The American Family Association is a pro-Christian organization that is active in protecting the rights and morals of Christianity in America. They have informationa and a petition to sign to encourage your Congressman to Christian morality not relativist/alternative morality.
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Homosexual Marriage Ban Vote Re-Scheduled For Early June
American Family Association
Action Needed! Help Send U.S. Senate One Million Letters Supporting Marriage Protection Amendment - 300,000 Already Sent!
The date for a vote on the federal Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) by the U.S. Senate has been re-scheduled for the first week in June. This constitutional amendment will make only marriage between one man and one woman legal.
Your help is needed in sending one million emails to the Senate in support of the MPA. Three hundred thousand emails have all ready been sent.
Please send your two Senators an email, then forward this to your friends and family urging them to do the same. Those pushing homosexual marriage are actively contacting their Senators.
Please send your letters of support today! Ask members of your Sunday School class and church to send an email in support of the MPA. Ask your pastor to put an announcement in the church bulletin and newsletter. They can send an email by clicking on AFA.net.
Action Needed!
Enter you zip code and click "GO" to send your emails to your U.S. Senators. And we need your help in forwarding this to friends and family if we are to reach our goal.
If you think our efforts are worthy, please help us promote traditional marriage with a small donation by clicking here.
Thanks for caring enough to get involved!
Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association
©2006
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• Sign the Petition to members of Congress for a federal amendment to the U.S. Constitution protecting traditional marriage in the United States of America.
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8 comments:
Here is an argument that may sound odd at first, but the more I ponder it, the more intuitive it becomes.
Years ago with some time on my hands, working in Riyadh, I began a genealogical hobby and was proud of the approximately 500 individuals, back to Jamestown and before, that I had discovered. I had seen how, not just arithmetically, or geometrically, but exponentially do the cousins and grandparents and branches and twigs grow into a tree, that were it to be taken back twenty or so generations would have encompassed most of the then population of the then Europe. This may be the core unconscious draw to genealogy.
It is this realization of the connectedness we constantly deny. We stop at a traffic light and are indifferent to the “relatives” in the car next to us. Or we haven’t a clue as to our relative who lives a few inches away in the next-door apartment. Or the very distant cousin who is the annoying salesperson we dealt with recently. It is this realization on which I’d like to weave this rather odd but encompassing argument – the argument that, to have the civil right of civil marriage forever denied to homosexuals, is abhorrent to the reality that all gays are from families and that almost everyone has a homosexual in their family (in fact with the new UK government survey that showed six percent in their population, we can assume that there are tens of millions of homosexuals in our American population). And it is consistent, rather than inconsistent, with not just family values but with “Tradition American Family Values”, that we do not undervalue any American and certainly not any member of our family. As we are all family in the truest sense.
Our founders used no word or phase more forcibly, more courageously, more passionately – then they did the word “we” and the phrase “we the people”. We are one large family – or should be. And a family would not act to deny the civil right of a relative they loved. They would want that person to have as full a citizenship as they have. And they would want the protections and rights and responsibilities to be equally assessable.
Ergo, in the most fundamental of fundamental arguments, traditional family values should rule the day. Certainly it would not be family values that would lobby to amend a constitution in this land, the primary aim of which was to prevent two heterosexual lovers who wanted to get married from getting married - and to thus effectively promote sex outside of marriage.
A note to the religious right. You have yet to provide one reasonable argument to describe in any believability how amending our constitutions will bring about a favorable change in your lives. And you have yet to acknowledge any damage this action may bring upon tens of millions of your blood relatives – if not in blood, certainly in the blood of Christ.
The only arguement I need to provide is Romans 1:20-32
20For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],(B)
21Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened.
22Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves].
23And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin],
25Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it).(C)
26For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one,
27And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another--men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.
28And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome,
29Until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers,
30Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents.
31[They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless.
32Though they are fully aware of God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them.
All humanity is made in the image of God. All humanity had that image twisted when Adam fell. The Homosexual can be Saved by the same Grace imparted through the Redemption of Jesus Christ. Redemption untwists the Image of God creating an NEW CREATION in Christ Jesus. The practicing homosexual is practicing sin. Sin separates from God. The Blood Jesus closes or washes away sin thus re-uniting with God. The only family tree that matters is the Family of God.
However, God gave us a brain and the ability to think. And I know that the Bible was written by many different people over a period of time, some parts lost, some parts translated poorly. I also know that much of the Bible is parable and is meant to be morally instructive and not to be taken verbatim. I also know that in Paul's time there was not even a word for homosexuality and that theologians and scholars are not in agreement as to what Paul actually meant. It is thought he was possibly referring to temple prostitutes, pedophiles, and promiscuous sex. I'm sure you are aware of the historical critical model.
I don't claim to have the answer. I do know that people in the past have long hung onto ideas that were eventually left in the dust of history. May I remind you that the Church once stated emphatically that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that slavery was allowable and that marriage across races was not allowed by God.
I can't judge you - but perhaps God will eventually judge you if you don't use the common sense He gave you. The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the World Health Organization scientists and medical experts conclude that homosexuality is not a moral issue but one of childhood heredity and upbringing.
I certainly don't sense that your intent is to spread non judgmental love. Would you promote an effort to prevent loving heterosexual couples from the privileges and rights of marriage, and to force them to live in sin? Then how do feel God views your efforts to do the same to homosexuals? Do you also think the world is flat?
Actually Bill the scripture on Romans is pretty clear no matter the translation and manuscripts used that we have our current English translation. It says sex between two individuals of the same sex is sin. Sin is that which separates from God. I am not judging God is.
But let's be clear, sex outside of marriage between heterosexuals is sin as well.
I want to be even clearer: homosexuality is a sin, but I am not one to judge that sin. I have plenty of issues of my own to deal with on a daily basis. God is the Judge. But here's the deal. When I screw up or any Christian screws up there is mercy and grace in the LOVE of God to wash stain as if it is not there. Repentance, forgiveness and restoration are the Grace of God is all about.
Christ came that all humanity might be saved from the darkness in the world. Homosexuality is part of that darkness.
As for the "American Medical Association, Psychiatric Association and World Health Organization;" these are hardly organizations that consult Christian Scripture in their analysis of right and wrong. The Word of God is the consultant for that area.
The homosexual agenda to legitimize that lifestyle is wrong. I would promote an event to prevent the legitimization of sin. Whether it was homosexuality, pornography, and pedophilia and so on.
I know that there are many homosexual couples that may have stable life long relationships; nonetheless that does not make it right. I also know that most homosexuals are extremely promiscuous having multiple partners in a life time that would put a promiscuous heterosexual to shame.
Do I think the world is flat? Know. But I believe homosexuality is flat wrong.
Blessings in Christ Jesus and the revelation and knowledge of Christ be upon and permeate you being.
Thank you for your comments and I appreciate that this conversation remains civil, as I know it is a highly charged issue on both sides. There are two other points that I wonder if you would comment on.
We as a country are founded on the principle of separation of church and state. Perhaps you might prefer that stores be closed on Sunday, that there be no sale of alcohol, or maybe that divorce not be allowed. But we don’t make laws based on your religious beliefs – or anyone else’s. Laws are civil. And in the best tradition of democracy that we all enjoy, there is supposed to be equality. We don’t stop homosexuals from having a driver’s license, hunting license, business license – then why, other than your religious beliefs, should a gay person be prevented from getting a civil marriage/partnership license?
I respect your religious beliefs – and I expect you to respect mine. I believer that God values love and caring and commitment much more than He is concerned about my sexual orientation. I believe He wants me to be happy and to live a satisfying and productive life. We differ here but it is of no importance as this only regards civil law – that is what separation of church and state is about.
I wish you would explain in terms a school child can understand, just what threat gay marriage is to the straight family? Can you understand the hurt of making gays second class in their own country? Can you understand that accepting committed and loving gay relationships in our families, communities, churches would promote more psychologically healthy lives for gays? It would most likely reduce promiscuity among gays and suicide among gays. And it would open up possibilities for gays to be full participants in society and not have to exert such energy living closeted lives of deception.
If you support this marriage amendment then are you willing to also accept responsibility for some of the pain that it will bring to so many?
In Old Testament days homosexuality was a criminal offense not an alternate lifestyle to be argued on points of philosophy and personal beliefs. In Christ Jesus the commandments of love and the positions of Grace and Mercy have superceded the criminal Old Testament penalty. Nonetheless, Christ did not end the Law, He fulfilled it offering expiation in this life from sin.
A combination of secular Enlightenment and Christian perceptions of mercy have diluted what is moral and tolerated in our society.
Toleration does not make homosexuality sin free. The hurt and pain is selfmade. These couples would be together with or with validation from the government. I am up to free choice, that is both American and Christian. As an American you can validate one can validate a lifestyle to self. As a Christian it is a matter of choosing spiritual life or spiritual death. The homophobes that claim to be Christian want to enforce O.T. death penalties or violence against Homosexuals have had their minds blinded by fleshly rage. That is sin also. Christ is about Forgiveness and Restoration. That is the sole purpose for His first coming nearly 2000 years ago.
As for accepting responsibility. The responsibility I have is to demonstrate the Love of Christ Crucified for the Redemption of the those in darkness. I admit I fail to live up to my ideal, because I seem to slip into righteous indignation when I should chill. The ultimate responsibility is in the choices individuals make. It is the old we reap what we sow truth of the Bible.
"Homosexuals have had their minds blinded by fleshly rage."
Your above statement is patently offensive. It is without basis in fact and in a generalization that is unwarranted and hurtful.
Get over it Bill, heterosexuals have the same problem. Sin is of the flesh and it separates from God. It doesn't matter if it is hetero or homo, fleshly rage or lusts separate from God.
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