Ordaining Women and Marrying Homosexuals - NOT the Same Thing!

Please, please, please, is there any way we could stop talking about women in ministry and homosexuality as if they were the same thing?!?!?

I know i'm not the only one who thinks this way, but i must be in a severe minority. This is particularly important to me because i'm a woman in ministry (hopefully soon to be ordained) and I believe homosexuality is neither normal nor acceptable. However, it seems the majority of the US (and even of its churches) go all or nothing on this one. You either have your churches who will endorse neither, or who will endorse both. Both the secular media and many Christian sources treat them as closely related issues, and it drives me nuts every time i run into it.

I can see how to many people it would seem that there is a strong connection between these. As many people claim, the Bible condemns both. Either we take the Bible literally and condemn both, or we allow for new interpretations and allow both. And if that were really the case, i would have to agree. But it is not the case.

There's probably very few of you who are interested in hearing me going into a long explanation of this, but for those of you who are i could never improve on what has been explained by Dr. Keith Schenk and Dr. Lee Haines, and i highly reccomend their articles. As for my short explanation, it is this: we have several examples in the Bible of women who were called and empowered by God to lead His people in various ways and at various times. It seems we find examples of women serving in leadership, with God's blessing, in both the Old and New testaments. We have women prophets, apostles, disciples, deacons, and teachers (even teachers of male pastors). The few (and there are only 2 of them) times we are told women cannot be leaders in the church can only have been a localized and temporary prohibition. What we do not have are any examples of homosexuals as model Jews or Christians, or as leaders of God's people in either testament. The prohibition against homosexual acts seems to have no exceptions. Sex should not determine our roles in the church, but sex is not irrelevant to sexuality.

My intention here is not to argue, but to explain my position. What i am saying is that, as a woman in ministry, I do not want to be associated with that which i cannot condone. I don't want my decision to seek ordination to be used as support for the homosexual lifestyle. Please, out of respect for those of us who will uphold the one but not the other, stop talking about homosexuality and women clergy as if they were two aspects of the same issue, or two outgrowths of the same belief.