First of all, a thousand pardons for being egregiously late in posting this sermon from Pastor Fitch I referred to here a long time ago.
I realize that for non-Christians the Bible often has little or no relevance when it comes to their views on marriage equality. For some Christians it also has little or no importance as some don't care much or at all what the Bible says about the topic--they simply view bias against anyone based on sexual orientation for what it is: bigotry.
But for some Christians the Bible has a lot of meaning and some of these people are on the fence when it comes to marriage equality. As a progressive who wants to see marriage equality the law of our country, these are the people I care about winning over. The radical right, in their attempt to get these fence-sitters to vote against equality, twist what the Bible says by making false moral arguments that the Bible is anti-gay. This is the argument some anti-equality people used in recent years during Prop 8 here in California and also during 1 in Maine, among other states.
I respect the fact that some of my fellow progressives don’t feel it’s appropriate or necessary to address the fact some groups use the Bible as a weapon of persuasion, but I believe we have to to take them head-on. Why? These anti-equality people organized a lot of people on the ground during state votes in recent years. They walked through our neighborhoods telling those on the fence to vote against equality in part through their false statements about the Bible and they’ll be doing so again through next year’s election. Through endless repetition of these falsehoods some believe they’re true when in fact the Bible isn't against gay rights. This is not just a state issue, though—it obviously continues to be a national issue as seen just last week through Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s latest anti-equality comments.
I understand the temptation to ignore fools like Rep. Michelle Bachmann. But she’s almost certain to run for the Republican nomination and even though she'll never win it, she will pull that party's center farther to her radical right during the primaries and she’ll continue to inject vitriol and idiocy into our national dialogue. Just last week Bachmann called yet again for states to outlaw same-sex marriage. This is not just a shameless attempt to build support for her campaign within certain groups on the right, but also the beginning of yet another disgraceful attempt to use marriage equality as a social wedge issue to turn out the radical right vote in 2012. Rep. Bachmann’s actions are immoral and we cannot give one inch to her or bigots like her. We'll never change the opinions of prejudiced people like her, but we still have to call her out for what she is. And we have to continue to fight to win over voters on the marriage equality fence who do look to the Bible for direction on this issue. As some have correctly pointed out in previous comments here, even for those who believe in the Bible, most Americans don’t literally believe it word for word. This creates an often complicated dynamic where different people believe in different Biblical chapters or verses. Thus, people view the Bible as authoritative in certain areas and not in others based on their a-la-carte approach to the Bible.
As for those misrepresenting the Bible in their attempt to prevent equality, I don’t have the wisdom to eloquently knock over the false leg the anti-marriage equality people are standing on, but Pastor Douglass Fitch, a man who has been a spiritual advisor to me, does.
Pastor Fitch is a great man who has helped me and countless other people over the decades. I first met him at Glide Memorial Church here in San Francisco when he was Pastor there. For those of you that don’t know Glide Memorial, it does great work for those in need and served nearly one million meals to feed the hungry last year. And for those of you who don’t know Pastor Fitch you can read his amazing bio here:
http://www.sundayafternoonfellowship.org/...
He has both his Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy and he’s been an inspiration to me for years.
As you advocate for equality and try to win over people on the fence, here is the sermon Pastor Fitch gave before he retired from Glide Memorial Church a few years later. He gladly gave me permission to post it here in the hope it would be helpful. It's a powerful argument in support of equality and, as is typical of Pastor Fitch, fearless.
Pastor Fitch's Sermon: "Homosexuality and the Bible"
About three weeks ago a young man struggling with his own sexual orientation, you may recall, shouted at me in that service. He was in the third row, he said 'Pastor, tell these people that homosexuality is an abomination of God.' And you know what I did after that. But I wasn't quite satisfied with everything and I felt I should say a little more to you about that.
Thomas Merton said it a long time ago, 'Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone. We find it with another.'
And that other may be same sex or opposite sex, just so you know where I'm coming from this morning. And the theme I want to use is just this: God loves you and so do I. God loves you and so do I.
You see, culturally speaking, nothing seems to divide people more than the question of sexual orientation and I don't understand why, Amen, because so much of the rationale for condemning sexuality is anchored in what people say the Bible says about it. And they will quote you from Genesis to Revelations saying 'this is what the Bible says'. But I'm going to pull you up short this morning, Amen. I thought it was time for your Pastor to give you some handles on biblical authority, what it says and what it does not say about homosexuality. Now you see I am fully aware that many who appeal to biblical authority often are hiding behind prejudices they already have towards gays and lesbians. Ok. So, we're going to take the covers off because, see, some of us really do need to know because a lot of us are still ashamed of our sexuality and have no reason to be, but we have listened to what folk have said and believed them without going to the source ourselves. We're going to the source this morning. We're going to go to the source because you deserve to know for yourself what the Word has to say. You see, same sex behavior is mentioned in the Bible only seven times. There are sixty six books in the Bible. The way folk talk about it you would think it was in every one of the Books, but it's only spoken of seven times, ok. That ought to give you some indication of how important it was in the Bible. Four of those times appear in Hebrew scriptures (two times in Genesis, two times in Leviticus): in Genesis chapter eighteen and chapter nineteen; in Leviticus chapter eighteen and chapter twenty. And the lines are so short if I don't tell you about them you'll miss them. Amen.
The three in the New Testament--one in Corinthians (first Corinthians), one in first Timothy, and the other in the Book of Romans. Again, that tells you something about the importance of what folk thought this question was. Obviously, they didn't have any problem with the issue and you won't if you don't try to read your Victorian values, let me say it again--if you don't try to read your Victorian values back into that period you won't have any trouble this morning. Amen. So, let me begin at the beginning.
The most common text that folk use to talk against sexual orientation is the Book of Genesis. It is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and we've heard those words, have we not? Sodom and Gomorrah. It is the story of two cities, Lot and three angels. As the angels approach Sodom they encounter Lot sitting in the gate of the city and they accept his invitation to hospitality at his home. After a meal, now I'm quoting scripture in Genesis, 'Then the men of the city, both young and old, come banging on the door. They demand to see the newly arrived guests, demanding to treat them sexually. They want to know them in Biblical terms. Lot refuses and instead he offers his two virgin daughters and just as the crowd gets unruly the angels rescue Lot, shut the door, and strike the mob blind for a season while Lot and his kin escape. And you may recall those famous words, you've heard somebody utter them sometime, Lot's wife was told to not look back, but she looked back and we all know that she was supposed to have turned into what?, a pillar of salt. All right, ya'll are on it this morning. Now that you know the story let me unpack it for you because there are three points I'm going to make. First, Sodom and Gomorrah were already slated for destruction. That's important to know. Abraham had met the angels before Lot had, before this incident occurs, and they tell Abraham we're going to destroy the cities because they were not righteous toward God and they were not just to their human kind. Righteousness and justice is the reason they were going to be destroyed and so what happens, is Abraham said 'now if you find fifty people in the city will you destroy the city and he said (angel) 'if I find fifty in it I won't destroy it.' Abraham said, uh oh, he came too quick. He said 'if there are forty will you destroy it?' And he said to the angel 'If there are forty in it I won't destroy it.' He got Him down to ten. The angel told Abraham 'if we find ten righteous, ten who do justice to the poor, to those who are strangers we won't destroy it. The first point is just this--they were already slated for destruction.
The second point--it is clear that the men intended to have sexual relations with the men in the house. They were not homosexual relations. They were just going to out and out rape them, that's all, and you and I know that rape by either homosexuals or heterosexuals is still rape. And it ain't about sex at all. It's not about love. It's about power. You see male rape of males, says scholars, was common in that day--when you defeated the enemy you humiliated them, you dominated them by these acts of rape. And we're familiar with it because this is the type of thing that goes on in our modern day prison systems. It goes on all the time. It was not about homosexuality, it was about rape and rape is about power. That was not homosexuality.
Third. If Sodom and Gomorrah’s sin was supposed to be homosexual, as a lot of folks try to say, you would assume that other Biblical writers would have made that connection. Now if we think it was that important, if the Bible folk thought it was that important, you would hear all the prophets talking about it. Now let me tell you, of all the prophets, only four say something about the word Sodom and Gomorrah and it does not have a thing to do with sexuality.
The first was Ezekiel in Chapter 16. 'This was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and the needy. They were hearty and did abhorrent things before God.' That's the only thing. Ain't nothing about sexuality.
The prophet Amos, Chapter 4: 'Israel will be overthrown, just as God overthrew Sodomm and Gomorrah, and for the same reasons. The poor are oppressed and the needy are crushed.' Nothing about sexuality.
The prophet Isaiah, Chapter 3: 'The people of Jerusalem and Judah proclaim their sin like Sodom. The spoil of the poor is in your houses. You grind the face of the poor.' Ain't nothing about sexuality.
The prophet Zephaniah, Chapter 1, Chapter 2: 'Moab shall become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah. These have filled their houses with violence and fraud.' Not a thing to do with sexuality.
We have all but dispensed with the major claim that some folk use to talk about this issue. Amen.
So when folk ask you about it put it to rest. Put it to rest.
Now that's the primary argument that they have. We just knocked that one in the head.
Now we're going to go down the line. Amen.
The next one in order is Leviticus, Chapters 18 and 20, that forbid a man to lie with another man. It is an abomination. Now listen closely to this. The word abomination is not a moral or ethical term. It has nothing to do with morality, nothing to do with ethics.
It's an emotionally laded term where we re-read our Victorian stuff back into a period that didn't have anything to do with it at all. Nothing moral, nothing ethical. It is used to indicate a serious breach of ritual purification. That's all. Like eating pork is an abomination. Misusing incense is an abomination. Having sex at the wrong time of the year is an abomination. It is an abomination to wear garments of different materials. If you've got some cotton and polyester you're in trouble--you're an abomination! It is an abomination to sow a field with two different kinds of seed.
It is an abomination to cut one's hair where it meets the temple of the human face. It's not moral. It's not ethical. You may not like it. It may be distasteful, but it ain't wrong. Hallelujah. It ain't wrong.
We have been liberated from these things. Amen.
How many of you want to talk about that? We've been liberated, huh? All the different kinds of clothes we wear. I mean, why would we want to take one thing out of its context and make it bigger than the rest of them? If you're going to take them, take them all. Hallelujah. Don't leave one--take them all. But we've been liberated from that.
Now those are the two texts in the four in Hebrews--Genesis and Leviticus. We've already done away with those and those are the major ones. Once you've knocked those done folk don't want to talk to you anymore. They think you're all Bible scholars then. They run and hide. 'These folk know more Bible than I know--I'd better go someplace and talk to somebody who's ignorant.' Amen.
You see, during times of survival you're talking about tribes. During times of survival they had to do a lot of things to survive. Keep it in this context and you won't be distorted. Keep it there. Why should I try to read back into that period stuff I can't even deal with? Superimpose it on top of their stuff. Understand it in its context and you'll be free and liberated. Try to move it out of its context and you get confused.
Now let me go to the New Testament. Only Paul talks about Sodomites. Now we've already established that that didn't have anything to do with homosexuality. They're listed first in Corinthians among those who are wrong-doers; First Timothy as those who are disobedient; and then in Romans One--that's up for grabs and quite debatable because it was around temple prostitution and they were using males and females and especially little boys. Paul is the only one who speaks up, but even that wasn't about homosexuality or sexual orientation.
The gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John say nothing about sexual orientation. Nothing about sexual orientation.
Now, Jesus. I'm a Christian. Amen. And I say I'm open to everybody. Jesus did not say one iota. He didn't even remotely come close to saying anything about this hot potato that some folk get exorcised over. Not one thing.
Now Paul, as inconsistent as he was, said this: 'Women should not wear gold jewelry, women should not braid their hair, women should not wear expensive clothes.' First Peter--'Women should be silent in the church.' And if the women stay silent what will happen to the church? We'll be in worse shape then we're already in! Hallelujah. 'Women should cover their heads; women should always have veiled faces.'
Do I need to say anymore?
This ought to be sufficient ammunition for your family. You may not know much Bible...you ought to know this. When you see them you talk about Genesis and Leviticus. Amen. Get them set straight and then if they want to go New Testament on you go right there with them. Amen. You go right there with them.
The fact is the Bible has little to say about homosexuality, especially nothing about a committed homosexual union between mature loving adults. As a matter of fact it has nothing to say. It was not an issue for Biblical writers and my advice to all of us is to relax. Relax.
You see we do not have to excuse promiscuity or exploitation or self-destruction in whatever sexual orientation you might have.
Enjoy what God gives us. It is a mystery. It is truly a mystery.
You shall love the Lord our God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And the second light is unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.
God loves you and so do I this morning. Amen. Amen.