ABOMINATION: You cited it wrong

I appreciate the varied responses to Ms. Mahuron’s insightful and informative recent response from a pastor of a local congregation offered by others. With regard to Ms. Diana Sullivan’s recent letter that utilizes various “quotes” that are suggested to represent “… the boundaries of sex and the term of ‘abomination’ as a reference to sex outside the confines of marriage between a man and a woman and the dressing as and assuming the roles of the opposite sex,” Ms. Sullivan utilizes the word “abomination” without specific reference to any Bible verse representing LGBTQIA relations. Abomination can just as easily represent “murder,” “slavery,” “eating shrimp” or any number of other social ills dealt with two thousand years ago, or even today.

In another quote from Proverbs, there is no reference whatsoever to LGBTQIA relations. And, again, in a quote from St. Jude, Ms. Sullivan suggests that this representation should motivate people to avoid LGBTQIA relationships. Yet there is no reference to her theme.

I will take umbrage with the implication that the Word of God has been silenced “… by those who choose to deceive by arguing situation ethics or the “new morality,” neither of which holds up … to (the) authority of God’s Word.” God’s word is to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Jesus preached love toward all human beings. That is the truth that I can live with.

Ms. Sullivan, I cannot tell you what you must believe. What I can do is practice what I believe … that all human beings have worth and deserve to be loved, by those that love them. Not by who and what you, Ms. Sullivan, believe is love.

RALPH D. SHAY

Coeur d’Alene