The “view that gay sex is sinful” doesn’t seem at all ambiguous to me, and I cannot accept it as “a given.” Nor can I accept the assertion that this person is not a homophobe.
The ongoing (but apparently now moot) struggle between Skammer and me was not one of my attempting to convince him that I am not sinful in my very nature; you can’t argue with “faith.” It was his attempt to get me to give him permission to believe as he does.
I do NOT give him that permission. I reject him and those who believe as he does and hope that some day they will become as marginalized as people who use an ancient book to play with snakes or bomb infidels. As panache said, and I agree, it’s only a matter of degree. There may be gray areas, but they’re greased and they’re at a 45-degree angle.
The more you say, Poly, “. . . that he holds to the . . . traditional understanding of all gay sex as inherently sinful – but . . . he does not from this condemn gay people but instead tries to love them and respect them,” the more you convince me that I must remain uncompromising on this issue.
I will not hold harmless someone who adheres to a belief system that is almost entirely responsible for the lingering status quo that makes my life more of a struggle than his, or yours. His mealy-mouthed promise to love me, despite–or even because of–my “sinful” nature is patronizing and prideful and insincere and, at this stage of the discussion, slightly sickening.
If your belief system tells you that sin is to be hated and rejected, and that sin is the way to hell, and that sin is a tool the devil uses to tempt me away from the grace of your god; and if your belief system tells you further that some feelings of love between two people are holy, but feelings of love between another two people is inherently sinful; then to come here and say “but I love you anyway cuz Jesus told me to,” well, I certainly ain’t buyin it.
Your DECISION to view one kind of love as holy and another as wholly sinful is, I think, in your belief system, more sinful than the unconditional love I may feel for another man. Your love is dictated, and provisional, and judgmental.
Consider the possibility that, in your belief system, Satan has promulgated this particular narrow reading of Biblical text in order to TEMPT you to judge and condemn your fellow human beings for LOVING another person, and that you have taken the bait, and are sinning in your judgment of me.
The only way that I, personally, can view Christianity as a system of belief that has room for my existance is to believe that this is the case, that YOU are tempted and sin, not me.
panache45 you are misreading Polycarp’s hypothesis. He is a staunch defender of gay rights and gay love. He emphatically does not believe that gay sex is inherently sinful. Now I believe he does think that casual sex outside of a committed relationship (whether het or homo) is sinful; but that’s another issue. Polycarp is not a homophobe. Period.
The debate, while probably not the one he intended, is whether someone like Skammer is a homophobe. Like lissener, I’m of the opinion that the belief “gay = sinful” leads to homophobic violence against gay people. Even if Skammer himself rejects violence and tries to live up to some “love the sinner” ideal; the belief itself is vile and gives succor and encouragement to those who do resort to discriminination and even violence. Every preacher who teaches that being gay is an abomination holds some responsibility for the violence and discrimination we face. The belief that God condemns us is homophobic, even if they threat us equally in the secular world. I agree with you that the given in Poly’s setup cannot be accepted.
Here’s a mental exercise for Skammer. I’m gay and I have a son. Suppose we live in the same town and we our kids (if you have any, if not pretend) are friends. What would you do if my son asks yours to spend the night at our house? Would you hesitate to give permission? How do you feel about gay men being Scout leaders? Would you allow me and my boyfriend to marry?
If you have any hesitation because I’m gay; if you would support the Boy Scouts discrimination policy; if you would deny me marriage rights; then you are not living up to the “love the sinner” ideal. You are discriminating and you are a homophobe.
grimpixie wrote:
I happen to believe that a belief that love and its natural fruits is sinful is incompatible with actual love and genuine expression thereof.
I am a person for whom my family is most central, most important to my life; my partnerships and my calling are my most essential connections. I am also a person in a religious tradition in which respect for essential connection is one of the most fundamental guiding principles, because it demonstrates respect for others as genuine humans. I cannot call “love” that which says it accepts me and rejects my family; someone who thinks that that is possible does not understand the value of family.
Someone who believes that some essential connections cannot be consummated is not, to my mind, behaving in accord with a fundamental respect for the other: they are not demonstrating capacity for acting in accordance with love, because love demands recognition of that which promotes emotional health, spiritual wholeness, and essential connection between individuals, between individuals and community, and the like.
How can one proclaim that one loves, while also holding that others are falling short by pursuing the most wholesome, healthy, and meaningful connections for them? How can love coexist with a belief that someone should not do what is best for them? How can love coexist with a belief that someone’s pursuit of health puts them out of joint with the community? If y’all want “love” for that, I want a word for actually wanting people to be the best off they can be, to live respected and able to strengthen themselves and their societies through their divine diversity.
The pervasiveness of the belief is a malnourishment of the community; that is its fruit. I look at the hurt that my gay and bi friends have taken from this belief, the support it earns, the feeling that so much of the world opposes them, and I say: this is poison fruit. This is . . . the word from my faith that is closest to “sin” translates more to . . . “seed of discord” than “falling short”, I think. This destroys families, divides societies; I cannot see any way in which this is in service of the good and true. I see no love there.
Yeah.
Hope that didn’t seem flip. Meant to communicate that I agree wholly with what Lilairen wrote, and it was unnecessary for me to add anything; all I could contribute was a single positive syllable.
It’s unfortunate that as clarification is approached through the efforts of Lilairen and others, the person for whose benefit (such as it is) these efforts are being put forth has absented himself from the process.
I hope Skammer gets a chance to check in and read Lilairen’s post; I’d be interested to learn if it has any effect on his thinking.
This is all very… compelling.
Esprix
Homebrew, thanks. This whole thing came about because Skammer, here, and several other Episcopalians on two other boards, had problems with the idea of making Gene Robinson a bishop. At least some of them, including Skammer, have approved wholeheartedly of the gay-friendly and -affirming stance of our church, and its opposition to the verbal gay-bashing of evangelical churches. In my mind, that makes them non-homophobes in a social sense. If, to take non-volatile examples for a change, I had this bizarre idea that it is offensive for me to brew my own beer or to engage in SCA enactments (which I don’t), but also considered that everyone has the right to do what suits them (“an none be injured”) and that laws banning or restricting home-brewing or medieval fun-and-games were invidious and trammell on the liberties of free people (which I do), and never once mentioned to you or Esprix my personal feelings, could I in any real sense be considered to be anti-home-brewing or anti-SCA?
Now, thje problem arises because candidates for the ministry are supposed to be men of good moral character, living lives exemplary for their congregations to follow. Hence in accepting nomination for the episcopacy, Gene Robinson put his life on the line, asking folks like Skammer, through their bishops and elected representatives, to evaluate him for that job. Whereby his personal views of what he himself should do or not do became relevant – by taking that nomination, Gene effectively said, judge me as you would yourself.
And I see a dilemma here. For those people, the Episcopalian rule of love and respect, support justice and equality, and don’t judge had insulated them from having to address the dichotomy between their personal views of what they themselves considered improper to do, and the social issue that you deserve to have your love honored and not condemned, your rights upheld and not abrogated, your persons accepted and not reviled. And Gene’s candidacy, and our church’s collegial episcopacy meaning that his bishopric is not merely of New Hampshire but shared throughout the church, brought that house of cards tumbling down.
And the exact same sense of empathy that means I can grasp what Hell you and lissener and M<ockingbird and [bn]gobear** have gone through, means that I also can grasp the ethical dilemma that has confronted them. Calling them homophobes for an internal view about the Biblical standards for their own conduct, which they never let show, and which they refused to allow to interfere with the advocacy of fair and equal treatment and acceptance for you folks, may make panache feel better (and if panache thinks that having compassion for people other than gays makes me homophobic, I’ll accept being included in that condemnaton) – but it doesn’t help to resolve their dilemma.
Personally I have no problem regarding the scriptural passages as condemning lust (in the sense of the selfish abuse of desire) not love, boy prostitution, and bisexual activity entered into by ennui-laden socialites for kicks, and generally not applicable to gay people at all. (Let’s address casual sex another time – I think for good reasons you mistake my basic point.) But the point is, being good people not at all inclined to condemn gay folk, they are nonetheless no stuck with a problem based on their own ethical standards.
And to stress what’s been obvious to me from the OP but apparently to nobody else except Skammer and possibly Siege – they ain’t judging you. They’re judging themselves. And I was hoping the fabled collective wisdom of Great Debaters could give them a helping hand.
Polycarp, I think I understand you, but no matter how many steps in the dance the finale is the same: I don’t do homosexuality, I am homosexuality. If homosexuality is sinful, then I am, uneqivocally, predeterminedly, uncontrollably, involutarily, INNOCENTLY, sinful in my very existance.
How can you ask me to accept that?
If Skammer believes that to be true, then he is quite simply, and without any kind of gray greasy area, wrong. And since he’s wrong about me, I refuse to meet him halfway on this issue.
I’m standing over here, in Reality, gohead jump on if you want, but calling me, in essence, evil, ain’t conducive to getting me to offer a boost.
It comes down to this being impossible. If someone fundamentally believes I’m a genetic mistake or sin against his God, he’s not going to treat me equally, even if he tries very hard to do so. There will be a line eventually where he’ll betray us. Skammer has yet to return to the thread to answer my questions about where he’d turn his back on equality. Other posters have made it clear where they’d part with us.
Great Debates has offered them a helping hand, repeatedly, by showing them that their prejudice is wrong and inviting them to rethink their position. Theirs is the only chosen position. Ours is immutable.
It is as wrong to condemn someone for believing you are a sinner, as it is for them to condemn you for what they see as sin.
Why?
Because due to the world being made up of many people with many ideas of what sin is, I (and everyone else) fall into the realms of sinner in that we sin at least one way within everybodies deffinition of sin. If I must condemn those who call me sinner I must condemn everyone.
I would prefer that people who feel like Skammer could feel that {a} would be a sin for him. But that does not mean that {a} would be a sin for you or me, if we don’t feel the same way about {a} as he does.
(substitute {a} as necessary)
Bippy, Skammer is not being condemned, just turned away from.
I could never have said this better. Thank you.
Thanks lissener it was a little difficult to tell in all those heated words. I wouldn’t want to have to turn away from everyone. But I see that I would choose to turn away from those whose deffinitions of sin offend me, or try to make them change their deffinition of sin. Which is what I see you doing.
Okay, to start with, I’m not suggesting any such thing. IMHO you’re a beloved child of God, no more and no less perfect than I am, made in his image and capable of love, both romantic, erotic love and agapetic love.
I think this may be a good place to bow out and let the folks who hold gay sex to be inherently sinful respond. I’m rather radically disinterested in defending their line of thinking – all I cared to do here is to try to analyze what might be done to resolve that dilemma which I’ve defined several times.
But I do still maintain that folks who welcome gay people with open arms and support the ongoing fight for their civil rights, but personally feel that gay sex would be wrong for them to do and refuse to extend that opinion to a judgment on what you might morally do, are scarcely homophobic in any meaningful sense of the word.
I’m not sure that there is a way to resolve the dilemma - at least not to the satisfaction of all - one of three things is bound to happen:[ul][li]slip gradually from the “gay sex = sin” position to simply “gay = sin” and become a true homophobe - condemning people outright.[]come to the conclusion that one’s reading of scripture was incorrect and that “gay sex != sin” whereby the problem is resolved. []deal with the disharmony that the dilemma causes and try and live, as best one is able and by the power of the Spirit, a life that fulfills the second great commandment.[/ul]Clearly the third option is the most honest, but by so doing one will undoubtably be labelled a hypocrite by those who have taken the first route and a homophobe by those, as lissener has eloquently expressed, who do not separate their sexuality from their own selves. In addition there is the inevitability, as Homebrew pointed out, that one will fail in the effort to treat gay people with the dignity they deserve - as we all fail with all people, but more so with those whom we have a deeply held (negative) belief. Sadly.[/li]
Grim
Hey, I don’t like the gay lifestyle, but I try to be nice to everyone I meet. If gays flaunt their sexuality around me, though, it does make me uncomfortable and I can’t help not wanting to be around them. That’s why I disagree with the gay agenda that’s trying to force everyone to accept the gay lifestyle.
G.I.Joe what does this phraise mean to you “accept the gay lifestyle”? What would you have to do to “accept the gay lifestyle”, and what part of that action would you wish to not do?
Yes, please. Tell us more about The Gay Lifestyle. And The Gay Agenda, too, please - most fascinating!
Esprix