SEXUAL SINS OR NOT?
Sex has always played a big role in creation.
Animals act on instinct and thus procreate. Humans are different. Sex has the
purpose of procreation but also of bonding and enjoyment.
When talking about sex, things like marriage,
fornication, adultery, “consenting adults”, “friends with benefits”, “casual
sex”, “swinging”, homosexuality, bi-sexuality”, prostitution, zoophilia, rape,
incest, GSA (Genetic
Sexual Attraction), “avunculate marriage”,
sexbots, etc. come up.
This is not a scientific study on sex and
sexual relationships. We’ll look at general trends, behaviour of people in this
field, and gather info from various sources to get a general picture of what is
going on in the world of sexual relationships.
Sex according to the Bible:
Here I’ll refer to Kerby Anderson
summary:
God
created men and women in His image (Gen. 1:27) as sexual beings. But because of
sin in the world (Rom. 3:23), sex has been misused and abused (Rom. 1:24-25).
A
biblical perspective of human sexuality must recognize that sexual intercourse
is exclusively reserved for marriage for the following purposes. First, it
establishes the one-flesh union (Gen. 2:24-25; Matt. 19:4-6). Second, it
provides for sexual intimacy within the marriage bond. The use of the word
“know” indicates a profound meaning of sexual intercourse (Gen. 4:1). Third,
sexual intercourse is for the mutual pleasure of husband and wife (Prov.
5:18-19). Fourth, sexual intercourse is for procreation (Gen. 1:28).
Sex is very powerful and can be
compared to nuclear energy. Within certain specifications of containment it is
very useful, without the bounds of containment it is very dangerous en even
very destruct full and can cause disasters and lead to death
In the
upcoming “pages” we will look closer at the various types of sexual relations
for example fornication, adultery, prostitution, rape, homosexuality, pornography,
sexbots, necrophilia, etc.
These pages are mainly put together
from other sources, written by various people, on these matters. Credit is
given and sources are quoted.
HOMSEXUAL/LESBIAN
AND MORE
LGBT/ LGBTQIAPD
CONTENTS
·
DEFINITION
·
GENERAL
·
LGBT
expanding
· LAWS
IN COUNTRIES
·
BOOKS ON HOMOSEXUALITY
·
FILMS ON HOMOSEXUALITY
·
IN THE NEWS
·
LGBT AND
CELEBRETIES
·
THE GENETIC
ARGUMENT
·
GAY CHRISTIANS?
·
LGBT TESTIMONIES
·
LGBT VIDEO
TESTIMONIES
·
HOMOSEXUALITY
AND THE BIBLE
·
LGBTQIAPD AND THE BIBLE
·
CONCLUSION
·
WHAT IF
YOU WERE/ARE INVOLVED?
DEFINITION
SECULAR
DEFINITION OF SODOMY
1.
:
anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex; also
: copulation with an animal
DEFINITION OF HOMOSEXUAL
1.
1
: of, relating to, or
characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same
sex a homosexual man was involved in a homosexual relationship
2.
2
: of, relating to, or
involving sexual activity between persons of the same sex homosexual acts
GAY (originally)
Brightly
coloured showy, Light-hearted and care free
1. happily excited : merry
in a gay moodb :
keenly alive and exuberant : having or inducing high spirits a bird's
gay spring song
3.
given to social pleasures; also :
4. jovial or happy, good-spirited
DEFINITION OF HOMOPHOBIA
1. “unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality.”
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/homophobic
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homophobia
In modern
times this is probably the most misused word. The first part of the word, homo comes from the
masculine Latin noun homo hominis (a third declension noun for any latin
scholars) and it translates as man or human being.
Phobia comes from the Greek word phobós which translates as fear or morbid
fear. So when combined they form the word
homophobic which is and adjective for one who is afraid of man and a non homophobe, one who fears man, or homophobia, the fear of man. There is nothing
about homosexuality in homophobia. A better word may be
homosexaphobic.
Homophobic is used wrong because very few humans are afraid of human beings. Homophobia is most
prevalent in all other species who have become afraid of humans because of our
harmful actuons which result in their habitat loss and eventual death.
BIBLICAL
A Sexual act between persons of the
same sex.
GENERAL
The homosexual scene has changed a lot through the years. It
became Gay and Lesbian, then more where added LGBT (lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Tans sexual)
The movement has grow and below we have more “Definitions”
LGBTQI
stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and
Intersex
Below are
definitions of LGBTQI terms and related information that will help you
understand LGBTQI persons and their community*:
·
Ally -
Someone who advocates for and supports members of a community other than their
own, reaching across differences to achieve mutual goals.
·
Asexual - Refers
to a person who consistently does not experience sexual attraction toward
other people.
·
Bias -
Prejudice; an inclination or preference, especially one that interferes with
impartial judgment.
·
Biphobia - The
irrational fear and intolerance of people who are bisexual, or the
marginalization or refusal to acknowlege bisexuality as a legitimate sexuality.
·
Bisexual - Also
colloquially referred to as "bi." A person who is attracted to
two sexes or two genders, but not necessarily simultaneously or equally. This
used to be defined as a person who is attracted to both genders or both sexes,
but since sex and gender don't operate on binaries (see
"intersex"/"transsexual" and "transgender"),
this definition is inaccurate.
·
Cisgenderism -
Holding people to traditional expectations based on gender, or punishing or
excluding those who don't conform to traditional gender expectations.
·
Cissexism - The
belief and treatment of trans* people as inferior on less authentic than cissexual
(non-trans*) people.
·
Coming Out - To
recognize one's sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex identity, and to be
open about it with oneself and with others.
·
Cross-Dresser -
Individuals who regularly or occasionally wear the clothing socially assigned
to a gender not their own, but are usually comfortable with their anatomy and
do not wish to change it (i.e. they are not transsexuals). Cross-dresser is the
preferred term for men who enjoy or prefer women's clothing and social roles.
Contrary to popular belief, the overwhelming majority of male cross-dressers
identify as straight and often are married. Very few women call themselves
cross-dressers.
·
Demisexual - An
orientation placed between sexual and asexual. Demisexuals generally do
not form random sexual attraction to people (regardless of sex or gender), but
if they get to know someone, sexual attraction can develop as a result of or
along with an emotional connection.
·
Discrimination - The
act of showing partiality or prejudice; a prejudicial act.
·
Domestic Partner - One who lives with their beloved and/or is at least emotionally and
financially connected in a supportive manner with another. Another word for
spouse, lover, significant other, etc.
·
Dominant Culture - The cultural values, beliefs, and practices that are assumed to be
the most common and influential within a given society.
·
Drag - The
act of dressing in gendered clothing as part of a performance. Drag Queens
perform in highly feminine attire. Drag Kings perform in highly masculine
attire. Drag may be performed as a political comment on gender, as parody, or
simply as entertainment. Drag performance does not indicate sexuality, gender
identity, or sex identity.
·
Family -
Colloquial term used to identify other LGBTIQ community members. For example,
an LGBTQI person saying, “that person is family” often means that the person
they are referring to is LGBTQI as well.
·
Family of choice (chosen family) - Persons or group of people an individual sees as
significant in zir life. It may include none, all, or some members
of zir family of origin. In addition, it may include individuals such as
significant others, domestic partners, friends, and coworkers.
·
FTM/F2M -
Female-to-Male Transsexual.
·
Gay - Men
attracted emotionally, romantically, and/or sexually to men. Colloquially used
at times as an umbrella term to include all LGBTQI people.
·
Gender - A
socially constructed system of classification that ascribes qualities of
masculinity and femininity to people. Gender characteristics can change over
time and are different between cultures. Words that refer to gender include:
man, woman, transgender, masculine, feminine, genderqueer, bigender, and
agender. One's sense of self as masculine or feminine regardless of external genitalia.
Gender is often conflated with sex. This is inaccurate because sex refers to
bodies and gender refers to personality characteristics.
·
Gender Conformity/Cisgendered - When a person's gender identity and
sex are in alignment (i.e. fit social norms), e.g. a male who is
masculine and identifies as a man. The term "cisgendered" was coined
in the early 1990s as a way to refer to people who do not identify as
transgender, and the prefix "cis-" is used in the term
"cissexual" to refer to the same concept as applied to biological
sex.
·
Gender Dysphoria - Being discontent with the biological sex and/or gender that a person
was assigned at birth. This discontent can lead to serious discomfort and
feelings of "wrongness," that the person was born in the wrong body.
The professional diagnosis for gender dysphoria has been gender identity
disorder (GID), though it is likely that the term will be removed from the
DSM-V and replaced with gender dysphoria. A modern remedy for gender dysphoria
consists primarily of physical alterations to bring the person's body more into
alignment with that person's perception of zer gender identity (see
"transition"); however, it is important to remember that
transitioning does not eliminate the difference between sex and gender.
·
Gender Expression - The way that a person chooses to express hirself. This sometimes can
conflate with gender identity, but is not agiven; for example, someone who
identifies as a woman can still choose to express herself in a way deemed by
society as masculine, e.g. certain hairstyles, clothing, and behaviors.
Gender expression terms are masculine, feminine, and androgynous.
·
Gender Identity - The gender that a person sees themselves as. This can include
refusing to label oneself with a gender. Gender identity is also often
conflated with sexual orientation, but this is inaccurate. Gender identity does
not cause sexual orientation. For example, a masculine woman is not nescesarily
a lesbian.
·
Gender-Neutral -
Nondiscriminatory language to describe relationships—e.g. “spouse” and
“partner” are gender-neutral alternatives to the gender-specific words
“husband,” “wife,” “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.”
·
Gender Queer (or Genderqueer) - A person who redefines or plays with gender, or
who refuses gender altogether. A label for people who bend/break the rules of
gender and blur the boundaries.
·
Gender Role - How
“masculine” or “feminine” an individual acts. Societies commonly have norms
regarding how males and females should behave, expecting people to have
personality characteristics and/or act a certain way based on their biological
sex.
·
Gender-variant/Gender non-conforming - Displaying gender traits that are not
normatively associated with their biological sex. “Feminine” behavior or
appearance in a male is gender-variant as is “masculine” behavior or appearance
a female. Gender-variant behavior is culturally specific.
·
GSM - stands
for "gender and sexual minority." An umbrella term to meant to refer
to and include all people in the LGBTQQIAAP* community that is slowly gaining
popularity, similar to the changing acronym in some places of GSA to
"gender and sexuality alliance." Some people prefer to use this as an
umbrella term rather than "queer," since GSM doesn't hold the same
historically negative connotation.
·
Hate Crime - Hate
crime legislation often defines a hate crime as a crime motivated by the actual
or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender
identity, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.
·
Heteronormativity - Tthe cultural bias in favor of opposite-sex relationships of a sexual
nature, and against same-sex relationships of a sexual nature. Heteronormative
practices or techniques are multiple and organise categories of identity into
hierarchical binaries. This means that man has been set up as the opposite (and
superior) of woman, and heterosexual as the opposite (and superior) of homosexual.
Heteronormativity thus is damaging to people in many different groups.
·
Heterosexuality - Sexual attraction to a sex other than your own. Commonly thought of
as “attraction to the opposite sex” but since there are not only two sexes (see
intersex and transsexual), this definition is inaccurate.
·
Heteroromantic -
Romantic and/or emotional attraction to a gender other than your own. Commonly
thought of as “attraction to the opposite gender” but since there are not only
two genders (see "gender identity"), this definition is inaccurate.
·
Heterosexism -
Assuming every person to be heterosexual therefore marginalizing persons who do
not identify as heterosexual. It is also believing heterosexuality to be
superior to homosexuality and all other sexual orientations.
·
Heterosexual Privilege - Benefits derived automatically by being (or
being perceived as) heterosexual that are denied to homosexuals, bisexuals, and
queers.
·
Homonormativity - Norm that takes it for granted that everybody with any lesbian, gay, bisexual
or transgender (homosexual) connection is and act as if they were homosexual.
Homosexuals are commonly defined as: persons who are attracted to individuals
of the same gender; any person illustrating any homosexual norm or stereotype
to be homosexual. The same problems apply with homonormativity as with
heteronormativity; it can marginalize or punish persons who do not exhibit
stereotypically "gay" behavior.
·
Homophobia - The
irrational fear and intolerance of people who are homosexual or of homosexual
feelings within one's self. This assumes that heterosexuality is superior.
·
Homoromantic -
Emotional or romantic attraction to persons of the same gender
·
Homosexuality - Sexual
attraction to persons of the same sex.
·
Institutional Oppression - Arrangement of a society used to benefit one
group at the expense of another through the use of language, media education,
religion, economics, etc.
·
Internalized Dominance - The inability of a group or an individual
to see the privilege of being the dominant group or being a member of
the dominant group.
·
Internalized Oppression - The process by which an oppressed person comes
to believe, accept, or live out the inaccurate stereotypes and misinformation
about their group.
·
Intersex -
Intersexuality is a set of medical conditions that feature congenital anomaly
of the reproductive and sexual system. That is, intersex people are born with
"sex chromosomes," external genitalia, or internal reproductive
systems that are not considered "standard" for either male or female.
The existence of intersexuals shows that there are not just two sexes and that
our ways of thinking about sex (trying to force everyone to fit into either the
male box or the female box) is socially constructed.
·
In the Closet -
Keeping one's sexual orientation and/or gender or sex identity a secret.
·
Invisible Minority - A group whose minority status is not always immediately visible, such
as some disabled people and LGBTIQ people. This lack of visibility may make
organizing for rights difficult.·
Lambda - The
Gay Activist Alliance originally chose the lambda, the Greek letter
"L", as a symbol in 1970. Organizers chose the letter "L"
to signify liberation. The word has become a way of expressing the concept
"lesbian and gay male" in a minimum of syllables and has been adopted
by such organizations as Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.
·
Lesbian - A
woman who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to other women.
·
Marginalized -
Excluded, ignored, or relegated to the outer edge of a group/society/community.
·
Men who have sex with men (MSM) - Men who engage in same-sex behavior, but who may
not necessarily self-identify as gay (sometimes referred to as 'on the
down-low').
·
MTF/M2F -
Male-to-Female Transsexual.
·
Out (of the closet) - Refers to varying degrees of being open about one’s sexual
orientation and/or sex identity or gender identity.
·
Panromantic - An
emotional and/or romantic orientation characterized by romantic attraction
toward any gender.
·
Pansexual - A
person who is fluid in sexuality.
·
Polyamory - The
practice of having multiple open, honest love relationships.
·
Queer - An
umbrella term to refer to all LGBTIQ people. A political statement, as well as
a sexual orientation, which advocates breaking binary thinking and seeing both
sexual orientation and gender identity as potentially fluid.A simple label to
explain a complex set of sexual behaviors and desires. For example, a person
who is attracted to multiple genders may identify as queer. Many older LGBT
people feel the word has been hatefully used against them for too long and are
reluctant to embrace it.
·
Rainbow Flag - The
Rainbow Freedom Flag was designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker to designate the
great diversity of the LGBTIQ community. It has been recognized by the
International Flag Makers Association as the official flag of the LGBTIQ civil
rights movement.
·
Sex Identity - The
sex that a person sees themselves as. This can include refusing to label
oneself with a sex.
·
Sexual minority - Refers to members of sexual orientations or who engage in sexual
activities that are not part of the mainstream. Refers to members of sex groups
that do not fall into the majority categories of male or female, such as
intersexuals and transsexuals.
·
Sex (versus gender) - Refers to a person based on their anatomy (external genitalia,
chromosomes, and internal reproductive system). Sex terms are male, female,
transsexual, and intersex. Sex is biological, although social views and
experiences of sex are cultural.
·
Sexuality - The
deep-seated direction of one's sexual (erotic) attraction. It is on a continuum
and not a set of absolute categories. Sometimes referred to as affection
orientation or sexuality. Sexual orientation evolves through a multistage
developmental process, and may change over time.
·
SRS -
Acronym for Sexual Reassignment Surgery, the surgery done by transsexuals to
make their bodies and their sex identity match.
·
Stereotype - An
exaggerated, oversimplified belief about an entire group of people without
regard for individual differences.
·
Straight - Person
who is attracted to a gender other than their own. Commonly thought of as “attraction
to the opposite gender,” but since gender does not exist solely on a binary
(see "transgender"), this definition is inaccurate.
·
Transgender -
Transgender (sometimes shortened to trans or TG) people are those whose
psychological self ("gender identity") differs from the social
expectations for the physical sex they were born with. To understand this, one
must understand the difference between biological sex, which is one's body
(genitals, chromosomes, ect.), and social gender, which refers to levels of
masculinity and femininity. Often, society conflates sex and gender, viewing
them as the same thing. But, gender and sex are not the same thing. Transgender
people are those whose psychological self ("gender identity") differs
from the social expectations for the physical sex they were born with. For
example, a female with a masculine gender identity or who identifies as a man.
An umbrella term for transsexuals, cross-dressers (transvestites),
transgenderists, gender queers, and people who identify as neither female nor
male and/or as neither a man or as a woman. Transgender is not a sexual
orientation - transgender people may have any sexual orientation. It is
important to acknowledge that while some people may fit under this definition
of transgender, they may not identify as such.
·
Transgenderist - A
person who lives either full time, or most of the time, in a gender role
different than the role associated with their biological or chromosomal sex (a
gender non-conformist).
·
Transition - A
complicated, multi-step process that can take years as transsexuals align their
anatomy with their sex identity; this process may ultimately include sex
reassignment surgery (SRS).
·
Transphobia - Fear
or hatred of transgender people; transphobia is manifested in a number of ways,
including violence, harassment and discrimination.
·
Transsexual -
Transsexual refers to a person who experiences a mismatch of the sex they were
born as and the sex they identify as. A transsexual sometimes undergoes medical
treatment to change his/her physical sex to match his/her sex identity through
hormone treatments and/or surgically. Not all transsexuals can have or desire
to have surgery.
·
Triangle - A
symbol of remembrance. Gay men in the Nazi concentration camps were forced to
wear the pink triangle as a designation of being homosexual. Women who did not
conform to social roles, often believed to be lesbians, had to wear the black
triangle. The triangles are worn today as symbols of freedom, reminding us to
never forget.
·
Ze/Zer - Gender
neutral pronouns that can be used instead of he/she and his/her.
* This is
not intended to be a comprehensive list, nor do we assume that the definitions
included in this list are completely accurate; no offense is meant in defining
the above terms. If an inconsistency is found, a term is found that is not
included in this list, or a definition is offensive, please don't hesitate to
inform us. We will correct the discrepancies as they are found.
From another article:
For
more additions see below:
LGBTQIAPD
The term LGBTQIAPD is a extended version of LGBT. The difference between the
two is that the former takes into account a wider range of sexualitys and
gender identities. It stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
Queer/questioning, Intersexual, Asexual, Pansexual/Polysexual and Demisexual.
However, the LGBTQIAPD community welcomes any person of any sexual orientation
or gender identity. Because the majority of people are heterosexual (straight)
many people who are otherwise come under scrutiny and are bullied. The LGBTQIAPD
community is there to support victims of homophobia and transphobia and are
trying to raise awareness of this issue. The fight for equal rights is ongoing
and in some countries gay marriage is now legal.
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is when a person is
sexually attracted to a person of the same sex. Females who are homosexual are
sometimes referred to as Lesbians and the Males as Gays. However, some people
prefer not to be labelled because it might alienate them. People who bully
homosexuals for their sexuality are called homophobes. Although, people can be
homophobic it does not necessarily mean that it is actually a phobia or that
they are scared.
Transgender
Transgenders are people who are
born in the wrong body, for example a person who is born anatomically as a male
has the soul of a female. Transgenders often change their names and/ or have
surgery to physically change their gender. If they are too young for surgery or
if they do not have consent from their parents guardians, they will most likely
dress as their true to mind gender. Bully's of transgender people are called
transphobes. As with homosexuality, they are not necessarily scared.
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is when a person is
sexually attracted to both males and females, like a combination of
heterosexuality and homosexuality. If a bisexual person has not yet been in a
relationship with one of the opposite sex, this does not make them heterosexual,
nor vice versa. Some homophobes say that bisexuals are just 'confused'. this is
not the case.
Intersexual
Intersex is a variation of sex
characteristics anatomically, thus they do not fit into a specific gender
category. They may be surgically altered so that they can fit into a more
'socially acceptable' gender group but this practice comes into question of
human rights. There are rules in various countries as to whether a baby is male
or female. A person may also be intersex mentally and emotionally.
Asexual
Asexuality is when a person is not
sexually attracted to anyone. They may however, have a romantic relationship
with someone, though it involves little or no physical affection. Wearing a
black ring on the middle finger is a sign that somebody is asexual. This is how
asexuals identify with each other.
Pansexuality/Polysexuality
Pansexuality is when a person is
sexually attracted to all genders, whether it be male, female, genderfluid or
none. Polysexuality is when a person is sexually attracted to somebody of two
genders or multiple genders. These can easily be mistaken with each other when
they are, in fact, completely different. In the same way that some say
bisexuals are 'confused' this also applies to pansexuals and polysexuals, but
that judgement is still wrong.
Demisexuality
Sometimes a person feels both
asexual and non- asexual, this is called demisexuality. They sometimes
experience sexual attraction and sometimes feel, like asexuals, that they just
experience romantic attraction. Another name for demisexuality is
semisexuality.
http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/LGBTQIAPD
This movement has growing exponentially over the
last 10 to 20 years. More and more Government are acknowledging this movement
and changing their laws. Even Churches are changing their stance.
LAWS
IN COUNTRIES
As of March 2017, 23 countries,
most of them located in the Americas and Western Europe, recognize same-sex marriage.
As of
August 2017, 73 countries as
well as five sub-national jurisdictions have laws criminalizing homosexuality, with most of them located in Asia
and Africa. In 2006 that number was 92. As of May 2016, 16 countries have an
unequal age of consent law.
In 2011, the United
Nations Human Rights Council passed its first resolution recognizing
LGBT rights, which was followed up with a report from the UN Human Rights
Commission documenting violations of the rights of LGBT people, including hate crime, criminalization of homosexuality, and discrimination. Following up on the report, the UN
Human Rights Commission urged all countries which had not yet done so to enact
laws protecting basic LGBT rights.
Worldwide laws regarding same-sex intercourse and
freedom of expression and association
Same-sex intercourse legal Marriage1
Marriage
recognized but not performed1 Civil
unions1
Unregistered cohabitation1
Same-sex
unions unrecognized Laws
restricting freedom of expression and association Same-sex intercourse
illegal
Unenforced penalty2
Imprisonment Life
imprisonment Death
penalty Rings indicate areas where local judges have granted or denied
marriages or imposed the death penalty in a jurisdiction where that is not
otherwise the law or areas with a case-by-case application. 1Some jurisdictions
in this category may currently have other types of partnerships. 2 No arrests
in the past three years or moratorium
on law.
76 countries with anti-homosexuality
laws
A total of 72 countries have criminal laws against sexual
activity by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI)
people, according to a tally by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Trans and Intersex Association, or ILGA.
In a similar tally by the Erasing 76 Crimes
blog, a total of 76 countries have such laws. The discrepancy is a matter of
categorization, not a disagreement about where such repressive laws apply.
In the view of the Erasing 76 Crimes blog,
ILGA’s list only slightly understates the problem. ILGA leaves out Egypt from a
“Same-Sex Sexual Acts Illegal” list of 71 countries with anti-LGBT laws, but
adds it in an overview statement that “72 states continue to criminalise
same-sex consensual activity,” because in Egypt “same-sex sexual relations are
de facto severely outlawed.” In fact, Egypt is apparently the world’s top
jailer of LGBT people. In this blog’s view, Egypt’s vague but harshly enforced
law against “debauchery” is as much an anti-LGBT
law as many countries’ vague and often unenforced laws against “unnatural
acts.”
ILGA also omits the terrorist regime Daesh, also known as the Islamic State, ISIS and ISIL, which has operated in Syria and Iraq as a harshly anti-LGBT
government. Under attack from all sides, its territory has been reduced, but it
still controls Raqqa, Syria, which serves as its capital. When Raqqa falls,
Daesh will no longer qualify as a de facto country and this blog will remove it
from the list below.
ILGA’s figure of 72 countries was down 22
percent from the total of 92 countries in 2006, when the global rights group
began documenting the laws that are used to persecute LGBT people.
This blog also includes on its 76-country list:
·
Indonesia, where two large provinces outlaw homosexual acts; and
·
Two other
political entities, in addition to Daesh/ISIS/ISIL, that
have anti-LGBT laws but that aren’t accepted as countries by the international
community — the Cook Islands, a self-governing country whose residents all have
citizenship in New Zealand; and Gaza/Palestine.
ILGA includes those three on its “Same-Sex
Sexual Acts Illegal” list, but doesn’t include them in its 72-country overview.
As of the publication of the 2016 edition of
ILGA’s State-Sponsored
Homophobia report,
ILGA’s list numbered 75. Both Seychelles and Nauru repealed their anti-gay laws in May
2016. Then, on Aug. 10, 2016, the Supreme Court in Belize overturned that nation’s
anti-sodomy law as applied to consensual sex. That brought the ILGA total down
to 72.
Uncertainty surrounds the situation in at least
three other countries:
·
In December
2016, the parliament in Chad approved a new penal code making same-sex intimacy a crime, but there
is no evidence that the changes were approved by Chad president or that the new
law has taken effect. Therefore Chad is not on the current lists of countries
with anti-LGBT laws — neither on this blog’s list nor on ILGA’s list.
·
In late February
2017, the parliament in Angola gave initial approval to a revision of the country’s penal code that
does not outlaw private, consenting, same-sex sexual activity between
adults. If and when that legislation comes into force, Angola will be dropped
from the lists.
·
Should Russia’s
semi-autonomous republic of Chechnya be added to the list because of the brutal campaign against gay and
bisexual men that has been sweeping through Chechnya in recent months? Although
Russia and Chechnya deny it, police have illegally arrested at least 100 men on
the grounds of their suspected sexual orientation. Detained in two known
illegal prisons, they have been tortured, humiliated and beaten. At least three
men have been killed. But neither Russia nor Chechnya actually has a law
against same-sex sexual activity.
This blog’s total would be 78 countries if it
were to include Russia and Lithuania, two countries that do not have laws against homosexual acts but do
have repressive laws against “propaganda of homosexuality.” Libya and Nigeria
have similar anti-propaganda laws, but also prohibit same-sex relations, so
they are already on the list.
Back in 2012, based on a separate, nearly
complete count, St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation cited a
total of 76 countries. That list was used in that year’s Spirit of 76
Worldwide program aimed at repealing those laws. It also inspired the name of
this blog — “Erasing 76 Crimes.”
These are some of the recent changes in the
list:
·
The tiny nations
of Palau in the western Pacific Ocean and São Tomé and Príncipe, in the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of central
Africa, recently decriminalized homosexuality and were dropped from this list
in 2014.
·
Mozambique’s
LGBTI advocacy organization, Lambda, can celebrate the repeal of the country’s
anti-gay law, but it has not yet won its battle for official government
recognition, which it has been seeking since 2008. (Photo courtesy of Lambda)
Mozambique, on the southeastern coast of Africa, with a
population of 24 million, adopted a new Penal Code in the second half of 2014
and was dropped from this list in early 2015.
·
Lesotho also was dropped from the list after adopting a new Penal Code, which effectively eliminated the nation’s former common-law crime of sodomy.
·
As noted above,
Seychelles and Nauru repealed their anti-gay laws in May 2016, as did Belize in
August 2016.
·
Daesh (or ISIS / ISIL) was added to the list because it publicizes its
executions of LGBTI people in the the areas of northern Iraq and northern
Syria held by its troops. ILGA states that “the Nusr [‘Victory’ in
Arabic] website, which claims to be the website of the Islamic caliphate, has a
section on Legal Jurisprudence (evidence-based rules and the penal code). One
of the pages under this section is dedicated to “punishment for sodomy”, which
states: “the religiously-sanctioned penalty for sodomy is death, whether it is
consensual or not. Those who are proven to have committed sodomy, whether
sodomizer or sodomized, should be killed…”.
·
As noted above,
both Seychelles and Nauru repealed their anti-gay laws in May 2016. As also noted above, in
August 2016, the Supreme Court in Belize overturned that nation’s anti-sodomy law as applied to consensual sex.
BOOKS ASD FILMS ON HOMOSEXUALITY
IN THE NEWS
SAME-SEX-TRIO
-Manuel Bermudez, Victor Hugo Prada and Alejandro Rodriguez have
become the first trio to wed in a legally recognised same-sex marriage in
Colombia (Picture: CEN)
Three men have made history by becoming the first trio to
wed in a same-sex ceremony in Colombia.
Manuel Bermudez, Victor Hugo Prada and Alejandro Rodriguez
tied the knot in a romantic ceremony on Saturday in the city of Medellin, in
the north-western Colombian department of Antioquia.
Three people are legally allowed to marry each other in
Colombia, where it is known as a ‘trieja’ – a word derived from two others:
trio and pareja: trio and couple.
The trio became the first same-sex trio to tie the knot
after spending years in love.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/14/three-men-marry-in-first-legally-recognised-polyamorous-wedding-6708801/#ixzz4sNNjLW3O
LGBT AND CELEBRETIES
BISEXUAL/GAY/LESBIAN
CELEBRITIES
The 40 most famous bisexual/gay/lesbian
celebrities by
littleblackstarxoxo | created - 04
Jul 2015 | updated - 30 Jul 2015 | Public
This
list provides todays most famous celebrities who are bisexual, gay &
lesbian.
Megan
Denise Fox was born in Rockwood, Tennessee, to Gloria Darlene (Cisson) and
Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. Megan began her training in drama and
dance at age 5 and, at age 10, moved to St. Petersburg, Florida where she
continued her training and finished school. Megan began acting and ...
Megan
Fox told Esquire in 2011, “I have no question in my mind about being bisexual,”
Although Megan Fox is now a mother of Noah & Bodhi and the wife of Brian
Austin Green, she’s been candid about her feelings towards the same gender. In
addition to matter-of-factly proclaiming her bisexuality to Esquire, she
famously stated that fellow actress Olivia Wilde “is so sexy, she makes [her]
want to strangle a mountain ox with [her] bare hands.”
Angelina
Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who became popular after playing the
title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014).
Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international ...
Angelina
Jolie told 20/20 in 2003, "[I was] surprised when I suddenly found myself
having these feelings I always had for men, but for a woman, and wanting to
kiss her and wanting to touch her,"
Angelina Jolie’s bisexuality was never a secret. After splitting with her first
husband, actor Jonny Lee Miller, the Gia star began seeing model Jenny Shimizu,
whom she met on the set of their film Foxfire. In fact, the relationship was so
serious that Jolie told Girlfriends magazine in 1997, "I would probably
have married Jenny Shimizu if I hadn't married my husband. I fell in love with
her the first second I saw her."
Soundtraxk Hannah Montanna
Miley
Cyrus was born in Franklin, Tennessee, the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and his wife,
Letitia Jean "Tish" (Finley). She has five siblings - two
half-brothers, a half-sister, and a younger brother and sister. Her birth name
is Destiny Hope Cyrus, because her parents hoped she ...
In
Miley's Paper Mag cover story (which arrived with a slew of very NSFW naked
pics), she talks about making a huge revelation to her mother, Tish Cyrus, at
age 14 -- right around the same time Hannah Montana made its debut.
"I remember telling her I admire women in a different way. And she asked
me what that meant. And I said, I love them. I love them like I love boys,"
Miley recalled to Paper.
Known
for tough-chick roles, Michelle Rodriguez is proof that there is a cross
between beauty and brawn. She was born Mayte Michelle Rodriguez on July 12,
1978, in Bexar County, Texas, to Carmen Milady Pared Espinal, from the
Dominican Republic, and Rafael Rodríguez Santiago, who served in the U.S....
The
actress came out as bisexual last October 2013 in an interview with
Entertainment Weekly. The 'Fast and Furious' star commented,"I've gone
both ways. I do as I please. I am too *beep* curious to sit here and not try
when I can. Men are intriguing. So are chicks."
Matthew
Joseph "Matt" Dallas born October 21, 1982 is an American actor, best
known for playing the title character on the ABC Family series Kyle XY. Dallas
was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and attended Arizona School for the Arts. He has
two younger brothers and one younger sister. He became ...
This
former 'Kyle Xy' star started the new year by announcing he’s gay and engaged
to Blue Hamilton on Twitter in 2013.
Amber
Laura Heard was born in Austin, Texas, to Patricia Paige Heard (née Parsons),
an internet researcher, and David C. Heard (David Clinton
Heard), a contractor. She has English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Welsh
ancestry.
Heard appeared in the Academy Award-nominated film, North Country (2005), ...
Amber
Heard told Metro UK in 2011, “It’s been frustrating as I don’t label myself one
way or another—I have had successful relationships with men and now a woman. I
love who I love, it’s the person that matters,”
After reevaluating her role in the media, Amber Heard knew that she didn’t want
to remain part of the problem. Heard, who had been seen actively protesting
Prop 8, came out at the 25th Anniversary GLAAD celebration in 2010 to raise
awareness of gay Americans searching for equality. She walked down the red
carpet with her girlfriend, photographer Tasya van Ree, whom she had been
dating since 2008. Now the gossip rags are saying that she's with Johnny Depp.
Cara
Jocelyn Delevingne was born in London, England, to Pandora Anne (Stevens) and
Charles Hamar Delevingne, a property developer. Her parents are both from
prominent upper-class families, with her ancestors including Viscounts
(Greenwood), Baronets (Hulton, Faudel-Phillips), Majors and Lord Mayors...
"I'm
young, I'm having fun, I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not,"
the blonde stunner explained. "So I don't really care on that matter.
People can say what they want, but I'm having a good time. I know what people
are doing who are my age; I just think it would be a lie to pretend that I'm
not having a good time."
She added she feels more comfortable around women than men because she feels
guys just want to have sex with her.
Matthew
Staton Bomer was born in Webster Groves, Greater St. Louis, Missouri, to
Elizabeth Macy (Staton) and John O'Neill Bomer IV, a Dallas Cowboys draft pick.
Matt was raised in Spring, Texas, and educated at Klein High School, near
Houston. After school, he attended Carnegie Mellon University in...
He
has two kids with his long-term partner, but fans of the actor always seem to
be surprised when learning that he’s gay.
Jonathan
David Bennett was born in Rossford, Ohio, to RuthAnne (Mason) and Dr. David
Paul Bennett. He headed straight to New York to pursue acting after graduating
from the theater program at Otterbein. He was actually discovered by an agent
while sitting on a train. Six months later he signed on ...
"Dancing
With The Stars" judge Julianne Hough was discussing "Mean Girls"
star and DWTS contestant Jonathan Bennett on "Extra" with host Mario
Lopez.
"[Bennett] tweeted me last year and said, like, I had a nice butt, but he
also tagged my trainer," she said. "And so I was like, 'Oh, he's
hitting on me. I should try to go on a date with him.'"
"What happened?" Lopez asked.
"He's gay," Hough responded. "So, I was like, that's not gonna
work."
Lindsay
Dee Lohan was born in New York City on 2 July 1986. Her mother, Dina Lohan (née Donata
Melina Nicolette Sullivan), is a former Wall Street analyst, and her father, Michael Lohan, is a
businessman and former Wall Street trader. She has Irish, Italian, and German
ancestry.
Lindsey
Lohan told Harper's Bazaar in 2008, "Maybe. Yeah. . . I don't want to
classify myself. First of all, you never know what's going to happen tomorrow,
in a month, a year from now, five years from now. I appreciate people, and it
doesn't matter who they are, and I feel blessed to be able to feel comfortable
enough with myself that I can say that,”
It’s been rumored that Lindsay Lohan has had a decorated history of dating and
fooling around with other women, namely Courtenay Semel, Vanessa Minnillo and
Paris Hilton. The only relationship Lindsay’s ever confirmed, however, was with
DJ Samantha Ronson. Lohan personally confirmed it on Loveline after she said
that they had been dating for “a very long time.” The two officially split in
2009.
Anna
Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for
acting, and the first to win.
She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1982, to Mary (Brophy), an
English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian
phys-ed teacher. Anna moved to her ...
Anna
Paquin told Zooey in 2012, "I'm sure for some people saying they’re
bisexual feels less scary than making a statement that they're gay. For me,
it’s not really an issue because I’m someone who believes being bisexual is
actually a thing. It’s not made up. It’s not a lack of decision. It’s not being
greedy or numerous other ignorant things I’ve heard at this point. For a
bisexual, it’s not about gender. That’s not the deciding factor for who they’re
attracted to,”
In 2010, Paquin came out in “Give a Damn," a PSA for True Colors First, a
gay rights organization, to help promote equality and anti-bullying. At the
time, Paquin was engaged to her current husband, Stephen Moyer, but her coming
out wasn’t a surprise to those close to her. Paquin, who normally keeps her
personal life private, stated that she decided to proclaim her sexuality in the
PSA to shed light on the issues she really cares about.
Born
and raised in Puerto Rico, Ricky initiated his singing career in the Latin all
boy-band group Menudo. After leaving
the group, he moved to New York to study acting. After finishing his studies,
he relocated to Mexico where he performed as actor in "Mama ama el
Rock", "Alcanzar una Estrella II"...
Latin
superstar Ricky Martin has revealed he's finally happy in a relationship, in
his first interview since coming out as a gay man. The 38-year-old Puerto Rican
superstar looked happier than ever as he told Oprah Winfrey about his new love,
and life with his toddler twins Matteo and Valentino. 'I am in a relationship
right now, it feels amazing,' he said during Tuesday's tell-all. 'I'm in a very
beautiful relationship. Love happens when you least expect it. I wasn't looking
for it in any way, shape or form.
Billie
Joe Armstrong was born in Piedmont, California, a small town surrounded by the
city of Oakland, and was raised in Rodeo, California, the youngest of six
children of Ollie (Jackson) and Andrew "Andy" Marsicano Armstrong.
His father worked as a jazz musician and truck driver for Safeway Inc. ...
Billie
Joe Armstrong has identified himself as bisexual, saying in a 1995 interview
with The Advocate, "I think I've always been bisexual. I mean, it's
something that I've always been interested in. I think people are born
bisexual, and it's just that our parents and society kind of veer us off into
this feeling of 'Oh, I can't.'
Kesha
was born on March 1, 1987 in Los Angeles, California, USA as Kesha Rose Sebert.
In
the February 2013 issue of Seventeen, Ke$ha expresses her deepest emotions on
topics such as attraction and bullying. We love the singer’s new, softer look
for the shoot, (and the fluffy kitten she’s posing with is also adorable!).
Ke$ha speaks openly about what she finds attractive inside the mag, saying, “I
don’t love just men. I love people. It’s not about a gender. It’s just about
the spirit that exudes from that other person you’re with.”
Neil
Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 1973. His
parents, Sheila Gail (Scott) and Ronald Gene Harris, were lawyers and ran a
restaurant. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a small town 120 miles south of
Albuquerque, where he first took up acting in the fourth grade. ...
How
I Met Your Mother actor Neil Patrick Harris has revealed that it was a friendly
kiss from Burt Reynolds that cemented the realisation that he was gay.
Harris, 41, is also a singer and director and shot to fame as a pre-teen. He
can most recently be seen alongside Ben Affleck in new release Gone Girl
(2014).
In his brand new memoir, Choose Your Own Autobiography, Harris, who is now a
married father-of-two with David Burtka, describes the journey of acceptance
for both him and his loved ones.
As reported by the Daily Mail, the book grapples with the years Harris spent
coming to terms with his sexuality, during which he told people he was bisexual
before revealing his is gay.
“After a long internal journey, you now embrace being gay, recognising it as a
wonderful and integrally important component part of the totality that is you,”
he writes.
Stacy
Ann Ferguson was born in Hacienda Heights, California, to Theresa Ann (Gore)
and Jon Patrick Ferguson, both schoolteachers. Her ancestry includes Scottish,
English, Irish, German, Swedish, and Luxembourgian. When she was a teenager,
her parents divorced, which was a big challenge for a girl ...
Black
Eye Peas singer Fergie, currently married to hunky Josh Duhamel, has admitted
to lesbian experiences in her past.
Lady
Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, is an American songwriter,
singer, actress, philanthropist, dancer and fashion designer.
Gaga was born on March 28, 1986 in Manhattan, New York City, to Cynthia Louise
(Bissett) and Joseph Anthony Germanotta, Jr., an internet entrepreneur. Her ...
Recently
the pop singer told Andy Cohen that she has taken "a few dips in the lady
pond." She also previously revealed that her hit "Poker Face" is
about her bisexual identity.
Adam
Lambert was born on January 29, 1982 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA as Adam
Mitchel Lambert.
Amid
much speculation, Adam Lambert told Rolling Stone he is gay shortly after
American Idol concluded last year. Despite his second-place finish, even
eventual winner Kris Allen conceded Lambert deserved to win, calling him
"one of the most gifted performers that I've ever met."
Alicia
Christian Foster was born in Los Angeles on November 19, 1962. She is the
daughter of Evelyn Ella "Brandy" (Almond) and Lucius Fisher Foster
III, an Air Force lieutenant colonel and later real estate broker. Brandy had
filed for divorce in 1959 after having three children with Lucius, but ...
Jodie
Foster: The Silence Of The Lambs star, who long stayed mum about her
oft-speculated sexual preferences, went public with her sexuality in 2007,
thanking her longtime partner Cydney Bernard in a speech at a Hollywood
function. The couple lives in Malibu, where they’re raising two boys.
Chris
Colfer was born on May 27, 1990 in Fresno, California, USA as Christopher Paul
Colfer. He is an actor, known for Struck by Lightning (2012), Glee (2009) and The Land of Stories: The Wishing
Spell.
Chris
Colfer plays flamboyant student Kurt Hummel on Fox’s hit show Glee, and just
like his character, in real life, he is openly gay. Colfer – who won a Golden
Globe and has been nominated for two Emmys for his role - was named to Time
magazine's 2011 list of the world's 100 most influential people. The Clovis,
California native has said that his parents were accepting of him, but that he
was frequently bullied at school.
Channing
Tatum was born in a small town, Cullman, Alabama, 50 miles north of Birmingham.
He is the son of Kay (Faust), an airline worker, and Glenn Matthew Tatum, who
worked in construction. Growing up, he was full of energy and somewhat troublesome,
so his parents decided to enroll him in ...
Caitlin
Jean Stasey is an Australian actress who is well known for her roles as
Francesca Thomas in The Sleepover Club (2003), Rachel
Kinski in Neighbours (1985) and
Ellie Linton in the film adaptation of John Marsden's best seller 'Tomorrow
When the War Began'
Caitlin is from Victoria, Australia, ...
Caitlyn
Jenner was born on October 28, 1949 in Mount Kisco, New York, USA as William
Bruce Jenner. She is an actress and producer, known for Can't Stop the Music (1980), Jack and Jill (2011) and The Hungover Games (2014). She was
previously married to Kris Jenner, Linda Thompson and Chrystie Jenner.
Ellen
Grace Philpotts-Page was born on February 21, 1987, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to
Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. Page wanted
to start acting at an early age and attended the Neptune Theater School. She
began her career at the age of 10 on the award-winning ...
Emmy-winning
talk show host Ellen Lee DeGeneres was born in Metairie, Louisiana, a New
Orleans suburb. She is the daughter of Betty DeGeneres (née Elizabeth
Jane Pfeffer), a speech therapist, and Elliott Everett DeGeneres, an insurance
agent. Her brother is musician and producer Vance DeGeneres. ...
Portia
de Rossi was born and raised in Geelong, Australia. Originally born Amanda
Rogers, at 15 she changed her name to Portia, saying that it was the most
daring thing she had ever done up until that point. After graduating from high
school, she attended the University of Melbourne, and studied ...
A
tall, strikingly attractive blue-eyed natural blonde, Cameron Diaz was born in
1972 in San Diego, the daughter of a Cuban-American father and an Anglo-German
mother. Self described as "adventurous, independent and a tough kid,"
Cameron left home at 16 and for the next 5 years lived in such varied...
Christina
Maria Aguilera was born on December 18, 1980, in Staten Island, New York, to
Shelly Loraine (Fidler) and Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera, a U.S. army
sergeant. Her father is Ecuadorian and her mother, who is American-born, has
English, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry. Her parents divorced ...
Since
melting audiences' hearts - at the age of six - in Steven Spielberg's beloved
sci-fi blockbuster, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Drew
Barrymore has emerged as one of the most endearing and talented actresses of
her generation.
Drew Blyth Barrymore was born in Culver City, California, to ...
The
remarkable, hyper-ambitious Material Girl who never stops reinventing herself,
Madonna is a seven-time Grammy Award-winner who has sold over three hundred
million records and CDs to adoring fans worldwide. Her film career, however, is
another story. Her performances have consistently drawn ...
Amy
Winehouse was a five-time Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter known
for such hits as 'Rehab' and 'You Know I'm No Good' among her other works.
She was born Amy Jade Winehouse, on September 14, 1983, in Enfield, London,
England to a Jewish family with Russian ancestry on her mother's ...
Alec
Guinness was an English actor. He is known for his six collaborations with
David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist
(1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, for which he won
the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence ...
Gillian
Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rosemary Alyce (Lane), a computer
analyst, and Homer Edward Anderson III, who owned a film post-production
company. She has English, German, and Irish ancestry.
Gillian started her career as a member of an amateur actor group while at high
school. ...
Thandie
Newton was born in London. She is the daughter of a Zimbabwean mother, Nyasha,
a health-care worker from the Shona tribe, and Nick Newton, a British father
who worked as a lab technician. She lived in Zambia until political unrest
caused her family to move back to the UK. She then lived in ...
Demi
Moore was born 1962 in Roswell, New Mexico. Her father Charles Harmon left her
mother Virginia King before Demi was born. Her stepfather Danny Guynes didn't
add much stability to her life either. He frequently changed jobs and made the
family move a total of 40 times. The parents kept on ...
David Bowie was one of the most influential and prolific writers and performers of popular music, but he was much more than that; he was also an accomplished actor, a mime and an intellectual, as well as an art lover whose appreciation and knowledge of it had led to him amassing one of the biggest ...
Evan
Rachel Wood was born September 7, 1987, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her father,
Ira David Wood III, is a theatre
actor, writer and director, and her mother, Sara Wood, is an actress
and acting coach. She has two older brothers--Dana Wood, a musician,
and Ira David Wood IV, who has also
acted. ...
Miranda
May Kerr was born in Sydney and raised in the small town of Gunnedah to John
and Therese Kerr. Kerr's paternal grandmother lived on a farm, where she
"raced motorbikes and rode horses." Her parents later moved the
family to Brisbane when she and her younger brother Matthew were teenagers. ...
Kurt
Cobain was born on February 20 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. Kurt and his
family lived in Hoquiam for the first few months of his life then later moved
back to Aberdeen, where he had a happy childhood until his parents divorced.
The divorce left Kurt's outlook on the world forever scarred. He...
Joshua
Ryan Hutcherson was born on October 12, 1992 in Union, Kentucky to Michelle Fightmaster Hutcherson, who worked for
Delta Air Lines, and Chris Hutcherson, an EPA analyst. He has one younger
brother, Connor Hutcherson. From the age
of four, Josh knew that he wanted to be an actor. In order to ...
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls074116029/
PinkNews
brings you a list of 43 iconic stars who, even if they personally avoid labels,
are still LGBT role models.
1. Drew Barrymore
The Santa Clarita Diet star came out as bisexual in
2003. She has been married three times, to Jeremy Thomas, Tom Green and Will
Kopelman.
She told Contact Music: “Do I like women sexually?
Yeah, I do. Totally. I have always considered myself bisexual.”
In February 2017 she said she’d rather be with Kate
Middleton than Prince William.
In an interview with ITV’s Loose Women, the star
weighed in on which member of the Royal Family she preferred.
But rather than opting for either of the younger
Princes, the star who has opened up in the past about her relationships with
women, said she’d pick Kate Middleton.
She said: “I’d love to be with Kate Middleton the
most – at the risk of sounding controversial. Princesses over Princes!”
2. Kate McKinnon
The Ghostbusters star was the first out lesbian member of the Saturday
Night Live cast. She revealed that she realised she was a lesbian after
watching Gillian Anderson as Scully on the X-Files.
“I figured it out by watching The X-Files and by noticing my
physiological reaction to it,” she said.
“I thought at first my physiological reaction was a product of David
Duchovny’s face but no, it was Gillian Anderson-who still is the queen of my
heart. So I knew then.”
3. Kristen Stewart
Before she came out, the actress had an on-again off-again romance with
Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson – but they broke up in 2012 amid tabloid
rumours of infidelity.
The now-President Donald Trump grew obsessed with Stewart at the time,
sending a notorious string of tweets about her spanning several months
comparing her to a dog.
While hosting President Trump’s favourite TV show Saturday Night Live, Stewart – who came out as gay in 2015 –
directly addressed the show’s most loyal viewer.
She said: “I’m a little nervous to be hosting
because I know the president is probably watching and I don’t think he likes me
that much. Here’s how I know.
“A few years ago I was dating this guy called
Robert, and we broke up and then we got back together, and for some reason it
made Donald Trump go insane.”
4. Amandla Stenberg
Hunger Games star Amandla came
out as bisexual via a series of Snaps back in 2016.
On the subject of minorities being “silenced” she said: “As someone who
identifies as a black bisexual woman I’ve been through it, and it hurts and
it’s awkward and it’s uncomfortable.”
Stenberg made her film debut in 2011 in the film Colombiana before
landing the role of Roo in the mega hit Hunger Games series staring alongside
Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth.
The actor, who played the character of Roo in the series, revealed her
sexuality almost as an after-thought whilst she took over TeenVogue’s Snapchat
profile.
Stenberg subsequently posted the video on her Tumblr page, where she
talks about the lack of media representation of women of colour.
On the subject of minorities being “silenced” she said: “As someone who
identifies as a black bisexual woman I’ve been through it, and it hurts and
it’s awkward and it’s uncomfortable.”
5. Kesha
Kesha returned to the spotlight in July 2017, and she brought a rainbow
with her.
The superstar dropped her new song, Praying, nearly four years after her
last single.
The song forms part of her new album, Rainbow, which was released on
August 11.
During her emotional video for the song, the Tik Tok star addresses her
producer Dr Luke, who she alleged raped her, and talks about dealing with
depression during the court battle.
In a Beyoncé-esque intro, she tackles her depression head-on, asking:
“Am I dead? Or is this one of those dreams? Those horrible dreams, that seem
like they last forever?
“If I am alive, why? Why? If there is a god or whatever, something,
somewhere, why have I been abandoned by everyone and everything I’ve ever
known? I’ve ever loved? Stranded.
“What is the lesson? What is the point? God, give me a sign or I have to
give up. I can’t do this anymore.
“Please just let me die. Being alive hurts too much.”
6. Gillian Anderson
As well as helping Kate McKinnon to realise her own sexual orientation,
Gillian Anderson has also had relationships with women.
Anderson said of revealing the relationship: “She had died of a brain
tumour a year earlier and I had never really spoken about her.
“She was a beautiful person who was very meaningful in my life and I
wanted to honour her instead of hiding my experience.
“There was a point years after we split when she phoned to tell me to
say she had been offered a large amount of money to sell a photograph of us
together and had chosen not to do it.”
7. Margaret Cho
Margaret Cho has included her bisexuality as a
theme in her shows.
The comedian says she has had “a lot of experience
in the area of polyamory and alternative sexuality in general”.
In the 2002 show Notorious C.H.O., she discussed
her sexual orientation.
The comic, actress and LGBT activist has opened up
about the homophobic abuse she receives through social media.
In a Facebook post, the bisexual actress described
some of the troubling encounters she has been involved in – both on and
offline.
“I’ve experienced numerous breaches of security, a
couple of very troubling face to face interactions and so much online trolling
I can’t help but believe it’s all somehow connected,” she wrote.
8. Aubrey Plaza
Parks and Recreation star Aubrey Plaza came out as bisexual back in
2016.
The actor who played April Ludgate in the hit TV show, has said that she
“falls in love with girls and and guys”.
In an interview with The Advocate, the film and TV star said: “I know I
have an androgynous thing going on, and there’s something masculine about my
energy. Girls are into me — that’s no secret. Hey, I’m into them too. I fall in
love with girls and guys. I can’t help it.”
sisisisisi
The actress, who has also starred in films such as ‘Life after Beth’, ‘Scott
Pilgrim vs. the World’ and ‘Dirty Grandpa’, added that she feels her tastes are
like that of an old gay man’s and that she “grew up obsessed with Judy Garland”.
9. Cara Delevingne
The Paper Towns actor and model has had high-profile relationships with women.
The model and performer says she had a “very odd and uncomfortable call” with the movie mogul when she started out as an actress.
Delevingne also claims he told her she would have no future in Hollywood if she is open about her sexuality and relationships with other women.
10. Daniel Newman
In a touching YouTube video, he said a chance meeting with a girl at a
homeless youth centre he was volunteering at had changed his mind about hiding
his sexuality.
The actor, who has also starred in Vampire Diaries, Homeland and Sex and
the City, said the girl had thanked him profusely for helping the LGBT
community.
After he had questioned why she was thanking him, she said: “Because
you’re straight.” That was the moment he said he knew he had to come out.
“I’m not straight,” the actor, who plays Daniel in the show, had
responded, and the girl’s answer floored him.
“Why have you never said that publicly before? You could help change our
lives.”
“It hit me like a gut-punch,” Newman said. “It felt like someone knocked
the wind out from me.
“And I realised how important it is in this day and age to be visible –
to let people who know you are.”
11. Jess Glynne
The singer came out in 2015, saying she wanted to be honest with her
fans. She later
said she didn’t want to put a label on her sexuality and helped
a gay couple get engaged.
Glynne had previously spoken of how her debut album was inspired by
breaking up with an ex-girlfriend.
However, when the star recently opened up about her sexuality, she
claimed she doesn’t want her honesty to mean she is branded as straight,
lesbian or bisexual – instead, she wants to avoid labels altogether.
Glynne – who says she is proud of her sexuality – said: “I’ve only ever
been with one girl in my life and that’s the girl from my album.
“It was hard at the beginning of the relationship, because until then I
had only ever gone out with guys. But I am who I am,” she told The Daily Star Sunday.
“I’m never going to put a label on my sexuality and people should never
feel uncomfortable about who they love,” she added.
She later explained why she was so honest with fans over her sexuality
and the inspiration for her songs.
“I wanted my album to be as honest as possible. I’ve laid all my cards
on the table and gave the truth.
“There was never a question of hiding the story behind it.
“I pray one day we get to a point where it’s no longer a thing.”
12. Holland Taylor
The 74-year-old actor spoke about her sexuality back in 2015, saying she never
needed to come out because she lives out.
She and American Horror Story star Sarah Paulson
have since confirmed that they are in a long-term relationship together.
On coming out, she said: “No, I haven’t come out
because I am out. I live out.”
Taylor described her new relationship as “the most
wonderful, extraordinary thing that could have ever possibly happened in my
life.”
The 72 year-old actress was also asked why it had
taken her such a long time to come out as gay.
“I haven’t come out because I am out,” she replied.
“I live out.”
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/07/12/43-celebrities-you-didnt-know-were-lgbt/
THE GENETIC
ARGUMENT
“Baby, I
was born this way,” Lady Gaga sang in a 2011 hit that quickly became a gay anthem. Indeed, over the past 2
decades, researchers have turned up considerable evidence that homosexuality
isn't a lifestyle choice, but is rooted in a person's biology and at least in
part determined by genetics. Yet actual “gay genes” have been elusive.
In 1993, American geneticist Dean Hamer found families with several gay
males on the mother’s side, suggesting a gene on the X chromosome. He showed
that pairs of brothers who were openly gay shared a small region at the tip of
the X, and proposed that it contained a gene that predisposes a male to
homosexuality.
Hamer’s conclusions were extremely controversial. He was challenged at
every turn by people unwilling to accept that homosexuality is at least partly
genetic, rather than a “lifestyle choice”.
It is interesting that Hamer detected the original “gay gene” on the X,
because this chromosome has more than its fair share of genes that affect reproduction, but I
would expect that there are genes all over the genome that contribute to mate
choice in humans (female-loving as well as male-loving).
Scientists claim they can predict whether someone is gay or straight
with up to 70 per cent accuracy by looking at their DNA.
It has long been believed that sexuality has a biological basis – with
certain genes linked to being gay.But the claim sexual behaviour can be predicted by such a high degree
was described as 'bold' by British scientists.
The Kinsey researchers famously reported the case of a happily married young
woman who, ten years into her marriage, unexpectedly fell in love with a female
friend. Divorcing her husband, she set up house with this woman. Many years
later, despite a fulfilling on-going lesbian relationship, she had an equally
satisfying affair with a man. Examples of sexual flexibility, like that of this
woman, don't
square with theories of rigid erotic predestination.
Scientists tested the DNA of 410 pairs of homosexual twins, making this
the largest study of its kind. They found that homosexual men shared genetic
markers in a region of chromosome 8,
and the Xq28 region of the X chromosome.
The findings were originally
presented by Professor Michael Bailey at the annual meeting of
the American Society of Human Genetics two years ago. They appear to have been
resurrected for an event at the periphery of another major
conference this year.
'When people say there's a gay gene, it's an oversimplification', said Dr Alan
Sanders, who co-led the study. 'It seems like there's a number of genes
involved so there's more work to do to narrow things down'.
The results confirm those of a similar study conducted by Dr Dean Hamer, which caused
controversy at the time of its publication in 1993. Media attention centred on
the prospect of a prenatal test for sexual orientation, with the Daily Mail
running the headline: 'Abortion hope after "gay genes" finding'. Last
year,
Dr Hamer responded that any such
test would be 'wrong, unethical and a terrible abuse of research'.
Professor Bailey conceded the
possibility that his research could 'one day lead to a pre-natal test for male
sexual orientation', though noted that such a test would not be very accurate.
'Clearly parents should not be allowed to torture or kill babies. But they can
currently choose to terminate a pregnancy early on, so they should be allowed
to have as much information on the future child as possible'.
Dr Qazi Rahman, a psychologist at King's College
London, who was not involved with the study, said that the results were
important for our understanding of male sexual orientation.
'This is not controversial or
surprising and is nothing people should worry about', he said, speaking to
The Guardian. 'All human psychological traits are
heritable, that is, they have a genetic component. So we need to do "gene
finding" studies like this [...] to have a better idea where potential
genes for sexual orientation may lie'.
He added that, in his opinion,
genetics explained '30 to 40 percent of the variation between people's sexual
orientation'.
The
findings have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Homosexuals today commonly claim
that they cannot help being homosexual. Homosexuality, they argue, is innate,
perhaps genetically determined. In any case it is so deeply ingrained that it
is, for them, an inescapable condition. Therefore, they conclude, church and
society should accept homosexuality as natural and, in that sense, normal.
Surely, they insist, it is unfair to condemn people for what they cannot help
doing.
Indeed, those homosexuals who want
recognition as Christians interpret the “inescapability” of their condition
theistically: “God made me this way.” How can Christians, then, condemn a
condition that God himself created?
This question comes up in many
areas of discussion other than homosexuality. The rapid progress of genetic
science has led to lively discussions concerning whether some behavior patterns
are innate. Some years ago, it was learned that an abnormally high proportion
of boys with double “y” chromosomes engaged in anti?social or criminal
behavior. Does this discovery imply that criminality is an innate and
inescapable condition? What then? Should we abort children who have this
genetic combination? Should we test children early for this condition and take
special pains to steer xyy boys into constructive paths? Should we seek ways to
change the genetic makeup of such children?
Later came the discovery that a
certain gene is associated with a relatively high percentage of alcoholics. And
still more recently, Simon LeVay, a gay activist and neuroscientist, published
a paper in Science (253:1034?1037) arguing that there are some minute
but statistically significant differences between heterosexual and homosexual men
in the size of the “INAH?3” region of the anterior hypothalamus, part of the
brain. Some have argued that this discovery tends to establish what gay
activists have long been saying, namely that homosexuality is an innate
condition rather than a “choice,” that it cannot be helped, and therefore that
it should be accepted as normal.
The
LBGTQ (1) people describe their behavior this way, “God made me this way.”
Thus, they attempt to overcome Biblical references opposing their conduct and
legitimize their homosexual lifestyle. They expand their explanation to include
a biological source for their way of life.
Homosexuality
has been practiced for thousands of years. Simply put, homosexuality is defined
as sexual relations between like genders (i.e., two males or two females). It
was Sigmund Freud who first postulated that parental relationships with a child
ultimately determine the youngster’s sexual orientation. But this “nurturing”
aspect has effectively given way to the “nature” side of the equation. Can some
behaviors (e.g., alcoholism, homosexuality, schizophrenia) be explained by
genetics? Are these and other behaviors influenced by nature or by
nurture? Are they inborn or learned? Some individuals believed that the answer
would be found hiding amidst the chromosomes analyzed in the Human Genome
Project.
CONCLUSION
Consider
the obvious problem of survival for individuals who allegedly possess a gay
gene: individuals who have partners of the same sex are biologically
unable to reproduce (without resorting to artificial means). Therefore, if
an alleged “gay gene” did exist, the homosexual population eventually would
disappear altogether. We now know that it is not scientifically accurate to
refer to a “gay gene” as the causative agent in homosexuality. The available
evidence clearly establishes that no such gene has been identified.
Additionally, evidence exists which documents that homosexuals can change their
sexual orientation. Future decisions regarding policies about, and/or treatment
of, homosexuals should reflect this knowledge
GAY
CHRISTIANS?
LGBT TESTIMONIES
OF DELIVERANCE
http://gospelrelevance.com/2016/07/04/interview-emily-thomes/
I read about 100 articles a month, and my favorite piece last month was Girl
in The Picture, by Emily Thomes.
Originally posted on The Gospel Coalition, Thomes shares her inspiring story of
lesbianism to follower of Christ. Today, Thomes stops by the site to share more
of her story and give advice to Christians ministering to those who identify as
LGBT. You can read the full interview below.
Emily, thank you for taking time to stop by the
site. I’ll start broadly. Tell us a little about your life before God saved
you.
Before God saved me, I was an incredibly selfish
person. I was pretty well liked by most people but had a tendency to overstep
boundaries and act impulsively. I did what I perceived was best for me. This
lead me to sleeping around, smoking marijuana, and doing other destructive
behaviors. Even when it looked like I was helping and serving others, it was
actually for my glory and pride. I had very little respect for others but knew
how to act “upstanding” outwardly that few people saw the depths of my poor behavior.
In short, my driving factors before conversion were pride and self-exaltation.
Take us through your conversion experience. Do you
remember the moment you realized that you had become a Christian?
I do.
I was in my apartment sitting on the floor with the book (God:
As He Longs for You to See Him
) from the Bible study I was participating in when I realized I was now
a believer. I had been in a study only for a couple of weeks and was learning
about the attributes of God. Slowly but surely my view of God and of myself
began to change and the balance tipped to where God was bigger and mattered
more than I did.2
I read 1
Corinthians 6:9-11 and saw that I was in the
“will not enter the kingdom of Heaven” group but that He could save me and make
me new. In those verses I understood my need for Him and His offer to me; it
was really incredible.
I remember feeling terrified and at peace at the
same time. I realized where I had been until that instant and that scared me. I
couldn’t believe I hadn’t understood before what was so clear to me all of a
sudden. But there was no denying it and no suppressing it any longer. I didn’t
know what I was going to do or what my life was going to be like but I knew
what I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t going to defy Him any longer. His will was
my new life.
That’s very encouraging to hear. Now let’s talk
about outreach. When you see the church attempt to reach those who identify as
LGBT, what are things that encourage you? What are some concerns?
Seeing the church reaching out with truth and
love to the lost has been the greatest encouragement. I’ve seen Christians be
humble and open with their struggles against sin with others. I’ve seen them
acknowledge their own need for grace with those who have not yet received it.
Believers should discuss their own fleshly pull towards sin while making it
clear that in Christ we deny ourselves and follow Him.
There are two major concerns I see in how the
church reaches out to those in the LGBT community.
The first is when churches speak with no love at
all. We cannot approach those outside the church like they’re believers who
refuse to repent; they’re lost. We must approach them with the gospel — all
of it. We explain that He is holy and that we are fallen and in need of
forgiveness and a heart change. Both the law and grace must be presented for
either to make any sense.
The second concern I see is when Christians
cast aside what His word says on homosexuality in attempts to “love” those who
are lost. God’s word stands forever; what He deems as sin will always be sin.
To ignore that truth is incredibly unloving. Those who do not repent will not
inherit the kingdom of God. Pretending that one can remain in sin and belong to
Him is deceptive and cruel.
So what do you think are some of the biggest
obstacles in our outreach strategies?
A poor understanding of sin in general,
homosexuality specifically, is by far the greatest obstacle I’ve seen in our
attempts at outreach.
http://gospelrelevance.com/2016/07/04/interview-emily-thomes/
A mindset has developed (whether Christian or not)
that homosexuality is linked to identity. Obviously, the LGBT community
embraces that wholeheartedly, but most Christians don’t realize that they have
also embraced that idea. Believers inadvertently reinforce an unbiblical
understanding of homosexuality when they treat those who are same-sex attracted
as a segregated class of sinners who are more depraved than ‘normal’ people. In
doing so, well-meaning Christians are unwittingly buying into the notion that
homosexuality is part of one’s identity, much like one’s race or
gender. Basic Christian principle regarding things like sin, repentance,
and obedience are cast entirely to the side when dealing with homosexuality to
the detriment of both the lost and those in the faith. An inclination
towards a certain sin doesn’t mean that one is destined to walk in that sin; it
means that they, like all other people since Adam, are born bent towards sin
and are in need of forgiveness and a new heart.
Thankfully, our God offers us that in the cross. We can be born again
and made new.
What are some practical resources you can recommend to help?
The short answer is the Bible. We’ve got to be consistent and biblical
in our dealings with all sin.
On another note, some practical tools I’ve found helpful are ministries
like Rosaria Butterfield and Matt Moore and Desiring God. Butterfield and Moore
were both radically saved out of homosexuality and offer much insight into
various circumstances and struggles.
So the three links I’d recommend are:
Finally, Emily, what’s your #1 biggest piece of advice for Christians
who are trying to reach those who associate as LGBT?
To put it simply, do not elevate or diminish the sin of homosexuality,
and be humble and transparent in your own battle against sin.
Emily Thomes is a wife, speaker, and
avid Face booker. She aspires to be a home school mother and blogger. You can
follow her on Facebook
A LESBIAN'S DELIVERANCE
After 29 years as a gay activist, former lesbian magazine publisher
Charlene Cothran stunned the homosexual community when she announced she had
become a Christian.
LESBIAN ACTIVIST PUBLISHER FOUND
DELIVERANCE IN CHRIST
December 15, 2014 By Mark Ellis
Charlene in appearance on CBN
At a tender
age, she became convinced boys only wanted one thing – sex. After she lost her
innocence and got turned off by boys’ aggressiveness, she gradually moved
toward the gay lifestyle. Despite a church upbringing, she turned her back on
God and eventually became a prominent gay activist and the publisher of Venus
magazine.
“I didn’t know
how to handle attention from men and boys,” recalls Charlene Cothran. “I was
tall for my age and fully developed at nine-years-old.”
Her parents
divorced when she was three and the absence of a father left her hungry for
affirmation from the opposite sex. “I wanted a guy to really like me.” But when
she discovered that most of the boys she met wanted one thing, it turned her
off.
“I decided no
more of this,” Charlene recounts. She says she closed her heart to boys at 14
and fell into a trap in which lesbianism felt like a “safe alternative.”
In doing so,
she drifted from her upbringing in a traditional Baptist church. “I learned the
Scripture; I learned about Christ and the cross and His redemptive power. I
believed it.” She had once been a youth leader in her church.
Exploring gay culture
When Charlene
went off to college in the ‘70s she felt like she was “outside the covering” of
the church and she began to explore gay clubs and gay culture in the Atlanta
area. “Little by little I gave more and more of myself, my thought processes,
and my belief system to the gay lifestyle.”
At the same
time she embraced lesbianism, she wanted nothing to do with the straight world.
“My mother couldn’t tell me any different. My friends praying for me couldn’t
tell me any different. If you weren’t gay or bisexual I didn’t want to fool
with you at all.”
After college,
Charlene began to produce private social events for black lesbians in Atlanta,
which were very successful and drew a large following – including many pillars
of the community.
Ten years
later, she launched Venus magazine. Aimed at African American gays and
lesbians, it gained a multitude of subscribers throughout the world.
Venus banner
At the height
of her publishing career, she was hit by the early and unexpected death of her
mother due to complications from ankle surgery. Charlene and her live-in
partner decided to move closer to her grandmother in Yonkers, New York
following her mother’s death.
Charlene
bought a three-grave plot for her mother, grandmother, and herself. “That was
the beginning of God changing my outlook,” she recalls. “Every time I would go
and put flowers on my mother’s grave I was reminded this is where I’m going to
be some day. That made me stop and think about things that are eternal. I knew
getting buried is not the end.”
What will happen on the other side of
death? she wondered.
“Gays did not
pay attention to eternity,” she says. “Nobody wanted to talk about death. They
pretended that every gay person who died is in heaven.”
Because of her
upbringing in the church, she knew that couldn’t be true. But as she considered
the seeds planted in her heart during her formative years, she felt conflicted.
“I didn’t think I could get out of the lesbian lifestyle. I didn’t think I
could access the love God created between a man and a woman.”
You can’t go back to that. You’re a
lesbian, she thought.
A life-changing phone call
On a Tuesday
morning in June, 2006, Charlene placed a call to a prominent female minister in
New Jersey.
“Where are you
in the Lord?” the woman asked Charlene.
“I’ve been
lesbian my whole adult life and I don’t think I could be anything different,”
Charlene replied.
Then the minister
“opened the book of her life” and shared her own rough past, which included
incest, drug addiction and prostitution.
The woman told
Charlene that feelings of unworthiness were from the devil. “I know you want to
come back to Christ, Charlene,” the woman affirmed.
Then Charlene
felt God speak to her heart: This is your day. Choose today whom you will
serve. If you choose Me today, I have a Jeremiah 29:11 plan for your life. If
you refuse me today, you can do whatever you want, but at the end of that road
is judgment.
“I knew it was
my day to make an eternal choice,” she says. The tears began to pour down her
cheeks. “I felt the Spirit of God on me like never before. I submitted to Him
and I knew I was never going back.”
Something like
scales fell from her eyes and the light of Christ re-emerged. Charlene looked
down and was shocked by what she saw. “I literally looked at my hands and my
hands looked new. The world looked different that day.”
Charlene
couldn’t wait to tell someone what happened, so that same afternoon she tracked
down an older woman who had known her as a girl. Charlene found the woman on
her back porch.
“Christ came
into my life today,” she told the astonished woman, who began to weep with joy.
“God is going
to use you so mightily,” the woman declared.
It was
Charlene’s first testimony and she says it “solidified something” in her.
When Charlene
told her gay friends about her change they laughed. Many predicted she would be
back in the gay clubs within six months. After six months went by and she had
not returned, they said she would be back in a year.
This issue shocked her readership
“After a year
I started to get letters from people saying they were tired of the gay
lifestyle,” she notes.
After her
awakening, Charlene stunned the publishing world by openly declaring her faith
in Christ and rejecting the gay lifestyle in the next issue of Venus
magazine. She penned an article that chronicled her transformation, “Ten ways
to get out of the gay life if you want out.” Gay activists were outraged and
led a campaign that caused her to lose advertisers and eventually the magazine.
“Christ did a
2 Corinthians 5:17 transformation in me,” Charlene says. “I gave myself
completely to Him. I gave up that old belief system, all that junk.”
God delivered
her completely from any inclinations to return to the old lifestyle. “It is a
lie that you can’t change,” she says. “Homosexuals have been changing for
years. It was documented by Paul when he wrote, ‘Such were some of you,’”
(referring to members of the church in Corinth who had once been homosexual)
Today Charlene
pastors Zion Baptist Church of Palm Coast in central Florida and speaks
throughout the world, sharing her testimony. Her new publishing venture – Victory
magazine – is in its third year.
[Editor's note: I have come to
know Wendy and her story through an amazing set of circumstances that only God
could have arranged. She is a delightful woman who loves the Lord with all of
her heart and has asked BarbWire to share her moving story of redemption and
freedom from homosexual sin through the power of Christ Jesus. Wendy has said
that it is her hope that her testimony might resonate with even one person who
can relate to the circumstances that Satan used to lead her into the homosexual
lifestyle. If you are that person, then you (and God) will know it. What the
enemy intended for evil, God is using for incredible good in the life of Wendy.
The same can be true for you. —Matt Barber]
My name is Wendy and I was born in
a small town in Virginia. I was in church every time the doors were open for as
far back as I can remember. I also attended the Christian school within my
church that was rooted deeply in an Independent Baptist doctrine.
My mama was very sickly and was in
and out of the hospital. I have a sister who is almost four years younger
than me and a baby brother who only lived for three days and then passed away.
Mama died Christmas of 1982 at the age of 32. At the time of her death, I was
11 and my sister was 7.
My dad was a rage-a-holic and an
alcoholic. He had wanted a boy so badly and lost his one and only son. I
believe he decided to make me his boy or at least that is how it seemed.
Especially as I got older, he treated me differently than he did my sister.
Here is an example: When I got my first car, before dad would give me the keys
to drive it, I had to change the tire, without assistance, as he stood and
watched. My sister, he just handed the keys.
My dad verbally and emotionally
abused my family. He was a tyrant, and as a little girl I thought to myself, if
all men are like my dad, then I want nothing to do with men. I made a vow to
never get married because men were not safe.
Due to my family's rigid and
extremely conservative views, I knew that if I told them, they would not
believe me. I remained painfully silent about being sexually abused. Satan
stole my innocence, and I was exposed to things that I never should have
been. As a young child, I was attracted to women. My silence allowed Satan to
cultivate a huge lie that confused my sexual identity. It was the birth of
unnatural desires that would later manifest into full blown homosexuality.
I was in so much pain and confusion
that one day I found some relief ... with alcohol. I finally found something
that would numb me and I could check out of reality. My drinking continued to
get worse and worse. It is only by God's grace and mercy that I did not get a
DUI, go to jail, kill somebody or myself.
I suffered with depression and
often struggled with suicidal thoughts. One night I was drinking and was
holding my loaded gun, trying to talk myself into pulling the trigger. God
saved me that night from taking my life with a phone call. I fully believe I
was going to kill myself that night but God's loving grace and mercy poured out
over me.
I had my first consensual sexual
experience with a girl at the age of 15. This led me into one unhealthy
relationship after another. But sleeping with women was "safe" for
me. It was the easy way out considering my fear and hatred toward men. All of
those relationships ended the same way; with shame, regret, hurt, unmet
expectations, broken promises and emotional pain. Yeah, all that and then some!
And to top it all off, I tried to drink it all away. The lie I bought from
Satan was that I just hadn't found the right girl ... I just needed to find
her. The problem was that there was no right girl. I was absolutely, completely
out of the will of God and His divine plan for my life.
One day a girl who I was trying to
hook up with invited me to church, and I strongly declined. She continued to
ask me ... So, I asked her, "If I agree to go with you to church ONE TIME,
AND I DO MEAN ONE TIME, will you please stop asking me to go to church with
you?" She agreed that if I would go one time that she would never ask me
again, so I went. I remember it was in February 2007 on a Wednesday night. I
cried like a baby through worship and for the first time in my entire life, I
felt like I was HOME. I belonged.
I continued to go to church every
time the doors opened. In April 2007, I rededicated my life to Christ. As a
small child, I had made an emotional decision to be saved. I know today that I
had never truly surrendered my life to follow Christ.
The Lord blessed me when I found a
group of believers who struggle with same-sex attraction who truly loved me
with no judgment and taught me the root causes of SSA. God's grace and His unfailing
love is what set me free from the bondage of homosexuality. He gave me a way
out. God has totally redeemed me and saved me from the chains of alcohol
addiction and sexual sin. My heavenly Father began and will continue to heal
all my hurts and fill the voids. I stand victorious and a child of the Most
High King!!! Not because I deserve it but because I have a Savior who loved me
first, while I was still a sinner. I have decided to walk and follow Christ. I
will not let my past define me because I am who God says. I am beloved,
cherished, a princess and daughter of the Lord, God Almighty!!! Thank you,
Jesus, for saving me from a life that was leading me straight to hell.
(BarbWire has chosen to
withhold Wendy's last name to protect her from the "LGBT" attack
machine. Nobody hates like the "tolerant" left.)
FROM LESBIAN PROFESSOR TO PASTOR'S WIFE
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield on holy sexuality and how to
love our (lesbian) neighbors as ourselves Interview by Allison J.
Althoff From Lesbian Professor to Pastor's Wife
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield spent more than a decade of
her life as a leftist lesbian English professor specializing in queer theory at
Syracuse University. She was in a committed homosexual relationship, served as
the faculty advisor for a number of gay and lesbian student groups on campus,
and co-authored the first successful domestic partnership policy at the
university. In 1999, everything changed. Rosaria had what she refers to as a
"train-wreck
conversion": she came to Christ and committed to
pursuing a life of "holy sexuality"—a commitment to either
heterosexual marriage or celibacy. She is now married to a Presbyterian pastor
in Durham, North Carolina, where she is actively "living out the means of
grace," raising four children, and sharing the testimony of God's
redeeming love at churches, colleges, and universities around the world in the
midst of one of the most controversial topics in church and culture today.
If you're struggling with how to pray, read E.M. Bounds
on Prayer. Faithful prayer honors God.
In July
2012, Rosaria published her testimony, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely
Convert, thinking she'd sell about 20 copies to her
local church congregation. Since publication, her story has reached hundreds of
thousands of readers across the world. Here's what she had to say about the
difference between same-sex attraction and homosexuality, and how we as
Christians can best love our (lesbian) neighbors as ourselves.
You lived a lesbian lifestyle for years, and
now you're a pastor's wife—How? Why?
I absolutely had what I believed was a
heterosexual adolescence. I really liked having boyfriends around because they
got me out of the house and I enjoyed the attention, but I realized in my 20s
that deep down it was my relationships with women that were really resonating
with me. That particular reality grew until I developed what I considered a
homo-sociality—a preference for being in the presence of women—that morphed
into homosexuality. It wasn't a big event, like here on this date I became a
lesbian. It was in some ways a normal extension of the growing feelings I had.
I also grew up an unbeliever, so when I came to Christ, everything in my life
had to change.
Initially, after my conversion, the thought
of being a sexual person at all was terrifying. I had been in a homosexual
relationship for years, and I didn't trust myself at all. But after a season of
the Lord working on my life, I realized I desired to have a normative, biblical
sexuality. But I was a little scared of that too. So things unfolded, and I had
a failed engagement before I met my husband, Kent. It was easy to be with Kent
because he also is a very strong believer, and when we looked at our potential
marriage and the sexuality that would be a part of that, we put it before the
Lord, saying we trusted he'd brought us this far, and would complete the
journey. We had extensive biblical premarital counseling, and I was committed.
I felt it was something I really wanted to do. I was 39 when we got married,
and I'm 51 now.
EX-TRANSGENDERED
LESBIAN
By Debbie
The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance
to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luke
4:18
Preface
Praise the Lord and hallelujah.
Jesus Christ is the Lord and He can do anything. What seems impossible to man,
GOD CAN DO IT!
Psalm
107:15, Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his
wonderful works to the children of men!
Praise Him. Thank you, Jesus. He is
a miracle-working God to the sodomite, the whoremonger, the fake religious
person, the self-satisfied, the criminal, the most profane man, the most
intellectual man, the adult and the child. He saves rich (don't see this much
for rich people foolishly trust in their money pretending they have no
need--Mark 10:24-25) and poor, beautiful and not so beautiful. He saves those
with a good job and those with no job. Those in good health and those
handicapped with the most debilitating disease. Those that live in a large
place and those that live in a garbage dump (there is a huge garbage dump in
South America that has a whole community of people living in it. Terrible
conditions and sin and pain are rampant. We need the beautiful feet in these
places.). I mean Jesus is for EVERYBODY. And EVERYBODY who has been taught of
Him has equal access to Him. Yet though He is omnipresent dwelling INSIDE of
His people, He is such a PERSONAL LORD. He is an exceeding GOOD MASTER AND
HUSBAND. His glory fills the temple.
I recently sent out an email to the
Jesus-is-Lord.com mailing list entitled, "Sodomite Shame Month".
In response to it, I received a thrilling email from Sister Debbie. Please find
her correspondence in chronological order.
Email #1: "Changed and
Transformed by the Power Of The Living God"
My
Name is Debbie, I am one of those Changed and Transformed by the Power Of The
Living God Ex-Transgendered Lesbian. I appriciate your article and your entire
ministry. In the past I was affiliated with an ex-gay Ministry untill I found
out that most of them were therapists and into the Vineyard Movement style of
healing ministries. However when I found out the real truth that is all I
needed to change me, knowing that it was sin and God hates sin. I was willing
to put away anything that my Savior abhorred. He made me free to live right.
The Lord has called me into full-time Ministry doing Evangelistic work,
(confrontational soul-winning and door-knocking), refuting cults and
"isms", trying to get folks saved, changed and transformed.
To HIM be the Glory,
Debbie
In response to this thrilling
testimony, I asked Sister Debbie if she would be willing to share it with
others that they may be edified...
Email #2: "I will."
Give
me a couple of days and I will send you my testimony. Just to add something, my
brother WAS also homosexual and now he is married with 3 kids and preaching at
our church, drug and alcohol ministry night and in 2 different prisons. It's
hard to dispute the idea of Not being able to change, Amen?
Debbie
Amen, sister! Upon receiving
this email I told Sis. Debbie that I would like to have her brother's testimony
too.
Email #3: "My
Testimony."
Here
is my Testimony you had asked me for, if people respond to this I would be
happy to answer questions for them regarding the ability to change. My brother
is working on something for you also, he will get it to me shortly and I'll
send it on to you...
Debbie
To
God Be The Glory Through
the Blood of Jesus Christ
The Story of a Trans-gendered Lesbian Changed by the Gospel
I am thrilled to be able to say
that there is hope in Jesus Christ. I can truly say that the Gospel is just as
powerful today as yesterday. My life has been one of many other lives today, feelings
of loneliness, alienation from others, feeling different from everyone else
around me. I was adopted at 3 months old, raised in a fair environment, my
mother saw that my brother and I were in church on Sundays, but my dad was not
a Christian. Early in my life I knew there was something quite different about
me, now I look at my life and see that God made me to be unique, and not a
freak. I thought that I was a little boy trapped in a girl's body, for a time I
was told that I actually thought I was a boy. This can be tragic in a kid's
world. My parents just called me their little tom-boy and let me do whatever I
felt. I loved sports and radical games. I loved hunting, shooting guns,
motorcycles, and anything competitive. Most of these activities would be OK in
themselves, but being deeply rooted in my mind is that I was, and intended on
being like the male gender -- in my actions, dress, hairstyles, and even how I
interacted with the opposite sex. I even had crushes on girls my age and female
teachers at school, but never did I say anything, that behavior was definitely
not tolerated back then, thank the Lord. One thing that I am very thankful for
today, even though I was extremely attracted to the same-sex, I did not get
wrapped up in a lot of relationships (sexually) with women, if it were this day
and age I would have, no doubt. I tried to live out my life normally, by
getting married, I went through two marriages and divorces, my sad attempt at
the normal married life failed miserably. I had a bad history of drug abuse
throughout my early teens into adulthood. I sought many activities to absorb
myself into to find a place that I could belong -- dirt car racing, martial
arts, work, etc.
It was a special day on May 18th,
1994, about a year after my brother had gotten saved (I had seen how that God
had changed his life, being that he was a practicing homosexual, and that the
Lord had done miracles in his life, giving him a wife, and three beautiful
kids, and he preaches the Gospel at church, and in the local prisons), I was
ready to give up on everything, quit my job and give up on me. Then a girl I
worked with spoke to me about the Lord and wanted to know if I wanted to pray
with her, so I did. That was the beginning of a great healing in my life.
After years of hating anything at
all that had to do with the female gender, I now proudly have long hair (well
longer, I'm working on it), and walk into church wearing nice dresses, and I am
free and not afraid of having relationships with other ladies in my church. It
has not been the easiest thing to do for the roots were deep, but Jesus goes
there. I believe that many people give up too soon, or their Gospel is too
watered down, or weak to do anything about their situation, seeing that even in
my hometown people send the so-called hard cases to our church (I guess it's
hard to help a drunk when you believe in social drinking). God showed me in the
Scriptures why we are bent toward inordinate relationships, just read Romans
Ch.1.
Thank you for the opportunity to
share my story and I'm sorry if it bothers some folks but I will not apologize
for it. I will not settle for the excuse, "I cannot change, I can't help
how God made me."
Debbie M.
I then asked Sister Debbie how
her life has changed since she got saved. For the unsaved who read this, she
was saved from hell and born again into the family of God. There are only two
kingdoms in this universe. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil. In
eternity, the devil's family will be with him in the lake of fire. Sister
Debbie was "saved" from that. In eternity, God's family will be with
Him in the new Jeruselem. She was "born again" into God's family. How
has her life changed?....
Email #4: "...what has
happened in my life is a miracle..."
Hi
Sis.,
Apparently what has happened in my
life is a miracle, some may want to call it a sort of "evolution" if
you will. I had a thing about "girl" stuff, clothes, hair styles,
shoes, way of acting, and interacting. I hated the whole female gender and
everything feminine, it's called misogyny, usually men of other cultures have
these characteristics and considering women to be 2nd class and not worth much,
ie. Asians (older), Hispanics, etc... but also women who have rejected every
aspect of their femininity. I use to call that the "F" word. I was
particularly very attracted to women very much the same as men would be, I even
developed a powerful crush on a friend who tried to help me, she is a good
Christian and safe for me to be around, she said if I hit on her she would
smack me good. You see Sis. that's why homosexuals need the Lord BAD!!!! They
are predators, seeking prey, to recruit frends to be with. It was quite a long
struggle for me, not because of sexual behavior, that was easy to refrain from,
it was the relational and gender issues I had to leave at the cross. Get this,
I had very short hair, nearly always mistaken for a guy, I was a
groundskeeper-gardener and dressed just how I liked to, in men's clothes, and
acted how I wanted, like men.
Wow, when I got saved I thought I
was visiting mars, in our church was men dressed in nice shirts. slacks and
ties, ladies were all in dresses?????? What's this I thought??? Ain't there no
middle ground here????? Well it took me several months to come close to wearing
a skirt, no one knew about my sexual problems but my gender problems were quite
apparent, but they accepted me like I was. Slowly my Pastor worked with me,
after I told him my problems. His answer to my question - "I am really
attracted to girls, what do I do?" He said, "Sis., do the same thing
I do, when the devil tempts me with some loose dressed harlot I show him, I
purposely look the other way!"
Well from there since he accepted
me and was willing to work with me instead of kicking me out of the church,
which I thought he may, I stayed and we worked through it, what was the
greatest event in turning this thing around is that I got extreemly saved, not
just a little saved, and served in the church started helping everyone in site
doing everything possible for me to do, fell in love with the Lord and found
out where God wants to use me at and got started, I love God and His work so
much and am so thankful that He would use someone like me, that I am willing to
do whatever it takes to be used of Him. Now my hair is longer I'm not scared of
it, I wear girls shoes, and clothes, and even shops for my own clothes in the
girls department, (may seem silly to some) but any how my Pastor was not afraid
of making me mad or standing up for what thus saith the Scriptures, Deut. 22:5,
was the answer to my question, "What's wrong with the way I dress?"
- Now I have
my own Ministry to gays and lesbians, and sexually abused,
etc...."Door of Hope" with an advertised 24hr phone line.
- Have been
involved with drug and alcohol counseling......our "S.A.V.E.D."
meetings that are court ordered.
- Most of all
with what God has called me to do..... our door-knocking and soul-winning
ministry, going door to door, witnessing and giving folks the truth,
dealing with cults right at their doors, JW's, Mormon Missionaries,
Oneness Pentecostals, Catholics, etc....and I am the writer of our tract
ministry, I am disabled now, (to the worlds eyes, but enabled for
full-time ministry in the Lord's eyes, I have Lupus), so I sit at home
most of the time researching, compiling, writing, and making tracts, or
ammo, for our door-knocker's and soul-winners. I am trying to learn how to
build our website right now, but I have a long way to go.
Philippians 1:12-14
Debbie
Jesus Christ is the Lord and
there is no other Saviour.
Acts
4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
DELIVERANCE FROM SAME-SEX
ATTRACTION
While
growing up in Ohio, Sarah Mourer kept a secret she refused to divulge to
anyone: she felt like a boy trapped in the wrong body.
Although
those feelings eventually dissipated, the sensation of gender confusion and
being different didn't.
"I
felt like something was terribly wrong with me," Mourer says.
On the
surface, Sarah seemed to have it all together as a straight-A student who
finished first in her class. No one at the local Assembly of God church she and
her family attended had a clue that the girl involved for three years in Junior Bible Quiz as well as youth group had
serious problems.
As early
as her elementary school years, Sarah battled suicidal thoughts. In high school
she went binge drinking with friends. When she began injuring herself in
college by cutting, friends convinced her to seek medical treatment.
In
counseling, a psychiatrist prescribed antidepressants. However, Sarah didn't
reveal the homosexual feelings behind her struggle. Her parents, Duane and
Marla Mourer, never suspected anything amiss.
Despite
her same-sex urges, Mourer didn't act out until college - with a girlfriend who
attended the same church. Mourer lived in two worlds, leading a women's Bible
study while engaged in a lesbian relationship.
A few
years after graduation, Mourer, who by then also had developed a drug
dependency, bought a house with another woman in the Pacific Northwest. As a
full-time public school biology teacher, Mourer became the faculty adviser for
the Gay Straight Alliance, a support group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender students.
"I
was tired of being quiet about it," Mourer says. "I became loud and
proud."
Mourer's
parents disapproved of the lifestyle their daughter revealed. Initially, Marla
tried to preach to Sarah, but that proved ineffective.
"I
thought I was born like that, so it wasn't an argument I would listen to,"
Sarah recalls.
"We
realized we were not going to change her, only God could do that," Duane
says. "So we put Sarah into His hands."
Marla
kept a photo of Sarah in her Bible and prayed diverse Scripture passages over
her daughter every day. Marla determined to keep the lines of communication
open by periodically sending packaged baked goodies to Sarah - and her partner.
Duane and Marla also enlisted the prayer support of a tightknit group of close
friends.
Nevertheless,
Sarah got engaged to her girlfriend, and the two began planning their future
together. Sarah's partner purchased her wedding dress and the couple reserved a
venue and hired a photographer. The two talked of having children through
artificial insemination. Sarah requested that her father walk her down the
aisle and give her away at the upcoming ceremony.
Duane
knew as a deacon at Victory
Assembly of God in
Newcomerstown, Ohio, that he couldn't bless the lesbian nuptials by attending.
Marla and Sarah's two older sisters, Michel Williams and Lisa Mason, also
declined invitations. Sarah felt crushed, especially given that her fiancée's
family saw no qualms with the relationship.
Mourer's
parents visited in March 2012, five months before the scheduled union.
"We
didn't have any agenda," Marla says. "We just wanted her to know we
loved her no matter what. That wasn't going to change, regardless of her
decisions."
Sarah sat
her parents down to watch a documentary that concluded the Bible really didn't
condemn homosexuality. Unconvinced, Marla recommended Sarah ask Jesus about his
views on homosexual marriage.
That
night in her bedroom, with her partner away, Sarah asked God to show himself if
He was real. When nothing happened after a few seconds, Sarah vocalized,
"OK, I don't think You exist." Immediately afterwards, Sarah says a
muscular, large, red demon appeared at the foot of her bed. Although the evil
spirit didn't speak, Sarah says he laughed creepily.
Sarah
began screaming, as if someone was about to kill her. Although inclined to rush
into the adjoining bedroom and rescue their daughter, Duane and Marla - knowing
no one else was in the house - determined to stay put. Duane recognized the
sounds of his daughter in the throes of spiritual warfare.
Meanwhile,
Sarah became hoarse from screeching, as she sensed the entire room turning red
and felt pressure from the demon in her chest. She grew more terrified, and
fell facedown on the floor, crying out to Jesus to save her.
Although
she attended church as a child and into college, Sarah didn't grasp until that
night that she lacked a saving relationship with Jesus. As she detected the
demon fleeing, she went into the bedroom where her parents stayed. Sarah says
she heard God speaking clearly in her head, answering important questions.
Sarah
says God explained the same-sex attraction began as a seed planted when she was
5 years old and she and a playmate acted inappropriately with each other.
"That
built a foundation of lies that came later," Sarah says. She says God
continued in the next few minutes with revelations she didn't really want to
hear.
"I
understood if I continued down the path I was going I would die," Sarah
says. "I knew I had a choice to make and I needed to change. I wasn't a
happy convert at all. I was mad at God for ruining my life."
Yet God
answered the prayers Duane, Marla, and their intercessory friends uttered for
eight years. In fact, that night Marla was baptized in the Holy Spirit. For
more than a decade, she repeatedly had sought speaking in tongues.
"I
was so desperate for God to intervene because it was more than I could
handle," Marla says. "It just started to flow out of me. I was able
to forget about myself."
Sarah
understood she needed to tell her betrothed that the wedding must be canceled
and the sexual relationship must stop. Initially, Sarah's partner railed at her
for ripping their lives apart. But Sarah says God delivered both her and her
partner from same-sex lust. Her former partner now is married to a man.
In July
2013, Sarah moved back to Ohio. She no longer goes on drinking binges nor is
she on medication for depression. At 33, she is a full-time high school teacher
who attends Victory Assembly with her parents and sisters.
Pastor
Brent F. Heishman has known Sarah well since she moved to Ohio two years ago.
He saw her occasionally for a dozen years before, when she periodically
visited.
"There
has been a tremendous transformation," Heishman says. "She runs after
God with all her heart. She has a call to do missions work."
Heishman
and his wife, Lisa, have been mentoring Sarah, who serves on the leadership
team of the small, rural church. In the past two years, Heishman says prayers
of attendees at Victory Assembly have led to physical healings of people in the
church and in the community practically every week.
According
to Heishman, Sarah has found a niche in effectively praying for young people
going through circumstances similar to what she experienced.
"God
is increasingly using her to encourage families who have sons or daughters struggling
with gender identity," Heishman says. "She has a positive,
nonthreatening way of doing that. She isn't a bridge burner condemning or
ostracizing the gay and lesbian community."
Sarah
says she now is attracted to men and is a firm believer that deliverance is
available from same-sex attraction.
"I'm
not a poster child for this," Sarah says. "People are being delivered
all the time. Everyone's story doesn't look like mine, but parents grieving
over their kids need to have hope."
CHRISTIAN
TESTIMONY OF A FORMER HOMOSEXUAL
After wrting about the gay
marriage ruling in California, I got a lot of feedback in the comments.
Most statements were made by either conservative Christians that thought the
decision was horrible, or by gay men that saluted California for doing the
right thing. As expected, they wanted to know what my problem was, and
what gave me the right to decide gay couples couldn’t be married. One
commenter, however, was unusual.
What follows is the testimony
of an individual who previously practiced the homosexual lifestyle before
accepting Jesus Christ as savior. This is the story of one who gave up a
life opposed to God’s law, and by God’s grace became a believer and a
follower. Thank you A.J. for sharing.
My Testimony:
Disclaimer: What you are about to
read is a true story. I am a 100% down to earth guy, and I only share this story
with you because it is who I am. Not only who I am now, but a glimpse into the
past…to look for a moment at who I was before. Thank GOD that guy I used to be
is now dead. He has been crucified. What a poor, wretched soul he was. This
story might have some pretty graphic/adult oriented material. If you are too
young to be reading this, then please DON’T. I fully intended this story to be
read by ADULTS.
As I am sure you know by now, my name is A.J. I was born in Huntsville, Alabama
on November 7, 1975. My father was Allen G. Nichols Sr., and my mother was
Jenell C. Nichols. They divorced when I was 6 months old. Things just didn’t
work out. My dad was upper class, a computer scientist for a big technology
corporation, and my mother was a dental assistant. Somehow, of course, my
father managed to run from his responsibility as a parent, and so my mom was
left to raise me. Very typical scenario nowdays.
I never really felt like I knew my Dad. He was a really bad alcoholic, and
remarried 2 times before his death. I always felt like there was something
wrong with me, that if I was truly a good son, then why didn’t he want me?
Typical feelings of rejection for a guy that grows up without a father.
So, I lived with my Mom, and my brother John, and my sister Jeannie growing up.
Jean and John were older, (from my Mom’s first husband) and I was the “baby”.
My Mom was always bar hopping, (an alcoholic as well) and usually ended up
bringing home some really rough guys. She married again…to a very abusive and
alcoholic man. I remember him beating me with a belt, with the buckle at the
loose end of the belt. There were lots of bruises, and my grandmother took
polaroid pictures of this, and came to the trailer we lived in threatening to
have him put in jail. Him and my mom divorced shortly after. I was about 4 or 5
at the time all of this was happening.
Then something happened. My Mom started gong to church, and for the most part,
gave up her life of bar hopping. She married the man she is married to to this
day. He too was a professing Christian, used to be rock n’ roller/drug addict
supposedly changed by Jesus. Now, I must first begin this part by saying that
He and I get along now. There were a lot of thigs that happened that were both
of our faults, and so much has changed. I believe that God has restored our
relationship, and consider him to be a good father to me. Anyway…to describe
what I saw and learned when I was growing up…the only term I can use is PSYCHO
RELIGIOUS. He would beat me, and scream scriptures at me. I was “The Devil’s
Child” and was going to “Split Hell Wide Open” This all started (the abuse)
when I was about 7 years old. It continued all the way through high school. We
even had someone call DHR, and report him for child abuse. They came to my
school, and wanted to take me away from my Mom. Of course, at that age, I could
not imagine life without my Mom, so I refused to leave. I was truly in Hell…it
had already found me. Words cannot express the agony and pain that I lived in
for some 12 years. It truly was a nightmare.
I began using drugs when I was 15. I also began drinking alcohol around that
time. Even before that I had started being attracted to other guys sexually, as
I was so desperate for male affirmation/affection. I was literally starving to
be loved, and somehow was deceived into thinking that pleasing another man
sexually would keep him around to give me the love I so desperately wanted. (I
forgot to mention that I was also molested by someone when I was very young as
well.)((That was probably the open door that led me into the deception)). I
also had several experimental sexual encounters with other boys when I was a
little boy. My first real sexual encounter with another guy was when I was 13
years old. At the time it seemed like exactly what I wanted. It was very
pleasurable at the time. But then, when the time for school came Monday
morning, the only thing I could think about was having to face him in front of
all of our friends. It was so scary.
The drug use escalated full frenzy. For 13 years I was heavily abusing crack
cocaine, crystal meth, XTC, LSD, Prescription Pills of all colors and
varieties, GHB, Ketamine, Marijuana, Alcohol, and anything else I could get my
hands on that would ease the pain. I also was in probably 25 or more homosexual
relationships. I absolutely HATED Christianity. I believed that I was born Gay,
and that I would ALWAYS be that way. People would talk to me about Jesus, and I
would laugh in their face. I thought they were crazy!
Then, in 1999, I finally broke down. I went into rehab on my own choice. I
truly wanted help. I was about to die, and I knew it. I had overdosed several
times, and was extremely addicted to speed. I just wanted the rollercoaster to
stop. The rehab I ended up at was a Christ centered rehab, and I found the love
of God there. I began attending the Vineyard Church regularly. There were a lot
of prophetic people there that gave me words directly from God. I knew that
somehow, I had had a bad example of Christianity modeled before me. These people
were NOTHING like my step-dad. They loved me unconditionally. I was clean for
about 4 years.
Somehow, I fell. It started with the smallest things. I started taking pills
again. Then I convinced myself that I would be ok to be involved in sexual sin.
After all “God Understands” is what I kept telling myself. I got involved in
what would end up being my last homosexual relationship. It lasted for 3 years.
I was MISERABLE! I was doing cocaine and smoking crack like Bobby and Whitney
(no joke lol). It was once again a nightmare. I loved the guy that I was with
so much, and it took me that long, because I was still so afraid to trust God
and let go. Finally I did. I left everything and moved back to Gadsden. It was
my complete surrender.
Now, to the beautiful part of the story. I found the creator of the universe.
No joke. I COMPLETELY SURRENDERED to Jesus. And guess what? He set me free! I
was filled with the Holy Spirit (which felt better than ANY DRUG that I have
ever done!!!) and I was delivered from somewhere in the ballpark of 50 demons.
They screamed as they came out of me. And now, I am COMPLETELY drug/alcohol
free, and I have COMPLETELY normal desires sexually. No more
lust/masturbation/perversion/homosexuality. I am a FREE MAN! And even better
yet…I have a PERSONAL INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP with the King of Kings and the Lord
of Lords. The Great I AM. Let me tell you…there ARE real people who follow
Jesus. HE IS LOVE. HE IS REAL. HE IS ALIVE AND WILL SET YOU FREE FROM WHATEVER
YOU NEED TO BE SET FREE FROM. He sees all, knows all, and hears all. There is
NOBODY like him. I finally found what I was looking for.
Thank you for taking the time to
read my story. It is sad but true. I am not proud of who I used to be. But I AM
proud of Jesus. He gets all of the glory and honor for who I am today. He loves
taking broken, messed up people that have nothing to live for, and making them
into new creations. I thank him every day for the joy and peace I have in Him.
Also, the best part is that He is making me like Him. I am being transformed
into His image. He has given me His authority to love people, and help lead
them to Him. He is the only way to the Father. He is the ONLY way to Heaven. He
is THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.
I love him.
Jeremiah 29:13 & 14 You will
seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by
you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity
Jeremiah 33:3
‘Call to me and I will answer you
and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’
I Corinthians 6:9-11
Do you not know that the wicked
will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually
immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual
offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor
swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were.
But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
I Was
Once a Lesbian and Jesus Christ Healed Me in so many Ways and set me at Liberty
By Kathleen Malligan 6/16/2013
Triumphant Ministries
Toowoomba June
15th 2013
I am the eighth child out
of ten, born in a small country town and hoped desperately from the womb to
have been a boy. My parents had their first born a son, then seven girls, and I
am the seventh; three years later a son was born, then seven years later
another son. So being the seventh girl in a row I was not received as the
gender I was, with this reaction, “Oh no not another girl!”
Adding to this when I was brought home my mother had to abdicate her role
giving me over to be nurtured by my three eldest sisters, so she was unable to
bond to me as a baby so I was a clingy and insecure child. I have read that
rejection and detachment in a relationship with mother disconnects you from
your feminine gender. My mother was bound in the cycle of motherlessness so she
was not a verbally relational woman but she was affectionate and I knew she
loved me.
I grew up in poverty and in fear and terror as my father was an abdicating
adulterous alcoholic wife-beating husband and this gave cause for me to not
trust men. I feared men and vowed no man would ever hit me or hurt me, let
alone control me with money as he did to Mum. To add to this I knew many girls
throughout my school years and in the neighbourhood who were being sexually
abused by their fathers! This enforced so much more fear of men and over
those years I greatly feared if I married a man he would molest the daughters.
I believe fear is the root cause of my homosexuality and demon spirits; yes
demon spirits took opportunities to build themselves a stronghold a fortified
grip. I recall very clearly at the age of four being under a car with a spanner
and a strong supernatural power being present. I even recall that power saying
it would be better to be a boy than a girl.
As the years went on I rejected femininity and accepted masculinity,
unconsciously I would have been looking for acceptance from my mother and not accepting
myself as female in subconscious for fear of being weak like I thought my
mother was! But truth was she was not weak it was but another lie I
believed from lying spirits to form the homosexual persona.
I was dressing like a boy, acting like a boy, being tough like a boy and
I thought being affirmed as a tom-boy to be given all the boy jobs;
so spirits of darkness had enough grounds to bring forth same sex attraction,
and they had legal opportunity to twist my sexuality with the open doors they had
down the family line.
I took Jesus as my Saviour during the three years I was Sunday Schooled from
the age of ten to thirteen at a small Baptist Church in Toowoomba. At the age
of fourteen I recall fantasizing about an older woman who lived on the corner
of my street and she was forty. Today I recognize those thoughts as spirits of
darkness that had taken advantage of my emotional instability to continue to
birth homosexual attraction.
Why do I say this? Because today I know those voices and their presence and I
do not believe we are born homosexual. I believe that spirits capitalize on our
fragmentation and circumstances to bring forth a homosexual personality a false
personality just as they do under the star signs conform you to be as a Virgo a
Capricorn ect. And I one hundred per cent believe they have door ways of
ancestral sins that gives them the right to be in our lives and to even start
tormenting you from the womb “they want a boy and you are a girl, they won’t
love you because you’re a girl.”
I had sexual intimacy first with a girl my age sixteen, at close to seventeen
with a twenty one year old man. I had dated two guys for short periods but
was unable to yield to love as fear had such a hold of my heart and my mother
had unknowingly put much disgust and fear in me about sex with men that this
too hindered me. She was expecting me to marry the third boy I was
dating, but when I told her I was also seeing a girl and did not want to marry
she said, “Then you will have to move out and go and live with your sisters in
Perth.”
I had just turned seventeen I was naïve and immature and went straight
into the Perth gay scene. The first woman who put it on me I moved in with as
my sister required me to find a job and accommodation. She was a prostitute and
discipline mistress, ten years my senior, running her own escort agency of
three women from her home. Well, what a pit was now being dug for me, I'm
sure the demons thought I was going to be theirs forever – but God who
ordained me from the womb had a purpose and plan and was watching me like a
hawk and yes I should have been dead many times!
Eighteen months later now in Melbourne I snuck away from her to catch a bus to
go and live with a sister in Sydney. The next woman I had a relationship with
was for five years; she was very beautiful in appearance yet a clever
skilled possessive manipulating and an unfaithful red-head. She was the
red-head I thought my mother always wanted me to be, but that was another lie!
Weakened and controlled, I walked out on her numerous times only to keep going
back. Eventually my escape was by getting hypnosis and I do not recommend
this occult practice as it opens you to give grounds to a spirit of
darkness.
The third and final relationship was for ten years, she was an alcoholic and
addict whom I was madly in lust with! When I met her I did not have a clue
about the dynamics or the depth of her addictions and brokenness; and little
did I know I would become a manipulated rescuer and drug addict for altered states
of drug induced sex and of course my life became a train wreck.
I was now about twenty eight and filled with shame so I bought a forty-foot bus
to run away and travel around Australia, in the hope I could escape the addict
I’d become. In my travels I hit thirty it was time for me to fulfil my
inner vow of getting pregnant. So I sought out a man and who would not know my
real name or I his; I just wanted his seed for my child. Fear still ruled
as I thought if he knew me or my real name he would want my child for holidays
and weekends and if I had my daughter he would commit incest with her, so he
had to be nameless and so did I.
I had made an inner vow around thirteen or fourteen to have only one child at
thirty, a girl with dark brown hair and the blue green eyes, and it happened
she has both. I also named her around that age Lillian Grace, her name is
Lily-Fern Grace. I even decided what part of Toowoomba I would live
in and this is where I live and have done for the last twenty years in my
own home.
I want to say she was always my daughter (she is the photo above, and she
has never had homosexual attractions I just used her picture) not
the child of two lesbians she was my child because of the vow I had made as a
teenager! I see the sovereignty of God was in this, for if it was not for my
heart wanting and me having my daughter and not wanting her to have the life I
lived, I would still be ensnared on the stairway to hell.
When I came home to Toowoomba from Cairns I was so fragmented, riddled with
anxiety and fear and with a new born. After a year’s breast feeding I
became a drinker from morning till evening. I started to suspect my girlfriend
of sexually abusing my daughter but was this that paranoia or was this truth.
The psychiatrist couldn’t answer me he just sent me away with a script and took
$90 and I never went back and I threw the script as I was pretty
sure it was not my mind.
So I started attending Alcoholics Anonymous and in my pain I cried out to
the God of my Sunday Schooling, “You have to show me, is she molesting my
daughter? I don’t know if it is really true so You have to let me catch her I
have so much fear.” He did, while I was on the phone to my AA sponsor I sensed
to go and check on Lily and that was the end of the ten year relationship
with sex addiction.
HOW
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST REVEALED HIMSELF TO ME:
“Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way,
which leadeth unto life, and few there be
that find it.” Matthew 7:14 (KJ)
In 1995 it was around two in the morning and I woke up to go the toilet and at
the toilet door was a novel called “Straight Is The Gate” by
Marjorie Buckingham. The book was not there that evening when I went to bed, so
sometime through the night it supernaturally came off my bookshelf to go
through a locked door, to be placed at the toilet door.
I had searched for years for ‘the truth’ through occult readings, other
religions, New Age material and numerology as to what was my purpose on earth
and where was I going when I died. My mind had got so darkened to the truth of
the cross that I’d thought I was an old soul, who had lived before and was
coming back again to obtain a higher self. Little did I realize I had a destiny
and it was him “that leadeth unto life” eternal (Matthew 7:14) not reincarnation
for a higher self.
At the time the Christian novel was placed in the doorway, I had been
praying to this unfamiliar higher power of my Sunday school days as I was doing
the twelve step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was telling Him I wanted
to go back to church so he could change me and free me from the homosexuality
and make me the heterosexual woman I deeply wanted to be.
The truth is my homosexual life had been such misery and filled with emotional
trauma that I did not want to go back to such a screwed up world. Anyway I knew
he called people and I wanted him to call me to a church that had ‘the truth’.
I was so bent on finding ‘the truth’ for all those years, that it showed
in my reluctance to get caught up with the wrong church as so many cults,
religions and spiritual books I’d read claimed they held the truth. I thought
it would be the same in the church denominations that named Jesus Christ and it
is!
So at 2 am that morning when I found that Novel “Straight
is the Gate” at the toilet door, I opened the book to the second
page where there was the above Scripture Matthew 7:14
and a stamp reading South Baptist Church. At the time I overlooked the
relevance of the Scripture for I was so happy I had received my call and felt
called to the Baptist church; I never took it as ‘go the South Baptist Church’,
just the Baptist church.
So I prayed again, “Which Baptist church in Toowoomba holds ‘the truth?’”
Blindly I waited again for a ‘call’ to a specific Baptist church to
attend, then three days later in the mail came an invitation to the opening of
The Community Baptist Church at Glenvale - they were the South
Baptists they had sold their church. Happy again God had called me, I went to
the opening day. There I was in church with my now three year old
daughter and I could not wait to get water baptized to wash all my past
away, and praise God He gave me the honour of being the first baptized in their
new Church baptismal pool.
After the opening day I went for three Sunday’s waiting for an altar call to
‘get saved’ I thought this was the way it should happen as that was
what they did every Sunday when I was at Sunday School; but there was no altar
call! I wanted to give my life to Jesus, I wanted to get away from the
person I had become; I had so much grief, shame and no self-worth. I left
that third Sunday in two minds and driving along Greenwattle Street I was
thinking “Do I drive back and tell someone I want to be saved or do I just go
home?” The struggle was so heavy, ‘don’t go back’, ‘go back’, ‘don’t go back’,
‘go back’, ‘don’t go back’, ‘go back!’ I thought if I don’t go back and
surrender I might not ever go back again.
In the back of my mind was a recent occult reading from a warlock who used a
deck of cards “You will face a big decision soon and whatever decision you will
make it will be what you will be for the rest of your life.” And I believed it,
I did not want to be what I had been - a lesbian, a drug addict and an
alcoholic. Nor did I want to be where I was ‘at’ emotionally for the rest
of my life and I had a daughter to bring up. So I turned the car around and
went back and grabbed a random woman and said, “I want to get saved”. She
got the pastor and we three went into his office, all held hands and I prayed
the sinner’s prayer.
TESTIMONY
TO DATE:
From that date, the 18th October 1995 through to today it has been eighteen
years and it has not been an easy road. I knew my self-oh too well and knew if
I did not give Christianity 100% commitment I’d go back to drinking and to
women. And coming from an independent self-sufficient, rebellious,
prideful woman to a self-sacrificing, put-down-the-flesh and obey-your-God
woman it has been no easy road, and painfully traumatic, wrestling against
powers and spirits of darkness who tormented and physically shook and threw me
around.
In my early years in Christ and in church I got ensnared in deception and
counterfeit spiritual experiences came on me due to my Scriptural ignorance. So
between my desperation for peace from a tormented mind of fear that they used I
went out of the will of God. I wished I had never become a Christian I wished I
had of stayed drunk and a lesbian.
In those early years I told God many times that if I had known what I was in
for when I said I wanted to go back to church, I would have never gone to
church. I told Him many a time when I was in those horrors I’d thought that
being with Him was the worst relationship I had ever lived in and if there were
another god who offered eternal life after death like He did, I would go and
serve that god.” But where was I to go into the arms of demons? No I
now knew He held The Truth He had the power over darkness I just
had to find the way to take a hold of it?
Shunned and rejected by the church at large and put in the ‘too-hard-basket’ I
had to find the way of peace the way out. So dealing with my homosexuality was
buried and not an issue whilst I fought my demons of fear, the distortion of
paranoia and spiritual deception. All of hell was against me; witchcraft
screamed at me “how dare you think you can leave us we have had your family for
generations.”
I only knew to soldier on in the strength of my ‘survival’ by my sheer will, to
fight my way out of such demonic abuse, terror fear and torment. So I
went about it by finding out about what gave demons their legal grounds and
learning about the wiles of darkness. I had to know this enemy I could
not see but feel and hear; their psychic intrusion was so loud because of my
dabbling in witchcraft, magic and the occult of tarot cards and
numerology.
Yes, it was the long way, and yes it worked out and I am now tall in The Spirit
against the enemy. But, I should have learnt first about Jesus, God’s
covenant, and the victory of the cross and my inheritance. I should have learnt
how I could use the weapons of my warfare that were mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds. I did learn and I learnt purity of warfare where
The Spirit of Christ Jesus battles for you in utterance in English and in His
heavenly language.
I could not keep my eyes on Jesus and walk in trust and faith I couldn’t,
because I disliked Him. I believed He was the one who was allowing all this
pain and I thought He was refining me in affliction. That belief came from a
word I got from a deliverance minister who said God said “you will be refined
in affliction!” It took me years to know from my heart that He did not ordained
but He knew me my weaknesses my fears and my personality and He knew how
long it would take to overcome my fear and fear of demons and the strength
of their lies and deception they had on me and put back on me - the
affliction was demonic trauma.
The truth is when I let go of my agenda, my strategies and learnt to listen to
God and discern Him from what theirs and my own thoughts were, I got
sharp, real sharp. It was then He brought me out of fear and out of so
many deceptions and led me to close door after door. It was Jesus who set me at
liberty in demolishing the strongholds not only from the ancestors but those of
my own iniquities and it is He who enables me to write to others in prayer
strategies to close door after door. And it is still Jesus today who enables me
not to be ensnared again in these yokes of bondages or in fear or in those
old lies and deceptions they once had on me and yes, today I am free from a
lesbian lifestyle and mindset and demonic torment.
Today “He sent his Word and healed me from my destruction’s”. (Ps
107:20) I caught up with the Truth, I have received much
deliverance and He has taught me self-deliverance as “greater is He that is
in me than he that is in the world.” Why? The Power of Christ Jesus lives
in me and He can cast out any demon and they have to obey when they can no
longer remain. I now know His way out, and how to use the weapons of my warfare
that are not flesh but Divine Power (2 Cor 10:4) I
now know how to in the breath of The Holy Spirit to shut them up shut them down
and bring judgment against them “for this is the heritage of all the saints
of The Lord to bind their kings with chains their nobles with fetters of iron
and to execute upon them the judgments of The Lord” Ps 149:8-9
It has been mainly in the last ten years that Jesus has been healing me of my
sexual brokenness and to date I am willingly intertwining in God’s love,
kindness and gentleness and love Him. I now know God’s heart and that He loves
me so much.
Today I no longer have a hatred or fear of men, today I find myself attracted
to them in a new ways and who knows marriage may be around the corner? Today I
know who I truly am and today I know I was not born a homosexual only that a
breakdown in relationship with my mother, my fear of my father, my fear of men,
my perception in my environment, sins against me and other women and curses
with spirits of darkness brought forth causations for me to become and live as
a homosexual.
Today Jesus has uprooted and caused me to overcome the deep root of abandonment
and rejection. He has enabled me to pinpoint the causations of a twisted spirit
so that I no longer seek my mother’s approval or relationship or bonding with
other women. No longer am I attracted to the red-head my mother wanted me
to be, no longer can this hold power over me. No longer am I attracted to the
feminine woman that I wanted so desperately to be; my feminine side would
surface but I would always go back to the comfortableness of my masculine
protective self so no man could hurt me.
He has brought so much healing and changes from the woman I was when I first
visited The Community Baptist Church in 1995 to ‘get saved’ and to have my past
washed away in baptism. Today he has done such a great transition and
transformation that it’s so obvious. His beauty adorns me, His presence is with
me and deep down I know I’m not that former woman any longer or the one who ran
from self in a forty-foot bus. Today I am truly born again living for Jesus.
Today I am so restored, so transformed that I am so comfortable being feminine
and connected with being a woman that I am amazed and I am so thankful and
grateful - bless
God.
Today I no longer identify as being a lesbian but as a heterosexual woman of
God; a woman who has been delivered from darkness and set free from the chains
that once bound me in abandonment fear addiction and homosexuality. Yes
homosexual lust is there and it can surface, so can the alcoholic and the drug
addict surface if I choose to resurrect them to walk back in those areas of
darkness. But I resist it and I refuse to go back to those lifestyles, I have
chosen and I choose His lifestyle - His love - His way of
living.
Today I am the woman in Him I was born to
be.
Just give me Jesus - I want to testify that by Him living in me it’s no longer
I that live but Christ who lives in me; the old has gone and the new has come
and I am free and free indeed just give me
Jesus.
Our God is Able.
Thank you for taking the time to read my testimony, be blessed and be a
blessing
Love Kathleen Malligan
LGBT VIDEO TESTIMONIES
HOMOSEXUALITY
AND THE BIBLE
SCRIPTURES
Argumentsfor
and against from teh Bible are not the Scripture itself as such, but the
interpretation thereof.
·
Ro:
1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their
own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
·
Ro:
1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the
creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
·
Ro:
1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women
did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
·
Ro:1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their
lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and
receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.
·
1Co:6:10:
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionist, shall
inherit the kingdom of God.
·
1Tm:1:10:
For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men
stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that
is contrary to sound doctrine;
·
Le:
18:22: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
·
Le:
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.
INTERPRETATION
OF SCRIPTURES
LATEST VIEW – THE
CORRECT VIEW?
When God
calls homosexuality an abomination
(Leviticus 18:22) (Leviticus 20:13)
Yep.
We've all heard that Leviticus is where the Bible straight-up says that
homosexual behavior is an abomination. And yes, it does. It also says that homosexuals
should receive the death penalty (!!!). It also says the same thing about
eating pork or shellfish, charging interest on loans, and a whole bunch of
other restrictions that were a part of the Old Testament Law Code. But for Christians, the Old Testament
doesn't (dare I say "shouldn't?") settle any issue because Romans
10:4 says that Christ is the end of the law. Which is probably why most
Christians today eat meat, use credit cards, wear makeup, and support equality
for women. Because, as Hebrews 8:13 says, the old law is obsolete and aging.
If
that line of reasoning is followed, what about the other laws, not mentioned
here. Murder, incest, beastiality, rape, fornication, adultery, ect. Are they
thus all justified, on the grounds of this way of reasoning?
Is the context clear now?
The Bible uses the rubric (a rubric is an authoritative rule) of Molech worship
to describe pagan sexual practices which included worship of Ashtoreth, 2 Kings
23:5-10. There is nothing new under the sun. Human beings always struggle with
idolatry. It was true in ancient Judaism and it was true in the early history
of the Christian church.
Goat demons and cult prostitutes and Molech and child sacrifice are mentioned
in Leviticus so that the children of Israel (and we) will know that the real
issue is worship of Jehovah, the true God. The context is that God hates pagan
religious practices like shrine prostitution and worship of demon gods, like
the worship of Molech and by implication, the worship of his fertility goddess consort, Ashtoreth.
The context of Leviticus is not lesbians. The context of Leviticus is not gay
men. The context of Leviticus is not bisexuals. The context of Leviticus is not
transgendered people.
Homosexual
advocates typically challenge this part of the Levitical code by reframing
these sanctions against homosexual acts in the context of pagan idol worship.
Indeed, the editors of the Queen James Bible have done just that, adding
wording to these verses to fit their argument:
Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind in the temple of Molech;
it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22, QJB, emphasis added)
If a man also lie with mankind in the temple of Molech,
as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they
shall surely be put to death. (Leviticus
20:13, QJB, emphasis added)
There
is no textual support in the Hebrew manuscripts for the additional wording the
editors of the Queen James Bible have introduced. But the added phrase “in the
temple of Molech” suggests that, in the view of these particular editors,
homosexual behavior would only have been prohibited when associated with pagan
rituals. The editors reached this conclusion by arguing that the Hebrew word
for abomination, tow’ebah, means “ritually unclean.” Uncleanness related
to pagan idolatry is one of the definitions of tow’ebah; however, it is
also used in Scripture to denote something that is morally (ethically)
repugnant in God’s sight, such as homosexuality (see, for example, Proverbs
6:16).9
Furthermore,
chapters 18 and 20 in Leviticus are lists of prohibited behaviors for the
Israelites, including incest, bestiality, and child sacrifice. To be
consistent, the editors of the Queen James Bible must apply their changes to
the whole of these chapters. But the implications of this hermeneutic are
severe—incest, bestiality, child sacrifice, and a number of other behaviors would
all become acceptable except in the context of pagan idolatry.10
Surely pro-homosexual scholars do not intend to argue for the acceptability of
all these practices. The clearest interpretation of these passages is that
homosexual behavior is an abomination in the sight of God, whether or not it is
in the context of ritual pagan idolatry.
IF
THIS LAW COULD ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD IN THE CONTEXT OF “the temple of Molech” and “The context is
that God hates pagan religious practices like shrine prostitution and worship
of demon gods, like the worship of Molech and by implication, the worship of
his fertility goddess consort, Ashtoreth.” Then incest and bestiality should then also fall under
that context. Thus can a person have incestial and bestial relationships if
it’s not under the worshipping of Molech.
But pro-gay scholars and church leaders disagree. For example,
John Shelby Spong, a homosexual advocate and retired bishop of the Episcopal
Church, attempts to damage the Apostle Paul’s credibility and characterizes the
Pauline statements on homosexuality as something other than the Word of God:
Yes, I am convinced that Paul of Tarsus was a gay man,
deeply repressed, self-loathing, rigid in denial, bound by the law that he
hoped could keep this thing, that he judged to be so unacceptable, totally
under control, a control so profound that even Paul did not have to face this
fact about himself. But repression kills. It kills the repressed one and
sometimes the defensive anger found in the repressed one also kills those who
challenge, threaten or live out the thing that this repressed person so deeply
fears.11
In
Spong’s view, the Apostle Paul was allegedly repressing homosexual desires and
that led him to condemn homosexual behavior in general. Furthermore, Spong
argues that in Paul’s time, homosexuality was socially unacceptable, so Paul
was supposedly forced to react negatively to homosexual behavior. When asked in
one interview how he could so easily dismiss the Bible’s words on
homosexuality, Spong replied, “I don’t see the Bible as the Word of God. I see
the Word of God as that which I hear through the words of the Bible. There’s a
very big difference.”12
A big difference indeed—between the orthodox Christian view of Scripture as
“God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) and Spong’s heretical view that accords divine
authority to his own thoughts.
Or
do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do
not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate [malakos], nor homosexuals [arsenokoitēs], nor thieves, nor the
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom
of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–10, NASB)
. . .
for fornicators, for sodomites [arsenokoitēs], for kidnappers, for liars, for
perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.
(1 Timothy 1:10, NKJV)
Conservative
Bible scholars typically accept (based on solid historical and textual
evidence) that arsenokoitēs refers to the active sexual partner in a
homosexual act, while malakos refers to the passive partner.13
Pro-homosexual scholars, however, challenge the translations of these two Greek
words. Some have tried to limit the words to adulterous homosexual relationships, while others have offered
alternate definitions related to rape or sex with young boys (i.e., pederasty).
For instance, the editors of the Queen James Bible chose to translate malakos
as “morally weak” and arsenokoitēs as “promiscuous.”
Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at
Pittsburg Theological Seminary and an authority on sexual issues in Scripture,
explains why the word arsenokoitēs so clearly relates to homosexual
acts.
Why
make Bible verses say what it doesn’t. Rather forget what the Bible says,
forget what God says and do what you want. But consider this, if God is real
and the Bible is true and your re-interpretation of Scripture is wrong, you
will face God and His judement.
BY ESTABLISHED
THEOLOGIANS
Norman
Geisler tackles an argument which is
frequently raised regarding this OT passage and others that strictly prohibit
homosexual relations. The reasoning goes something like this: "Since
Leviticus prohibits eating pork, but the New Testament allows one to eat pork,
having the laws against homosexuality also been abolished along with laws
against eating pork?" Here is Geisler's analysis...
PROBLEM: The law against homosexuality is found in the Levitical law (Lev.
18:22)
along with laws against eating pork and shrimp (Lev.
11:2–3,
10). But these
ceremonial laws have been done away with (Acts
10:15).
This being the case, some insist that the laws prohibiting homosexual activity
are no longer binding either.
SOLUTION: The laws against homosexual practices are not merely
ceremonial. Simply because the Mosaic prohibition against homosexuality is
mentioned in Leviticus does not mean that it was part of the ceremonial law
that has passed away. First, if laws against homosexuality were merely
ceremonial (and therefore abolished), then rape, incest, and bestiality would
not be morally wrong either, since they are condemned in the same chapter with
homosexual sins (Lev. 18:6–14, 22–23). Second,
homosexual sins among Gentiles were also condemned by God (Ro 1:26),
and they did not have the ceremonial law (Ro 2:12–15).
It was for this very reason that God brought judgment on the Canaanites (Ge 18:1–3, 25). Third,
even in the Jewish Levitical law there was a difference in punishment for
violating the ceremonial law of eating pork or shrimp (which was a few days
isolation) and that for homosexuality which was capital punishment (Lev. 18:29). Fourth,
Jesus changed the dietary laws of the OT (Mark 7:18; Acts 10:15),
but the moral prohibitions against homosexuality are still enjoined on
believers in the NT (Rom. 1:26–27; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10; Jude 7).
(When critics ask : a popular handbook on Bible difficulties)
CALVIN – LEV
18:22
We learn from these passages that
the people were not only prohibited from adultery, but also from all sins
(61) which are repugnant to the modesty of nature
itself. In order that all impurity may be the more detestable, He enumerates
two species of unnatural lust, from whence it is evident that when men indulge
themselves in this respect, they are carried away by an impulse, which is more
than beastly, to defile themselves by shameful wickedness. The beasts are
satisfied with natural connection; it is therefore a gross enormity that this
distinction should be confounded by man endowed with reason; for what is the
use of our judgment and intelligent faculties if it be not that greater
self-restraint should exist in us than in the brute animals? It is plain, therefore,
that they must be blinded in a horrible manner who so shamefully defile
themselves, as Paul says. (
Romans 1:28.) The madness of
lust has, however, invented several monstrous vices, whose names it would be
better to bury, if God had not chosen that these shameful monuments should
exist, to inspire us with fear and horror. It has at length advanced to such
excesses, that men created in God’s image, both male and female, have had
connection with brutes.
PRECEPT
AUSTIN
As Wenham notes, because Leviticus 18:22 uses the very
general term zǎkǎr, ‘male’, the passage clearly prohibits every kind of
male—male intercourse (were the word na’ar, ‘youth’, used instead, presumably
only pederasty would be condemned). These homosexual relations are further
described by the very strong word tô’ebâ, ‘abomination’. In Leviticus 20:13 the penalty for
offenders is death, putting the offence on a par with adultery (Lev 20:10) or the worst cases of
incest (20:11, 12). Moreover, three factors make it clear that the sexual
relationship here condemned involved mutual consent between two males: (1) both
parties are punished; (2) the verb used is simply ‘lie’ (as opposed to, say,
‘seize and lie’ which would imply rape); and (3) the further comment is made,
‘their blood be upon their own heads’, which suggests an awareness of the
action and its consequences.17 Thus, unlike Egypt where only pederasty was
condemned or Mesopotamia where apparently only forcible homosexual relations
were forbidden, OT law appears to forbid all forms of homosexual relations.
Wenham’s explanation is probably correct that ‘it therefore seems most likely
that Israel’s repudiation of homosexual intercourse arises out of its doctrine
of creation.ROM
1:26
Barclay: Because of this God abandoned them to dishonorable
passions, for their women exchanged the natural relationship, for the
relationship which is against nature (Daily Study Bible)
ICB: Because people did those things, God left them and let
them do the shameful things they wanted to do. Women stopped having natural sex
and started having sex with other women. (ICB: Nelson)
KJV: For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for
even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
NLT: That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires.
Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged
in sex with each other. (NLT - Tyndale House)
Phillips: God therefore handed them over to disgraceful passions.
Their women exchanged the normal practices of sexual intercourse for something
which is abnormal and unnatural. (Phillips: Touchstone)
Wuest: Because of this God gave them over to dishonorable
passions, for even their females exchanged their natural use for that which is
against nature. (Eerdmans)
Young's
Literal: Because of this did God give them
up to dishonourable affections, for even their females did change the natural
use into that against nature;
Barnes notes that...
Evidence of the shameful and disgraceful fact here charged on the
women is abundant in the Greek and Roman writers.
Exchanged (3337) (metallasso from metá = change of place or condition + allásso
= change) is used only in this verse and the preceding in the NT and means to
cease one activity and to start something else in exchange. It denotes the
giving up of one thing (the natural function of the woman, heterosexuality and
child bearing) in order to receive another (the lie of lesbianism). Women
became lesbians, practicing unnatural sex and knowing no shame.
The verb exchanged
is aorist tense (action at a moment in time) and active voice (subject makes a choice of their will to carry out this
action) indicating that these women made a deliberate choice to exchange the natural
for the unnatural, which was a reflection of the influence of the degrading
passions God had given them into the power of.
Expositor's
Bible Commentary observes that...
Paul's use of "exchanged" is suggestive. The first
exchange, that of the truth for the lie, is followed by another--the upsetting
of the normal course of nature in sexual relations. Instead of using the
ordinary terms for men and women, Paul substitutes "males" and "females."
The irony is that this sort of bestiality finds no counterpart in the animal
kingdom. Perversion is the unique contrivance of the human species. (Gaebelein,
F, et al: Expositor's Bible Commentary: Old and New Testament
12 Volumes)
J
Vernon McGee notes that...
These are passions of dishonor and disgrace and
depravity—regardless of what public opinion is today. Perversion entered into
Greek life, and it brought Greece down to the dust. Go over there and look at
Greece today. The glory has passed away. Why? These were their sins." (Thru the Bible Mp3's online)
God
abandoned them not only to idolatry, the ultimate expression of man’s spiritual
degeneracy, but also to degrading passions, which he identifies in these
two verses as homosexuality, the ultimate expression of man’s moral
degeneracy.
When man forsakes the AUTHOR of
nature,
he inevitably forsakes the ORDER of nature.
ROM 1:27
Amplified: And the men also turned from natural relations with women
and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another—men
committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and
personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going
astray, which was [their] fitting retribution. (Amplified Bible - Lockman)
Barclay: and so did the men, for they gave up the natural
relationship with women, and were inflamed with their desire for each other,
and men were guilty of shameful conduct with men. So within themselves they
received their due and necessary rewards for their error. (Daily Study Bible)
KJV: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which
is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which
was meet.
NLT: And the men, instead of having normal sexual
relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful
things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty
they so richly deserved. (NLT - Tyndale House)
Phillips: Similarly the men, turning from natural intercourse with
women, were swept into lustful passions for one another. Men with men performed
these shameful horrors, receiving, of course, in their own personalities the
consequences of sexual perversity. (Phillips: Touchstone)
Wuest: And likewise also the males, having put aside the natural
use of the females, burned themselves out in their lustful appetite toward one
another, males with males carrying to its ultimate conclusion that which is
shameful, receiving in themselves that retribution which was a necessity in the
nature of the case because of their deviation from the norm. another; males with
males working shame, and the recompense of their error that was fit, in
themselves receiving. (Eerdmans)
Young's
Literal: and in like manner also the males
having left the natural use of the female, did burn in their longing toward one
Homosexuality was common in first century Rome, and is often
spoken of without a sense of shame by Roman writers. Homosexuality was prohibited
neither by religion nor law, and was acknowledged without shame (cp Is 3:9, Je 6:15, 8:12, Zeph 3:5, Phil 3:19-note). At times, the Roman
empire specifically taxed approved homosexual prostitution, and even
gave boy prostitutes a legal holiday! Same sex marriage was
legally recognized, and even some of the Roman emperors married men. At the
very time Paul was writing, Nero was emperor. He had taken a boy named Sporus
and had him castrated. He then married him (with a full ceremony), brought him
to the palace with a great procession, and made the boy his "wife."
Later, Nero lived with another man, and Nero was the "wife."
These men
in defiance of social and moral standards continually commit acts that are
"unseemly" with resulting disgrace, embarrassment and shame.
As noted
above, history records that ancient Greece and Rome were hotbeds of
homosexuality. Many of our most revered philosophers were homosexuals as were
many of the political leaders of that day. In fact, 14 of the first 15 Roman
emperors were homosexual, some of them blatantly so. How ironic that even those
that were most noted for moral virtue (Socrates, Plato, Zeno) are charged with
the sin of homosexuality. Homosexuality generally prevails with idolatry and
infidelity, as among the Pagans of old and interestingly nothing like it is
observed in the animal world.
Expositor's
Bible Commentary writes that...
The "gay" facade is a thin veil for deep-seated
frustration. The folly of homosexuality is proclaimed in its inability to
reproduce the human species in keeping with the divine commandment (Gen 1:28). To sum up, what men do
with God has much to do with their character and life style. Godet put it well
when he said, "A law broods over human existence, a law which is at the
same time a divine act: Such as thou makest thy God, such wilt thou make
thyself" (in loc.). Throughout the passage man is represented as active--
seeing, thinking, doing. He is not represented as victimized, as taken captive
against his will, as the dupe of evil influences from outside himself.
"Sin comes from the mind, which perverts the judgment. The effect of
retribution is to abandon the mind to that depravity" (Henri Maurier, The
Other Covenant [New York: Newman Press, 1968], p. 185) (Gaebelein, F, et al: Expositor's Bible Commentary)
Pritchard adds that
"Whenever men turn away from God, terrible things begin to
happen in society. Long-held standards disappear. Things once considered
incredible now become commonplace. Evil no longer seems evil. The basic
distinctions between male and female are obliterated. No one knows the
difference between right and wrong. In such an atmosphere, homosexuality is
first tolerated, then accepted, then praised, and finally enshrined as the
ultimate freedom." (When God Gives Up)
1 Cor 6:9
is a compound word: arseno is the word for “a male,” and koitai
is the word for “mat” or “bed.” Put the two halves together, and the word means
“a male bed”—that is, a person who makes use of a “male-only bed” or a “bed for
males.” And, truthfully, that’s all the information we need to understand the
intent of 1 Corinthians 6:9.
The word meaning “bed” carries a sexual connotation in this context—the Greek koitai
is the source of our English word coitus (“sexual intercourse”). The
conclusion is that the word arsenokoitai is referring to homosexuals—men
who are in bed with other men, engaging in same-gender sexual activity.
Thayer's
Greek Lexicon
STRONGS
NT 733: ἀρσενοκοίτης
ἀρσενοκοίτης, ἀρσενοκοιτου,
ὁ (ἄρσην a male; κοίτη a bed), one who lies with a male
as with a female, a sodomite: 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10. (Anthol. 9, 686, 5; ecclesiastical
writings.)
Strong's
Exhaustive Concordance
homosexual
From
arrhen and
koite; a sodomite -- abuser of (that defile)
self with mankind.
1 Tim 6:10
New International Version
for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders
and liars and perjurers--and for whatever else is contrary to the sound
doctrine
New Living Translation
The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality,
or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that
contradicts the wholesome teaching
English Standard Version
the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars,
perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,
Berean Study Bible
for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and
perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching
Berean Literal Bible
for the sexually immoral, homosexuals, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and if
anything other is opposed to being sound in the teaching,
New American Standard Bible
and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and
whatever else is contrary to sound teaching,
King James Bible
For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for
menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing
that is contrary to sound doctrine;
Holman Christian Standard Bible
for the sexually immoral and homosexuals, for kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and
for whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching
International Standard Version
for those involved in sexual immorality, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for
liars, for false witnesses, and for whatever else goes against the healthy
teaching
NET Bible
sexually immoral people, practicing homosexuals, kidnappers, liars,
perjurers--in fact, for any who live contrary to sound teaching.
New Heart English Bible
for the sexually immoral, for men who have sexual relations with men, for
kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the
sound doctrine;
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
For fornicators, for males who lie down with males, for kidnappers of free men,
for liars, for oath breakers and for all things opposed to the sound teaching
GOD'S WORD® Translation
Laws are intended for people involved in sexual sins, for homosexuals, for
kidnappers, for liars, for those who lie when they take an oath, and for
whatever else is against accurate teachings.
New American Standard 1977
and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and
whatever else is contrary to sound teaching,
Jubilee Bible 2000
for fornicators, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjured
persons, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine,
King James 2000 Bible
For fornicators, for homosexuals, for slave traders, for liars, for perjurers,
and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
American King James Version
For fornicators, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for enslavers,
for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is
contrary to sound doctrine;
American Standard Version
for fornicators, for abusers of themselves with men, for menstealers, for
liars, for false swearers, and if there be any other thing contrary to the
sound doctrine;
Douay-Rheims Bible
For fornicators, for them who defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers,
for liars, for perjured persons, and whatever other thing is contrary to sound
doctrine,
Darby Bible Translation
fornicators, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers; and if any other thing is
opposed to sound teaching,
English Revised Version
for fornicators, for abusers of themselves with men, for menstealers, for
liars, for false swearers, and if there be any other thing contrary to the
sound doctrine;
Webster's Bible Translation
For lewd persons, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for
men-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there is any other thing
that is contrary to sound doctrine,
Weymouth New Testament
fornicators, sodomites, slave-dealers, liars and false witnesses; and for
whatever else is opposed to wholesome teaching
World English Bible
for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for
perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine;
Young's Literal Translation
whoremongers, sodomites, men-stealers, liars, perjured persons, and if there be
any other thing that to sound doctrine is adverse,
For them that defile themselves
with mankind - Sodomites. See the evidence that this crime abounded in ancient
times, in the notes on
Romans 1:27. It was
forbidden by the law of Moses, and was punishable with death;
Leviticus 20:13.
Thayer's
Greek Lexicon
STRONGS
NT 733: ἀρσενοκοίτης
ἀρσενοκοίτης, ἀρσενοκοιτου,
ὁ (ἄρσην a male; κοίτη a bed), one who lies with a male
as with a female, a sodomite: 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10. (Anthol. 9, 686, 5; ecclesiastical
writings.)
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance - homosexual
From
arrhen and
koite; a sodomite -- abuser of (that defile)
self with mankind.
Arsenokoitai is a compound word: arseno is
the word for “a male,” and koitai is the word for “mat” or “bed.” Put
the two halves together, and the word means “a male bed”—that is, a person who
makes use of a “male-only bed” or a “bed for males.” And, truthfully, that’s
all the information we need to understand the intent of 1 Corinthians 6:9.
The word meaning “bed” carries a sexual connotation in this context—the Greek koitai
is the source of our English word coitus (“sexual intercourse”). The
conclusion is that the word arsenokoitai is referring to homosexuals—men
who are in bed with other men, engaging in same-gender sexual activity.
|
The
second term is "arsenokoitai" in
Greek. The exact meaning of this word is lost. It seems to have been a term
created by Paul for this verse. "Arsen" means "man" in
Greek. So there is no way that "arsenokoitai" could refer to both
male and female homosexuals. It seems that the English translators gave in to
the temptation to widen Paul's condemnation to include lesbians as well as
gay males.
|
CHURCH FATHERS
Polycarp
in early second-century Turkey, the Revelation of Peter in
mid-century, Irenaeus in France in the 180s and Origen prohibited "men
abusing themselves with men" and "men defiling each other".
Anal
penetration with a penis (sodomy properly so-called) was condemned by Justin
Martyr in Italy in the middle of the second century and the Acts of John in the third. They did not mention other
homoerotic positions, and forbade such penetration in heterosexual relations
also
Disapproval
of homosexual activity appeared early in the Church Fathers. Aristides of
Athens in the A.D. 140s and Clement of Alexandria (Egypt) in the 190s denounced
it as sin. The next adverse reference came with Origen in Palestine in the
230s, followed by Methodius and Lactantius in the early fourth century. The
last three were voluminous authors who touched on homoeroticism only a few
times amid a huge mass of material on other activities.
Justin Martyr condemned sodomy in his First Apology 27, about
A.D. 150. He was born in Israel although he said he was a Gentile. Looking at
various philosophies, he finally met some Christians who were more convincing
than the pagan philosophers, but he became a Christian primarily because of the
bravery of Christian martyrs. He would be a “Fundamentalist” before the use of
the term.
Clement of Alexandria condemned perversion in his Exhortation to the
Greeks 2 about A. D. 190. He also wrote, “The fate of the Sodomites was
judgment to those who had done wrong… [they were] burning with insane love for
boys” The Instructor 6, ca. A.D. 193.
The famous Tertullian, sometime called “the Baptist,” wrote about A.D.
200, “The coupling of two males is a very shameful thing” Early Church
Fathers, 3.509. Tertullian was not politically correct.
John Chrysostom wrote, “[The pagans] were addicted to the love of boys .
. . . As for their passion for boys, whom they called their paedica, it
is not fit to be named” Homilies on Titus 5, A.D. 390. Later, he wrote,
“All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26–27] . . . were vile, but chiefly the mad
lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more
dishonored than the body in diseases” Homilies on Romans 4, A.D. 391. He
added, “[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more
disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these
intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men” Homilies on Romans 4,
A.D. 391.
Chrysostom, who died in 407 and was known as “the golden mouth,” said
that homosexual acts are worse than murder. That took courage but then he also
criticized the Emperor’s wife (and other women) for dressing extravagantly! He
was banished for his faithful preaching. I don’t think that has happened to any
preacher recently.
Augustine wrote, “[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were
committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished” Confessions
3:8:15, A.D. 400.
CREATION
Therefore
a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they
shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and
were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:24–25)
Marriage, as God designed it, has
certain hallmarks that are evident in Genesis 2: a man and a woman joined in a
monogamous marriage (verse 24), who complement each other in
their gender roles (verse 18), and who can enjoy the fruits of
marriage without shame (verse 25).
This is what makes homosexual
behavior so morally perverse in Scripture—homosexuality is a direct violation
of the creation order. Under the government’s current definition of “marriage,”
it is no longer between a man and woman, but between any two people who apply
for a license. Moreover, same-sex partnerships lack the complementarity
that Adam and Eve’s marriage exemplifies. Men and women were created with
unique masculine and feminine roles that, when brought together in marriage,
create a harmony that same-sex relationships cannot adequately mimic. Finally,
same-sex relationships rarely last and are often not monogamous.
2 Regardless of what pro-gay scholars claim,
God’s Word is very clear about the sinfulness of homosexual behavior. Same-sex
“marriage” turns God-designed marriage on its head.
What
does the Bible say about homosexuality?
The Bible
makes it clear that God designed sex to be engaged in only between a male and a
female and only within the arrangement of marriage. (
Genesis 1:27, 28; Leviticus 18:22; Proverbs 5:18, 19)
When the Bible condemns fornication, it is referring to both homosexual and
heterosexual conduct. *—Galatians 5:19-21.
If
someone asks: “What’s your view of homosexuality?”
You
might reply: “I don’t hate homosexuals, but I can’t approve of their
conduct.”
✔ Remember: If you’re guided by the Bible’s moral
code, then that is your lifestyle choice, and you have a right to it. (Joshua 24:15)
Don’t feel ashamed of your view.—Psalm 119:46.
Shouldn’t
Christians treat all people with respect, regardless of their sexual
orientation?
Absolutely.
The Bible says: “Honor men of all sorts” or, as Today’s English Version renders
it, “Respect everyone.” (1 Peter 2:17)
Therefore, Christians are not homophobic. They show kindness to all
people, including those who are gay.—Matthew 7:12.
If
someone asks: “Doesn’t your view of homosexuality encourage prejudice
against gays?”
You
might reply: “Not at all. I reject homosexual conduct, not people.”
✔
You could add: “To illustrate it, I also choose not to smoke. In fact, I find
the very idea of it repugnant. But suppose you’re a smoker and you feel
differently. I wouldn’t be prejudiced against you for your view, just as I’m
sure you wouldn’t be prejudiced against me for my view—am I right? The
same principle applies to our differing views of homosexuality.”
Didn’t Jesus preach tolerance? If
so, shouldn’t Christians take a permissive view of homosexuality?
Jesus
didn’t encourage his
followers to accept any and all lifestyles. Rather, he
taught that the way to salvation is open to “everyone exercising faith in
him.” (John 3:16)
Exercising faith in Jesus includes conforming to God’s moral code, which
forbids certain types of conduct—including homosexuality.—Romans 1:26, 27.
If
someone says: “Homosexuals can’t change their orientation; they’re
born that way.”
You
might reply: “The Bible doesn’t comment on the biology of homosexuals,
although it acknowledges that some traits are deeply ingrained. (2 Corinthians
10:4, 5) Even if some are oriented toward the same sex, the
Bible tells Christians to shun homosexual acts.”
✔
Suggestion: Rather than get ensnared in a debate about the cause of homosexual desires,
emphasize that the Bible prohibits homosexual conduct. To make a
comparison, you could say: “You know, many claim that violent behavior can have
a genetic root and that as a result, some people are predisposed to it. (Proverbs 29:22)
What if that was true? As you might know, the Bible condemns fits of anger. (Psalm 37:8; Ephesians 4:31)
Is that standard unfair just because some may be inclined toward violence?”
Visit
this site for a Baptist view :
CONCLUSION
The Old
Testament laws are fulfilled in Christ Jesus, that is the law of Moses (Given
by God to Moses) consisting of 613 laws. It was given for the Jews. In the New
Testament we are under Christ’s law. Some of the Old Testament laws are
confirmed in the New Testament for example: Murder, theft, adultery,
fornication, etc including homosexuality.
If the “temple of Molech” argument is adhere to in favour
of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, then bestiality and adultery should
also be allowed. Idol worship and the whole “temple of Molech” must be seen as sin on its own
(the total practise of it) Thus with each of the other abominations mentioned.
The context in which adultery, bestiality and homosexuality is mentioned here
are not in connection of idol worship. Each stand on its own as sin.
To disagree on the
lifestyles of Homosexuals and the LGBTQIAPD doesn’t make someone homofobic or a gay basher or
a person that hates the LGBTQIAPD. Each hman being should be treated with respect and love, than
doesn’t mean you must agree to their lifestyle.
Take for example:
·
An alcoholic - I don’t agree with his/her lifestyle, but I
should treat him/her with respect and love
·
A drug addict - I don’t agree with his/her lifestyle, but I
should treat him/her with respect and love
·
An adulterer - I don’t agree with his/her lifestyle, but I
should treat him/her with respect and love
·
A swinger - I don’t agree with his/her lifestyle, but I should
treat him/her with respect and love
·
A fornicator - I don’t
agree with his/her lifestyle, but I should treat him/her with respect and love
·
A Prostitute - I don’t agree with his/her lifestyle, but I
should treat him/her with respect and love
Please don’t here assume
that I equate the above with LGBTQIAPD lifestyle, is purely an
example of what the right response towards them should be.
To hate the LGBTQIAPD
community, to attack them, to assault them, to harm them, is wrong. A wrong
against a person of the heterosexual community would be a wrong against the LGBTQIAPD
community. (This would exclude the things
that, according to the word of God belongs to a married couple, and to the
behaviour according to the sex (gender) roles you are created for)
Differ,
but in love.
Should they have “special”
treatment ( so called “good” or “bad”), more than any other human being? No
You can differ from someone
and even strongly differ, without treating then in a un-Christ like manner.
WHAT IF YOU
WERE/ARE INVOLVED?
Solution – Break
with it and seek counselling.
The real solution
regarding any sinful sexual relationship is found in the Creator of mankind and
in His word, the bible. A Heart changed in the inner-man, by the grace of God
through His Holy Spirit sets you free from bondage.
Consider the
following:
Sex is
like nuclear energy. Within a contained environment (marriage) very useful,
outside disastrous, harmful and dangerous.
The
solution to this disillusioned lifestyle is the Christian gospel. A Gospel of
forgiveness and restoration.
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