Job Description 'Celibacy'...legal?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Gay Bishops have to keep it in their pants

The sex-obsessed Anglicans can't be serious. In no other walk of life would it be legally OK to insist successful job applicants could be gay but would have to be celibate. Hope someone challenges this.

I hope so too, Cogito. Especially since heterosexual bishops are allowed sex. I find it impossible to believe that a loving God would create people who are homosexual, claim to love them, and then turn around and tell them 'But you can't have sex, ever, because it's sinful if you're gay'.

Leviticus 20
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

I really think people should read the bible. The bible is very clear there is nothing ambiguous about what is said about homosexuality. I think it's a strange thing that gay men should want to join the church when they know it is so hostile towards them.

The bible says a great deal of things that the CofE doesn't take in the least bit seriously so that doesn't really wash. I'm just astonished that, seemingly in an effort to please everyone, they have gone for a compromise solution that is so blatantly offensive, prejudicial and intrusive Gay bishops can be in a civil partnership.. so they're married ... but must abstain from sex. Can you imagine saying that to a heterosexual bishop and expecting to be taken seriously?

Did the bible not also condone rape (as long as the man had bought the woman and married her), and praise two girls for getting pregnant by their father?
Not sure I'd be taking the argument down the bible route tbh.

I'm not certain I'd want to sign up to work for an employer that was so oppressive and prejudiced. The church is in danger of losing all credibility though if they themselves no longer defer to their own book.

other Leviticus quotes:

When a woman has a discharge, if her discharge in her body is blood, she shall continue in her menstrual impurity for seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening.
Leviticus 15.19-24

You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together
Leviticus 19.19

You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard
Leviticus 19.27

Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him.
Leviticus 24:16

So why follow one, when there are four others above that are not followed? And there are plenty of other rules in other books of the Bible which are also not followed, I have just picked four from the same book as the homosexuality quote comes from.

I wonder why people who claim to be Christians don't focus on what Christ actually said about sexuality. Which wasn't much, except for 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' - meaning, mind your own beeswax.

It's great fun to quote Biblical restrictions at people who attempt to justify their homophobia by saying 'but the Bible says it's wrong'. I wonder why they fixate on homosexuality or women priests rather than, I dunno, avoiding shellfish, pork and pigskin, or marrying your brother's widow, or not marrying your brother's widow depending on which verse you are most worried about...

People who follow the Bible will often operate on double standards.

The church of England is a huge great unholy mess frankly, and this latest debacle does nothing to help. I agree that one wonders why on earth anyone would want to work as part of such a bigoted organisation

I only posted quote from Leviticus to make the point that if gay people follow Christianity they must have to leave out quite a lot of the bible to find it compatible with WHO they are. If the church also chooses to ignore what is in the book, it either makes a mockery of the church or a mockery of this book! Plus if gay people are christians, to change christiany to the extent that it has no integrity left, would be to harm the thing they want to be part of.

they are not saying gay PEOPLE can be bishops are they - just gay men.....

So you can be an Anglican bishop if you're a man who fancies men but you can't if you're a woman who fancies men (or other women, for that matter).

And this bunch of cretins represent the State Religion who get automatic seats in the House of Lords? These are the idiots who feel that their views on morality and ethics are sound enough that they are entitled to directly influence legislation?

For fuck's sake. I'd think twice about letting these dribbling loonies be in charge of a sodding whelk stall, let alone being allowed to vote in parliament.

Good point, so in the churches own teaching sex is about procreation (in fact most of the gumf on sodomy is in relation to sex within marriage) but women married to men are not allowed to be bishops. But gay men can be "married" but because they can't procreate, they can't have sex. It's not workable anyway, how long will it be before one is found to be sneaking a quickie! Again it's all about men and power. I'm sure if the gay lobby was not gay men but lesbians we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Mini, the point that AGlassHalfEmpty is making is that the Anglican church, and Christians in general, are already ignoring vast chunks of the Bible.

The prohibitions against homosexuality in the Bible make up only a tiny part of it and of that it's only in the Old Testament - ie, the bit that most Christians dismiss as out of date and superseded by Jesus' teachings. You could very easily ignore those bits and still keep the central message that Jesus gave, ie, love your neighbour as yourself.

Indeed, Jesus said a lot more about how, if you wish to follow him, you should sell all your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor than he did about homosexuality. So assuming you haven't sold all your possessions can we take it that your shunning of Jesus' message "...makes a mockery of the church or a mockery of this book!"?

Also how errr are they actually defining celibacy, eh? A hug is OK but a snog isn't? A snog is OK but a hand job isn't? Clearly the obsession is with anal sex but presumably there are gradations of taboo...

Didn't Jesus round up the money changers in the temple? If you look at the history of the church and it's patriarchal insistence upon marriage, private property, wife as mere chattel and breeding machine, the bible actually seems positively Roman in it's outlook. If Christians (CofE) are ignoring the old testament then why is it still there? why not just get rid of it and continue to play pick and mix over what's left.

Mini-I would challenge anyone to obey every prohibition in the bible-it is impossible as so much is contradictory and/or of it's time.
There are about a handful of references to homosexuality, most of which are open to interpretation and none in the context of a loving and consensual and monogomous relationship. It was not mentioned by Jesus as far as we know. He did speak about love,acceptance,not judging others and interpreting biblical laws creatively so that we can show compassion to others.
The church-any church-today is so far removed from the early church to be unrecognisable. It has evolved through the centuries both for good and for bad. There is no reason that it can not evolve further to embrace today's views on inclusivity and equality and no reason why people should not challenge the small minded bigotry in the established church.

As well as the mildly thorny issue of defining celibacy... how on earth would the hope to police it? OK you'd have to assume that a bishop could keep a promise but wouldn't he have also made certain promises to his civil partner. And yes, the inconsistency that women are excluded whether gay, straight, single, married or in a civil partnership but men are included with a few ludicrous conditions does nothing but reduce the whole organisation's social credibility. Totally out of step with the society they are trying to minister to.

Oh, there was me thinking that the whole steaming pile would implode from within.

IMO it is not about pick and mix-it is absorbing the important themes and messages and interpreting accordingly-using the brain, compassion and empathy which God has given us.

The thing with the celibacy issue is that if you believe same sex attraction to be a sin(to be clear I do not) Jesus taught that sin comes from the heart. So the physical act makes no difference.

If all we need is empathy and compassion why do we need a church and a book to minister over us. Do we have so little faith in ourselves. You see left to our devices we wouldn't have had hundreds of years of female oppression and slavery, private property relations that impoverish some to the benefit of others. Read about the missionaries and how they imposed "capitalistic and patriarchal" power relations over other peoples. So we could expropriate their natural resources and their labour. The church has much more to be ashamed of than to be proud IMO

Turning from CofE to Rome, my Mother has a good friend who is a gay RC priest (he, um, what you might call 'lived a full life' before he got the call to Jesus). He's a professor and spends a lot of time in Italy at a Catholic university where senior theologians gather. He says the Vatican is, in his words, 'full of screaming queers', which isn't really a surprise. So two of the major Christian churches are hugely hypocritical on this issue (dunno much about Russian or Greek Orthodox but wouldn't surprise me if they were just as bad).

As well as cheerfully ignoring what Jesus said, particularly about 'ignore the Old Testament, I bring you new teachings from God' and 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone'. Oh, and 'the Pharisees are bad for focusing on observance and showing off about how holy they are rather than concentrating on truly loving God'. (My phrasing, obv.!)

Mini, your question about why do we need a church and priests is pretty much what the original protestants said, and what the Quakers said, as far as I understand it.

Well I've learnt something today, I never knew polycotton is un-godly. Wonder what the bishop's robes are made of. Oh, and the sooner this farsical organisation has nothing to do with politics or state education, the better.