So, do stick around, and be on call: the price for liberty is eternal vigilence, alas….

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Let's give those intolerant Pharisees who confront us a run for their money, as we have all done so far on this thread!

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Quite right, Adrian. One only has to read the sickening Ryan Report in Ireland on the extend of the clerical abuse of children in religious run institutions, so see how much "holier" these people actually are.

I have another word, also begins with "h" that better describes them, its hypocrisy.

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(note the extraordinary, unqualified claim in the second part of that sentence)

More whining, whingeing, hysterical nonsense. You are perfectly entitled to your speech. No one is stopping you. But I'm not tolerant of your opinions, because they are babyish, and based on superstition and bigotry.

It's not for me to dictate the policies of churches. My concern is that the church should have zero influence on public life, whether it's religious laws, or religious representatives in the house of Lords.

Church dogma has done untold damage to the lives of LGBT people, and people are finally waking up to the fact it was all nonsense all along.

You ask us to respect your beliefs based on no evidence. Well, I do not. I suspect them, intensely.

The trouble with fanatics such as you is, you can neither tolerate people who are different from you, nor can you take the criticism. Why should I turn the other cheek (an immoral teaching if ever there were one, glad we didn't do that on 9/11)?

Actually Archdeacon, tell me this: what makes you a better moral guide than, e.g. a cleaning lady, an electrician, a pub landlord, a toilet cleaner, or infact, any other profession? History has shown that those working under holy orders tend to be no special pioneers in matters of human rights and the last to accept scientific facts. What are you people actually good for?

I mean to do genuinely well-meaning folk such as John MJ no wrong by such a question.

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As I said, in one of my posts on this thread (above), the Old Testament was fulfilled and finished by Christ's life and Resurrection. It's over and we must use any examples which we draw from it very, very carefully and measure those examples against His universal and all-encompassing message of love. The idea that the Bible contains the literal Word of God is ridiculous and forms no part of mainstream Christian belief – it is, or it may be, His Word filtered through the fallible minds of men and coloured and distorted by the prejudices which those men naturally port. Equally, it may be nothing more than some random collection of after-the-event musings gathered together by the early Church in order to protect and explain its history to future generations of Christian believers. There is ample evidence to indicate that the early Church did not view the Bible as, in any sense, anything more than an historical record and most certainly would have severely disagreed that in any sense whatsoever it was to be relied upon as the Word of God. The copious references to heterosexual unions merely reflect the composition of the group which built the Bible and probably doesn't reflect the mind of God in its compleatness. Given the absolute freedom of action granted to us by God then even the composition of the group(s) which put together the Bible – actually, Bibles, given the big differences between the various sects of our religion – is down to us and has nothing to do with God. Oh, I'm sure that He knew, and knows, how it will all turn out, but he didn't directly command any of it.

If you rely on the Bible for your Faith then you stand on the shifting sands of stupidity. It's much better to rely on the living Christ, the Holy Spirit and God himself and the Triune Godhead's incredible and great message of love for all men.

As far as can be ascertained the Bible as we know it, was unknown to vast majority of Christians in the Apostolic, and immediately post-Apostolic, ages. Certainly, it is never mentioned as being used in Church Services which seem to have centered around an exceedingly simple and short Communion Service, in memory of Christ and his resurrection, followed by a general discussion on the Faith led by a 'priest' who had studied under one of the Apostles, or under one who had studied under one of the Apostles (hence the rise of the superstitious belief in the Apostolic Succession).

How often the Bible which we have today – and not all of the ancient Christian sects even agree on the same Bible – mentions the ideal of heterosexual marriage is compleately irrelevant to any argument about the rights of Gay people. The rights of Gay people are enshrined in Christ's universal message, for all times and all peoples, of love.

Your attempt to introduce other carnalities such as paedophilia into the argument is nothing more than a smokescreen used to cloak your own denial of God's operative love for all people in some cheap and disgusting equivalence argument. Paedophilia cannot, by its very nature, involve the principle of consent – informed consent to an act willingly given of withheld, and contains no love but just lust, it cannot, by very definition, contain the act of two-way love – and that is what makes it a sin against God and nature. Adult gay relationships are consensual and long-term gay relationships are entered into consensually, and contain love and committment.

It is a cheap and misdirecting propaganda trick to try to introduce carnalities such as paedophilia, rape and bestialty into the debate about gay relationships simply because the principles of love and consent operate in gay relationships, as they do in heterosexual relationships, and cannot operate or be present in the other carnalities.

John, Ch. 8, V. 7 seems to apply here, as does Matthew, Ch. 7, V. 1 and Romans Ch. 2, V. 1 – if you must have spiritually invalid Biblical quotes, that is!

Gay relationships are valid not because they operate within some heterosexual norm, nor because they operate within some legal norm, but because they operate within the parameters of Christ's love, of God's love as evinced by the Christ, for all humanity, and because they are, just as heterosexual relationships are, or should be, consensual and loving.

You counted words and thereby behaved as the Pharisee and the Levite did in Luke Ch. 10, Vs. 29 to 37. I, however, shall be the Good Samaritan and demonstrate His message of love – something that you are obviously incapable of doing or understanding at the moment. That particular parable is, of course, the premier example of Our Lord Jesus simultaneously fulfilling, negating and rewriting the Old Testament to very point that it cannot be used to castigate anyone – His message of love shines through!

You do, however, have a valid point when you complain about the actions of what, I hope, is a tiny minority of gay people in their trying to intimidate those, like you, who wish to believe in a different and less forgiving creed than the vast majority of our Christian brethren. Emails and telephone calls which contain bile and hatred should not be sent or made by any civilised person. Intimidation should not, and must not, be used as a debating tactic in our free and democratic Western societies. You are free to speak your mind as I am free to speak mine. I will defend to the final and ultimate act your right to speak your beliefs but I will challenge them also and disagree with you where I consider it to be needful so to do. I deprecate most strongly those of our number who resort to base threats against your safety and your right to speak of your beliefs but, and it's a big but, a little politeness and a small portion of acknowledgement that there is another side, another interpretation of Christ's Word, wouldn't go amiss here if you want to keep the debate civilised. I don't ask you believe as I believe but I do ask you to believe that there are other ways of interpreting that which you interpret in your own way. Stop shouting at us and putting your fingers in your ears when we reply and start debating – we're never going to agree but we might just learn to, as Christ commands, love one another. Who knows, we might even reach an accommodation, God willing!

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Really? Well "Archdeacon" Brian Hurtin (how pompous), I always though that is what you religious twits thought about yourselves, is it not? Agree with us or we'll burn you for witchcraft. Agree with us, because it validates out life choices. Agree with us becuase out god is better then your god. Agree with us because we need no proof of what we believe in and neither should you. Agree with us, becuase it keeps us in power.

Am I right, or am I right?

You sir, are neither Christian or spiritual.

And ironic you use the term "gaystapo", when the Nazi's killed people of other religious and homosexuals in the name of a "christian god". Get you history right before spitting your little hate slogans at me, you fool.

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I have seen the Fred Phelps story doing the rounds in each country as though Fred Phelps is christianity bearing in mind that to take that story to its logical conclusion, Osama Bin Laden is representative of all muslims in the world.

In addition I have seen the comment that Jesus did not condemn homosexuality. Of course he did not need to as God's views on the subject were very clear as the Bible contains 770 verses about marriage and every one talks about Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

If I said to my son 770 times that he needed to find a girlfriend if he wants to get married, I think any sane person would understand that I didn't say if you find a boyfriend that is all right as well.

Jesus did not condemn paedophilia so I take it that you seen nothing wrong with it? If you do, your argument about Jesus and homosexuality is spurious.

The gaystapo have yet to realise that their arguments against christianity are double speak as one of their catchcry's is "freedom of speech" but it is very obvious from reading what is said here and in the media all over the world that they only believe that if you agree with them.

Their other catchcry is 'tolerance" but if you disagree with them you will be given a gigantic dose of intolerance. However, because they are so insecure in what they believe and who they are, they cannot see how intolerant they are.

"At least one pro-family organization that has opposed the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" is being targeted with hate e-mails and telephone calls, including suggestions that officials go and kill themselves."

In other words, you cannot disagree with us because our rights are the only ones that matter.

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He, Mr. Skinner, doesn't know much about mainstream theology, doesn't have much understanding of the history of the Faith and manifestly doesn't have a clue about Biblical recension.

Now all that might be Greek to you, and that's fine for there is no reason why it shouldn't be, but for too long Mr. Skinner, and his ilk, have ridden roughshod over the feelings and beliefs of other Christians at this site and offered up their weird and wonderful interpretation of the Faith as the whole truth about Christianity. It's not even remotely the truth – it's the deranged ravings of a delusional fanatic who got hold of the Bible and thinks that that is all there is to Christianity.

Imagine, if you will (please), just for a moment, that you are standing in my shoes, the shoes of a gay Christian, and there are a fair few of us, and you read the ravings of Mr. Skinner at your favourite gay news site. Wouldn't you want to reply, to challenge him and his unorthodox and weird and unjustified assumptions about your Faith? I'm replying to him in kind and deploying the knowledge I have about my mainstream Christian beliefs in order to nullify his harmful, and hate filled, statements.

The problem with religiously deranged people like Mr. Skinner, and his Satan inspired worship of some paper and cardboard icon, is that they make a lot of noise and cause good people like you to think that they are spouting some true version of the Faith when, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course, and as you would expect, I invite you to believe as I believe – but that's the nub of the thing, isn't it? I invite you to form your own view of God, if you can or if you want to (I witness for my Faith), whereas Mr. Skinner and his cohorts want to bludgeon you into their view no matter how wrong it might be nor how much spiritual (note the lower case 's') damage which they might do to you.

If all that makes me a religious maniac, and you could be correct, if my desire to challenge Mr. Skinner's unorthodox views about the Faith in his own terms, makes me somehow suspect then I'm sorry but it is the best that I can offer in defence of our freedoms and our rights.

Someone has to challenge the weird, oulandish and deranged believers who haunt this site deliberately in order to prey upon the vulnerable amongst us! Why shouldn't it be me and why can I not do it in my Faith terms that they might just understand? Does that make me a "religious maniac" or a Faith-based challenger of the hard-of-thinking?

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I have no doubt that you will have noted, since you have obviously read this thread quite thoroughly, that all the Mr. Skinner could reply to me was that I ought to "read my Bible" – as if I had never done so. He proved thereby, as I am sure that you will agree, my point – that he has raised the Bible as a wall between him and God: that he worships the Bible not God, that he simply cannot see the love of God and that all that he wants from religion is a series of rules and that he has chosen to derive those rules from a particular book – the Bible (which he chooses to take absolutely literally and as if it were historically accurate fact, which it isn't) – rather than from Christ's living presence in his life. If one is a Christian then that is just the ultimate stupidity.

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__SeekBi–com___

Just for sexy gals and guys to find their cupid. Come on, tall singles. Don't miss your lover.

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Skinner, you're one of natures losers. You're out classed, out manoeuvred, our thought, and out witted here. Keep quoting the bible, its all your capable of.

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My fav line is "Your mean the imaginary deity with a bipolar disorder? I mean he thinks he's a chicken and shits fire on people's heads, for crying out loud.". Very funny, man.

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The holy chicken. Classic.

Skinner, you're an arse with delusions of being god. That's grounds for incarceration, you freak.

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Your mean the imaginary deity with a bipolar disorder? I mean he thinks he's a chicken and shits fire on people's heads, for crying out loud. Talk about the bum deal as gods go…. he really needs to renegotiate bis position. I'm guessing Jesus and his bitchy father gang up on him:- Jesus they can turn water to wine, and his mentally retarded father gets this kicks from asking blokes to kill their kids and torching random vegetation and talking through them to frighten people (according to that silly book), but the Holy Spirit just goes mindless fluttering around the sky landing on people's head. What a bum deal. No wonder the devil doesn't take him seriously… who would? Its a chicken, for heaven sake. What's he going to do, lay an egg on Beelzebub? Drive him insane with his incessant tweeting? Peck his nose?

The useless god award:- the holy spirit.

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