Against my Relationship

I had decided to desist from posting, for some personal reasons. But there is one thing that does make me post. A consistent, and sure energizer. When people in Uganda use their positions to hit out at me as a homosexual, I do post.

Now, I live in a homosexual relationship. We have been together for more than 7 years, me and my lover. I love him. He loves me. I know and believe that.

In the Sunday Vision, in the Faith section, there is a long article from Joash Mayanja Nkangi, where the old venerable gentleman, former minister of Justice and a host of other things, and an influential man in the country assails my relationship with my lover.

Saw the article yesterday. Didnt like the heading. Didnt even read it. Thought of posting it here. Desisted.

Today, I have just finished making love with my lover. Sated, happy, content, I cannot help the devil rising up in me to thumb my nose at the gentleman.

I love my love, and my love loves me.

Here is a gentleman who uses his high learning, and his bible, to prove to me how sinful my love is. Somehow, for some reason, I am not convinced. But, here is his thinking.

Homosexual marriages are not holy

Mayanja-Nkangi

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

The media has it that a top Anglican theologian has concluded that, “an active sexual relationship between two people of the same-sex might… reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if it has the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness...” (The New Vision, August 8, 2008).

Astonishingly, the theologian believes that, “parts of the Bible relating to homosexuality were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety in their experience”, rather than “to gay people in a relationship”. But this conclusion is spiritually flawed and untenable.

First of all, the theologian’s conclusion lacks scriptural validity. God addressed Himself to all the Israelites and not to heterosexuals only. Leviticus 18:22 says: “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.” Of course “lie with” is a euphemism for “have sex with”. Thus Moses spoke to all the people of Israel who were capable of behaving in the prohibited manner. This referred to all the men of Israel, including the future “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16) i.e. today’s Christians. This prohibition was concerning human sexuality for all time. Contextually all Israelites were to shun the abhorrent “practices” of the Egyptians (Leviticus 18:27) and these constituted homosexuality. The essence of the command was (is) not, in the mode or technique of effecting the sexual act but in the nature of the act, and the individuals involved.

A male was not to have sexual relations with another male. The caution, “Do not lie with a male” can mean: “Stop lying with a male... now”, or at anytime in future.” The prohibition was directed to any homosexual Israelites at the time and thereafter, and not only to the heterosexuals.

Secondly, it would have been inconceivable for God to prohibit homosexual behaviour by “heterosexuals”, as the theologian maintains, and yet exempt the real culprits, the homosexuals. Homosexuality (the practice of Egyptians) was abhorrent to God, regardless of who engaged in it, whether it was the heterosexuals “looking for sexual variety in their sexual experience” as the theologian claims, or the homosexuals. Christians must be on their guard, lest they succumb to sin due to theological sophistry.

The Egyptians must have been both heterosexual (or else no children would be born) and homosexual. God could not have found their heterosexuality detestable, for He Himself had instituted and blessed it at creation. (Genesis 1:26-27). So it was the homosexuality that irked Him. The Israelites were not to copy this vile Egyptian practice.

The objective of homosexual behaviour, as that of heterosexuality, is having sex with someone. For a heterosexual Israelite to engage in a homosexual relation would be to commit adultery, which God had already prohibited at Mount Sinai: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). The Decalogue, however, did not tackle homosexuality hence the new commandment in Leviticus. The theologian, therefore, is wrong to maintain that God only was only concerned with the heterosexual Israelites who craved homosexual extra-marital relations and not “gay people who were in a relationship”, however stable it was.

Other Biblical texts which condemn homosexuality are no less specific or non-discriminatory as between homosexuals and heterosexuals: For example Romans 1:26-27: “...God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

1 Corinthians 6:9 is no less condemnatory: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the immoral nor idolators nor sexual perverts will inherit the kingdom of God.”

As argued above, the parties to the prohibited sexual relationship are important, apart from the relationship itself. For when the Lord Jesus was asked by the Jews about the “lawful” conditions for divorcing one’s wife, He referred them to the Creator’s design for human sexuality, and in so doing highlighted the crucial centrality of gender in permissible sexual relationships, as follows: “Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female... for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife... what therefore, God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:3-6). Thus Christ put His seal on the “male and female” marriage relationship as being the only one acceptable to God, and never between a male and another male, or a female and another female.

The authority of the Lord’s word abides forever (Mark 13:31). Therefore, anyone who calls him or herself a “Christian” must heed this, and never ignore, reject, or compromise what Christ prescribed. May the Lord, therefore, guard His Flock against “shameful lusts” (Romans 1:26). “You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord. Your God,” commands the Lord in Leviticus 18:4.

Christians enjoy God’s gift of sexuality and marital bliss within the degrees of freedom as prescribed by Him. Marital relationships outside these limits are abhorrent to God and sinful. Sin being lawlessness or breach of God’s commandment ( l John 3:4), marital same-sex relationships contravene God’s express command and are, therefore, sinful.

Same-sex relationships may be enjoyable for those who indulge in them, but so was Eve’s (fruit) of the forbidden tree, for it “was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6). Nevertheless, these apparent benefits did not turn the eating of the fruit into righteousness, nor prevent man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

St. John warns against the seductive “lust of the flesh and the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2:6). The current theological ambivalence about the sanctity of same-sex marital relationships is an ill wind that blows no Christian any good. It is hurting Christ’s flock. Christians must vigilantly resist Satan’s mortal tricks at every turn.

Gay relationships are sinful

- The avoidance of same-sex relationships is God’s command and its contravention is lawless and sinful.

- An active sexual relationship between two people of the same-sex, even if “it had about it the same covenanted faithfulness” of the heterosexual relationships, is abhorrent to God.

- This venerated ‘covenanted faithfulness’ is nothing, but a continuous breach of God’s commandment against such unions; a continuing wallowing in sinful rebellion against God.

- The stability of homosexual marriages cannot convert the sin into righteousness but only aggravates it. Sin cannot reflect God’s covenant love, which is holy, any more than can dirt reflect a detergent. The two are qualitatively different. Sin only reflects itself.

- “What partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14). “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all”. (1 John 1:5).

- God’s love is constituted by obedience to his word and commandments (1 John 5:3). Consequently, same-sex covenants of carnal love, which are contracted in disregard of God’s command for human sexuality, can never reflect God’s covenant love for His people. The latter is pure and divine; the former is impure and sinful.

- The stability of such relationships attracts St. Paul’s incisive question: “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1). “By no means!”

- Redemptive grace is available to and for him or her who cries out to God in repentance for forgiveness: This is the message of the Cross. But persistence in rebellion is of no avail.

- The writer is a concerned Christian

Published on: Saturday, 11th October, 2008

Talk of using the bible to bash gay people!