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Thursday, October 18, 2012

Corn, Gay Marriage and the Bible

     I got into it with a Bible thumper online.  I love to mess with them.  They think they are the only people who actually read the Bible and that no one else has any clue what the book actually says.  I'll share the thread. but first let me give a little back ground information. 
     I live in New York, where gay marriage was legalized just over a year ago. Recently, a lesbian couple approached Liberty Ridge farm to plan their wedding.  Liberty Ridge turned them down and was stupid enough to tell them why.  This has blown up on the local news, on Facebook.  This is their peak time of year, as they have a haunted corn maze, and people are talking of boycotting.
     I was following the news story on WNYT's website.  Click here to view the story and the original thread. There was a hateful comment posted so I put in simple reply of "God is love and all who live in love live in God. John 4:16"
     Then another poster commented "God alo condems homosexuality read up before using religion in your defense."
     My response "Leviticus may, but Jesus never does. I've read up quite a bit, thank you very much."
     And he counters "Just fyi king james 1 corinthians 6:8-10 Jesus comments God bless this isnt a fighting a match everybody should be free from forced culture god loves everyone its a personal thought we should only pray for the lost not argue".
     Then I went onto say "1 Corinthians is an Epistle of Paul. Paul never actually met Jesus, so I do not necessarily take that as straight from the horses mouth. It does go to show that many parts of the Bible do conflict. It is not a perfect book. For example in Matthew, Jews repeatedly called are the chosen people, while in the gosep of John, it says Jews are dogs. This one verse in John was used to justify perscution of Jews for years, but that never would have been Jesus' intention, as he was Jewish himself."
     This is the part that I love, when he totally loses it "Answer one question why do people who truly choose to live in sin (homosexuality) always alter the word of god to excuse the guilt of unconfessed sin. I will end it at this if you are a christian who believed jesus died on the cross for our sin then you believe the bile as truth written through the prophets if you dont then you might be of a different faith not a true practicing christian which is fine but dont use god in your defense for protecting homosexuality that would call him a liar and you wouldnt want the consequences for that."
     I love how he makes assumptions about me based on the fact that I don't believe hate belongs in a Biblical discussion.  So I countered "I am Catholic, and have studied history and theology. I am also a woman, happliy married to a man. We have 3 beautiful children together, though some may consider our twins an abomination as they were concieved using fertility treatments. I am not altering the word of God. I just pick and choose just as you and others do. Is it okay for my husband to beat me as long as he uses a stick no thicker than his thumb? Would it have been okay for him to impregnate my handmaiden since I could not get pregnant on my own? Is slavery okay? The Bible is full of things that were allowable that we no longer tolerate in today's society, and other things it deems sins that we no longer seem to care about, like eating pork and shellfish, or getting tatoos. I choose to believe that the over arching message of the Gospels is about Love."
    So there it is, I'm a godless heathen and destined for Hell. 
    It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  There is still some question as to the legality of Liberty Ridge denying them the opportunity to have their wedding there.  The legislation that approved gay marriage did include verbiage to prevent religious instutitions from being forced to hold gay weddings.  It never mentions private businesses however.   Some are saying that it infringes on Liberty Ridge's freedom to force them to host gay and lesbian weddings. Maybe, but would it be okay for them to deny another event that was maybe not so politically charged?  What if a religious group wanted to bring the Sunday school to the corn maze?  Would it be okay for them to deny them?  What about if it were a group of African refugees from EMMAUS?  Would that be okay? How about if they decided to let the Boy Scouts come because their group is anti-gay marriage, but not the Girl Scouts who have a more inclusive view on the subject?  I'd love to hear some (rational) thoughts.