Should doctors be allowed to withhold medical care to gays/lesbians?

[ParanoiA]

It's a shitty personality type. For the life of me, I cannot figure out where any religiously driven person could get the idea that they are supposed to judge and reject people. What could you possibly observe in Jesus' behavior and message that would lead you to believe you're supposed to exclude folks?

[iNow]

What could you possibly observe in Jesus' behavior and message that would lead you to believe you're supposed to exclude folks?

There are many sources of the confusion in these people, none moreso than their pastors, but in terms of text there are a number of places where Jesus and exclusion went hand in hand.

 

 

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/197/story_19741_1.html

Jesus opens his ministry as a rather exacting rabbi. He suddenly appears before two groups of fishermen and starkly commands them, “Follow me!” (Mark 1:16-20). He tells a deranged man to shut up and then causes him to writhe in pain (Mark 1:25-26). After Jesus heals a helpless leper, Mark says, “sternly warning him, [Jesus] sent him away at once” (Mark 1:43).

Jesus throws people out of a room (ekballo again) so he can heal a child, and then he “strictly ordered” witnesses of the miracle to keep quiet (Mark 5:40, 43). He and Peter get into a row, each rebuking the other (Mark 8:32-33). Jesus becomes exasperated with a crowd and his disciples: “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you?” (Mark 9:19). He curses a fig tree (Mark 11:13-14). He drives people out of the temple area (with a whip, according to John 2:15), overturning tables, and physically intimidating people to prevent their passing through (Mark 11:15-17).

 

Jesus' attitude toward authorities is hardly respectful. He calls Herod a fox (Luke 13:32), and he castigates the scribes and Pharisees at length, mocking them as “blind guides” and “hypocrites” (Matt. 23:24-25), and practically curses them, saying, “You are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth” (Matt. 23:27).

 

 

http://www.nimblespirit.com/html/is_jesus_mean_.html

But Jesus’ harsh criticisms also reach into places I do not expect. After one parable, Jesus’ friend Peter asks for an explanation. “Are you still so dull?” Jesus snaps. Worse, Jesus appears to dishonor His own family. Once when someone tells Jesus that His mother and brothers are standing outside and waiting to see Him, Jesus replies, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” He suggests that His true family is “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 12:46–50). I see His point, but does He have to ignore His mom? And how does this fit with my understanding of a God who wants everyone to be a part of a loving family, a God who focuses on the family and wants us to do the same?

 

Turning more crinkly pages, I read — as if for the first time — the story of Jesus calling a Canaanite woman a dog. She cries out to Him to deliver her daughter of demonic possession. “Jesus did not answer a word,” says Matthew (15:23). The Great lover ignores her cries. The woman doesn’t let up, and finally, Jesus’ disciples beg Him to do something to shut her up. “Send her away,” they plead. “She keeps crying after us.” Jesus will have none of it. Why? Because the woman isn’t a Jew. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Even when the woman forces her way to Jesus, kneels at His feet, and cries, “Lord, help me!” Jesus is unmoved. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” He says.

 

No, not says. He mutters. He snipes. He sneers. I try to imagine the way He must have spoken to her.

 

 

 

http://www.crosswalk.com/spirituallife/11539259/

In a withering excoriation of religious hypocrisy in Matthew 23, he compared the scribes and Pharisees to whitewashed tombs, which is a worse insult than it sounds because the religious leaders prided themselves on their outward righteousness. He could be tough on his own followers also. In Mark 8:14-21 he tells his disciples that they are spiritual blind and have hard hearts. When he appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he calls them "foolish ones" and "slow of heart to believe" (Luke 24:25). He told certain Jewish leaders in John 8:44, "You are of your father the devil." The notion that our Lord was always "gentle Jesus, meek and mild," as if he spent his days saying nice things to make people feel better is only possible if you never read the gospels.

 

 

Naturally, the people who are the most fundamental are the ones who are actually interpretting the texts correctly, despite the fact that those texts go against the laws of equal rights. It's those who are moderate and selectively choose which passages to follow and which to ignore that are the most problematic to solving these in between issues of withholding medical care.

Edited September 13, 2008 by iNow

[ParanoiA]

Well, I'm not sure how much institutional "exclusion" is really present there. A couple of those examples certainly qualify, like refusing to help someone that wasn't a jew and so forth. But I don't think anything less than eternal kindness and gentle spirit makes him exclusionary. He can be mad, make philosophical points using shame and evasion without promoting a theme of exclusion.

 

However, I'm way to ignorant about it. I read the first hundred pages, maybe, of the bible and put it down. I had always been taught Jesus surrounded himself with sinners, trying to help and so forth. So, in turn, I've always poked at exclusionary church policies based on that reasoning. Ah, well...

[Mr Skeptic]

There are many sources of the confusion in these people, none moreso than their pastors, but in terms of text there are a number of places where Jesus and exclusion went hand in hand.

 

iNow, none of those examples, show Jesus "excluding" people. Also, the only one that wasn't distorted was the one about the fig tree, which seemed a bit pointless. If you would like me to put one of these examples into context, please tell me which one in particular you would like explained.

 

Naturally, the people who are the most fundamental are the ones who are actually interpretting the texts correctly, despite the fact that those texts go against the laws of equal rights. It's those who are moderate and selectively choose which passages to follow and which to ignore that are the most problematic to solving these in between issues of withholding medical care.

 

That is true, especially of the old testament.