Homosexuality and the Bible

[PunnyProtestant]

If you a homosexual, which is known as a sin, will you go to hell? ive always what haeppens,becuase there are people in my church who are homosexual.

Is being homo curable, ive heard if you pray, jesus can fix this, but then iheard it is a gene in your body,science says that apparently. so i don’t really know, whats your view?

 

[Mustang1971]

The Catholic Church makes a distinction. Simply having homosexual attractions is not sinful. It is acting on those attractions that is sinful.

 

[Tietjen]

If you a homosexual, which is known as a sin, will you go to hell? ive always what haeppens,becuase there are people in my church who are homosexual.

Is being homo curable, ive heard if you pray, jesus can fix this, but then iheard it is a gene in your body,science says that apparently. so i don’t really know, whats your view?

My view is irrelevant. Science has not decided that homosexuality is transferred via the genes. As of this date, it remains a mystery as to why someone people are attracted to members of the same sex and others are not. However, the sin is not in the “attraction” but rather in the decision of an individual to act on that desire. For example, a married man or woman may find a member of the opposite sex (not their spouse) attractive. This is not a sin. However, if that person were to consciously dwell upon lustful thoughts or pursue a sexual relationship with the “attractive person,” that is the sin. Therefore, a man or woman who is attracted to a person of the same sex is not in sin unless they choose to act on that attraction. Even if one believes that same-sex attraction is genetic (and therefore no fault of the individual) the sin lies with our decision over what to do when the person realizes that the attraction is present. If they give in to temptation… they sin. If they refuse to give in to temptation… they don’t sin. The last time I checked, no one was claiming that their freedom to make decisions (free will) was genetically inapt.

 

[Apollos]

If you a homosexual, which is known as a sin, will you go to hell? ive always what haeppens,becuase there are people in my church who are homosexual. Is being homo curable, ive heard if you pray, jesus can fix this, but then iheard it is a gene in your body,science says that apparently. so i don’t really know, whats your view?

Not necessarily. I’m sure you’ve heard a hundred times that the condition is not sinful but the activity definitely is. Being homo is curable, but we are talking about a neurosis not an infection. Like all mental illnesses, cure is relative and depends on a number of factors. No gene has been found for it.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Is sex more important to someone than God?

I got divorced before I became Catholic and became Catholic knowing I would not be marrying again even if I had wanted to. God seemed more important.

In the end, sexual desire is a base desire and like most everything else in creation there is a higher level that is more perfect and contains all the perfections actually than that which contains only potential perfections as the acorn contains potentially an oak tree. The perfection of the acorn is the full grown oak tree.

The perfection of sex is that which sex is designed for, a child, with all that is needed for that child to actualize perfection within creation and for the Creator with His laws, intrinsic in the natural law and extrinsic with the Divinely revealed Eternal Law as enumerated in the temporal sphere by His Church authorized by Christ. It takes a lot of deceit and delusion to turn Lev 18:22 “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination” or Rom 1:26-27 “For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error” into something pro-homosexual. It is even worse to lead others and society down that path of deceit.

We can choose now what we want based on a base desire or with reason and intellect discern a more elevated perfect path to “blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God”.

 

[rossum]

No gene has been found for it.

Not quite correct. See Why Gays Don’t Go Extinct. There is a genetic component to, at lest, male homosexuality.

rossum

 

[Tietjen]

Not quite correct. See Why Gays Don’t Go Extinct. There is a genetic component to, at lest, male homosexuality.

rossum

An examination of family pedigrees revealed that gay men had more homosexual male relatives through maternal than through paternal lineages, suggesting a linkage to the X chromosome. Dean Hamer found such an association at region Xq28. If male sexual orientation was influenced by a gene on Xq28, then gay brothers should share more than 50% of their alleles at this region, whereas their heterosexual brothers should share less than 50% of their alleles. In the absence of such an association, then both types of brothers should display 50% allele sharing. An analysis of 40 pairs of gay brothers and found that they shared 82% of their alleles in the Xq28 region, which was much greater than the 50% allele sharing that would be expected by chance. However, a follow-up study by the same research group, using 32 pairs of gay brothers and found only 67% allele sharing, which was much closer to the 50% expected by chance. Attempts by Rice et al. to repeat the Hamer study resulted in only 46% allele sharing, insignificantly different from chance, contradicting the Hamer results. At the same time, an unpublished study by Alan Sanders (University of Chicago) corroborated the Rice results. Ultimately, no gene or gene product from the Xq28 region was ever identified that affected sexual orientation. When Jonathan Marks (an evolutionary biologist) asked Hamer what percentage of homosexuality he thought his results explained, his answer was that he thought it explained 5% of male homosexuality. Marks’ response was, “There is no science other than behavioral genetics in which you can leave 97.5% of a phenomenon unexplained and get headlines.”
Conclusion… the media (and many in society) will get behind anything even if there is only a 2.5% chance its being accurate.

 

[Newbie2]

An examination of family pedigrees revealed that gay men had more homosexual male relatives through maternal than through paternal lineages, suggesting a linkage to the X chromosome. Dean Hamer found such an association at region Xq28. If male sexual orientation was influenced by a gene on Xq28, then gay brothers should share more than 50% of their alleles at this region, whereas their heterosexual brothers should share less than 50% of their alleles. In the absence of such an association, then both types of brothers should display 50% allele sharing. An analysis of 40 pairs of gay brothers and found that they shared 82% of their alleles in the Xq28 region, which was much greater than the 50% allele sharing that would be expected by chance. However, a follow-up study by the same research group, using 32 pairs of gay brothers and found only 67% allele sharing, which was much closer to the 50% expected by chance. Attempts by Rice et al. to repeat the Hamer study resulted in only 46% allele sharing, insignificantly different from chance, contradicting the Hamer results. At the same time, an unpublished study by Alan Sanders (University of Chicago) corroborated the Rice results. Ultimately, no gene or gene product from the Xq28 region was ever identified that affected sexual orientation. When Jonathan Marks (an evolutionary biologist) asked Hamer what percentage of homosexuality he thought his results explained, his answer was that he thought it explained 5% of male homosexuality. Marks’ response was, “There is no science other than behavioral genetics in which you can leave 97.5% of a phenomenon unexplained and get headlines.”
Conclusion… the media (and many in society) will get behind anything even if there is only a 2.5% chance its being accurate.

Pun intended?

 

[BobObob]

Even the very Amerian Psychiatric Association, which is very political and tends to favor gay activists, said that there’s no gay gene:

There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles…

apa.org/topics/sexuality/sorientation.pdf

There are genetic correlations with homosexuality that are factors, but correlation does not equal causation.

Also, experiencing erotic same-sex attractions is not a sin. Homosexual acts are.

 

[Katrina5]

Not necessarily. I’m sure you’ve heard a hundred times that the condition is not sinful but the activity definitely is. Being homo is curable, but we are talking about a neurosis not an infection. Like all mental illnesses, cure is relative and depends on a number of factors. No gene has been found for it.

The term “neurosis” is no longer used, and the APA doesn’t diagnose homosexuality as a “disorder”.
However, it has been my experience that most homosexual people have phobias about sex, phobias about the opposite sex, or even more common, there is a personality disorder concurrent with the behavior, usually borderline personality disorder.

Things such as cross dressing, narcissism, hysteria, fetishes, and other disorders go along with it. If the person has no desire to change, they can’t change.

There can be a hormone imbalance, especially if the person feels as if they are one sex “trapped in the wrong body.” Studies are showing hormone problems are most likely the only physical cause, not “genes”.

However, when someone is “born gay” the hormone bath during the early part of pregnancy may be responsible.

 

[Apollos]

The term “neurosis” is no longer used, and the APA doesn’t diagnose homosexuality as a “disorder”.
However, it has been my experience that most homosexual people have phobias about sex, phobias about the opposite sex, or even more common, there is a personality disorder concurrent with the behavior, usually borderline personality disorder.

Things such as cross dressing, narcissism, hysteria, fetishes, and other disorders go along with it. If the person has no desire to change, they can’t change.

There can be a hormone imbalance, especially if the person feels as if they are one sex “trapped in the wrong body.” Studies are showing hormone problems are most likely the only physical cause, not “genes”.

However, when someone is “born gay” the hormone bath during the early part of pregnancy may be responsible.

No, that’s true, it’s called a human right now. Shame on stupid ignerint me.

 

[DexUK]

I find it thoroughly offensive that a person who is homosexual is described as suffering some sort of ‘curable’ neurosis. Furthermore, referring to someone as a ‘homo’ is, in my part of the world at least, derogatory, given that it is dismissive in nature and regularly used as an insult towards a person, regardless of their sexual orientation.

If a gay person came up to a heterosexual person and told them that they could be ‘cured’ of being straight, then that person would, quite rightly, be incredibly indignant.

The Church recognises that homosexual people do not choose their orientation, rather that they may suffer as a result of it and be forced by their nature to have to live chastely rather than seek marriage, if they want to conduct their lives in the way proposed by the Church. The Church recognises that this is a source of trial to people who, otherwise, have different but nonetheless existing sexual instincts. With the requirement to remain chaste throughout their lives, the Church recognises that this poses a burden of chastity that most heterosexual people will not have to endure to that extent. Nevertheless, homosexual people are expected to shoulder that burden simply because there is nothing else that they can do if they are to follow the Church’s teachings.

In years gone by, society did great emotional harm to some by forcing children who were naturally left-handed to write with their right hands, punishing them frequently for not being able to do so with the alacrity of those born naturally right-handed. For some bizarre reason left-handedness was seen as evil (you only have to look at the Latin for right and left: dexter and sinister for part of the root of that attitude). We must avoid the appearance of wishing to punish those who are naturally homosexual.

Simply being homosexual is not, in and of itself, sinful in the eyes of the Church. Simply being homosexual does not put a person on the fast track to eternal damnation. What matters, whether you are heterosexual or homosexual or anywhere in between, is what you do. Your actions, what you deliberately consider to do, are what counts.

So let us have no more of this ‘neurosis’ or ‘curable’ rubbish. Let us instead approach the situation from a position of understanding, sympathy and charity. Perhaps then we can throw off the unnecessary accusation of ‘homophobia’ and be seen for what we’re really trying to be: demonstrating the love of God for our fellow men and women, regardless of their situations in life.

 

[Apollos]

I find it thoroughly offensive that a person who is homosexual is described as suffering some sort of ‘curable’ neurosis.

And I find it offensive when a neurosis is elevated to the status of “identity”.

Furthermore, referring to someone as a ‘homo’

The OP used the term and I was consciously repeating it. But I guess you’re too invested in staged indignation to actually read what people type.

 

[Katrina5]

There is no longer such a thing as “neurosis” in the DSM.

If homosexuality were “genetic” it would be something that is passed down, inherited from one or both parents. This has never been proven.

The personality disorders that I described are not “curable,” nor are they necessarily a “medical” or physical condition, though there is some debate on that.

 

[DexUK]

And I find it offensive when a neurosis is elevated to the status of “identity”.
The OP used the term and I was consciously repeating it. But I guess you’re too invested in staged indignation to actually read what people type.

You completely fail to answer any of the substantive points about Church teaching that I raised in my post, rather you are indulging in a form of ad-hominem attack against myself by rejecting my argument based on a fallacious supposition of my particular humour on the subject.

I did not refer to ‘identity’ - indeed I don’t recognise any ‘identities’ specific to sexual orientation. Have you ever heard of a ‘straight identity’? The idea is laughable.

I did, however, make reference to how the Church expects people to deal with those who are homosexual.

To make the point, I’ll refer you to the Vatican document from which I drew my conclusions: vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

I suggest you read it and inwardly digest, since the teachings there are those that we should all follow.