group discussion

I make the case in my second novel, THINKING STRAIGHT, for the necessity of using our brains and not just our eyes and ears when we apply Christian scripture to life. The book tells the story of a Christian gay teen who is put into a deprogramming camp to straighten him out.

Recently I participated in a couple of amazon discussions around the general topic of Christianity's view of homosexuals. Many other participants referred to scripture as though it were absolute, once and for all. Often they quoted scripture in their arguments as though it would help, which reminded me of those who raise their voices as if that would help foreign-speakers understand their words.

So many people read or hear only the words of scripture and insist that's enough, despite the many ways in which scriptural instructions change from book to book, as time progresses and as different people in different situations are being addressed. We don’t even need to get into how many different copies and translations and versions have led to the current books today (particularly with the New Testament books) to see that the bible changes its moral instructions over time; even those who believe that the books of the bible are the inerrant, divine, immutable Word of God can see these changes.

I'm hoping for some thoughtful discussion of why so many Christians (not all, by any means) are so unwilling to consider the *context* of scripture. And why they don't allow that the differences between the context of thousands of years ago and that of today should be considered when trying to understand the nature of, and our relationship to, God. Because while the nature of God may not have changed, the ways in which we live – and the things we know about life – have changed radically. And the scriptures themselves changed as their audiences' lives changed. The nature of God is strategic; "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" are tactical. And tactics are not absolute; they must fit the situation, or they're useless at best. The bible itself changed tactics as the situation changed over time.

Most of us would agree, I believe, that when reading literature, context is critical. Understanding is deeper if readers have some information about the historical period, about the writer, and about the writer’s audience when the work was written.

I know there are those who would say that the bible is not “literature.” But isn’t context even more critical when the writing is used by many as justification to condemn? As The Reverend Dr. Laurence C. Keene says, “You can have a fifth grade understanding of the Bible – if you're in the fifth grade."

Because I consider context to be critical to understanding, I think it makes no sense to condemn gays based on biblical scripture that was written for people with an ancient and flawed understanding of homosexuality.

Thoughts?

My thought is that people don't want to have to think for themselves, particularly when that might mean losing the pleasure of looking down on others. Many churches appear to insist that 'God's word is unchanging' and use that to mean that the Bible can be taken on face value. Scriptural exegesis is considered just a way of cheating.

i'm with alex. looking at the context, the original texts, the motivations behind the bible's various authors, not to mention that of the folks who formed the canon used today...well, that could shatter the foundation of faith for so many. christianity wouldn't have the social and political oomph it has today, if people had to consider all these things when making decisions about how to act in this world. it's so much easier to just have something handed down. the world is hard enough. there's just no reason to complicate it with thoughtful analysis when you can simply be told how to think and act.

You're absolutely correct, Robin. When you look at context there is really no case for an anti-gay Christianity, unless you are the kind of Biblical literalist who follows every regulation in Leviticus. (I have never met a Christian who does, although I've met many Christians who justify homophobia with Mosaic laws.)

Quite a lot of Christians and even whole denominations realize this. I even know gay Catholics. It's probably unfair to tar all 2 billion Christians with the same brush.

On the other hand, a lot of people do use Christianity as an excuse for homophobia, and Christianity legitimizes and reinforces homophobia for many adherents.

This conversation is wonderful. One of the most oft-cited sources against homosexuality in the New Testament is Paul in Romans. I am consistently surprised to hear Christians citing Paul as evidence of the bible's ban against homosexuality because mere paragraphs away, Paul argues against heterosexual marriage or any relationship that interferes with preparing for Jesus' return. And don't get me started on Deuteronomy. I have yet to meet a Christian who kept kosher or followed half of the proscriptions the way many conservative and orthodox Jews do. Pork is no longer verboten, but homosexuality still is.

I was reading the recent California Supreme Court case overturning the state's ban on gay marriage and thought the court dealt nicely with these issues. Like Lawrence v. Texas and Brown v. Board of Education, the opinion gives me goosebumps.

Has anyone had any success discussing these issues with any textual literalists? I had debates about them a few years ago in law school, but find my circle is almost entirely full of those who have drunk the kool-aid and believe either in a less literal interpretation of the bible (like my fabulous little sis who is a very strong believer but also the biggest supporter of me and my relationship) or have eschewed Christianity entirely.

It would be an interesting conversation, especially if one could manage to have it without too much emotional investment or need to win every point. I don't think I could manage it. . .

I have had extensive conversations with Biblical literalists, and they tend to end with my opponents suggesting that I am possessed by demons. I assume by this that I succeeded in at least worrying them a bit.

But it immediately gets into the question of how you interpret the Bible, whether you should take into account the mores of the times when it was written and the possibility that it was filtered through the merely human minds of its writers, or whether you treat it as if it was dictated, in English, to people who wrote it down with 100% accuracy.

Literalists are trained *not* to think about the Bible. In my own Christian tradition we are trained *to* examine the Bible, and consider it part of our religious duty to figure out what it meant at the time it was written, and what that tells us about what it actually means. But the two traditions can't really talk to each other. The literalists regard thinking independantly about the bible as a temptation, so no matter how you try to persuade them, they have a duty not to be persuaded. It's pretty hopeless.

Context, Context, Context!!! Absolutely right. I hate when people (whether Christians or not) talk about how Sodom and Gamorrha were destroyed because of homosexuality. IF ( and I know that is a big IF) you read the whole story you will see that Lot was sent to find Righteous folk there. God and Lot argued about the number of righteous folk needed to be found but in the end not 1 righteous man was found. THAT is why the cities were destroyed not because gay guys and girls were "getting it on". all ya gotta do folks is read the story ...and yet how many times have YOU heard they were destroyed by the Gays ????

Scott -- Yeah, I love that seemingly deliberate misunderstanding about Sodom. And something most readers either don't see or choose to ignore is that when the rabble showed up at Lot's door and demanded that the strangers be sent out to them, what did Lot do? He offered up his two virgin daughters and told the crowd, "Do with them as you see fit."

!!!?!???!!! And God deemed Lot worth saving!

Now it's possible that in that day and age, this wouldn't have been frowned upon by society because women were, after all, barely above camels in terms of value of life. And everyone knew that all the essentials for a new human life were in male ejaculate; the woman was just an oven. (No joke; this was common belief in the Middle East.)

Hmmm... maybe THAT's why wasting one's seed was so bad? If you didn't put it into the oven, anyplace else was a sin, because you were essentially murdering! Outside the oven would include masturbation, oral sex, bestiality and... oh yes... sex between men. Small wonder that the Old Testament said nothing about female-female activity; no one (that is, no men, for men were people) cared about women at all.

IMHO, this speaks HUGELY to context.

Yes, one of the things I like about looking at the context is that it makes sense of why certain things were thought to be sins which are not thought to be sins now. If you were murdering an unborn child by masturbating, then of course it was wrong. You can suddenly see that the principle at work is one we would agree with - do not murder.

But also m/m penetrative sex involved making one man 'take the woman's place' - in other words they saw it as being an act which necessarily degraded one man. So it could never have been done in a way that was loving - degrading someone/wanting to be degraded and shamed - it's not a good thing.

You do have to value women as human beings before 'taking the woman's part' in anything becomes a non-humiliating thing to do for a man.

Right! In fact, the victorious soldiers in battles would usually rape the vanquished ones -- despite the edict against "wasting seed" -- b/c it was a powerful way of demeaning someone.

As Alex points out, there was no way to have m/m penetrative sex and have it be good, in the eyes of the OT writers and "readers." Not only b/c women were almost not even human to them, but also because by the time anyone was old enough to rub two gray cells together about whether he or she didn't really enjoy this mixed-sex thing very much, they were already married, and having as many kids as possible to take care of them when they got to be too old (like, 40?) to care for themselves any more. No social security, no health insurance, no pensions, no tax-sheltered annuities, no graduated health care facilities. So everyone was straight by default, and there was no concept of m/m or f/f committed relationships. So everything you see in any part of the bible that refers to same-sex anything is NOT talking about the same thing we are today when we speak of homosexual relationships.

Courtney asked above if anyone had tried to have this discussion with a biblical literalist. I’d love the opportunity, but I don’t know very many. Perhaps I should have opened this thread in a different group! LOL

I have had an exchange, however, with a non-literalist Christian who condemns homosexuality based on biblical scripture, which is just bo-o-o-o-o-o-o-gus. (Bad enough that the literalists do it!) I was responding to a post on amazon where this person had said that the bible was against homosexuality b/c it was unnatural. To which I responded that it couldn’t be unnatural when it occurs in over 1,500 different animal species (and counting). He replied, “And animals eat their young. Should we imitate them?” So you see the non-literalists are capable of being just as irrational. I had to remind him that wasn’t the point; I had NOT used animal behavior to justify homosexuality, I had used it as supporting evidence of the phenomenon occurring in nature, being biological. He went off on some tangent, equally off-point. I stopped exchanging posts with him; he was obviously not using his brain, though he was convinced of the opposite. He was just responding from his gut and calling it scripture.

"In fact, the victorious soldiers in battles would usually rape the vanquished ones -- despite the edict against "wasting seed" -- b/c it was a powerful way of demeaning someone. "

And there you start to get into one of the good reasons why the act might have to be forbidden by a good God until people's other knowledge of the world caught up enough to make it safe to start adding qualifications :) If the command is being used to stop the soldiers of your army from routinely abusing their defeated opponents, suddenly it becomes clear why a good God would forbid it.

Just as you say, using that to justify banning loving relationships is using it in a way it was never intended to be used.

I love the discussion of "wasting the seed" as murder -- as well as the implications of one man taking the "female" role as the impetus behind the Christian Bible's ban on homosexuality. Especially when Robin said, "Small wonder that the Old Testament said nothing about female-female activity; no one (that is, no men, for men were people) cared about women at all."

I mean, I am sure if Ruth and Esther were actually "caught" in the act, they would have been stoned or some such thing, but otherwise, as long as they were behaving like appropriately dominated chattel, their sexuality was really irrelevant. Which brings up the theme of lesbians as historically invisible, but that's an entirely different topic.

Courtney said, "I am sure if Ruth and Esther were actually "caught" in the act, they would have been stoned or some such thing."

Possibly true; the biblical text doesn't provide much in the way of clues to that answer. But I think it's also possible that it would have meant nothing. In the bible's early days, it was customary for people (read "men") to own many wives, if the man's rank and wealth were high enough. And they probably knew what was going on inside the red tent and didn't care. It wasted no seed and affected no one. No people, that is.

A lot of great points, from everyone who's already posted here (I'm coming in late, having just discovered the group).

I'll only add a few things, the most important of which is that Jesus (and everyone/thing else in the Old and New Testament scriptures) made a *huge* distinction between those who only get the "letter" (or literal, surface) message about God's way things are to be done, and those who get the "Spirit" (the heart, deep) message. I believe that's why Jesus told so many parables: those who only listen for the literal, and not the meaning, are just not going to "get" it.

It used to bother me (as someone struggling to retain my christian faith) that so many people who call themselves "christian" are such jerks, or are so opposite even trying to be what Jesus and the rest of the scripture described as ideal (for, even though no one can be a perfect saint, shouldn't those who call themselves christian at least be agonizing over their failures to be loving and respectful to all others, for example, and not just being arrogant or stupid about it?)

But then I realized that the Old and New Testament scriptures both name and predict that most of the people who claim to belong to God will not really belong to Him. In fact, both Old and New Testaments reserve the greatest intensity of God's judgment and anger for those who falsely claim to be God's people.

So:
- if God knows these false-Christians exist and even says they will be the majority of those who claim to follow God, and
- if God rejects them, and God warns the rest of us not to be fooled by or mistakenly follow them, and
- if God promises to make things finally just once again in the end, even to making them finally admit once and for all how much God loves all the people they condemned

..then why should I reject God? To do so is like rejecting the quiet guy in the corner who's telling the truth, because the screaming lie-telling mob around him claims to speak for him.

That is what using the context of scripture - linguistic, historical, cultural - has gotten me: an ability to not stop at the "literal" in scripture, but to move past it to the "literal meaning" of the scripture. And that has made all the difference in the world!

When what they've always been told from the pulpit reinforces a social prejudice, people just won't hear you about context. It's just justifying your sin to them. People like that don't change unless forced to by a child or close family member coming out. You have to be jolted out of the sureness that you're right before you'll reconsider.

I have found that folks need to get to know me personally. It is much harder to put labels on people you know.

Very true! I've often heard that given as a reason all gay people should come out: it's harder for people to vote for and go along with prejudice when they have to realize that that prejudice affects the people they know, love, and respect.

I think this can even make a difference for serious (but not hard-core) bigots - those who may still be prejudiced against us, but who at least learn to rein it in a bit, to avoid being jerky to those they know, love, and respect.

Lynne said: "it's harder for people to vote for and go along with prejudice when they have to realize that that prejudice affects the people they know, love, and respect."

Also, though I would never try to pull someone out of the closet (it's a personal decision in the ultimate, after all), I do think that the more people who are out, the more likely it is that heteros would learn to "get used to it." You can't get used to something that isn't there. But the more gay people heteros know, the less uncomfortable (or worse) they might be.

How many times have you heard someone say, "I don't know any gay people." Yeah, right...

I am in 99% agreement with everything Lynn, Robin and Lillian say. I feel that being out (in fact quite out) is both a personal and political decision for me and think it is REALLY important, for me, to be as open and honest about my sex o as possible.

But there is this 1% of me that thinks, sure, they may slightly change their mind because of me, but in the end, they will think, well, Courtney is a "Good" lesbian, not like the others who are . . . . much like people used to (and still do) categorize African-Americans into good and "them." In a fit of anger the other day, I referred to a former co-worker (only to my P, of course) as an "uncle tom lesbian" but I wonder if this parallel even works, but I sometimes fear it is out there.

Sort of like, well, fine, you like girls, but as long as you look, act, behave and generally ARE like us you are ok. But those lesbians in Massachusetts are different. Ellen is ok, but kd lang is "too gay."

Does this make sense? I am still working through it in my mind, so it may be jumbled. Plus I just quit smoking and I swear, not smoking has taken 25% of my brain functions with it.

First, Courtney, good for you for quitting smoking! (says the former years-long-smoker :) The longer you're an ex-smoker, the better you will feel and the happier you will be (I can say from first hand experience).

Second, what you're saying makes *total* sense. But (and you, of course, already know this) we have to get what we can, because truly *lives* are at stake, since there are still people killing themselves and being killed for being gay. We have to take what we can get and continue struggling for more!

There are still people who decide there are "good" african-americans and "bad", based on how "black" they seem (meaning, how much like white people they seem). There always will be, because there will always be people who are idiots and believe nothing can be "good" unless it looks, talks, breathes, sleeps, and eats just like they do.

And there will always be people who divide gay people into "good" and "bad" based on how "straight" they seem. But I think the "how straight they seem" is where we (as a culture) are getting "stuck" these days.

I see that the larger part of the problem for us today is the continued confusion people still have over gender-orientation and sexual-orientation. With the *explosion* of understanding transgender only within the western medical model (meaning, it's a "disorder" to be gender-variant and it needs drugs and surgery to "fix"), what's been completely lost is that people can be and are "interGENDERED" - existing somewhere on a continuum between what we recognize as "masculine" and "feminine".

In the old days, when someone's gender didn't seem to "match" their sex, we just called them "butch" (if they were female), or "femme" (if they were male). Again, completely lost in the medical-model interpretation of gender-nonconformity is that gender-variation is *just* as normal as sexual-orientation-variation, and has just as much "use" in the natural world -- and that it occurs in the straight world just as much as it does in the gay world (it's just that straight people are more likely to hide it).

So what we end up left with is folks like myself (one of those masculine-gendered females who is in no way wanting or needing to change my body with surgery/hormones/etc) -- who are tagged as "obviously gay". And we end up with people like my partner (one of the feminine-gendered females) who is tagged NOT "obviously" gay.

So I think in some ways we are farther along (as *gay* people) than we think, in that *at least* those gay people who conform to straight prejudices against gender-variance are considered "good" by a wider population of the straight population. Hopefully that will continue to advance..

The fact that those of us who do *not* conform to straight prejudices against gender-variance are still tagged as "bad" -- even by some gay people who are gender-conforming -- demonstrates more what we as a society still need to accomplish for gender issues (meaning, to break them away from the "gender variance is disability" medical model that denies the quite natural and healthy gender variation widely present not only in gay people but also in straight people, as well.)

That was a VERY long post -- sorry about that :)

LOL! I love it: "Uncle Tom lesbian." Courtney, I think I know what you're saying. And it's not very far away from the idea that critics of gays are less likely to criticize the ones they know and like. So the question is whether it's easier for these individuals to like gays who are not kd, not over the top (by their own definition, that is). Another way to put it might be that they're okay with gays who don't make them feel 'too' uncomfortable.

But I'm still hoping that the discomfort will lessen more and more -- with more and more exposure to gays -- and that eventually that line that separates the ones who are Ellen from the ones who are kd will shift further and further toward kd until even she doesn't make them so uncomfortable any more.

Tolerance is a word that comes to mind. Personally, I'd take tolerance over hatred, but who wants to be tolerated? You tolerate something you would rather not deal with because you believe it's going to end. I'll tolerate tolerance because I'm expecting it to end.

I think that one of the difficulties we GLBTQ folk face is our own internalized homophobia. The social, familial, religious pressures that we grew up with can lead us to question whether or not God really loves us and accepts us. I recall one person who I know really well, who has been in a loving relationship for over 30 years, asking me, do you really believe that God loves me and blesses my relationship? That question, I believe, came from a deep seated fear, rarely articulated for fear of experiencing rejection one again.

I LOVE this conversation.

Lynne, you said:

But (and you, of course, already know this) we have to get what we can, because truly *lives* are at stake, since there are still people killing themselves and being killed for being gay. We have to take what we can get and continue struggling for more!

And it hit me in the stomach because, for me, this is a big reason why I am so stridently out. I am not a woman who is tagged as obviously gay (which, I admit, kind of bums me out sometimes and results in me acquiring fun political shirts). I have been extraordinarily lucky to have extremely supportive and accepting friends and family.

My Dad took literally 17 seconds to grasp it, accept it and completely and utterly support me. My darling sister comes up with witty comebacks when I express extreme frustration at my doctor who, despite the fact that I have created a box marked partner on the intake sheet, put all of my P's information as my emergency contact, and told him three times I am gay, tells me we should do a pregnancy test just to be sure that isn't causing my stomach pain (ACH!). Her response: "My wife and I have been trying and trying, but I still don't seem to be pregnant."

But other than "don't be too gay" subtext my profession loves, it is easy for me to be out.
As a result, I feel it is my absolute moral obligation to be myself. To be out. At work. At play. At home. To introduce my P as my partner (and correct people when they say roommate or friend -- which irritates me to death).

And by god, to stick the HRC magnet and the little rainbow decal on my car even though I live in the suburbs in a neighborhood filled with 80 year olds and young families with kids(but my neighbors, even clearly knowing, still let/are thrilled to send their little boys over to dig in my garden and ask about my partner, so I think we have some progress!)

Given the support I have in all the other areas of my life, work was (and will be again) the place where I really try to be as myself as possible, no matter how uncomfortable it makes people (because I am not immediately identifiable and so there is often lots of surprise involved). And generally I get tolerance, albeit grudgingly. But as Robin so perfectly said:

Personally, I'd take tolerance over hatred, but who wants to be tolerated? You tolerate something you would rather not deal with because you believe it's going to end. I'll tolerate tolerance because I'm expecting it to end.

So I am going to be just a little teensy bit cynical about certain acquaintances'/colleagues' reaction to me or a little bit irritated when my former co-workers are more comfortable with the uncle tom lesbian than me. (which is SUCH a bratty thing to say, but I plead quitting smoking and years of vexatious lunches and professional encounters).

On the whole, I have had so many positive experiences being out, so many people from whom I expected tolerance and found acceptance that even my cynicism washes away. But more than that, I think being fully out is an act of personal and political courage and if one can/has the ability to do it a gift to a hopefully improving world.

Ach! I hope this makes sense. Sorry for the length!!