There are LGBT followers of God in the world. There are not as many as there could be though because of these people who want to tell them that it is a sin and that they are going to hell.

There are people out there that want to say Homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuality is a sin…sin…sin …sin.

One passage people try to use is Genesis 19. They say God destroyed those cities because they were gay. This is NOT true. God destroyed them because were uncharitable and abusive to strangers. Matthew 10:14-15 and Luke 10:7-16, Jesus said that the sin of the people of Sodom was to be inhospitable to strangers. In Ezekeiel 16:48-50, God states clearly that he destroyed Sodom’s sins because of their pride, their excess of food while the poor and needy suffered, and worshiped many idols; sexual activity is not even mentioned.

Sodom and Gomorrah actually condemns inhospitality and idolatry, not homosexuality. Read the Scriptural cross-references: Deuteronomy 29:23, Isaiah 1:9, Jeremiah 23:14, Lamentations 4:6, Ezekiel 16:49-50, Amos 4:11, Zephaniah 2:9, Matthew 10:15 / Luke 10:12, Luke 17:29, Romans 9:29, Jude v.7, Revelation 11:8

Nowhere in the Scriptures does it say that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexual sex. Even if the specific point of the story was concerning a sexual matter, rather than hospitality, the issue is rape not homosexuality. Jesus claimed the issue was simply one of showing hospitality to strangers (Luke 10:12). How ironic that those who discriminate against homosexuals seem to be the true practitioners of the sin of Sodom.

Deuteronomy 23:17 states (in the King James Version) “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel . This is an “error” by the authors of the KJV. The word qadesh in the original text was mistranslated as sodomite. Quadesh means “holy one” and is here used to refer to a man who engages in ritual prostitution in the temple. There is little evidence that the prostitutes engaged in sexual activities with men. Other Bible translations use accurate terms such as shrine prostitute, temple prostitute, prostitute and cult prostitute.

I Kings 14:24 and 15:12 again refer to temple prostitution. The original word qadesh is mistranslated as sodomite (homosexual) in the King James Version, but as male prostitute, male cult prostitutes, and male shrine prostitutes in more accurate versions. As mentioned before, there is little evidence that homosexuality was involved. Again, the text has nothing to say about consensual homosexual relationships.

In my Not a sin post I already covered about Romans so I will skip over that one here.

1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 sound very convincing in including lesbians and gay men in the most dreadful lists of depraved human behavior imaginable.  The fact is that the word translated “homosexual” does not mean “homosexual” and the word translated “effeminate” does not mean “effeminate”!

The English word “homosexual” is a composite word made from a Greek term (homo, “the same”) and a Latin term (sexualis , “sex”). The term “homosexual” is of modern origin and was not used until about 100 years ago.  There is no word in biblical Greek or Hebrew that is parallel to the word “homosexual.”  No Bible before the Revised Standard Version in 1946 used “homosexual” in any Bible translation.

The word translated as “homosexual” or “sexual pervert” or some other similar term is Greek arsenokoites, which was formed from two words meaning “male” and “bed”.  This word is not found anywhere else in the Bible and has not been found anywhere in the contemporary Greek of Paul’s time.  We do not know what it means.  The word is obscure and uncertain.  It probably refers to male prostitutes with female customers, which was a common practice in the Roman world.

This incorrect rendering of malakoi and arsenokoites as references to gender orientation has been disastrous for millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual people.  This mistaken translation has enlisted a mighty army of ignorant religious fanatics against homosexual people and has turned many Lesbians and Gays against the Bible, which holds for them as for all people the good news of God’s love in Christ.

I would suggest the everyone read What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality by Daniel A. Helminiak

Websites:
http://whosoever.org/

http://www.soulforce.org/

http://www.christiangays.com/

http://www.gaychristianonline.org/

http://www.hrc.org/

http://www.ucccoalition.org/

http://www.jeramyt.org/gay.html

http://www.youtube.com/GayChristianNetwork

Aside from the obvious invasive nature of asking transgender people if they had sex-reassignment surgery before allowing them to choose the appropriate gender for their license, the policy could have created problems for transgender people. What happens when you’re pulled over for speeding and the police officer notices the gender marked on your license is in complete contrast to how you look?

That has all changed.

The PennDOT and Equality Pennsylvania announced a settlement Wednesday that allows people to change the gender on their licenses if they are living full-time in the new gender and it can be verified by a licensed medical or psychological caregiver.

Are these new rules still too invasive? Perhaps. It is a step in the right direction though.

The institution of marriage conveys dignity and respect towards a couple that make a lifetime commitment to support each other. Same-sex couples deserve this dignity and respect.

Denying marriage to same-sex couples removes from one group a fundamental, important human right — the right to marry the person that one loves and to whom one has made a commitment. That is unfair and unjust in a democracy.

Denying one group the right to marry has many adverse emotional and financial consequences. Examples are Social Security, Medicare, medical leave, and other benefits; property inheritance; the right to visit their spouse in hospital, and make medical decisions if they are incapacitated; security of the couple and of their children.

Ask just about anyone. They’ll all tell you they’re in favor of equal rights for LGBT. Just name the situation, and ask. They’ll all say, yes, LGBT should have the same rights in housing, jobs, public accommodations, and should have equal access to government benefits, equal protection of the law, etcetera, etcetera.

Then you get to Same-sex marriage.

And that’s when all this talk of equality stops dead cold.

Nearly seventy percent of people in the U.S. oppose same-sex marriage, almost the same proportion as are otherwise supportive of LGBT rights. This means that many of the same people who are even passionately in favor of gay rights oppose gays on this one issue.

The values that such gay couples exhibit in their daily lives are often indistinguishable from those of their straight neighbors. They’re loyal to their mates, are monogamous, devoted partners. They value and participate in family life, are committed to making their neighborhoods and communities safer and better places to live, and honor and abide by the law. Many make valuable contributions to their communities, serving on school boards, volunteering in community charities, and trying to be good citizens. In doing so, they take full advantage of their relationship to make not only their own lives better, but those of their neighbors as well.

A benefit to heterosexual society of gay marriage is the fact that the commitment of a marriage means the participants are discouraged from promiscuous sex. This has the advantage of slowing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, which know no sexual orientation and are equal opportunity destroyers.

These benefits of gay marriage have changed the attitudes of the majority of people in Denmark and other countries where various forms of gay marriage have been legal for years. Indeed, in 1989, when the proposal to legalize marriage between gays first was proposed in Denmark, the majority of the clergy were opposed. Now, after having seen the benefits to the partners and to society, they are overwhelmingly in favor, according to the surveys done then and now.

When LGBT people say that this is a civil rights issue, they are referring to matters like the fact that they cannot make medical decisions for their partners in an emergency. Instead, the hospitals are usually forced by state laws to go to the families who may be estranged from them for decades, who are often hostile to them, and totally ignore their wishes for the treatment of their partners. If that hostile family wishes to exclude them from the hospital room, they may legally do so in nearly all cases. It is even not uncommon for hostile families to make decisions based on their hostility — with results actually intended to be inimical to the interests of the patient! One couple  uses the following line in the “sig” lines on their email: “…partners and lovers for 40 years, yet still strangers before the law.” Is this fair?

If their partners are arrested, they can be compelled to testify against them or provide evidence against them, which legally married couples are not forced to do. Is this fair?

In most cases, even carefully drafted wills and durable powers of attorney have proven to not be enough if a family wishes to challenge a will, overturn a custody decision, or exclude them from a funeral or deny them the right to visit a partner’s grave. As survivors, they can even seize a real estate property that they may have been buying together for years, quickly sell it at a huge loss and stick them with the remaining debt on a property they no longer own. When these are presented to a homophobic probate judge, he will usually find some pretext to overturn them. Is this fair?

These aren’t just theoretical issues, either; they happen with surprising frequency. Almost any older gay couple can tell you horror stories of friends who have been victimized in such ways.

His name is Dwight Horning and he is in Hershey Medical Hospital. They Still do not know what is wrong with him. He was admitted the other day with a 104 fever and back pain. They checked for Spinal meningitis and are doing other tests. His blood pressure was really low 100/40 (That’s the numbers my aunt said….they mean nothing to me.)

He is 18. He has a wonderful girlfriend that he is really serious about and she has a wonderful little 18 month old girl that he has been helping raise.