Ah, good point. I stand corrected.
I wish I could remember details, but I recall reading of an Asian religion which had always been accepting of homosexuality. Yeah, not much help, but maybe that will jog some memories better than mine.
Wicca seems, overall, to not only be accepting of gays but accepting of whatever sexual behavior works for you that doesn’t harm anyone. As mentioned elsewhere here, some Protestant groups fully accept gays into fellowship and do not condemn the behavior. As for the rest, I believe that, among the Christians who do not believe that homosexual behavior is acceptable, many do not want to see backdoor banditry as a secular criminal offense, but as a matter to be regulated by the church.
not hinduism, or at least of what i know of.
The Gardnerians are a branch of Wicca dating to the 1930s. They’re the ones with the heteronormativity. Wicca is not synonymous with Witchcraft; Witchcraft is the broader term and Wicca is one subset of it, mainly identified with the Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions.
Reclaiming Witchcraft is notably open to every possible permutation of sexuality. My experience with it is a lot of LGBTQ people plus a lot of straight but not narrow people who work together very harmoniously. The Reclaiming tradition draws much of its basis from a highly esoteric tradition called Feri, which is extremely open and all-inclusive as to gender and sexuality. As far as I know, non-Gardnerian Witchcraft and Neopaganism in general (with ?the possible exception of Teutonic reconstructionists such as Ásatrú) are quite LGBTQ-friendly and supportive.
Has anyone mentioned the UU and the UCC? You may recall the UCC was President Obama’s church.
Is there any evidence of Wicca before Gerald Gardiner? I know he claimed to be revealing an existing tradition & coven structure, and I have no doubt that witches & covens did exist through the British Isles, but were they “Wiccans” as described by GG or is “Wicca” as such an invention by GG &/or others?
Gavin & Yvonne Frost’s Church & School of Wicca USED to be anti-gay, tho at the time (early 1970s) NOT anti-ephebophile. Eek!
The wiki article seems to bear you out. So yes, I suppose Hinduism doesn’t have institutionalised anti-homosexuality built in.
As far as some Christian sects accepting it, it seems to me that if we define a religion as anything people say it is, then sure, there are religions that accept homosexuality. However, if we define religions as based on ancient writings that people actually believe in and follow, I don’t think there are any. To me, a religion without rules written down is like a nation without a constitution. There’s nothing there, people just make it up as they go along.
That’s kind of, well, ignoring most of the world’s history. Unless you truly believe the world was created around, oh, 1880, and think that nothing but Europe and North America exist.
There have been nearly as many different attitudes towards homosexuality as there have been cultures. As mentioned, for instance, many ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t have ‘homosexual’ as a category – it didn’t matter whether the person you were with had a penis or not; what mattered is who was in charge.
To the best of my knowledge, Wicca as such originated with Gardner in the 1930s. One of the sources he used was Aradia, a 19th-century account of Italian witchcraft. I don’t know if it’s ever been established how much of what was described in Aradia is factual and how much is embellishment. I’m not familiar with the group you mentioned. Gardnerian Wicca is something I’ve only read about, no personal acquaintance. I participate in Reclaiming, which came together in San Francisco circa 1979 and makes no claims of antiquity.
I would just like to point out that claiming that Britain and Israel (and probably others) are not “nations” is not going to score your logic too many points…
In other words, your definition of religion, not to mince words, is bunk.
(bolding in quote mine)
Many (most?) religions do not consider their scriptures anything akin to a “rule book” or constitution. Speaking as an Episcopalian, we take the Bible very seriously and read/study it constantly, and recognize it as containing the Word of God. But it requires interpretation and application of context.
In otherwords there is a wide middle way between “religion as anything people say it is” and taking a literalist approach to scripture.
According to the Dalai Lama Budhism is anti-homosexuality from his wikipedia page: “a Buddhist point of view, lesbian and gay sex is generally considered sexual misconduct”
I seem to recall that some Native American cultures were accepting of homosexuality. And some others were more open to gender flexibility. Men could dress or behave like women without stigma. This is purely from memory and I’d have to look it up to be certain.
I believe that there are several religions or religious groups that believe that a living leader (or a group of living leaders acting in concert) has a special relationship with God and is able to authoritatively pronounce rules. I believe that Roman Catholicism and the LDS Church have this feature. Other groups such as Quakers or Baptists would not normally consider any human to currently have divine authority to set doctrine. Is the Pope “making it up as he goes along” when he pronounces the official interpretation of a scripture passage or formally defines teaching regarding a bible figure or a saint?
What is religion based on if not ancient writings or at least an oral tradition? It’s something someone made up. We laugh at people who could build a statue with their own hands and then worship it. How is it any different to make up a belief system and then call it truth?
But sure, if we define “religion” as anything people choose to believe, there are religions that accept homosexuality. If we define it as something more structured though, with a long written and oral history and set of principles that weren’t made up yesterday by someone named Robert Heinlein, then no, no religions accept it.
It’s the word of God and it shouldn’t be taken literally?
Not the words of God, like God dictated it to the authors – although maybe he did in some cases, who knows. But what I said is that it contains the Word of God - the Logos.
Even if you believe it’s the word of god, s/he could be speaking allegorically, in parable, give general guidelines to be extrapolated on etc. much like a parent might tell a story to make a moral point.
As an atheist, I wholeheartedly agree with this.
And I think this does describe all religions, not just the Johnny-come-lately’s such as LDS and Scientology.
many religions believe that they are following the path towards God taken by a holy person who may or may not have actually had a direct relationship with God; not that their written traditions were dictated by the deity with their prophet acting as a glorified stenographer. So, no, not necessarily. (mind you, I may be mangling this, since I don’t believe in any religion. But this is theway I’ve heard it explained.)