PoAC: The Church and Homosexuality
Jan. 9th, 2005 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageI promised a post of actual content on this topic. It is not locked or filtered in any way, because I'm ready now to get off the fence on this issue. (I'll admit, though, that if my father read my livejournal, I would probably have locked this. We all have our hang-ups.)
As always, reasoned and friendly debate is welcome. However, this post comes from within the Christian community and I would rather not argue the right-or-wrong of the faith itself in the comments.
The Church and Homosexuality
*Disclaimer: This is a personal opinion, not an official one. Many, perhaps even most in my church would disagree with it.
There is no doubt that the Bible does in fact say that homosexual behaviour is a sin. That is not in question, really. What is up for debate in the Church today is interpretation and doctrine relating to the realities that face us. How does a modern Church come to grips with a millennia-old dictate, and what role does the Church have to play in shaping common morality for this new millennium?
There are basically three spots in the Bible where homosexuality is condemned. The first is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot is told to leave the wicked city of Sodom which is about to be smitten for its immorality. The second is in two parts of the same total, one in Exodus and one in Leviticus, both of which are laying down God’s law for the Israelites. The third is in the new testament, where the apostle Paul mentions it as kind of an aside. I do not believe it comes up at all in the Gospels, which is an important point. (If I’m wrong on this, please quote chapter and verse in the comments.)
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not the best way to make an argument against homosexuality. First, the point needs to be made that no law had yet been handed down to God’s people at that time. This was pre-ten-commandments by about five hundred years. Second, Sodom and Gomorrah had an awful lot of problems that had to do with immorality. The people were cheating each other and guests, they were committing adultery, etc, etc. They were doing plenty of things worthy of smiting even without counting the homosexuality. Pointing out Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of God smiting homosexuals is akin to declaring Harry Potter to be evil because somewhere in the book of Judges, God tells Samuel that he shall not suffer a witch to live. The modern fantastic witchcraft of Harry Potter has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of witchcraft Samuel was told to smite. It’s comparing apples and oranges.
The second example is a little bit more to the point, because it is actually enshrined within God’s law to the Israelites. It bears more examination. Within the same section(s) of those books where homosexuality is condemned, there are laws for a whole host of issues we no longer take literally. For example, men not only could have more than one wife, they were encouraged to marry the oldest sister first and then marry the younger one. Slavery was an accepted fact and the law did not try to eradicate it; it did, however, humanize the slaves and provide laws for their treatment and freedom. Children were considered to be under the authority of their father until he died – and by authority, they meant life-and-death control. All of these things fall well outside the boundaries of current morality even in the Church. We have made a mostly-unconscious decision to ignore large parts of the Talmud BECAUSE THEY NO LONGER FIT OUR CULTURE. Yet we cite this law as justification for condemning homosexuality. There’s a contradiction here, and it’s huge. Now, most Christians brush this off, saying they follow New Testament law. Fine, then. We’ll look at that.
The context of the New Testament is somewhat different. Palestine at that time was under the control of the Romans, for whom homosexuality was similar to Plato’s Greek model of a few hundred years before. The idea of love between a man and a boy was common and accepted in many, though not all, learned circles. Some of the rituals associated with worship of the Greco-Roman pantheon involved homosexual rites. The Jews were trying very hard to stand apart from these trends, and the Romans hated and feared them for it. Put that against a backdrop of near-constant warfare and occupation, and you have the breeding grounds for a strict version of Jewish morality to develop.
War and political unrest, or for that matter any situation where life becomes suddenly more fragile, tend to lead to a baby boom. The reason is recognition on the part of people living through such events that they may not get another chance to affirm life in this way. So they take their opportunities. It’s a survival-of-the-species mechanism as well; people who might be quite happy to give up their own lives will defend their children to the death. More kids means a better chance that some will survive the turmoil. In the context of first-century Palestine, war and civil unrest were a way of life, as were famine and drought. When life is fragile, personal pleasure takes a back seat to survival of the community. Sex becomes about procreation, and sex that can’t produce babies is condemned as being a sin. If the enemy seems to think that act is fine, well – that’s one more thing that separates you from them. My point is: condemning homosexuality in the first century A.D., and for that matter through most of history, made sense. By the same token, condemning adultery and incest made sense, and prioritizing some level of polygamy also made sense. They all increased the survival rate of the community.
My argument for a change here comes from the idea that they no longer make sense. We now have the technology to sustain the lives of most babies that come anywhere near full-term gestation. We have the ability to produce babies without heterosexual intercourse, and our lives are about as stable as life anywhere in history has ever been or is ever likely to be. We can sustain our community without having every member of it attempt to contribute to the next generation, and we can help people contribute to the next generation without any reference to their sexuality. As a community and a species, we can afford this change.
So what role does the Church play in shaping or guiding modern morality? I believe there is still a role here for the Church, and it comes down to the thing the Church has always had at its heart: the protection and succor of the weakest among us. The Church’s role in morality should be to guide people to make choices that will benefit as many as possible and hurt none.
To that end, the Church should be heavily involved in child welfare, in counseling for people who have been abused, in prison ministries, and in support for families (all families – not just traditional ones). If the guiding principles of the Church are “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself,” as Jesus himself said they were, then any act of support or advocacy which falls under those two categories is a good place for the Church to be.
There is, indeed there must be, lines drawn as to what the Church considers acceptable. But they should stop focusing on the sexual aspects of relationships and start focusing on how Christians should treat each other and others – with love, kindness, respect, responsibility and humility, recognizing that we do not have a monopoly on truth. It is totally reasonable for the Church to condemn acts of violence. It is not reasonable for the Church to condemn an act of love that doesn’t hurt anyone.
My last point: the organizations in the Church which are lobbying for these changes are pushing too hard and too fast. There is no reason why two thousand years of doctrine needs to be thrown out overnight to accommodate a relatively new interest group. My parents’ generation, as a whole, is more conservative than mine. They have seen what they consider to be the erosion of traditional morality all their lives, and they’ve seen the effects of it. They are right to be concerned, and it’s okay to disagree with something new. They have been told over and over again that the sexual revolution and easing up of divorce laws created a climate where people do not take responsiblity for their actions. They don't realize what I believe to be true – that the erosion of traditional family values did not create the problems they see as developing from it, but rather that erosion highlighted things which had previously been swept neatly under the rug. They have no reason to think that gay rights are going to be any different from, say, divorce-on-demand or unwed motherhood. The generation coming up behind them – mine - thinks differently about this. The changes are going to come. Within the next thirty years, as my generation are elected to political office and take positions of authority within the Church, these changes will happen from the inside. Forcing the changes before the bulk of the Christian community is ready for them will accomplish nothing. In fact, it’s counter-productive: instead of a gradual swing towards the left, the special-interest groups have forced the most right-wing elements in the Church to dig in and entrench themselves. Now, instead of a gradual shift, we have an issue which is threatening to split the Church down the middle. It can’t do the work it should be doing if that happens.
Note: "the Church" refers to the Christian community as a whole rather than to individual denominations.
As always, reasoned and friendly debate is welcome. However, this post comes from within the Christian community and I would rather not argue the right-or-wrong of the faith itself in the comments.
The Church and Homosexuality
*Disclaimer: This is a personal opinion, not an official one. Many, perhaps even most in my church would disagree with it.
There is no doubt that the Bible does in fact say that homosexual behaviour is a sin. That is not in question, really. What is up for debate in the Church today is interpretation and doctrine relating to the realities that face us. How does a modern Church come to grips with a millennia-old dictate, and what role does the Church have to play in shaping common morality for this new millennium?
There are basically three spots in the Bible where homosexuality is condemned. The first is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot is told to leave the wicked city of Sodom which is about to be smitten for its immorality. The second is in two parts of the same total, one in Exodus and one in Leviticus, both of which are laying down God’s law for the Israelites. The third is in the new testament, where the apostle Paul mentions it as kind of an aside. I do not believe it comes up at all in the Gospels, which is an important point. (If I’m wrong on this, please quote chapter and verse in the comments.)
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not the best way to make an argument against homosexuality. First, the point needs to be made that no law had yet been handed down to God’s people at that time. This was pre-ten-commandments by about five hundred years. Second, Sodom and Gomorrah had an awful lot of problems that had to do with immorality. The people were cheating each other and guests, they were committing adultery, etc, etc. They were doing plenty of things worthy of smiting even without counting the homosexuality. Pointing out Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of God smiting homosexuals is akin to declaring Harry Potter to be evil because somewhere in the book of Judges, God tells Samuel that he shall not suffer a witch to live. The modern fantastic witchcraft of Harry Potter has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of witchcraft Samuel was told to smite. It’s comparing apples and oranges.
The second example is a little bit more to the point, because it is actually enshrined within God’s law to the Israelites. It bears more examination. Within the same section(s) of those books where homosexuality is condemned, there are laws for a whole host of issues we no longer take literally. For example, men not only could have more than one wife, they were encouraged to marry the oldest sister first and then marry the younger one. Slavery was an accepted fact and the law did not try to eradicate it; it did, however, humanize the slaves and provide laws for their treatment and freedom. Children were considered to be under the authority of their father until he died – and by authority, they meant life-and-death control. All of these things fall well outside the boundaries of current morality even in the Church. We have made a mostly-unconscious decision to ignore large parts of the Talmud BECAUSE THEY NO LONGER FIT OUR CULTURE. Yet we cite this law as justification for condemning homosexuality. There’s a contradiction here, and it’s huge. Now, most Christians brush this off, saying they follow New Testament law. Fine, then. We’ll look at that.
The context of the New Testament is somewhat different. Palestine at that time was under the control of the Romans, for whom homosexuality was similar to Plato’s Greek model of a few hundred years before. The idea of love between a man and a boy was common and accepted in many, though not all, learned circles. Some of the rituals associated with worship of the Greco-Roman pantheon involved homosexual rites. The Jews were trying very hard to stand apart from these trends, and the Romans hated and feared them for it. Put that against a backdrop of near-constant warfare and occupation, and you have the breeding grounds for a strict version of Jewish morality to develop.
War and political unrest, or for that matter any situation where life becomes suddenly more fragile, tend to lead to a baby boom. The reason is recognition on the part of people living through such events that they may not get another chance to affirm life in this way. So they take their opportunities. It’s a survival-of-the-species mechanism as well; people who might be quite happy to give up their own lives will defend their children to the death. More kids means a better chance that some will survive the turmoil. In the context of first-century Palestine, war and civil unrest were a way of life, as were famine and drought. When life is fragile, personal pleasure takes a back seat to survival of the community. Sex becomes about procreation, and sex that can’t produce babies is condemned as being a sin. If the enemy seems to think that act is fine, well – that’s one more thing that separates you from them. My point is: condemning homosexuality in the first century A.D., and for that matter through most of history, made sense. By the same token, condemning adultery and incest made sense, and prioritizing some level of polygamy also made sense. They all increased the survival rate of the community.
My argument for a change here comes from the idea that they no longer make sense. We now have the technology to sustain the lives of most babies that come anywhere near full-term gestation. We have the ability to produce babies without heterosexual intercourse, and our lives are about as stable as life anywhere in history has ever been or is ever likely to be. We can sustain our community without having every member of it attempt to contribute to the next generation, and we can help people contribute to the next generation without any reference to their sexuality. As a community and a species, we can afford this change.
So what role does the Church play in shaping or guiding modern morality? I believe there is still a role here for the Church, and it comes down to the thing the Church has always had at its heart: the protection and succor of the weakest among us. The Church’s role in morality should be to guide people to make choices that will benefit as many as possible and hurt none.
To that end, the Church should be heavily involved in child welfare, in counseling for people who have been abused, in prison ministries, and in support for families (all families – not just traditional ones). If the guiding principles of the Church are “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself,” as Jesus himself said they were, then any act of support or advocacy which falls under those two categories is a good place for the Church to be.
There is, indeed there must be, lines drawn as to what the Church considers acceptable. But they should stop focusing on the sexual aspects of relationships and start focusing on how Christians should treat each other and others – with love, kindness, respect, responsibility and humility, recognizing that we do not have a monopoly on truth. It is totally reasonable for the Church to condemn acts of violence. It is not reasonable for the Church to condemn an act of love that doesn’t hurt anyone.
My last point: the organizations in the Church which are lobbying for these changes are pushing too hard and too fast. There is no reason why two thousand years of doctrine needs to be thrown out overnight to accommodate a relatively new interest group. My parents’ generation, as a whole, is more conservative than mine. They have seen what they consider to be the erosion of traditional morality all their lives, and they’ve seen the effects of it. They are right to be concerned, and it’s okay to disagree with something new. They have been told over and over again that the sexual revolution and easing up of divorce laws created a climate where people do not take responsiblity for their actions. They don't realize what I believe to be true – that the erosion of traditional family values did not create the problems they see as developing from it, but rather that erosion highlighted things which had previously been swept neatly under the rug. They have no reason to think that gay rights are going to be any different from, say, divorce-on-demand or unwed motherhood. The generation coming up behind them – mine - thinks differently about this. The changes are going to come. Within the next thirty years, as my generation are elected to political office and take positions of authority within the Church, these changes will happen from the inside. Forcing the changes before the bulk of the Christian community is ready for them will accomplish nothing. In fact, it’s counter-productive: instead of a gradual swing towards the left, the special-interest groups have forced the most right-wing elements in the Church to dig in and entrench themselves. Now, instead of a gradual shift, we have an issue which is threatening to split the Church down the middle. It can’t do the work it should be doing if that happens.
Note: "the Church" refers to the Christian community as a whole rather than to individual denominations.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 08:17 pm (UTC)It's an issue that had much to do with my gradual alienation from the church. I had a friend, an evangelical gay man, who was told not to go to various congregations by various pastors because he had aids. Bit of an eye-opener for me.
I think that as long as one person's rights as a human being are being denied, then it is time to deal with it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 08:31 pm (UTC)I don't think gays have a RIGHT to marry. There is no human rights issue there, so long as their right to be together is not denied and they are granted the benefits of common-law status. Pushing the issue so far has, IMO, done more harm than good. Politically, my position is that gay marriage should be legalized in a civil sense, but no church should be forced to perform a ceremony they don't agree with. Freedom of religion can co-exist with freedom of expression in this.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 09:33 pm (UTC)And at least here, no church has ever been forced to marry someone they did not want to. I do know people who were turned down for church weddings for not adhering to other church teachings. (Or some faiths wont do interfaith weddings, and my cousin was denied a church wedding because she wanted it outdoors and the Catholic church thinks you can only be married in a church.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 09:47 pm (UTC)A law was recently proposed in Canada which would legalize gay marriage while protecting a church's right to refuse to marry gays. However, in order to get a license to perform marriages, pastors must sign a legal contract which includes the phrase, "uphold the laws of Canada and the province of . . ." This has several denominations rather worried, because the case could be made that refusing to perform a legal marriage was a breach of the licensing agreement and therefore was illegal. They're worried about getting sued, enough so that at least one denomination is going to have all its ministers turn in their licenses to perform marriages. They would still perform the religious ceremony, but for a legal marriage the couple would need to get a civil ceremony too.
I don't think it would be a problem, because, as you say, the Church has always exercised judgement in who it married. If they can refuse to marry people with a prior divorce, why can't they refuse to marry gays? But that's where the debate is headed right now in Canada.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 09:49 pm (UTC)And you know, a lot of European countries do that, you have a civil wedding AND if you want, you get a religious one, or at least that is how it was explained to me when I lived in Germany. The church wasn't enough. You HAD to have a civil something.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:07 pm (UTC)Part of my dad's concern is that the church will be told all their refusals are discriminatory and unconstitutional. I'm not sure if this is the Church being paranoid or if it comes from the stated intentions of some groups to force the issue as far as they can. My dad is rather reactionary in his views on this, so I can't be sure.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:19 pm (UTC)And if someone wants to have a church of all white men with hunting dogs who watch the Mets, then so be it.
If someone wants a lesbian church for Puerto Rican women with blonde hair, fine.
Whatever makes you happy.
And God is just gonna laugh at ALL of us when this is all over. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 09:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 11:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 01:06 am (UTC)Of course, it's hard to say if anyone will bother to bring this up in court in the first place. It could be the Baptists wagging their jaws and fear-mongering. We won't know until it happens.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 06:07 pm (UTC)I am hardly an expert on this, but I have heard otherwise from some who are.
The key sin of Sodom and Gomorrah seemed to be unkindness to strangers. Didn't Lot offer his daughters to a mob to defend some strangers? That seems an unlikely offering for a strictly-gay mob.
The Leviticus prohibition is clear enough. It's right there with the prohibitions against wearing mixed-fiber garments and eating shrimp. I believe that all but one of those laws were declared irrelevant for most Christians -- the one exception being sacrificing to gods other than Jehovah.
Paul mentioned something which is now translated as homosexuality. He used a word arsenokoites which ... um ... doesn't appear in any other surviving Greek writings, and we don't have a very good idea what it means. Classicists think it refers to frequenting temple prostitutes. (But we can be pretty sure it doesn't mean "homosexuality" as we understand the term, 'cause it wasn't a Greek concept -- they had the same range of activities, but they were thought of quite differently.)
In any case, it's not a major topic in the Bible, I don't think.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 10:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 09:32 pm (UTC)As I said, Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of an awful lot of things that were worthy of getting smitten. Popular Christian mythology has created the idea that the worst of these was homosexuality, but Genesis doesn't bear that out.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-11 04:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 08:34 pm (UTC)http://www.mccchurch.org/HandBible/lawoflove.htm (but then refutes them)
I have to reread, I'm being climbed on. :/
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 08:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 09:55 pm (UTC)It's also worth noting that, while Jesus himself never uttered a word of condemnation toward homosexuals, he had PLENTY to say about the plight of the poor and the prospects of a rich man getting into heaven. The Wrathful-God Fundamentalists who pick and choose which parts of the OLD Testament are worth following are even more guilty of ignoring inconvenient parts of the NEW.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 09:42 pm (UTC)And you know what? I dont see anything wrong with splits, as long as people find a home church where they feel safe and nurtured and loved and so on. There will be no way that you could ever have one church. There are way too many differences. I've seen debates over obeying your husband, that if your husband asks you to disobey God but God says obey your husband, what do you do? I thought it was going to break into a catfight! ;)
I am glad to see Quakers, MCC, UCC, and other churches become more open to people in same sex relationships. I do think though that homosexuals deserve the same advantages that hetrosexuals do, and right now, in the USA at least, they are way behind.
http://www.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=gao&docid=f:og97016.txt
Over 1049 laws that benefit married couples in the USA. This is why some churches are pushing the issue. They want to see those rights granted to everyone, it is a civil rights issue, and many churches push hard for civil rights, equal rights for all.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:00 pm (UTC)Also, I'm in full support of legal marriages for homosexual couples, and church marriages where the church is willing. But if my dad is right, and there are people out there just waiting to sue a church into bankruptcy for refusing to uphold this particular law, what is going to be gained here? I'm arguing against those who are going to try to create a schism in the name of promoting change. If a schism happens without being pushed, fine. That's life, and hopefully both sides can go their separate ways fairly peacefully. But if it happens because it was forced, as is happening right now in the Episcopalian/Anglican church, that's a different story. There's a lot of vitriol and not a lot of Christian charity going on there, and the poison of that will far outlive the debate itself. It brings us all down when it does.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:17 pm (UTC)That said, full, legal marriage is a goal to work towards. I just don't think the States, in particular, is quite ready for it. Democracy has said no, and while that's disappointing on one level, it's also an affirmation of the system. Circumventing the system is not a good precedent to set, IMO.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:34 pm (UTC)Has anyone sued the Catholics for refusing to marry someone who's divorced recently?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 10:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-09 11:55 pm (UTC)Actual sex is such a small part of a partnership surely?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 01:10 am (UTC)More to the point, many people have suggested the civil vs. religious union idea, and the only people still unhappy with it are the churches. They don't want to give this up, but they're having a good time moaning and groaning about the injustice of it all.
I think we need to completely rewrite family law to reflect civil marriage contracts. I'm not sure exactly what form that would take, but at some point it will have to happen.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 03:56 pm (UTC)The church should be able to do whatever they want, as long as they aren't getting any tax breaks from the government.
But the idea that the church discriminates against people because they are gay is one of the things that has caused me to lose respect for the church, or at least elements of it. I think that 'sin' is an easy excuse for homophobia.
I recommend the book 'In the Courts of the Lord', about a gay Anglican priest who was expelled from his congregation.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 09:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 10:33 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I agree here. I mean, charitable organizations come in all shapes and sizes. I get a tax break for the money I donate to them, and they get some as a charitable organization. There are plenty of charities that I do not support for philosophical reasons. I don't get a tax break for money I don't give them, obviously, but I have no problem with them paying taxes as charities. Just because many churches discriminate in one area does not mean they do not do good work. Most organizations have criteria for membership. Some have more livable criteria than others. But their charitable status should not be in jeopardy because the laws are changing faster than their viewpoint.
Also, though I agree that many Christians are homophobic, it is possible to disagree with something without being phobic about it. There is a difference between disagreement and persecution. I understand the Christians who are tired of being told they're bad people over this one. It does get tiresome. I believe most Christians who feel this way simply do not know any gay people who might help them change their minds. That's not homophobia; it's being informed by one's own media. My viewpoint on this has changed in part because I do know people on the other side of this issue, the side I never saw from within the Church. We can't blame them for not having any gay friends. The Church will change, one mind at a time, until the majority see homosexuality as a non-issue.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 04:06 pm (UTC)In any case, such a lawsuit (if it were ever to occur, which I seriously doubt) would be highly unlikely to succeed without agreement on the part of the specific religion's hierarchy. Women haven't succeeded in being allowed into the Catholic priesthood, for example.
Given that marriage is touted by certain factions as being for procreative purposes, you'd think they'd be upset about anyone who doesn't pop out a kid within the first year of marriage, too, but AFAIK, they're fine with that.
The Golden Rule (http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm) as understood in modern western Christianity is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". But a more universal (and to my mind, more reasonable) interpretation is "do NOT do unto others that which you would not have them do unto you" (e.g. "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." Talmud, Shabbat 31a -- emphasis mine). If only people would apply this concept to their everyday dealings with the rest of the world...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 10:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 01:54 am (UTC)In Canada the role of Christian evangelists in politics doesn't seem to be quite as pronounced and insidious as it is here - but the whole issue seems to be about the right of Queers to exist, rather than just their right to different tax status and medical benefits. (I'm assuming the medical benefits so vital in the US are a far less critical issue in Canada - and oh, boy, can you go paranoid with that one!)
Given that the religious right has been known to cheer on things like, say, the murder of Matthew Shepard, it makes sense that Queers would interpret this as an attempt to ban them.
I think that without both sides interpretting the issue as being the right of Queers to exist, rather than to a bit of terminology, the whole thing would be settled in a few relatively peaceful months.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 02:21 am (UTC)Medical benefits are not as huge as they are in the States, either, but supplementary insurance (the stuff that pays drug plans and dental, for example) can still be a problem for same-sex couples. Granting them common-law status took care of quite a bit of that problem, because common-law couples have the right to access their spouse's supplementary insurance if the spouse puts them on it.
It is a very emotional issue for many Christians, because you're right - there's an element of "we're having to defend our way of life against immoral sinners! Yuck!" Also, many Christian couples see this as a personal attack on the institution of marriage in itself and on their own marriage - watering down something that should be meaningful until it's lost what made it special to them. I truly do not understand that point. My marriage is special to me because Piet and I have created it together. It has a religious significance, a very serious one - but someone else's marriage having a different religious significance will not change the import of mine.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 02:18 am (UTC)Now, on a personal note, I think that gays can have marriage as an institution. Civil unions seem more sensible to me for everyone, but if gays, lesbians, transgendered individuals, etc, would like to have marriage as an option, you know that I think they should have that right. Give it over to them. Heaven knows heterosexuals suck at it.
An excellent PoAC, btw. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-10 02:36 am (UTC)Same Answer, Different Path
Date: 2005-01-12 06:04 am (UTC)As funny as this may sound, what changed my mind was the song Married By Elvis (http://www.barlowonline.com/MarriedByElvis.html).
Re: Same Answer, Different Path
Date: 2005-01-12 12:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-16 07:28 pm (UTC)By the way, I disagree with your opening statement in this post even though I actually agree with your point. There is NOTHING in the Bible about homosexuality. There couldn't be: There was no Hebrew or Greek word for consensual homosexuality. You can't ban something you've never heard of. The words that are translated into "homosexual" in the English versions of the Bible are the words for male prostitution, transvestite prostitution, and for the sexual abuse of little boys. You have to really, really stretch to come up with a biblical argument against sex between married homosexuals. I wrote a lengthy post about this myself - possibly the only good use I ever made of my study of ancient languages - and will try to resurrect it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-16 08:01 pm (UTC)As for the anti-vaccination posts, look around the end of April and beginning of May, through to mid-June, of this year. I'll see if I can look some up for you. I need to put them all in my memories, or at least tag them properly.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-16 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-16 08:56 pm (UTC)