Hi sis,
The following article is more strongly and sarcastically worded than I would if I was talking with you about this subject but it does, in a very pointedly direct way, present essentially the same argument, which no religious objector to homosexuality can refute with any degree of intellectual honesty. I refuse to use the word "hate". I regard it as carelessly overused hyperboly tho I do understand that reaction among my own tribe. No doubt there are those to whom it applies, but I know you and millions of decent christians are not among them. Trouble is, too many of those decent christians do not do the honest introspection presented by this article, and THEY give christianity a bad rap, which many christians do seem to have a penchant for (the Crusades, the Inquisition, religious wars, approval of slavery and recently, corruption of Constitutions as in California, many other states and President Bush...need I go on?). They take the Apostle Paul's admonition of the mind as a great deceiver much too seriously. We were given that mind to use, after all and if we didn't, we'd still be living in caves and beating our female mates into sexual submission. OH, that HAS gone far beyond the caves, hasn't it, and some religious fanatics apparently still believe in it!!.
If the mind can't be trusted, why use it for anything.....even to believe those religious leaders who, supposedly knowing the truth, tell us what to think?! Presumably, their minds are to be trusted but mine or yours is not?? I often wonder if Paul really did write that, or if some later nameless scribe or even high church leader injected that idea knowing it would be a good way to control the mindless masses. It's well known that almost nothing of the Bible we now read comes from original texts because they've been lost since early Christian times, Paul's original writings included. Paul did write but his letters didn't survive and during early Christianity, nearly everything was verbal stories, passed down among the generations until writing for posterity began then written by scribes and rewritten and rewritten and reinterpreted ad infinitum for centuries until we ultimately get to King James who was, perhaps not incidentally, such a flaming queen that his own advisors were hard pressed to get him to tone it down for PR purposes!! Who knows how he influenced Biblical interpretation. He commissioned what became known as the King James Bible after all and he alone signed off on it.....as if he was some kind of scholar and not merely a queer king. So God alone knows what Paul or any Biblical "authors" really thought.....or wrote (or the king's ghost writers for that matter). Alas, we really do have to make up our own "minds"....as we have done throughout history with slavery and inquisitions and Presidents and......etc etc.
Without the Mind, we are nothing more than animals. Come to think of it, we may be better off if we were. Animals don't kill and deceive each other except for food or self defense and even in self defense they rarely kill......and they don't harbor irrational prejudices that lead to emotional destruction, conflict and violence .....even against the millions of them that engage in homosexuality!!!! Google "Biological Exuberance" by Bruce Bagemihl if you want proof of that. I have the book. It was amazing even to me. (Chimpanzees appear to be a rare conscious exception to animal non-violent behavior and it's perhaps not incidental that they are only a few genes removed from us)
Rodney King may have been a man we wouldn't want to associate with but, ironically, he said one of the most notable lines to go down in human history, "Can't we all just get along?" I think Jesus himself would have nodded an affirmation of that. He would also have understood, sadly, that the answer is obviously, "NO!!"
Now, off my soapbox and on to the article into which I have parenthetically injected some of my own thoughts.
With love.....
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From an article in the Huffington Post by Cenk Uygur, 12/19/08:
NOT ANOTHER WORD ON GAY MARRIAGE UNTIL THEY EXECUTE
AN ADULTERER (parantheses mine)
The religious right picks and chooses which parts of the Bible they want to apply (commonly known as "smorgasbording" the Bible). And they choose based on which outsider group they would like to hate next. First, they emphasized slavery in the Bible when they wanted to hate black people. Now (that the slavery issue is no longer available to them), they emphasize the parts condemning homosexuality so they can hate gay people.
They are completely and utterly disingenuous. They don't mean a word of it. They don't give a damn what the Bible says. They just want to use it as an instrument of hate. (and Power)
The Bible says eating shellfish is an abomination. Yet there are no Red Lobster Amendments. The Bible says you shall not wear two different types of cloths at the same time. Yet there are no Propositions against cotton and wool combos. (And before anyone tries to point out that shellfish and clothing are surely in a lesser category than sex, let me point out that it apparently isn't in the Levitical code, where a man lying with a man is given the same degree of admonition as shellfish and clothing; abomination. It must be trully difficult to argue Biblically against homosexuality with a homosexual who knows the Bible as well as, perhaps better than those who think THEY know it)
The Bible says you should leave your family and join Jesus Christ. The religious right pretends that Jesus was about family values. He wanted you to abandon your family. Read the Bible. (Not sure I'd go that far with that idea. Jesus made it plain that to be a DISCIPLE and to follow him would mean abandoning one's family. Still a radically irresponsible idea to my mind. Nothing is said about how the disciples' families survived in such a male centered society. The Bible seems to ignore them. How nice!)
The religious right pretends that the Bible says marriage is between one man and one woman. But that is a bald faced lie. Have any of these people ever read the Bible? The Bible is full of men taking on second wives, servants, prostitutes and concubines. And all the while, God heartily approves. How many wives did King David have? Eight? Twelve? Let alone his possibly gay lover, Jonathan. (Of course they've read it.....and ignored it. That's where the disingenuousness come in.....among many other areas)
Now the Bible says that a man shall not lie with another man. That is true. (true that the Bible SAYS that, not necessarily true per se) But it also says, in the same exact book, that adultery is an abomination. And the just punishment for this sin is execution. So, who will execute the first adulterer? (There was a time when they did. Why did the practice cease? Too many adulterers in high places?!?!) Please step on up. May the one without any Biblical sin cast the first stone.
Here is a question no one can answer -- AND LUCKY FOR THE RIGHT WING THE MEDIA NEVER BOTHERS TO ASK (caps mine)- why do you only focus on the part of the Bible against homosexuality but not on the part against adultery (and usery and corrupt business and political practices, etc. ad nauseum)? It's one thing to say you're against adultery; it's another to take away their rights (that were legally given by no less than a state Supreme Court). How come no religious figure in this country has mounted a campaign to take away the rights of adulterers? Let alone execute them.
I'll tell you why. Because there are too many of them. Their (as in religous right leaders) followers are adulterers. They don't make for good scapegoats. They are not an easy target to ostracize and focus your hatred on. Gays are perfect. They are a small enough percentage of the population and different enough from the rest of us to be able to get people to focus their negative, barbaric instincts on them. The Bible is only a tool for this tribal, ugly tactic. (And what's with the general focus on sex anyway?! Why do Chritians have such a problem with sex? Just as many problems, if not more, are caused by corrupt political and business practices, a la Pat Robertson and James Dobson and President Bush.....again, need I go on?)
But I am tired of hearing people saying that homosexuality is a sin in the Bible when they never quote the rest of the Bible probably because a great majority of church goers have never independently read the Bible or they have built up a reservoir of excuses for the parts they find inconvenient. So, from now, I would like to tell the Rick Warrens of the world, you are perfectly allowed to say how much you would like to take gay people's rights away from them based on the Bible so long as you agree to do one thing first -- execute an adulterer.
If you can do that for me, then I'll believe that you actually believe in the Bible literally and will accept your literal argument against homosexuality. Fair is fair. Step on up. (But, of course, we all know that "fair" has nothing to do with it)
PS -- In case anyone is a maniacal literalist, please do not actually attempt to execute any adulterers or anyone else. Check yourself into a mental hospital instead because the seven headed dragon in Revelations could be out to get you.