There is only one thing to say to religious bigots: "We can measure the damage done by rapists and murderers, but we have no way to assess the damage done by the self righteous." - Allan Watts
The most self righteous people in our society now those who have alligned themselves with the precepts of moral relativism and radical individualism, the fundamental character of modern, liberal thought which has gained complete ascendance in our society over the last 40 years.
They have turned themselves into a secular belief system that is as bigoted and prejudiced as any Church ever was and as zealous in persecuting those who do not submit to their code. It has overturned a moral system that has existed since the start of the Western Civilization, and in fact represents a paradigm that is revolutionary and anti thetical to Christian and Western thought and values. Where this will take us is unknown, but it will be far from the utopia of free thought and action that its sophistry proclaims. It will lead to a tyranny.
At the end of the Roman Empire, homosexuality was common and accepted. The empire eventually morphed into the Roman Catholic Church. Could this account for the penchant for some priests boinking little boys and why their senior staff run around in crimson dresses? In case you are a fundie, just remember that it was Constantine who gave us the Catholic church and the bible.
Well that's right. Homosexuality, atleast in a legitimate and celebrated form, is a known symptom of civilizations and institutions that have been corrupted, are in imminent decline, and have lost all sense of right or wrong, up and down, good and evil.
The prime directive becomes one of sensual gratification and morbid self absorption. The Catholic Church to which i ascribe to has in fact been infected this same dissolution, invaded many feel, in a concerted attack on its integrity and in its priesthood.
That does not mean that its fundamental teaching authority and revelation in lessened, or are less True. It's attitudes to homosexuality and marriage are well known and have never been compromised. It just means material elements of it have been contaminated by its necessary openness to the society to which is pastors. Chaos and Darkness will always attempt to subvert, by any means, that which aspires to Truth and Light.
As for your comments that the Roman Empire morphed into the RCC, i'd say check your history. The Roman Empire was prime persecutor of Christianity. Western Civilization, of which the universal Church, in its undivided form, was formative, in fact grew from the ashes of a pagan civilization which completely collapsed by the 5th Cent. A.D... overrun by rapacious tribes. The world remained in the Dark Ages for hundreds of years before anything resembling civilization re-ermerged.
