From: mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon)
Subject: Re: homosexual issues in Christianity
Organization: Panix Public Access Internet & Unix, NYC
Lines: 164

In article <May.11.02.36.34.1993.28074@athos.rutgers.edu> mserv@mozart.cc.iup.edu (someone named Mark) writes:

>mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon) writes:
 
>>Homosexual Christians have indeed "checked out" these verses.  Some of
>>them are used against us only through incredibly perverse interpretations.
>>Others simply do not address the issues.

>I can see that some of the above verses do not clearly address the issues, 

There are exactly ZERO verses that "clearly" address the issues.

>however, a couple of them seem as though they do not require "incredibly 
>perverse interpretations" in order to be seen as condemning homosexuality.

The kind of interpretation I see as "incredibly perverse" is that applied
to the story of Sodom as if it were a blanket equation of homosexual
behavior and rape.  Since Christians citing the Bible in such a context
should be presumed to have at least READ the story, it amounts to slander
-- a charge that homosexuality == rape -- to use that against us.

>"... Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, 
>nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, 
>nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom  of God.  And such were 
>some of you..."  I Cor. 6:9-11.

The moderator adequately discusses the circularity of your use of _porneia_
in this.  I think we can all agree (with Paul) that there are SOME kinds of
activity that could be named by "fornication" or "theft" or "coveting" or
"reviling" or "drunkenness" which would well deserve condemnation.  We may
or may not agree to the bounds of those categories, however; and the very
fact that they are argued over suggests that not only is the matter not at
all "clear" but that Paul -- an excellent rhetorician -- had no interest
in MAKING them clear, leaving matters rather to our Spirit-led decisions,
with all the uncomfortable living-with-other-readings that has dominated
Christian discussion of ALL these areas.

Homosexual behavior is no different.  I (and the other gay Christians I
know) are adamant in condemning rape -- heterosexual or homosexual -- and
child molestation -- heterosexual or homosexual -- and even the possibly
"harmless" but obsessive kinds of sex -- heterosexual or homosexual --
that would stand condemned by Paul in the very continuation of the chapter
you cite [may I mildly suggest that what *Paul* does in his letter that
you want to use is perhaps a good guide to his meaning?]

	"'I am free to do anything,' you say.  Yes, but not everything
	is for my good.  No doubt I am free to do anything, but I for one
	will not let anything make free with me."  [1 Cor. 6:12]

Which is a restatement that we must have no other "god" before God.  A
commandment neither I nor any other gay Christian wishes to break.  Some
people are indeed involved in obsessively driven modes of sexual behavior.
It is just as wrong (though slightly less incendiary, so it's a secondary
argument from the 'phobic contingent) to equate homosexuality with such
behavior as to equate it with the rape of God's messengers.

I won't deal with the exegesis of Leviticus, except very tangentially.
Fundamentally, you are exhibiting the same circularity here as in your
assumption that you know what _porneia_ means.  There are plenty of
laws prohibiting sexual behavior to be found in Leviticus, most of
which Christians ignore completely.  They never even BOTHER to examine
them.  They just *assume* that they know which ones are "moral" and
which ones are "ritual."  Well, I have news for you.  Any anthropology
course should sensitize you to ritual and clean vs. unlcean as categories
in an awful lot of societies (we have them too, but buried pretty deep).
And I cannot see any ground for distinguishing these bits of Leviticus
from the "ritual law" which NO Christian I know feels applies to us.

I'm dead serious here.  When people start going on (as they do in this
matter) about how "repulsive" and "unnatural" our acts are -- and what
do they know about it, huh? -- it is a solid clue to the same sort of
arbitrary cultural inculcations as the American prejudice against eating
insects.  On what basis, other than assuming your conclusion, can you
say that the law against male-male intercourse in Leviticus is NOT a part
of the ritual law?

For those Christians who *do* think that *some* parts of Leviticus can
be "law" for Christians (while others are not even to be thought about)
it is incumbent on you *in every case, handled on its own merits* to
determine why you "pick" one and ignore another.  I frankly think the
whole effort misguided.  Reread Paul: "No doubt I am free to do anything."
But Christians have a criterion to use for making our judgments on this,
the Great Commandment of love for God and neighbor.  If you cannot go
through Leviticus and decide each "command" there on that basis, then
your own arbitrary selection from it is simply idiosyncracy.  In this
context, it is remarkably offensive to say:

>I notice that the verse forbidding bestiality immediately follows the
>verse prohibiting what appears to be homosexual intercourse.

Well, la-ti-da.  So what?  This is almost as slimey an argument as the
one that homosexuality == rape.  I know of no one who argues seriously
(though one can always find jokers) in "defense" of bestiality.  It is
absolutely irrelevant and incomparable to the issues gay Christians *do*
raise (which concern sexual activity within committed, consensual human
adult realtionships), so that your bringing it up is no more relevant
than the laws of kashrut.  If you cannot address the actual issues, you
are being bloody dishonest in trailing this red herring in front of the
world.  If *you* want to address bestiality, that is YOUR business, not
mine.  And attempting to torpedo a serious issue by using what is in
our culture a ridiculous joke shows that you have no interest in hearing
us as human beings.  You want to dismiss us, and use the sleaziest means
you can think of to do so.

Jesus and Paul both expound, very explictly and in considerable length,
the central linch-pin of Christian moral thought: we are required to
love one another, and ALL else depends on that.  Gay and lesbian Christ-
ians challenge you to address the issue on those terms -- and all we get
in return are cheap debate tricks attempting to side-track the issues.

Christians, no doubt very sincere ones, keep showing up here and in every
corner of USENET and the world, and ALL they ever do is spout these same
old verses (which they obviously have never thought about, maybe never
even read), in TOTAL ignorance of the issues raised, slandering us with
the vilest charges of child abuse or whatever their perfervid minds can
manage to conjure up, tossing out red herrings with (they suppose) great
emotional force to cause readers to dismiss our witness without even
taking the trouble to find out what it is.

Such behavior should shame anyone who claims to have seen Truth in Christ.
WHY, for God's precious sake, do you people quote irrelevant verses to
condemn people you don't know and won't even take the trouble to LISTEN
to BEFORE you start your condemnations?  Is that loving your neighbor?
God forbid!  Is THAT how you obey the repeated commands to NOT judge or
condemn others?  Christ and Paul spend ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more time in
insisting on this than the half-dozen obscure words in Paul that you are
SO bloody ready to take as license to do what God tells you NOT to do.

Why, for God's sake?

	"For God did not send the Son into the world
	to condemn the world,
	but that the world might be saved through him.
	Whoever believes in him is not condemned,
	but whoever does not believe has already been condemned
	for refusing to believe in the name of God's only Son.
	Now the judgment is this:
	the light has come into the world,
	but men have preferred darkness to light
	because their deeds were evil.
	For everyone who practices wickedness
	hates the light,
	and does not come near the light
	for fear his deeds will be exposed.
	But he who acts in truth
	comes into the light,
	so that it may be sh0own
	that his deeds are done in God."	John 3:17-21

For long ages, we (many of us) have been confused by evil counsel from
evil men and told that if we came to the light we would be shamed and
rejected.  Some of us despaired and took to courses that probably *do*
show a sinful shunning of God's light.  Blessed are those whose spirits
have been crushed by the self-righteous; they shall be justified.

However, we have seen the Truth, and the Truth is the light of humanity;
and we now know that it is not WE who fear the light, but our enemies who
fear the light of our witness and will do everything they can to shadow
it with the darkness of false witness against us.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		I say "You are gods, sons of the
mls@panix.com			Most High, all of you; nevertheless
    - or -			you shall die like men, and fall
mls@ulysses.att..com		like any prince."   Psalm 82:6-7
