Question about New Testament

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince 
Winston)" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> In the news coverage of the Episcopalians voting for an out gay 
> man to be a bishop, there were soundbites of people who 
> disapproved saying that this is different than the ordination of 
> women because homosexuality is explicitly forbidden by the Bible. 

I believe that I read a quote from Barbara Harris, who was the first 
female Episcopal Bishop in the US, to the effect that many of the 
doom-and-gloom predictions that people have been making concerning 
the future of the church were identical to the predictions people 
were making concerning what would occur if women were ordained, and 
then, if women were made bishops.  The actual event--approval of a 
gay bishop--was not held to be the same as the previous events, but 
the reaction to it.

As for references to homosexuality in the Old or New Testaments, 
there are a collection of passages in various places that are 
generally called the "clobber" passages, in that they are regularly 
used to "clobber" gay and lesbian people.  However, there is a lot 
of scholarly focus on these passages for just this reason, and many 
theologians and clergy believe that these passages either do not 
reference homosexuality at all or in ways that are particular to the 
cultural prejudices of the day, and therefore should not inform our 
present-day ideas of sexuality.

Here are a couple of useful links for reading about this issue:

http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/freenet/rootdir/menus/sigs/life/gay/religi
on/sin

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm

There are even more links here (very long list): 

http://iwgonline.org/links/

--Barb

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent
http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Barb