Grace & Peace!
No Deo, I did not misread your entire post. Nor did I misunderstand the excerpt I quoted and commented on. It was read in the context of your post and then taken out and dealt with on its own merits because it is crucial to the argument you have been trying to build.
The argument I was attempting to make was this: Before we do anything, we must love. Out of our obligation to love comes any and all of our other responsibilities to each other. We may need to exercise those responsibilities in some situations, though not in others, and not always in the same way, but the one obligation that obtains in every situation is the obligation to love. If we act without love, then we act incorrectly, even if we or others believe that we are fulfilling the requirements and the responsibilities that love lays upon us. True correction or chastisement cannot happen without love, therefore, and it seems best to stress the obligation to love first and foremost and then talk about the ways in which we can fulfill that obligation in the various situations with which we are confronted in life.
Melinda’s suggested rules seemed to me to be moving towards putting love at the heart of the debate. Others’ disagreements read, to me, as if they were saying, “No–when you encounter gays, above all you must correct or chastise them.” This seemed to miss the point entirely, and appeared to elevate correction or chastisement in themselves into greater values or imperatives than the love from which true correction and chastisement comes and from which Melinda’s list seemed to spring.
It’s possible that I misread those early comments. But I believe it’s also possible that, when it comes to the issue of homosexuality, people mistake drawing a hard and fast moral line with the necessity of taking an ultra combative stance against all human beings who happen to be homosexual, regardless of the context or the situation or the individuality of that person. Homosexual folks, of course, often have a tendency to do the same with religious folks or socially/politically conservative folks as well.
But it’s that attitude which, it seems to me, informs the comment that someone made that the elephant in the room was sodomy and how horrible it is, the inference being that anal sex was
central to the sexual identity of male homosexuals. That was news to me. As a male homosexual, I can tell you that it isn’t, and I’m by far not the only one that feels that way. But reading that comment makes someone like me think, “is that really what folks like that think this conversation is about? Is that really what they think I and others like me are about? Is it even possible to have a conversation with these folks if that’s the first thing they think, or if that’s what they feel is the thing always lurking in the background of all of these threads and conversations?”
I put it to you that what you write is not necessarily cogent, nor cohesive
That may very well be the case, and I appreciate the critique. Sometimes, it’s a miracle if I can put together a coherent sentence. I’ve a feeling you may feel it’s a miracle, too!
and when others pick you up on that lack of cogency and coherency, you then blame them for ‘misreading’ you, or of having taken things out of context.
I’ve a feeling you believe I do that with malicious or calculated intent. I don’t. My arguments seem very clear…to me at least! I’ll try and do better to make them clearer in future.
No you are guilty of exactly what it is you accuse others of.
I appreciate this more than you know, John. I’m often very conscious of when two people in a discussion or an argument get to the point when, even if they’re saying the exact same things, one of them (at least) begins to insist that the other is wrong simply because he or she is convinced that they cannot be right. I’ve fallen into that trap here, with you and with others, and I repent me of it. I apologize for my hypocrisy.
You singled out InSearchofGrace and yet she is one of the most charitable and lucid writers on this entire forum. Shame on you, I say.
Singled out for what? I was just responding to her post, John. I didn’t know that that singled her out for anything. As far as I can gather, ISoG is a really lovely person. I’m sorry if either you or she feel I have failed to give her the basic honor she deserves when conversing with her here.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
VERO CRAS!
[it’s a 1999 Article in Archives of General Psychiatry.] Interestingly the author of the quote below is the same author of one of the twin studies frequently cited by advocates of the gay gene theory.
