Do you hate me?

Question

I am a straight Christian (does a pre-conceived notion of the kind of person I am pop up in your mind?) who believes that the act of homosexuality is a sin, not because I want it to be, but because the Word of God says it is (see Romans1:22-27). I do not hate sinners. I am one. So my question is, do you hate me?

Since this format does not allow for debate, I do not seek answers focusing on the veracity of the Bible (a pertinent but separate and altogether complex issue), but rather the seemingly ironic "Christian-phobia" among many in the gay community, which is rooted in the same kind of prejudice that homophobia is.

Answer 1

Hi drMike:
Hummmm. So sad a question,
and posed so dramatically.
Have you thought of going into
drama, with all your passion and
intellect. Obviously you are very
bright, and bored.

A suggestion. Stop, right now
before you have a mega breakdown.
STOP.

You have a mind of your own. You
are a mature adult. You must
be respectful of yourself first, and
get off the pot on the 'wrong,
sinner' stuff..... That is what
fairy tales are made of, and
well, you are the only one hating
yourself, bleeding yourself
terribly.

Wow. Please, stop and think.
God works with us, and loves
us unconditionally. Always did
always will. Jesus is his son.
So....from their take a moment
an hour out for you and ponder
your life. You are who you are
and that is not wrong at all.
Love yourself, love others, and
if anyone is judging you, they
are not good in the eyes of
God. God does the loving and
he always answers us. Other
people love to judge, judge,
and well,
wrong.
wrong. over and over.

Love thyself, please.

You are wonderful, and go and
love and respect yourself and
do not allow anyone ever
ever ever to judge you. Ever
again.

luv
and thoughts,
Ava

Answer 2

Number One -- A preconceived notion of any type of person pops into anyone's mind at the hearing of a group identifier -- that's basic psychology. The reasonable person bypasses that by recognizing it.

Number Two -- You cannot rationally assert something as an unassailable -- which you try to do. You assert that the Bible (which contains Romans) is the Word of God -- then you say that you do not seek answers that focus on the veracity of the Bible because this isn't a debate format. This is nothing but a juvenile attempt to cut off discussion and make your quote a presumptive truth. Come on.

Number Three -- You assert that homosexuals are Christian-phobic. Hardly. My parish and many other progressive Christian parishes have large groups of homosexuals in them. Of course, we do not assert, as you do, nor do we in any way believe that homosexuality is sin (at least partially because we recognize that the Bible is largely myth -- but even if we didn't, David and Jonathan speak eloquently to the double standard of the various authors). Your correct assertion would have been that homosexuals are phobic toward bigots --- whether religious or secular. That would have been an accurate statement -- but of course, would not have garnered the effect that I suppose you wanted.

Now, permit me to solve your other problem. I would be happy to debate you in an Internet format leading to archive. I offer the site I maintain as a venue -- we have approximately 800 - 1000 visitors per week. I would appreciate a similar venue from your side.

There would be a written agreement that neither venue would change or edit the other side's arguments. An exchange once per week would be sufficient to maintain interest. C.V.s could be exchanged at the time the formal agreement was signed. The only acceptable version of the Bible to be used would be the King James Version of the Bible -- thus maximizing the effect of the debate to include those who are KJV only. The particular printing that I will use is the 14th edition of the New Marked Reference Bible, KJV -- as published by Zondervan Press in 1973.

I will give the following basic statement, which I reserve the right to tweak before the debate begins, as my challenge:

I assert that the Bible is a bronze age book of myths, important historically and theologically, but not containing the verbally inspired Word of God. Further, I assert that if there was plenary inspiration of scripture, those autographs no longer exist. Finally, I assert that the hundreds of errors in mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, history, and prophecy clearly demonstrate that the Bible is not the Word of God, since God cannot err, and thus a single error in any of those fields clearly demonstrates that the Bible is a human book.

There, a debate challenge, I eagerly await your reply.

Regards,

Reynolds C. Jones
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

Answer 3

The way I understand it, the reason we can eat pork now and that women do not need to be locked outside the gates of the city during "that time of the month" (by the way do you know where the gates to your city are??) is that Jesus came and fulfilled the Old Testament Laws for us. Now for some totally weird reason, those Old Testament Laws Jesus completed seems to not include homosexuality. Yet Jesus NEVER said a word about it. It wasn't a sin that He considered worth talking about. Why? Because He completed the law, it was over. Yet certain preachers keep bringing it up. Why? MONEY. Consider Pat Robertson. Owns diamond mines. Yes he has airplanes that fly food to Africa, then fly diamonds from his mines to diamond markets all over the world. He is insanely rich. And did not Jesus say that it is easier for a camel to walk thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man (Robertson in this case) to enter the Kingdom of God?? And what about Rev. Paul Crouch who founded TBN, exposed in the L.A. Times as having given a TBN staffer $140,000 to be quiet about a homosexual affair he and Crouch had at the TBN chateau high in the San Bernardino Mountains? What does a humble minister of God need with a chateau? Didn't Jesus say we should care for the poor? Yes, he did, yet these TV preachers you listen to live like kings. They are the kind of people Jesus kicked out of the temple! They are hypocrites! They are far, far worse sinners than gay people.

Answer 4

No, I don't hate you. I don't hate Christians. I don't hate ppl that don't understand homosexuality but accept that it's right for others. I just don't have much tolerance for homophobes that use the Bible to justify their hateful predjudice. To me, that's real perversity and a travisty. The Bible has been thru many translations. Some of those "updates" were for political and power-based purposes. A lot of the new Testament was written by the Church very many years after Christ's death. Also, language has changed over time. "Christians" (i.e. those who use the Bible to espouse hate) typically haven't familiarized themselves with the history of the Book and aren't inclined to truly think for themselves. They throw stones but live in glass houses. That type of Bible rationalizing so marginalizes and vilifies a minority population simply for being different. It also is the type of "believing" that makes it acceptable to shun, slur, beat, and even kill queer ppl. Maybe what you are interpreting as hatred of Christians is simply that we live with ppl everywhere interjecting themselves out of the blue to tell us how sinful, unnatural, condemned to hell, how horrible we are -- even here on Yahoo in the LGTB section where sexuality is less of a topic than elsewhere in Answers.

Despite the drama and somewhat negative undertone towards you in my response, you do have a thoughtful question. Hang out in this section for a while without judging or seeking to debate. It's a sort of microcosm of the action-reaction that's a part of our reality.

Answer 5

Do you want to be hated? Gays and lesbos have to deal with so much judgment in their lives that we are the least judgmental peoples compared to any other minority. Though, to compliment your point, christians who feel the need to tell us what is sin and how we are going to hell, do get less air time. Its silly for christians to think that all gay people have not considered if our gender selections are against what is natural or if we ever wondered if we will get into heaven. All of us have pondered if loving a member of our own gender is sin, then why did god make gays?
The christian-phobia you refer to is only a defense mechanism. Gays and lesbians really dont feel the need to go to churches and protest your belief in god, though some christians like to frequent the gay pride parades more than some gays. If christians dropped the gay-sin-marriage issue there would be a significant drop in christian phobia and an increased indifference to beliefs in mystical beings.

You are always welcome in the gay community but only as long as you want to be. Welcome to the gay community. B)

Answer 6

I hate what you believe.

I hate that you or anyone would believe that a letter written by a man is a literal word of God without any interference by the original man or by any of the many people who have copied it by word of mouth or transcription or copying over the centuries of its existence.

I hate that you think there is such a thing as "an act of homosexuality" because that could be taken as anything from realizing that one is homosexual to same gender sex acts.

I hate that you and many Christians do not know what Paul was actually writing about in its historical context.

First, if the words are taken literally, he is talking about heterosexuals who "leave" or "abandon" or "change" their natural inclincation to participate in Pagan ritual sex acts.

Second, the Greek text uses the phrase "para physin," translated as either "unnatural" or "against nature." This is a phrase which he also uses to describe men with long hair (1 Corinthians 11:14) and bringing Jews and Gentiles together(Romans 11:24).

Third, he is writing this letter to Christians in Rome, telling of what happened when people abandoned their faith. In the Roman culture, homosexuality was an accepted part of the social landscape -- which is quite apart from the Pagan sex rituals he describes. He is more obsessed with telling about the worship of idols than about sex, and writes not at all about loving homosexual relationships.

I hate that these passages are often taken out of the context of the stories that their writers are telling and used as stand-alone condemnations.

So, no, I don't hate you. I hate that your lack of knowledge has led you to believe these things. My experience with many Christians is that the more literally they believe the words of their Bible, the less they are willing to learn the historical and cultural context of it.

Answer 7

Look for Gay theology with out Apology, changed my life. My biggest problem with Christians is that they expect everyone to believe that being gay is evil becuase the bible says so (in some translations) But not everyone is a christian!! Why can't they see that. If there was truely a seperation of chrch and state, we would have gay marrage and there wouldn't be the issues there are now.

Answer 8

Why do Christians think they are the only people in the world who have morals? Of course I don't hate, but I really dislike Jesus-Freaks who try and push their beliefs off on me. I do not believe in these Religious Sins no matter what man who used to walk the earth said. Why would God enlighten another instead of me when the knowledge is valuable to both of us, all of us. Besides your precious bible says, "Thou shall not idolize any man, there is but one God." And if memory serves I don't recall anyone sighting God down here writing a book of instructions about life. Nor do I remember him giving any one human the authority over another to judge his acts. If I constantly tell religious people to leave me alone and they keep reciting versus from the bible about my inevitable burning in hell I take offense to this, but I do not hate anyone. I don't like some people (some Christians included)simply because they don't let me be who I am without offering their own account of how I should be living my life. But again I don't HATE anyone. You be Christian and I'll be Gay and both of us will have a Wonderful Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 9

I hate no one...I do have distaste for those christians that insist on focusin all their energies on my sexuality when there are far more pertinent issue in this world then who im sexin.....I think this would would be so much better if people followed all of the bible instead of the parts that can help with issues that are being discused....cause in the end God will judge us all and niether Christain or Athiest can answer for me ....keep that in mind and all of these Gay/lesbian issues wont be anymore

Answer 10

I don't hate you because I don't hate anyone. I do think that you're a moron, but not because you're a straight Christian. I have plenty of straight Christian friends (my oldest gang of friends - 9 years - are all straight christians), I was raised by straight Christians, I work with straight Christians, etc. I think you're a moron because, how to put this delicately... your views are stupid :-)

Bible literalism is stupid. Whining that you're some kind of victiem when Christians are the most populous group in this country is stupid. Believing that your religious beliefs are superiour to those of others is stupid. And on a completely superficial note, I dislike people on YA who don't put up a picture. It takes like 30 seconds people! Thats just.... how to put it... stupid.

Are there gays who don't like Christians? yeah, there are also gays who are sexist, racist, irritating, superficial, and stupid. We're not a group of clones, we're a group of unique individuals, and with any group of individuals, some people will be a$$holes.

That said, Christian-phobia is not NEARLY as common as conservative Christians would like it to be. You want gay people to hate you so that you can feel better about hating us. You can then say "well these people are just as mean and they deserve it". You can feel justified in being a dick because we're hippocrites. You're looking for a framework that will justify what you already believe.

But guess what? The gay community does *not* jump through hoops on command. We're not trained seals. I'm sure you'll find some gays who hate Christians, but you'll find more gays who dislike people like you because of your INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR due to your Christian beliefs, not because of you inherantly being Christian. That is an important distinction that I frankly think you're too stupid to make. But go ahead, feel free to prove me wrong.