United Methodist Church To Split Over Same-Sex Marriage

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United Methodist Church To Split Over Same-Sex Marriage And LGBT Clergy

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/us/methodist-split-gay-marriage.html

Imagine if people were to stop arguing about what two consenting adults can do...

It’d free up a lot of time for charity work, focusing on morality, ethics, and good works, as well as Save the Gorillas campaigns.

I like gorillas.

I think that with the very devoutly religious, telling people what they can and can't do is their only reason for living.

It seems rather extreme to force celibacy on someone who desires romance and love. Perhaps we could come up with rules that are less harmful:

No Fruit Loops for breakfast.

Don’t buy Nike shoes.

Don’t listen to the radio between 11:05 and 11:37 AM on Mondays and Thursdays.

That sort of thing.

It should also be illegal to force people to believe in sky gods that allowed slavery, hate LGBTQI and keep women as chattel or property

I wish there was some way to prevent childhood indoctrination but alas... One of the deciding factors for my own departure from religion came when I had my son. I thought, “What if he’s gay?”

There were other issues as far as my kid went but this was probably my biggest concern. I couldn’t have him be raised to believe that there was something wrong with who he was.

At least education and access to the internet are helping more people to break free.

My problem is not so much whether we argue over LGBT or fruit loops as one of the rules. The main problem I have with the really strict religious is that they are all about trying to force other people to follow every single rule in the book which they can't entirely do themselves.

Oh yeah!

I know a thing or two about that. They like to focus on rules instead of looking at morality with a broader view in mind like sane, rational people tend to do.

It all becomes very petty and judgmental instead of focusing on being a good, kind person. Some of the worst people I’ve known have been very religious.

So much for "United" in the United Methodist Church. I always heard that the Methodists were almost as, um, lavender as the Unitarians.

Oddly enough one of the toughest but happiest people I've ever seen was a lesbian Catholic. She was a lot more Catholic than I am--and a lot more rebellious and carefree in her style sense. (She looked like a grunge rocker and I have always looked like a 1920s bank clerk.) She was celibate, but that's because she thought that was right. I've never seen someone more at peace with themselves...this woman was in complete control of herself and was really "monarch of all she surveyed." (And she was one of us, too--a sister Aspie. Cool!)


I think religion is something we submit ourselves to because we believe it's the right thing to do. That's why some religious people are happy, and others are miserable (because they have seen religion constantly imposed on them or other people.) Lots of those folks end up as agnostics and frankly, I find them a lot more chill to hang out with than the raving Protestant, earnestly stuffing his wing-collared face right in mine and ordering me to "Be Saved!" when in Catholicism nobody is "saved." (We were redeemed by Christ's crucifixion when he took on all the world's mess and killed it, but no one is saved unless they finally do make it to heaven. It's not a cheap tin-pot decision to be crowed about on Christian Tumblr blogs.)

A lot of people are not going to be happy if they are gay and desire a romantic relationship but remain celibate because they think that’s right.

Most people do not want celibacy. I do not want to stay single for the rest of my life.

I’ve seen lots of problems that stem from this, especially when a gay individual happens to fall in love with someone...

It’s a quality of life issue that, as a parent, I could never endorse or support in any way.

While some people may not be overly bothered by remaining single, I doubt that that reflects a typical experience. It would not be my experience whether I thought it was “right” or not.

That automatically includes Muslims.

I have also met and worked with gay people who hate themselves because they desire to conform. Some of the biggest racists on the alt-right are also proudly gay (met a few of those as well). So loving a god who might smite them for their lifestyle is a contradiction they are willing to live with to be loved.



Have you heard the saying "hell is paved with good intentions"? a lot of psychopaths and sociopaths who follow cults think they are doing the "right thing". That's why critical thinking is so liberating for conservatives.

It's funny where your mind automatically goes

My mind goes to the big picture. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are Abrahamic religions that all say the same things against homosexuality. One cannot trash Christians in this regard without trashing Jews and Muslims too. That's just the way it is. How many same-sex synagogues and mosques are there?

Last time I checked Australia and the US are non-secular states where religion is not part of the political system so technically parents or communities shouldn't be forcing their children or members to believe if they choose not to.

What happens in secular countries is their business

There are thousands of synagogues and mosques in the US. Not to mention Canada and Europe etc. How many are in favor of same-sex marriage?