Re: I Am Homophobic

You just don't get it sir.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Kendall Clark <kendall-4GNy1lrxftmrG/[email protected]>
To: Jason & Kim Antley <[email protected]>
Cc: <bonobos-4GNy1lrxftmrG/[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 11:06 PM
Subject: [Bonobos] I Am Homophobic


> >>>>> "jason" == Jason Jkantley Kim Antley <Jason> writes:
> 
>   jason> What the writer of this article seems to misunderstand is,
>   jason> there are "rights and wrongs" in our society.  
> 
> Jason and Kim,
> 
> Your message is fascinating. Please allow me to respond by taking it
> as seriously as you seem to have intended.
> 
> Your first and second sentences are delightfully at war with
> themselves and with each other. You imply a strict view of moral
> objectivity, but one which you've already undercut by using scare
> quotes. Surely if there are, as you suggest, biblically-derived,
> objective moral standards, which are grounded in the nature of God,
> they don't need to be ironically (or otherwise) scare-quoted? Are you
> always already unsure about the claims you will make?
> 
>          The "rights
>   jason> and wrongs" in our society are clearly defined in the Bible,
>   jason> the holy writing that the founding fathers of our country
>   jason> clung to for dear life.  
> 
> The war rages on...
> 
> Again the strength of your claim is undercut by the oddening
> scare-quotes. But let's move on: presumably "our society" means the
> United States? 
> 
> In the United States, in case you hadn't noticed -- and with all the
> time you must spend studying the Bible and the like, who could blame
> you for failing to? -- the U.S. contains a many people who are neither
> Christian nor even religious. Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs,
> Jains, Baha'i, atheists all aboundeth much.
> 
> So you face a stark choice, one you may neither realize nor relish:
> either all those non-Christians should, well, remove themselves (or be
> removed, eh?) from "our society", or when you say "our society" you're
> going to start having to *mean* the non-Christians too.
> 
> If "our society" means what it plainly says, that is, all the people
> who live in it, then the rights and wrongs you insist upon are neither
> "clearly defined in the Bible" (for if you admit the Hindus or Jews to
> "our society", surely you have to admit the Episcopalians, radical
> Catholics, and Methodists too?) nor is the "Bible" terribly relevant,
> since now "our society" is full of all sorts of people who couldn't
> give two hallelujahs for what it says. Even scarier, for you, they all
> have their own scriptures too!
> 
> And then there's that pesky little bit about the "founding fathers"; I
> won't trouble you to explain why precisely their religious beliefs are
> relevant. I'll grant your assumption that they are. The "founding
> fathers", as you call them, were *thoroughly* deist in their religious
> and philosophical outlook; many of them explicitly rejected your
> understanding of the Christian religion. I know, I know: everyone at
> your church says the "founding fathers" were, more or less,
> Bible-believing sons of God. Alas, everyone at your church is
> wrong. Sorry.
> 
>          In the Bible, homosexuality is
>   jason> severely condemned.  
> 
> Okay, I'll play along one last time: let's set aside (1) all the
> non-Christian Americans as unimportant to public policy matters (which
> means setting aside a great deal more in the bargain...), (2) the
> religious preferences of the "founding fathers". I'll stipulate: we
> should base public policy on what the Bible says.
> 
> And you thought you had troubles already? "Homosexuality" simply
> cannot, as a matter of fact, be what the Bible "severely" or otherwise
> "condemned". It's just not possible. Why, you sputter?
> 
> Because neither the word nor the concept appears in the Bible. And it
> cannot condemn what it neither addresses nor implies.
> 
> Maybe there's a better way to make the point -- quick: does the Bible
> "condemn" socialism? How about all-weather tires? Pacemakers,
> artificial hearts, internal combustion engines, masturbation,
> astrophysics, teen dating, virology, cliterectomies, birth control,
> cosmetic contact lenses, or that cool mixed peanut-butter-and-jelly
> stuff?
> 
> What the "Bible" "severely condemns" in various places is a matter of
> scholarly debate, of course, since interpreting the meaning of a
> diverse collection of ancient texts is not as easy as it seems. But,
> let's put aside any sort of liberal fascination with stuff like
> history or evidence or the like...
> 
> Even if you are true blue infallibilist and literalist about this
> thing you call the "Bible" (which was put together in a long,
> squabbly, political process that lasted nearly 350 years), you still
> have to deal with what the *texts* say.
> 
> The Levitical prohibition, glibly taken to "condemn homosexuality",
> actually condemns "men laying with other men", i.e., sex (one
> presumes) between men. And of course it does so in the context of a
> laundry list of ancient Jewish religious custom.
> 
>          In Romans chapter 1, it is called the
>   jason> sin that signifies a person has reached the bottom of the
>   jason> "perversity barrel."  
> 
> The trouble with pronouns like "it" is that they are deceptive little
> rascals, they slither and slide around until you can't remember what
> they started off referring to.
> 
> What you've said here is that some part of the Pauline School's
> epistolary text to the early Christian community in Rome calls "it",
> that is, homosexuality a "sin".
> 
> And yet, for all the times I've translated large swaths of the Pauline
> School's epistolary text to the early Christian community at Rome
> (which for convenience sake alone we can call "Romans") from Koine
> Greek into English, and all the translations (in English, French,
> German, Spanish) I've read of Romans, I've never seen any word that
> could be translated by the English word "homosexuality" -- which you
> don't seem to realize is a *very* recent word.
> 
> The word and concept "homosexuality" appears as often -- zero
> occurrences -- as that other rhetorical wart of yours, "perversity
> barrel" -- zero occurrences.
> 
> And, more importantly, is a very recent word for a very recent
> *concept*, one which neither Romans nor any other bit of the Pauline
> School's literature knows anything about. The other oft-quoted and
> so-called "severe condemnation" of homosexuality is nothing more than
> a condemnation, to be sure, of boyish temple prostitution in
> non-Christian religions of parts of Asia Minor and the Hellenistic
> world generally.
> 
> Homosexuality, as it's understood and practiced, that is, loving,
> psychologically rich, pair bonds between men -- including an equal
> range of human variations upon that notion as we can find among
> heterosexual relationships -- is, near as anyone can tell, more or
> less a modern social invention. Again, I'm sure this isn't what people
> at your church are saying, but maybe you all can arrange a reading
> circle of some works by Jon Boswell? He'll set you straight.
> 
>          We as Americans are to be kind to, and
>   jason> as a Judeo-Christian nation, we are to love the sinner.  
> 
> Heh, I suspect most Jews are none too thrilled to be getting dragged
> into your witch hunts. You know, it's rude to drop names like this. 
> 
>          In
>   jason> the same vein of responsibility, we are to hate this sin of
>   jason> perversity and teach our kids holiness, not tolerance.
> 
> I agree that your version of Christianity privileges (what it calls)
> holiness over (what everyone else calls) tolerance. And that's simply
> another sign of how reactionary and retrograde your version of
> Christianity is. "Tolerance" as you dismiss it was, more or less, the
> invention of some strands of European Christianity in order to prevent
> them from setting to kill one another yet again.
> 
>   jason> Heterosexism is biblical.  
> 
> Agreed, which is only one of its minor defects.
> 
>          In short, we are to love the
>   jason> sinner yet hate the sin, showing mercy and kindness to all,
> 
> Having heard that old saw far too often, I retort: I hate the cliche
> "love the sinner, hate the sin", just as I hate the nasty and brutish
> behavior people take it justify.
> 
> It, too, is of *very* recent, very American vintage, and has always
> served as a way to tell people who's sexual interests differ from your
> ow that, upon dying, they will burn in literal lakes of fire for all
> eternity. But, you know, in a *loving* way.
> 
>   jason> lest we ourselves be shown cruelty and judgment by others in
>   jason> our time of failure.
> 
> You mean the kind of cruelty your version of Christianity offers to
> gay men and lesbians every day? *That* or another kind of cruelty?
> 
> Look, we all "get it": you don't like gay men and lesbians, what you
> imagine they do makes you sick, you're scared they'll brainwash your
> children, and on and on. Yeah, yeah. Got it.
> 
> Why can't you just come out and say *that*? It would have at least the
> merit of being *honest*. 
> 
> Kendall Clark
> 
> 
>