For my internet issue, I chose to do some research on same-sex marriage in the Bible. Those who identified as Christian believed that God had a specific plan for sexuality and marriage.
Genesis 2:24- Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh.
Genesis 1:27- And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Since there is no mention of God creating another man, Christians believe that homosexuality is unnatural. Christians believe that the union between male and female is godly, and couldn’t be recreated with two men or two women. They believe that God created Eve instead of another Adam because the so called “perfect partnership” requires a significant amount of difference between the two, but still has to share some similarities. Christians also mention that sex between a man and a woman is the normal method because that is the way that children are created. They argue that if God wanted homosexual marriages, he would make it so that men would be able to reproduce with men, and women would be able to reproduce with women.
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-f018.html
Alternatively, there are people that believe that the Bible is being misinterpreted, and that there is never anything said about homosexuality being a sin. One man, Adam Hamilton, a senior pastor at The United Methodist Church, uses the story of Sodom as his example. He explains that God doesn’t want to destroy Sodom because the men there are homosexual, but instead he wants to destroy it because the people are wicked. The men in Sodom do not want to rape the travelers because they are homosexual or for pleasure, they want to rape them for a sense of power, and to humiliate these foreign people.
Genesis 19:4-8- They had not yet lain down, when the townspeople, the men of Sodom, young and old-all the people to the last man-gathered about the house. And they shouted to Lot and said to him, “where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may be intimate with them.” So Lot went out to them to the entrance, shut the door behind him, and said, “I beg you, my friends, do not commit such a wrong. Look, I have two daughters wo have not konwn a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please; but do not anything to these men, since they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/12stop_twisting_the_bible_there_is_no_message_against_same_sex_marriage/
I also found a Jewish opinion on same-sex marriage. He claims that there are two ways to look at the Bible. You can either look at the text literally which causes a lot of problems with contradictions in the Bible, or you can drastically reinterpret the Bible. The author states that people who believe that homosexuality is a sin are simply picking and choosing which parts of the Bible they believe. The Bible also says that all men should be circumcised, Jews should abstain from pork or prawns, and they shouldn’t wear clothing with wool and linen mixed. These are practices that are not typically practiced by all Jews, so why should strictly heterosexual relationships be practiced? The author of the article uses Genesis 1.27 to defend his point. God creates both males and females, but he also creates both heterosexuals and homosexuals. Heterosexuals and homosexuals alike were created by God as part of his divine plan.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-jewish-perspective-on-samesex-marriage-8203886.html
Upon casually looking for a book while wearing an Obama mask, I came across two texts that I thought would be relevant to the material we are learning in class. I used the Lafayette College Catalog to find my books. One was called Radical Religion in America by Jeffery Kaplan. The book generally spoke about different religious practices that would seem barbaric to us now, but were accepted in the past. While looking for a book, I saw one of my friends that is currently taking a Religion 101 course. She is reading Religions of India in Practice. The book provides a different way to look at how everything was created compared to what we are learning in class. I find it extremely interesting that people came up with these complex explanations of how the world was created and that they were accepted without question.