“You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is abomination.”

“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

“Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”

“Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

These are only a few passages from the Bible. Two express love for others, while the other two condemn a certain lifestyle — homosexuality.

According to Jack Mckinney, the head pastor at Pullen Baptist Church, much of the Christian world is split on the issue of homosexuality.

Pullen Baptist voted as a congregation in 1992 to allow same-sex marriages in the church, Mckinney said. By becoming openly “welcoming and affirming” to the LGBT community, Pullen was consequently voted out of the Baptist association on the local, state and national levels, according to McKinney.

“People pull out a handful of verses to say that the Bible is clearly opposing homosexuality,” Mckinney said, “and we [at Pullen] call these the six clobber texts, because these are the ones people use to clobber gays and lesbians.”

He said the message the church is trying to send is that they will not be condemned in the eyes of the church or in the eyes of God. He also said he knows very quickly who is with him and who is against him.

“We have been picketed before,” he said. The church also keeps a record of the hundreds of letters they received when their decision was first made, according to Mckinney.

Jackie, a freshman in biochemical engineering who wished to be identified by only her first name, agreed opponents use certain Bible verses for their own purposes.

Andrew Bell, a junior in religious studies, believes homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teachings.”

“People read verses [in the Bible] about homosexuality and they take it out of context, which you can’t do,” Jackie said. “Everybody sins, but the Bible says no one sin is greater than another.”

Jackie said she knew she was gay during her sophomore year in high school, when a close relationship with a friend turned into a romantic endeavor. While her friends are aware of her sexuality, she hasn’t told her family because she doesn’t want her girlfriend’s parents to find out. They wouldn’t approve of Jackie’s relationship with their daughter, even though Jackie is a Christian.

“I went [to church] off and on when I was younger with my grandparents,” she said, “but you choose religion. You don’t choose to be gay.”

However, Bell believes by engaging in homosexual activity, a person is “choosing to continue to sin.”

Lee Sartain, a senior in religious studies, said everyone views homosexuality differently.

According to Sartain, if five people who had never seen an elephant were blindfolded and placed in a room with one, each person would describe the animal differently upon touching it. In this way, “the status quo will say there’s a conflict [with the Bible] — not a conflict between Christians and scripture, but between Christians and other Christians.

In actuality, Sartain said, the issue is a matter of interpretation.

“A lot of people think what it means to be authentically Christian is to fit in a certain mold — [but] don’t give up on something just because you don’t understand it; no one has a monopoly on what God thinks,” Sartain said.