My thoughts on Scout issues

I am prefacing this with the statement below for your consideration; I know I usually provide only general good advice and inner thoughts that might help someone through their day, but I felt if anywhere this was appropriate to post, this would be the place to do it. I am passionate about this topic and feel it is relevant because so many of us fall upon the sword of hate in our lives, so many of us wield the same sword, even while it still drips with our own blood. We hate and hate the haters continually and I believe it's vital to our survival as a species that we stop that hate, recognize our own shortcomings and take a risk to overcome them by loving ourselves and one another, not shunning one another for our differences. My desire to post this is not to stir up controversy or a theology argument, but to allow you an opportunity to consider a potential truth. Read it and continue to believe the words that speak to your spirit. I will continue to love and respect you, no matter what your perspective. <3 ~ I once signed someone's petition through change.org, so now I get emails every day from random people asking me to help with their causes. Sometimes I look at these emails, sometimes I don't, sometimes I read the heading and think, “there’s a reason you can’t have that” and leave it alone, but today I did read it. I read the heading of the email and it was enough to make me open it up and take a moment to read her plea for help. By the time I was done with my email, I was angry, sad and disappointed all at once. Here's a piece of the email; "My son Ryan has been a Boy Scout since he was 6 years old, and now, a few days before his 18th birthday, he has fulfilled all the requirements to be an Eagle Scout. But because Ryan recently came out to his friends and family as gay, leaders from our local Boy Scout troop say they won't approve Ryan's Eagle award." This is not the first message regarding people’s frustration with the Scouts and their policy on the gay community I’ve seen in the last few months. This whole concept wasn’t new to me and it wasn’t a shock, in fact, the media is somewhat saturated with it right now but even still, for some reason this one got to me. I understand this is a Christian organization upholding a core set of values that focus on their beliefs. I respect that and even if I don't agree, I still hold to the principle that organizations have a right to enact any (legal) standards they see fit in their own group/business/company. If they want to demand that everyone who crosses their threshold speaks in pirate and wears a grass skirt, so be it. If they want to demand that only people with brown eyes are allowed to join, well that’s their prerogative and the blue eyed folks will just have to start their own club. Having said that, this is what bothers me- From a Christian perspective, this does not seem like a just act on their part. The child grew up in the family of the Scouts and behaved exactly as he was expected to throughout his entire life. He represented the organization with honor and dignity and made them proud for over a decade and yet when it came time for him to be awarded for his many years of service to the organization, they turned their backs on him and denied him the award that represented all those years of service. Nowhere in the rule books, codes of conduct, Scout Oath or Scout Law does it state being homosexual is forbidden. The rule book does demand a scout act with honor, dignity and morality. None of these fundamentals are being used in the treatment of this young man. I've tried to keep an open mind with the Scouts as they have come under fire a great deal recently over this because I have family in the scouts and I may even want my son to join them one day... but this is just something I cannot agree to disagree with or continue to ignore without throwing in my two cents. The young man just turned 18. He hasn’t yet engaged in any romantic behavior, homosexual or otherwise. It’s simply the fact that he is not heterosexual that causes this organization to turn their backs on him and disgrace him, nullify his 15 years of service and deny him his due recognition for work already done. In the Bible, there are many references to homosexuality and “lying with a man as one lies with a woman” and how that act is “detestable” and “vile.” They are right, it’s in there- plain as day and clear as crystal, but here’s the thing; if you’re like me, you trust the word of God. Many believe that the word of God is spoken through many who interpreted that word and those interpretations are what we now call The Bible. I may be a cynic, but I just don’t trust the words of other men acting in the name of God. I trust the words of Jesus, not the words of any other man capable of sin in ways that Jesus was not. If we follow Christian law and ideals, Christ was above sin and was the living God incarnate. Which to me, means his word goes and is far reaching above the word of man, even a holy man, even a “Christ-like” man, because every man has an agenda. Every man is capable of darkness and ego and none are above it- this is also Christian law, as far as I understand it. That being said, I personally will take the word of Christ over the word of a disciple any day. Maybe that’s short sighted, but forgive me if I just don’t trust people all that much to not create a law based on their own personal preference knowing no one will challenge them! I also realize that the entire book has been written and rewritten so many times to fit leaders’ agendas it’s difficult to trust anything as sacred, but I’m taking a leap of faith here in order to make my point so bear with me. Matthew 22:36-4, New International Version (NIV) 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” You see, Jesus he didn’t say “Love thy neighbor as yourself, unless they are homosexual, in which case you’re welcome to cast them out of every social circle, deny them access to the house of the lord, deny them the right to become men and women of ministry and prevent them from sharing equal marriage rights.” That was NO where in that statement as far as I can tell. His message was love, above all else- love. Love to Christ is not love like romantic love or even the casual polite understanding we claim to be love between friends and it’s supposed to be an unknowable volume more than the love a parent has for a child. The love that is taught by Christ is an all encompassing, unconditional compassionate love; “agape” that sees within each person to the core of their soul. It can easily weigh and measure each sin and good deed and love regardless with open arms of sanctuary all with only a belief in that love in exchange. There is absolutely no documentation anywhere to indicate Jesus, the Christ, the Living God, the Son of the Heavenly Father EVER stated it was acceptable to hate, shun, deny or abandon homosexuals and keep them from their lives and lifestyles. He never instructed those who followed him to deny them the right to join hands in marriage and he never indicated it would be just or righteous to prevent them from having the same rights as heterosexuals. For this reason, any organization or company that supports this line of thinking in the name of Christian Law, I believe, is acting against Christ and shunning his most precious and fundamental request of mankind; to love. We can speculate that as a Jew, Jesus did follow the laws of Moses which state blatantly that homosexual behavior is unacceptable. However, most churches and Christian belief systems will encourage against speculation because you should only believe what is written and not get in too deep with your own ideas on what the people in the Bible were thinking. With that in mind, I looked up Cor. 6:9-11, a typical verse sited when considering homosexuality and the Christian world in which, according to the King James version, states the following; “1 Corinthians 6:9-11 King James Version (KJV) 9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” As far as I can tell, and please know I’m not by any means a Bible scholar here, but it seems to only site “the effeminate” which is to me, a little vague. I’ve seen other versions that were put together after this, more modern versions that have replaced effeminate with homosexual, which are NOT the same word. I’m assuming as time has gone on, people chose to interpret the statement as they saw fit and as I understand it, Paul is speaking in direct regards to the Greeks and their licentious practices involving men and women as they engaged in sexual practices that were frivolous acts of lust and violence, not sacred acts of love and commitment. When evaluating that statement carefully in other versions of the text, the word “effeminate” was originally written as, “arsenokoita” (meaning “men and “bed”)or, translated as those “that defile themselves with mankind” because supposedly there was no word for homosexuality. Once this was discovered, the more modern editors changed the word to homosexuality just to “clarify things” for the modern reader. Unfortunately, this was not a true statement, as there was a word in the time used for homosexuality. Paul could easily have used the term “paiderasst”, as this was the appropriate and common term used in the day to represent homosexual behavior in Greece at the time. This also indicates the word exchange per the editor’s preference over time because for some time, this reference to “those that defile themselves with mankind” referred to masturbators and had absolutely nothing to do with homosexual activity. In fact, as masturbation became more accepted in the 20th century, the terms seen in Bible printings up to that point changed from “”those that defile themselves with mankind” to “effeminate” or outright stating “homosexuality” even though this particular term or was completely nonexistent in the time of Paul. I realize I’m skimming the surface looking for specific things here and I may be missing something but as far as I can tell, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus/God himself condemn, shun or abandon homosexuals as children of God. Nowhere does he state that a Christian should become an advocate against same sex marriage and nowhere in the Bible does it state homosexuals are denied access to heaven or should be treated as ungodly creatures of sin. Jesus did reiterate the importance of Genesis 2:24 (“Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife” etc.) when asked about divorce and the value of commitment, but I’m not sure how that denies the right of a same-sex couple from marrying, as it only states the value of the commitment of marriage under God between a man and a woman. It does not define this arrangement as the only gender combination of marriage allowed, nor does it state “a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife only and man shall never engage in marriage to another man”. If the Bible stated this, perhaps we wouldn’t be faced with such a challenge in this area. Many Christians do believe this implies it’s the only right combination, but the fact of the matter is that when you look, even carefully to find the words to justify hate, condemnation and the denial of equal rights to the homosexual community, it simply isn’t there. So, what does all this mean to me? It means that men have decided this, neither God nor Jesus. Jesus taught only love, love through Grace and according to everything I’ve read in the Bible, Grace is not awarded or taken away because of sexual orientation. No man, even a disciple, has the right to dictate otherwise. It does however state very clearly the vast importance of loving one another- all peoples, regardless of any differences. It states the importance of giving, charity and understanding, as we are asked to look inward to see the similarities between one another rather than our differences. We are asked to have compassion for all people and to draw people toward God by showing “his” love through our works, our minds and our lives. So sure, the Scouts can go ahead and have whatever type of club they want and if they don’t want homosexual teens to be a part of it, that’s their right but in no way can this be called a Christian decision. Considering they’re perfectly willing to knowingly harbor hundreds of known sex offenders as scout leaders, I question the moral integrity of the organization at its very core. It’s so disappointing to see such a respected group fail to provide respect to others. I feel this may be the beginning of their end, truly the end of an amazing era of service, strength and honor. Many young men across the country will miss out.