Scott Esk, a Republican candidate for Oklahoma's state legislature, says on his campaign website that "rights come from God — not from government." One of those rights, apparently: Being free to stone homosexuals to death.

As the The Moore Daily discovered, Esk last summer responded to another person's Facebook post about the Pope with scripture passages seemingly condoning the harsh punishment of gays. When someone asked him if he meant "we should execute homosexuals (presumably by stoning)," Esk responded in the affirmative.

"I think we would be totally in the right to do it," he wrote. "That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I'm largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss."

That reminds me of the old joke. Jesus comes across a crowd of people about to stone an adulteress to death. He orders the crowd to stop and reminds them, "Whoever among you is without sin may cast the first stone!" A little old lady limps forward, picks up a giant rock, throws it at the adulteress and instantly kills her.

Shaking his head, Jesus says, "Aw, Mom!"

Maybe I'm reading too much into what is just a joke but is it a Catholic belief that Mary was sinless?

The Catholic Church teaches that The Virgin Mary was indeed without sin. It is a fairly bizarre dogma which goes something like this:

Adam and Eve were created without sin on their souls. Because of their disobedience to God (letting a talking serpent tempt them into eating a piece of fruit from a magic tree),they committed what is known as the Original Sin.

The result of this is that even if a person managed to live their entire life without sinning,they would still have the stain of Original Sin on their souls,since it was passed down from Adam and Eve. Therefore,no one could be entirely sin-free.

And then along came Mary.(apologies to the Association).

As the story goes,when God decided to have a kid,there were several criteria that the surrogate mother had to meet.
One of these was that she be a virgin,and the other was that her soul did not have the stain of Original Sin on it.

The solution to the Original Sin thing was another bit of cosmic smoke and mirrors called the Immaculate Conception.
Contrary to popular belief,this did not refer to Mary conceiving Jesus without having had sex.
What is taught by the Church is that when Mary's mother conceived her,God removed the Original Sin from her soul,therefore it was MARY who was conceived immaculately,allowing her to be the only human in history who lived her whole life totally sin-free.

A few centuries later the Church had to do a little tap dance on the Mary saga,after someone pointed out that since "the wages of sin is death",(according to the Bible),Mary couldn't die,because she never sinned. If she couldn't die,then why wasn't she seen around town,(going to weddings,doing her shopping) for the next thousand years or so?
The solution to this little dilemma was, even by Church standards, a real piece of work.

Bada Bing,Bada Boom,the Church comes up with another gem called The Assumption of Mary.
According to this theory,Mary was bodily assumed up into Heaven
while still alive. One minute,she is hanging out with her lady friends,maybe having some figs,or getting her nails done,and next thing ya know,she starts floating up and up,eventually reaching the Pearly Gates. By the way,this is the actual depiction in Church literature,she literally is shown in old artwork as ascending in the air.

So,for what it's worth,that's the way the story goes.

Well, Mary being with or without sin aside, I think it's just a joke about overbearing mothers and the generation gap that has always existed between parents and children.

That reminds me of the old joke. Jesus comes across a crowd of people about to stone an adulteress to death. He orders the crowd to stop and reminds them, "Whoever among you is without sin may cast the first stone!" A little old lady limps forward, picks up a giant rock, throws it at the adulteress and instantly kills her.

Shaking his head, Jesus says, "Aw, Mom!"

That's pretty dang funny!

Watch this thread, and within a year he will be accused of a "sin" that was also punishable by death in the Old Testament. He will be forced to admit to the transgression and then have to explain why HIS sin should not lead to "death" but why homosexuality should.

He's a clown.

Well, homosexual or not, as Bob Dylan once pointed out: "Everybody must get stoned."

Well, homosexual or not, as Bob Dylan once pointed out: "Everybody must get stoned."

I'll bet Bob saw a butt crack or two in his day. But hey, it was the '60s, man .

In a 1966 interview with New York Times reporter Robert Shelton, Dylan said:
“Sometimes we would make one hundred a night, really, from four in the afternoon until three or four in the morning,” he said. “Cats would pick us up and chicks would pick us up. And we would do anything you wanted, as long as it was paid…I almost got killed…I didn’t come down to the Village until two months later. Nobody knew that I had been hustling uptown.”
The story is thought to be false, and Shelton is the only journalist Dylan said it to.

Maybe I'm reading too much into what is just a joke but is it a Catholic belief that Mary was sinless?

Anyway, gays should't be stoned. But their lifestyle shouldn't be condoned, celebrated, or enshrined in law either.

^^^^^^^^^

To each his own and I've met several respectable gay people as well. But I have heard of the wild (and sometimes even plain disgusting- even to respectable gay men) lifestyle a fair amount of them lead and while they shouldn't be stoned, it's not a lifestyle I would approve of.

I think that this is a very good thing. But in the Presbyterian church I grew up in and am a member of they are completely supportive of people who are not heterosexual. Same gender marriage is now legal in my state so people will be getting married at my church.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pres...ristian-n136256

Presbyterian Church Leaders Declare Gay Marriage Is Christian
DETROIT — The top legislative body of the Presbyterian Church in America voted by large margins Thursday to recognize same-sex marriage as Christian in the church constitution, adding language that marriage can be the union of "two people," not just "a man and a woman.

what was the scriptural basis for Mormons believing that Blacks were demons/devils? and how was that Mormon doctrine reversed?

This is a laughably ridiculous decision from a dead apostate church. And I don't apologize for saying it. I mean, not only does Christian scripture clearly show that gay marriage is not Christian, these people don't even make a pretense about how they came to this conclusion...they voted. Voted! Since when does God rule by the votes of man?

"...They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."

I'm not sure about Mormonism, Gets. But most people who use the Bible as an excuse to hate dark skinned people usually refer to the "Mark of Cain" in Genesis.

Of course it all stems from a poor Biblical translation. But any excuse will do for some people, right?

Slowly they came, step by step, closer and closer:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Episcopal chaplain on Sunday became the first openly transgender priest to preach at the historic National Cathedral in Washington D.C.

The Reverend Dr. Cameron Partridge, one of seven openly transgender clergy in the Episcopal Church, spoke from the Canterbury Pulpit in honor of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community's Pride Month, the Cathedral said.

http://news.msn.com/us/transgender-priest-preaches-at-washingtons-national-cathedral