Out of the blue, a guy I know walked up to me and asked, "So what's your position on gay marriage?" If you know this guy, he's like that. He just walks up and starts talking to me about stuff.

I'm not usually one to betray surprise on my face unless one knows me well enough, so I deadpanned back to him, "Well, that's quite a conversation starter." He laughed a bit and told me that he had a couple of friends who'd been talking to him about it and that they were "iffy" about the whole issue, and he wanted to know what I thought.

He knows very little about the Bible or the church I go to, so he couldn't have drawn any inferences from that, but to be truthful, I actually believed he should have been able to figure out what I think about gay marriage at this point in our relationship.

I made a post to this blog on 6/20/06 ( http://ourbreadoflife.blogspot.com/2006/06/united-states-episcopal-church-has.html ) in which I published 1st Corinthians 6:9 and then wrote the following:

**If anybody cares to parse words and engage in semantics about the phrase in verse 9, "abusers of themselves with men," which is often translated 'homosexuals' in other translations, and say that homosexuality is not the type of abuse being talked about there, get with a Greek scholar, or at least somebody who will honestly translate for you from the original text.The word used in the Greek is, "arsenokoitai." I have pursued this and except for a very few adherents to the notion, for Greek lexicographical reasons, that it is mistranslated, most Greek scholars agree that this word quite simply refers to male to male sex. One Greek scholar I listened to said that it means, "man who accepts another man's sperm." As graphic as that is, I tend to think it takes a lot to ignore the existence of the word and its place in the context of these verses.**

I explained this to the guy who asked me this question and his nose wrinkled up with the look of disgust on his face and he asked me, "Why would any man want to do that?"

That's an interesting question. God's presence, His existence is declared in the things that He has made, and the simple biological mechanics of the male and female anatomy are part of that declaration. People can cite different examples of "unexpected behavior" in the animal kingdom, but let's be clear here. Though we're a part of the landscape of nature, things natural, we're not animals.

That's why Paul could say, "
"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature."Romans 1:26

God created a perfect world, and a perfect natural landscape. The only reason things are going "against nature" is because we live in a fallen sinful world where many of mankind have chosen to place themselves at enmity with God. In the next two verses Paul states:

27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;

Once again we boil it down to what type of view one holds of God and His Word, the Bible. Some people act as if the Bible is a useful but largely outdated document. They believe that God has learned a lot since the days when He inspired Paul to write what is a clear position on the sinfulness of homosexuality, and that now that He's sort of gone through Spiritual College and can converse in a more modern and enlightened fashion, He sees things in a more moderate way and has condoned this practice because He's become more compassionate than He was before, because now it suits His more mature outlook on things. This is just a low view of God.

He is prodigiously compassionate in His love for mankind and supremely just. His character defines what justice is. God doesn't "adjust" to some outside criteria as time passes by. He is unchangeable, and being that way establishes a moral equity to all the people He has created. When there are evil acts committed, His justice demands that a penalty be paid. It is only through His prodigious compassion, that He provided the atoning sacrifice of His only begotten Son, Who was totally obedient and sinless. It is only through His love and sacrifice that any who have exchanged the natural for what isn't can have forgiveness and be washed clean, allowing them an entrance into Heaven and into an eternity with Him.

Does God love those in the homosexual lifestyle? Absolutely, and so should everybody who claims Jesus to be their Savior and Lord. Will He ultimately sanction homosexuality in the lives of the unrepentant with His forgiveness? Absolutely not. It is up to us to change to meet Him. Remember, He is unchanging and unswervingly good.