{"id":2728,"date":"2008-03-03T16:37:46","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T21:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/03\/obama-sermon-on-mount-justifies-same-sex-unions\/"},"modified":"2008-03-05T12:43:54","modified_gmt":"2008-03-05T17:43:54","slug":"obama-sermon-on-mount-justifies-same-sex-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/obama-sermon-on-mount-justifies-same-sex-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama: Sermon on Mount Justifies Same-Sex Unions"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNSnews.com<\/a> | Terence P. Jeffrey | Mar. 3, 2008<\/p>\n

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not make him “less Christian.” <\/p>\n

“I don’t think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state,” said Obama. “If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.” St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans condemns homosexual acts as unnatural and sinful. <\/p>\n

Obama’s mention of the Sermon on the Mount in justifying legal recognition of same-sex unions may have been a reference to the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” Or it may have been a reference to another famous line: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”<\/p>\n

The Sermon, recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, includes the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, an endorsement of scriptural moral commandments (“anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven”), and condemnations of murder, divorce and adultery. It also includes a warning: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”<\/p>\n

The passage from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, which Obama dismissed as “obscure,” discusses people who knew God but turned against him.<\/p>\n

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised,” wrote St. Paul. “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”<\/p>\n

On the topic of abortion, Obama said his support for keeping it legal does not trespass on his Christian faith.<\/p>\n

“I think that the bottom line is that in the end, I think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than some bureaucrat in Washington. That’s my view,” Obama said about abortion. “Again, I respect people who may disagree, but I certainly don’t think it makes me less Christian. Okay.” <\/p>\n

. . . more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNSnews.com | Terence P. Jeffrey | Mar. 3, 2008 Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,18,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay-marriage","category-politics","category-sanctity-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}