Part III: Same Sex Attraction is not a sin!

(Editor's Note, Bill and I have been discussing homosexuality and the problem of faith for the last few posts. So I encourage you to read Welcome Bill I LGBT Agenda II  and Welcome Bill II The Problem of Faith . Susan Fox)

Susan,

Your faith is impressive and your arguments are convincing. It does me no good to try to talk you down. You would not believe just how much of the Bible I consider to be non-factual. In fact, the parts of the Bible that I do consider to be factual convey historical information, only, such as the names of persons and places that did truly exist.

I do believe that Jesus did truly exist and did start a new religion. By the time the gospels were written, the stories about him had been told and retold many times and who knows how

Another Great Comment from Bill

they may have changed before they were written?

I don't want to change the way that you look at life except for your attitude toward homosexuality. Christians in general and Catholics in particular have got to stop referring to a few passages in the Bible that seem to condemn it. They have to just acknowledge that same sex attracted people exist, regardless of the reason, and accept them for who and what they are. 
Bill S.



Dear Bill,

You are the kindest person I have ever argued with. Thank you for your gentleness.

Same sex attraction is not a sin. We do accept same sex attracted people for who and what they are. We have no problem with same sex attracted people and in fact, if you know one who is living a chaste life, we would consider him or her to be a saint. I had a girl friend in high school who suffered from SSA, and she was welcomed and loved in my circle of female friends, although none of us had the same orientation. That was over 40 years ago.

However, we do not accept the ACT of homosexuality any more than we accept married contraceptive sex or masturbation. And we do not accept these acts because we love gay people, we love married couples who are contracepting, and we love people who masturbate, and we want them to live in freedom in Christ --- in happiness. 

Take up Your Cross?

We don't base our opinion on a handful of Scripture, but on Christ's promises that He will be with the Church until the end of time, and the Church -- which loves us dearly -- says homosexuality is a disordered love, and homosexual acts are not good. The Church says the same thing about masturbation and married contraceptive relations. This is the Voice of Jesus Christ in the world today. But the Church also says that the temptation to masturbate, the temptation to do same sex acts and the temptation to use contraception in your marriage is not a sin, but -- in fact -- a path to holiness. All temptation is a path to holiness. The question only is, "Are you willing to take up your cross and follow Jesus?"

Even if we weren't Christians, one only has to look at the human body to see that men and women are complementary. Men and men are not. I've been married for 30 years. My sexuality is drastically different than my husband's. Men are required to give of themselves in order to adapt to the female sexuality. And women vice versa. This self-giving love nurtures the family and permits a woman to become a wife and mother, a man to become a husband and father.  Men with men get instant gratification because both partners desire sex in that same manner. Why is the Red Sea red, and the Dead Sea dead? There is water flowing in and out of the Red Sea, and it is alive, but water only goes one way with the Dead Sea, and it is dying. 

Women  need wooing, gentleness, and time.  Men married to such women have to put aside their selfish desire for instant gratification and grow. Women married to men with the opposite but complementary sexuality have to grow also.  From a Christian perspective, this is part of God's plan to make us holy in marriage. But from Nature's point of view, this is simply the way that men and women are made. It is the natural law. Also only women and men can produce children, become fruitful. This is obvious. So one doesn't need Scripture nor the Church to say homosexual acts are unnatural. Nature tells us so. 

Same Sex Attraction and Opposite Sex Attraction are not Moral Sins

Unfortunately, the sexual revolution tried to recreate women as men -- you can have it all, M'am -- hook-ups, job, abortion -- all false freedom. This has basically destroyed the family and harmed men and women. We are not people of quick hook-ups. We are children of God, made in the image and likeness of God and we deserve to be loved as such.   Heterorsexual men, who have chosen to hook-up with women, to be irresponsible with their sexuality, and not accept responsibility for the children they father, they are in no better position than the actively homosexual men. Now notice I am talking about ACTS, not attraction. Same sex attraction and opposite sex attraction are not moral sins.  We do accept men and women with Same Sex Attraction or Opposite Sex Attraction! They are both human beings! Does that end our discussion?

Begin with an Encounter With Christ

I said earlier that the the Church is the voice of Christ in the world today. I think we all need to be challenged to an encounter with the living Christ. The woman at the well in the Gospel of John was living with a man who was not her husband -- she was caught in the same disorder as an actively gay person or a heterosexual who is sleeping around. Jesus told her her sins.   She was so happy she turned around and converted her whole village. And she was an historical person with a history after Scripture that is documented. That thought of yours -- "By the time the gospels were written, the stories about him had been told and retold many times and who knows how they may have changed before they were written?" -- why don't you confront Jesus Christ with that. Make Him show you the Truth. Only He can answer your questions, and Bill, you have them. Or we wouldn't be on this page.  

Read the early Church Fathers. St. Peter and St. Paul were put to death under the Roman emperor Nero before 64 AD. That means that the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were written before 64 AD because Luke himself tells us that he wrote the Gospel first and he ends the Book of Acts before Paul is put to death. Now that is 30 years from the Ascension of Jesus! Furthermore, Luke is borrowing from the Greek translation of Matthew, who recorded all the sayings of Jesus. Matthew was a tax collector. A tax collector had to keep good records or else the Romans would have put him to death. Long before 50 AD, Matthew's Aramaic sayings of Jesus are published! And Biblical scholars agree that Mark's Gospel, which is the shortest, is the first official translation of Matthew into Greek. And Luke only had that Greek translation from Mark when he wrote his Gospel -- before 64 AD. 

In addition, the number of sources to the whole New Testament is more extensive than any other writing of that era. These sources are written in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic and some Aramaic, and yet they all agree.  Each source also has its own history of  veracity. Even if we had none of the New Testament, we could recreate it from the writings of the early Church Fathers -- beginning with the contemporaries of the Apostles, such as Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. 

Surely, finding out whether the Gospels are true or not, and whether our lifestyles conform with the Mind of God would be a good investment of everyone's prayer and study time. 

Route 666 or Route 333?

Eternity is a long time. Where we are living now is a just a cheap one night stand on the great highway of life. 

There are two routes, one --- Route 666 -- is broad and wide, easily traveled and takes us to

a shore where time drags and the clock ticks, "Forever, forever, forever..."

The other route is very narrow, Route 333. It is more difficult, requires a lot of suffering,  but it takes us to a shore where the Children of God come dancing home in joy and hug Our Father. He puts a ring on our fingers, kills the fatted calf and holds a big party. 

Route 333 begins with a encounter with Jesus Christ.
God bless you, Bill.   Susan Fox 

Part II: The Problem of Faith

Bill and I have been talking 
about homosexuality

Susan,

I am impressed by both your faith and your writing skills. I have never read such a clear and concise summary of the biblical worldview. (He refers to the previous article)

My problem is that I find very little truthfulness in the Bible with the exception of maybe some historical accounts that are actually nonfiction. Most of it is fiction. Since the Western world has derived its entire sense of being from it, of course the Bible seems to be the essence of all truth to us. But is it really? I think the answer to that has got to be "No. It is not." This is our disagreements about homosexuality and other issues. Does the Bible condemn homosexuality? Maybe in a handful of verses. Is it correct in its assessment of homosexuality? Probably not. The citations are just the personal opinions of the writers such as the author of Leviticus and Paul, both very human and fallible. 

Dear Bill,
Thank you for your courtesy and continued interest in my response. 

I Believe in a Person, not a Book

My belief is in a Person, not in a Book, nor in Western civilization. That is what separates me

The Person of Jesus Christ!

from the Muslims. They  revere a book. I love God.  That also separates me from well-meaning U.S. conservatives. They love the U.S. Constitution, and I love God. Protestants are a people of the book, not trusting the Church, which gave them the book (the Bible). And Catholics revere Divine Revelation -- both Oral and Written.

When Jesus came, and His Presence is historically accurate and confirmed by other secular accounts of the time, He did not write a book. He got 12 guys together and taught them orally. And so began the Catholic Church. For He ordained these men that they might make Him present until the end of time. He said, (and this is reported by those 12 guys orally and then written down in the Holy Bible) "I will be with you until the end of time." 

Obviously, He died, arose (as they witnessed), appeared to his followers for a while and then ascended into heaven, so how is He  "with us until the end of time?" Those 12 guys gave the same power given to them by Jesus Christ (the power to forgive sins, a divine power, and the power to change the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ) to other men beginning with Matthias in Acts Chapter 1 -- the apostolic succession.

In this manner, those same inheritors of this divine power (forgiveness and consecration) are able to change the bread and wine into the Real Presence of Jesus Christ on a daily basis until the end of the world. So Jesus Christ -- True God and True Man -- is able to keep His promise to be with us until the end of time as long as there is one validly ordained Catholic priest left on this earth.

Why are they so happy at the Ascension? Jesus is leaving. 

I used to wonder why the apostles were so happy at the Ascension, and so sad at the Resurrection. Well, it took them a while to understand what had occurred -- even though He had told them "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," and to His earthly father Joseph and mother Mary, after being missing for three days, He said, "Did you not know I would be about my Father's business?" 

The apostles had experienced the suffering of Jesus' horrific death, and even though three of them had seen Jesus gloriously transfigured just before He died, they still did not expect the Resurrection. This is important to note because the Pharisees expected the apostles to fake the Resurrection because they indeed had heard and understood what Jesus meant by "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." The temple was His own Body. The Pharisees placed a guard on Jesus' tomb. Why guard a dead man??

But the disciples were happy at the Ascension -- even though Christ would not be seen on earth again for at least 2,000 years. They knew -- in faith -- they would see Him again. And they  did see Him again every day after that for the rest of their lives in the breaking of the bread. Think "Road to Emmaus:" the Holy Mass.

Now Jesus Christ was True God and True Man, for John -- one of the witnesses -- reminded us that he actually ate with Christ and drank with Him: "That which was from the beginning (the Word made flesh), which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life -- the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us -- that which we have seen  and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete."

TV celebrity Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say that he believed the gospels because apostles were willing to have their throats slit for the truth of it, and they were just ordinary Jewish fishermen and tax collectors. Time and again from the historical witnesses of Holy Scriptures we see that when people met the Person of Jesus Christ, they were changed.

Boots of the Roman centurion

Immediately, after the crucifixion, the Roman centurion -- seeing the earthquake and the sky darken, remarked, "Truly this WAS the Son of God." (Caps are all mine). Simon the Cyrene was "compelled" by the Roman soldiers to help Jesus carry the cross. Yet we read in Acts that his sons, Rufus and possibly Alexander too, are followers of Jesus after His death. And let me not forget the Samaritan woman at the well, later known by the Church as St. Photina, who was so profoundly affected by her encounter with Jesus, that she told her village, "“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  According to Greek tradition, she took to preaching the gospel, was imprisoned, and martyred for a Person, Jesus Christ, True God and True Man. Few -- if any -- would be willing to be martyred for an ordinary man, but there are millions of known Catholic martyrs, led to death for Jesus Christ -- a Divine Person. And may I add, unlike Muslim martyrs, they did not deliberately seek their own death.

Me too! I was changed profoundly by an encounter with Jesus

And so, is it so hard to believe that I, too, 2,000 years later could be changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ so profound that I spent the rest of my life pursuing Him, and hearing His Voice and reading His Mind in the Scriptures, and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, which He Himself founded? These Scriptures -- by the way --   are consistent between the Old and New Testament. Repeatedly, we see what was written by those "men" was under the inspiration of another Person, the Holy Spirit.

How do you think it's possible that some old bedouin wandering the desert (Abraham) got a promise thousands of years ago that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. And now today, we see no other ancient race cohesively walking around except the Jews. There are no  Midianites, no Canaanites, no Babylonians walking around today. But the Jew, why you can meet him in the Dentist's Office!

And then there's Sodom and Gomorrah -- it now looks like they were actually buried under a ton of salt at the bottom of the Dead Sea. They are finding evidence of it southeast of the Dead Sea where the lake has recently dried up. 

Why is the Dead Sea dead and the Red Sea red? The water flows in and out from the Red Sea. It only goes into the Dead Sea. So also  is the life of the human being who wastes his sexuality where it cannot bear fruit (contraception, masturbation, homosexual acts). The water flows in. Nothing is given out.  

And then there is Isaiah's prophesy that "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and

will call him Emmanuel (God is with us.)" So the events of Luke Chapter 1 make perfect sense as Mary is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is not born of the urge of the flesh or by the will of man, but by the Holy Spirit and the fiat (YES) of a human woman, Mary.

Matthew makes a point of taking all the Old Testament prophesies and showing us how they apply to the life of the Messiah Jesus: "He shall be called a Nazarene."  (Matt 2:23) That's almost equivalent to being called a radical judging by Nathanael's response: "Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote-- Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathanael said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." John 1: 45-46)

Jesus gave His divine power to forgive sins to the apostles and their successors, but He gave Peter His authority. "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." He also gave only Peter the keys. Today the bones of Peter are buried under the altar where only the Pope, the successor of Peter can say Mass. Jesus built his Church on Peter and his successors in the sense that Peter would guard the deposit of faith he received from Jesus Christ, but Christ was so literal that he even used the poor fisherman's bones as a sign of where His authority lay.

But when I encountered Jesus Christ, when my faith was first awakened, I didn't know any of this. No Scripture, nada, nothing. I was a Catholic child age four. My father died after a car accident, which I witnessed from the back seat of the car. Three days later they took me to my mother in the hospital and told me my father was dead. Mother and my Grandmother -- supporting each other -- took me down to the hospital chapel. It was a Catholic hospital. Mom pointed at the tabernacle and said, "There is Jesus. Pray for your father."

My First Prayer: Anger

Well Bill, I was very angry and my first remembered prayer was the child's equivalent of "up yours." But somehow from that point on, I belonged to this Jesus, and I am so glad. So if His Word and His Church say homosexuality, masturbation and contracepted sex is not okay with Our Father's plan, I believe it. 

Now as to your difficulty with faith, you are not four years old. But I think that you will find if you look at the circumstances of your own life that God has spoken to you as well. There is a message that will resonate with Scripture and the teachings of the Catholic Church in time as you read it with God the Holy Spirit. Look at the events of your life, and ask God what were you teaching me?

A number of children tried to approach Jesus, but the apostles thought "Oh no, don't bother

Him. He came to speak to the adults." 
Jesus said no to that.  "Let the little children come to Me."

The Key to Faith

And I think that is the way to approach this whole question of faith. Approach Jesus like a little child. Don't be afraid to make Him prove the truth of the Scripture, the Church, His moral law. Tell Him you won't believe it until He does something in your life to help you understand. Stick with that, and then sit back and watch what happens. 

Nothing happens accidentally. Everything is gifted providentially. The smallest experience occurs because God is speaking to us through the events of our lives just as He spoke to the Jews through the events of their lives recorded in the Old Testament. Use the same wondering and watching that they did, or the pondering of Mary. And reflect on what happens. Ask and Watch. That is the beginning of faith. 
God bless you. Susan Fox

The Gay Agenda, and the Impolite Christian

by Susan Fox
WE HAVE A COMMENT! From Bill S: "Let me try to comment without being deleted. It is a

We have a comment!

matter of courtesy to respect the beliefs of others or the lack thereof. Your belief in a "one way ticket to Hell" is not held by all people. You should respect that and not apply judgments based on religion to homosexuals. It is rude and unfounded." 

Dear Bill,
We are so happy that you found yourself at our blog. Welcome! 
I see you are referring to a comment made by Anonymous, who said, "We care (about people who are practicing homosexuality), not primarily because society is promoting sin, but because the errant behavior and shaking their fists at God will get them a one-way ticket to Hell if they don't stop. We want all to come into a relationship with God through Christ." Anonymous was speaking about  our article The LBGT Agenda. 

First, let me say that we -- Lawrence and I -- have never identified anyone as going to hell. Really, Anonymous did not either. She or he was saying that if the behavior (homosexual acts) is un-repented and done with full knowledge that it is a serious sin and done in complete freedom, then such a soul might send himself or herself to hell. Anonymous was trying to say she wants everyone to go to heaven and that's why we care. At least that's the way I understood it, and the reason I published her comment.

So in that context let me say that we agree 100 percent with Pope Francis that we do not judge any individual involved in the gay lifestyle, and we trust that God will work all things to the good in each individual's life, whether gay or straight.

Jesus is not polite

However, I do want to tell you that Jesus is not polite. So do not expect politeness from His  followers. Jesus would not have been crucified if he was polite. They killed him because He clearly said He was God. They told Him to SHUT UP! Stop blaspheming, you are not God. But Jesus did not respect their beliefs and He told them the truth: "Before Abraham was, I AM."  Predicting his own Resurrection, He said, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."  That's why the Pharisees put a guard on His tomb because they knew He had said that, and they feared his apostles would stage a resurrection. 

Jesus told the Pharisees: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matt 23:27)  So if I walked up to you, Bill, and said hey, "You are like a grave -- all nice and white tombstone topside, but with rotting flesh on the inside," wouldn't you think I was impolite?

Jesus also said, "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be members of his household." (Matt 10:34-36)

The Elephant in the Room: Certain sexual acts are an offense against God

I agree that under the dictates of politeness we would not point out the Elephant in the Room -- that any sexual acts outside of fruitful marriage between a man and a woman, including contracepted acts  within marriage, are an offense against God. 

Why? God is Good. He made us in His image and likeness. Man is good except that he is broken due to original sin. So we cannot trust our instincts any longer because we retain the effects of original sin. We have an inclination to evil. Homosexual sex, masturbation, contracepted sex, bestiality -- I know all these things "feel" good, but they are not good. 

God is very clear about His plan for the family. It's in the Book of Genesis. He made them male and female. A man shall leave his family and cling to his wife. Be fruitful and multiply. Homosexuality is not in God's plan. Neither is having pleasure with one's wife while preventing conception from taking place.  Both of these things are outside God's plan. It's not the way He set them up. And God is good. So the way He set things up is good. Everything else is not. Anything outside His plan is an offense against God, a sin if you want to call it that.

Satan apes God. The sexual act no matter how it is done creates the effect of euphoria and joy. You are a spiritual being so you bond with the person or animal with whom you have sex. God made a really great thing when He made sexual relations, but after He made it He taught us how to use it -- in the context of fruitful faithful marriage. And the reason He taught us how to use it is so we would be happy. He knew that using His goods of marital relations outside of marriage and the family would actually make us unhappy.

Now this unhappiness is not obvious to us because we have an inclination to disordered love. Look at Eve in the Garden of Eden. She is attracted to the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. She doesn't understand why she should obey God's edict not to eat of that fruit. So she eats it, a story replayed in the lives of all of her children -- mankind throughout history. 

A man, not understanding why God asked us to be chaste, might taste of the fruit of relations with another man, and find it tastes good! He may think he loves the other man because of the natural gift that sex is. In fact, what is evil may actually appear to be very good to this man because God gave us the gift of sexual relations. God also gave us fire and alcohol, but the first used in the wrong context can burn you, and the second taken to excess can destroy your brain. We have to learn to use God's gifts appropriately. 

Judge the Tree by its Fruits

It's true that Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." But He also said you could judge a

tree by its fruits. He is telling us not to look at individuals and say, "Oh, that person is good, that person is bad." But He is telling us to judge actions. For instance, maybe my mother acted very stingy. I saw all the harm caused by selfishness. So I decide I will try to be generous. Judge the tree by its fruits.

And so when I worked for the San Francisco Examiner, I was riding the elevator one day, and a young man who worked in the office was holding up a vile of ashes. I said, "Oh my, is that a human being?" And he said proudly, "Yes, this is my lover. I carry him everywhere." His lover had died of AIDs and the young man had the same disease.

At the United Nations, when I was lobbying for the pro-life cause, I told an East African woman this story from the San Francisco Examiner. My son, who was 12 at the time, was with me, and he was an example of the fruit of my relationship with my husband. I asked her, "Would you rather have a vile of ashes? Or this nice boy here?"  Laughing so hard that tears were coming from her eyes, she said, "I pick the nice boy."

That women knew how to judge the fruit of the tree. God bless you Bill.
Susan Fox
Four articles on Bill's concerns regarding the Gay Agenda followed this one: 
Part II: The Problem of Faith
Part III: Same Sex Attraction is not a Sin
Part IV: Homosexual Acts Do Hurt Others
Part V: Gay "marriage" to destroy Marriage
This led to a further dialogue: Is God punishing the United States?