By Jeremy Griffin
This debate of what is right and what is wrong is sooooo boring. Debating homosexuality and same sex marriages is like playing tic-tac-toe. No one wins. And just like tic-tac-toe the debate serves no purpose other than to pass the time.
I may just be cynical but I've been hearing the debate for 20+ years and I have never seen anyone's mind changed as a result of some compelling argument made by a person on the opposing side. I have a theory as to why that is...because it's an issue of the heart.
I have conviction about a great many things and no one is going to present an argument to me about the invalidity of my convictions that will cause me to turn, because all it serves to do is cause me to reinvest and get more deeply in trenched in my original conviction.
What does cause me to reevaluate my convictions is when I'm presented with an inconsistency within my own conviction structure. For example, If I'm against drug use but fine with getting drunk that seems to have some moral inconsistencies as these two behaviors are closely related yet my convictions are not equally related.
By that token I have a tendency to weigh ALL my convictions based on where my moral compass lies which is in what my personal experience has revealed about the character of God and how that remains consistent with the accounts in the old and new testaments of the Bible.
In my experience it is not uncommon for people to argue points using biblical reference that they've only experienced anecdotally. There is no contextual base and no first hand knowledge and in many cases no relationship with the deity they are wrongly quoting and whom they do not even believe exists! It seems ludicrous to me.
I think Christianity's biggest mistake is taking on the role of defending God. He is big enough to fight His own battles. The reality is the Bible clearly and without ambiguity states in both Old and New Testements that it is not consistent with the character of God to maintain or participate in homosexual acts or relationships. It also covers about 700 other things that are directly in opposition to God but that's not the title of the blog so I won't dive into those. I didn't write that in the Bible, I read it and I choose to live my life by those standards because I am drawn internally to what I read about and experience with God.
If you believe differently I'm not surprised...my closest family members don't believe exactly everything the way I believe but I'm cool with that. I don't even try and get them to believe what I believe. But I would ask, please pay me the same courtesy. Let me have my conviction without you judging me as intolerant, ignorant or violent. I simply believe something else and that's ok.
In case you are still wondering...I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I resent my government for legislating matters of faith. Marriage in every culture and religion I have been able to study has always been between a man and a woman. If the government wants to destroy the sovereignty of its states at least have the decency to stick with your own word instead of cheapening the sacred and spiritually based act of commitment with which I choose to hold.
The non-conformist mind is such a paradox, it so often wants me to conform to its way of thinking...weird.