When Xns talk about gay marriage and homosexuality they could talk until the cows come home about whether homosexuality is a sin or not. In this post I'd like to address those sisters and brothers who do think it's a sin and have assumed this means that they should be against making gay marriage legal. Below is why i think that even if you think homosexuality is a sin gay marriage shouldn't bother you...
There are two types of sin 1. Sins that affect just the sinner (envy would be an example) 2. Sins that affect the sinner and other (innocent) people around them. (murder and gossip would be examples).
You'll notice that almost all of the sins in group 1 legal and most of the sins in group 2 are illegal. Even something like gossip can morph into slander and public deformation. My contention is if you are going to call homosexuality and gay marriage a sin then you'd have to put in the first group as the only people affected by it are two consenting adults.
I know that some conservative Xns will say that gay marriage will affect the "institution of marriage". I cannot see how it will affect the institution of marriage any more than divorce or taxes spent poorly on an corrupt organizations would affect the "Christian" institution of charity.
So if you're a "gay is not ok" kind of Xn don't worry about gay marriage, there are plenty of other things to write to your local MP about. If you want to make sins illegal maybe just concentrate on those that will affect non consenting people around the sinner. Or, you could curl up with a copy of the King James Bible comforted in the fact that you will not come across the word homosexual (that word doesn't appear in Bible translations until 1958).
There are two types of sin 1. Sins that affect just the sinner (envy would be an example) 2. Sins that affect the sinner and other (innocent) people around them. (murder and gossip would be examples).
You'll notice that almost all of the sins in group 1 legal and most of the sins in group 2 are illegal. Even something like gossip can morph into slander and public deformation. My contention is if you are going to call homosexuality and gay marriage a sin then you'd have to put in the first group as the only people affected by it are two consenting adults.
I know that some conservative Xns will say that gay marriage will affect the "institution of marriage". I cannot see how it will affect the institution of marriage any more than divorce or taxes spent poorly on an corrupt organizations would affect the "Christian" institution of charity.
So if you're a "gay is not ok" kind of Xn don't worry about gay marriage, there are plenty of other things to write to your local MP about. If you want to make sins illegal maybe just concentrate on those that will affect non consenting people around the sinner. Or, you could curl up with a copy of the King James Bible comforted in the fact that you will not come across the word homosexual (that word doesn't appear in Bible translations until 1958).
2 comments:
I have a problem with your premise that some sins effect only the sinner.
What's your basis for this claim? Seems rather individualistic to me. If human creatures are fundamentally creatures in relation then there is no sin which effects *only* the sinner.
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for your comment. I think that you're probably right and my initial reaction would be something along the lines of perhaps the definition is that a sin is something that adversely affects someone else.... but I'd like to ruminate on that a little more. In relation to the issue of homosexuality my understanding is that a conservative Xn view on this would say that the two people involved in the relationship or "sin" were hurting each other and not those around them. Therefore I would argue that if someone sees this as a sin and a sin that involves two consenting adults where the only people "hurt" by that sin were the adults in the relationship then I think we should give people the freedom to live that way and therefore not oppose gay marriage.
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