Succinct arguments

There's a very interesting article on homosexuality and religion floating around. It's an opinion piece but good reading nevertheless. I agree with quite a number of the author's points. (Would it have been as good an article if I disagreed? :o)

What if Christian leaders are wrong about homosexuality? I suppose, much as a newspaper maintains its credibility by setting the record straight, church leaders would need to do the same. Correction: Despite what you might have read, heard or been taught throughout your churchgoing life, homosexuality is, in fact, determined at birth and is not to be condemned by God's followers.

Based on a few recent headlines, we won't be seeing that admission anytime soon. Last week, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops took the position that homosexual attractions are "disordered" and that gays should live closeted lives of chastity. At the same time, North Carolina's Baptist State Convention was preparing to investigate churches that are too gay-friendly. Even the more liberal Presbyterian Church (USA) had been planning to put a minister on trial for conducting a marriage ceremony for two women before the charges were dismissed on a technicality. All this brings me back to the question: What if we're wrong?

Religion's only real commodity, after all, is its moral authority. Lose that, and we lose our credibility. Lose credibility, and we might as well close up shop.....

.....This time, Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice. To the contrary, whether sexual orientation arises as a result of the mother's hormones or the child's brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth. The point is this: Without choice, there can be no moral culpability.

The rest of the article was just as great. He quotes the Bible, which is cool. However, he also shares the belief that the Bible isn't exactly meant to be taken literally. The CHURCH wrote that. MEN wrote that. How literal can that get once human intervention takes place?

I firmly believe sexual orientation is inborn, not cultured, and that people of ANY orientation should receive the same basic respect as anyone else. A devoted couple is a devoted couple and love is blind to it's recipient.

And get this. The author? Cool dude. Also a man of the cloth.

Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a Baptist minister and author of an upcoming book, 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job).

If we had priests like that here, I'd rush to join his flock. God made people to be loved and we're told we're loved no matter what. If we're going to be so literal about it all, then why all this demonizing of the minority?


One more reason I don't attend mass anymore...... I love God but people?
Gah, People!