Mr. Jovanovich,

How is living the life that God created for me, promotion of homosexuality? To equate the marriage between two consenting adults in a loving, long term relationship, with bestiality, is absurd, disgusting and disrespectful.
I pray that the Lord will grant you love in your heart and the ability to see His creation in all people.
I bid you peace,
Andriy

Dear “Pillar of Orthodoxy”
Thank you for your comment, although I do believe that some of your ideas are flawed. Allow me to address only a few of them. How is being GLBT sinful other than the understanding that all people are born in sin? If God created us and gave us our sexual orientation, that in itself can not be sinful for gay people any more than God creating you as a heterosexual attracted to the opposite sex. he created me as a gay man with an orientation to other adult males. I did not choose this anymore than I chose my hair color or being right handed.
Second, the Church has changed numerous times over the centuries. For example, the marriage of bishops, the calendar, the making of the sign of the cross, marriage rules (Orthodox marrying baptized, non-Orthodox) to name only a few. The Church is not blind to science and scholarship, (also creations of God) as well as geographical, political, and sociological changes, and so She has adapted and changed.

Finally concerning the issue of sodomy, I would love to find a priest who preaches against sodomy for married couples. Where is he? This is rouse brought out only to throw stones as LGBT individuals – well gay men at least.

I do wish and pray for an increase in your understanding and compassion.
Andriy

This statement commits the fallacy of bifurcation, and, ultimately, is false. We are to hate the sin, not the sinner, and to see our own faults and not to judge our brother, yet neither are we to encourage him in sin. While I know that I suffer from the sin of pride far more than the many men who suffer from the sin of sodomy, sodomy is yet a sin, and I am not called to encourage and promote this sin. Moreover, to accept the teaching of St Paul and the Church Fathers and believe that GLBT is ok is impossible and denies the PNC.

The first step towards repentance is to know that you sin. Know that being GLBT is sinful and repent, and whatever actions you have committed in the past will be forgiven and forgotten. Would that I could hope for such blessedness.

We come to the church to learn and to be healed, not to change it to conform to our own sinful values. Let us keep that in mind. There is no reform in church teaching: only church practice.

Joseph,
Thank you brother for your comment. While I understand your skepticism about some clergy, I believe that it is important to have hope and pray for them. The Church has changed its view and approach to numerous issues over the centuries, and its view and treatment of LGBT persons, created in the image of God and given the ability to love, can also change. It is up to us to pray and love and live our life with honesty and in grace.
I bid you peace,
Andriy