I have to say a few words before you read this Writing by Brother Desmond Tutu that Had to be Written by the Spirit of our Lord through him! Thank You God in the name of Jesus!
I have been saying for a while that God did not ask Any person to give any details as to How they wanted their life to be....
He never asked any one if they wanted to be = straight or lgtbq,
If we wanted to be male or female, if we wanted to be differently abled or not,
He Never Asked,
if we wanted to be green, white, brown, blue, red or yellow...
if we wanted to be short or tall, in need of glasses or not, to have curly hair or straight,
Never did God ask any one in what kind of family do they want to be born into , or what part of the world they want to be born and live in...
None of this did our God Ask any of us! He made us according to What He knows Best and Is best for us! End of that story!
And for people that Hate God whether they be lgbtq or straight, I say that you are just as wrong as those that have mis-represented Him to you!
Don't Hate on God, He did NOTHING to you--Go learn about Him for yourself, then you Will have the Truth, Understanding and Knowledge to Stand on. His Truth is your Light concerning those that Have tried to use Him as a weapon against you--Those that Have Mis-represented Him to you and so many others!
Now, my friends , my sisters and brothers, Sit and Feed your soul, your heart, your Spirit With All that this writing has to offer, IJN, Amen!
*******************
In Africa, a step backward on human rights
By Desmond Tutu
Friday, March 12, 2010
Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.
It is time to stand up against another wrong.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God's family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered.
In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.
Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.
These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.
Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.
And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.
"But they are sinners," I can hear the preachers and politicians say. "They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished." My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?
The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.
The writer is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
By Desmond Tutu
Friday, March 12, 2010
Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.
It is time to stand up against another wrong.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God's family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered.
In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.
Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.
These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.
Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.
And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.
"But they are sinners," I can hear the preachers and politicians say. "They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished." My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?
The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.
The writer is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
**********
**I Praise God in the name of Jesus for Mr Tutu's Clarity and Understanding and unconditionaLove for All of God's Children.**
**I Praise God in the name of Jesus for Mr Tutu's Clarity and Understanding and unconditionaLove for All of God's Children.**
** Here is a comment left by a dear friend of mine on my fb posting of this Writing**
Over and over through the entirety of the Gospels, Jesus spoke of forgiveness, self-examination, and the need for understanding. To wit:
Matthew 22:34-40 (New International Version)
The Greatest Commandment
Matthew 22:34-40 (New International Version)
The Greatest Commandment
(34)Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. (35)One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
(36)"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" (37)Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[a] (38)This is the first and greatest commandment. (39)And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[b] (40)All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Footnotes: 1. Matthew 22:37, Deut. 6:5, 2. Matthew 22:39 Lev. 19:18)
It doesn't get any clearer than that. Those were the only two commandments Jesus ever laid flat-out. Just smoooooth out, go read the red letters and see. Jesus grew up in the synagogue and He knew the law front to back and side to side. He also knew the gentle path we should take, the hard one that put peace and forgiveness ahead of the easy road to hate and war.
Color has long been creeping into the church as a dividing line, just when we though some progress just might be happening. There's mess out there like the white people's "bible" that preaches nothing BUT hate. Such perversions will lead its followers directly to hell on a rocket, hide and watch. Read the red letters and find out.
You want some eye-openers? All the verses cherry-picked and thrown at the LGBT community were originally and in-context meant to stop the ancient practice of temple prostitution. Not a thing about homosexuality. Nothing.
Read Ezekiel 23 if you want something to shock your hind end. There's a reason they don't read that in church or Sunday school. But there are people who will twist historical fact into reasons for hatin' on other people. Know your history. Don't let hate twist your heart and don't let other people's ignorance lead you down their greased path. Keep your eyes and head up, your heart light, and your feet on a path of peace. That's the way the Master taught.
Color has long been creeping into the church as a dividing line, just when we though some progress just might be happening. There's mess out there like the white people's "bible" that preaches nothing BUT hate. Such perversions will lead its followers directly to hell on a rocket, hide and watch. Read the red letters and find out.
You want some eye-openers? All the verses cherry-picked and thrown at the LGBT community were originally and in-context meant to stop the ancient practice of temple prostitution. Not a thing about homosexuality. Nothing.
Read Ezekiel 23 if you want something to shock your hind end. There's a reason they don't read that in church or Sunday school. But there are people who will twist historical fact into reasons for hatin' on other people. Know your history. Don't let hate twist your heart and don't let other people's ignorance lead you down their greased path. Keep your eyes and head up, your heart light, and your feet on a path of peace. That's the way the Master taught.
*****
On feet of Faith & Peace
Joshua 1:9/ Isaiah 52
Resting In His Faithfulness,
One Day At A Time By Faith.
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