Alternative Spirituality

» Brian Tubbs - Your blog post on gay civil rights

You talk about how the Christian church should "err on the side of compassion" for all human beings and not "limit the civil rights extended to the gay and lesbian community."

How do you define "civil rights"? "Civil rights" refers to rights in our civil society, does it not? I would suggest the gays and lesbians have access to those rights as much as anyone else.

What your post deals with is CHURCH leadership. A church is a voluntary organization centered around doctrinal beliefs concerning God, Jesus, the Bible, etc. If homosexuality is contrary to the teachings of a particular congregation or denomination (and it is, by the way, DEFINITELY contradictory to the Bible) why should such a church, congregation, denomination be pressured to accept gays and lesbians into leadership? If we take your argument to its logical end, why not pressure churches to ordain people who don't believe in Christianity? We're supposed to be loving and tolerant, right? As you can (hopefully) see, a church has a right to be a church - and that means to stand up for what it believes.

» spiritalk - Your blog post on gay civil rights

In response to Your blog post on gay civil rights posted by BrianTubbs:
Civil rights in our country is to have access to health care, pensions, etc. that are government controlled and define 'spouse'. In which case, when a member of a partnership not recognized as a spouse requires i.e. health care, it can be refused under a specific definition. That is a restriction of civil rights.

Under NO circumstances was the changes to the law regarding gay marriage, in any way, to TELL churches what their responsibility was or is. It requested and was given civil rights marriages. It restored some liberties that others enjoy without impunity.

Keep your church 'rules' (manmade), keep your interpretation of a book (manmade) and continue to worship in your own fashion without the compassion for others. That, too, is a God-given right!

Please do not confuse what is rights for civil responsibility and what is a right for a church and its congregation!

God bless, J

-- posted by spiritalk

» EvilChihuahua - Your blog post on gay civil rights

In response to Your blog post on gay civil rights posted by BrianTubbs:

Your very right. Why not pressure a Witch's Covern to include (Christian)Bible Studies? Or pressure the Church of Satan to ordain Billy Graham as a satanic priest? Or why not pressure the Jews to start teaching that Jesus is the Messiah?

I'm all for civil rights for homosexuals (my cousin is gay), but I'm also all for civil rights for people of all walks of life (except racist and/or facist groups). If we pressure the Christian church to do things against it's doctrinal beliefs, then they lose their civil rights and we're back to square one.

Freedom is a 2-way street. If half to population want the freedom to do one thing, then the other half deserve the freedom to do their thing.

If you ask me, the homosexuals in the western world should be happy for the freedom they've got. In many Countries, homosexuality is a serious crime and death is often the punishment.

-- posted by EvilChihuahua

» Brian Tubbs - Hold on Spirittalk

In response to Your blog post on gay civil rights posted by spiritalk:

You have a tendency to misconstrue and/or sidestep what I say in my posts. I am not the one confusing the issue between civil rights and church rights. The whole point of my post was to clearly establish that distinction!

It was the original blog entry - what I was responding to - that seemed to confuse the two:

"...it seems like everyone is struggling with whether or not to allow gay and lesbian individuals to participate in all aspects of society, including church leadership roles."

On a completely separate point, I was asking how one defines "civil rights." How that term is defined says a lot about whether we feel gays and lesbians are not afforded civil rights protections.

» Brian Tubbs - Compassion

In response to Your blog post on gay civil rights posted by spiritalk:

continue to worship in your own fashion without the compassion for others

You have a lot of hostility, it seems, Spiritalk or else you just enjoy taking shots at people. This is unfair and unnecessary.

Bible-believing Christians are NOT without compassion. On the contrary, true Bible-believing Christians are called to live their lives WITH compassion. You've probably heard the motto "Hate the sin...love the sinner." That's essentially what the Bible calls us to do.