Is Homosexuality moral? | StickPage Forums

Being gay should be the same as being straight. Average shit. When you see a man and woman you don't think "OMG, A STRAIGHT COUPLE! THEY'RE SO BRAVE!" you just ignore it or think "What a cute pair" or something. It should be the same with homosexuals, you see them and think nothing of it. Average stuff, that happens everyday. I was President of my highschools Gay Staight Alliance, and even I am annoyed by celebrating someone is gay or lesbian. Or that you have to publically announce that you like the same sex. I understand that at this moment in time, people are doing it to get attention to it to get it legalized all over the united states, but after it is legalized (which it will be), I hope the celebrating of the same sex getting married will be just that, them getting married, none of this "They're brave" bullshit. We're not special, we are litterally people who like something different.

Is it right morally? Yes to me.
But peoples morals are an opinion.

ALSO

Quote from HashBrownTrials
If you're not gay but you like to have sex with the person of your sex then you are gay, or bisexual if you like both boys and girls.

That is wrong. Being gay and doing gay acts are different.

If I am straight, and i have sex with a guy, but feel no connection to him. It's a gay act. I'm not attracted to the person, but I am doing a homosexual act by having sex with the same sex.

Being gay would be being attracted to the same sex.

It's like saying if I hate video games, but one day i decide to play one, that doesn't make me a gamer, it means I happened to play a game.

Off Topic:

Can we get a sticky in this section that puts up questions to not ask anymore. Every time I look in the debate section, I see good debates with like 4 pages, but then that one person posts "Is gay wrong or right??" and it has 20 pages of the same stuff we've been repeating for over a year. It gets really dull and boring, and it's just the same shit over and over.

Alright buddy, first of all I wanted to apologize if I hurt your feelings. It's just that dealing with posts exactly like the one you've posted has become so frustrating and tiresome. Before we get into this I would like for you and Exilement to understand why I was so grouchy and acrimonious in my previous post. To be frank, I wanted to spare myself the sizable amount of time and effort that was required to construct the following post. In such a way that it is exhaustive and as easy to comprehend as possible.
Mostly I'm doing this because I accidentally lost my reply to Exilement and I'm overly flattered that he considers me on the same level of debating as him. Which is a sentiment I do not share.
But I digress, it's time to take another delve into bible land with Jutsu, knowing full well that this will all be disregarded anyways. Now, let this post be the post that we refer these types of users to in the future.

Quote from mike9172
Homosexuality is a sin and not right at all because marriage is meant and only meant between man and woman. And to have sex outside of marriage is a sin.

The bible on unmarried sex

There are no passages in the bible which directly forbid unmarried sexual intercourse, in fact the very concept is a new age Christian idea. Though there are passages which condemn adultery, which is sexual relation between a married individual and an unmarried individual *an affair*. So you're dead wrong about sex outside of marriage being a sin. Which, since it's the entire basis for your statement sort of makes it all collapse in on itself.
The only reason that unmarried sex would be seen as objectionable is in the cases of rape and in ways to force marriage. Basically, culturally women used to exist as the property of men. If you were born female, you were the property of your father until married. Which instead of the holy sanctity it's been made out to be was basically the equivalent of trading goods. As daughters hands in marriage were oft given in exchange of life stock, property or social standing.
So if you raped a mans daughter, you were expected to pay him her value or marry her in some cases.

But I don't see any need to go further into detail about this.

Excerpts and facts about the bible on homosexuality.

As far as I'm aware there's only a handful of instances where the bible appears to condemn homosexuality, but by far the most popular are from Leviticus and Paul, which conveniently I've already covered to a large extent, but I still have extra content that can be added.

On Leviticus
It's worth mentioning that Leviticus considered a great many things a sin. But first we'll cover the popular anti-homosexuality quotes by him.

Quote from Xeno
Leviticus 18:22
"Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin." (NLT)

Quote from Jutsu;1256515
It's interesting to me that you use the NLT or New Living Translation version from 1996 for this quote which directly says to not practice homosexuality. This is misleading as the original hebrew texts are clearly referring to man on man sex but by adding in that snippet it directly condemns lesbian intercourse as well and specifies that ANY form of homosexual intercourse is wrong. If you really wanted to pick a more biased version of that passage I would've gone with the version from the Living Bible from 1971 that reads thus.

"Homosexuality is absolutely forbidden, for it is an enormous sin"

But neither of these versions are even close to correct. If you would like to read the following article which basically smashes your whole fragile argument.
Scroll to the bottom of the article if you're too lazy to educate yourself.
If you can't believe the cultural reason, please refer to my previous statement about roman men widely committing pederasty and it being culturally acceptable.

And as if that isn't enough I'd love to counter your quote with a quote of my own.
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law — Romans 13:8-10

This passage states that loving others is above even the commandments.

The other popular Leviticus quote that appears to condemn homosexuality has also been conveniently warped to fit the whim of translators, as early as 1611 in the King James version. Is the following.

Leviticus 20:13 - If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (KJV)

The English and cultural translations are unclear and misleading. As specifically depicted in this article. *Click Here*

Quote from Snippet from article
This is the correct translation of Leviticus 20:13. It can be seen that, rather than forbidding male homosexuality, it simply forbids two males to lie down in a woman’s bed, for whatever reason. Culturally, a woman's bed was her own. Other than the woman herself, only her husband was permitted in her bed, and there were even restrictions on when he was allowed in there. Any other use of her bed would have been considered defilement. Other verses in the Law will help clarify the acceptable use of the woman's bed. (Lev. 15.)

This is the same article from the conversation above, yes, but since it specifically addresses this passage of the bible I feel it essential to reiterate. Another example of how the translations to English have clearly been skewed and since the vast majority of bible readers cannot read ancient Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew. Most people just blindly except the translation to English of whatever version of the bible they happen to be reading. Though I must confess I can't vouch for the validity of this translation over any other translation, since I can't read those languages personally.
Culturally it was a very different time where women were considered the property of men, something I discussed earlier. So it makes sense that at the time, the bed would be seen as her place. But this isn't really relevant to modern society so it's clearly been tweaked.

Leviticus on sins
As I said before, Leviticus considered many things a sin. I could supply dozens of things that he considers sins, but I'll keep it classy and post a few to stress exactly how irrelevant these passages are to modern society.

Eating fat and blood
Leviticus 3:17 - It is a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings: you shall not eat any fat or any blood.
Fat is to be given as tribute to god.
Unkempt hair and wearing torn clothes
Leviticus 10:6 - Then Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, "Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, so that you will not die and that He will not become wrathful against all the congregation. But your kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, shall bewail the burning which the LORD has brought about
Drinking alcohol in holy places, uh-oh for Catholics.
Leviticus 10:9 - Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations:
Eating animals that don't both chew cud and have divided hooves
Leviticus 10:3 through 10:5 - Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat. 4'Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you. 5'Likewise, the shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you
Mixing animals, crops and fabrics
Leviticus 19:19 - You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.

This isn't including quotes that condemn things like trimming your hair and beard at the sides, picking up grapes that have fallen in your vineyard or sleeping with another mans slave. I think you get the point.
How many of these things do you think everyone in modern society breaks on a consistent basis? Considering Leviticus held many of these in terms of sinfulness on equal level with homosexuality. Wearing torn clothes or drinking on holy ground, both punishable by death. It's obvious to see that society, and religious culture at large have arbitrarily selected what they want to believe. Not because it's the truth, or because they're strictly following the bible. But because of what is convenient. When actually it should be a dichotomy, either homosexuality is to be seen as acceptable as wearing torn clothes. Or wearing torn clothes is to be seen as bad as homosexuality. But, clearly, society has taken a pick and choose method and been greatly manipulated over time when determining what they really perceive as sinful.
Meaning that to quote Leviticus as a source against homosexuality would not only be wildly hypocritical, but also irrelevant to modern culture.

On Paul
I'm grateful that I've already done most of the work that needs to be done while discussing Pauls epistles, in the quote that he refers to homosexuality.

Quote from Xeno
Romans 1:26-27

Saint Paul writing his Epistles
In the Epistle to the Romans 1:26-27 (English Majority Text Version, EMTV), Paul writes

For this reason [idolatry] God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for even their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature, and likewise also the males, having left the natural use of the female, were inflamed by their lust for one another, males with males, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was fitting for their error.

Quote from Jutsu;1256537
First of all, wow, you really gave me a lot of work here. I hope you appreciate me doing the research for you. That quote has been the corner post of many religious folk wrongly justifying their prejudice. After all, if Paul an apostle supports it, who cares if they directly betray the teachings of Christ and pretend to carry out his faith? Paul's Epistles may be among the most misunderstood and difficult to translate chapters in the bible.

"15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

16 As also in all his epistles *referring to Paul's Epistles here*, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness." (KJV)
2 Peter 3:15-17
I'll admit, I'm just lazily using the King James Version here, since the meaning is all the same. Basically Peter's saying that we need to be careful when interpreting Paul's Epistles probably because they seem to directly contradict Jesus's teachings. Peter even warns about the folly of these writings. Actually much of the writings that have been done under his name that used to be held as unquestionably true are almost universally rejected by scholars, but this one isn't.

Part of the problem here is that ancient Greek is a somewhat lost language and some of the translations here are flimsy. For example the words "Passions of dishonor" have also been translated as "Vile affections and degrading passions -Amplified Bible" and various other nasty ways in other versions of the bible. The truth is we don't really know for certain what the original definition of that passage was and it's entirely likely that the earliest English translations were biased "as almost all English translations are". It's possible that the original meaning was referring to sexual orgies and warning about the dangers of careless sex - often committed by pagan cults at the time, in this context it makes sense. They had no real understanding of sexually transmitted diseases at the time. "and receiving in themselves the recompense which was fitting for their error" I feel also reinforces this possibility, but sadly we'll never know.

The segment referring to natural sexual orientation has been the subject of dispute for sometime now, some people argue that it simply discourages forcing yourself into unnatural sexual situations, like if a gay man forces himself to be with a woman. Others on the opposing side of the argument say, no, because no. This is an argument that you and I could go on about for decades and not ever resolve.

When Paul says "contrary to nature" it's also been translated as "Sin with each other - Living Bible", "Against Nature - King James Version" and "immoral, unnatural drives -The Great Book: The New Testament in Plain English". But the Greek phrase is para physin and it simply means deviating from the norm not necessarily in a good or bad sense, so the translation is seemingly inaccurate and highly up to interpretation *Like all of Paul's writing*. A better translation here would be, unconventional or something of the like.
Paul later uses the same Phrase to describe men with long hair as unusual in 1 Corinthians 11:14, but like many of his quotes has been translated and skewed. Many translations insisting that men with long hair are shameful, dishonorable and or unnatural.
I would like to add in here, that this clearly directly contradicts what Leviticus said about clipping your hair and beard.

It's also important to read the entire chapter to understand the context of this particular verse, since it's so loose in meaning. Remember this is his Epistle to the Romans a place of different culture than his own, and at the time homosexuality was pretty much perfectly okay socially. Which leads me to believe that this could easily be a warning against casual sex to the Romans "To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. - 7"

But man, I could go on and on here, what's really important is understanding the following.
Since neither of us are religious scholars it's impossible to really tell whether this is a stone cold condemnation of homosexuals or just misunderstood. And even if we were scholars, we could debate the definitions endlessly. Paul was a passionate man, but whatever he says here is superseded in biblical importance by Jesus who preached above all else love and tolerance.

I think the ambiguity of the quote leaves the definition, like most of the bible, in the eyes of the beholder. Affirming what I said earlier that it isn't the bible itself that condemns homosexuality, rather, ill informed biggots.

A massive read, I'm sorry. But I feel that this most properly addresses Romans 1:26-27. It would be pointless for me to do anything other than simply quote this, because I doubt I could do it better a second time.

Hypocritical religious standards
Even though I'm sure I've missed quotes that reference homosexuality in the bible. It doesn't matter, in fact none of the quotes I've covered ultimately matter. For Christians, the people to whom aspire to be like Christ. Need to understand that no matter what Leviticus, or Paul, or anyone else may have said. Jesus never once condemned homosexuality and above all else he preached love and acceptance. And passages like Romans 13:8-10 clearly express that loving others is fulfillment of gods law.
As for Catholi