The young transgender woman Jazz Jennings posted a YouTube video on Friday about her feelings as she approaches the date of her gender confirmation surgery. Over the weekend, the comments section to that video exploded ... it was over 3,000 two days after the video was posted, and as I write this on Tuesday evening the count had exceeded 4,500.
Many of the comments have been from what I can only describe as self-righteous conservative Christian types condemning Ms. Jennings, in some cases making derogatory remarks about her personally. (One, who I noted got into an argument with some other commenters, actually attacked Jazz' parents for “letting” her do this.)
As a transwoman and a lesbian, I've watched Jazz over the years since she came out in 2004. She hasn't only been true to herself, she has done a lot to try to help the public understand transgender and help others who are coping with being transgender. Unless you live in a cave somewhere with no access to any kind of news media, you have to know who she is by now. There were the "20/20" interviews with Barbara Walters, the foundation she and her parents founded to help transgender youth, the documentary that aired on Oprah Winfrey's cable channel, her book "I Am Jazz" (and the TLC cable series of the same name) and the follow-up "Being Jazz" three years later, Time magazine naming her one of the 25 most influential teens of 2014 … etc., etc., etc.
There are two points to consider here, none of them flattering to her detractors. First, do you honestly think anything you have to say in opposition to her decision is going to matter after she has lived as Jazz for 14 years (in other words, why are you waiting until now to condemn her)? Second, it is indeed her decision to make and she isn't making that decision for anyone else. From the rabid furor, you would think she was forcing all of these commenters to have gender reassignment themselves!
Inevitably, the common thread among the commenters is that they have each decided that what Jazz is doing somehow violates God's word. I have therefore come to the conclusion that those who would comment negatively about her -- or about anyone who is any form of LGBTQ -- appear to honestly believe they have some God-given right via the Bible to do so.
Some of the replies to these self-righteous commenters (who apparently also believe it is their place to stick their noses into other people's business) have also quoted Biblical passages in their replies. I looked some of them up myself.
A couple of passages from the Gospel according to St. Peter pretty much discredits the "right" of people to interpret the Bible to suit their own conclusions: 2 Peter 1:20 says "no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation" and 2 Peter 3:16 says much of the letters which later became the Bible contain passages "that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction."
There are also passages that, in context of the negative comments, paints those making the comments as incredibly unChrist-like, such as John 8:1-11 (the story of Jesus and the prostitute which yielded the famous quote "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone"). Matthew 22:39 was the source of another famous quote, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Matthew 25:31-40 talks about the Final Judgment and the expectation that people treat each other with the same respect as if they were addressing God Himself. And that's just five Biblical passages ... there are more, and none of them give people the "right" to speak for God or to spread hatred in His name.
I've decided that, contrasting their behaviors against those passages, they are all hypocrites. And while I am only writing about a single situation dealing with one perceived "abomination in the eyes of the Lord" (yes, if you wade through the comments, that phrase does eventually turn up) the premise is the same when intolerance is displayed for any reason. Hate Muslims? Want to throw the Dreamers back across the border with Mexico? Think you can refuse to do business with anyone who isn't heterosexual and/or Caucasian? Every single one of those behaviors would appear to violate that first quote from the Book of Matthew, and if you truly believe in God and believe in Biblical passages being His law, then it stands to reason that you will be held accountable by Him when you pass from this earth for every single time you show intolerance.
(Please note that I am not myself trying to interpret those passages. I merely quote them and ask if those who believe accept them in the same way as the ones they quote to "prove" their point.)
And yes, God is forgiving ... but repentance is the key to that forgiveness, and I don't see very much in the way of that happening. Sometimes I wonder whether it is worth hoping that I live long enough to see a more enlightened society, because I despair that we can ever get there given the increased tolerance for intolerance that seems to prevail.
For all the rhetoric about creating a "Christian-based nation" there sure seems to be a lot of behavior getting in the way of that.