Is the ‘Gay Marriage’ Debate Driving Christians Away from the Church? Let’s Hope So

he believes the government could establish a kind of civil marriage,
which would not fit within the definition of Biblical marriage.

The government already did, ever since they abolished coverture laws in the late 19th century. Even before that, it was an entirely civil matter for legal purposes.

when anyone says, “homosexuality is a choice,” your next question should be, “I see, when did you choose to be straight?”

Absolutely. I appealed for Catholics to take a stand when the letter on gay marriage was read out one Sunday, but it didn’t seem like such an issue for me. The CofE always had its share of nutters, but I thought the church as a whole was moving in the right direction.

Then the church made its own statement on our marriage consultation, and it was just as spiteful and disingenuous as the Catholic letter. I want to take time to make sure I’m doing this for the right reasons, but I think that’s sealed my decision to leave and shake the dust from my shoes.

I’ve hung on through a whole lot of doubts that put me between 5 and 6 on the Dawkins scale (inertia also played its part), but that ignorance and bigotry is what’s going to push me out. Maybe I should thank the church for making it so much easier to leave.

One would hope it would drive them away from THE church but what I have seen is it drives people way from A church. Christian friends of mine attended the same church for years and after a long battle in the congregation about sexual orientation the minority moved to another congregation that was more accepting. 

 These people really don’t understand that there is presently one kind of marriage,  civil marriage under the laws of a particular state.  In the US, you can enter into marriage by solemnization at a town hall, courthouse, church, synagogue, backyard, skydiving, etc…, (or even in the 10 states that allow common-law marriage by no formalities at all) but what results is a civil marriage regardless of the process by which it is entered into.  If these people want to meet afterwards and establish a “religious marriage” they’re free to do so, but any such religious status is a legal nullity. 

I can put together some links, but you’re just wasting your time quoting science to people who largely don’t believe in its methods. 

Meth kills! Get some sleep!

I don’t often say this, but I’m quite happy if you’re not interested in being in any club I’m a member of.

Why don’t you start your own club of would-be-atheist bigots.  I’m sure you’ll find some but certainly not very much company.

And hopefully it’s driving “gay Christians” away from Christianity. 

The whole argument of whether or not being homosexual is a choice or not is pointless.  Neither side actually cares if it’s a choice or not.  Liberal minded people wouldn’t suddenly change their mind about whether it’s wrong or not if it was suddenly shown that it actually was a choice people made.  And religious conservatives aren’t going to change their minds about whether it’s wrong or not if it’s shown not to be a choice.  It’s the action that they have the problem with.  

I was born left-handed, but i could make the choice to use my right hand instead.  It would be uncomfortable and I’d hate every minute of it, but it could done.  And religious conservatives are find with being unhappy and uncomfortable.  Just so long as their behavior is right.

“when it raises those with CMD above the normal population.”
Who is raising gay people over straight? We’re just trying to level the playing field. It’s sad if you think being allowed the same rights as everyone else is somehow giving them privilege above others.

I mostly agree, but I did come across one theist on here who’s ‘proof’ that homosexuality was purely a choice was that otherwise it would be the only sin that wasn’t purely a choice.  And his stance wasn’t “you can just not act on it”.  His stance was that if God made people gay, then they were somehow unequally charged with resisting a sin, and God wouldn’t do that.

I’ve considered “if there was a pill that would change your skin color, would that make interracial marriage a sin”, but I’ve never really had the opportunity to use it.

I’ve seen it work for people who just haven’t thought about it much. There is a YouTube video where someome goes around and asked the question and when they say “it’s a choice”, he asked when they made it. Several of them realized their mistake.

That’s a good point. It’s true that for some people the rhetorical point of “it’s a choice” doesn’t even rise to the level of a thought; it’s just parroting. For them, the question may well be effective.

Of course, but by answering in that manner they have  conceded that the person is acting upon an endogenous instinct, not upon a deliberate choice to “sin”.  Their only way out from there is to argue that instincts can have some other basis than a biological basis, which usually leads to incredibly entertaining discussions about demons that most Christians don’t even believe in and even if they do definitely blunts the moral impact of their charge that the homosexual is a sinner who freely chooses to sin rather than is compelled to do so by some other force.

 The question isn’t whether it’s a choice.    Which religion you follow is a choice.  The question is whether you’re willing to apply the same standards to yourself as you do to others.  And not in a bullshit, heads-I-win-tails-you-lose way.

So:  Would this pastor be OK with a civil form of marriage which same-sex couples AND Christian couples were allowed to enter into–and other, more beneficial forms of marriage that same-sex and Christian couples were forbidden to enter into?  If he’s OK with both, it’s a position he’s entitled to argue for.  A rough rule of thumb is:  if it INCREASES options, it’s probably good, at least in theory.

Is he willing to apply a uniform numerical definition to both groups–no marriage until you’re 18, for example?  Or no marriage where one party is mentally incompetent or a farm animal?  Or no marriage where one of the parties is already married?*   If he can define his restriction such that he wouldn’t mind if the other group used it against him…then it’s probably fair.   Parents know this as the “one brother cuts the cake, the other one chooses the pieces rule.

*(Yes, that last one discriminates against polygamy, and I think it’s legally justifiable though I don’t care one way or another.) 

 I like Dan Savage’s take on the question.  Although it’s mostly good for pissing off the religious wrong.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/21/dan-savage-herman-cain-oral-sex-gay_n_1024315.html

“”We don’t 100 percent equate this as a part of the
civil rights movement because for us at least a part of this is a matter
of choice, it’s a behavior, and so it’s a different category than skin
pigmentation,””

Religion is a choice yet we’re constantly hearing screeching about their “religious freedom” to do this and that–often *to* other people.  Religion and religious people have extensive (some would say excessive) rights and protections under the law.     Even if being gay is a choice, why should gay people not have the same rights and protections? 

” Does the promotion of homosexuality drive would-be atheists away?”

God, I hope so.

Not trolling:
I’d be really interested to see the science to back up this statement.  As far as I know (and I readily admit I could simply be ignorant) no science has found a ‘gay gene’ or any other underlying biological immutable basis for having a homosexual inclination (rather than heterosexual).  

Natural Law is not the same as saying ‘occurs in nature’  otherwise we would also have to deal with infanticide (gorillas, lions, etc.), cannibalism and a host of other behaviors generally considered bad by civilized people.  To equate the two is bad philosophy nevermind theology.

Your counter argument works only because the ignorant (Evangelical/Fundamentalist) Christian is also typically unaware of what “Natural Law” really means.

don’t kid yourself. all over the world, including the US, plenty of families still believe, and disown kids and family who break this rule, that it is wrong to marry the “wrong” hued person, of any gender or orientation. i have often been struck by meeting friends from lesser known minority cultures and realizing how strongly they hold to “anyone but *those* people” meaning some other lesser known minority with whom the first group has a long history. all over asia there are some really funky hue traditions, for example, that are rarely talked about here in the US, for all asian-americans may be deeply aware of them and still practice them. white americans tend to think “race” = “the relations between pink and african/brown americans” but it goes in so many other directions for those people who take it seriously as a category by which to judge people. 

Completely agree with chicago, but also there is some evidence that having older brothers makes a man more likely to be gay.  Apparently, nobody has decided to study women in the same manner.  Sorry, no links at hand and I have to go.

But really, if everyone says their own sexuality isn’t a choice (homosexuals and heterosexuals) isn’t that evidence enough?

Natural Law is not the same as saying ‘occurs in nature’…

That’s true, though I’m confused why you’re pointing that out here since I did not use it in that way. In Christian thought the Natural Law is normative, not merely descriptive, and so the belief that heterosexuality is consonant with Natural Law is to imply not just that it occurs naturally but also that that occurrence is believed to be proper. Romans 2 is usually indicated for scriptural support, in Paul’s commentary of the Gentiles having innate knowledge of aspects of divine law without having knowledge of the Word.

Catholics, who did most of the development of the concept after they borrowed its antecedents from Hellenic and Roman philosophers, generally believe that the Natural Law is revealed through conscience, intellect, and observation of the physical world (i.e. natural revelation, as contrasted with special revelation of direct contact with God or his Word). Which is why animal homosexuality, for example, presents a real problem for the Natural Law argument against homosexuality, since mere observation of the natural behavior among animals fails to reveal the behavior’s moral flaws, unlike, say, cannibalism or infanticide which when observed is accompanied by reactions of revulsion and disgust.

Acknowledging this usually requires a Christian debater to then retreat to Levitical citations (and all the problems that brings) and some poorly translated NT passages from Paul, where they have essentially conceded a draw for debate purposes because non-believers do not consider arguments from special revelation in any way persuasive for pretty obvious reasons.

Most of them do want to *persuade* gay people that it isn’t in their best interests to have homosexual relations and asks that they voluntarily, by their own act of the will, be celibate.

That’s the crux of the problem right there. The vast majority of human beings find that intimate relationships give joy and meaning to their lives. To say that gay and lesbian people should have to live a celibate existence “for their own good” strikes me as utterly cruel. For those who desire a relationship, there is nothing good about a life devoid of intimacy, a life without the possibility of having a partner or children. It’s tragic that religion has convinced so many people that there is something wrong with a loving relationship between two consenting adults.

FWIW, here’s a clear counter-example to the notion that sexual orientation is immutable.

Not that this makes the fundie’s case by any stretch. Examples like this are remarkable precisely because they are vanishingly rare.

What is this “THE Christian church” you speak of, Hemant?  Sorry, but even as an atheist and skeptic, I get a bit leery of attempts to pretend that Christianity is some form of monolith.  Sure, the fundies are rabidly  obnoxious, but I know of too many Christians who actually have set aside those passages, just as they have others that are repugnant to them.

It’s a sloppy writing technique.  I’m no lover of false compromises–I’m very much in the camp of the New Atheists on that front.  Speak out, be loud, make noise, and never back down.  But recognizing your opponents’ true nature (a fractured, often internally conflicted group held together by an extremely loosely defined term that even many of them disagree on the definition of) is one of the best ways to gird yourself against them.

So when writing columns like this (and the underlying point–that members of specific denominations are responsible for pressuring the leaders of those denominations for change–is a vital one for most humanist atheists, I think) it’s imperative that we make sure to keep our language clear.  “Some Christians”, “conservative Christians”, “Evangelicals” and “fundamentalists”.  Among other things, it reminds ~them~ that they are divided, and forces them to make choices about what side of that division they wish to fall on.

It’s also hypocritical, one of the reasons homophobes deem homosexuality to be “immoral” is because they can’t create children.  (which is not completely true, via surrogate, but not the point I’m getting at.) And yet, homophobes have no problem of homosexuals becoming celibate. Frankly, I see this as proof that this is just about the “ickyness” of homosexuality.

LMAO! You’re parodying homophobia… right? How I hate Poe’s Law sometimes…

Well, to be fair, most conservative Christians are consistent on that point. They think that any sexual relationship is immoral outside the bounds of marriage, which they define as being ordained by their god and thus restricted to heterosexuals. They view celibacy as the moral and correct choice for all unmarried people, both heterosexual and homosexual. I’m not sure it’s about homosexuality being “icky” so much as it is blind allegiance to what they believe their holy book says is the correct expression of sexuality. Of course, religious homophobia is also influenced by culture. Indeed, it originates from the culture, and modern culture has the unfortunate legacy of homophobia from ancient cultures to deal with. We’re still seeing the ramifications of the biblical authors’ sexism and homophobia, thousands of years after those books were written.

 Some of them are just blindly following what the Bible says (though they ignore whatever might inconvenience them).  But the more rabid ones obsess about gay sex and how dirty they think it is.  Read anything by Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber or Bryan Fischer for a taste of some really vile, graphic garbage.  

I don’t know how consistent they are on sex outside of marriage, I haven’t heard of any fundie propositions to ban masturbation. Of course it’s early days yet.

I think the fact that he called these churches “philosophically substantial” indicates that this is his position too.

There’s nothing “normal” about a grown up having an imaginary friend…

It’s sad if you think being allowed the same rights as everyone else is somehow giving them privilege above others.

That’s how people generally react when their own deeply ingrained social privileges are challenged.

The only thing worse than the vile, graphic garbage that lot posts?

The mental image I have of them fapping furiously over it.

*distributes brain bleach*

Sorry.

We don’t want to burn in hell, do we? I mean, yeah. God created us this way. But he hates icky gayness. Think about it…ETERNAL TORTURE! /snark

Seriously? I see LGBT all the time, everywhere… including from gay rights groups. If you want to be totally inclusive, the acronym would go on far longer than your suggestion, I presume. So I’ve always just used that shorthand for the same reason I often write “atheists” instead of atheists, Humanists, Brights, Naturalists, etc. It gets the point across without being annoyingly unreadable.

 Ummmm, it’s currently over 7 Billion and expected to reach 10 billion around 2100 and carry on growing from there.

LGBT is fast becoming obsolete as people recognize that there’s really no such thing as rigid sexuality.  Many, many, many people do not fit into such categories; attempting to fit everyone into a box, even a supposedly inclusive LGBT box, parallels mainstream homophobia.

And yes there are many others who understand the offensive and almost discriminatory nature of LGBT:

http://alp.org/about

Hemant: you really should consider starting to use LGBTSTGNC (described in link) so as not to offend your many readers who refuse to let the archaic (and often religious) constraints of society, even supposedly allied individuals like yourself, dictate who they are.  Just because you write posts about being an ally does not mean you’ve truly invested yourself in understanding the hardships of being a sexual outsider. 

The same reason why nobody chooses to be an atheist, when it’s so much more socially acceptable to be religious?

I agree. I don’t think it’s necessary to make “excuses” for gay people – “They can’t help it, it’s biological!” – because even if it were 100% volitional, there’s nothing wrong with being gay.

…I’d also add that the nature versus nurture argument isn’t important anyway to my way of thinking,

To my mind it isn’t moral issue at all because everything else being equal being gay or straight does not effect the happiness of others.  If it isn’t a moral issue then it really is noone else’s business.

Gay, straight, Bi , whatever,  It is all just a question of who you fancy of no more significance to anyone else as to whether you prefer blondes or brunettes,

“that there’s really no such thing as rigid sexuality”

Surely by your own reasoning that statement itself is offensive to all the staight and all the gay people who are happy with having a single non-changing sexuality.  

LGBT is a entirely sensible acronyn not more offensive that using the term “black” or “white” to cover a range of skin-tones

Dan, try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation – the second para mentions what are believed to be contributing factors.

Thanks for this. As a member of a Christian denomination that, in the past few years, has voted to affirm the gifts of gays and lesbians who want to serve the church and are in committed relationships, as well as allow pastors to bless same-sex unions (and yes, the voting part is important, because it means it’s written policy and not just something a few radicals within the denomination do), I take offense to the giant blanket you have thrown over the Christian church. I’m in no way trying to diminish the harm caused by many Christians, but let’s be fair to those of us who are working toward full equality for the LGBTQ community, both in the legal and church worlds. I know it doesn’t help fulfill your dream that all Christians would run screaming from their churches, but it’s unfair to say “the Christian church” when you really mean “some members of the Christian church.”

It’s not a bad article but like a lot of wiki stuff it’s very imprecise.  That paragraph essentially states that “there are likely a lot of factors involved” which is the same as saying “we don’t really know but here are some scientists that are paid to make guesses.”

You do know that we are on your side, don’t you?

Maybe SUPERCALLAFRAGALISTICEXBEEALADOCIOUS would work better?

Julie: Having established some cred with you on this point, I’m now going to ask how often your church actively attempts to publicly condemn the more hateful branches of Christianity.

I ask because what broke me from organized religion (long before the word ‘atheist’ was even thought to be an option) was the WBC’s infamous campaign of protesting at the funerals of gay AIDS victims.  Those started receiving national attention in the media in the mid-90s.  However, it wasn’t until 2005 that any sort of organized counter-measure was taken–and then, it wasn’t taken by any Christian organization, but instead by a bunch of motorcycle-riding veterans offended by Phelps’ clan targeting the funerals of war veterans.

That was my wake-up call–the complete and total apathy of the organized churches in the face of willful hate being committed in the name of their God.  I realized that if even 1% of the churches in America had devoted 1% of their resources to a one-year campaign to counter the hate of the Westboro back in the mid-90s, the group would’ve slunk off in defeat–it was the failure of the large majority of Christians to confront such things that made it clear that the organized denominations weren’t worth my time as a (at that time, non-secular) humanist.

Not per law, but they definitely forbid it in church. Always have. The Catholic Church is against it too.

http://queerdictionary.tumblr.com/post/3899608042/quiltbag ?
Doesn’t have the recognition of LGBTQIA let alone LGBT, but at it IS pronounceable.

Granting the premise of teleology just for the sake of argument, how does one jump from “intended for a purpose” to “immoral to use it for other purposes” without some very hidden assumptions? It’d be like me saying driving a car is immoral because feet are made for walking, not pushing a gas pedal.

You can’t masturbate in church? Well, that about kills the last reasonable way to kill time while the joker in the robes rambles away time you’ll never get back.

Poorly written and over-generalized, as I imagined. 

There likely isn’t a single “gay gene” — homosexuality’s biological basis probably rests on a combination, or multiple combinations, of the expression of a given group of genes.

Three things I read about recently that seem to reflect an increased possibility for homosexuality are maternal fecundity, fraternal birth order, and left-handedness.

Quite so, and the point I was trying to illustrate was that those assumptions depend, in Natural Law theory, on things like the observations of conscience and intellect. In other words, people come to know the Natural Law from thinking about consequences and considering morally-oriented feelings that arise from experience.

As your example of the foot and the gas pedal indicates, readings of purpose into natural structures can be as loose or as cramped as the existing prejudices of the person making the determination. To bring things closer to the topic at hand, the question of whether oral sex is moral gets dicey fast under Natural Law application. 

Usually the Natural Law argument against anal sex is predicated upon negative physical consequences of the act, and that is what is usually relied upon to argue that the act is unintended in a teleological sense (leaving aside that vaginal sex can also cause physical harm, and that oral sex generally does so at a lower rate than vaginal sex). It does amuse me, on some childish level, that the whole argument depends upon an irrational fear of butthurt.

Yeah, I really think this is an area where most churches have existed in the middle place of voicing opposition to hateful groups and being silent about them. They’ll say they’re against it when they’re asked, but might not generate those comments on their own.

I think that, for the more liberal denominations, there’s been a lack of speaking out because they know that the hateful groups are just going to condemn them, which gives the hate groups the publicity they desire but doesn’t actually change their point of view. Where I think that falls short is in really speaking out as an ally to the LGBTQ community in times when they most need allies.

So what I’ve appreciated from denominations like mine (ELCA, for the record) are measures that show support for the LGBTQ community without giving national attention to hate groups (because, again, they love all the publicity they get). The presiding bishop of the ELCA did an “It Gets Better” video, and one of the speakers at our upcoming youth gathering (where over 36,000 people are participating) is Jamie Nabozny, who sued his school in Wisconsin for allowing other students to bully him because he was gay. Several other speakers at this gathering are either gay or are outspoken allies as well.

The WBC and other hate groups have made it clear that they’re not going away, and they’ve studied the constitution enough to know that they have a right to engage in these protests (even as we all agree that this is a horrific use of those rights). I wonder if where “the church” can step up is in continuing, on a national scale, to do things like what I’ve mentioned above (and more!) that communicate open and welcoming places for ALL people, but don’t give hate groups any more airtime than they’re already getting.

On a more practical level, directly addressing the hatred of the WBC, I’ve found that whenever there is a funeral or other event the WBC is protesting in a particular area, there are groups of church leaders who go out and help form a wall to block the protest signs from the family and friends in attendance. My friends who are pastors go in their clergy collars to help communicate that there are those of us in “the church” who publicly stand against hatred.

The focus on homosexuality is beyond what one would expect, especially considering how much heterosexual “fornication” goes in churches. They do indeed focus on shaming and stigmatizing gay and lesbian people while leaving heterosexuals mostly alone, at least legally, although I believe the assault on reproductive rights is connected to this. And not all churches ignore heterosexuals who engage in extra-marital sex. The local newspaper had a story the other day about a local councilman       who lost his church position because he was in a “nonbiblical” relationship with a woman. So the more extreme churches (think Mars Hill) do indeed punish and stigmatize people for consensual heterosexual sex.

If I had the resources I’d try and start a poe group. I’d bet you it wouldn’t be hard to get a few pastors on board. You could probably claim that masturbation is akin to homosexuality, after all isn’t it same sex sex?

 Only “thousands”? Maybe not a disease or an illness, but a disadvantage. I think most parents are ok with it now after the fact, and glad that they and their child may have a happy relationship, but I think those parents in the same position before having that experience would choose not to place their children at a social disadvantage if it could be avoided. Then there are the parents who “in theory” would not mind if their child was gay because none of their children happened to be gay. Then there are… I don’t know what to call them. Parents who socialize their children according to their gender, strongly. If these same people did not tamper with genetics, and found out their fetus would be a gay child, they might over-compensate, just like people find out the sex of their child now and decorate a nursery before the child even has a personality. But it’s a girl, or a boy, and all their clothes and toys reflect that and how their room is decorated, etc. I don’t know, I just imagine a gay baby disco themed nursery with lots of feather boas to play with.

Anyway, in the long run, rather than becoming an acceptable way to be, it will diminish and become “freakish” again because of the parents who decide not to put their children at a disadvantage, not mostly because of parents who would hate a gay child. If this is something they would tamper against (their) god to create, then they have to admit they’re born that way, first of all. Why would you rearrange what (your) god made so you can live the rest of your life not hating your own child?  Absolutely arrogant from that angle.

That leaves the mere “thousands” you think would leave things be. In essence, we’re all left be and most of us are straight. And then there is the question of what benefits homosexuality has for evolution that would become limited. I think now gay people create fewer new babies, percentage-wise, than straight people do – if you made everyone straight, I’m not saying it would be a baby boom, but it would. Just because being child-free is more visible doesn’t mean it’s all that common, and I don’t really see much of a change in attitude about it in the near future.

At least it’s sex with someone you love.

The Christian church already embraces homosexuality.  Just ask the United Church of Christ.

 There doesn’t need to be a gay gene there are also developmental factors which have great effects on our orientation.  Look up “older brother effect”.

Just replace DOES with CAN.

 According to some recent research (google it), the cause of at least some forms of homosexual preference is to be found in the genes of the MOTHER.  Having lots of children leads to the increasing liklihood that the womb environment will change and a future child (usually a boy) will be bathed in hormones of the wrong type, or the right type at the wrong time, which leads to brain wiring changes that manifest at puberty as a same sex preference.

For some reason 🙂 anti-homo supporters are avoiding investigating or acknowleging research of this nature.

No doubt. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they’re caught with their pants down like George Rekers.