Curious what this group thinks about sexual orientation

[Bluerocket]

IMO - A person's sexual preference is their own business -

As long as they are participating in consensual sex that does no harm - then I don't care what they do.

In nature animals are also bisexual and homosexual etc...

Many people are also A-sexual as well (e.g. not interested at all!)

JJ

 

[Mona]

WOW....EXCELLENT post Nootka!!

I still just can't "get" that something you cannot help is viewed as a sin.

For example, if you came down with cancer, would that be a sin?

Born with a genetic defect? A sin, or genetic chance?

Or if you were born with blue eyes instead of brown..is that a sin? No...it just is.

(and while I'm at it, why are such things as illnesses and unfortunate accidents considered a visitation of god's will and yet something such as being gay, which many consider an illness is "against god's will?" What's up with that? I can assure you my uncle would never have chosen to feel the way he did if he had any bit of choice. HE TRIED multiple times to live as a straight man, he was even married at one point. In the end, he committed yet another "sin" if you choose to believe certain interpretation's of man's bible, and ended his own life, hoping to stop the suffering around him beginning with his own.

I've never been able to understand original sin, either, but maybe that's just why I'm not considered a good "insert religious denomination here". Too many questions and I don't like someone telling me (or anyone else) what to think.

It (discrimination) starts in the innocence of "hate the sin not the sinner" but how do you separate the two? One implies that the "sinner" is doing something wrong by choice (sinning) and what is the alternative? To teach them to stop with punishment or negative reinforcement. No, not all would choose to do this, but many more immature personalities WILL. They believe they are doing "gods will" and there is no greater calling than to do such. I've heard it straight from many a bigot's mouth, that it is against the will of god and I just see ignorance when I hear it.

Liz M.

WOW...just kept on reading and also love the posts written by Linda L and Pepipony!! Now I am going to finish reading this thread!

:

As I said in my previous post I have always felt that being gay is not a sin because it is not a choice....however...I was thinking about this overnight and I want to pose this question to you all. I still feel that a gay person, who I believe was genetically born that way is not committing a sin HOWEVER(here's the question) do you think that a man/woman who is incarcerated and then turns to acts of homosexuality for sexual satisfaction, who has otherwise been a heterosexual person, is then making a conscious choice to commit a homosexual act and is then committing a sin???

Second question for those of you that know the bible...is it specifically written that homosexuality is a sin?? If it is can you tell me where?

I AM NOT intending to stir the pot here just wanting to continue a civilized conversation on this topic which includes everyone!

:

To that, again, I say no, I don't feel it is a sin...if it is two consenting adults. They are fullfilling their physical/sexual needs and desires. If we were not meant to fullfill our physical/sexual needs and desires, then perhaps we should have been made up/programmed differently...like those animals that breed only for the sake of reproduction, and not for personal gratification.

 

[nootka]

justanothercowgirl, no, I don't feel it is a sin in any form, actually.

I happen to know that many younger humans tend to "play around" with those of the same sex and then go on to have a fairly "average" adult life w/members of the opposite sex. I think each person is different and sometimes you just meet that "someone" that you fall in love with. Sometimes that someone could be the same gender. If the situation is further forced by say being in a situation where there are NO members of the opposite sex, then what is wrong with that? As long as noone is being forced against their will, I can't see the damage in it. I think the "wrong" comes from external sources and therein lies the tragedy.

Many gay people laugh and joke about their lot in life, and I know some of them are truly that ok with it that they can, and still others use it as a way of coping, but it in no way seems to me to be something someone would choose just like noone has a chance to choose their skin color nor their genetic makeup. Even IF science determined how and why, I don't see it as an illness or something gone wrong, necessarily, and I hope my posts don't imply that. I just see it as a difference much the same as height or even skin color, it just is.

I take people based on their behavior and basic personalities. There are people of every description that I like/love, and people of every description that I end up feeling that I don't enjoy their company. While some of these may be something "different" than me in some way (and every human IS unique in some form or other), I don't focus on that being the reason because it's not. Unless I am directly involved (aka in a relationship with) that person, their sexual orientation would be the last thing that mattered. As was mentioned, we don't go around announcing to our friends "I'm straight" and wait and see what happens. It's assumed.

Liz

 

[Amalthea]

I'm completely okay with the live-and-let-live approach many have and commend you all on your open mindedness, but I do have to say if makes me giggle to read the whole "as long as they aren't blatant about it" thing I've seen whenever topics on homosexuals pop up. I've always wondered if homosexuals say the same thing. "Ya know, Chris, I don't have a problem with the staight people being intimate, just as long as they don't try to shove it down our throats."

Growing up, I was never overtly blatant in my prefrences. Who had time to be boy crazy when there were horses? And horses love you regardless of what the popular kids think! Because of that, I was "considered" a lesbian. And many people, even adults, felt no compuncture in asking me if I was. Nevertheless, I am straight and to my knowledge never made a "choice" to like men. You are what you are.

Like many who've posted I have gay relatives and friends. It makes me sad that they may may find the love of their lives and not be able to expresss that in a legal manner, like marriage. That they would have difficulty adopting or that the custody of their children, should something happen to their partner, be compromised. I think in the media, marriage is misrepresented. Most of us think of a marriage in the social sense: A public coming together of two individuals who love one another. This may or may not be strongly religious. But what is often overlooked is that marriage, while an adopted social and religious binding, is still a contract. Moreover, "back in the day" it was a contract binding the wealth or power of families or directing that money to future decendents. That's one of the reasons out-of-wedlock birth was such a taboo. I guess that's one of the things that annoys me is when some folks say allowing gays to marry would compromise the insttution of marriage.

I'm glad there are Christians out there who aren't quick to play the "It's a sin, go to he11 and don't collect $200 dollars" card. It's not that mainstream media doesn't want to hear the "Christian voice" it's just that some of the squakers out there make the rest of us look like bigots. I just don't see how I could go to Heaven for hating someone, and go to He11 for loving them.

 

[capall beag]

I wasn't going to reply but thought I would.

JUST IMO!!!!!!!!

I know many people who are gay and certainly I don't think any better or worse of them because of it, in fact, it is completely irrelevant.

I think it is much easier to be straight and so truly believe that people who are gay really are!!! I mean why would you pretend to be?

However, IMO it is silly to say you have no choice in life.

We make choices everyday, and as I think we are all the same no matter our color, sexual orientation, religion, gender etc I think gay people make choices too.

Especially in America you have tons of choice! You choose how and what you do with your life.

I come from a country, Ireland, that up until fairly recently you had limited choices in many areas. If you think you don't have free choice in America you haven't been many other places.

We are all responsible for our own choices, I make good and bad ones everyday!!

I was raised in a Christian home and am a Christian. I definately was brought up to believe that homosexuality was wrong.

But now I am all grown up and can make my own choices

:

I am not sure if it is wrong or right in God's eyes to do many things but I do know that in the Bible which is what my faith is based on, it repeats over and over again NOT to judge lest you be judged and to LOVE your neighbour.

With all the horrendous things that go on in the world every minute of everyday I cannot imagine that a good person who happens to choose to love a person of the same gender will be judged by God any differently than me or anyone else.

:

 

[Jill]

With all the horrendous things that go on in the world every minute of everyday I cannot imagine that a good person who happens to choose to love a person of the same gender will be judged by God any differently than me or anyone else.

:

I agree 100%

:

 

[Buckskin gal]

Even Christians have to admit that the bible says what is a sin for one person may not be a sin for another person. It is what one believes that makes the difference. I do believe that people are born a certain way and it is not always a choice for them to be what they are. Since God made ALL things possible and created each and every person and thing, who are we to say something is wrong for another person? And for Christians to believe that God's greatest commandment was to love others as much as we love Him, how can we not have love and respect for others no matter who they love? Aren't we in this world to learn and if so, doesn't each and every person have something to learn and teach the other? There is no mystery to life if we accept the knowledge that God created each and every person for himself...not for us. What seems to have happened is children are taught what to think instead of how to think so prejudices take hold. Our world would not be in such a mess if it were not for people being told what to think instead of how to think.

There is one thing I see wrong and that is for for teachers to tell their students that they are homosexual for if they think it is normal for them to be that way than let it be. Heterosexual teachers don't make it a point to tell their students they are heterosexual! Let the children learn all about the person their teacher is but they have no need to know what the teachers sexual life is about. Yes, live the life YOU WERE MEANT TO LIVE and let others live the life they were meant to live. If God meant to create ALL then it is our job to accept all. JMHO Mary

For just another cowgirl...from what I understand, the Old testament homosexuality activity was strongly associated with idolatrous cult prostitution as in [1 Kings 14:24, 15:12.] in the New Testament Jesus Himself never specifically mentioned homosexuality...he did condemn all forms of sexual immorality [NKJ, Mark 7:20-23]

Paul in one of his letters to the Corinthians, wrote the verses most often qouted on the subject: dO YOU KNOW THAT THE WICKED WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOMOF GOD? DO NOT BE DECEIVED: NEITHER THE SEXUALLY IMMORAL NOR IDOLATERS NOR THE ADULTERERS NOR MALE PROSTITUTES NOR HOMOSEXUAL OFFENDERS NOR THIEVES NOR THE GREEDY NOR THE DRUNKARDS NOR SLANDERERS NOR SWINDLERS WILL INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD. AND THAT IS WHAT SOME OF YOU WERE. BUT YOU WERE WASHED, YOU WERE SANCTIFIED, YOU WERE JUSTIFU=IED IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND BY THE SPIRIT OF OUR GOD. [NIV, 1st Corinthians 6:9-11] We can take this as God may know how he created man so therefore He also knows He must forgive them for what they do. JMHO Mary

 

[Sun Runner Stables]

Having gone to a highschool specifically designed for artists of any and all types, I had and Still have a few close friends, who like the same sex. I also have two friends who were and then changed their minds, and went on to get married and have kids years later with opp sex. No big deal, they are people, and I love them, their witty brains, and the wondeful beings they are. I don't Think about their orientation, except for the times came that I would defend them in anger of someones careless or pointedly cruel remark.

Nothing, and I do mean Nothing, gets under my skin and makes me screaming angry then the Gov telling people who are Paying Taxpayer citizens no, for religious reasons, for Anything of the controversal issues, gay marriage being one of them! It's nuts. Just plain old nuts.

I went to church when I was younger, auctually had to sneek out of my house to do so because my parents are such staunch anti-dogma people, and loved it!

Loved it until I witnessed seveal acts of inhumane cruelty that drove me from what as a born again, I had been taught was a place of love and respect. Basicly respected elder member comes out, or daught of another Has to have an abortion or Die, and the horrible Horrible way they were treated made be cross out any organized religion altogether. These were good loving wonderful people who gave their every heart,penny, and soul to help others and the church, almost ridden out of our small community tar and feathered....

I will always fight for gay marrige and other rights, for no One voice should control the All of everyone, we are all to diverse.

 

[LindaL]

Capall beag,

Concerning you post about "choices", I had to comment....

I agree that we all make choices every day on how we live our lives. I did choose to come out and live openly as a lesbian and I did choose to be in a relationship with a woman. No agument, there. I could have stayed married to a man and kept quiet about my true sexual orientation and lived as a straight person. I chose not to do that, so yes, I did have choices regarding my life as a lesbian....BUT, I did not choose my orientation. I knew in my mind I was not straight, even if I lived openly as one....living a straight life does NOT make you straight. So, while I had made choices in how I lived openly, I had no choice in who I was attracted to....I was born gay.

 

[justanothercowgirl]

I have to admit I am always a bit surprised by people who think that being gay is a choice. I try to put myself in the shoes of a gay person and here's what I come up with. When you go back to the time in your life when you are a young person and you start to have a sexual awakening(heterosexual in my case) where you actually no longer think boys are just yucky. You start to have your first crushes and attractions to boys, you don't CHOOSE that it just happens, it is a natural part of what happens to your mind and body as you mature and hit puberty. If at that time I were to have been told that being attracted to boys were wrong and not socially accepted by society could I have stopped myself from being attracted to them, of course not!! If I had to hide my attraction and spend a lifetime doing that and having society telling me that it was wrong and a sin, what a miserable existance that would be! Would I CHOOSE that??? COME ON!!! You have got to be kidding me. So if a gay person develops an attraction to persons of the same sex as they come into puberty the same way as a heterosexual person does then I can say they didn't choose it, it just happens they same way that I grew up and became attracted to members of the opposite sex. Now looking at it from a Christian standpoint I can't imagine God would make you that way and then make it a sin to live in the way you were made. Hope that made sense???

Pam

 

[capall beag]

In reply.......I absolutely agree you do not choose you orientation. I did try to make that clear in the first couple of lines.

I, in no way think a person chooses to be Gay and therefore wonder if in God's eyes it is wrong, why would people be born gay.......I don't know the answer to that nor would I pretend to.

I try to stick to Not judging others in this area because I don't know the answers and instead I just take people as I find them, if I like you your orientation would in no way change my opinion of you.

 

[Lauralee]

Doesn't the term "sexual orientation" depersonalize and degrade the union that what we are describing which is an interpersonal relationship between two people? I guess it bugs me when terms like that are used.....this is not really about SEX as much as it is RELATIONSHIPS. Not all marriages between two people even involve SEX.

 

[nootka]

It would appear that I chose my words inappropriately, though I was just trying to put it in a generic sort of way, for while it says to me what your "direction" might be within the world of relationships, I do know that there are many relationships that don't actually involve sexuality, and yet are every bit as committed as a traditional marriage, though lets say that most human beings have this part of themselves in their lives, I assume it to be true of homesexual vs. heterosexual and if there was NOT this part of it, it wouldn't be so "repulsive" to the moral majority.

Anyway, I realize there is MUCH more to it than just the sexual part, though the gender i.e. sex part of it is the BIG turn off for those that are offended or feel it's wrong. If they were just "good friends" I bet there would be less of a problem for those ones and that's not the way it turns out.

I was trying to state it in a way that would be acceptable and yet encompass the basic root of the issue, for many of us can have all the very close friends/girlfriends/boyfriends we want, it is when we say that those are the ones we are sexually attracted to, that it becomes a "Problem" though I don't understand that viewpoint at all.

Sorry to offend,

Liz

 

[Matt73]

Thank you, "justanothercowgirl"! Well put!!!!

 

[Ashley]

Now looking at it from a Christian standpoint I can't imagine God would make you that way and then make it a sin to live in the way you were made. Hope that made sense???

This is why I have a hard time beleiveing there is a god.

 

[Jill]

But the way I see it (it's what works for me), there is a God and he doesn't make any love a sin, gay or straight. Love is love and people who find it are lucky. I do not know many gay people, probably because I don't really "know" that many people well enough to "know". One person I know who is gay (my favorite vet) is someone I admire and enjoy so much. He is one of my favorite people on the planet and I think his significant other is a great guy, too! Both of them have been in a horse stall with me at 2am helping to save one of my best horses. They bicker just like H and I do. Probably been together as long as well. When I said I agreed God didn't care who you choose to love (paraphrasing), I didn't mean gays and straights choose their orientation (but you do choose WHO you let yourself fall in love with apart from gender...), but that "my" God doesn't judge people in that way but rather by how they treat others.

 

[nootka]

Jill, if I believed in a god, that would be the way I felt they would treat everyone. It is what I would hope a perfect being would conduct themselves.

Love is love, and it should not matter the conditions, but rather the depth and strength of it as well as you said, the way one treats others. No judgment.

Liz

 

[LaraP]

I had no intentions whatsoever in responding to this thread. But in reading all the posts, and finding in alot of them, "is it a sin to have cancer"? or to be born with some time of problem? If I were gay, I would take great offense of being REFERRED to as being sick in so way. JMO

Just curious. do gay people consider thenselves sick in some way??

Lara

 

[Mona]

I had no intentions whatsoever in responding to this thread. But in reading all the posts, and finding in alot of them, "is it a sin to have cancer"? or to be born with some time of problem? If I were gay, I would take great offense of being REFERRED to as being sick in so way. JMO

Just curious. do gay people consider thenselves sick in some way??

Lara

Lara, the way people have used that as a comparison, is not meant to mean they are sick. It is meant to show that some things cannot be helped...that they "just are", and that it is something that was not chosen. Sick was given as an example, because of course, people would never choose to be sick.

I don't feel homosexuality is a sickness. It is just a a part of the genetic make-up of that particular person...just like blue eyes or blonde hair.

:

 

[momtotwo]

Awesome discussion!! I am really impressed with everyone who has responded to this thread. This is a subject that can get really heated very quickly. Back when Barney (the big purple dinosaur) was still wearing diapers, I worked at Disney World. Prior to my employment there I had never met an openly homosexual person. It was quite an eye opener working there. I led a very sheltered Life, even though I hung out with the "wrong crowd." I never even thought about the concept of sexual preference before then. Disney took care of that! There are LOTS of gays and lesbians there and they are very open about it. The little area I worked at had 12-14 employees and 5-6 of them were homosexual. They were some of the nicest, giving, empathetic people I have ever met. A couple of the girls talked me into going to a gay bar with them one night. I had the best time that night! We went to three bars, one of which was rather rowdie, and people were so respectful of one another. If a person tried to hit on someone else and that person said they weren't interested, that was the end of it. As far as choice. Why is it so difficult to believe that maybe homosexuality is a biological thing? This is the only area of the human body where people refuse to believe that there could be differences. We have people born with extra limbs, no eyes, two heads, but sexuality is an absolute given? It doesn't make sense to me. I've even taken care of a couple of people in nursing homes who have both sets of genitalia. Another problem I have is the fear so many people have that homosexuals are automatically going to molest children. Homosexual and Pedophile are two different things. It's "safe" for a homosexual to raise a child in foster care but not to adopt and raise that same child? Why? Where does the logic to this come in? When it comes to judging others, all I can say is this, I have NEVER noticed nail holes in the wrists and ankles of ANY person I have ever met. Maybe they just healed really well and I was actually in His presence but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. -jo ann-