In response to alleged anti-trans sentiment among the Orthodox, you’ll sometimes see the case made that Judaism in fact recognizes the existence of more than two genders:
There are churches that are pro-LGBT, including performing same-sex marriages and ordaining openly queer clergy. That’s a pretty clear statement that they think Christianity is a pro-LGBT religion, and I’d imagine that if someone from, say, the Episcopalian church was arguing queer rights with an evangelical Baptist, there’d be a fair amount of argument over which position represented God’s actual will.
I’ll need to look that up, it sounds badass. Thanks!
I mean…not really. They acknowledged the existence of people with ambiguous genitalia, and people who don’t experience puberty. Jewish Law sees these people as having obligations that aren’t quite the same as those incumbent on either men or women. But it’s still a prescriptive system that assigns gender based entirely on the physical body, not like the modern school of thought that sees it as a social construct.
Interestingly, I was just reading an article by an Orthodox rabbi which carries that belief to its logical conclusion; if Judaism defines gender entirely based on someone’s primary and secondary sexual characteristics, then changing those characteristics through medical intervention actually does change their gender, so trans women are women.
This is still a pretty radical idea within the Orthodox community, but it is fairly common these days for more progressive Orthodox people to view homosexual behavior as comparable to eating pork – God told US not to do it for some incomprehensible reason, but it’s not innately wrong or evil, and there’s no reason to criticize non-Jews for doing it.
That is a great article. I remember when it came out.
Darn shame God didn’t finish His speech with a small attention step. Like maybe zapping the most violent 20% of humanity into nonexistence. “Maybe that’ll learn ya!”
Followed by Him ascending into the clouds and out of sight for the next 2000 years to watch the next chapter’s proceedings.
“I’m going to murder a bunch of people to make it clear I think murder is wrong,” is sending a mixed message, at best.
“There are no bad tactics, only bad targets” seems to be the message there.
When I hear “pro-LGBT” I think promoting queer identity, not being inclusive of queer identity, so that might be the disconnect. Jesus was probably not a member of PFLAG, but I imagine if he knew someone gay he’d still hang out with them. But Jesus also still clearly viewed some of the people he hung out with as sinners. He was never like, “yeah, she’s a prostitute and prostitution is fine.” He was like, “Yeah she’s a prostitute but you all have sinned too.”
Which is better than nothing, I guess. But it’s not exactly progressive.
I’m not sure what distinction you’re drawing, here. I don’t think of orgs like PFLAG as “promoting” queer identities, because it makes it sound like they’re trying to convince straight people to turn gay.
But as far as Christian denomination’s views on queer people, if you can have a wedding between two men being solemnized in a church by an openly lesbian pastor, that’s about as “pro-gay” as a church can get without making gay sex a part of the communion ritual.
I have a friend who is a member of an Orthodox shul. When his child came out as a trans woman, the Rabbi welcomed her to the woman’s section of the sanctuary.
I think ancient Judaism did identify gender by physical characteristics that can change. In particular, i think a man who lost enough of his penis was no longer considered to be a man, although i forget where i read this. I don’t know if that’s exactly “progressive” or “liberal”, but it does give some Orthodox communities permission to be liberal with respect to trans people in their communities.
Oh, neither, for sure. I mean, it’s cool if they can repurpose that to be inclusive to trans people, but telling a guy who had dick cancer that he’s a woman now because he had most of his penis amputated would be an incredible regressive move.
Or violence that is sanctioned by authority (viz. the well-known college experiment where students are encouraged to give increasingly severe electric shocks to other students who (I think this is what it was) give wrong answers to quiz questions. The purpose of the test was to see how long the guinea pigs would go on giving painful shocks (which were simulated, but they didn’t know that) before they rebelled.
I think the only answer possible to the OP is “it depends,” as progressives, however you define them, almost certainly hold a wide range of views about the also very wide range of existing religions.
I think the message is “You don’t murder people-I murder people!”.
Agreed. Sometimes the Paradox of Tolerance is a bitch.
The real shame is that IMO it would be a futile gesture on God’s part.
Those folks, nasty though they may have been, will have died early mostly in vain. The then-current surviving population may have learned a strong lesson and been on their best behavior for a couple decades. But individual memory fades, and societal memory fades faster. I bet that if God did smite the baddest 20% in 2001 and we fast forward 100 years to 2101, we’d see no material difference in collective human behavior. How soon we (all) forget.
Although as a matter of full disclosure I must say that it would make my current atheist perspective rather untenable. So there is that “advantage”.
Well, one of the “seven genders” alluded to in QQ’s link is the saris adam, a person assigned male at birth who never went through puberty due to being castrated as a child. I hesitate to be too confident in interpreting Talmudic passages I haven’t studied, but there does seem to be clear precedent for the idea that a person’s gender can be surgically altered.
Yeah, that was just a rhetorical question. But i think the story highlights the ways people (and whole congregations of people) can use what they find in a religion to suit their priorities, whether those priorities be liberal or otherwise.
My friend’s daughter was too young for surgery when she was welcomed to the women’s section, too. (Although they did, um, harvest and freeze some of her sperm in preparation for surgery when she was old enough.)
I think this is a pretty progressive board, and we’ve had a lot of posters here, and I don’t think anyone has categorically said that all religions are liberal at their true core, whatever that means.
So, I guess that answers the OP.
I think 100 years is pretty optimistic. I’d give it a week before someone starts talking about how there’s a few more people that clearly God meant to smite, and its their duty to finish the job.
“Guns don’t kill people… Nuh uh. I kill people… With guns” -Jon Lajoie, 2008
I understand your point. But would you, on that basis, argue the Bible is pro-gay?
Because that’s what the OP seems to think is happening. Some significant number of liberals are ostensibly telling homophobic Christians that their religion is pro-LGBT.