Yes, David and Jonathon were gay and Naomi and Ruth were lesbian. II Samual 1:26 says that David loved Jonathon more than women. In Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10 Jesus affirmed a gay couple:

http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/gay_couple.html

In Matthew 19:10-12 Jesus said some are born gay.

Campus Life, the youth edition of Christianity Today, told me that it was wrong for me as a white guy to date or marry a black woman because it might cause scandal for my parents. They also cautioned against marriage to a Catholic and condemned marriage to Jews and Mormons.

Many white evangelical churches continue to exclude black and especially Latino persons from leadership, and many exclude women from leadership. Many of these churches align proudly with the likes of Lou Dobbs, the Patriot movement, and other haters of Christian immigrants.

As William points out, it’s sad at best, pathetic at worst, that Brad brands real Christians (Quakers) as heretics and aliens, while stealing credit for their accomplishments.

“do I really need to remind you of the church’s and christians involvent in ending slavery in the 1800s?”

Do I really need to remind you of the Churches’ and Christians’ involvement in perpetuating slavery? Yes, many individual Christians worked (alongside many individual non-Christians) to abolish slavery, but they were opposed tooth and nail by many other Christians, who appealed to the Bible to justify their stance. “They were wrong,” you say. Yes, I agree; they were. And I regard those who appeal to the Bible to justify discrimination against gay people as being equally wrong.

To suggest that the churches as such were responsible for the abolition of slavery is downright misleading. The Christian denominations which, as a whole, opposed slavery were those widely regarded as “fringe” or even heretical, e.g. the Quakers and the Swedenborgians. The Roman Catholic Church declared definitively that slavery was always morally wrong only in 1965. It was in February 2006 that the Church of England finally made an official apology for its own involvement in the slave trade.

“Can you show me any place were the bible approves of sex between two men or two women?”

No. Nor would one expect to find one. The biblical authors understood little about such things. There is no valid reason why we today should be bound by their limited understanding. The Bible condemns lending money at interest far more often than it condemns homosexual sex, but no modern Christian, as far as I’m aware, feels obliged to close his or her savings account or to cancel his or her pension scheme.

When you say, “set policy” what you really mean is compulsory Christianity (specifically your fundamentalist version) and forcing all tax paying citizens to live by the rules of your church.

Sorry Brad – that is un-American. We believe in freedom of conscience and allowing people to select their own belief system – or none at all. We are adamantly against the state choosing one religion and forcing everyone to live by oppressive sectarian rules.

When it comes right down to it, that is exactly what “setting public policy” from a fundy point of view really is by definition.

Mainstream people of faith and the majority of freedom-loving Americans will not stand for such totalitarianism.

As for your other points, you have demonstrated again that you don’t know the Bible well, and you have not demonstrated any understanding of Judaism or God’s truth.

I’ll take your word for it, for now, that you oppose faith-based initiatives, tax exemption for churches, the use of public property for Christian displays and prayers, and the use of taxpayer funds to support insurance benefits for heterosexual state workers.

Michael you accuse me of being a proudly ignorant
worshipper of anger fear gossip, defamation,
bigotry, and hate filed violence. You don’t know me
at all,yet you make these false allegations
against me. Unless you can prove your allegations
against me, stop making them and apologize!
BTW michael, can you show me any place in the
bible where it approves same-sex relationships
( no david and saul were not homosexual and
naomi and ruth were not lesbian). Can you
show me any place were the bible approves of
sex between two men or two women? I don’t think so.
finally wayne, you say thst my christianity is
a private affair, and that churches and christians
should not be involved in setting public policy,
do I really need to remind you of the church’s
and christians involvent in ending slavery in the
1800s(yes there were some misguided people that
tried to say that the bible justifies slavery, they
were wrong) The church and individual christians
were very involved in trying to set public policy
then, and have every right to do so now

If you mean that change can occur as refugees from the un-Christian Right join legitimate Christian denominations such as the United Church of Christ, the Religious Society of Friends, or the Episcopal Church, then I would certainly agree with that.

My suggestion comes from my conviction that we are only truly capable of orchestrating change through our willingness to change within our own ranks. For example, I do not believe that we are in a position to orchestrate change within the traditional, especially not the fundamental (Evangelical), Christian community. We are witness to an enormous groundswell of ultra-conservative political thought being, IMO, erroneously linked with Christian values; not just gay issues, but environmentalism and economic policy. Again, personally I would agree with Wayne on much of his sentiment. I believe the Christian community will eventually awaken to the high-jacking of their higher calling, hopefully sooner than later; but that will only come from within their own ranks.

I am sure many of you would agree that the gay community is not in the business of telling other people how they should live, far from it. Yet, that is the very thing of which we are accused. Neither are we in the business of attempting to silence the expression of religious freedom in any way, again far from it. Yet again, that is the very thing of which we are accused. Rather, we embrace diversity by nature; we do not fear it, and perhaps that is our community’s most endearing characteristic to bring to mainstream America.

I must say, this is a tremendous forum.