I guess it's a reasonable view to hold that at face value that there seem to be clear biblical passages against gay sex in standard translations. I don't personally feel there is compelling evidence in support of those translations, but that is beside the point.
My point was that you are making an inference to say that the bible bans same-sex marriage. Marriages can be sexless (eg Jesus' parents according to Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran teaching, asexual people in the present day etc). By all means, you can make some sort of theoretical argument about what a 'true' 'biblical' 'marriage' ideally should be etc etc, but you were talking about a "direct reading of scripture": My point was that there's a bit of leg-work to do in order to get to the view that the bible actually bans same-sex marriage. And I see it as being similar to the leg-work required to arrive at the view that the bible bans interracial marriage (there is after all, quite a lot in the bible about God dividing the races, setting boundaries on them, about Israelites not intermarrying with tribes around them etc, which can all be indirectly or directly applied to the question of interracial marriage... as numerous Christians in the US in the 19th and 20th centuries applied it!).
My point was that you are making an inference to say that the bible bans same-sex marriage. Marriages can be sexless (eg Jesus' parents according to Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran teaching, asexual people in the present day etc). By all means, you can make some sort of theoretical argument about what a 'true' 'biblical' 'marriage' ideally should be etc etc, but you were talking about a "direct reading of scripture": My point was that there's a bit of leg-work to do in order to get to the view that the bible actually bans same-sex marriage. And I see it as being similar to the leg-work required to arrive at the view that the bible bans interracial marriage (there is after all, quite a lot in the bible about God dividing the races, setting boundaries on them, about Israelites not intermarrying with tribes around them etc, which can all be indirectly or directly applied to the question of interracial marriage... as numerous Christians in the US in the 19th and 20th centuries applied it!).
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