RicOlie_2 said:
I understand your position, Bingo, but I think you misunderstand mine, at least in part. I don't agree with the entirety of the article, but I do agree with his support of civil unions on a lesser level than marriage. I understand that you find that offensive, but I find a lot of what you say offensive as well.
When I linked to that video of the girl quoting Leviticus, I did indeed agree with just about everything she said (I don't now). I also did expect that she would get a lot of hate for that, but what I was surprised at was the degree of hate. It was way, way, way overboard. It seems obvious to me now that she didn't have all the facts, not that she was a bigot or a hater.
Also keep in mind that I am only fifteen years old, so my opinions, or at least the specifics of them, are likely to change as I mature. I often can't make up my mind on things like this because I am constantly learning new information, and gaining a better understanding of what my Church actually teaches. When I signed up here, I had a completely different view on the subject than I do now. Since then, I have learned a lot more, including the fact that many of the things I had grown up believing were false. I currently have a fairly conservative view of the whole thing, but I no longer condemn anyone for being openly gay and marrying someone of the same sex, because I realize how it affects people when my religion is forced on them. I have no concrete opinion on whether same sex parents should be allowed to adopt or not. It seems to affect the way those kids behave, both in positive and negative ways. The negative ways could very well be caused by self-righteous people bullying them, but it's difficult to say for sure.
Hopefully we can learn to understand each other better, even if we don't agree. I have nothing against two guys or two girls who love each other pursuing a romantic relationship, but I don't support it and probably never will.
I hope you appreciate my treating you like any other adult and ignoring your age in terms of debating. Perhaps with age you will encounter more people which may alter the way you see things but at the moment you see things in a particular way and it is this you I'm talking to not a possible future you or the five year old you.
If you want a Biblical perspective beyond the Old Testament look to Jesus.
He walks into the homes 'respectable' people wouldn't go near and talks to the people staying there in the same way as 'respectable' people. He shows compassion and mercy and encourages others to do this also. He forgives transgressors. Now he sees the same 'sins' that Moses saw (and in this regard I would have some room for debate with the son of Man) but he ignores the prescribed punishment.
He reserves his wrath for people who claim to serve God but serve themselves. People who quote the law while subverting the spirit of it, who make money out of misusing the church and use it to put themselves above common people. Clerical hypocrites.
The sort of person who would cover up a scandal on one hand while lobbying against another group with church goers donations or laundered mafia money, or money raised by having an enormous property portfolio in cities full of homeless people. You know the sort, every organisation has someone like that, including every Church.
Repeating something you heard or read is not a viable form of judgement you need take your experiences from one aspect of life and transmute them into other situations.
It was indignation and a passion for justice that brought down apartheid, won universal suffrage and ended slavery (in those places where slavery ended) and this is what a large number of homosexual people feel. Indignation, a passion for justice and equality. You must feel that impulse yourself when you see injustice it's a very natural response. Give a treat to one child and not another and you will hear quite loudly how natural that impulse is.
When you hear people saying they want equality and your scripture seems to say something different and you can't put it down to mistranslation or a lost historical context consider the value of that text. Does it serve the spirit of Christianity to constantly raise passages which ask the reader to do things you would never countenance as modern day person of faith?
If your Levitican laws steer your church away from the good news remove them. For it is better for you that a part of the Bible be lost than the whole of it be tarnished.