I'm confused about the American Republican party

[kandrathe]

As in other things, 'common doctrine' has to adapt and change, and I think this is another area where the time has come to modify it. As I mentioned in another post, 50 years ago, it was 'common doctrine' for churches to deny interracial marriage, and the government participated, too. Is anyone here going to argue that 'common doctrine' of that time should be upheld now?

Social change takes time, and it's coming on this issue. Just a question of when at this point.

The Church has spent a good deal of time and energy (and blood) fighting against doctrinal drift. As we've seen with the Anglican church, this is the kind of issue that creates schisms resulting in a new splinter denominations, or sours people on church altogether. Anyway, my reaction was that it's not really that the Church acts "stupidly", more that it is entrenched in 2500 years of historical precedence. The interpretation is not in question. Judeo-Christian doctrine (from Leviticus 18 to be more exact), dates back to 5th or 6th century BC. It would be pretty hard to just outright do away with the explicit commandments in the books of Moses. And, in the warning tale of Sodom (ergo Sodomy) and Gomorah, there is a pretty stern warning about God's position on hedonism.

Christianity tends to set aside the rigidity of strict Judaic law, giving deference to loving and honoring God, rather than dispassionately following a recipe of godly living. But in the writings of Paul to the Romans, same sex and other "unnatural" acts common in Rome were condemned. So, again, in the Christian faith, the traditions of Leviticus are upheld.