Recently in GLBT Category

Here's a comment string from the last post that might be interesting...

Confused and Hurting Sinner writes,

most of the previous comments seem somewhat educated albeit cold & clincal. To me the elephant in the room that everyone seemed to ignore is a person that is transgender or no discernible gender is still a feeling, loving, human even if not treated like one by society. They are not a tree, rock or animal. they want to be cared about & cherished by God & others the same as everyone else. try to put yourself in there place. you are born you basically look like other children in most aspects its just your diaper fits differently & your emotions & thoughts don't line up with your peers maybe you don't care on the outside or maybe you show it but either way it scars. you have to live your whole existence fitting no where. even the every day thing of need a restroom presents real & painful challenges. now cliches about rocks & trees because that doesn't matter one iota to this person all they want to know is can they have friends, dreams, ambitions, & a relationship with God. if your this person do you want to hear theological mumbojumbo or existential theoretical ramblings? or do you just want to here your loved, cared about, & valued?? think on that please & contemptible what you would want to here & try to respond to others the same way because you never know who your talking to.

There have been some real gems among the hundreds and hundreds of comments left on this blog in the past couple weeks.  Among those that bear repeating is this one from Edward Green:

To begin to understand the Bible's views (and they are various) on sexuality you need to get into the culture.

Sex was something that came with marriage. For women between the ages of 14 and 18. For men probably a little later. Scripture supports what we see in society and studies of sexual dysfunction show, that human beings are designed to be sexually active from late teenage years onwards.

When I read the Song of Solomon I find an erotic poem describing many different diverse acts of love, most of which happen before the couple are married. Once you key into the imagery there is not much that is not covered. Love is awakened? Perhaps she fell pregnant. It is almost implicit. And so they marry.

Pre-marital sex in Scripture means pre-adult sex. It also means the risks of pregnancy outside of the core economic and family unit. The Gospels are clear that Mary & Joseph did not marry for love after all (although I am sure they grew to love each other) and they story demonstrates the stigma of pre-marital sex. But Joseph's response was one of grace (to put her away not shame her), and grace doubled (to marry Mary). And yes I do hold to the Creedal statements on the Virgin Birth. But is is the appearance of the situation that should guide our response.

So the 'No Sex Before Marriage' argument doesn't wash. The 'Sex is part of the journey of two people towards life long covenant loving commitment' argument does. Contraception offers us more sexual freedom, but not the freedom to be irresponsible, recreational or promiscuous. Remember plenty of STI's are passed on by skin contact, that is by 'fooling around'. The ideal is one intimate sexual partner for life.

...since last week.

OK, I'm serious about this. I'm not even being snarky. Really.If you are one who thinks that homosexual sex is sinful, can you please explain to me WHY a gay or lesbian person who is in a long-term, monogamous relationship...

see more Funny GraphsBefore you post an angry comment, repeat this 10 times: Yes, I do have a sense of humor....

"It's a clean sweep for the liberal agenda in the Episcopal Church," said David Virtue, editor of VirtueOnline.org, a conservative Web site. "The orthodox are finished."So begins the NYTimes article on the annual cluster meeting known as the Episcopal Church...

An interview with me on the issue of gays and the church just went live on the new interfaith website, Patheos.Q: In a now famous post, you came to the conclusion that GLBTQ folks can "live lives in accord with...

Probably the most anticipated element of Cornerstone that I was involved with was a panel discussion entitled, "Gay Rights or Wrongs," which was a conversation about how the church should approach the issue of GLBT persons. (I wrote about other...

For the rest of the week, I'm going to look back on my experience of the legendary Cornerstone Festival. What many are going to want to hear are my thoughts on the panel on which I sat which dealt with...

Do you think that Christian leaders who publicly support same sex marriage, gay rights, etc., should be pushed out of the closet?Last fall, I publicly affirmed gay marriage as a Christian and biblically virtuous lifestyle. Of course, not all Christians...

Last week, I spent time with some new friends in Canada. Most of them were church leaders in the United Church of Canada, the result of a denominational merger in 1925. The United Church is unabashedly liberal in its social...

Last week, Doug Kmiec went on Colbert and became the next in a long line of people: Those who've gone on Colbert and said what I want to say on Colbert. Kmiec said what more and more of us are...

In one of my early posts on same sex marriage, I wrote that I used to be in the "natural law" camp of persons who said that, thought there's not an overwhelming amount of verses in the Bible about homosexuality...

It just turns out that he won't debate it with me.Last fall, Rod and I agreed, at the behest of our then-editor, Patton Dodd, to hold a friendly "blogalogue" on same sex marriage.  It was in the aftermath of California's...

Following my panel discussion, about which I will report soon, I was approached by a well-dressed guy wearing name badge that identified him on the staff with the Institute for Creation Research, an organization with which I was not familiar. ...

I've been walking with my friend, Adam Walker-Cleaveland, through his tumultuous process of ordination over the past few months.  And I've often urged him to abandon what I consider to be a broken and probably sinful system.Well, now he has...

Hate....

In this week's edition of Newsweek, Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, penned an essay, "Less Shouting, More Talking," in which he addresses the issues around Prop 8.  It's clear that he wrote it, in part, as a...

Is Ted Haggard gay or straight?  Neither.  Few of us are.  Most of us, instead, are on a spectrum between the two, as Becky knight explains.  Money Quote:What was missing from the conversation was the awareness that sexual orientation exists...

Last night, I watched the HBO documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard, and then caught the second half of Ted and Gayle Haggard's appearance on Larry King Live.I went in quite skeptically.  I know a couple persons who knew/know Ted,...

Noah, a self-described conservative, makes a calm and helpful comment under Same Sex Marriage Blogalogue: Press Pause,To be really honest, the comment section makes me sad. It is sad to me that people become so ugly when discussions arise over...

Several of you have been dropping comments under other posts, asking why this much-pimped series petered out so quickly.  Well, here's the deal: Rod chose to stop the blogalogue very shortly after it started. Both of us were inundated by...

Mike Morrell got off his ROM long enough to serve up this beauty under Announcing Queermergent:Well, I'm coming in on this discussion late - which is probably merciful. I think that, before posting on such things, we need to do...

As usual, lots and lots of mean-spirited commentary around GLBT issues here yesterday, but a couple of poignant comments stuck out under yesterday's Comment of the Day and Sunday's Announcing Queermergent. First, Kristi:done talking? done listening? i don't understand what...

Preson takes issue with my post, Announcing Queermergent, as did many others.  What's interesting is that I merely pointed out this new group, with no editorial comment.  Yet my even publicizing it raises the ire of many. I guess that...

Adele Sakler, whom I've known for a few years, has started yet another "hyphenated" group within the emergent network-of-networks.  She's calling it "Queermergent," and, as you might guess, it's focused on GLBTQ issues....

In the movie, Milk, there is a poignant scene in which Harvey Milk answers the phone and on the other end of the line is a wheelchair-bound boy who says that his family is abusing him because of his same...