The Evolution...

[kentuck]

The Gay...

Much like President Obama, I have personally "evolved" on gay rights. It took time before I was able to overcome my biases and irrational thoughts.

I was presented with a lot of questions that I had to confront honestly.

Would gay marriage affect my marriage in any way? No. I could see no way that could happen.

Did gays have the right to serve in the military and fight for our country just like everyone else? Well, yes. They have been serving in the military forever.

Do I deserve to have rights that other American citizens do not have? No. They deserve the same rights as myself. We are all deserving of the same human rights.

What about the Bible? I could find nothing in the New Testament, from Jesus, that even mentioned gays, and most of the Old Testament Biblical rules would disqualify everybody from being righteous enough to keep from being stoned to death or punished in some severe manner, let alone righteous enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

I have now evolved to the point where I do not simply think it is the right thing to do but that it would actually make this world a better, more respectful, and more peaceful place to live.

.

[Fumesucker]

1. My mother was an antique dealer, I kind of grew up around gay men..

At the shows a lot of the dealers would end up in someone's motel room for a party each night, they are the only people they all know in most towns, a bit like carnies in that regard.

I never really thought of gay men as any different from anyone else, except maybe nicer to me than most..

[cthulu2016]

2. Something that puzzles me about the biblical angle...

I have seen many references to Jesus being mum on "teh gay" but for the life of me I cannot see what difference it makes.

What Jesus says in quotes in the New Testament is some stuff people wrote long, long years after the ostensible death of Jesus.

Everything else in the new testament is stuff people wrote long, long years after the ostensible death of Jesus.

So what difference does it make. Why would things Jesus is quoted as saying be given and greater weight just because the person who made something up happened to attribute it to Jesus instead of to himself or to someone else?

It's all a made up literature or it is the divinely inspired word of God. If the former, then why take any of it any more seriously than, say, Crime and Punishment? If the later, what is the basis for dismissing any of it?

I have seen people dismiss Paul, for instance, as somehow not speaking for Jesus. That's bizarre... in for a dime, in for a dollar. Paul's view of what God was about it at least as authoritative as that of the author of the Gospel According to John... he just doesn't take the additional step of saying, "Here's what (I imagine, or what God has told me) Jesus (did or probably would have) said on the topic..." which is all the authors of the gospels were doing.

You see the problem... I can see crediting the entire book or discrediting the entire book, but to pick and chose based on whether something is compatible with what we think makes no sense.

[kentuck]

4. I think most of the biases and irrational thoughts come from Biblical sources...

... and we should be ready to respond to those arguments.

Does it make a difference? Perhaps not to you or I, but to some folks, it does. I understand that they have not "evolved" to the same point as I. That is the reality.

[dickthegrouch]

3. Thanks for the thoughtfulness

I am always encouraged when I see people questioning their previous stance.

Even if the bible said anything about homosexuality, it is ONLY appropriate to apply its rules to the members of the club.

The Country has guaranteed us two things which it is not making good on; a separation between church and State, and equal protection for everyone.

Use of the State's mechanisms (constitutional amendments) to deny equal protection is a crime. The punishment should be to annul all the denied protections to make us all equal again.

Yes, I mean that there should be no State-conferred benefits of Marriage in order to restore to everyone the same protections.

[MrMickeysMom]

5. I recall doing this in adolescence ...

about "blacks and whites"...

[rgbecker]

6. My hang up was sort of a definitional thing.

The term is pretty well grounded and people generally understand that when someone says they are "married" they immediately assume the guy means he has a (Female) wife or the gal has a (male) husband. I never put any religious meaning into any of it so I don't care what Jesus says, though I do know it was reported that he was into wine at a wedding early in his ministry.
So I pretty much thought the civil union thing was the answer to the gay wanting to have all the benefits of marriage without getting into redefining the language. But now, if everyone else is going to go ahead and use the word marriage to define the relationship regardless of sex then I'll go with it. Not a big deal, words and their meanings are changing all the time. Here in Massachusetts, where it was first legal for gays to marry, I've noticed no change in the way people are reacting to the whole wedding, marriage thing. Certainly has not affected me and my wife (female) of 30 years.

Good post, I'm enjoying the responses.

[gadjitfreek]

7. Although I fully support equal rights for everyone...

and marriage regardless of gender is something I support, I still get skeeved out by the idea of two people of the same gender gettin' nasty. No one's forcing me to participate, and to tell the whole truth, the idea of two people of ANY gender gettin' nasty kind of skeeves me out. I find human beings to be fairly unpleasant to look at. Don't worry, I'm not humping deer or anything like that. I guess you could call me asexual. I have my prejudices but I am not going to let my own personal hangups interfere in any way with the rights of anyone to get nasty with anyone they freely choose.