But you have Jewish reform, some jewish conservatives, MCC, most of the UUs, about half of the UCC, as supportive. Also Quakers – not a real pound the enemy into the ground type group, though.The Episcopalians are definitely moving in the right direction, if only they would simply tell England etc to GTH. They would be 90% or more onboard. Now the ELCA, which is the liberal Lutherans,are definitely moving in the right direction, and there are presbyterians moving also – I saw something quite recently in this regard, re the Presbyterian church USA becoming more liberal, and I thought they were the more conservative Pres group.

Ultimately there will be a large number of churches supporting gay people, and in some form gay relationships, while the old ladies in Rome, masturbating in their fancy dresses, and speaking from their reversed alimentary canals, will never change till the money dries up. The same for the Mormons, though there is some movement by younger mormons to liberalize the control freaks that rule their church.

No easy solution, but keep your eye, and your action on the eight ball, while always trying to drive the fairness and justice message to good religious people who really don’t understand the issues.

And surprisingly, I know a number of catholics, all educated, mostly young but some older, who support “all the rights and responsibilites of marriage for gays”, but just please don’t call it marriage. They may go to church, but they don’t vote per the church

This is progress. If only I could live long enough to see the Vatican turned into a monument showing what it has been over the ages – a museum dedicated to showing how a religion became the longest living monstrosity of the western world. The cause of endless wars and exterminations, all in their corrupted view of God, which in Latin must be named POWER.

And someone is right about the church and the Nazis – all these types want is power and money, the rest is hype and BS. Of course, who but the Catholic church poisoned humanity with the hatred of the Jews. Which gave hitler the lever to gain total power, the rest we all understand, except for Rome. And they proved it again by electing a Pope who said seig heil in his youth, and obviously still is poisoned by that type of (ir)rationality.

But you have to have your eye on the eight ball, and fight the winnable battles now, that will strengthen you for the more difficult ones in the future, while weakening the enemy.

BTW, Some people really believe DAVE W, re your comments. Maybe they think they can cure the church, though I think it isn’t worth curing. It is only a spreader of induced mental illness.

And what gave us 9/11 – a society poisoned by 600 years of 14 Christian Crusades, which in the “name of God” murdered possibly as many as 50 million Muslims. It poisoned their society – language wise, writing wise, religious wise – the whole culture. And just as the Catholic church gave hitler the lever for ultimate power – hatred of jews to gain total power, the catholic church combined with corrupt kings and emperors poisoned that society.

Making it so easy for a maniac named Bin Laden to recruit some people and give them flying lessons, but not landing lessons.

While I agree that LCMC is hardline conservative, I will have to disagree with your “cult” status. We are no more strict that the Catholic church.

Second, I am neither closeted or self loathing and I love my church. I know they have a lot of things wrong, but I more interested in trying to convince those people to see it differently.

Kieschnick is either deliberately lying or he has no idea what he’s talking about. Both Leviticus and Romans call homosexuality “unclean” – toevah in the Old Testament and akatharsia in the New Testament. And in Romans 14:14, Paul wrote, “I know and am convicted in the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean in itself, but to him for whom it is unclean, to him it is unclean.”

Likewise, Jesus said that uncleanness, which he called impurity, does not defile a person. The only exception is impurity of the heart, which has nothing to do with homosexuality but, rather, leads to inherently wrongful behavior such as murder, theft, adultery, and covetousness. Most of these acts involve taking what belongs to another person or trying to get more than another person has. James includes favoritism in this category as well. Today, we might use the word discrimination.

Kieschnick is also wrong about the roughly 2,000 years since the New Testament period. The belief that homosexuality is wrong did not become dominant in the church until the early 13th century, so it certainly hasn’t lasted 2,000 years.

Antigay Christians support their bigotry chiefly by misrepresenting the Bible. I suggest that finding out what the Bible really says about homosexuality – and making it known – is key to ending religious discrimination in the US. The paragraphs above are only a brief summary, but plenty of information is available. Daniel Helminiak’s short book What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality is a good, brief summary. L. William Countryman’s Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today is much more thorough. It answered my lingering questions from Helminiak, and it’s extremely difficult to refute. Only parts of it address homosexuality directly, but the rest of it strengthens the case being presented. Finally, John Boswell’s classic Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality covers homosexuality in the history of the Christian church.

The view that homosexuality is a sin is starting to crumble as people learn more. We can further its demise by educating ourselves and others. Loving, thoughtful Christians can be especially helpful in this process. I agree with another poster who said that being intolerant toward others on the basis of their religion really does more harm than good. We’ll be most effective if we avoid the hate and stridence that are turning people off to the religious right.

They’re not concerned about a departure from what the Bible actually says on the subject (virtually nothing). They’re only concerned that it departs from their tradition.

The religious leadership falls into the same camp as that identified by David W. earlier . . . they don’t want to put the work in to find out what the bible says. Their tradition is good enough for them.

There are many existing works dealing with the BS factor in modern churches, and how that BS came to be (one example–go find a book on how the Council of Nicea turned Christianity into a mysogynist cult, NOT what early writings promoted). In Islam, the argument goes that the Quran is sacrosanct because Allah gave it to Muhammed in a perfect, final form–there have been no revisions. That’s clearly untrue, as there are ancient copies of the Quran which don’t say the same thing as each other or as today’s Quran. Religion is a uniting force, but it also unites by defining and excluding the Other.

I don’t have a religious impulse. I do think that it’s sad that something in which people find beauty and solace and companionship, that thing is too often turned into a weapon or a tool of petty judgment.

ELCA versus Missouri Synod–they’re both Lutheran, yet one seems to think it’s so purely Lutheran that it can’t share communion with slightly different Lutherans? It sounds so hig-school cafeteria, y’know? Those things do hurt people, and what makes it rankle is that there are people being rejected in the erstwhile name of love. In what text, what book of the Bible, did Jesus ever explicitly choose rejection of people who came with an open heart? None. Never.

We may be able to sway some people in the middle, like those that admit the World was not made in 6 literal days, or admit that dinasours did roam the Earth.
However there are some Hateful Church Lady types that will not listen to reason or debate if it goes against what their Pastor or Bishop has spoon fed them. Many Church People barely read the “good book” at all.
There are many many social justice type passages that never get quoted by the GOP or religious right.

Tom in Long Beach

There are many Christian churches (and clergy), as well as man Jewish temples (and rabbis) that support, sanction and support same sex marriage. You denigrate these brave leaders (albeit often behind-scenes) who have broken walls within the religious community to bring equality to all.

If you push all religions, churches and clergy into the same category as the bigoted and ignorant, you are doing just what anti-gay hate mongers do when they paint all gays as promiscuous, AIDS-ridden parasites and pedophiles.

I belive, in fighting bigotry and hate, we must be better than those who would oppress us. We shouldn’t get down in the gutter and wallow in the filth with them.