"Ex-Gay" "Ministry" Ordered Closed in TN

Da Blonde Bombshell · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:58 am Post subject:

An Update:

Judge Nixes Ex-Gay Injunction
by The Associated Press

Posted: October 22, 2005 11:00 am ET

(Memphis, Tennessee) A federal judge has refused to allow Love In Action ministry, which claims to counsel gay clients to turn straight, to continue "treating people".

An injunction was sought against an order from the state Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities, which found that the organization's two Memphis facilities were controlling patients' access to their prescription medication and thus needed to be licensed as a mental health facility. (story)

Love In Action International Inc. has sued the state to oppose being required to get a license. It claims that the facility did not restrict access to medication, but kept it in a central location to prevent theft and tampering. The ministry is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal organization, that regularly fights gay rights issues.

U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald denied the motion Friday, The Commercial Appeal reported.

"We're still very encouraged and we believe the court will eventually rule in our favor," said Nathan Kellum, counsel for LIA. "There are no disputed facts, it's just a question of the state misapplying the statute of licensure."

Love In Action's stated mission is "the prevention or remediation of unhealthy and destructive behaviors facing families, adults and adolescents," including promiscuity, pornography and homosexuality.

The company has drawn protests from gay rights advocates, who Love In Action claims were instrumental in getting the state to inspect the facility and push for its closing.

The Love In Action organization came to national attention earlier this year when a teenager complained he was being sent to the facility by his parents in an attempt to "turn him straight."

On his web log 16-year-old from Bartlett, Tenn., and said his parents "tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me. ... I'm a big screwup to them, who isn't on the path God wants me to be on. So I'm sitting here in tears ... and I can't help it."

***

Excellent news.
_________________
"Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials." (James 1:2)

"The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan values and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism." -Reinhold Niebuhr

jdwtx2005 · Tadpole Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 28

DBB,
What does Leviticus 18:22 mean?

22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Can you give an another sensible meaning from within the context of scripture or translation from the original Hebrew that would lead us to believe that this means something other than - that a man having sex with another man is an "abomination". By the way I am not trying to be mean spirited here. I only search for truth. If you see something wrong in the way I have interpreted this, please explain how, but please use scripture and logic.

Thank you,
In the Love of Christ,
jdwtx2005 Very Happy

Fake · Tiger Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 862

Da Blonde Bombshell · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:53 am Post subject:

Da Blonde Bombshell · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:56 am Post subject:

Evee · Moderator Joined: 13 Sep 2005 Posts: 642

RevJP · Moderator Joined: 18 Apr 2003 Posts: 6908 Location: USA

I think Lev 18:22 means exactly what it says: Men having sex with other men, as if with a woman is an abomination to God. Other passages which endorse the same concept:

Lev 20:13 If a man lies with a male as if he were a woman, both men have committed an offense (something perverse, unnatural, abhorrent, and detestable); they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Rom 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves].
Rom 1:23 And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles.
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin],
Rom 1:25 Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it). [Jer. 2:11.]
Rom 1:26 For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one,
Rom 1:27 And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another--men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.
Rom 1:28 And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome,
Rom 1:29 Until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers,
Rom 1:30 Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents.
Rom 1:31 [They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless.
Rom 1:32 Though they are fully aware of God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them.

1Co 6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality,

1Ti 1:9 Knowing and understanding this: that the Law is not enacted for the righteous (the upright and just, who are in right standing with God), but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinful, for the irreverent and profane, for those who strike and beat and [even] murder fathers and strike and beat and [even] murder mothers, for manslayers,
1Ti 1:10 [For] impure and immoral persons, those who abuse themselves with men, kidnapers, liars, perjurers--and whatever else is opposed to wholesome teaching and sound doctrine

Jud 1:7 [The wicked are sentenced to suffer] just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the adjacent towns--which likewise gave themselves over to impurity and indulged in unnatural vice and sensual perversity--are laid out [in plain sight] as an exhibit of perpetual punishment [to warn] of everlasting fire. [Gen. 19.]
_________________
JP's Mind - my blog

unschoolmom · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:36 pm Post subject:

Da Blonde Bombshell · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:46 pm Post subject:

jdwtx2005 · Tadpole Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 28

Anal sex, besides being unscriptural with men or women, it is unhealthy.
The human body was not design to endure pressure in the anus in this manner. Especially if sperm is introduce into the walls of the anus, the proteins in the sperm break down the cell structure of the anus wall. This causes all sorts of diseases. The vagina was built to handle these proteins.

God design our bodies. Even if you do not believe in God, there is biologocal evidence that proves how we are to use them for sex.

Fake · Tiger Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 862

jdwtx2005 · Tadpole Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 28

Evee · Moderator Joined: 13 Sep 2005 Posts: 642

We hear all the time that the Bible is to be read in context. But when push comes to shove, it is never done so. Scripture verses are torn apart, passages pulled here & there to nitpick & show people how wrong they are or to promote some hidden agenda.

Now, when people are trying to take the Bible in context, it isn't good enough either. They're told they're wrong. That THIS is EXACTLY what was meant by God's words & that's that. Final. No different interpretation. If you differ in your view of what the passage is trying to say, you get told that you're not REALLY a Christian, or you're a perverter of God's ways or you're twisting words to mean something different.

In order to understand ANYTHING that the Bible is saying, we must look to how the ancients lived back then. WHY did God tell them these things? WHY did God want it to be this way or that? WHY did God have such an abhorrence for the people that the Israelites drove out? B/C they weren't worshipping HIM. They were worshipping OTHER GODS. He wanted the Israelites to be SPECIAL. He wanted them to stand out. To be different. What were these other countries doing? They were worshipping their own gods, their own way. The whole point of driving these people out of their land & giving it to the Israelites was to prove that OUR God is the ONLY God & He deserves to be worshipped in a SPECIAL way.

The more I read the OT & study the history of the Israelite people, I see that now. There is especially one verse in Judges that we started reading last night that pretty much says a lot - "For your part, do not make a covenant w/the inhabitants of this land; tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed my command. See what you have done!"." Judges 2:2 The Israelite people were making friends w/the inhabitants of the very land that God promised to them. They were intermingling, intermarrying, worshipping their gods. How did they worship these other gods? By using the same methods that the Canaanites & the Egyptians did. By having sex in front of the altars, praying to these fertility gods & such & this made the Lord ANGRY. So He gave them over to the inhabitants, He let them go for a while. He let them be oppressed. Every time in the OT when it says, "The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord", what is that saying? It's saying that they ended up worshipping these other gods, doing exactly the opposite of what the Lord God wanted them to do. HE was the one who saved them all the time. HE was the one who gave them this land - not these other gods. What did these other gods do for anyone? NOTHING.

The whole ongoing theme of the OT from God is Stop worshipping other gods & turn to ME or else I will be angry & I will not be with you. The Israelites did the exact opposite. They repeatedly turned away from Him, worshipped other gods & were oppressed b/c the Lord left them. Then the Lord's heart would melt for his people, He would be overcome w/sadness b/c of the way they were being treated & He would save them again.
_________________
Don't get caught in the trap of thinking you know everything God has to say b/c you've read the Bible. Remember, God is STILL speaking. And surprisingly, through people we DON'T expect.

Da Blonde Bombshell · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 11:52 am Post subject:

jdwtx2005 · Tadpole Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 28