[Jeff Gordon]

Better they have a millstone tied around their necks (and to be drowned in the depths of the sea).

Matthew 18

I do remember that passage. The crime was not exactly "harming" a child in all aspects of possible "harm" but was limited to causing a child to sin.

I always had trouble reconciling that command with the command of forgiving your brother seventy seven times. That and the following parable that tells us that unless we forgive those who trespass upon us, God will not forgive us our trespasses.

[little jeremiah]

There's a huge difference between forgicing those who harm ME, for instance, and forgiving those who harm someone ELSE? How can I fogive thsoe who harm someone else? That's the job of someone ELSE. Often people get the whole concept of forgiveness confused. Dr. Laura talked about it (either on the radio or in a book, can't remember). But we cannot possibly forgive someone who has harmed someone else. It's downright arrrogant, and actually kind of insults the someone else. Say someone punches you in the face, and a total stranger rushes up to the perp (who isn't even sorry, by the way) and says to him, "I forgive you, I forgive you".

See the absrudity of that?

The other problem is that when a person does evil - and I am not tlaking about a privately practicing homosexual, who is not a predator, not a liberal, doesn't endorse what is going on, and doens't molest young people or give others AIDS - and this homosexual continues to do these things, isn't sorry, isn't about to stop - it's actually psychotic to forgive this person. FIrst of all, you'd have to keep forgiving him over and over, since he is continuing to do evil over and over. Second of all, this shallow forgiveness doesn't do him any good.

What will do him good is condemning what he does, in no uncertain terms. While maintaining an attitude of care about this person. I can love someone, while being angry at WHAT THEY DO. If I forgive someone who is advocating molesting and indoctrinating young people, this is not love, it is stupidity. And I will be contributing to the continuing evil that is done, with my (in essence) stamp of approval.

[little jeremiah]

I replied to you without editing, my laptop was about to go into hibernation (battery is dead), I didn't have time to fix the crazy spelling, and I didn't want to lose what I'd written. SORRY!