Oh God I'm Gay

I was raised Catholic----(I suspect this whole don't ask, don't tell thing may have started in Italy where my grandparents came from!)---and have had to sever ties with that religion for obvious reasons...so, I think its great to offer an outlet to the folks who remain conflicted about this.

Actually, in my house it was more like Don't Ask, Do Yell !!

(Stealing this quote from my own novel.)

--Mari

Mari SanGiovanni

Author of: Greetings From Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer...
www.GreetingsFromJamaica.com

To check out the book:

Hey Ally,

Transcripts aren't available right now, but that is definetly something I would like to make available at some point. What kind of problem(s) are you experiencing when you try to download the episodes?

Yes, absolutely!! Look for an interview in the coming weeks with Raquel Evita Saraswati, who is the Executive Director of Project Ijtihad.

If you know of anyone else let me know!!

Did you come here just to preach at us and tell us what we already know? I promise you, just about every gay person alive has had those verses thrown at us.

Let's talk about what you said, shall we? You dissect the Bible. I'm going to dissect you.

"I love those of you who are here," Do you really? If you love us, why are you coming to OUR website and telling us we're abominations?

"and you should hear an opposing veiwpoint." Not here. This is a place for support.

"Without seeing both sides you will never know the truth." "You must approach your search for the truth without bias. " Are YOU looking at both sides? Are you approaching without bias? Clearly you are not. You're approaching from the bias and side of the Bible.

"Before you read this please know, this isn't hate, this is the facts." "I know the Word of God." The facts according to YOU. The Word of God according to YOU. The simple fact that there are many other interpretations makes it fairly clear to me that no one person knows the truth. Unless you have recently had a long talk with God, you don't know anything but what you get out of the translation of a translation that you read. And undoubtedly someone else helped you out, someone who translates, for instance, the sin of Sodom as homosexuality.

"Those who claim this to be hatred are really just afraid and they don't want to hear something as powerful as this. If you are right, then you should be able to prove I am wrong." Alternatively, we just don't believe it. Because, Nick, it's belief. You have no more proof than I do. I can't prove you wrong, because I can't prove anyone's BELIEFS wrong. But you can't prove mine wrong either.

"All it takes is a quick read of Romans chapter 1 to see the truth on what the Bible has to say." "and I'm talking New Testament scriptures." I'm Jewish. So first you have to convince me that my entire religion is wrong, and THEN you have to convince me that being gay is wrong.

"you will end up twisting the scripture, and make illogical conclusions to make homosexuality right." Surely no one would ever twist Scripture! the Crusades, the Inquisition, Queen Mary's reign, the Puritans burning witches--that wasn't twisting Scripture. Why do you get to decide what is twisting and what is not? I'm sure that Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were just as vehement and certain as you are when they burned Jews at the stake.

"Homosexuality is clearly condemned over and over again in the New Testament. To say otherwise is a blatant denail of the obvious and clear truth." Again, perhaps using something that the majority of the world doesn't believe in isn't gonna help. Who are Peter and Paul to tell me anything? Were they on Mount Sinai, having the Torah dictated directly by God? Why should I listen to them?

"God said the men of Sodom and Gomorrah died because they practiced abomination in addition to not helping the poor. " Actually, there are other ways to read it, based on the Hebrew. I don't read Hebrew, but I've heard lectures from rabbis who do (and Biblical Hebrew, which is what matters), and it's possible that the sin was incest. The Torah isn't terribly clear on a lot of things, and it's likely that the translators of that day decided to go with homosexuality, being homophobes.

"we obviously see that Satan had totally overwhelmed the city with sexual perversion--namely homosexuality." I don't believe in Satan, and I don't believe he's mentioned in the Torah. Again, sexual perversion can mean a number of things.

Nick, you are free to believe what you want. But it is out of line to come and do it here. I don't go to Christian websites and tell them that they're abominations, or try to tear them down. I especially don't do it using scriptures that a large chunk of them may not believe. There are many places for you to say these things. Please don't come to a website where many of us look for love and support and tell us that God condemns us--especially since you don't know that. I don't know that. I can get a rabbi, a priest, a monk, an imam, and a minister together and no one will agree, but they will all be equally passionate. And I fully respect your right to your passion--but please take it elsewhere.

Nick -- I'm going to suggest a book to you. . . . ."What The Bible REALLY Says About Homosexuality", by Daniel A. Helminiak, PhD.  Then I'm going to ask you who assembled your Bible. . . .who approved the final version of it. . . . .who were the original translators out of the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts.  Did they get it right?  Absolutely right?  Or were there "errors" made in favor of the Catholic Church's heirarchy, at the time?  Who decided which books to include in the Bible?  Why is the Apocrypha excluded from the Prostestant version of the Bible?  If you can answer all those questions not only to my satisfaction, but to the satisfaction of many other people who would also question them, you will gain a listening audience.

   I would submit to you that God is and has always been much larger than Man.  He defies description, as do His everlasting attributes.  God cannot be "packaged" and sold the way He is in many churches, today.  I will also submit a verse of scripture to you: Jesus, Himself, said, "First take the log out of your own eye. . . .then you can see to take the speck out of your brother's".  That comes from the book of Matthew.  Next, the Apostle Paul admonished those who would attempt to judge others saying, "Be careful wherein you judge another. . . . .for the very same standards by which you attempt to judge others, you will be judged".  Live. . . .and let live.

"You must approach your search for the truth without bias."

Same is true for you.  Or to phrase more clearly, you have to search while being open to whatever you find. And you might want to learn the actual hebrew and greek rather than the modern interpretation.

"Homosexuality is clearly condemned over and over again in the New Testament."

This is incorrect.  The words that are translated as 'homosexuality' actually refer to a specific kind of sexual slavery that was inflicted on some men -- castrating them against their will, followed by a life of being raped.  Rape was also the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah -- the men did not have sex with other men in the story, they raped a FEMALE concubine until she died.  Their sin was not in desiring the same sex but in raping human beings.  THAT was the sexual perversion and abomination.

nice to meet you clapifyoulikeme!  I was going to shorten that but it seemed odd to call you "clap"

It is too bad there are sides, perhaps one day things will be better.

Happy Halloween to you!