Please give a reference that would allow some sort of reasonable way to address the consistency of the same-sex teaching with scripture.
How about one of the things that we're ~specifically addressed~ to do, with each other, as persons, that most people who keep fighting ~against~ same-sex unions and the like, as if they are not gifts from God as any other Holy union...
Not that I'm angry that people Judge all the time, it's kind of hard to avoid, and I have to catch myself at it often enough, myself... but
Romans 1, Douay-Rheims
Wherefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou dost the same things which thou judgest.
In ~that~ light, it's really in their best interests to put away their hate and fear... ~Especially~ the fear part, since God did not ~Give~ us a "Spirit of Fear" (hate just being, to my eyes, and outward expression of fear, as an unhealthy form of self-defense)...
2 Timothy 1:7 - Douay-Rheims
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power and of love
and of sobriety.
Not to mention, going back to Genesis, He (God the Father) made Us, in Their image, Male ~and~ Female, Each of us, as Individuals...
Genesis 1:26 and therabouts, Douay-Rheims
And he said: "Let us make man to our image and likeness"...
And God created man to his own image...
male and female he created them.
And that same idea is expressed all the way through the New Testament, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Feminine!) ... Why are people so afraid of the Feminine?? That they can't see that for themselves, Father, Son and Daughter? and that we are ~all~ made that way? And that Right Now the world is so ~twisted~ by our own fears, that it's no Wonder we can't see how much we hurt ourselves, and try to ~separate~ what God has joined together, in ~each~ of us... as if our Physical Bodies was what matters, when any school kid can tell you that one of the things they learn that's Healthy, is that it's Not the Cover of the book that's important, it's What's Inside that counts? and that applies to People as Well?
Even the most ~hateful/fearful~ people should be able to see, as Christians, that the Father of Lies can quote scripture to serve his own ends, and scare them into ~judging~ as ~evil~, when we're ~not~ supposed to judge, at All... to lean ~Not~ on our own understandings... when some of the Best and most Loving examples God ~Makes~, to show how some of us can see each other ~past~ what we look like... and love the person inside... to love ~each other~ as God sees them... are the very same people that they, who live in fear, instead of love, try to cast out... and see that "we" aren't being "punished" but ~loved all the more~ for taking a burden others would harm us for, and loving back, all the more for it.
What a friend you have in Jesus, when he shares some part of his suffering with you.
Mark 30 and 31, Douay-Rheims
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these.
I always have hope we can all get along, at some point... I'm hoping and praying for Sooner, rather than Later... we've all lived in fear and hate, for too long already. =)
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
So many of us seem to ~ask~ for His Return... without realizing what they're saying... Maybe that's why it's taken so long... We forgot how to Mean what we Say...
But...
~Nothing is Impossible with God~ so there's always hope,
Peace be with you,
~V~
P.S. I think you can see where I've used a few ~other~ bible passages, without quoting them directly... and those shouldn't be hard to find, either =)
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