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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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I'd like to clarify that I mean absolutely none of this as an attack, personal or otherwise

It is incumbent of those who are on the cutting edge to accommodate for those who aren't. Pretending not to know you're on the cutting edge, or [even worse] being proud of doing provocative things for the purpose of being provocative, is not acceptable.

Liberal Christians (and the gay ones that have relationships following that [what is to me, at least] self-evident visible thread of the way pair-bonding is supposed to work) tend to have an identity of having more problems with this. And provided that isn't for selfish/pride reasons "just to see what you can get away with" [which is the thing traditionalists don't quite understand- because if they themselves were doing those things, it would be in the 'testing boundaries for selfish reasons'/'tricking God' category; this is the core of why some things can be sins for some people but not others], and you're conducting yourself by doing your job (and sticking to what a monogamous relationship is supposed to be) otherwise, there's nothing else wrong with it. Eating food sacrificed to other gods has the same inherent issues- where it's technically acceptable, but doing it thoughtlessly emits pollution that hinders your overarching goals as a follower of Christ.

And that, complicating Christianity in a way the people you're supposed to be reaching can't handle yet, is a sin in the same way and for the exact same reasons as traditionalists misusing "wives, submit to your husbands" (generally as an excuse to be lazy in the relationship).

(Actually, those two verses in their respective contexts have a lot more to do with each other than I think most people realize, as does the 'women leading in church' thing. Leaders should cater to the default, and people who aren't the default should respect that, because the default is what we're after; your job is to work the margins, their job is to not stop you.)

it's possible to discern the overall shape of God's intention for human sexuality

The reason it's written down is because for most people it isn't self-evident. I think there are people who can do this, and have noticed that "wait a second, apart from fertility [which straight couples aren't getting condemned for the lack of, and traditionally at least there are a surplus of babies to take care of], this isn't actually different if it's 2 guys".

The inherent problem with that is that how sexuality between 2 guys [or 2 girls] usually looks (this is the "find me one righteous man and I won't destroy the city" argument) in a secular environment, but the thing about traditionalists is that the people who are doing that correctly are more likely to be hiding from them in the standard filter-bubbly way that Reds hide from Blues (and vice versa). Not that people who don't function correctly if they aren't doing that are common anyway, much like those mythical women-men that won't function correctly when placed in first-century relationship divisions. Which is why liberals criticize traditionalists for "turn your brain off, don't use your natural talents, you don't have a clearer picture of what is self-evident and what is not [because none of us do]", because all they see is the man burying his talent he was given to invest because he was afraid of doing something wrong with it.

You can't remove one part of the structure without weakening the whole house.

If you Notice those whose houses are not weak yet lack a component claimed vital, maybe their circumstances actually are different?