I accept your definition of sin, for the purposes of this or any other discussion. What I'm not so sure about is: How do you know it's wrong? We all get our ideas from other people but, at some point, we either internalize them or abandon them. Once you have internalized a belief about something, the fact that somebody else believes the opposite should no longer matter. You may respect his right to believe it, but that doesn't mean you have to believe it. I don't think they even believe this anymore but, if a Catholic tells you that it's wrong to eat meat on Friday, and you're not a Catholic yourself, you are under no obligation to agree with him. I think it would be wrong to try to trick him into eating meat on Friday, but it's certainly not wrong for me to eat meat on Friday. I might even agree to order a meatless pizza to share with those guys, but that would only be out of respect for their beliefs, and there would be nothing wrong with me ordering a hamburger to go afterwards. If we had all forgotten that it was Friday, I would offer to reimburse the others for their share of the pizza so that they could buy something else for themselves. If eating my share of the pizza in front of them bothered them, I might order something else for myself as well, and take the pizza home with me. Well, were getting into situational ethics here, but my original point was that something is not a sin for me just because somebody else says that it is. When I said that I don't remember ever doing something that I believed was wrong, I meant something that I really believed was wrong, not something that somebody else believed was wrong.
As for putting aside my "irrational" belief about gay marriage and voting for it, that's not going to happen. You can put aside your irrational beliefs at election time if you want to, but I don't want to and I'm not going to. The purpose of voting is to express my opinion, not somebody else's opinion. I don't vote the way I should vote, I vote the way I want to vote. If you can convince me to change my mind on an issue, that's fine, but don't expect me to change my vote without first changing my mind.
We didn't talk about sex all that much at Elsdon. I think that the rest of them just accepted that it was wrong, but I had to find out for myself. The Bible prohibits adultery, homosexuality, beastiality, and rape, but it doesn't have a lot to say about premarital sex for teenagers. I don't think they even had adolescents in Biblical times. You were a child until you turned 12, and then you were an adult. Kids were promised in marriage younger than that, but they didn't consummate until they were at least 12. It doesn't appear that Joseph and Mary were married at the time Mary became pregnant with Jesus. She is referred to as his "espoused wife", which I think means engaged to be married. When Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, "being a just man, he resolved to divorce her quietly", but I think that means to break off the engagement, for an angel appeared to Joseph and told him not to hesitate to make Mary his wife, "for she is with child of the Holy Spirit."
What the fuss was all about was the rule that a Jewish man should only marry "one of the virgin daughters of Israel." I don't think that rule was about chastity as much as it was about ethnic purity. Moses was concerned that his people would be assimilated by the Canaanites after the coming invasion. That's why he told them to show no mercy and take no prisoners. He also laid down other rules that were designed to prevent his people from adopting Canaanite cultural customs, and he certainly didn't want them marrying or even fooling around with the native girls. He could have just told them to marry a nice Jewish girl but, by adding the "virgin" part, he insured that the first child born to the couple would have a nice Jewish father as well as a nice Jewish mother. Funny that the Christians focused so much on the "virgin" part and not the "Jewish" part.
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