The BBC reports that the United Nations, that fine body of..ahem.. recognised global moral authority, is having a bit of a problem getting all of its members to sign a declaration decriminalising homosexual acts. The Sodomists charter, put forward by la belle France and the Netherlands, seeks to stop legal punishment of homosexuals. Given the tendency in Islamic nations such as Iran, for example, to hang gay people, I suppose that is a fair enough aim but the assertion by the BBC that “Gay men, lesbians and transsexuals worldwide face daily violations of their human rights” seems remarkably close to propagandising on behalf of the militant gay lobby for my liking. Since when did the right to gay sex become an inviolable “human right”, exactly? And how does the BBC quantify this assertion? Does it consult with the transsexual community and compile a data-base of transgressions against trannies? There are certain topics that engage full-on BBC editorial sympathy; Eco-wackery is one, Gay Rights is another. The fact that the UN cannot even agree on a definition of terrorism is ignored by the BBC as it evangelises on behalf of the Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered community.
WHAT A GAY DAY
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“Since when did the right to gay sex become an inviolable “human right”, exactly?”
Well, if you like you could include it in a right to privacy, or you could include it in the right to freedom of expression. The simpler right to live without bigots interfering seems more appropriate here though.
If you want to stop bigots interfering in your life, I would suggest the UN is not the best place to start, given as how its august membership contains so many thugocracies, tyrannies and theocracies. Further, the problem for militant gays is that it is not the right to do what they wish in private, it is the fact that none may criticise them without being accused of hate speech. Freedom of expression cuts both ways.
David Vance, IMO your comment above is better put than your post.
According to Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses
…. the Ummah should please note.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
“Gay men, lesbians and transsexuals worldwide face daily violations of their human rights”
That doesn’t sound like propaganda. That sounds like an accurate summation of the, often legalized, assaults gay people face each day.
David, you have as much right to criticize gay people’s private sex lives as I do to criticize your private sex life – none.
It’s not a question of freedom of speech, it’s a question of privacy.
David
This is a terrible post.
Not being murdered for your orientation is a human right.
I think that what France is trying to do is brave, noble and moral. It will fail, but it is right.
Your post really worrie me.
David, I am as straight as they come, as it happens, but for various pathetic reasons, throughout my secondary school years it was routinely deduced that I must be gay, and once that label stuck I suffered for it physically, repeatedly.
Also, the finest and ablest teacher at that school, who was very privately and very quietly gay, though you would never have guessed it, was eventually ‘outed’, hauled before a kangaroo court of school governors, and dismissed, on the basis that he was now a danger to young men.
Last year a very good friend, who teaches in a New York school, was the victim of a smear campaign by ‘straight’ students who almost cost him his job, alleging that he had made passes at them. Despite all the evidence pointing to the fact that it was nothing more than a vendetta from students whom he had disciplined for carrying weapons into his class, the school head was on the verge of dismissing him because ‘parents don’t want to hear this kind of allegation attached to the school’.
When did gay sex become a human right? When we acknowledged that gay people are human, and have the same human rights as the rest of us. That you don’t get that is truly disturbing – and don’t try to deflect it away into criticism of the UN – you’ve opened this up into a wider debate by your wording of that question.
Sodomists charter… trannies… and you ‘suppose’ that trying to end the legal persecution of homosexuals simply for being homosexuals is ‘a fair enough aim’… You suppose so. You can live with that. You’ll grit your teeth and swallow it as long as you can use it to attack Iran and islam… You suppose it’s fair enough to want to send out a message that it’s not OK to hang gay men from cranes.
For what it’s worth, as one of us, as someone who studies the output of the BBC keenly and critically, I can’t say I feel inundated with pro-gay propaganda. Perhaps every story that fails to pass moral judgement on those sinful homosexuals, that recognises that they are routinely victimised in small ways, or sometimes filmed being kicked to death on London’s South Bank, or attacked by nail bombers, is one too many for some people.
I agree with tt – this is a really worrying post. I can think of one or two people here (mentioning no names) who will no doubt lap it up. And that just strengthens my doubts.
Henryflower. Hear, Hear.
You’re also deliberately and disingenuously conflating two very different things. The article concerns attempts to decriminalize homosexual acts, whereas in your response to a commenter above, you say, “Further, the problem for militant gays is that it is not the right to do what they wish in private, it is the fact that none may criticise them without being accused of hate speech.”
What the hell has that got to do with this story?
David, your approach to this story is so vague, so all-over-the-place, and so crude, it can too easily be read as being nothing more than a bitter attack on a civilised Western world that no longer despises homosexuality quite as much as you would like it to.
David Vance | Homepage | 19.12.08 – 10:04 am | #
If you want to stop bigots interfering in your life, I would suggest the UN is not the best place to start, given as how its august membership contains so many thugocracies, tyrannies and theocracies…
Sounds exactly the place to start.
I think David’s post accurately reflects the problems with this site. Instead of evidence, cross-referencing and an attempt at objective political opinion, we get suggestion, guesswork and a hint of right-wing fearmongering. Yes, we don’t pay for this, but as I’ve said before, you can’t stop a fight by threatening to beat up the participants. You can’t neutralise the BBC, or remove the license fee, by making flimsy personal attacks.
tt:
“Not being murdered for your orientation is a human right.”
I totally and utterly agree. However, were a test to be developed which would identify the gay gene in utero, would you deny a woman the right to abort her child?
Swedish city hit by youth riots
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7791553.stm
I’m still searching for the “M” word but the only one in the article is “Malmo”.
It’s been going on for 2 nights (obviously 1 night would not register as newsworthy)
Now let’s all calm down a mo.
David Vance has raised some valid points:
the assertion by the BBC that “Gay men, lesbians and transsexuals worldwide face daily violations of their human rights” seems remarkably close to propagandising on behalf of the militant gay lobby for my liking.
DV is right to point up the tendency of organizations like the BBC to talk about ‘gay rights’.
There are no gay rights. Henryflower rightly argues that gays are entitled to the same human rights as the rest of us. No fewer, and no more.
But human rights are individual. The Left, cheered on by the BBC seeks to establish ‘group rights’, which accrue to you not because you are a human being, but because you are of a particular ethnic group/sexual orientation.
The law in the UK has already fallen victim to this tendency: you can have a civil partnership if you are homosexual, but not if you are ‘just good friends’ etc. Outrageous.
Since when did the right to gay sex become an inviolable “human right”, exactly?
Precisely. It’s a big jump from being against the persecution of homosexuals to approving of their lifestyle and accepting that it is as equally valid as a heterosexual one. None of the major world religions approves of or endorses homosexual practices, so we should accept that there will be a majority who disapprove…. and have the right to disapprove…. and the right to express their disapproval in speech or in print without being accused of ‘hate crime’.
And Duncan has every right to criticise your sex life, if he wants. Invoking a non-existent right of ‘privacy’ is bogus.
The fact that the UN cannot even agree on a definition of terrorism is ignored by the BBC as it evangelises on behalf of the Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered community.
Yes, the BBC is indeed picky about the causes it chooses to champion. Should it champion any causes?
“Invoking a non-existent right of ‘privacy’ is bogus.”
You don’t believe that people have a right to privacy? No wonder we live in a near surveillance state.
NOTHING TO HIDE, NOTHING TO FEAR and all that jazz.
I figured that this post would raise hackles and I appreciate all the point made – now let me respond!
1. My central point is that I take exception to the BBC stating, as a fact, that “Gay men, lesbians and transsexuals worldwide face daily violations of their human rights”. What human rights are we talking about it here, precisely? I suggest that it is the BBC which is blatantly conflating issues such as freedom and the militant gay agenda. Not surprising since they advocate this agenda at every turn.
2. The irony of turning to the UN to support any such scheme seems lost on most who have commented. The UN, another favoured BBC shill, is without moral or political value so why bother?
3. What about the right of Christians to practise their faith in some of those UN member states that currently the BBC mentions is passing as having theological issues with homosexuality? Don’t see the BBC exactly flagging that one up the lamppost, do you?
4. I believe, as a matter of personal value, that people should be entitled to do what they want behind closed doors. But freedom is not free and I also believe that no one group is beyond criticism and that includes the gay lobby. The issue here is that the BBC is so in thrall to the Gay lobby that is is afraid to allow critiques of some of the more outlandish manifestations it takes – such as the UN providing a moral lead on anything.
I thought about this before I posted it, and people are entitled to ask me what is my point re BBC bias. My response is to say that the BBC makes assertions about gay, lesbian and transgendered people as if they were facts when in fact they are merely, at best, opinions. That is not news, that is propaganda. That’s why I went after it and realise that it opens me up to cries of homophobia. This is of course nonsense as it is not gay people I have an issue with, it is the BBC.
Duncan | 19.12.08 – 12:02 pm
You don’t believe that people have a right to privacy? No wonder we live in a near surveillance state.
You are conflating two quite different notions of privacy.
I think people have a right not to be subjected by the state to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home, correspondence, telephone calls etc.
But I do not accept a notion of privacy that tells me that I cannot have an opinion on what you do in your spare time because it is somehow ‘private’.
If I think it is a terrible thing that you play golf, I should be free to say so.
I agree that the line in question was utterly pointless and unsuited to a news report. A lot of things happen somewhere in the world every day. I also agree that non binding UN declarations are as useful as a chocolate fireguard. We pay for this crap.
But “Sodomists charter”??!!?? Dear f**ing God, have you turned into my Dad?? And what is the “militant gay agenda”?? I don’t remember anyone threatening to shoot me recently for not being a fudge packer.
Hello David,
I am glad you have clarified your position, your first post was at first read unacceptable. With your 2nd and 3rd responses your position became much clearer.
As a citizen of the Netherlands, let me make it very clear that stories about the Dutch being liberal in our approach to gay rights is just that: A Myth.
In the Netherlands the declaration is seen as laying the foundations to stop the encroaching of our Human Rights by the hugely influential Muslim lobbyists.
For me personally, I care not if you are Gay/Straight/Black/White, the only thing that matters is that I do not wish to live in a intolerant or racist country.
But my playing golf would be a lifestyle choice and just like my political opinions, views on football and religion is therefore open to criticism – because they are choices.
Sexuality, like skin colour, is not a choice. You do not choose to be gay in the same way you do not choose to be straight. I therefore believe that no one should have to defend their sexuality.
Cockney | 19.12.08 – 12:37 pm
And what is the “militant gay agenda”?
Ooooh, for instance the agenda that has successfully demanded that Catholic adoption societies must be closed down by the State for the ‘crime’ of refusing to hand over Catholic babies to same-sex couples, because they persist in believing in (perhaps like your Dad) old-fart notions like kids ideally having a father and a mother.
“But human rights are individual. The Left, cheered on by the BBC seeks to establish ‘group rights’, which accrue to you not because you are a human being, but because you are of a particular ethnic group/sexual orientation.”
Tom – I agree absolutely that there is no such thing as gay rights – only that gays have human rights.
However, the article recognises that fact:
“This month marks the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the French and Dutch governments are using this to highlight discrimination against homosexuals.
When human rights are routinely denied to a particular group, we rightly focus on the victimhood of that specific group in addressing the problem. David wouldn’t seem to mind that approach when the group being victimised is Christian, Ulster Protestant, or Jewish, but suddenly wants detailed figures to prove that gay people are routinely persecuted.
As the old maxim says, rights come from wrongs – that is, the process of building civilisation is a product of incremental reaction against specific injustices.
This legislation deals with a problem: that sexual acts between consenting adults carry criminal sanction in some places. Most of us don’t want the state interfering in our bedroom practices, and by implication other people’s bedrooms either, so the legislation aims to address that. Given that criminal sanctions do not apply to heterosexual acts, the legislation addresses specifically the rights of homosexuals to enjoy the same rights that the rest of us do.
What is ‘militant’ about that?
David Vance is the one who differentiates between human rights and gay rights in the wording of his question, a question that has nothing to do with the legislation the BBC article discusses.
“It’s a big jump from being against the persecution of homosexuals to approving of their lifestyle and accepting that it is as equally valid as a heterosexual one.”
Unfortunately for your argument, the French declaration does not compel any such thing. It merely decriminalises homosexual acts, bringing them into line with the rights enjoyed by the rest of us in our sex lives.
“None of the major world religions approves of or endorses homosexual practices, so we should accept that there will be a majority who disapprove…. ”
Yes, but we don’t have to accept their disapproval if we choose not to. We can take issue with them in strong terms, using our freedom of speech to debate with them when they use theirs. Strong religious beliefs do not exempt people from the charge of bigotry: that standard is applied to islam on these threads every day. I’m happy to see it applied across the board.
“and have the right to disapprove…. and the right to express their disapproval in speech or in print without being accused of ‘hate crime’.”
Answered above, and moreover, nothing whatsoever to do with the declaration at the UN.
I don’t expect David Vance to approve of homosexuality, to sign-up to the onward march of militant gay rights, or to sodomise anyone. (In fact, I’d be downright shocked.) But when a piece of legislation designed solely to spare gay men legal persecution by the state, and extend to them rights that the rest of us enjoy, causes David such a problem, then I’m troubled and will say so.
But, Tom, surely two Daddies or two Mummies is better than a shit mum and shit dad?
Duncan | 19.12.08 – 12:39 pm
Yeah, but if I happen to dislike red pubic hair (and nothing could be more ‘private’ or more genetically determined than that, surely I should have the right to say so?
The consequence of outlawing criticism on the basis of ‘no-one should have to defend their sexuality/skin-colour/pubic hair tint etc’ is that criticism is just the first casualty. Next up the right to say anything appreciative goes out the window.
Thus, the gentleman who confesses to prefering blue-eyed blondes is castigated as a ‘racist’.
If you doubt this, reflect on the absurdity that it is now unlawful in the IK to use the word ‘experienced’ in a job ad.
DV – my long comment and yours crossed in the post.
I think you raise some valid points in your later comment, but honestly, if the language of your original article was posted after careful thought, then I’m frankly bemused and disappointed. Just how much ammunition do you want to give those who would try to dismiss us as bigoted cranks?
Duncan | 19.12.08 – 12:53 pm
But, Tom, surely two Daddies or two Mummies is better than a shit mum and shit dad?
True, but that’s not the choice.
There’s a huge number of couples wanting to adopt, but the social work establishment have decreed that you cannot adopt if you are over 40, smoke, are the ‘wrong’ race, have too nice a house, are too middle-class etc. etc.
Unless, of course, you are gay – then anything goes.
These same social workers, it should be noted, are perfectly happy to return little kids to mothers who are drug addicted chain smokers who look fifty, live in shit with half a dozen boyfriends, each of a different race.
Having re-united the poor sprogs with their future abusers, Miss Right On Social Worker goes back to herB BC boyfriend (or girlfriend).
In my experience and I am sure also in the experience of the vast majority. what homosexuals and transexuals do or do not do, is of little or no concern whatsoever.
What does however concern them much is having homosexuality etc positively promoted especially to their children by our state broadcaster.
It may not be a human right to have your own grandchildren, but it is certainly a strong and highly natural human desire.
As least it is within the hetro community, for understandable reasons.
If the establishment of your country have a long term policy of DE HUMANIZING their own society using homo sexuality as an excuse for doing so, this is what they will do.
They will flood the media and politics with various forms of sexual perverts, and then get them to force their own agenda on the general public.
Thus causing ever more homophobia and general distrust of the homosexual community.
Thus society is more and more divided and people individually marginalized.
Therefore we become more divided and so infinitely easier to control.
PROBLEM, REACTION, SOLUTION.
One other thing.
There is a long history of the ruling elites of not only being rampant homo or bi-sexuals themselves. They very often run the higher levels or their establishment, for example the Priesthood and their household with homosexuals.
This for several sensible reasons.
They were far less likely to impregnate their women while away at war or business.
They did not have family or especially wives to answer to.
They could be relied on to work as long as it takes.
They could organize murder wars and general mayhem with out having to worry about the future of themselves or their own never to exist children.
As all STILL married men know only TOO WELL, the REAL boss is always the wife, whether it is obvious to any one else or not. Which is a self evident fact that the ruling elites have been very well aware for literally tens of thousands of years.
Your pubic hair point is a good one (never thought I’d say that sentence), but your pubic hair does not define you in the same way that your sexuality or race does.
Society has moved on enough that things like hair or eye colour is no longer a cause of discrimination. Race and sexuality, unfortunately, are.
I am sure you’re not, but if you read this sentence again:
“The consequence of outlawing criticism on the basis of ‘no-one should have to defend their sexuality/skin-colour/pubic hair tint etc’ is that criticism is just the first casualty.”
it looks like you’re condoning racism or homophobia or even gingophobia.
Is racism/antisemitism/homophobia okay, or do you agree with me and say that there are some limits to free speech?
“Society has moved on enough that things like hair or eye colour is no longer a cause of discrimination. Race and sexuality, unfortunately, are.”
I had a very charming woman of Afro-Caribbean descent come to my door last week, trying to get me to upgrade my Sky package. In the midst of this procedure, she commented “I like what you’ve done with the beard, but it makes you look ginger”. As someone of Irish stock, I was slightly taken aback, and wanted to reply, “I like what you’ve done with your skin, but it makes you look black.” I realised just in time that this would never be taken in the way it was intended. Us gingers do sometimes have our human rights abused, see? (I am reminded of Larry David endlessly complaining of the persecution of ‘the bald community’).
“Unless, of course, you are gay – then anything goes.” Now, come on. That’s just not true.
Gay couples have to jump through all the other hoops that straight couples do.
As for your caricature of social workers, that’s just offensive. Social workers have possibly the shittest, hardest job imaginable. Do too little and you get horrendous incidents like Baby P – and have the papers plastering your face all over demanding your sacking. Do too much and you get accused of being part of a literal nanny state, invading and breaking families – and have the papers plaster your face all over the place demanding you are sacked.
Baby P should never have happened, and the Chief Exec woman was right to go. But, like any job, things go wrong. When a doctor fouls up, people can die. And the same goes for a social worker. The stakes are too high for such a low paid, menial job
“live in shit with half a dozen boyfriends, each of a different race.”
EACH OF A DIFFERENT RACE?!! SERIOUSLY?? So if the mother only had white boyfriends, it would be less of a problem? Jesus Christ.
I agree with you on some points. Not allowing smokers to foster kids is simply ridiculous. Same goes for 40+ year olds.
Elitist propaganda has worked it long term magic.
It has never actually been the case that men have historically dominated their women folk. This is an illusion, caused by western propaganda. Human beings do not change so quickly, if at all. Only the society the establishment creates for them to exist in does, some times very quickly indeed.
Muslim women as also all other women in the world are not anymore stupid or easier to handle then any western women when it comes down to it. They still want a materially comfortable life and a reliable non violent partner. Whats more they have their own ways of getting it, and keeping it.
Evidence for the above can be found in many places. Try reading books like “The Canterbury Tales”, you will soon see that people have not basically changed for thousands of years.
I’ve got a ginger tinge in my beard too, and have got some recessive ginger genes lurking in me.
I remember a David Badiel joke a few years ago: ‘There’s only two people it’s acceptable to be prejudiced towards: the french and gingers’
The fact is, though, you’re not going to get beating up for your hair colour, but racist and homophobic attacks are all too common.
Duncan | 19.12.08 – 1:05 pm
it looks like you’re condoning racism or homophobia
You see, you are at it already with your jackbooted thought-police approach.
I do not consider it ‘racism’ to prefer blue-eyed blondes to Asian babes (or vice versa).
I regard that as a matter of taste.
It would only be ‘racism’ if I discriminated on this basis in the areas of employment, housing, the provision of services or allowed my prefernce to express itself negatively in the form of insult or taunt.
Equally, the bishop who merely says ‘homosexual acts are repugnant to God and to the moral law’ is not being ‘homophobic’, he’s doing his job. In the next breath he’ll almost certainly say ‘hate the sin, but love the sinner’.
Let’s reserve words like racist and homophobe for the BNP and the ‘queer bashers’ who deserve them, eh?
Well expressed Tom.
I don’t believe you are racist, I just thought you were careless with your language.
“I do not consider it ‘racism’ to prefer blue-eyed blondes to Asian babes (or vice versa).”
Nor do I.But what you said in the sentence I quoted was that, essentially, it’s okay to hate people on the basis of their skin colour or sexuality. It is not.
So if the mother only had white boyfriends, it would be less of a problem? Jesus Christ.
No, silly. I was contrasting the fastidiousness of social workers about race when it comes to adoptive parents to their insouciance about the racial background of members of their client households.
For instance, according to the Standard, La Shoesmith presided over the forcible removal of a little black boy from a foster mother with whom he’d developed a close relationship and turned him over to two starngers on the basis of a better racial match. It wasn’t that the foster mother was white even. She was African too. But from the ‘wrong’ bit of Africa. Now that is racism in my book.
Typical of the hypocrisy of the Left Establishment.
Apologies. I don’t think you’re racist, Tom, I just misinterpreted what you said. Tricky to tell the difference between rants and irony on blogs sometimes.
Tom, be fair – Duncan did say prior to the quoted passage, “I am sure you’re not”.
***
“Equally, the bishop who merely says ‘homosexual acts are repugnant to God and to the moral law’ is not being ‘homophobic’, he’s doing his job. In the next breath he’ll almost certainly say ‘hate the sin, but love the sinner’.”
No he’s not doing his job, strictly speaking. He’s differentiating between sins, singling one out, one that attaches to a specific group. In the same way that there are no gay rights only universal human rights, there are no specifically bad sins. Theologically speaking, all sin is an offence before God, and no sin is worse than any other – and all men are born into a state of sin. This is why I find it repugnant when certain Christians find a particular group of sinners, some group of “other” that can represent sinfulness and our offence before God.
If the Bishop does his job properly, he will echo St Paul in Romans chapters 1 and 2 – where he starts off with the widely-hated sin of homosexuality, and unwinds from that starting point a list of every human sinfulness, concluding;
‘Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgement on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgement of God?’
When he says ‘doing the very same things’ he does not mean practising sodomy – that would go without saying – he is saying that no-one who is a sinner has a right to pass judgement on the specific sins of others, and he is saying it in a letter addressed to a Christian community. Unfortunately the great rhetorical trick he plays – starting off with the common condemnation of homosexuality as being an abomination before God, before unfurling a list of all human sinfulness – gets rather lost because of the arbitrary and stupid chapter division now placed halfway through this trick.
So my point would be that your bishop is wrong. There are no gay rights and no gay sins. There are human rights and human sinfulness, full stop.
henryflower | 19.12.08 – 1:12 pm | #
I would have given the cheeky bitch some words to remember…
Anon: What, and ruin my chances? No way!
David, this is a difficult one.
Of course homosexual acts, per se can never be interpreted as a right. That is to say, nobody has a responsibility to ensure you are sodomised!
Understandably, many countries, looking at the death of Europe since its embrace of sexual liberalism (Europe started its demographic decline in 1975, very quickly after embracing contraception and abortion), are reluctant to follow suit. They wonder what happens when you disassociate sex from marriage and reproduction.
France’s attempt is brave, but frankly, given that fundamental Islamists control many regions of France, and are set to outbreed the native French within two generations, it would be better to challenge “homophobia” domestically.
But of course what is dawning on Sarkozy, after all his rhetoric, is that he couldn’t if he tried. There are too many of the buggers to control. So he’s turned to an international forum instead, impotent against “his own” people to control them.
But as to your post, yes, the BBC are shamelessly pro-homosexual. Although fewer than 2% of practising homosexuals have taken up “Civil Partnerships”, the BBC made a huge thing out of it, even to the extent of having a CP on The Archers and then (get this) reporting on the news that Britain has taken this new legal status to its heart because – you guessed it – The Archers had a Civil Partnership! I mean – you couldn’t make it up!
Eddie Mair on PM congratulated a pair of radical feminist lesbionic academics from Canada for getting “married”.
I have many more examples in my archives, somewhere.
henryflower | 19.12.08 – 1:44 pm
While I am sympathetic to the general drift of your comment, parts of it are rank heresy.
no sin is worse than any other –
You may say that, but I rather think that planning the genocide of two million Tutsis was a tad worse than my daughter’s neglect of her night prayers.
Hugh Oxford
Thanks for what you say. It IS a tricky one and I do not seek to cause offence to any B-BBC readers but I took exception to what I see as BBC pro-gay propagandising – and felt it right to say what I think! I have never claimed to be without prejudice – only the BBC do that!!!
henryflower
“Theologically speaking, all sin is an offence before God, and no sin is worse than any other – and all men are born into a state of sin.”
The Catholic Church teaches that there are three kinds of sin – Original (removed at baptism), Venial (not good) and Mortal (really not good). There’d seem to be some distinction there.
There are also a few particular classifications – Deadly, which everyone’s heard of, Cardinal and the really rather splendidly named Crying to Heaven for Vengeance – of which the “sin of the Sodomites” is one.
Dunno what the Proddies do in terms of this.
Tom – that is where you are not being radical enough, and missing St Paul’s point.
God is perfect, mankind is imperfect. Given that profound chasm – (bridged only by the incarnation, by the nature of God living a specific, historical, individual human life during a thirty year period twenty centuries ago) – there are no degrees of sinfulness.
God is perfect, so any and all imperfections appear black before him. That is precisely why St Paul lumps together homosexuality, bestiality, murder, God-hating, envy, theft, disobedience to parents, and many other seemingly grand or trivial sins – and states firmly that nobody who practices any such sin has any right to pass judgement on any other human who sins. It’s illogical, impractical, seemingly immoral even, but that’s God’s standard according to Paul, that’s how radical and subversive a moral code Christianity was – and why most human moral codes now seem so divorced from that point.
Paul’s point, and Christ’s in fact, is that given the perfection of God, it is unacceptable for us to sit here pontificating over the specific degrees and nature of our individual imperfections as your hypothetical bishop does.
That said, failing to say prayers at an allotted time is not sinful as far as the New Testament is concerned, so I’m ignoring the specific example, though I take your point about what are – by human moral standards – opposite poles of misbehaviour.
RR – the Catholic church can say what it likes (I’m a Catholic by the way) – find me a reference to these scientific classifications and sub-categories of sin in the Scripture and I’ll accept them. They stand in direct contradiction to the writings of Paul, and so I reject them. For what that’s worth, which is not much.
I think we’ve gone O/T. My fault. Sorry.
Hugh Oxford – I agree with DV, that’s a really interesting contribution.
I would say, of course, that only DV suggests that there is a call for gay sex to become a human right.
What is called for is quite different, as he knows – the idea that it is your human right as a gay man or woman to have sex without being punished by the state.
henryflower | 19.12.08 – 2:22 pm
– find me a reference to these scientific classifications and sub-categories of sin in the Scripture and I’ll accept them.
I can’t quote you chapter and verse, but I seem to remember Jesus Christ himself taking a more than usually robust line on the corruption of children • “Whoever causes one of these little ones to sin, it would be better for that person to have a giant millstone hung around their neck……”
In marked contrast to his treatment of the woman taken in adultery, isn’t it?
there are no degrees of sinfulness…. God is perfect, so any and all imperfections appear black before him.
I feel sure that isn’t what St Paul meant, though I do accept he was trying to stop people being sanctimonious.
Some theologians enjoin us to see sin not as discrete acts, but as a process of corruption or of steadily increasing estrangement from God. Yet even in these abstract terms, some things are more thoroughly (or more rapidly) corrupting than others or involve a greater breach.
Is all BBC bias the same, or is one gross breach of impartiality worse than a thousand sly omissions? Discuss.
There we are…. Back on topic 🙂
I agree that the BBC deserves nothing but contempt and hatred for its selective moral agenda (that includes the inviolable rights of gay people along with islamist terrorists….).
I also think that homosexuals should have the same rights as other people. It is no business of anyone else.
David, this post imho, was ill-judged. Sure the vile UN – like its even viler amen corner, the fucking BBC – deserve a kicking. But gay people do not.