Here in the UK three men calling themselves Muslims have been convicted of hate speech after distributing leaflets calling for homosexuals to get the death penalty (funny how their defenders call for the defence of free speech, but when you knock religion freedom goes too far…anyway).
I’m not just talking about these people, or their obvious Christian counterpart in Westboro. It got me thinking - these people are just following the tenets of their religion, a tenet that is very, very common in religions worldwide - off the top of my head, the vast majority of religions worldwide seem to condemn, or at the very least disapprove, of homosexual love. Judaism, Christianity (a lot inherited from Judaism), the aforementioned Islam - the big three all view homosexuality in a very negative light. Even eastern faiths - Buddhism and Hinduism - have an at best confused view of it.
But why? Particularly in the Big Three monotheisms, what was it about homosexuality (an expression of love that we know is not harmful in of itself) in the early days that led to such condemnation in the early holy texts? Was it a holdover from Greek and Roman days and an association with paganism? Was there some more practical reason why in those days man-man lady-lady love would be a bad idea (doesn’t produce children, bad in a pastoral society maybe)? Help me out.
My son has been asking me about this, especially as it is cloked in religion. The problem is that a strict reading of Leviticus makes many things immoral.
Wearing blended fabrics Lev 19:19
Haircuts Lev 19:27
Not showing respect for old people by standing Lev 19:32
But those are relatively minor. What deserves the death penalty?
Disrespecting your parent or causing them misfortune Lev 20:9 = Death
Adultery if both are married Lev 20:10 = Death
Homosexuality Lev 20:13 = Death
Sex during the woman’s period Lev 20:18 = Banishment
Being the daughter of a priest and a prostitute Lev 21:9 = Death
Transvestism Deut 22:5 = Death (the charge on which Joan of Arc was executed FWIW)
I know a lot of Christians and non-Christians that do their best to live in a moral way. I also know a lot of Sunday Christians who are hypocrites that delude themselves that they are moral. Take Mrs. Cad’s ex-husband and let’s do a scavenger hunt. Where in the Bible does it imply that it is a sin to:
Commit adultery
Perjure youself in court
Refuse to support your child
Cover up a crime for a family member and help them escape
Beat your wife and child
But you see, he goes to Church every Sunday so according to him, he leads a moral life and is going to Heaven while the rest of us go to Hell.
To make a long story short (too late), I tell my son that the people that use religion as a plank in their anti-homosexuality soapbox are not real Christians but are just people that use the Bible to justify their own narrows views and I also explain that they are hypocrites that choose to only follow the views in the Bible that agree with their views.
Oh and if you are a woman and you go out in public without a hat, I have a perfect right to call you a streetwalking whore. Just read Corinthians. :eek:
I’d like to point out that no religion I know of claims to “hate gays,” although the ones you mentioned do for the most part, at least traditionally, condemn homosexual behavior. You may find it a distinction without a difference, but in ancient times there was no concept of a “gay person,” only sexual acts that were considered normal or taboo. The taboo ones were prohibited. Islam and Christianity both inherited this attitude toward homosexual sex from the Hebrew Bible, but the ancient Hebrews were not alone; as you point out various Eastern religions also have a history of disapproving same-sex sex.
My hypothesis is that the ancient laws were products of their time, and religions – especially those with established sacred texts – change very slowly.
Just a drive by from my iPad in between flights, but my WAG is that most of those major religions have heavy components geared towards family stability and, more importantly, procreation. Obviously gay lifestyles are going to impact the later, if not necessarily the former, so I think that’s why it gets a bad rap from religious types. Perhaps it also has to do with a general conservative attitude, and puritan type beliefs (I know this is mostly a Christian concept, but it translates fairly well to the other religions mentioned wrt acting right and fearing God as one should, etc).
For the purposes of this discussion, I don’t think you can call the 3 Abrahamic faiths different religions. The anti-gay stuff is all from the same source. No?
Not sure what Buddhism (if it’s even a religion) or Hinduism have to say about it. Or Shintoism, either. Maybe the OP can flesh out his thesis a bit more fully before we just accept it as is.
It’d be a tough sell to claim that the Pope follows the same religion as a Sufi, but I take your point. Regardless, they diverged in significant ways, enough to cause bitter feuds and bloodshed - even within own houses. One thing they kept the same is their disapproval of homosexuality - I’m wondering why, why it was deemed so bad as to be shared among the various religions, compared to something like, say, dietary requirements - no Christian gives a toss about keeping Kosher or Halal yet to a Jewish person or Muslim these are rather important.
Some sects of Buddhism could be regarded more as philosophies than religion, I class stuff like Taoism, Confucianism as this too; Shintoism I’m really not familiar with. Hinduism and Buddhism are, if you’ll excuse the pun, broad churches on the issue; the Dalai Lama stated “From a Buddhist point of view, men-to-men and women-to-women is generally considered sexual misconduct.”, and most Hindu swamis were opposed to the idea of Hindu-sanctioned same-sex marraige according to a poll in 2004 (see my links in the OP). It’s not as clear cut as the Big Three, but it is there which I think is more than a coincidence.
The sense I get from the rules laid out in the Old Testament is that the guiding theme is “keep it simple”. Like, if someone commits adultery, then it becomes problematic to figure out who gets any inheritance. If you just say, “Adulterers will be stoned to death.”, then the line is pretty clear and the number of cases that come up will be small.
What if someone swings both ways? Well then they might be “married” to someone of the same sex, but have offspring with someone else. Again, that creates a lot of legal complications. If you just ban it outright, then everything becomes easy.
But because all of this stuff is banned in the name of God, the appearance of it is that it’s an issue of morality and good vs. evil, not ease of governance. That transmits itself on to modern day. Most people reading it don’t think, “What were a bunch of rabi law clerks sitting in a clay hut 2500 years ago thinking about when they wrote down these rules?” They think, “Ah, this is EVIL. That’s good to know.”
I have given this much thought, and while commenting to a bahai friend- that it seems like all religions have this going on, she told me that her “bahai faith” did not. So I looked at her holy books, and pointed out anti gay rhetoric, that she had somehow been unaware of.
It is my belief that the reason religion, by and large, hates gays, is because of membership drive
and expansion mentality ( started at the beginning of the religions, and probably still in place despite current factors of change- like birth control, family planning, abortion, etc.)
The idea of homosexuality probably threatened seedling religions with the possibility of putting the kibosh on numbers of believers endlessly being pumped from the womb.
Religion is playing hard to get. They want gays to desperately come to their leaders looking for guidance so they can show them how to pray properly. Something about the body and fluid of Christ going in their mouths.
It is possible that there is a general feeling among the heterosexual that gay sex is icky.* That mixed with a general dislike of those that are different makes it easy to condemn them.
A sentiment that I personally share but don’t use to condemn others with different tastes.
I very much doubt this. First of all the idea of “hating gays” is an anachronism; ancient time had no concept of sexual orientation or homosexuality. There was sex that occurred between opposite sexes, and sex that occurred between the same sex, no real concept of hetero- or homsexuality as one’s nature.
Secondly, if we’re looking at the Abrahamic faiths where the same-sex taboo is found in the Levitical law, we’re not talking about a society focused on “membership drive and expansion” in the way you might attribute to religious groups today. They were concerned with preserving their tribe/culture and defining themselves apart from other groups. Having children is critical to survival, but if you’re thinking they were taking their religion to outsiders that’s far from the truth.
It should be noted that modern Reform and Conservative Judaism have totally rejected any form of homophobia. There are lots of openly gay rabbis (including the one at the synagogue of my childhood.) It is no longer an issue.
Somehow I don’t think officially rejecting and including gay rabbis = no longer an issue. It’s progress and the Jews are one of the best about it of the fantasy thinking peoples, but I doubt it’s something that’s that below the surface or non-existant in Jewish organizations.