Posted on 05/20/2003 8:14:33 AM PDT by theoverseer
In four Gospels - including the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus neglected to mention the subject of homosexuality. But that hasn’t stopped a handful of self-appointed leaders of the so-called Religious Right from deciding that it is an issue worth the presidency of the United States. In what the Washington Times described as a "stormy session" last week, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and eight other "social conservatives" read the riot act to RNC chairman Marc Racicot for meeting with the "Human Rights Campaign," a group promoting legal protections for homosexuals. This indiscretion, they said, "could put Bush’s entire re-election campaign in jeopardy."
According to the Times’ report by Ralph Hallow, the RNC chairman defended himself by saying, "You people don’t want me to meet with other folks, but I meet with anybody and everybody." To this Gary Bauer retorted, "That can’t be true because you surely would not meet with the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan."
Nice analogy Gary. Way to love thy neighbor.
This demand to quarantine a political enemy might have had more credibility if the target – the Campaign for Human Rights -- were busily burning crosses on social conservatives’ lawns. But they aren’t. Moreover, the fact that it is, after all, crosses the Ku Klux Klan burns, might suggest a little more humility on the part of Christians addressing these issues. Just before the launching of the 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush himself was asked about similarly mean-spirited Republican attacks. His response was that politicians like him weren’t elected to pontificate about other people’s morals and that his own faith admonished him to take the beam out of his own eye before obsessing over the mote in someone else’s.
The real issue here is tolerance of differences in a pluralistic society. Tolerance is different from approval, but it is also different from stigmatizing and shunning those with whom we disagree.
I say this as someone who is well aware that Christians are themselves a persecuted community in liberal America, and as one who has stood up for the rights of Christians like Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer to have their views, even when I have not agreed with some of their agendas. Not long ago, I went out on a public limb to defend Paul Weyrich when he was under attack by the Washington Post and other predictable sources for a remark he had made that was (reasonably) construed as anti-Semitic. I defended Weyrich because I have known him to be a decent man without malice towards Jews and I did not want to see him condemned for a careless remark. I defended him in order to protest the way in which we have become a less tolerant and more mean-spirited culture than we were.
I have this to say to Paul: A delegation to the chairman of the RNC to demand that he have no dialogue with the members of an organization for human rights is itself intolerant, and serves neither your ends nor ours. You told Racicot, "if the perception is out there that the party has accepted the homosexual agenda, the leaders of the pro-family community will be unable to help turn out the pro-family voters. It won’t matter what we say; people will leave in droves."
This is disingenuous, since you are a community leader and share the attitude you describe. In other words, what you are really saying is that if the mere perception is that the Republican Party has accepted the "homosexual agenda," you will tell your followers to defect with the disastrous consequences that may follow. As a fellow conservative, I do not understand how in good conscience you can do this. Are you prepared to have President Howard Dean or President John Kerry preside over our nation’s security? Do you think a liberal in the White House is going to advance the agendas of social conservatives? What can you be thinking?
In the second place, the very term "homosexual agenda," is an expression of intolerance as well. Since when do all homosexuals think alike? In fact, thirty percent of the gay population voted Republican in the last presidential election. This is a greater percentage than blacks, Hispanics or Jews. Were these homosexuals simply deluded into thinking that George Bush shared their agendas? Or do they perhaps have agendas that are as complex, diverse and separable from their sexuality as women, gun owners or Christians, for that matter?
In your confusion on these matters, you have fallen into the trap set for you by your enemies on the left. It is the left that insists its radical agendas are the agendas of blacks and women and gays. Are you ready to make this concession -- that the left speaks for these groups, for minorities and "the oppressed?" Isn’t it the heart of the conservative argument that liberalism (or, as I would call it, leftism) is bad doctrine for all humanity, not just white Christian males?
If the President’s party – or conservatism itself -- is to prevail in the political wars, it must address the concerns of all Americans and seek to win their hearts and minds. It is conservative values that forge our community and create our coalition, and neither you nor anyone else has - or should have - a monopoly in determining what those values are.
I'll have to ask my Jewish friends if they refer to me in this manner when I'm not around. Perhaps they will laugh, but I think it unlikely.
If they are Reform Jews, they will probably order themselves a ham and cheese sandwich just to prove that they don't believe Torah is G-d inspired.
If they are Orthodox Jews, they could care less if you prefer a ham and cheese sandwich over lox and cream cheese.
If they are Messianic Jews (Jews who believe J-sus was/is the Messiah), they do consider the actions of most x-ians as inconsistent as I do, but might not be as blunt.
I just find it quite inconsistent for x-ians to use Acts 10:10 and such to somehow prove that Peter was told by G-d to eat pork when Peter himself laters states that G-d was simply telling him to be nicer to the gentiles. I somehow doubt that Peter and Cornelius celebrated Cornelius' new-found blessing over a meal of porkchops.
I'll have to ask my Jewish friends if they refer to me in this manner when I'm not around. Perhaps they will laugh, but I think it unlikely.
If they are Reform Jews, they will probably order themselves a ham and cheese sandwich just to prove that they don't believe Torah is G-d inspired.
If they are Orthodox Jews, they could care less if you prefer a ham and cheese sandwich over lox and cream cheese.
If they are Messianic Jews (Jews who believe J-sus was/is the Messiah), they do consider the actions of most x-ians as inconsistent as I do, but might not be as blunt.
I just find it quite inconsistent for x-ians to use Acts 10:10 and such to somehow prove that Peter was told by G-d to eat pork when Peter himself laters states that G-d was simply telling him to be nicer to the gentiles. I somehow doubt that Peter and Cornelius celebrated Cornelius' new-found blessing over a meal of porkchops.
Uh, I guess you didn't notice the stories posted today about protests at Santorum's commencement speech. The homosexual media are not going to give up attacking Santorum until his supporters show some courage. And calling Santorum "inclusive" is not exactly courage.
I also wonder about your strategy of ignoring attacks on prominent defenders of family values. "Oh, it's not worth responding to," sounds to me like a prescription for disaster, in this area and in others.
I think Bauer et. al. need to grow up.
Now this is a horse of a different color. First you say the attacks on Santorum were not worth responding to. Now you say that social conservatives should grow up. Put the two together and it sounds like a program for liberal victory.
What an unbelievably strange comment.
What does abortion have to do with homosexuality?
Both are acts of hatred against God and against the life he creates.
They are simply of different magnitude, but not fundamentally different in nature.
I'm afraid you misread that. What I said was that I should have looked up your posting history before responding but that I didn't. It was one of the things for which I apologized and asked forgiveness.
However, Horowitz has done real damage and this cannot be brushed under the rug. However hypocritical his chr*stian critics, he deserves only condemnation and no defense. Biblical morality has again been identified with chr*stianity, and opposition to Biblical law again identified with Judaism. G-d help us.
I don't know about that. Although I think that a Jew quoting J-sus is a bit disingenuous, I feel he was simply trying to reach his audience (Bauer and the like) on their own (NT) turf.
The real point that needs to be made is that Horowitz as a Jew is bound by the Torah and that all non-Jews, individually as as governments, are bound by Sheva` HaMitzvot. However flawed their thinking, the chr*stians on this issue are correct to protest against the administration's coddling of homosexuals. According to Noachide Law, homosexual acts are to be punished with the death penalty. Unfortunately, the entire post-enlightenment western world is based on Lockean/Jeffersonian principals, which are about as far from Theocratic Torah as one can get.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that the Jew-haters will indeed cite Horowitz as another "proof" of the Jewish opposition to Biblical (allegedly "chr*stian") morality. They will loudly link his condemnation of anti-homosexual chr*stians with his pro-Israel and pro-war stance, insist the positions are necessarily related, and then finally imply that his support of "gay rights" comes on direct orders from Sharon, the Talmud, or some bearded little old man in black somewhere in Brooklyn. If you don't believe me, check out their forums. They're doubtless whooping it up right now and calling on Fundamentalists to turn on Israel and Jews based on Horowitz' lamentable article.
My thanks to you for your gracious forgiveness of my sin against you and against HaShem.
And how do you get this across to them without meeting with them to explain that it won't work with us. These are American citizens and they have a right to access to politicians. We just have to make sure the politicians we support will listen to them and then explain that we can't support their agenda because it's opposed to our core beliefs, but we can find common ground on those things that do not oppose our core beliefs.
I have a problem with the aggressive agenda too, but I have no objection to holding a meeting with people to explain WHY I have a problem with it.
its a fetish. homosexuals activists are obsessed with the orgasm the same way a druggie is obsessed with their next fix.
And they have their own enablers.
Republicans should demand that the sodomites go back into the 'closet' and/or get counseling.
Note: I still think Dogbyte is an undiscovered comic genius for the "Gay Rave emcee" bit
Here are some additional links on the homosexual agenda that give us reason to continually bring the issue up here on FreeRepublic.
Targeting Children Part 1The homosexual agenda exists. That's a fact that cannot be denied.
Targeting Children Part 2
Queering Moral Education
Thought Reform And The Psychology of Homosexual Advocacy
Invasion of the mind snatchers
Peter was laying down and in vision. The short answer to your comment is No. The text states that Peter woke from his vision confused about the meaning of the vision. Then he received word that Cornelius was asking to speak with him. He didn't understand the purpose of the vision until he met with Cornelius himself. Peter himself said that the vision had nothing to do with eating pork (which was a Torah prohibition) and everything to do with not treating gentiles like dirt.
Also, see Mark 7, where Jesus Himself tells us: "Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile."
Another example of taking a verse out of context. Jesus was responding to a reprimand by the pharisees about the fact that J-sus and his disciples "wating loaves with unclean hands" before eating their food and "they found fault" because the disciples were not obeying the "tradition of the elders". Now the "tradition of the elders" is not Torah but what we now call the Oral Torah. When J-sus replied to them, he was not telling them that it was ok to eat pork and shellfish. Look at the context of his discussions.
Of course, people are going to interpret things different ways, but it's not fair to characterize Christians as hypocritical when there is certainly a plausible interpretation that allows the eating of pork.
It's only plausible to presume that either of these texts are a red light to eat pork if one takes verses out their context and puts a spin on them the original speaker had no intention of giving.
I don't think I even personally addressed you on this thread.
There are more female FReepers who have had abortions than gay men in the entire US.
Do they continue to have and advocate abortion? F.R. Poll:Should Roe vs Wade be overturned?
Yes.
2,634 votes - 81%
No.
461 votes - 14%
Undecided.
124 votes - 3%
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NHLS survey
2.8% U.S. POPULATION HOMOSEXUAL MALES
1.4% U.S. POPULATION HOMOSEXUAL FEMALES
[A]ll homosexuals do not act or think alike. Therefore, it is wrong to treat them as if they do.It is certainly true that not all men with same-sex attraction think alike. Many of them understand that homoeroticism is disordered -- that is, that it's end is pleasure, not survival -- and choose to temper their conduct accordingly.
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