Gay Marriage Inevitable?

Jesus and God and apologeticsA century ago, America was immersed in social change. Some of the issues in the headlines during this period were women’s suffrage, the treatment of immigrants, prison and asylum reform, temperance and prohibition, racial inequality, child labor and compulsory elementary school education, women’s education and protection of women from workplace exploitation, equal pay for equal work, communism and utopian societies, unions and the labor movement, and pure food laws.

The social turmoil of the past makes today’s focus on gay marriage and abortion look almost inconsequential by comparison.

What’s especially interesting is Christianity’s role in some of these movements. Christians will point with justifiable pride to schools and hospitals build by churches or religious orders. The Social Gospel movement of the early 20th century pushed for corrections of many social ills—poverty and wealth inequality, alcoholism, poor schools, and more. Christians point to Rev. Martin Luther King’s work on civil rights and William Wilberforce’s Christianity-inspired work on ending slavery.

(This doesn’t sound much like the church today, commandeered as it is by conservative politics, but that’s another story.)

Same-sex marriage seems inevitable, just another step in the march of civil rights. Jennifer Roback Morse, president and founder of the Ruth Institute for promotion of heterosexual marriage and rejection of same-sex marriage, was recently asked if she feared being embarrassed by the seeming inevitability of same-sex marriage. She replied:

On the contrary, [same-sex marriage proponents] are the ones who are going to be embarrassed. They are the ones who are going to be looking around, looking for the exits, trying to pretend that it had nothing to do with them, that it wasn’t really their fault.

I am not the slightest bit worried about the judgment of history on me. This march-of-history argument bothers me a lot. … What they’re really saying is, “Stop thinking, stop using your judgment, just shut up and follow the crowd because the crowd is moving towards Nirvana and you need to just follow along.”

Let’s first acknowledge someone who could well be striving to do the right thing simply because it’s right, without concern for popularity or the social consequences. I would never argue that someone ought to abandon a principle because it has become a minority opinion or that it is ridiculed. If Dr. Morse sticks to her position solely because she thinks it’s right, and she’s not doing it because of (say) some political requirement or because her job depends on it, that’s great.

Nevertheless, the infamous 1963 statement from George Wallace comes to mind: “I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” That line came back to haunt him. To his credit, he apologized and rejected his former segregationist policies, but history will always see him as having chosen the wrong side of this issue.

Christianity has similarly scrambled to reposition itself after earlier errors. Christians often claim that modern science is built on a Christian foundation, ignoring the church’s rejection of science that didn’t fit its medieval beliefs (think Galileo). They take credit for society’s rejection of slavery, forgetting Southern preachers and their gold mine of Bible verses for ammunition. They reposition civil rights as an issue driven by Christians, ignoring the Ku Klux Klan and its burning cross symbol, biblical justification for laws against mixed-race marriage, and slavery support as the issue that created the Southern Baptist Convention.

Mohandas Gandhi had considerable experience as the underdog. He said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

(And then they claim that it was their idea all along!)

The same-sex marriage issue in the United States has almost advanced to “then you win” stage. Check back in two decades, and you’ll see Christians positioning the gay rights issue as one led by the church. They’ll mine history for liberal churches that took the lead (and flak) in ordaining openly gay clerics and speaking out in favor of gay rights.

If someone truly rejects same-sex marriage because their unbiased analysis shows it to be worse for society, great. But it is increasingly becoming clear how history will judge that position.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.
— Mohandas Gandhi

Photo credit: Spec-ta-cles

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Related links:

  • “Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Are Defenders of Natural Marriage on the Wrong Side of History?” Issues Etc., 5/25/12.
  • “Pure Religion: Revivalism and Reform in Early 19th-Century America,” The Dartmouth Apologia, Spring 2010, pp 20–24.

Homosexuality in Nature

Homosexuality--just one of the dangerous things that Christianity can lead toChristians often argue that homosexuality is unnatural. That is, the purpose of man/woman sex is clear—it’s what propagates the species. Any other kind of sex simply isn’t using human anatomy for what it was meant for. There’s only one way to properly fit the jigsaw puzzle pieces together.

The Catholic Church is a vocal proponent of this idea that homosexuality is unnatural. Let’s pause to savor this for a moment—that’s a community of celibate men, if you can imagine such a thing, calling another lifestyle unnatural.

But the fact is that homosexuality is natural. It’s widespread in nature and has been observed in 500 animal species, including all the great apes, of which humans are a part.

The science that explains homosexuality is immature—homosexuality might be the consolation prize, for example—but why isn’t the point. It’s clearly natural, and that’s been recognized within society. We’re decades past the time when homosexuality was categorized as a mental disorder.

But natural doesn’t mean good, the Christian will say. Rape, violence, and cyanide are natural, and they’re harmful.

True enough. Then let’s move the conversation from natural/unnatural to good/harmful. Rape, violence, and cyanide are inherently harmful, but homosexuality isn’t.

Saying “I have homosexual inclinations, so I should act on them” is like saying, “I have alcoholic inclinations, so I should act on them.”

Once again, the issue is harm. Alcoholic inclinations cause harm, and homosexual inclinations don’t. What’s the problem caused by consensual homosexual sex (besides offending the Old Testament god)?

Homosexuals can be treated. They can become un-gay.

Here’s an interesting data point from the More Musings blog:

[Alan] Chambers is the president of Exodus International, the largest ex-gay organization in the United States. … The most significant statement Chambers made that evening was this:

“The majority of people that I have met–and I would say ‘the majority’ meaning 99.9% of them–have not experienced a change in their orientation, or have gotten to a place where they could say they could never be tempted, or are not tempted in some way, or experience some level of same sex attraction.”

Quoth the President of the Largest Ex-gay Ministry in America.

But if everyone were homosexual, the population would die out!

Yes, and if everyone were female, the population would also die out. So what? No one’s saying that being female is bad or immoral or unnatural. It’s not the case that everyone is female, and it’s not the case that everyone is homosexual. No problem then! Anyway, animals have apparently been gay since forever, and evolution stumbles along just fine.

I’ll close with something I recently found that’s currently at the top of my I Wish I’d Said That list:

Homosexuality exists in 500 species.
Homophobia exists in only one.
Which seems unnatural now?

Photo credit: Gabludlow

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Marriage—Designed for Procreation?

Christianity and atheismThe most popular argument against same-sex marriage from Christians that I see is that the purpose of marriage is procreation. (It makes me wonder if the only advice they would give a couple considering marriage would be about sex positions and lubricating oils.)

Where did this idea come from?! My guess is that a couple of Christian strategists had a conversation something like this.

First Guy: We’ve got to find some way to differentiate same-sex marriage from straight marriage.
Other Guy: Yeah—some significant difference.
First Guy: So what would a gay marriage not be able to do that a straight marriage can?
Other Guy: Let’s see—they can love each other, they can support each other through difficult times …
First Guy: They can provide sexual satisfaction, they’ll have two incomes in many cases …
Other Guy: Hey, wait a minute—they can’t make babies!
First Guy: Sure, that’s it! Let’s just spin it to imagine that that’s the sole purpose of marriage!
Other Guy: The sole purpose? But what about all that other stuff?
First Guy: Whatever—the argument just has to be plausible at first glance. It doesn’t have to actually make sense.

Seriously? Is that all you get out of the marriage vows? “I promise to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow,” and so on doesn’t sound like “Make babies!” to me.

And what would these people do with marriages that don’t produce children? Some couples don’t want children and others can’t have them. More than 10% of couples have a fertility problem. In other words, if every single homosexual person paired up and got married tomorrow, they would still be far exceeded in number by the straight couples simply unable to make babies. As anti-gay-marriage advocates lie awake at night and worry about other people’s happiness, I wonder if this fact troubles them as well.

And what about couples beyond child-bearing age? My wife and I are too old for more babies, for example. Does that make our marriage invalid or inferior?

It’s easy to smoke out these Christians’ true opinions on the subject. Ask these opponents to same-sex marriage why a straight couple should get married instead of living together, and the procreation argument goes out the window, replaced with profound thoughts about love and commitment—precisely the reason same-sex couples want to get married.

The marriage-creates-babies idea is clung to like a life preserver, but the simple fact is that marriage doesn’t make babies, it’s sex. And, as I’ve said in a previous post, let’s remember that the apostle Paul was against sex and made clear that the best marriage was no marriage at all.

A variant of this argument is that a straight couple provides a better environment for a child than a same-sex couple. I’ve heard evidence that this is true and other evidence that it doesn’t make much difference, but I’m in no position to evaluate them. It certainly seems to me that other factors in life—having enough money, no domestic violence, no drug use, a safe neighborhood, and so on—can overshadow the parents’ gender. But this argument is irrelevant in those situations when two biological parents simply aren’t an option.

Imagine a lesbian woman, divorced with a child. The mother could live alone, she could live with a woman partner, or the two women could get married. What’s the best situation for the child? Mom and Dad isn’t an option; they’re divorced. Mom and Stepdad aren’t an option; Mom’s a lesbian. Seems to me that there’s room in this situation to allow for Mom’s happiness, and that could provide another adult to help with the parenting. Where’s the problem? We probably agree that single-parent households aren’t best for raising children, and opposing same-sex marriage only stands in the way.

A final element of the Christian position is a rearguard action. Concerned about the charge of bias, they argue that their position does not discriminate against homosexuals. After all, they say, the restriction that someone can only marry someone of the opposite sex applies to everyone equally.

I’m sure this absurd argument was as foul-smelling when it was applied to those in love with someone of a different race in 1967 when mixed-race marriages were still prohibited in 17 states. “There’s no discrimination here. You can marry anyone you want … as long as that person is of the same race as you.”

Yeah, right.

Christians don’t need to be born again.
They need to grow up.
— John Shelby Spong

Photo credit: Wikimedia

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What Does the New Testament Say about Homosexuality?

How effective are Christian apologetics?There are two primary places in the New Testament where homosexuality is a condemned practice.

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10).

We’ve been here before.

The early Christians weren’t Christian. They were Jews, and they followed the Scripture (what we call the Old Testament). As I noted in the last post on this subject, Leviticus categorizes homosexuality as a ritual abomination—that is, something that’s bad by definition, not by its nature. Leviticus puts gay sex in the same category as eating a ham sandwich or sowing a field with two different crops.

Christians have rejected all of the Old Testament’s ritual abominations (animal sacrifices, kosher laws, and so on), and they can’t now come back to retrieve a few that they’re nostalgic for.

We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine (1 Tim. 1:9–10).

Ritual abominations like homosexuality are mixed in this list with actual crimes such as murder. This tells us nothing new, so it isn’t much of an attack. As an aside, however, it may be worth wondering who wrote this book. Though its first line says that it’s from Paul, this book is widely considered to be pseudepigraphical. So we have a book of unknown authorship with a wide range of possible dates of authorship. Though it’s part of the canon, that doesn’t make it much of an authority.

If we’re to find moral advice in these two books, let’s look at a few other things they say.

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church (1 Cor. 14:34–5).

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner (1 Tim. 2:11–14).

For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man (1 Cor. 11:8–9).

(Yeah, it’s about time we got some old-fashioned Bible values back in society! Let’s correct society’s lax approach toward women.)

Let me suggest another source of advice. Romans 14 recommends that we be flexible about others’ ways. If someone has more or fewer restriction about what he eats, for example, just let it slide. As Ambrose said, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Maybe this advice applies to homosexuality as well.

I’ve heard some Christians say that we should treat homosexuals with sympathy. This sounds like giving sympathy to those pathetic individuals cursed with left-handedness in society.

The Catholic Church held for over a thousand years that being left handed made you a servant of the Devil and that anything left-handed was evil. (Source)

Sympathy might have been the best response in a world that saw lefties as evil or demon possessed, but society has gone beyond that. Left-handedness is irrelevant; no one cares. We don’t give sympathy because none is necessary. Shouldn’t that be the goal with homosexuals, another of society’s minorities?

While I know this sympathy is meant as a generous sentiment, it doesn’t come across that way. “Hate the sin; love the sinner” may be as distasteful for the homosexual as “I love you, but you’re going to hell” aimed at the atheist. In either situation, being told that you deserve an eternity of torture in hell for living your life in a way that is honest to who you are and that hurts no one else is simply offensive.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs delivers a much-needed smackdown to modern-day Pharisees and Levites. It makes clear that the moral of the parable of the Good Samaritan isn’t “help people in need.” First, a bit of background: the Pharisee and the Levite in the story were ritually clean as they walked past the beaten man lying in the dirt. They avoided him because touching blood or a dead person caused ritual uncleanness. But the Torah didn’t forbid touching such things; it simply stated that you were ritually unclean after doing so and had to cleanse yourself. The Secret Diary concludes: “Jesus, your big hero, was saying that if you have some rule or conventional wisdom that causes you to do harm to people, violate the goddamn rule.”

Jesus broke lots of rules—going postal on the money changers, harvesting grain and healing on the Sabbath. Remember “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”? The prohibition against homosexuality is another that the Christian needs to break.

You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image
when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

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Does the Old Testament Condemn Homosexuality? (2 of 2)

Did Jesus exist?Last time we looked at the Sodom and Gomorrah story. Let’s move on to the book of Leviticus.

You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; it is an abomination (Leviticus 18:22).

Sounds pretty damning, but the word “abomination” also describes eating forbidden food (Deut. 14:3), sacrificing blemished animals (Deut. 17:1), performing divination and similar magic (Deut. 18:12), and women wearing men’s clothing (Deut. 22:5). Clearly, these are ritual abominations.

Mary Douglas makes sense out of the confusing purity laws in Leviticus, where things are clean or unclean seemingly arbitrarily. She argues that clean things are proper members of their category. A proper fish has fins and scales, so that makes it an abomination to eat improper sea animals like clams and shrimp. A proper land animal—one that is part of civilized society—is cloven hoofed and cud chewing like a cow or goat. To be clean, any animal or wild game must share these characteristics—hence no rabbits (not cloven hoofed) or pigs (not cud chewers). “Unclean” means “imperfect members of its class.”

A sacrifice must be a perfect animal, hence no blemishes. A priest must be a perfect man, hence he can’t be blind or lame. Don’t mix seeds in a field; don’t mix textiles in a garment.

Homosexuality fits easily into this taxonomy—proper sex is man with woman, so man/man or man/animal sex is explicitly forbidden. But it’s ritually forbidden, not forbidden because of any innate harm.

Here’s another popular bludgeon:

If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves (Lev. 20:13).

First, note that this again is nothing more than ritual abomination.

Second, note the punishment. Don’t point to the Bible to identify the crime but then ignore its penalty. Do modern Christians truly think that the appropriate response to male homosexuality is death?

Third, note what else this chapter demands: unclean animals can’t be eaten (20:25), exile for a couple that has sex during the woman’s period (:18), death to spiritual mediums (:27), death for adultery (:10), and death for anyone who curses his father or mother (:9). It comes as a package of out-of-date tribal customs—with what justification can one select the anti-homosexual verse and ignore the rest?

If Jesus was the once-and-for-all sacrifice that did away with the need for the Old Testament ritual laws (Heb. 7:11–12 and 8:6–13), then get rid of them all.

God said, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7). Verses like this would saddle Christians with all the Old Testament customs, from the sacrifices to the crazy stuff like genocide that they’d like to distance themselves from, and they’ll say that they apply to Jews only. Fair enough—then stop cherry picking Old Testament passages if the Old Testament doesn’t apply to you.

This selective reading reminds me of Rev. O’Neal Dozier, in the news because he’s a Rick Santorum backer, saying that homosexuality is the “paramount of sins” and that it is “something so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit.” My first impulse to this energetic condemnation is to wonder if Haggard’s Law applies, but more to the point, why is homosexuality at the top of the list? Why should it be any worse than any other “abomination” such as eating shrimp, telling a fortune, or a woman wearing pants? (Unless, of course, Rev. Dozier is simply using the Bible as a sock puppet to have it speak his opinions.)

Apologists like Dozier who say that the Bible is clear in its rejection of homosexuality won’t say the same thing about the Bible’s support for genocide, slavery, and polygamy. They’ll say, “Okay, slow down and let me tell you why the surface reading isn’t correct.” The predicament for today’s Christian is the clash between modern morality and the warlike culture of the early Jews.

A common response to God’s embarrassing actions in the Old Testament is to say that he is mysterious and inscrutable to our simple human minds. But then these same Christians will contradict themselves and say with certainty that God is against homosexuality, abortion, and taxes.

We at least are largely in agreement on where the problems lie, but apologists who pick and choose which commandments must be taken literally are beating the copper of the Bible against the anvil of their faith. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t the Bible speak for itself? Why is the atheist the one interpreting the Bible literally?

Or if the Bible is simply the sock puppet used to give an argument credibility, I’d appreciate Christians dropping the middleman, admitting that their beliefs come from their innate moral sense, and defending them.

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what we are told.
Religious dogma is doing what we are told regardless of what is right.
— Unknown

Photo credit: Wikimedia

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Does the Old Testament Condemn Homosexuality?

Atheism can critique Christianity's social impactThe Sodom and Gomorrah story is where many Christians point when arguing that God rejects homosexuality. That’s a lot to place on just six verses. Let’s look at them:

All the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them [literally: so that we can know them].”

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

“Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. (Gen. 19:4–9, NET Bible)

There are a couple of interpretations of this story beyond the typical conclusion that homosexuality is so bad that it gets your town destroyed.

We’re so familiar with to “know” in the Bible meaning “to have sex with” that we forget that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The Hebrew word in question is used 947 times in the King James Version, most of which have nothing to do with sex. For example, “When you eat from [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5), “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:22), and so on.

If that’s the interpretation, what might the townspeople have wanted to know? Bob Price suggested that the idea of supernatural visitors wouldn’t have been too surprising within that culture. It was a violent time, and any military advantage for their town would have been helpful. Angels could have provided important information.

What to me undercuts this is Lot’s response, “Don’t do this wicked thing,” which isn’t in keeping with a request for knowledge. But if we conclude that gang rape is commonplace for this community, why is this godly man still living there? The story leaves this unclear.

Let’s consider a second interpretation: if the townsmen were homosexual, why would Lot have offered them his daughters? Perhaps instead they were simply violent bullies who wanted to use rape for domination or humiliation. Isn’t this how rape is sometimes used in prison?

(That Lot volunteered his virgin daughters as if they were merely expensive possessions raises other issues, but let’s not go there.)

One unambiguous conclusion is that gang rape is bad. Okay, no disagreement there. But what critique does this give of a loving homosexual relationship? If good/harm is the factor to use in evaluating actions, that makes rape bad and the loving relationship good.

Next time: Does the Old Testament Condemn Homosexuality? (2 of 2)

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion,
rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.
— Gary Zukav

Photo credit: Wikimedia

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The first post in this series is here: Homosexuality v. Christianity

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