You and I disagree…friend Anne sees the issue I believe. She cannot “reject” out of hand simply because one’s religious beliefs condemn…science, psychology, sociology and other non-religous disiplines throw light upon the whole issues of human sexuality. The conservative branch of Christianity is wrong…completely…and Anne sees that very clearly…and rejects any notion that she must put her own God-given intellect aside and embrace teachings of a human organization that uses it’s own outdated psychologocal and sociological constructs to vilify the “stranger in it’s midst”.
Discrimination against gay and lesbian people IS based on WHO THEY ARE…not what they do…no matter what frame of reference is used to justify it…those of us branded “liberal” do not abandon God…we abandon falsehoods perpetuated in the name of “religion”.
The brand of Christianity that condemns “science, psychology, sociology and other non-religious disciplines” is not authentically conservative, and certainly not historic. What an authentic conservative opposes is a modern way of undertaking and interpreting the findings of those disciplines - an way that is based not on science but upon modern philosophical dualisms, which are presupposed for other reasons.
One of the most destructive of such dualisms, which bears on the subject of homosexuality, is the separation of facts and values. What I mean is the notion that the value of a thing refers to nothing intrinsic in itself but reflects entirely on the subjective reference of the person who values it. Hence when I say, “My dog is good” or “has value,” this statement provides information only about me, but not really about my dog. When this philosophical proposition is accepted, then the objective and subjective dimensions of human life become isolated from each other. It therefore becomes impossible to found any moral doctrine on the basis of (objective) nature, since moral doctrine depends on (subjective) value, and value is not part of nature. As a result, there is no way to say that this or that sexual activity is wrong by nature, because in this worldview, sexual acts don’t ultimately even have natures. Hence any claim that a natural law governs such activities can no basis and is just another social construct like many others.
One of the results of this amoral understanding of life is that it yields a falsified understanding of personhood, in which “who” a person is becomes a determination of individual will on the part of the person himself or herself, but is not a property of nature. A person is who he or she chooses to be, and that choice determines what is a real value for that person. Thus, to challenge a person on the basis of those choices becomes a challenge to “who” they are.
The alternative to this, which Christianity proposes, is that nature has value, and than the human body is a manifestation of that value. As such, the very existence of a body, in all its aspects, including sexual distinctions, is itself integral to the person, revealing to the person his or her own value. Thus an abuse of the physical characteristics of the body is inherently destructive of the person, of “who” they are. For this reason, a call to repentance to those who use their bodies in ways that violate their natural value is a means of calling them back to who they are, a call to live according the dignity of their own identities.
I have not here proven my point, just laid out what I think the the two alternatives are. This should be enough to show that simply criticizing us for attacking “who” people are on the basis of a “social construct” presupposes philosophical assumptions that are already antithetical to a Christian worldview. It is these presuppositions, not the secular sciences, that conservative Christians oppose.
To me, that was a profound and almost childlike (NOT childish) faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour.