Christian BoyLove Forum #63861
Long time members know my viewpoint. When you focus on Christian love rather than distracting topics, Eldad's logic is clearly not logic at all. Look at his parallel between divorce and gay relationships. Consider that Jesus promotes love (that is, love your neighbour as yourself type love). In a divorce, love between two people has been built up and then has been allowed to be broken down. It might be unintentional and the two partners may be caught up in problems they scarcely understand, but love has come under attack. In a gay relationship, no love has come under attack. None at all. Jesus' love values have not been violated by antagonism. So there is no overlap between the divorce situation and the gay relationship situation. No matter what you think of gay relationships otherwise, you must admit Eldad's argument is a complete red herring. The real logic of Christian gay relationships is not at all based on the pleasure principle that Eldad spells out. Here it is: 1. I am commanded to love my neighbour as myself. 2. I have a sexuality that is oriented towards my own sex. It would not be loving for me to marry a member of the opposite sex if she wanted anything resembling a normal relationship. 3. I am very well disposed to love someone of my own sex to whom I am attracted and to marry that person. 4. Nothing in scripture contradicts this. There are some very understandable scriptures about married or otherwise heterosexual men who abandon their wives (Romans) or their marital beds (Leviticus) to have opportunistic bisexual sex with members of their own sex. But I am not proposing 'rough trade,' as this is called. I am proposing a constructive loving relationship. 5. I recognize that the love my partner and I share is in every way salutary, good, constructive, and peaceful. It's the same kind of love heterosexual couples share. If this love is not the sort of love Christ was talking about, then the distinction is completely imperceptible. To divide this marital love up into two categories, mysteriously unapproved and mysteriously approved, is too far-fetched to consider. A house divided against itself cannot stand. There is no way to divide this house of love without reducing it to meaninglessness. By their fruits ye shall know them. These fruits are good. I have tested these principles for some decades and I rest the blessings they have provided, including the equanimity to write this post. The Lord will judge us. |