Happy Valentine's.....sorry I am a day late but something came up yesterday. What follows is a really long diatribe upon the subject of Christianity and Homosexuality. I doubt if you will find anything offensive in it, but you may find it exceptionally boring. I had really hoped that this subject would go by without me feeling the need to comment, but ah hell, maybe I can do some good. I guess I should qualify myself first though. I speak entirely without authority and this is my opinion. Feel free to accept or refuse it, but I do not wish to argue it. I really want to go back to writing dirty stories involving stuffed bears and other stuff that doesn't make sense. A little bio so you know what direction I am coming from, I should also note that I share the name of the Pope who was there when Columbus arrived in the New World. He was also the only Pope to balance the Vatican's books and was involved in sexual scandal his entire wife. I do not think I will ever best him because is claimed to have had relations with 3 generations of women. I guess that makes me only prince of the cheap internet sluts.....my crowns keep falling away. I am a heterosexual Roman Catholic that was raised in Montreal and attended both Catholic and Public schools until one day I decided to stop going at around grade 10. I took one university credit course and that was called "Man's Religions" at the University of Western Ontario, King's College. (I passed) I was tested by the Governement of Canada for educational equivalency and as far as they are concerned I am a university graduate . They also consider me as meeting a journalism degree. Although my education cost me only 500 dollars and a text book, I have been reading since I can remember and considerable amounts of history and religion. My particular interest has always been about pre-Roman Celts in north western France which is where my blood comes from, however, for the last two years I have been devoting all my reading to the Second World War and the Canadian involvement. (Normandy was my family going home after 300 years) I am deeply religious in the forms of Roman Catholicism as has my family been before me. My mother is Anglican, but I was raised Catholic. At one time I seriously considered becoming a priest, but I did not feel it was my calling. My ex-wife (The Major's mom) is also RC and she had a brother become a fanatical monk. For those in Ontario and Michigan, these were the 3rd Order Franciscans kicked out of Lucan by the Bishop of London and ended up in Michigan. My ex-brother-in-law was kicked out of these robe and sandal wearing, cabbage eating, midget owning, underwear sharing, freaks because even he was to nuts for them. I only bring this up because I was brought up around priests who would tell a pregnant couple to live together before marrying because of their individual circumstances and my ex was brought up by the extreme Polish version. I live in a community that is very Italian and Polish, so I have been exposed to quite a bit of Catholism in my life. I have been studying the similarities between Christianity and Celtic religion as my primary interest. This has made me look at the influences of Celtism upon Christianity. It would be impossible to do this without looking at all the other religions at that time. Honey says Leviticus....18:22 to be exact. Nice book, at the time it was written it was a fantastic book because it was perfectly necessary. What we see is a written record of an oral tradition that was a few thousand years old. So that must be kept in mind. Creationism versus Evolution. Guess what, both are right. The question is more about whether you believe in God, in any form, or not. The book of Genesis did happen exactly as described. Here is the explaination. God created heaven and earth. Big Bang. The earth was without form and void. It did not start out wrong. Darkness was on the face....at first the atmosphere did not allow light onto the surface of the earth. Night and day? who can say when the earth started rotating? The moon doesn't so it is possible that an asteroid strike started us turning. Firmament and waters did actually come next. because that was the forming of the atmosphere, then came the oceans and continent called Pangea (Bill Nye the Science Guy....Bill! Bill!) Vegetation did come next. Animals came next, then came humans. And now we are on the seventh day. There is no use in arguing the semantics because basically it is accurate and since what we are reading is based upon and an oral tradition that was written a few thousand years ago, I think we should be fucking amazed at how much they got it right. Remember, this comes from desert nomads who had decided to take up shop in Israel. Archaeology has pretty much proven considerable amounts of the Old Testament as having occured. If we can't get an accurate and unbiased account of history from 100 years ago, what makes you think that people who were really bright, just good at surving, would be able to get this done better. They explained the things the best that they can and you have to accept that. We are talking about people who had the brains of ten-year olds today. Leviticus essentially is the framework of the religion at the time. It brought out all the same things that we do now with our laws and it was basically the rules that were necessary for the survival of the time. We have been living in societies for 10,000 years and we haven't figured out how to do it peacefully, so again why expect them to. The dietary laws were just as sensible as our own which tell us to avoid giving ourselves botchelism and salmonella. Their superstitions were no less silly than ours tossing salt over our shoulder. When you are a tribe of people wandering across a desert your life expectnecy is not very long. Procreation is essential to the tribe's survival. Think of it this way: You are in Egypt. You live in tents, there is no water to wash, you have no toilet paper, you have no razor, you have a foreskin, you have no tampons nor pads. This is not exactly the easiest environment for creating life. The Judaic sex laws grew from observation and not too much knowledge beyond the most basic on the concepts of life. People engaged in anal sex risked considerable infection and all kinds of complications. Oral sex? Get real. After settlement in Israel when there was water and life was much cleaner, things changed in a sense because they were exposed to other cultures. Although living in cities now, the laws stayed the same. Much of it based upon old taboos. So if a Christian is going to look at the law of Leviticus, first of all, look at the Commandments. More important was it to live peacefully in society than anything else. The rest of the laws are supplemental and are guides for living at that time. If a Christian invokes on law then they must invoke them all. That includes dietary law and worship. When Christ came around, the world was a very different place from at the time of the camp-out. The Jews were writing the Talmud and got so hung up on the most minute detail, writing reams and reams of scrolls, that the message of Christ was that they were missing the Spirit of the Law. Christ was outpsoken on quite a few things and in particular relationships. He pretty much talked about tolerance and love. Oddly, he says nothing about homosexuality. I guess it wasn't a big enough deal to him. The Greeks were not unknown for that kind of stuff and Christ spoke Greek so. Much of Roman Catholicism comes from the Pauline writings, though. Well, Saint Paul never actually met Christ beyond the apparition on the road to convert him. In fact, Saint Paul was on his way to "hit" Jesus. Saint Paul had a hate on for women after his wife ditched him for a Roman stud. So much of the RC position on relationships comes from a bunch of misinterpeted rantings of a frustrated guy. But then, half the books attributed to the tent maker weren't written by the same author. The best place to look for guidance on the subject is the Gospel of Saint John. That is pretty much the only Gospel that is written by the person who actually witnessed the events as they took place. There is a strong possibility that this was written by Lazarus, which would make sense. The impression given when reading this story is that homosexuality probably existed but nobody was overly concerned about it. However you do not seem to get a glimpse of how it was factored into the society. Depending on the period in time, the Romans more or less tolerated it and it didn't really matter. One of the things that Christ brought to the Jews, was basically the direct line to God. The Jews at the time were in mortal fear of God and there was no dialogue, just ritual. Christ brought love and dialogue to Judaism and that pretty much formed the basis of Christianity. A few Churches emerged in the and they all assumed some influences from local religions. The essentially emrged as the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox and Church of England. All have differences in interpretation, but we won't get into that. From these sprang our current day Revelationists who are desperately awaiting the final days. If they were to read what Christ said on the subject they would see that they should get on with their lives as per intructions. Unfortunately they are control freaks with very closed minds and very large inflammatory mouths which the media loves to broadcast. The Roman Catholic Church has been all over the place and it all comes down to a one guy who had lead a life of debauchery coming out and saying sex was bad. Things were back and forth ever since, but that shadow doesn't help. Priests cannot marry because their possessions would go to their wives and family upon their death instead of the Church. A thousand years ago the clergy was a very lucrative business. What Christ taught us when he sought to make changes was that our relationship with God must be on the terms that we set with God as individuals. The commandments will never change, but the other laws must be fluid to meet the needs of our evolving society, the idea is the spirit, not the mechanical. Just as eating pork will not be a serious threat to us, neither now will anal sex, providing the proper care is taken. Homosexuals must make their own terms with God and work things out for themselves. Whether a person is born gay, or becomes gay is incidental because they are gay and that will not change. God made the animal kingdom have gays, considerably more than people think. Thus the discussion as to the naturalness of it is moot. Sex was the gift that God gave to humans, intelligence was the curse. But Jesus preached love and one message me made abundantly clear: worry about your behaviour in the eyes of God and keep your nose out of other peoples. Every Christian has a personal relationship with God, who is anyone else to go meddling in that? Delivering the message is not the same as meddling. This is where the confusion happens because most people don't look at the whole thing. Look for the answers with an open mind and you will find the Truth. If you look for the answers without knowing the questions, or having already decided then it will escape you. If you have read this far you amaze me. 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