Are you sure the animal world ‘practices homosexuality?’ Animals don’t sodomize each other.

Secondly, pedophilia exists too. Is that “natural?” How about incest or bestiality?

The rest of the comment is virtue signaling (“fear…doom…trumpets, etc.) and imagery that rises no higher than a Hallmark card.

Homosexuality exists, therefore it is natural. It is practiced by mammals other than humans. Sex is not only used for procreation, it has many other advantages. For instance, bonobos use sexual activity (not necessarily intercourse) to solve conflict instead of violence; in fact, the majority of their sexual activity is non-procreative.

The world is a beautiful, complex and undeniably wiggly affair. You praise God with one hand, and with the other mock his creation. And there seems to be quite the preoccupation with fear on these boards: warnings of doom, trumpets sounding and the like; and yet I can’t seem to find even one sign of faith here.

Soft and supple are signs of life
Stiff and unyielding are signs of death.

The world is ever-flowing. You cannot step in the same stream twice.

Fear clings desperately.
Faith let’s go.

Thank you, sir. Until a brief time ago birth control and divorce were only for extreme situations…all churches agreed. Many Christian people were heroic in keeping their promises…they separated, they abstained, they forgave, they supported the illegitimate children of spouses who had abandoned them…in short they behaved with dignity and love at personal cost. Are we to dismiss them as mere backward losers? Was it all a joke? Is Christianity to follow any trend? The problem is many gay couples behave better than many straight ones…as citizens and friends, certainly with more humility. …which goes a long way with their Father in Heaven.

St. John Chrysostom (347-407)

Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit? where there are many efforts at abortion? where there is murder before the birth? for even the harlot thou dost not let continue a mere harlot, but makest her a murderer also. You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then dost thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine. Hence too come idolatries, since many, with a view to become acceptable, devise incantations, and libations, and love potions, and countless other plans. Yet still after such great unseemliness, after slaughters, after idolatries, the thing [fornication] seems to belong to things indifferent, aye, and to many that have wives, too.

-Homily 24 on Romans

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St. Basil the Great (c. 329-379)

To Anfilochius, Bishop of Iconia:

She who has intentionally destroyed [the fetus] is subject to the penalty corresponding to a homicide. For us, there is no scrutinizing between the formed and unformed [fetus]; here truly justice is made not only for the unborn but also with reference to the person who is attentive only to himself/herself since so many women generally die for this very reason.

-First Letter 2

Canon II.

Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not.

– The First Canonical Epistle of Our Holy Father Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia to Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.

…those who give the abortifacients and those who take the poisons are guilty of homicide.

-First Letter 8

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St. Ambrose (c.340-397)

Indeed there are those women who cut off the word prematurely born/aborted, before they give birth, there are those who have Christ in the womb but they will not yet have formed (him), to whom it is said: my children, whom I desire to bring forth again and again until Christ be formed in you.

Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 10, line 252 [private translation]

But why the eye or the hand, since the aborted child has both a hand and an eye which has already been formed?

-Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. 10, line 283 [private translation]

And elsewhere the same Ecclesiastes, being an old man, guarded him better whom his mother had cast out by abortion, because he did not see these bad things which they make in this world, he neither came into these shadows nor walked in vanity, and for that reason he who did not come into this life will have more of a rest than he who came.

– De bono mortis, cap 2, par. 4, line 11

The poor get rid of their small children by exposure and denying them when they are discovered. But the rich also, so that their wealth will not be more divided, deny their children [when they are] in the womb and with all the force of parricide, they kill the beings of their wombs [while they are] in the same fruitful womb. In this way life is taken away from them before it has been given.

-Hexameron V.18.58 [private translation]

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St. Gregory the Great (540-604)

The aborted [fetus] because it is born before its due time, is immediately concealed [as] dead.

-Moralia, Bk. IV, line 3 [private translation]

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The Letter of Barnabas

“The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following….Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born” (Letter of Barnabas 19 [A.D. 74] ).

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St. Hippolytus of Rome

“Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!” (Refutation of All Heresies [A.D. 228]).

http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/earlychurchfathers/fatherscover.html

Cyntha, There is no “40 days exception” regarding abortion when it comes to the traditional, apostolic, and moral teaching of the Orthodox Church. The theology of the Orthodox Christian faith is very clear and unambiguous: all unborn human life is sacred and innocent human life must be fully protected. The Church categorically condemns abortion. All Orthodox Churches throughout the whole world and across the 2,000 years since Christ have taught and proclaimed this same truth without alteration to all nations.

http://orthodoxnet.com/blog/2013/07/orthodox-church-view-on-abortion-life-begins-at-conception/

It’s not true that homosexuality “occurs in thousands of different species” but even it it did, so what?

And yes, homosexuality is found in other cultures but nowhere, ever, in any culture, did the idea of homosexual marriage ever pop up.

Actually, morality is the basis of law, and morals have their grounding in religion. There is no morality apart from transcendent claims which is to say that any moral claim implies an authority that lies beyond the authority of the person making it. That also includes your claim that objecting to homosexual marriage is bigoted.

Also religion should play no part in law making. Religion is all mythology, there is no proof. A bible is simply a story book, was it written by ‘God’ ? No. It was written by man. What man ‘perceived’. There is no hard evidence that such beings exist.
And even if they did, homosexuality was found in many many cultures of ‘Gods’.

America is about equality and freedom. Accusing acts of equality as ‘tyranny’ is immature and bigoted.

Mike, the natural law argument is not the basis for a Christian understanding of marriage except in the most rudimentary ways. A sacramental understanding however, is never divorced from nature. The problem is that to argue for a sacramental understanding alone in the public square is perceived my most as merely another rights claim, in this case the Christian lobby. Libertarians would have no problem with that of course but others, like myself, understand the Christian obligation to culture differently.

Genesis 1:31 was before the Fall. Saint John Chrysostom, I think, has something to say to Mr. Evdokimov : “‘And Adam knew his wife Eve’. Mind you, when did this take place? After disobedience, after the exile from Paradise; then intercourse began; before disobedience, they lived like Angels, and nowhere is there any mention of intercourse. Because previously we were not subject to physical needs, therefore from the beginning virginity was preeminent.” And Saint Athanasius the Great says this about lust: “Fortunate is he who having married freely at a young age has used marital relations for childbearing. But if he has used it for debauchery then the punishment that the Apostle had talked about for fornicators and adulterers awaits him.” Saint Gregory the Dialogist says, “…when lust takes the place of desire for children, the mere act of union becomes something that the pair have cause to regret.”

I also think you might have a wrong understanding of Saint Methodius’ words “Adam, upon seeing Eve said, ‘You are the other myself.’” Saint John Chrysostom writes on Genesis and the time of Noah. “Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, and they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, “My spirit will not remain in these people forever because they are carnal.” St. John Chrysostom says plainly that men chose women because of their beauty out of their passions for lust. They did not see women in a lawful way, but in a way to fulfill their carnal desires and that was a sin. It was not until this time that men saw women carnally and it greatly displeased God, enough to say “My spirit will not remain with these people because they are carnal.” Therefore, God numbered their days to 120 years, the time needed to build the Ark. And finally, Christ said this regarding lust: “…everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Here’s a good article regarding the Sacrament of Marriage: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/41140325/The-Mystery-of-Marriage-in-a-Dogmatic-Light?

James, you forgot Chrysostom and the Apostle Paul.

St John Chrysostom on the jews:
“The synagogue is a dwelling of demons. Here the slayers of Christ gather together, here the cross is driven out, here God is blasphemed, here the Father is ignored, here the Son is outraged, here the grace of the Spirit is rejected. Does not greater harm come from this place since the Jews themselves are demons, demons dwell in the souls of the Jews? I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater…Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for filthy wild beasts. Do you not shudder to come into the same place with men possessed, who have so many unclean spirits, who have been reared amid slaughter and bloodshed? Must you share a greeting with them and exchange a bare word? Must you not turn away from them since they are the common disgrace and infection of the whole world? Have they not come to every form of wickedness? Have not all the prophets spent themselves making many and long speeches of accusation against them? What tragedy, what manner of lawlessness have they not eclipsed by their blood-guiltiness? They sacrificed their own sons and daughters to demons…they became more savage than any wild beast.

St Paul on the jews: Beware of the dogs

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St John Chrysostom on the homos:
These I say are even worse than murderers: since to die even is better than to live under such insolence. For the murderer dissevers the soul from the body, but this man ruins the soul with the body. And name what sin you will, none will you mention equal to this lawlessness… But nothing can there be more worthless than a man who has pandered himself. For not the soul only, but the body also of one who has been so treated, is disgraced, and deserves to be driven out everywhere. How many hells shall be enough for such? But if you scoff at hearing of hell and believe not that fire, remember Sodom…For I should not only say that you have become a woman, but that you have lost your manhood, and hast neither changed into that nature nor kept that which you had, but you have been a traitor to both of them at once, and deserving both of men and women to be driven out and stoned, as having wronged either sex.

St Paul on the homos: Knowing the ordinance of God, –that those who practice such things are worthy of death…