Fundamentalist Christians: Is AIDS a judgment of God against gays?

I've heard this forever -- God sent the AIDS epidemic to punish gays. BOTH Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (and several other fundamentalist
televangelists) have made this same claim.

However, today (in the US) while 42% of the new cases are found in the gay community, 31% comes about by heterosexual transmission. (27% by other means of transmission like being born with HIV, medical workers getting infected, etc).

Would it not be MORE LOGICAL that AIDS is a judgment by God against those who are PROMISCUOUS ?

Should we not be discouraging promiscuity?

Should we not be promoting total commitment and marriage?

Should we not be promoting family?

Would it not be more logical for us ALL to encourage all of the above? For us ALL to vote for same-sex marriage?

"Family Values" as preached today exist NOWHERE in the Bible. In fact the Bible promoted slavery, subgugation of women by men. and (in the Old Testament) the selling of children into slavery.

Not a Fundamentalist Christian but for my 2-cents. For 10 years I had to be tested every 3 months (back in the 80's and early 90's) for HIV/AIDS. The reason? I was in a car accident and required surgery. Blood that was positive was circulated during that time period. Fortunately, I did not become infected. I was a virgin at the time so how would teaching against promiscuity have helped?

HIV/AIDS is about a deadly disease that affects people in many ways. ONE way is by having sexual relations.

Now, re same sex marriage. I can appreciate a civil union and leave "marriage" to those that are of a faith that discounts many of it's fellow citizens. (Me included, I had a civil union because I am a pagan.) I do agree with civil unions for same-sex partnerships.

no, aids is a disease where a virus infects your immune system, if god made that then he's an @$$hole

No, but dead soldiers apparently are.

No, but certain behaviors do lead to acquisition of HIV (the virus that causes AIDS). It's more a fact of public health.

They should be more circumspect, I believe. Are the tornadoes of Kansas for some horrible sin of the Kansans? Those are preposterous claims.

no, it's a judgment against people having unprotected sex and those who use dirty needles.

any sickness is because of sin- we we had not sinned there would be no sickness- so yes, in that respect you could say that aids is a because of sin- however that is not the only illness that is- all illness is.

Actually, HIV(and therefore, AIDS), most likely originated in primates in Africa and transferred to humans, likely through a bite or coming in contact with the blood of the animal.
And yes, your statements are very true.

You've got your facts wrong.
I heard Pat Robertson speak about this years ago, and he said it was NOT a punishment sent by God.
He did say however, and I do agree, that there are certain laws of nature that you must abide by. If you don't then you suffer the consequences.

If you insist running red lights at sixty miles and hour; sooner or later you're going to have a seriously bad accident.
Did God punish you for speeding?
NO!
But there is a law of nature that you deliberately chose to ignore.

Pat and Jerry are off their rockers. AIDS doesn't just effect gays it effects straight people and children too. It is a curse from santa created by man.

I'm a Christian and I agree we should be discouraging promiscuity and premartial marriage period.

And yes we should promote commitment and marriage and family values.

But no I will not vote for same sex marriage because it is an abomotion to the Lord and is not normal nor is it right nor do I want my child seeing it. Nor should my church have to marry gays or go to jail when it is against our God.

Not to mention a child needs a mom and a dad not two moms and two dads. There is too much they learn from both.

And the hightest AIDS vicitims or black women.

No! I don't believe that God is responsible for AIDS. I think it is a work of Satan. The thing is though, God lets these things happen to test our faith. Like in the book Job, God lets Satan test Job's loyalty to God. He took away his land, his livestock, his riches, his family, and he even gave Job leprosy (I think it was). But Job stayed true to the Lord and God blessed him with twice as much as he had before.

that would be like saying breast cancer is God's punishment to women for being women.

If anything, ALL diseases could be viewed as being God's punishment to all of us for poisoning our environment.

I am a Christian and I agree with you that if God was sending AIDS as some sort of a punishment then it would be to punish all sexual sin, not just homosexuality.
My problem with your logic though, is that just because God isn't singling out homosexuals in regards to AIDS does not change the fact that homosexuality is a sin.
We should discourage all sexual sin - including homosexuality. We should promote total commitment of marriage as the Bible teaches. And we should promote family values as the Bible teaches.
Those things are not in line with the vote of same sex marriages.

No, it is a consequence of disobeying God's laws. He does not cause the consequences, you do.

its just something that we can't explain the existense of.... kinda like aliens

No. God doesn't have anything to do with the choices you make. It's what you put out there that comes back to you. I recently saw the movie "No Country For Old Men" and was very impressed by the truth and directiveness of one of its quotes. When Woody Harrelson's character, a pleasant man whose job is to be hit-man for a drug lord, faces the psychotic but supposedly very brilliant killer, Woody Harrelson says to the man something denegrating to the killer to which the latter replies: "if your path lead you to me... what does that say about you?"

Lead a good path and nothing bad will Ever happen to you. What's a good path? Different for everybody but you can go by the one, universal rule of ethics - "Do on to others as you would have them do on to you." Pretty simple really.

Why do you think that God tells us not to sin. Sin will destroy you and He knows that and is warning us to stay away from it. Homosexuality is a sin, being striaght and having more than one sexual partner that is not your spose is sin. Why do people think that these things are all ok when clearly they are destroying God's people. Stay away from sin, listen to what God is telling us and you won't have to deal with the consequinces of sin. Also, God did not make sin nor does He make people sin.

You don't give your source for those numbers, but even if they are correct, the fact remains that HIV spread like wildfire first in the gay community, because the anal walls have no resistance to viruses. The gay community fought against traditional disease containment measures such as keeping records of those infected and instituting changes in behavior. Now it has spread to other segments of the population, but its spread could have been greatly reduced.

Of course we should be discouraging promiscuity, that's what Christians have been saying all along. Promiscuity is the number 1 reason why so many people are infected today. If Christian sexual morals had been practiced all along HIV might have remained extremely rare, like ebola, for example.

As a Catholic I have no objection to lifelong commitment by anyone. I just don't want it to be called "marriage" when that's not what it is.

If you have a Bible read Genesis 2: 24
24. therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

I dont remember it ever saying two males aloud to be married in the Bible

Or is it all just a big lie