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Burning Like A Thousand Rainbow Suns, Part One

I’m a vehemently Side A queer individual (Side A = I think God permits same-sex marriage), but I follow a number of queer people who are Side B (those don’t think God permits same-sex marriage) on Twitter.   I should state at the outset that while I will not spare traditionalist Heterosexual People With Opinions, I’m not out to bash LGBT+ folks who choose to be celibate for religious reasons. If I thought they were right about Scripture, I’d put my nose to the grindstone and try to survive as a perpetually single and abstinent Monastery of One, so on some level, I get it. There are also Side B queer folk I’ve learned things from. “Learning from” though, doesn’t equate to “shouldn’t criticize” and it’s criticism time. So, over the space of a couple of posts I’ll be critiquing Gabriel Blanchard’s response to a specific argument for Side A convictions. In Gabriel’s summary of the affirming argument, it is “ based in the text It is better to marry than to burn , which in the Gre
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Side B and Celibacy: Quick Assessment

A short reflection on Side B (http://mudbloodcatholic.blogspot.com/2016/03/gay-and-catholic-part-i-gaystation-two.html) lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians, originally written as a comment to a friend – There’s much that I’m grateful for in the witness of Side B Christians. Christianity as I understand it is, in many ways, a fiercely ascetic religion and the Side B crowd has done the Christian community a real service in drawing renewed attention to the necessity of self-discipline, sacrifice and ascesis in Christian life. With that said, I worry about the rhetoric of sacrifice. I think for a sacrifice to be life-giving, at least in my experience, three things need to be present: (Criterion 1)   sacrifice must be motivated by love and aimed at growing in knowledge of and respect for God, other people, and the image of God in oneself; in other words, rightly done, sacrifice is a means to the end of nourishing covenantal relationships (Criterion 2) sacrifice must be supported by
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