Reaction to Tim Hortons and Traditional Marriage Post

To date, I have not received the kind of reaction I have for the blog I wrote concerning Tim Horton's and its on-again, off-again support of a gathering in support of traditional marriage and families. After receiving some flack from gay-marriage groups in Canada, Tim Hortons decided to scrap its sponsorship of the program in Rhode Island. I feel this was an unfortunate choice.

I would like to respond to some of the comments I received. Most of the comments were angry, and some were personal attacks. Some were quite vitriolic. I even had to remove some of the comments because they had absolutely nothing to do with the argument, or were practically spam. I know they were not pure spam because in order to post a message on my blog, you must enter a code, which proves you are human.

For some reason, the comments completely went off track and started to become a theism vs. atheism debate. One particular individual posted the same link several times to an atheist website. Another affirmed his belief that Jesus did not exist and that Constantine invented him. I'm not sure what these things have to do with the gay marriage debate. Perhaps it is because as a philosopher once put it, if God doesn't exist, nothing matters. This came from an atheist. He understood that logically, once you remove God from the picture, morals have no force anymore. It's simply one person's desires vs. another's. Therefore, the argument perhaps was that if God doesn't exist, then gay marriage is valid, but so is any other "sin", such as adultery, or rape. Once morals are personal and relativist, one person cannot claim their set of morals is superior to another's and the weakest are forced to accept the dictates of the strong.

Humourously, one person posted a comment which seems to indicate that Hitler was a Christian. This must be an example of the Godwin's Law, which states that "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." The user's comment, as can be seen on the bottom is:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior" - Adolf Hitler

This quote represents an incomplete truth and something of an academic dishonesty. I'm not saying this particular poster is dishonest. Perhaps this quote came from somewhere else. The complete quote is as follows:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. .. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison." - Adolf Hitler

Now, we have a completely different picture. Hitler was not affirming his Christianity, he was turning Jesus into an anti-semite. Hitler is claiming that Jesus fought for the world against what he calls a "Jewish poison." He downplays Christ's suffering and flips him around into a fighter against Jews. Is there someone else you can think of who fought against Jews and who considered them a poison? Hitler. Bingo. Hitler's only point here is that he wants to make those who fight and kill Jews heroes, and he wants to be the foremost.

The real story is that Jesus loved Jews, and most of the first followers of Christ were Jews. Christians constantly remind each other that it wasn't Jews that killed Christ, it was all of us, with our sins. Hitler was simply using Jesus as his justification for genocide.

Another commenter asked for a passage in which Jesus condemns homosexual activity. Jesus does do this.

In Matthew 19: 4-6, it reads:

He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female'5 and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?

Jesus does not mention homosexual acts. He reaffirms the Old Testament view on marriage and confirms its goodness.

Anther passage where Jesus refers to homosexual activity is Matthew 10:15, where he says:

Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

All people who were hearing Jesus at that time realized that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their sexual activity including homosexual activity.

I want to just emphasize something. I believe there are many sins, and homosexual acts are just one of them. Premarital sex, masturbation, and other sexual sins which affect heterosexual, as well as homosexual, people are big problems also. Am I saying I'm above these? No, of course not. I must hold myself to a high sexual moral as well. People with same sex attraction have a great deal of struggle and life is sometimes difficult. They are asked to try their best just like everyone else is. God loves gay people like he loves everyone.

Let's say a prayer for all people who suffer from sexual temptation and sin.