Texas pastor threatens to set himself on fire to stop gays from marrying
My response was very well received, and I was told it was a shame that my comments on the article could not be shared. SO, I offered to blog them. I took awhile, because life happens, and mine has been a little crazy the last few weeks, but here it is.
Alright, so the original article is about a pastor who is (or WAS, don't know if he still is) threatening to light himself on fire to protest the legal recognition of same-sex marriages. He was ALSO encouraging OTHER religious leaders to "offer themselves up to be shot dead" in protest. This was my FIRST response to the article, copy/pasted from the Facebook thread:
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Lighting himself on fire constitutes suicide. Offering up yourself to be shot dead, as he is encouraging other religious leaders to do, is suicide. Suicide is a sin, because you are rejecting God's gift of life... so he is committing, and urging others to commit sin in order to protest another sin.
Logic fail.
All sin is sin, no sin is worse than another, because all sin separates us from God. Do you hate your neighbors who engage in premarital sex as much as you hate gays? It's still sin. If you don't hate them, you shouldn't hate gay people either. You may hate the sin itself, but you are still commanded to love the sinner.
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Not-so-religious argument:
What makes you think you have the right to tell other people how to live their lives? Are you allowed to marry whomever you want? Does the gay guy/gal next door being allowed to marry whomever THEY want stop you from being able to marry whomever you want? Then why is it fair for you to deny them that right?
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Personal opinion:
...whatever happened to separation of church and state? That was supposed to be a thing. Why is there so much religious morality being slipped into federal government, when the government isn't supposed to have a religious affiliation? Why are we LETTING this happen? For the record, yes I am a Christian. However, I also believe in free will and other people's rights to hold their own beliefs, as long as they don't try to force them on people who don't share them. I am extremely offended by the government forcing religious ideals on people who don't agree with them.
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Will add more rant later.
