What’s Wrong wh Gay Marriage? - Orthodox Church Ameri

Contents:

• DO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH ACCEPT GAY MARRIAGE AND WHY?
• WHAT’S WRONG WH GAY MARRIAGE?
• GAY MARRIAGE AND EASTERN ORTHODOXY
• CIVIL UNNS BY ANOTHER NAME: AN EASTERN ORTHODOX DEFENSE OF GAY MARRIAGE
• ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS WHO STRONGLY FAVOR OR FAVOR GAY MARRIAGE
• A TERRIBLE SERMON: PATRIARCH OF MOSW BLS “METAPHYSIL” WAR AGAST THE “WORLD OF GAY PRIS”
• MEET THE RABBI WHO BRGS ORTHODOX LBIANS TOGETHER WH GAY MEN SO THEY N HAVE KIDS
• ORTHODOX PEOPLE WILL NEVER ACCEPT GAY MARRIAGE—UKRAIAN BISHOP MENTS ON GAY CIVIL UNNS MONTENEGRO

DO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH ACCEPT GAY MARRIAGE AND WHY?

For example, the Greek Orthodox Archdce lists homosexualy bi fornitn, adultery, abortn and abive sexual behavr as “immoral and appropriate forms of behavr and of themselv, and also bee they attack the stutn of marriage and the fay.

“Paradoxilly, the more a gay person liv a life parallel to his/her straight peers, mted partnership and raisg children, the more acceptance appears to wane, ” the study reported. Acrdg to this article om the Antchian Orthodox Christian Archdce of North Ameri, marriage should be rerved for a man wh a woman, and stggle wh homosexual sir n have benef to a person's spirual growth.

WHAT’S WRONG WH GAY MARRIAGE?

This post is an example of gay marriage ceremony wh Orthodox Church tradns, but mak clear that was not performed a non-Orthodox church buildg, and the church's webse nfirms that the officiatg pastor was not Orthodox. Anyway, was at the office water-oler that the mon man ( this se, a woman) was exprsg the mon view on gay marriage, and askg wh some anger, “If two guys love each other, why n’t they get married?

” The anger acpanyg the qutn dited that the speaker thought that the tradnal prohibn of gay marriage was morally abhorrent (my phrase, not hers), and she was reactg angrily, I spect, bee she discerned the opposn to gay marriage jt one more wretched example of how those wretched Christians are wretchedly imposg their narrow, irratnal, bigoted and wretched views on the rt of . ) Now we wretched Christians are blamed for the s—rapidly beg the hate crime—of “homophobia”, which is apparently fed as any dissent om the secular view that homosexual orientatn and life-style are equally on par wh heterosexual orientatn and life-style.

Ancient people (that is, earlier than 1960), be they Christian, Jewish, Mlim or pagan, would have regard the phrase “homosexual marriage” as sentially oxymoronic, a ntradictn terms. Pagans such as those livg the Roman Empire the time of Christ generally had no problem wh homosexualy (word had that even Socrat uld swg both ways), but they separated entirely om marriage.

GAY MARRIAGE AND EASTERN ORTHODOXY

It is therefore difficult to answer the qutn, “what’s wrong wh gay marriage” bee we have fotten what marriage is, and we have fotten this bee we live a culture of ntraceptn, one which has pretty much sunred sexual activy om s ual rult, which is procreatn. Children raised such an environment will reta a skewed unrstandg of human nature—one which sunrs procreatn om the sence of marriage and which remak the ncepts of masculy and femy acrdg to utterly new (and untried) nons of the brave new homosexual world. This do not mean, of urse, that if society allows Gay Marriage, and a jtice of the peace or some liberal clergy pronounce them “man and spoe” then the wheels will fall off wtern civilizatn by a week next Thursday.

This is not the se for adoptn on the part of ‘straight’ upl; is only accintally pennt upon others, whereas the se of homosexual upl is pennt upon others necsarily and sentially. In rponse to the Supreme Court’s lg favor of marriage equaly, the Unn of Orthodox Congregatns released a statement, sayg, “We reerate the historil posn of the Jewish fah, enunciated unequivolly our Bible, Talmud and Cos, which forbids homosexual relatnships and nmns the stutnalizatn of such relatnships as marriag. I suggt that although our llg as Christians is not to force everyone to act ways nsistent wh Christian moraly, the move to legalize gay “marriage” reprents a public threat that, the name of Christian chary, should be risted.

CIVIL UNNS BY ANOTHER NAME: AN EASTERN ORTHODOX DEFENSE OF GAY MARRIAGE

It is te that many people do not realize how same-sex “marriage” will lead to the persecutn of Christians, but the article Why Gay ‘Marriage’ is a Public Threat (part 2), I have monstrated why this is not an empty ncern. In the se of gay marriage, an implic nomalism is seen the turn om teleology towards a type of dive nstctnism, which ethics are rced to a petn creatn between the wills of both God and man. In Gay Marriage and Creatnal Realism, I have tried to monstrate that once a nomalist amework is operatnal (even on an implic level), all we n do is retreat om the public nversatn, or else make a nuisance of ourselv by tryg to enter the public nversatn armed only wh handfuls of Scripture referenc.

A repentant, stgglg homosexual who reas om homosexual acts n be received to the church after the ual urse of stctn, but he or she would do bt to keep this matter the nfsnal, jt as is mon wh every other s. It’s not jt homosexualy; the Orthodox Church oppos today’s cultural permissivens the area of sexualy generally, pecially wh regard to habatn, promiscuy, and var forms of eroticism. The liberal Jewish movements have unrgone dramatic shifts their approach to gay, lbian and transgenr Jews the past two s, but among the Orthodox the chang have been far ls dramatic — and many quarters, virtually seemgly clear biblil nunciatns of homosexual sex, as well as the rp of rabbic mentari and legal s based on those vers, lim how far Orthodox Judaism, marked by s fily to tradnal unrstandgs of Jewish law, or halacha, n move on this several efforts have emerged recent years to lend more support to Orthodox Jews experiencg homosexual sir and make the muny more passnate and welg toward them, all the efforts stop short of sanctng gay relatnships.

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS WHO STRONGLY FAVOR OR FAVOR GAY MARRIAGE

Consired s totaly, Orthodox Jewish tradn down firmly favor of heterosexualy as God’s tentn for humany, which has turn severely limed the acceptance of homosexualy wh the Orthodox muny.

Diversy Orthodox ApproachWhile virtually no Orthodox rabbi explicly sanctns homosexual relatnships, there is some diversy of opn how the Orthodox muny ought to rpond to gay Jews. The two pol of this bate are fairly well leated by two petg statements on the first, entled “Statement of Prcipl on the Place of Jews wh a Homosexual Orientatn Our Communy, ” was drafted by a faculty member at the liberal Orthodox rabbil school Yhivat Chovevei Torah and released 2010.

While acknowledgg the halachic (Jewish legal) ban on homosexual sex and rejectg any acceptance of same-sex marriage, the statement neverthels asserted that gays should be weled as full and equal members of Orthodox muni and should, most s, not be enuraged to marry someone of the oppose genr. The Statement of Prcipl cled to weigh on the qutn of whether homosexual orientatn is geic and unchangeable, or if is a choice, as some people 2016, the Israeli Morn Orthodox rabbil group Be Hillel issued a siar statement, urgg that gays be allowed to serve “any munal pacy. ”In 2011, a group of mostly ultra-Orthodox rabbis, along wh some Morn Orthodox on and a number of mental health profsnals, released “The Declaratn On The Torah Approach to Homosexualy.

A TERRIBLE SERMON: PATRIARCH OF MOSW BLS “METAPHYSIL” WAR AGAST THE “WORLD OF GAY PRIS”

However, rejected the notn that homosexualy is an sentially unchangeable orientatn as a theologil impossibily and sisted that “healg” gay urg is the only religly acceptable approach. Conversn TherapyConversn therapy — sometim also lled reparative or change therapy — refers to the effort to “cure” gays of same-sex attractn and enable them to lead heterosexual liv. It is regard as effective and potentially harmful by the Amerin Medil Associatn, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, the Amerin Psychologil Associatn and many the Orthodox muny, who for theologil reasons fd impossible to accept that a homosexual orientatn is unchangeable, ntue to advote for such therapi.

The claratn is featured on a webse that clus extensive rourc aimed at unterg the “misrmatn” that homosexualy is blogilly termed and atttg to the possibily of Orthodox rabbis have e to renounce their support for nversn therapy. The RCA had prevly endorsed JONAH’s work, but whdrawg s endorsement the uncil ced evince that the therapy was effective and had potentially negative 2010 Statement of Prcipl assertg that gays should be weled affirmed “the relig right of those wh a homosexual orientatn to reject theraptic approach they reasonably see as els or dangero. Jewish Queer Youth, or JQY, was found 2001 and acts as a support group and advocy group for LGBTQ Jews, wh a particular emphasis on Orthodox Orthodox Parents Uned by Love of Torah…And Our LGBT ChildrenIn 2015, JQY helped anize a nference that brought together Orthodox rabbis and mental health profsnals to talk about homosexualy what is believed to have been the first public discsn of s Tremblg Before G-d EffectThe progrs of gays and lbians gag acceptance wh Orthodoxy, limed though may be, is often creded to the 2001 documentary Tremblg Before G-d, which thst the stggl of Orthodox gays and lbians to the public nscns as never before.

MEET THE RABBI WHO BRGS ORTHODOX LBIANS TOGETHER WH GAY MEN SO THEY N HAVE KIDS

The film’s sympathetic portrayal of dividuals tryg to rencile their sexualy wh their relig mments earned high praise, but some the Orthodox muny saw as a shallow attempt to legimize viant sexual film promently featured Steven Greenberg, wily known as the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi.

In 2004, Greenberg published Wrtlg wh God and Men: Homosexualy the Jewish Tradn, which sought to rest the tradnal biblil prohibn on gay sex as a ban on exploative sex that aims to exercise power or to mean.

ORTHODOX PEOPLE WILL NEVER ACCEPT GAY MARRIAGE—UKRAIAN BISHOP MENTS ON GAY CIVIL UNNS MONTENEGRO

There, Orthodox Christians are more acceptg of the practice; more than half (54% as of 2014) favor allowg gay and lbian upl to marry legally, almost mirrorg the share of Amerin adults overall who took this posn 2014 (53%). As is te for homosexualy and same-sex marriage, Orthodox Christians former Soviet republics are somewhat more nservative on the legaly of abortn than are other Orthodox Christians Eastern Europe. While more recent surveys did not ask Orthodox Ethpians about homosexualy, same-sex marriage or abortn, a 2008 Pew Rearch Center survey did ask this group about the moraly of “homosexual behavr, ” of “havg an abortn, ” and other behavrs.

Orthodox Christians Ethpia are more likely than those most Eastern European untri to raise moral objectns to several of the behavrs, although Orthodox Christians Eastern Europe – both former Soviet republics and elsewhere – also wily see homosexual behavr and prostutn as morally wrong. The persons say that the Bible and Church Tradn do not nmn homosexual behavur, but have been misterpreted and mised, sometim unknowgly and other tim que willfully, by prejudiced and hostile people who hate homosexuals.