far as perverted sexual practices, heteros can do them, too. Assuming you know what others, homosexual or heterosexual, are doing in their bedrooms is useless and hard to judge. I know a RC adoptive gay mom( I taught her kid preschool), who has a long time girlfriend who lives in another state. They meet several times a year for vacations. They don't go 'below the waist'.(Yes, she actually came straight out and told me this, probably neede to confide in someone.) But when they go on vacation somewhere, I'll bet people speculate as to their wild lesbian sex life.

I dare say that people born with two sets of sex organs or sex organ deformities, they are 'errors' also, and can't reproduce in the normal way. The whole doctrine of homosexuals are sinful or perverted or vile--lesser in value than we right people--is an ugly and harmful doctrine that can't really help anyone, IMO. Doesn't keep people from being gay, doesn't fix them into heterosexuals, just separates them and puts them in that 'lesser value' group. Then religion can get ahold of some of them and run them through hoops in the hopes of having a prized delivered homo to show off, never mind the broken ones that didn't get there. Seems less and less people want that type of religion and are looking in other directions to bring value and safety to others, for which I am thankful.

Yea, the 'it's a choice' people have to cloak it in a complicated mess of influences and weaknsses, demons, possession. And then when it really gets down to it, it becomes a choice to be celebate, or to get into a sexual relationship okayed by the church--though the gay person will never have a satisfying sex life either way--but that's just not important. Being Not Gay is what's important. You hear about couples that have sex a couple times a year, and you kind of wonder. Hmmm.

To be a sin it has to be a choice-- --you could pop dozens of women in front of me, and though I might make a friend or two, or think someone was nice or pretty or had cute mannerisms or was an admirable or talented person, I wouldn't find any of them sexually attractive. It wouldn't matter how wonderful others told me the relationship with one of them would be, it wouldn't work for me, because I'm hetero. If I did get into such a relationship due to social or personal pressure, sex would be a matter of duty similar to a chore. Yuck.

~No heavy doctrine here, just some personal observations. Whether homosexuality is a sin in the Christian doctrinal world or not matters very little to me. I find much of the anti gay reasoning to not even be realistic--not even considering the TWi type thought of the 'lowest of the low' etc. All the 'fall of civilization due to perversion' stuff seems so unreal, a form of demonization and irrational fear-- while how many gay people quietly go about building a life in a sometimes very hostile environment. But instead of seeing real, complex people, they see some weird form they call gay. My teens have a good friend who is gay and his parents are of a doctrinal viewpoint that will not accept it. The boy is just waiting until he is eighteen. I know three families who have offered him refuge because he has talked to friends about running away, and no one wants to see him on the streets--though his own father has repeatedly mentioned throwing him out. He's a bright, caring, talented kid, involved in lots of school activities, honor roll but none of that seems to matter, he's not sexually experienced or promiscouous, his boyfriends tend to be of the email type...who has a whole church praying for him to not be gay. And his life would be easier if he was not--but how is that going to happen? How successful are those change 'em ministries? Since it's a choice and all, they just make a different choice? or in reality, they just live a celebate life. I'm skeptical. One of my best TWI friends married a former gay man. delivered on the WOW field---15 years into the marriage( and out of TWI) and three children later, he confessed that he was always bi but pretended to be 'delivered'. Lucky for him and them, his wife had always known that( she talked to me about it just a couple years after they were married, we concluded at the time that devil spirits were around to tempt him). He has been faithful to his marriage vows, they have a good life, but he is not 'delivered' he's married and has a wife and family he loves.

LCM said that cleanliness IS godliness. One of the tidiest people I've ever met is my older brother. His apartment is absolutley immaculate. He follows a strict schedule, worhty of nineties way corps. He is also paranoid schizophrenic, bipolar, and has ocd --and he can tell you quite a bit about his personal aliens. But is apartment is super tidy.

I have not studied yoga or Eastern Meditation. The meditation I practice came through Pagan/Wiccan sources but it maybe quite similar. When I was a TWI believer I spoke in tongues faithfully, but the business of SIT seems quite in contrast to meditation, which is more a be still, calm down, quit racing type activity. During meditation I do occasionally have a burst of creative thought or 'answers' to current personal issues, but mostly I sleep much better if I meditate before bed.

Hona Lee is the JL thread down in the soaps forum.

I don't see a huge parenting or moral difference between the divorced single parent or the never married single parent. Neither are in an 'ideal' marriage relationship with the other parent. Both are the 'heads' of their own households, and they share many of the same problems with child care, finances etc. It may make a difference in respect to some religious values, but I fail to see a huge difference between the two types of parents. Can marriage be taught in a highschool class? Sure, but will it make teens more successful at finding and keeping a marriage together? Not sure about that. Even people who very much believe in marriage get divorced.

Navaho are matriarchal, though I'm not sure what that all means in this discussion. I fail to see how this is all a woman's problem. All those babies have fathers, somewhere. What if those dad's stepped up to help parent and provided financial support without their checks being garnished? What if they didn't skip the state and move around to avoid getting caught for back child support? What if getting a woman pregnant was unacceptable and a man was expected to take some real responsibility? How many fathers of these unwed mother's children barely know their kids? How many have fathered children by more than one woman--and are behind on child support for all of them? How many view their own children as nothing but a financial burden and have no real concern about the child's actual well being, leaving it all up to the mother, who they blame for getting pg and causing them so much trouble?

I didn't really notice or mind the busy busy TWi lifestyle until I had kids. Once they arrived, we were expected to maintain the same level of business, even with infants and toddlers--yet having non believer babysitters was looked down on. The Way Corps could get way believers to babysit, the rest of us were always scrambling for child care, or leaving a spouse home, which was also not great, though it was marginally okay if the head of the house went because he could instruct his wife at home. As the years went by in the nineties they became more and more intollerant of the needs of children in my area--it was like children were sucking up valuable ministry time with their needs, and they shouldn't have needs of their own but should completely fit into the adult ministry schedule and lifestyle. It became a stressful balancing act. Our last year in we rarely took out small kids(gradeschool by then) to any function, using school hours as an excuse for week night. We were instictivly protecting our children and family from the harsh local leadership, though we never spoke of it.

Tons of 2012/ Planet X related stuff out there. http://www.december212012.com/

I'm not Christian, and I volunteer with an interfaith group--no one asks for my profession of faith, they are glad for willing hands. Many mainstream churches respect your privacy, but I have no knowledge of the fundamentalist churches. As far as the 'must be a Christian' evangelism...great promises that rarely come to pass( at least only for the very few, or for people far far awaay that I have no way to really know, or for those that it happened to but can't be replicated in someone else' life) and threats of eternal punishment (fear motivation)--not enough for me now. Being a parent, I think pie in the sky unattainable promises(for most people) or threats of horrid punishment are both out of line--and why would a truly wise diety use such tactics? Makes no sense to me. Seem to be very obvious, unsophisticated sale tactics.

SHiftthis, all the bad leaders we dealt with at the time of my family's escape from TWI are still IN and still hold the same leadership positions, just in different regions. With communication discouraged about 'negatives', I'm sure the people they now work with don't have a clue. Maybe they have had a few fangs pulled because if they throw away many more people they won't be able to be on salary or be a limb coord etc. So they are forced to play nice to keep their position. I would not trust 'em with my life, decisions, family-- nope, not anything. Sounds like TWI rosy version of the truth, to me, making them look like the heros. I don't believe it.