My cousin died of Aids and he was gay. That was in the 80's when Aids was relatively new.
If you saw him, he was macho and not effeminate. We all loved his sense of humour.
I want to address other issues. As nature shows us, homosexuality is "not normal" by heterosexual standards and I am OK with that yet I will not judge these folk. Their sexual orientation is essentially a private affair and yes I would go so far as saying their are militant gays too, just like their are extreme fundamentalist right wing Christians that want to impose their POV on everyone. In your country this is called freedom of speech and I guess you have freedom of association too
A heterosexual that engages in sodomy with the opposite sex or bondage of kinky sex, cross dressing, oral sex, whatever, usually will not be found out unless they choose to talk about it. It happens. On these matters the church is relatively silent.
There are many things that happen behind closed doors and that is where they should remain. Sex for pleasure by the RCC doctrine esp. with contraception is frowned upon, very archaic.
Let us look at the Romans 1 text:
Rom 1:27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
Rom 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in
their knowledge,
God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
Taken literally, it is God who made/makes them do it. Seems like they already have received a penalty of their error that was due. But remember the context, these are believers ones knowing God that fell away.
But why stop there?
Rom 1:29 being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness;
being full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, evil habits,
becoming whisperers,
Rom 1:30 backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, braggarts, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 undiscerning, perfidious, without
natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful;
Rom 1:32 who, knowing the righteous order of God, that those practicing such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but have pleasure in those practicing
them.
See, gossiping is grouped in the same category, pride, unforgiveness, unmerciful also.
Thus when you judge, where do you stop? By whose standards? None of what has been shared addresses the question, all I get are strawmen arguments, while trying to demonstrate any judgement is subjective.
If you do not forgive your brother, neither shall you be forgiven, it is as simple as that. Judge not lest ye be judged, Jesus judged no one apart form the legalistic S&P and "religious elect" of the day and He used their law to do it.
The moment you judge, you step into the realm of the flesh and not the spirit, in the realm of the flesh/carnality, you find not only sin focus but law focus yet we are all saved by Grace lest any man should boast.
The beam-in-the-eye ministry some folk have, Jesus taught against. If you break it down to basics, I guess Jesus said we are all pretty screwed up one way or the other. No one could cast the first stone and if stoning of a homosexual was part of the story, Jesus would have done exactly what He did with the woman and would have said go and sin no more. Kinda makes you wonder if she did heed His advice or if she continued with her adultery.
Love covers a multitude of sins and I guess the love and compassion Jesus showed was far more effective than condemnation. Jesus did not recite the law to her and say "It is written..." He sure had the knowledge of their laws but always turned it against the S&P's.
If the traditional POV on sin aka original sin makes all dead in Adam and we all are made alive in Christ (enter your own sin list here.......) Why then can the original sin be applied to homosexuals? We were all once dead in our trespasses, we all fall short of the glory, we all sin in spite of Jesus.
See the problem is not sin itself, it is the sin focus that is the problem. I have shared that the trees of Genesis exist in us both symbolising law and Grace, bad fruit, good fruit, bitter fountain, sweet fountain, tares and wheat.
Folk believe that when they become born-again, they are transformed from a bad tree to a good tree, that is not true. You have both good and bad in you, it is our nature. Jesus does not change our nature, were that true, then we would all agree 100% and no believer would commit a single sin.
The wages of sin is death and that has two meanings.
- When we die sin looses dominion over us
- When we focus on sin or when we sin, we fall from grace, we enter the realm of law, we eat of the forbidden tree "...thou shalt surely die"
The church teaches no solution to sin apart from a perverted blood atonement sacrifice of Jesus. Thus Jesus' sacrifice now covers our sin and no longer Love. Hence when we sin, we are exonerated by the cross. Take that same mindset, apply it to one with heterosexual sexual sin, it is covered, apply it to a Christian who happens to battle with sexual orientation "as we see it" and the blood and atonement flies out the window, very convenient.
If sin were such an issue with the Father, Jesus who was sinless by all accounts, would have stoned the woman, likely He would have asked for the man too. What most see in that story is Grace and Love but fail to be able to apply it to homosexuals.
Yes, it is unnatural (to us) but there are many other unnatural things that are swept under the carpet. It is because we view the matter through the eyes of man and not God.
One will say yes a homosexual can become a Christian but he/she must change, (back in the law) yet you who condemn and have other weaknesses, why do you not change? Haul out the sin list and now you have grading to sin, subjective and at minimum, set by the law within you. Thus you eat of the wrong tree again and the result is death.
Jesus came to set us free from the law, never denied the 10 and emphasised 2, both Love orientated. His death was to fulfill the law of the Jews not for Gentiles. The Jewish law demanded sacrifice/atonement for sin.
Just like our nature likes to apportion blame or defer outwardly to someone or something, the same is when we divert attention from ourselves and our weaknesses to other's weaknesses.
No matter how you want to argue it, when you judge, you judge yourself, always 3 fingers that point back at you and a thumb that points upward to where the true judge sits.
Adherence to law makes you a slave to it.
Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Rom 8:2 But
the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
Rom 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh;
Rom 8:4 so that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not according to the flesh but
according to the Spirit.
Walking according to the Law of the Spirit is Love, Unconditional Love.
Blessings
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the marriage of god, man and christ
