A.) Non applicable; you're missing the argument entirely. Yes, specific parts are overridden, but these are not those parts. No, unless you can show me where those parts of the old testament I was talking about banning homosexuality are specifically overridden, then they still apply.
This might surprise you, but the Bible isn't terribly clear about everything and interpretations of it vary wildly. Like I just told you, a lot of Mosaic law is seen to be superseded by the Law of Christ, including that part, the parts about clothing and shrimp, and so forth.
I really don't see why it's so illegitimate to believe that the laws given to the Jewish people in the time of Deuteronomy/Leviticus/Numbers were meant
for those specific people at that specific point in history.
There are a lot of justifications for why they believe this in particular, and for why it applies to some things (e.g. most of mosaic law) and not others (mostly the Ten Commandments), a lot of it related to a few things Jesus said. It's a complicated issue, but the fact remains that it's not just arbitrary picking-and-choosing, it's dispensing with basically mosaic law (Ten Commandments aside) as a whole in favor of Christian law.
The Old Testament did.... It wanted to talk about something so it talked about something, plain as day. New testament simply didn't talk about homosexuality. The rule is if they were gonna talk about it then they did--right out in the open. Only here they didn't. So, more selective interpretation? Very specific in many areas, but dead silent on this one, so let's stretch to cover....
You're acting like the bible is a lot more explicit than it actually is. Plenty of extremely vague words and concepts are used, like "porneia", "arsenokoitai", and "akatharsia". The Bible is often incredibly
bad at being specific about these things; about as bad as those old state laws that would forbid things like "crimes against nature".
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htmUnder "more detailed coverage" there are plenty of examples of this. The language is not particular clear, and due to an utter lack of linguistic context, is in some cases rather indiscernible. For instance, the word "arsenokoitai" doesn't have
any extant record of usage before that passage was written.
Various interpretations are defensible, some more conservative than others. Personally, this is a reason I would give against relying so much on an old religious text for your value system that the varying translations of a single indecipherable word from a totally different linguistic and cultural context can have profound impacts on personal ethics.
Have you really misunderstood this so completely?
I don't want to debate this religion; this religion is debating ME, because I'm gay.
I thought you meant arguing about it in this thread, but point taken.
It makes absolutely no difference, because everyone in jail is both "innocent" and "repentant." They're "innocent" to see if they can get out of jail in life and "repentent" to see if they can get out of it in death/(or if applicable life).
It makes a difference in the eyes of the Church, in the sense that the Church is (except in extraordinarily rare cases) open to
anyone repenting and receiving forgiveness. Yes, it's an extremely easy thing to do, but still, it's a significant difference when it comes to Church behavior.
Listen to what the Bishop said. He didn't say "it was wrong not to give her the communion." He said it was not the policy of the Archdiaocese to reprimand her "publicly." Big difference. He's not staying he doesn't like the priest's actions. he's saying he shouldn't have done it where everyone can see. The reprimand was not for the conduct, but for doing it publicly....
Yeah, fair enough.
Quick chime in: the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't homosexuality or other sexual immorality, at least that wasn't the main sin.
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.
I really wish the Religious Right would remember this verse more often.
That's a pretty good find. I'll have to remember it.