Do “Civil Unions” = sinful union?

I fully agree with you. However I am not sure there is much we, as christians, can do to stop the passing of civil union laws. Lost people, on the right and on the left, are desiring to please the homosexual lobby. We can and should oppose such. That also means that many Christians who have been voting republican must now look for a new party.

The Bible condemns all sexual activity outside of Biblical marriage.

Martin.

 

It depends on how narrow your definition of "civil union". Civil union cannot be limited to sexual activity alone. Adoption of a child is a civil union. Foster parenting is a civil union.

Homosexual behavior is not a civil union, however the granting of the benefits associated with marriage to those who so engage, is a civil union.

See what one bad judge on the bench can do?

Support the President and the Republican party, demand of your senators that they bring every nominated justice to the floor of the Senate for a full membership vote so that the voice of the people can be heard. Demand of them that they stop playing there political games and that they stop filibustering the nominee, but merely vote for or against the nominee. Demand of them that they end the filibuster in the senate all together, and do the business of the people they were hired to do business for.

Filibusters squelch the voice of the people, and they must be ended, permanently!

 

I have always suspected that the real sin of Sodom was not that every person was homosexual, for Lot was not, but I suspect the condemnation was that homosexuality was overwhelmingly accepted by the Sodomites - America is racing toward acceptance me thinks.

 

I don't think supporting the Republican Party and Mr. Bush is the way to go on this matter (and I voted Republican this past election, but I am beginning to be disappointed). Bush has done very little in regards to the issue of homosexual marriage in recent days. He's been pretty much silent on the matter from what I can tell. Same with pro-life issues. Bush and the Republican Party have done pretty much nothing for the pro-life causes that they claim to stand for. Back to the original topic...

I don't think civil unions is a sin necessarily. What if you have 2 guys who have no desire to get married, are living together, are best friends, but aren't gay and they have chosen to live as roommates for the rest of their lives or until one of them does get married? Would it be wrong for them to have access to each other's things if one of them were to die? We can do the same for 2 women in the same situation. What if you have a guy/girl situation that is the same as the above mentioned? Where in Scripture are these things condemned? They're not. The Westernization of our interpretations of the Bible condemns it.

Homosexuals are in sin, yes, but who are we to tell them that because they are in this one sin, they can't have any benefits? How many husbands look at pornography? That is sexual immorality. Should we not allow people who look at porn to have these benefits? Or what about the alcoholic? Should we withold benefits from him? Or what about the person who is covetous? Do we withold rights from him as well because he commits that sin? Maybe I am totally wrong here, but I sense some bit of homophobia when it comes to this matter. How many here have actually dealt with unsaved homosexuals out in the world? Not inside the confines of our safe church buildings, but out there where all the sinners are? We can't be picking one sin and being jackboodies about it. If we're gonna condemn sin, we need to condemn all sin, not just the sins we don't like or are more obvious than others.

Now I will hide so I don't get hurt by flying rocks...

 

We must not confuse the Christian doctrine of marriage and the actions of a secular state. In Canada, it looks like homosexuals will have the right, under our civil rights bill, to marry. All we asked for was a written guarantee that we, as Christian ministers, would not be required by law to perform such "marriages". This has been granted. We can still preach that sin is sin and show our opposition, where it belongs, in the church.....we want to keep the church separate from the state, thank you very much.

Cheers,

Jim

 

In the OT marriages were not performed as religious events but societal events. However marriage is between a man a woman. Anything else that deviates form that is sin. Changing the name does not change the truth of a matter.

 

Separation of church and state, I say!

If gays and lesbians want to engage in civil unions, which are by definition non-religious, then my opposition to the unions is completely moral and not civil. I feel that the state has the authority to create these things. Is it sinful? Definitely. However, I do not expect a lost world to act saved . We cannot effectively legislate morality.

However, marriage has traditionally been a religious institution for several hundred years. I would even argue that the state has no business in determining what is and what isn't a valid marriage. Perhaps the state should only determine between what is and what isn't a civil union and let one's particular belief determine whether it is a marriage or not. I know that will never happen, though.

 

same in backward spain---------legalizing sin will only bring God's wrath sooner than later.

 

I am with Craig on this one; i will even copy his remarks.

My personal belief is that the Bible teaches that all overt homosexual acts and relationships are an abominable and damnable sin, and that Christians need, therefore, to take an active stand against all movements and pieces of legislation that undermine the authority of the Bible and condones such sinful behavior.

 

Calling "Civil Unions" necessary for this is ridiculous. This situation is why WILLS were invented. You can leave anything you own to anybody you wish.

Marriage, civil unions, or shacking up has no bearing on this.

 

"Go ye into all the world and change the laws of the heathen gentile nations."


We see churches today accepting homos as pastors, accepting homos lifestyles, etc because and only because the Bible is being spiritualized, allegorized out of existence. This is wrong, and it is sin.

Preacher's failure to call sin, sin, is what has led this nation on the downward spiral for the last 120 years. Now we are seeing the results of it. We are not going to change 120 years of soft-peddling the Scriptures in one generation nor in one piece of legislation.

What is needed is the return of preaching accountablility. The constant diatribe against preaching accountability in the name of "grace" is at fault, (I believe), and what you see is what you get.

It is much too late to panic about this one sin. But we can do something. We can return to preaching the child of God's accountability and necessity to fear God. I believe that by doing so we can stem the tide. Political legislation won't do it. We can't expect fallen men to do our work for us. At one time, when the pulpits of the nation flamed with fire, this nation (in general) knew what morality was. One man once said, "When the pulpits of America cease to preach judgment of God, America will cease to be good". (paraphrased, I don't remember the exact quote.)

What a prophecy from a Frenchman huh?

EVEN SO LORD JESUS, COME!!!

In HIS service;
Jim

 

I knew an older man who was a homosexual, living with the same man since before I was born. I met them when I moved to the Huntington, WV area to work. After my salvation, I began to witness to those two men, who were very well-behaved, always appearing masculine, never flaunting their relationship in public, etc. I got nowhere. Both said they were BORN that way, and that's the way GOD made'em. Nothing I could say could move them toward JESUS. In those days, I hadn't yet learned to ask the HOLY SPIRIT to guide my speech while witnessing, nor had I learned that failures were common in witnessing. Unfortunately, the older man died a HS at the age of 82, & his partner moved to CA.

I believe HSs are among the most difficult people to evangelize, as they simply refuse to recognize HS as a sin. They insist God made'em that way & that He wouldn'ta done it if it was a sin. We REALLY need the Holy Spirit's wisdom when witnessing to them!

But on the subject of civil unions...Those two men simply willed all their possessions, pensions, etc. to the other. They had to make more-than-ordinary wills to cover all the bases, as in that day a homosexual civil union, let alone marriage, was outta the question.

 

Its not just passing on possessions. Its providing health insurance from one's job to one's partner. Its about being able to talk to the doctor and make health care decisions, consent to life saving surgery on their behalf, etc.

I say we provide universal health insurance and disarm the need for that claim from homosexuals.

 

The unintended consequences of this sin even before the Law:

Genesis 19
24 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

 

Proverbs 16:4
The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

HankD

 

As far as making health care decisions go, person A person can give person B a healthcare power of attorney, so that legally person B will be able to make such health care decisions for person A. No need for civil unions for that.

I do not think gay couples should be allowed to share health insurance benefits when parents cannot even do this for their adult children (unless the child is a full-time student under the age of 22).

 

So one of them is going to stay home & play "housewife" huh? What's wrong with letting each one have his OWN health ins. through his job like most people?

Ever heard of "POWER OF ATTORNEY"?

OK, what's the next "DIRE NEED" that they should be getting that only a CIVIL UNION can supply?

 

OK. Then let's give them what they want.
I say give them the "rights" they had at the time of the writing of the Constitution.
But let's not virtually dismantle society to pacify the perversions of a very small minority.

Their so-called "rights" are endowed by their Creator. Or did they miss that part? What does their Creator say about their activities? (I can't even bring myself to call it marriage)

It is clear what God thought of it and therefore if they want to howl about their "Constitutional rights" then let them have them. Those "rights" are outlined for them here:
Ro 1:27
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
And here:
Ro 1:32
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Barnes:

Ro 1:27
Verse 27. And likewise the men, etc. The sin which is here specified is that which was the shameful sin of Sodom, and which from that has been called sodomy. It would scarcely be credible that man had been guilty of a crime so base and so degrading, unless there was ample and full testimony to it. Perhaps there is no sin which so deeply shows the depravity of man as this; none which would so much induce one "to hang his head, and blush to think himself a man." And yet the evidence that the apostle did not bring a railing accusation against the heathen world, that he did not advance a charge which was unfounded, is too painfully clear. It has been indeed a matter of controversy whether paederasty, or the love of boys, among the ancients, was not a pure and harmless love, but the evidence is against it. See this discussed in Dr. Leland's "Advantage and Necessity of Revelation," vol. i. 49--56. The crime with which the apostle charges the Gentiles here was by no means confined to the lower classes of the people. It doubtless pervaded all classes, and we have distinct specifications of its existence in a great number of cases. Even Virgil speaks of the attachment of Corydon to Alexis, without seeming to feel the necessity of a blush for it. Maximus Tyrius (Diss. 10) says, that in the time of Socrates this vice was common among the Greeks; and is at pains to vindicate Socrates from it as almost a solitary exception. Cicero (Tuscul. Ques. iv. 84) says, that "Dicearchus had accused Plato of it, and probably not unjustly." He also says, (Tuscul. Q. iv. 33,) that the practice was common among the Greeks, and that their poets and great men, and even their learned men and philosophers, not only practised, but gloried in it. And he adds, that it was the custom, not of particular cities only, but of Greece in general. (Tuscul. Ques. v. 20.) Xenophon says, that "the unnatural love of boys is so common, that in many places it is established by the public laws." He particularly alludes to Sparta. (See Leland's Advantage, etc., i. 56.) Plato says that the Cretians practised this crime, and justified themselves by the example of Jupiter and Ganymede. (Book of Laws, i.) And Aristotle says, that among the Cretians there was a law encouraging that sort of unnatural love. (Arist. Politic. b. ii. ch. 10.)
(My comment: Have you noticed? A LAW encouraging it? Similar to today? Surely there is "nothing new under the sun")
Continuing:
Plutarch says, that this was practised at Thebes, and at Ellis. He further says, that Solon, the great lawgiver of Athens, "was not proof against beautiful boys, and had not courage to resist the force of love." (Life of Solon.) Diogenes Laertins says that this vice was practised by the stoic Zeno. Among the Romans, to whom Paul was writing, this vice was no less common. Cicero introduces, without any mark of disapprobation, Cotta, a man of the first rank and genius, freely and familiarly owning to other Romans of the same quality, that this worse than beastly vice was practised by himself, and quoting the authority of ancient philosophers in vindication of it. (De Natura Decrum, b. i. eh. 28.) It appears from what Seneca says, (epis. 95,) that in his time it was practised openly at Rome, and without shame. He speaks of flocks and troops of boys, distinguished by their colours and nations; and says that great care was taken to train them up for this detestable employment. Those who may wish to see a further account of the morality in the pagan world may find it detailed in Tholick's "Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism," in the Biblical Repository, vol. ii., and in Leland's Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation. There is not the least evidence that this abominable vice was confined to Greece and Rome. If so common there--if it had the sanction even of their philosophers--it may be presumed that it was practised elsewhere, and that the sin against nature was a common crime throughout the heathen world. Navaratte, in his account of the empire of China, (book ii. ch. 6,) says that it is extremely common among the Chinese. _And there is every reason to believe that, both in the old world and the new, this abominable crime is still practised. If such was the state of the pagan world, then surely the argument of the apostle is well sustained, that there was need of some other plan of salvation than was taught by the light of nature.

That which is unseemly. That which is shameful, or disgraceful.

And receiving in themselves, etc. The meaning of this doubtless is, that the effect of such base and unnatural passions was to enfeeble the body, to produce premature old age, disease, decay, and an early death. That this is the effect of the indulgence of licentious passions, is amply proved by the history of man. The despots who practise polygamy, and keep harems in the east, are commonly superannuated at forty years of age; and it is well known, even in Christian countries, that the effect of licentious indulgence is to break down and destroy the constitution. How much more might this be expected to follow the practice of the vice specified in the verse under examination! God has marked the indulgence of licentious passions with his frown. Since the time of the Romans and the Greeks, as if there had not been sufficient restraints before, he has originated a new disease, which is one of the most loathsome and distressing which has ever afflicted man, and which has swept off millions of victims. But the effect on the body was not all. It tended to debase the mind; to sink man below the level of the brute; to destroy the sensibility; and to "sear the conscience as with a hot iron." The last remnant of reason and conscience, it would seem, must be extinguished in those who would indulge in this unnatural and degrading vice. See Suetonius' Life of Nero, 28.
(Bold/italics is my comment and/or emphsis)

If they want what is "rightfully" theirs, then we ought to give it to them. Death and or imprisonment for their crimes against nature.

In HIS service;
Jim