Homosexuality

Now that the Lambeth Conference has closed and all the smoke and mirrors has ceased some revealing statements are being made by the homosexual community.

During the conference there was a open concerted push by the gay/lesbian forces of the Anglican Communion to make their desires known during this event. A real in your face effort causing much discomfort to many of the attendees.

As Christians we know that this life style is diametrically opposed to the Bible and the Christian way of life. Several years ago there was one school of thought that attempted to demonstrate that homosexuality was a genetic causative factor. When this research failed to produce the results wanted, the discussion of this research slowly faded into the mists. It was clear then as it is now that homosexuality is a lifestyle of choice and in opposition to the teachings of Holy Scripture.

Regardless of the causative factors we as a Church are called on to administer to the sinner and hate the sin. To provide counseling and support for those seeking to return to a normal life style.

Below is an article recently published in the Blog Homosexuality supporting these statements?


Homosexual Honesty
August 6th, 2008 Posted in Homosexuality
By Bill Muehlenberg


It is nice to get a bit of honesty on the issue of homosexuality. It does not come our way very often in the mainstream media. And when this honesty comes from homosexual activists, it is even more refreshing. Indeed, when heterosexuals tell the truth about homosexuality, they are dismissed as homophobes. So what happens to homosexual truth tellers? Are they homophobic as well?

A very revealing case of homosexual honesty comes from Peter Tatchell, an Australian-born, British-based homosexual activist, who spills the beans on the “gay gene”. There is none, he asserts, and says homosexual desire is not genetically determined.

Writing for Spiked online, June 24, 2008, he makes some very interesting remarks about homosexual determinism. He in fact sounds very much like, well, me. I have been saying similar things for years, and have been howled down by the homosexual lobby as bigoted, intolerant and homophobic. But it is nice to hear homosexuals saying similar things.

He says there may well be biological influence in one’s sexuality, but nothing more. He argues that “an influence is not the same as a cause. Genes and hormones may predispose a person to one sexuality rather than another. But that’s all. Predisposition and determination are two different things. There is a major problem with gay gene theory, and with all theories that posit the biological programming of sexual orientation. If heterosexuality and homosexuality are, indeed, genetically predetermined (and therefore mutually exclusive and unchangeable), how do we explain bisexuality or people who, suddenly in mid-life, switch from heterosexuality to homosexuality (or vice versa)? We can’t. The reality is that queer and straight desires are far more ambiguous, blurred and overlapping than any theory of genetic causality can allow.”

Indeed, he is honest enough to admit that the jury is still out on the science of all this: “The relative influence of biological versus social factors with regard to sexual orientation is still uncertain. What is, however, certain is that if gayness was primarily explainable in genetic terms we would expect it to appear in the same proportions, and in similar forms, in all cultures and all epochs. As the anthropologists Clellan Ford and Frank Beach demonstrated in Patterns Of Sexual Behaviour (1965), far from being cross-culturally uniform and stable, both the incidence and expressions of same-sex desire vary vastly between different societies.”

He concludes his piece with this interesting remark: “The homophobes are thus, paradoxically, closer to the truth than many gay activists.” Thank you Peter. Nice to have some positive affirmation here. Of course he does not go all the way and admit that people can leave their homosexual lifestyle for a heterosexual one. He says, “For most of us, it is impossible to subsequently change our sexual orientation”. Notice that he does not say ‘all of us’, but ‘most of us’. That is a very telling choice of word usage.

Tatchell is certainly right to debunk the gay gene myth. And he is not alone in such candid admissions. A number of other homosexual activists have also admitted to such truths. Consider Australian activist and Latrobe University lecturer, Dennis Altman, who wrote this in 1986: “To be Haitian or a hemophiliac is determined at birth, but being gay is an identity that is socially determined and involves personal choice. Even if, as many want to argue, one has no choice in experiencing homosexual desire, there is a wide choice of possible ways of acting out these feelings, from celibacy and denial . . . to self-affirmation and the adoption of a gay identity.” “Being gay,” says Altman, “is a choice”.

Another Australian homosexual activist has said similar things about homosexuality and genetics: “I think the idea that sexuality is genetic is crap. There is absolutely no evidence for it at the moment, and I think it is unhealthy that people want to embrace this idea. It does reflect a desire to say, ‘it’s not our fault’, as a way of deflecting our critics. We have achieved what we have achieved by defiance, not by concessions. I think we should be recruiting people to homosexuality. It’s a great lifestyle and something everybody should have the right to experience. If you believe it’s genetic, how are you going to make the effort?” Or as he put it elsewhere: “On the question of recruiting to homosexuality – well, of course, I am in favor of this. I believe homosexuality to be a perfectly valid lifestyle choice. . . . I am naturally keen to encourage people to participate in [the gay lifestyle].”

And a leading Australian feminist and lesbian has also made it clear that choice is a major component of the lifestyle. Melbourne University academic Sheila Jeffreys became a feminist in her twenties, when she was involved in “perfectly good” relationships with men. She then decided to become a lesbian: “At the time,” she says, we “made the decision to become political lesbians, as we called it.”

She says that “you can learn to be heterosexual and you can learn to be lesbian”. When challenged by an interviewer that sexuality is more innate than that, she continues, “I don’t think there’s anything natural about sexuality; you do learn it. And you can unlearn it, go in a different direction, change it.” She says that her own experience proves this, as does that of many other women who decided to switch to lesbianism in the ‘70s.

Other homosexuals have admitted that choice plays at least a partial role in the overall equation. Indeed, there is even an entire website devoted to those who say they have chosen the homosexual lifestyle. The site says it is “a radical gathering place for people who have chosen to be queer” ( http://www.queerbychoice.com ).

However, the tendency is to deny choice, to make it appear that homosexuals cannot help it, and to argue that any criticism of the gay lifestyle is as silly as criticism of being left-handed or red-haired. And this has been a deliberate strategy by homosexual activists. They have done a very good job to convince a gullible public that homosexuals are born that way and cannot change.
But that bluff needs to be challenged. I and others have challenged it. And it is quite refreshing when homosexual activists challenge it as well.

Former Archbishop Carey says Anglican Communion is in crisis

HOUSTON: Carey says Anglican Communion is in crisis
Former archbishop of Canterbury wants U.S. church to give in to demands

By RICHARD VARA
The Houston Chronicle
January 11, 2008

The former archbishop of Canterbury wants the Episcopal Church to support an international agreement calling for a moratorium in the Anglican Church on the consecration of gay bishops and church blessing of same-sex unions.

"The Anglican Communion as such is in crisis," said the Most Rev. George Carey, who was in Houston this week to install the Rev. Russell J. Levenson Jr. as rector of St. Martin's Episcopal Church, one of the largest Episcopal churches in the United States.

The 77 million member communion, including 2.15 Episcopalians, has been in turmoil since the 2003 consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.

"It has created enormous tidal waves, shock waves around the world," Carey said of the consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson. "It has hindered missions in Muslim countries. It has distressed conservative congregations everywhere. There is no place in the Anglican Communion that has been impervious to the shock waves."

Scores of American parishes and at least two dioceses are asking for foreign oversight because members feel the national church is no longer traditional in biblical interpretation and practice. Asking for such oversight is contrary to Anglican governance.

"If I were in my successor's shoes, what I would be wanting to do is say that the American House of Bishops must commit itself to the Windsor Covenant and be wholehearted about that," Carey said of the 2004 report calling for the moratorium. "Around the Windsor Covenant we can actually find a way to deepen the dialogue and get people there.

"If we don't insist upon that, then I think our number is up and so I worry about that," he said.

Carey served as archbishop from 1991 to 2002. His successor as titular head of the Anglican Communion is Archbishop Rowan Williams.

Despite claims to adhering to Windsor, the American House of Bishops has said that only the denomination's national assembly could speak to the issue. The next General Convention is scheduled for 2009.

Although the bishops have supported a ban on gay consecration and blessing of same-sex unions until then, that has not quieted the furor.

The once-a-decade meeting of the world's Anglican bishops is set for July in Canterbury, England. Conservative leaders, including Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, are calling for an Anglican conference in June in Jerusalem, a move that some say is meant to undercut attendance the following month at the Lambeth Conference in England.

"If the Jerusalem conference is an alternative to the Lambeth Conference, which I perceive it is, then I think it is regrettable," said Carey, a conservative. "The irony is that all they are going to do is weaken the Lambeth Conference. They are going to give the liberals a more powerful voice because they are absent and they are going to act as if they are schismatics. It's crazy."

Ten years ago, Carey presided over the 1998 Lambeth Conference which declared homosexual behavior as not scriptural.

"So what the American church has done by the election and then ordination of Gene Robinson is really actually turn its back on the voice, the moral voice of the Lambeth Conference. That's the problem basically. There is no way out of the problem now."

Still, Carey feels that if the Americans were to come out wholeheartedly for the Windsor Covenant, dialogue and reconciliation would be possible.

"If the Episcopal Church says, 'No, dammit, we are not going to go that way', then there is no dialogue," he said. "They are actually saying they are walking away from the family, they are closing the door. But if they are prepared to say, 'We will fall in behind the covenant,' then we can find a resolution.

"But there is no sign that the American House of Bishops realizes how serious it is," he said.

Carey said he remains active in the church although he is an ex-archbishop.

"What I am trying to do now is make a contribution towards healing the church," he said.

He also is working as head of a British education program and for interfaith understanding. He travels regularly with his wife to Africa, where the "church is strong."

"My problem is that I am probably doing too much," he said. "I need to slow down a bit."

But one thing he won't be doing is leaving the Anglican Communion.

"Basically the Anglican spirit aches for unity and I don't think there are going to be many people who are going to be in a rush to run away from the See of Canterbury."

END


Sadly I must differ with the Archbishop for we see daily a mass exit of the Episcopal faithful to other provinces in the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion as we once knew it and the validity of the leadership of the Current Archbishop of Canterbury as it now exists is morally and theologically defunct All that the faithful is asking for is a return to reason and the time honored teachings of the Church. Any less than this and the bleeding in the Episcopal Church will continue.

Fr Bob