It never ceases to amaze me how, in the name of God, so many of these people find attacking gays on an assortment of issues (like being in the military when so many other countries — including the UK — openly allow them) is more important than violence, starvation, priests having sex with children and so on. I guess I’m just naive.
An Evangelical’s Concession on Gays
The old and often bitter debate over what causes homosexuality took an unexpected turn this week in the wake of comments by a leading conservative Christian theologian, who says fellow evangelicals should accept that science may one day prove homosexuals are born gay. “We sin against homosexuals by insisting that sexual temptation and attraction are predominately chosen,” wrote the Rev. Albert Mohler, the influential president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mohler’s position is a startling departure from years of insistence among fundamentalists that gay rights advocates are wrong when they say homosexuality is not something they choose.
Even more surprising, perhaps, is the implication of Mohler’s statement that science can help inform Christians’ response to moral questions — a rare admission among evangelicals. “The Al Mohler example is certainly a departure,” said President Richard J. Mouw of nondenominational Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, the largest evangelical seminary in North America. “Evangelicals, and I am one, haven’t always exhibited very clear thinking about science and spirituality.”
On the other hand:
That’s what has angered gay rights advocates, and overshadowed Mohler’s concession that homosexuals may be born that way. “What is wrong with Mohler’s argument is that it implies that there is something wrong with being gay,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “I would welcome the fact that they are beginning to concede that homosexuality is not a chosen lifestyle. But it is hard for me to believe that anyone that would then conclude that our next step ought to be to get about the business of changing everybody is really offering any sort of enlightened view.”
Thanx for the DU Daily Laugh®, Uncle Dave.
As if science – or actual knowledge in any form or context – will ever change the minds of brainwashed idiots who know they’re right.
It is to laugh.
Why Evangelicals are bashing homos? Because they have a hard time treating others as equals.
Why Gay rights advocates are bashing Evangelicals who are starting to accept homosexuality? Because if that trend continues, they be left without the NGO teat that signs their paycheck.
The earth is less than 10,000 years old. This means that humans domesticated the dog before the planet was created. How could anything science has to say affect a brain capable of believing crap like that?
So what if “science” were to prove that “evangelicals” were born with their mindset? Would you stop “hating” them, “Uncle Dave”? Apparently, you think they choose their attitudes, or why direct your priggishness at them. Maybe they can’t help it, owing to their biology, or upbringing, or the historical or economic “forces” they are subject to.
And please don’t speak for us. I’m in the UK and, frankly, I’d say that most British people find the obsession of the American left and US “progressive” sitcoms with homosexuality to be rather risible and just as puritanical in its own way. I–and I’d suspect many others in many other places (including the United States)–have little interest in what people do in their private lives but don’t care to be told what and what not to approve of either by the “politically correct”–even those who don’t chose to identify themselves with silly hypocorisms.
There’s a larger and more interesting philosophical problem here, actually. This is just Kant’s problem of the “freedom of the will” in another guise. Is what we say and do “determined” or not? It seems to us that we do as we choose, but do we? William James had some interesting thoughts on the topic. Many people have done. No one has a satisfactory answer.
Even if there was a legitimate (as in it actually works) way found to prevent the development of it in the womb, there would be too much political pressure to ban it. On the one hand, it would prove to the holy-rollers that homosexuality is a indeed developmental trait and not simply the choice of dirty sinners; but on the other hand, if something can be prevented, then people who already have it must have something wrong with them… and we can’t let people continue to be told there is something wrong with them can we?
Personally, I’ve always bought into the idea that homosexuality is the product of developing fetuses not being flushed with just the right combination of hormones during the period where sexuality is being developed, rather than it being some sort of evolutionary genetic coup.
The evidence so far strongly, nay – overwhelmingly, indicates that nothing deeper or more complex than good old-fashioned stupidity is at work in the evangelical mind.
Incredible as it may seem, a certain percentage of humanity is, and always will be, simply not very adept at either comprehending or utilizing even the most fundamental principles of logical thought.
Applying Occam’s Razor, it appears that the willingness to believe in utterly unreasonable things is a direct consequence of possessing significantly limited reasoning skills. End of story.
#5 – Mike
“Personally, I’ve always bought into the idea that homosexuality is the product of developing fetuses not being flushed with just the right combination of hormones during the period where sexuality is being developed, rather than it being some sort of evolutionary genetic coup.”
And a slowly growing number of PC-resistant scientists suggest that that scenario is indeed more probably the case…
#4 – Can’t speak for others, but I don’t hate people who hold religious beliefs. I just deeply object to them trying to force their religious beliefs on me. And I don’t see that coming, ever, from anywhere but the right.
Maybe Mohler is taking halting steps toward tolerance in the wake of so many prominent evangelicals losing credibility by secretly practicing what they preach against. If your bigtime Tv preachers are getting caught diddling between sermons, maybe a dash of official tolerance will restore a little credibility or at least provide the latitude not to kick them out. They bring in a lot of money.
So this is great news for the modern militant feminist mother!!! Now she can take the risk out of pregnancy and get hormone treatments to make sure with a degree of certainty, that her children are gay!
Yay! Science!
#9 – GregA
“…take the risk out of pregnancy and get hormone treatments to make sure with a degree of certainty, that her children are gay!”
Aah, I wouldn’t wanna disappoint you, but the science of hormonal influence on foetal development is still a good way from that stage…
There’s also the inconvenient fact that hormones do not account for anywhere near 100% of determination of gender identity or sexual orientation, which, as I’m sure you know, are two distinct, seperate matters. You did know that, right?
And of course, every feminist wants gay children, this is a given. Among evangelicals, anyway, and they should know.
While I’m an advocate for gay rights, it should be clear to all that if science establishes what causes someone to have these inborn proclivities, it may also determine a method for abating them. I do not get the sense that gay right advocates fully comprehend where science might take us should this happen. Some of you suggest that there would be tremendous pressure to outlaw said methods, but I think you are underestimating the tremendous desire by the religious to have such a procedure. The less intrusive the “solution”, the harder it will be to prevent its wide spread use.
Well, seems like a study of identical twins would solve this real quick. If any pair of identical twins is mixed (hetero/homo) then it may well be a choice. (This also covers #7’s hormones in the womb)
But, if all studied pairs are same, then it is determined at birth. I believe there have also been some separated twins studies on other issues. So, they may be able to remove environmental factors as well
#10,
I was trying to be funny. I bet a bunch of people read that and get a chuckle, if not a belly laugh. The statement is loaded (at least three different ways) with irony.
However, since you didn’t get it, I will make a special joke, just for you. Homosexuality and gender confusion are an issue that simply does not matter for 97% of the population.
Oh, wait! I am beginning to see now!
See?? More Irony, that was funny!
I could talk about home some schools see to actively indoctrinate their students to it, even though it is not relevant in broader society.
Bam! double entendre!! Also very funny!
Religious extremism in the military would have been a more interesting emphasis in the article.
It’s interesting that the very religious can believe in an concept without any physical proof, and yet they can’t imagine something more probable like homosexuality being a physical and mental trait determined by DNA, or RNA as is no being discovered.
As illustration, show a Christian left a person with female breasts and male genitals, and they will have no trouble believing that a DNA defect (from the norm) has occurred. Show them a person with male breasts and female genitals and they might also be convinced.
But knowing that such DNA defects occur, they STILL cannot believe unless they see physical evidence. Thus, a male with female internal “wiring” or vice versa, cannot be possible to them.
That’s why so many see the religious as being hypocrites and hateful Hating that kind of behavior is not coequal.
I wonder if dvorak.com creates more terrorists than it destroys. You need to increase the number of anti-Iraq war posts, and reduce the number of posts revealing American decadence that threatens the Islamics so much.
Dave- there have been twin studies, and they do validate genes over choice. In the study I remember, more than half of the (identical) twins of gay men were also gay, and twice the normal incidence in then population for fraternal twins. I think the numbers for women were about the same.
Jennifer- If that’s the case, then the Gay movement should be trumpeting those studies as proof. Then, we could put this whole issue behind us.
Pedro,
According to research done by Brown University researcher Anne Fausto-Sterling, about 1 in 1500 have some level of “intersex” (a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male”
BgScryAnml, Leviticus 18:22 is most suitable for toilet paper.
BigScryIdit –
So if G-d did not intend for gay men to have sex with other men, then how come he allowed them to become aroused, ie. to experience erections, in the presence of other men?
#23 You missed the point. Go back and read the first sentence. Please note that outside of the Politically Correct UNITED STATES OF AMERICA homosexuality is considered to be a MENTAL DISORDER.
#22 More liberal propaganda from Brown. Regarding Leviticus, enjoy your eternity.
Thank God for the miracles of modern medicine. If docs can figure out how to fix Gay people before they are born, we will have solved one of the most important problems of mankind. Now if they can just figure out how to prevent people from being born as muslum or jews, the world will be a perfect place!
The Prez
#15
“So God created man in his own image …”
I find it far more probable that man created God in his own image.
That would explain many things.
Sorry, my reference should of course have been to #21 and not #15.
ByScryAnml Do not presume to know what another person, or even your, eternity will be like, because you have no control over that.
From Matthew 7:
1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Mk. 4.24
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Jesus undid the old rules against adultery, cleanliness and dealing with lepers directly, by example, in order to show how being without compassion for the sake of any rule is not holy. Do you read your bible with an eye of how to condemn, or how to be a better person? The two aims are mutually exclusive, by my reading.
The science you quote is bunk, by the way, by simple virtue of how virtually no one has sex randomly, let alone randomly with 160 people. Most with HIV in that community sero-sort at this point, and there is no further risk of spread. If your focus were really upon amelioration of disease, you would be against not the open gay people, but the closet cases in your community that are sleeping with prostitutes and using meth to overcome their self hatred. These people are the people at greatest risk, not only because their shame drives them to the sex trade and anonymous (i.e. random) sex, but also because they can infect their wives back home later, thus acting as a vector between the homo and heterosexual populations. Just a thought, that it’s worth paying attention to the log in your eye.
if homosexuality is found to be biological in nature, then people who oppose homosexuality will just say that it is a “mistake” and that people should learn to overcome their nature, just like we are supposed to overcome all of the other parts of our sinful nature.
I think that trying to find a reason for homosexuality is misguided. Either we as a society come to accept it or we don’t. saying that “oh, its biological, so it must be ok” is putting terms on the acceptance of two people who have the same genitalia loving each other. If it is because of some biology or if it is a choice, so what? I don’t care what two adults decide to do as long as no one else is hurt by it.
As far as the biblical mentions of homosexulity, first, which version are you talking about? Since the above quotes are in English, I’m assuming you are reading a translation and not as the books of the bible were originally written.
Secondly, funny how the conservative Christians are so concerned with butt sex when almost half of all gay people don’t have butt sex at all. So I guess the conservative Christians don’t have any problem with homosexulaity if two women are involved?
Finally, I suppose that everyone so concerned with what Leviticus says about butt sex also keeps kosher, since that is the same book of the Old Testament that is the source of kosher guidelines?
28 Li, you need to get out of the Politically Correct mind set.
The Word is God. The Word will judge all of us. It is not a buffet. One cannot pick and choose which laws to obey and which to disregard.
Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. (James 2:10)
Christians are not to tolerate such behavior.
For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:
Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. (I Peter 4:3-6)
I made no judgment, God is quite clear.
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:29-32)
Many have become so consumed in their own sin that they viciously attack all who challenge them.
God gives hope for us all
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. (I Corinthians 6:9-11)
BSA,
If you can’t write an opinion without just using quotes from the “Bible”, then you don’t have anything intelligent to say. I noticed you missed quoting the parts where God killed wantonly, slavery is accepted, and polygamy is the norm.
#24, Where outside the United States is Homosexuality considered a Mental Disease? As far as I am aware, most civilized countries accept homosexuality as a normal sexual orientation. The US is among the few countries that has treated it as a crime up until quite recently and still treats it as abnormal.
But if you are going to quote the “Bible” as authoritative, then maybe you are the one with the mental problem.
Wow. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a loony on DU. So, continuing our shooting fish in a barrel:
> The Word will judge all of us. It is not a buffet. One
> cannot pick and choose which laws to obey and which to disregard.
Spiffy. So, clearly you continue to do animal sacrifices right (Leviticus 5:7-10)? In addition, you have put to death anyone that cursed their mother or father right (Leviticus 20:9)? Further, you condone execution for adultery (Leviticus 20:10) right? Isn’t Leviticus grand?
31 Mr. Fusion
That my point, it is not my opinion. My opinion is irrelevant when it comes to God’s law. Regarding Leviticus, we are living under the New Testament not the Old.
Countries where homosexual is considered a mental disorder: All middle eastern countries, China, Russia, Cuba, India, Poland, Brazil, Belarus to name a few.
This entire Corporation/Country is based on slavery. While many continue to banter the true causes of the Civil War, you fail to recognize that you, today, are a slave. 50% of you earnings are confiscated by the IRS. Roman slaves had to pay only 20%. BTW I am not a slave.
If you are interested in polygamy please plan your next trip to Utah. While there, ask about dining on the golden plates.
If you doubt the Bible is The Authority and the foundation of this country, please reference a non bias history book. One that isn’t written by a liberal history professor with an agenda and a theory.