I think that this is a superb piece. I think the landmark philosophy for whatsoever complications that arise in this subject lies here :

“Jesus loved the sinners although he did not approve of the sins.”

Albeit with a stretch of imagination, this suggests not tolerance, but forgiveness. The Lord Jesus was a merciful God, and a pinnacle of forgiveness. He died on the cross to wash away our sins.
When we say ’sin’ , in Christianity it means a contravention of one of God’s ten commandments.

When we say ‘unlawful’ , we mean the contravention (or lack of ratification) of the law. The purpose for law in its philosophical and functional sense are very well known. One of its fundamental foundations of course is upon religious values, in which this entire argument would fall.

This reflection however always has a functional rational reason. Of course i) thou shall not murder and ii) thou shall not steal, have too many obvious merits of being crystallized as law. Without such integration of values the law would be simply obsolete and chaos would reign.

These however are laws that concern more than one individual. Perhaps this is the benchmark of Holland’s legal system. Notwithstanding, for our purpose we overlook this.

Lets make a simple point. One of the Biblical Commandments give that ‘ thou shall not covet ‘. I simply do not see any merit were this crystallized as law. In fact, ‘coveting’ in instead rather encouraged by the contemporary society and by contemporary philosophies.

Now, lets put the issue of homosexuality against the same scale.

We are not talking about forgiveness anymore. We are talking about not trying to play God. In fact, the concept of ’sin’ makes up the ‘order’ of religion. With such values there many an ‘additional’ propagation that gives a religion its own identity. If we were to take from such analogy blindly to make up the ‘order’ of a democratic law; then we would be nearer to autocracy.

Jesus Christ was more of a guiding hand than a judge. Like the quote by the author suggests, He was not being tolerant, He loved sinners the same. Nevertheless that never changed the fact that they have sinned.

He loved them although they were lost and disobeyed the word of God. How can we say the same about homosexuality? How can we say it conflicts with the ‘legal order’ of the world. It is simply a scenario of the majority against the minority, of the law pining to uphold values and norms. Its time we drew a clear line between norms and values.

Homosexual persons suffer if the law is against them.
Heterosexual persons do not suffer if the law is against homosexual persons.
Heterosexual persons do not suffer either, with the slightest bit of compromise, if the law is neutral.

Do not let something as objective, rational and solid as the law be stuffed into a subjective straitjacket.

Thank you for your comments and the link to the above website.

The authors of the website also rely on the Bible for their arguments for homosexuality. If the Bible is irrelevant today, then both our arguments in support of homosexuals are also irrelevant.

I suggest that you take a look at Dr. Gary R. Collins’s book to get a more balanced view.

Detailed reasons justifying these statements are given on http://www.GaysAndSlaves.com.

I appreciate your comments.

My intention is to demonstrate that I have to be responsible when making a decision. I do not merely rely on the declaration made by religious authorities. With due respect to the Pope, I believe he is a man of honour.

I will listen, study and do proper research before I made any decision. Why? Because I will have to answer to God for what I have said and done.

Btw, the bible has more mentions about homosexuality that 8 times