Re: I Am Homophobic

And that is certainly where JC would have left it.  'Cos he had better 
things to do that night, like a date with Mary Magd., or maybe some 
fag-bashing with the Apostles down at Jerusalem's hottest leather bar, 
Pontius' Place...

To take the early Scriptures' admonitions seriously, that is.


On Thursday, December 6, 2001, at 09:09  AM, Jason & Kim Antley wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>>
>
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