From: lazarus@wixer.cactus.org (Michael Lax)
Subject: Re: Family Values
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 92 19:30:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.154642.12539@athena.mit.edu> jfed@athena.mit.edu.UUCP (Jude G Federspiel) writes:
>>
>As for the preachers, let me clear up one thing.  No Biblical Christian 
>who has a firm conviction that the Bible is the word of God can ignore what 
>it says:
>
>"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them has done
>what is detestable"
>	--Leviticus 18:22
>

Christian?  Christians were told by Jesus to _ignore_ Leviticus.  Besides,
you've mistranslated this from the Hebrew.  "... with a woman, he has       
committed an abomination (to'evah)."  To'evah means "ritually unclean"
which has less to do with morality than it does with being perceived
to do anything Pagan (like eating pork or shellfish - also "to'evah").


>"In the same way [as women who had turned to lesbianism] the men also 
>abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one
>another.  Men committed indecent acts with other men, and recieved in them-
>selves the due penalty for their perversion."
>	--Romans 1:27

Here we go again - perhaps you should try the Greek?  First, the word 
"homosexual" did not _exist_ at the time the Bible was written; the Greek
work you translate as such in fact has no known translation - this is
just an assumption from two appearances in the Greek text (New Testament).
And where is lesbianism _ever_ mentioned in either Old or New Testament?
It isn't.  If you're going to misquote from the Bible, at least have the
decency not to add your own text.  And if you believe the Bible to be
the word of God, how do you explain the quote you gave - it's by Paul.


>"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?
>Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor
>adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor
>the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the
>kingdom of God." 
>	--I Corinthians 6:9-10
>

Again, the word "homosexual" is _WRONG_.  No one knows what it means,
and certainly a one hundred year old word is unlikely to be appearing
in a 1,700 year old book.

>And as for a _non-Biblical_ Christian, well, such a thing exists in name
>only.  
>

Please define "non-Biblical"?  Is that reading the text and understanding
it in the time it was written?  Is that reading the _entire_ text, both
Hebrew and Greek, finding the contradictions, taking into account all that
was said, or only quoting a few lines when it accomplishes some end?  Or
is it realizing that in any religion its liturgy must be a part of that
religion, not the entire religion.

>And no, preachers for the most part _don't_ preach about condemnation for
>the ugly (I'm not endorsing preachers on the whole here; many of them
>are quite foolish) but preaching that homosexuality is a sin and as such
>is to be avoided is very Biblical.  This doesn't mean I'm telling anybody 
>to hate [or fear] homosexuals, so don't bash me for homophobia or hate 
>tactics or something equally silly.  "Hate the sin, love the sinner" is 
>the most applicable thing I can think of at the moment.
>

_HOW_ do you hate the sin and love the sinner?  I have yet to see any
example of this ever occuring, especially in Christianity.  You say that
preachers don't condemn the ugly - but the Old Testament certainly does.
More accurately, it condems the physically impaired (not to far from
18:22 - and going into a lot more detail).  It also tells parents
to kill recalcitrent children.  And it tells us to have slaves - and how we
should treat them.  The Bible was used to defend slavery much like it is
now being used to defend homophobia and hatred of gays and lesbians.
I see a lot of relatively good people such as yourself closing your
eyes to much of the Bible, and to even more of Christianity, by repeating
"homosexuality is a sin." over and over like some sort of mantra that will
make your saying it true.  If you truly think love is a sin, I pity you.

>Just my $0.02 worth
>
>Jude Federspiel
>jfed@athena.mit.edu


======================================================================
"For I can see that in the midst of death, Life persists; in the
midst of untruth, Truth persists; in the midst of darkness, Light
persists."

"An eye for an eye will blind the world."
                                      Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

"I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it."
                                                             ME!

lazarus@wixer.cactus.org
Michael Lax, 12514 Esplanade St., #B, Austin, TX  78727-4409
512.837.1596 (h), 512.836.9715 (fax)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.homosexuality