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From: brower@fortune.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: RE: Some Questions
Message-ID: <4150@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Sep-84 12:52:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: fortune.4150
Posted: Thu Sep  6 12:52:47 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Sep-84 04:46:35 EDT
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 67

Concerning a responce to my article "Some Questions" which I will
not reproduce here.

>First of all, I think your "Are you still beating your wife ?"
>rhetorical style is getting in the way of some serious thinking
>by you on the matter.

What I am trying to do is stimulate discussion and generate some serious
thought on the part of parents about what they are teaching their children.

>Queer bashing and the more traditional forms of minority harrassment
>like cross burning and lynching are not necessarily blameable (sp ?)
>offenses wrt "institutions" like the police or the clergy.  I think
>these stem from home grown attitudes that eventually permeate the
>culture and thus the institutions that people are a part of.

I agree with this sentiment entirely.  It is the direct responsibility
of the parents to make sure that their children are not taught hatred
by these "home grown attitudes".  And anti-gay attitudes have permeated
all "Christian" institutions, therefore, it is your responsibility to
make sure that these attitudes are not transmitted to your children.

>I teach my children that gays are suffering from a delusion that is
>closely tied in with a moral problem.  BTW my definition of a delusion
>is faulty understanding about something that is in itself legitimate -
>like sexuality.  I teach them that they should not permit sexual 
>liberties to be taken with them by ANYONE male or female.  And finally
>I teach them to be physically gentle, to turn the cheek, go the extra
>mile, but that it is OK - even required at some point to resist 
>physical agression.

Here is the meat of discrimination!  By assigning the terms "delusion"
and "moral problem", you insinuate that I am not in control of myself
(suffering from delusion) and that I am am evil (a moral problem).
What you should teach about homosexuality is, in your case, that you are
biased of the subject, or at most that it is a lifestyle that *you*
cannot subscribe to, but that some people do subscribe to it and that those
who do so are as good and kind and loving as anyone else and deserve to
be treated with the same respect that any other person is.  I agree that
you should teach them to resist *physical agression* and certainly
not allow themselves to be treated in any manner that they do wish to
treated in.  Notice that I pointed out the term "physical agression".

>Homosexuality is clearly outlined as sinful in the Bible and if
>that book is authoritative for you then you should transmit the
>many concepts both positive and negative contained in it.

Gay practices are mentioned 3 times (that I have found) in the Bible,
twice in the Old Testement and once by Paul.  Christ never mentioned
the subject.  If you eat pork, shrimp, or catfish that tells what you
think of the Old Testement laws, and Paul was against all sex (but
had the understanding that "the flesh is weak").  But Jesus was a good
Jewish man who kept all of the Old Testement Laws, why don't you?
Probabally for the same reasons that I don't, some of them do not
apply to today's world.

>Certainly, queer bashing has no part in modern day Christianity.

Unless you happen to subscribe to the tenates of Jerry Falwell and
his "Moral Majority" or San Francisco's own "Cops for Christ".

>Bob Brown {...ihnp4!akgua!rjb}

Thanks for this opportunity to expand or my earlier article.

Richard Brower		Fortune Systems
{ihnp4,ucbvax!amd,hpda,sri-unix,harpo}!fortune!brower