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Olde Tyme Religion
Christians should 'repent' over past treatment of gays, says Archbishop
2013-08-30
In which His Excellency tries to have it both ways, and maybe two or three others.
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Christians should be 'repentant' about the Church's past treatment of gay and lesbian people, the Archbishop of Canterbury said last night.

The Most Rev. Justin Welby told a group of traditional evangelical Christians that the Church's historic support of homophobia was 'utterly and totally wrong'.

He also acknowledged that many young people considered the Church's views on same-sex marriage as 'wicked' and 'plain wrong'.

The Archbishop insisted he did not regret voting against gay mawwiage marriage legislation, but acknowledged that such views were seen by many as akin 'to racism and other forms of gross and atrocious injustice'.

The Mawwiage Marriage Act received royal assent in July and gay couples in England and Wales will be able to wed from next year.

Yesterday, the Archbishop, speaking in London, said he stood by his decision to vote against gay mawwiage marriage, which he believed was 'rewriting the nature of mawwiage marriage'.

But he said the Church must respond to changing cultural attitudes. 'If the same thing happened again I would vote the same way as I did then, but I am continuing to think and listen very carefully as to how in our society today we respond to what is the most rapid cultural change in this area than there has been for a very long time. We have seen changes in the idea about sexuality, sexual behaviour.

'We have to face the fact that the vast majority of people under 35 not only think that what we're saying is incomprehensible but also think that we're plain wrong and wicked and equate it to racism and other forms of gross and atrocious injustice. We have to be real about that.'

The former oil executive said the Government's Bill in favour of gay marriage was 'clearly, quite rightly, trying to deal with issues of homophobia in our society'.

He added: 'The Church has not been good at dealing with homophobia. It has at times, as god's people, either implicitly or explicitly supported it and we have to be really, really repentant about that because it is utterly and totally wrong.

'That doesn't mean that redefining marriage is the right way forward.That discussion is continuing and the Church is deeply and profoundly divided over the way forward on it.'
Posted by:Fred

#12  The Catholic Church has been at the forefront of this issue for a long, long time -- in its own special way.
Posted by: Elmearong Gurly-Brown5896   2013-08-30 17:19  

#11  Stories like this always remind me of a cartoon I saw in Playboy in 1968: a man is exponding: "At one time homosexuality was a capital offense. Then it became a felony, and later a misdemeanor. Now it's been decriminalized. I for one won't be satisfied until it's mandatory.!"

It seems we are heading that way.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2013-08-30 13:29  

#10  2000+ years of a way for different and varied tribes and locals to find a common way to communicate and be successful but the good Welby has it all figured out. I'm getting tired of the bully, I've met gays who were good people and I've met the jersey shore of gays who were just as obnoxious as the versa.

That this guy can even talk about it without fear of reprisal is the repentant. In defense of the Bible, and in a way which would have gotten me in trouble back in the day, I'm going to set the stories as a social contract. God's judgement was absolute, but always after a series of bad moves by the characters, that is not a rush of judgement

To me, Detroit Soddom is not a story about an almighty God destroying boys who kiss boys. Its a story about a city which becomes wealthy enough to have the celebration of excessiveness outweigh its productive class. It reached a point where the productive class could not sustain the excessive class and had to leave or become part of the problem. Those who left were participants in the excessiveness, which is why they had to leave it all behind without looking back, and absolute dismissal of the celebration of lavishness. To me its a warning about decadence and the celebration of the trivial, much like football announces saying tight end as a sexual metephor instead of a location and duty. I know they lost me when I wish an SAP selection is just sounds on the field, where I'd rather hear a player shout the right words for a blown play than a group of guys fawn over a particular popular player of the moment.

To leave Detroit Soddom yet still live as if in Detroint Soddom will earn you the same fate.

To me, seen only as an object lesson, its not about reasons for yahoos tying up gays to their chariots, or what happens to a society which can no longer sustain itself. Its about what happens when a society chooses to not sustain itself, and its then when things fall apart rather quickly.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2013-08-30 13:08  

#9  ...it was an 'honor' thingy. That's it. It was an honor chopping. It appears to be back in vogue in certain neighborhoods in Britain, just not reserved for royalty anymore.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2013-08-30 12:42  

#8  Just sayin', if Henry had been straight, he'd have been able to find a chick he liked and stayed married to her instead of chopping her head off.

And you know what? Nothing screams "Issues!" like being the head of your own religion, who can make up whatever rules about what's honorable and what's not and deciding that you have to decapitate all your ex-wives.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2013-08-30 12:07  

#7  "thy rod and thy staff" Thing?
Posted by: Frank G   2013-08-30 10:33  

#6  This is about par for the course for a religion founded by Henry VIII's p3n1s.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2013-08-30 09:31  

#5  "A one sentence definition of mythology? "Mythology" is what we call someone else's religion”
- Joseph Campbell
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-08-30 09:18  

#4  I guess the 'living, breathing' interpretation of that Leviticus 18:22-23 thingy has hit the Church of England Church of What's Happening Now.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2013-08-30 08:00  

#3  Isn't it against Islam?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2013-08-30 06:48  

#2  but I am continuing to think and listen very carefully as to how in our society today we respond to what is the most rapid cultural change in this area than there has been for a very long time. We have seen changes in the idea about sexuality, sexual behaviour.

.....because the modern day winds of change always trump scriptural mandates. Besides, heterosexual activity oftentimes creates people, and people are the problem. Fossil records indicate that 99% of all the species which have ever lived are now extinct. Why should evil man not join their ranks ?

[sarc off]
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-08-30 05:19  

#1  Oh the Archbdruid of Canterbury. I thought you meant a REAL archbishop, like a Catholic one,

FYI, there is no such thing as "church's traditional support fo homophobia", mainly because the term homophobia does not apply - they are not irrationally afraid of homosexuals, they simply disagree with the morality of homosexual conduct. No phobia at all.
Posted by: OldSpook   2013-08-30 00:55  

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