Friday, June 26, 2015

An Excerpt from the Chapter on Gay Marriage and Bigotry from Arguing with God:

Gay Marriage


L: Matt Barber an attorney with Concerned Women for America has some strong opinions against gay marriage. He claims that homosexuals have a lobby and are supported by the “leftist press.” And, that this lobby has invented the terms “marriage equality” and “gay rights” and the terms are dishonest attempts to sway opinion by comparing gays to the civil rights fights of the 1960’s.i

J: Well, marriage equality means receiving the social, tax, and other advantages equally, so what would it be called? Gay rights, let’s see: the right to be free from physical and verbal attacks, the right to visit your loved one in the hospital and not be turned away because you are not family. These are rights and are just drops in the bucket as far as the equality and rights words. I think trying to argue the just use of the terms equality and rights is simply a straw man fallacy thrown into the debate. As an attorney, Barber should know this very well.
I just wrote a story on a young man who the authorities kicked out of the United States Coast Guard for being gay. He told an Executive Officer, as part of a mission-security report, about an attempt to blackmail him because he was gay. He “told” in order to protect the ship he was on and the anti-smuggling activities the Coast Guard was pursuing. He was a good serviceman and didn't do anything in port that a good many heterosexual sailors do all the time. Why was he singled out for discharge? It was only because he had hooked up with a man and not a woman like the other sailors. This doesn’t seem to be equal treatment. Intriguingly, the lesbians on the ship were never bothered. Could it be because two women together is sort of a men's fantasy for some reason?

L: I can’t say why the lesbians were not kicked out, they should have been. It would be equal treatment.

J: You allow equal punishment, but not equal rights. Interesting.

L: Barber also claims gays want a secular humanist society where everyone has to not just accept, but, “celebrate high-risk, unnatural and fruitless homosexual behaviors,” that gays want a society without differences in the sexes, a sexual androgyny, and morals that are relative instead of God’s expressed absolute. Do you agree with that?

J: Why on earth would any intelligent gays give a bat's wing whether some straight guys and gals celebrated them having sex. As to the, “high-risk, unnatural and fruitless,” adjectives, well, fruitless, how many married couples use birth control, whether pills or prayers? I am not sure what he means by high risk. Many gay practices are also present in heterosexual couples as well. I would agree that gays have more sexual encounters than many straights, though I see some complex causes there. Natural, well, what is natural—is masturbation, is the missionary position the only natural position?
What is very natural for heterosexuals doesn't necessarily seem at all natural to homosexuals. Now I am not talking about sex with animals or relatives or chairs. Again, those are not actions for me to argue; I do not find myself attracted to them and would be speaking outside my understanding. God will have someone else who can speak for those children of his.
As far as blatantly differentiating the sexes vs. androgyny, one does not change inherent distinctions; they are inherent. As for androgyny, many gays would turn their noses up at an androgynous male or female. I hear gay men say all the time, “If I wanted a woman, I would get a woman.” They do not seek androgynous (though there are some who do). There are also cross dressers, and drag queens, but many of them are straight and not gay. That is, again, a different area and not mine to argue.

L: He also claims that homosexuals don’t really want marriage at all. They are just using it as a tool to destroy the institution of marriage itself and to make homosexual behavior a norm.

J: They seek marriage because they don't want marriage? Bull! Does one join the communist party to destroy it? Does one become a Christian to destroy Christianity?

L: Again, he says that marriage equality is a false description. Everyone in the United States can marry. But, marriage is to remain as a man and a woman marrying.

J: And, again, his reasoning makes one's head spin. The very definition of marriage as being one man and one woman is exactly what gays seek to change. I am also angered at this ridiculous argument that if we let gays marry then why not allow people to molest children and marry their mother and have weddings where we kill the bride and the whole marriage party has sex with her dead body.
Gays are gays; they do not want to marry anyone in their close family anymore than straight people want to. Please, do not ever use that argument or the protest against bestiality with me. I find it personally offensive and totally off the subject. I am dealing with a real situation here. It is not a mental illness; it is a biological fact.
The point is how to rectify the mistaken images of this biological fact—especially when otherwise decent people assume that writers hundreds or even thousands of years ago knew all about human sexuality when they appeared to condemn this biological fact. Likewise, carefully consider the biblical admonitions as to whether they were referring to real homosexuals or to sex vendors and slaves. Both types of homosexual activity are part of the Bible.
And, as far as his concept that gay marriage is a cover for the take-over of secular humanism…I hardly know what to say of that paranoia. Most gays, even the intelligent ones, could not even tell you what secular humanism is. Nor would they care. You say this guy is an attorney; I wonder if he may have skipped logic classes. There, you have my comments. Are there any intelligent arguments against gays we can deal with?


Bigotry


L: As far as bigotry goes, I think it is not unfair to say the writers of the pro-homosexual persuasion are in fact bigoted, biased and prejudiced, the bigots in the news media and at the universities are being faced with the fact they are bigots too! How do you respond to this? I think it is easy for the pot to call the kettle black…looking at things from another set opinion. Back to Christ…how would he then live, think, and respond to humanity?

J: As far as you seeing the press or the educational institutions, or even the liberals, as bigoted, biased, and prejudiced, or the kettle being black as well—I have to disagree. Is fighting against hate crimes prejudice? Is putting statistics out on the percentage that have no fears about allowing gay marriage or domestic partners bigoted?
There is a definite bias in much of the press and in the universities—at least those that allow alternative views to be debated and not just denied. I have no problem with their being biased; everyone who has an opinion is biased. So is the news. We only need to know the bias and we can read the biased article with that knowledge and still get something from it. I even get things from the Fox news team, but I am totally cognizant of their bias.
As to how would Christ respond? Well, how did he respond? He accepted everyone from tax collectors to centurions and whores, though he did condemn the churchmen. He also bad mouthed the Samaritans and the non Jews. As far as the gays, he undoubtedly was aware of it in the Roman society at least. He never seemed to say anything about it himself. He did not condemn those born blind or crippled or with epilepsy. I doubt very much he would condemn those born gay either. And again, there is a difference between the homosexual relations going on in the Greek and Roman society and the people who are truly homosexual and not just seeking physical pleasure and variety.
He would encourage them to love one another, and he would encourage a sincere and probably monogamous relationship. (Unlike our conservatives today who disallow the marriage or union of two people, and the rules that could follow.) The saying that these people can't marry because they are not understood leads inexorably to promiscuity. If we aren't supposed to be together in a loving relationship, why bother following the rules of the people who supposedly do belong in a monogamous relationship?
You told me you were a bigot. Actually, you bragged that you were a bigot. A bigot is one who discounts any contrary evidence to a preconceived belief, isn't it? I'm sorry, but I do not think that is a praiseworthy position. What if Joseph had been bigoted about his fiancé’s pregnancy? Or, consider what happened to Pharaoh when God presented him with all sorts of “facts” that he could see with his own eyes, but chose to ignore.

i See http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56521 for the commentary “‘Gays’ don't want 'marriage' after all.” By J. Matt Barber.

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