Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site fortune.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!fortune!brower From: brower@fortune.UUCP (Richard Brower) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Black's ravings Message-ID: <5080@fortune.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 20:56:30 EST Article-I.D.: fortune.5080 Posted: Thu Mar 7 20:56:30 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 07:31:15 EST Distribution: net Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA Lines: 52 >From: black@nisysg.DEC > to me that means that these people do have the right to their homes, > livlihood, careers, front-seats-on-the-bus, medical treatment, etc. > It does not say that I have to associate with them socially, let > them teach my children, let them preach off my pulpit, or let them > donate blood. Scripture also tells me that God did in Sodom because > of the city's sexual preferences. You cannot convince me that AIDS > and herpes are not God's warnings to certain people to "cease and > desist." To ask me to believe otherwise is to ask me to cease > believing in Scripture. I see, as long as I spend my entire life in a gay ghetto somewhere, you think I should have the right to stay there. I know many gay teachers. You think they have a right to their livelihood and careers in one sentence and deny them that right in the next. Which are you advocating? Also there are gay people who feel that they are called to the ministry, and while I don't feel that anyone should be compeled to go to a minister that they have qualms about, I don't feel that these should be denied ordination either. Perhaps they could be ordained to serve people who do not feel such bigotry. As for donating blood, well, gays have donated blood for a long time, not as a privilage, but as a way of helping people who needed blood. While I must agree that blood should be screened to reduce the chance of diseases being passed through transfusions, that obviously should apply to all blood, not just gay people's blood. Further, please note that most gay people don't want you to *let* them *do* anything. Most of us would like you to get out of the damn way so we could do whatever we need to to live well and do well. Please reread the story of Sodom and find homosexuality mentioned specifically. According to the way I read that story, the sin of Sodom is never specifically laid out. But Christinoids have always been distinguished by their ability to twist their "Good Book" into an instrument for the justification of their prejudices, so this is no new trick. AIDS and herpes are diseases and if you wish to equate them with my imagimed sin I suppose that you may. However, when (or if) the cure for AIDS is found, will that prove that God has gotten over his snit with gay people. (No, you will find some other lie to tell!) Other people have covered many of the other weak points of your article so I won't go into the lack of constitutional understanding you possess, except to note that I do not believe that any church should be tax exempt. It has been shown that to many people use the tax dodge for personel gain (Christian TV stations, ministers driving a Rolls, etc.). *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** -- Richard A. Brower Fortune Systems {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd,hpda,sri-unix,harpo}!fortune!brower