From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Re: Gays want to be left alone???
Date: 14 Sep 92 01:48:32 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

I'm afraid this is rather long...

In article <CHRISTIA%92091310000319@ASUACAD.BITNET> BARRYW@UCSFVM.BITNET (Barry Wadsworth) writes:
> Darren F Provine / kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu quotes me and writes:
>
> >> Once again, Christians are made to look like the force of evil and
> >> homosexuals are raised to saintly martyrdom.  We must have great
>    compassion
> >> for our fellow human beings [...]  But that does not mean that we
>    must
> >> accept their ways.
> >
> >I don't think they particularly want you to accept their ways; I think
> >a lot of them just want to be left alone.  For some reason, many Christians
> >aren't willing to do this.

Notice that he said "a lot of them", not "all of them".

> I think you are greatly mistaken.  Gays and lesbians are extremely
> active
> trying to make the rest of us accept their ways.  And we cannot. It is
> against Judeo-Christian values.  They do not want to be left alone.
> They want to make statements by hanging homosexual obscenities in our 
> museums and school hallways.  And they want us as taxpayers to pay for 
> this. They print obscene and slanderous articles in their newspapers 
> about people that happen to disagree with them.  

Now hang on a moment. Who are "they" here? All homosexuals? (I don't
believe you.) Or just some? (Then why tar them all with the same brush?)

Let's think for a moment. Firstly, it's a minority of homosexuals who
do those things. Secondly, has it occurred to you that one major reason
why they do them might be because of the way they have been treated?
That if they were left alone the result *might*, just *might* be less
of the aggressive approach, because it wouldn't be "needed" so much?

> They want business owners to pay for insurance to cover their "spouses". 

Doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me. Besides, that's a problem for
the business owners in question to worry about; not for the likes of me
and (presumably) you.

> They want to make our churches accept them as they are with no willingness
> to stop partaking in homosexual acts.  They want us to let them be our 
> spiritual leaders, our clergy, and teach our children.
> No, I'm sorry.  You are sadly mistaken.
> They want to be teachers and principals, role models for our children.

Do you really think most homosexuals care whether churches accept them
as they are? And the ones who do: which do you think is better, that they
should be hounded out of churches and *forced* not to be Christians (or
to join churches so liberal it's hard to tell the difference) or that
they should belong to Christian churches where they can partake in the
services, hear about God, have fellowship and so on? (Do you think anyone
who repeatedly sins in a particular way shouldn't be in a church? Then
we're all done for. "Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone.")

They want to be spiritual leaders? Well... So do plenty of other people
with pretty serious faults. I've already mentioned the nastier specimens
among TV evangelists; we also have a fair number of clergy who don't
believe in the Resurrection, and other such. Obviously we don't want
anyone with loony doctrine to be a spiritual leader; what reasons other
than their heterodox doctrine have you for not wanting homosexuals as
pastors/ministers/priests/whatever?

Role models for our children? Whatever do you mean? Among the wonderful
role models our children have at present are corrupt TV evangelists,
corrupt politicians, drug dealers, all sorts of fictional characters
devoted to violence of various kinds, and so on. This can't be avoided;
anyone who exists can be a role model for children (or anyone else),
and I don't see how you can possibly stop homosexuals having the same
possibility, unless you shoot them all or something.

> They wish to take control of the mass media to continually bombard other
> Americans with their agenda. 

Er, this sounds a bit like paranoia to me. Are you suggesting a homosexual
conspiracy to take over all the newspapers, television stations and so on?
Pull the other one.

> They seek political office to be our governors and our representatives. 
> How can they represent Christian values?

Exactly as well as people with other faults can. And if you don't like
them, don't vote for them. Are you suggesting that only people who
represent Christian values should be allowed to hold public office?

> They want to be inseminated and raise families. Their totally mixed-up
> children pay the price for their selfish, politically motivated, confused
> acts.

Here I agree with you. I'm sure children manage a lot better in families
with two parents of opposite sex.
 
> They have created a huge division in our country by labeling people who 
> disagree with them "Christian Right-wingers" and "Homophobes".

Created a huge division? I don't understand. Christians, particularly
strongly Biblical ones, are always going to be at war with the world.
If it's the labelling in itself you mind: don't you think the very
article to which I'm replying involves a lot of labelling and name-calling?

> They move into conservative neighborhoods and hang "Gay-pride flags"
> from their living room windows and then react with shock when they get a 
> rock thrown through their windows (which I, nor any Christian person should
> ever condone, but, hey, not everyone who disagrees with their ways is a
> practicing Christian).

I don't quite see your point. Are you saying that no one should hang out flags
or put up posters that might annoy their neighbours? What would you say to
someone who said about Christians "They put posters in their windows saying
'Jesus is Lord' and 'Ban Abortion Now' and then react with shock when they
get a rock thrown through their window..."? 

> With over 10,000 lesbians already artificially inseminated and raising
> children, according to Newsweek this week, I wonder what next!
> The truth is, WE just want to be left alone. We want our CHILDREN to be
> left alone. We want our businesses, our lives, our taxes, and our religions
> and churches to be left alone.

Fair enough. You have the right to vote for whoever you like. You will not
have practicing homosexuals in your church unless your church is prepared
to have them; if it is and you don't like it, you can move to another church,
just like you might do if your pastor suddenly declared he didn't believe in
the Resurrection. You can send your children to a school run by a church;
and in any case I really do not believe that having a homosexual teacher
will make a child any more likely to be homosexual; at least, not in most
subjects. (What difference would it have made to you if your mathematics
teacher had been homosexual?) Your taxes are obviously not affected in the
least by what rights homosexuals have. If you seriously think paying out
insurance for "spouses" of homosexuals is going to have substantial impact
on any business, you've done your sums wrong. What's the problem?

> But, homosexuals in this country have an agenda and they will not stop
> until they are either converted to Christianity, repent, and stop
> homosexual acts (and stop aiding the homosexual agenda), or they completely
> overtake this country and change it forever.

More conspiracy theories.

> This kind of change will open the flood gates for every kind of evil in
> the name of freedom and human rights.  But, what about the freedom of 
> people who do not wish to see homosexual obscenities but are forced to.  

There are heterosexual obscenities too. Are you forced to see those?
What makes you think you'll ever have to "see homosexual obscenities"?

> What about our rights to have our children be taught by teachers of high
> moral standards who can serve as role models? What about our rights to
> preserve of religious traditions without having them defiled by people 
> who try to rise to positions of power within them for their own political 
> motives?

Children in school generally know just about nothing of the sex lives of
their teachers. They are quite accustomed to thinking that people are
weird if they are in any way different, and they are quite capable of
not taking homosexual teachers as role models for just that reason. That's
if they know they're homosexual; if they don't it doesn't matter if they
take them as role models.

The way to deal with people who try to rise to positions of power in
churches for the wrong reasons is: don't let them. Are you saying that
any homosexual who wants to do something in a church is necessarily doing
it only for political reasons? (If so I don't believe you.) If not, the
answer is to take the same care with homosexual would-be church workers
as you would with any others, and only appoint them if they are NOT doing
it for the wrong reasons. In any case, I repeat: A church which is firmly
based in standard conservative evangelical doctrine won't even consider
appointing homosexuals as leaders anyway.

> No, you are very wrong.  The homosexuals in this country do not want to
> be left alone. They want to open their bedroom doors to the public. It
> would have been much wiser to keep them closed. 

Perhaps some do. I see no evidence that all, or even most, do. Surely
most people would rather keep their bedroom doors closed, for reasons
of privacy, whatever they happen to do behind them.

> Next, I am afraid fathers guilty of incest will decide that this is
> their sexual orientation and that they also must come out of the closet 
> and demand that their art be funded, that they be able to marry their 
> daughters (or sons), that they be able to become our priests and ministers.

Well, let's deal with that problem if it arises, shall we?

> As I said, we must be compassionate toward these confused people. We
> must be willing to listen and to help them.  We should welcome them into 
> our churches, but under our terms, not theirs! Compassionate love is not
> blind and is not afraid to correct a problem that would result in damnation.
> We don't need to create any more hell for ourselves than we already have
> in this country.

You can't correct their problem for them. It's not possible, and you would
have no right to try to do it by force if it were. If your church reckons
that homosexuals are going to be damned if they don't change, then let it
teach that; but that won't do any good if it doesn't let homosexuals in
in the first place until they're changed. 

***************

To summarise: Yes, some homosexuals publicise their cause in a completely
unreasonable manner. This doesn't mean that all homosexuals are power-hungry
maniacs trying to take over the media, the government, and the minds of the
people. Some of them, as Darren says, just want to be left alone. This means
left alone to do (among consenting adults) whatever they find reasonable,
and to be treated as human beings. And also to be seen as people in their
own right rather than just as "homosexuals" as if when you've said someone
is a homosexual you've said all there is to be said about them.

There are plenty of sins we could do with worrying about much more than
homosexuality. Homosexuality, by its very nature, is only an issue for a
minority; what about the sins that tempt us all? Pride, anger, envy, hatred,
contempt, hardness of heart... the list goes on and on, and I think the
Christian church could do with getting some floorboards out of its eyes
before it starts trying to judge everyone else.

Jesus had a lot to say about sin. I can think of maybe three or so times in
the Gospels when he has anything to say about sexual sins, and they come in
for a lot less flak than hypocrisy, pride and things. Perhaps there is a
lesson for us there.
-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU