poet
Banned
The clobber verses in St. Paul's letters to the Romans have nothing to do with loving, consensual, non-related except in the heart, adult relationships. The context is in idolatry, not adult's trying to have loving, mutually consenting, mutually responsible relationships.
None of the "homosexual" clobber verses do, when read with historical and intratextual context in mind. They are about ancient politics of identity, of idolatry. My Bible condemns idolatry, and my Bible, my Jesus, does not condemn loving relationships. "Born that way" is apparently fine by him. My reading of Jesus is that God wants us to think about the Golden Rule, about love, mercy, charity...justice...of neighborliness, of what hospitality to strangers might mean in the times we live in, not in the times that are long gone...to contemplate the real sin of Sodom...a gross, exploitative, violent lack of basic hospitality to the gentile strangers in their midst.
Why is the Church essentially using, arrogantly abusing, I say, Natural Law...pretty much 13th Century, neo-Aristotelian philosophy...in an attempt to completely devalue the personal integrity and the adult lives of "the other," those "homosexuals?"
Why, instead of learning from the scientific method, modern sociology, biology, sexology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, archaeology, literary, basic sex education, anatomy, statistical, economic and historical analysis...actual current genetic theory, basic standards of intellectual integrity...egalitarian political theory and moral philosophy of personal freedom, personal authority and personal integrity...the delicate dance between society and the individual... of hard won understandings of personal and institutional responsibilities...of equality under the law...
...attempting to deny Gay people to seek, to find, the loving kiss, the touch of a lover who adores you, and is adored by you. to realize the loving embrace of the soul of their soul? Demanding life long celibacy isn't respecting and loving Gay people. That's naked contempt in a condescending, expertly wrapped in sparkly tinsel, greed for Gay jobs, power, property etc. That is attempting to make Gay adults into sexless children.
That isn't love and respect for Gay people. That is not encouraging GLBT people to reject nihilism, to instead, seek mutually responsible partners in life, in sickness and health, in poverty and wealth.
That is being condescendingly arrogant. That is crying crocodile tears for those poor "homosexual" sinnerss. That is being unreasonably autocratic in a democratic age.
The "love" of conservative monotheists, in general, for those "homosexuals," is likely adding considerable minority stress to Catholic, and lapsed Catholic GLBT people (and Protestant, Jewish and Islamic GLBT peoples as well). When you order millions of Gay people to do as you say, when it's not in their best interests as a fully human being, as a member of their society, of being a man or a woman who wants to love and be loved...you're probably demanding too much.
Gay people are being targeted by "conservative" Christians, in general, to NOT publicly exercise their personal integrity and personal authority. The Church power hierarchy is patriarchal, and the radical equality of same-sex love is apparently felt as a threat to patriarchy.
In a patriarchy, one's "legitimate" wives, and one's lovers, cannot, must not, be one's equal in any way. Everyone must know their place in the natural, divinely ordained (allegedly) hierarchy of the patriarchy, of male power and privilege...and must be silenced, to be made invisible, if they insist on the legitimacy and recognition of their personal integrity.
Conservative Christians arrogantly redefine Gay people as "homosexuals," an obsolete, now downright immoral and pejorative, former clinical diagnosis of pathology. A diagnosis, really, of the bias of the therapist. Conservative Christians, in general, define Gay people as being unnatural, intrinsically disordered, intrinsically narcissistic... therefore naturally inferior and incompletely human-ized. Of not truly being on in Christ. Too many conservative Christians, deny what is obvious:
...that Gay people can have children, and often can and do raise children, as well, or as badly, as other adults. There is nothing group "intrinsically disordered" about Gay genitalia after all. As with other parents, Gay parents just have to play the odds of having a child who will be same-sex oriented in various degrees. Es la vida.
:
Those Gay people who don't "reproduce," nevertheless help others raise their children, and that's what human society does. Even the childless responsible adult tries to be good societal ancestors...to help raise hospitable, responsible adults who will come to their aid when they're elderly or ill.
The personal bonding of people together by sexual intimacy is obviously the primary purpose of sex, with reproduction being what happens when most people have that kind of sexual activity. Human sexual intimacy, other-sex and same-sex, is the bedrock, I think, of creating the need for human society, a society that is, if only in our hopes, fit to raise human children. If you devalue Gay relationships, you devalue, shortchange, unnecessarily divide society into Us and the inferior Them.
Gay people are not allowed to define themselves by conservative monotheists in general, to make their own communities, to use their preferred names for their communities, to exercise their personal authority and personal integrity, to publicly offer their gifts to their society as Gay people. When you label all Gay people as intrinsically disordered, then you are saying that their contributions to their society are automatically disordered, inferior...should be done by "us" and not by "them...and of course, if the contribution by "one of those people" is good stuff, it's usually stolen and not attributed to a minority person or group. Their contributions to their societies become invisible, to keep them invisible...and exploitable.
Gay people with that certain sort of personal integrity (and women, apparently because they also usually sleep with men) are obviously excluded from the higher echelons of Catholic power structure (and that of many other patriarchal minded monotheistic organizations). Their integrity as Gay, fully human men is repressed, wrapped in a cloak of public invisibility... of either submitting to a forced, publicly childlike, picture book saint-like, eunuch who was born that way, or chose to make one's self into a modern day eunuch. If that role is rejected, one is then publicly demonized not just as a sinner, but as an intrinsically disordered, narcissistic, inferior to even other sinners sinner...a "homosexual" instead of an adult.
Devaluing personal integrity is likely not the way to recruit people of integrity for your institution. That is pretty much, I think, just asking for a crisis of authority, of inadvertently encouraging the sexual perversion of authority, and of tacitly encouraging the abuse of authority by scapegoating the usual suspects.
That is not the way to treat people at all. Unless Gay people are taking vows of the priesthood or something, I would think that no institution would have the moral authority or the divine sanction to order some average people to be lifelong celibates instead of being...well...people; of being adults; adults who make adult decisions, adult mistakes, have adult responsibilities, adults who want to know loving intimacy, to mutually, publicly rejoice in having a sexual bond that is more than sexual release or for making babies. Adults who want to love, in a fully human way, the soul of their soul.
Gay people, as a group, are not intrinsically disordered, whatever that arrogant, racist-LIKE group stereotyping might mean. That's now just a condescending, arrogant, deliberately stereotyping, froward mouthed slander. GLBT people are intrinsically human, period. To shamelessly indulge in a bit of a verbal threat, devalue Gay integrity at your soul's peril. - G. P.
None of the "homosexual" clobber verses do, when read with historical and intratextual context in mind. They are about ancient politics of identity, of idolatry. My Bible condemns idolatry, and my Bible, my Jesus, does not condemn loving relationships. "Born that way" is apparently fine by him. My reading of Jesus is that God wants us to think about the Golden Rule, about love, mercy, charity...justice...of neighborliness, of what hospitality to strangers might mean in the times we live in, not in the times that are long gone...to contemplate the real sin of Sodom...a gross, exploitative, violent lack of basic hospitality to the gentile strangers in their midst.
Why is the Church essentially using, arrogantly abusing, I say, Natural Law...pretty much 13th Century, neo-Aristotelian philosophy...in an attempt to completely devalue the personal integrity and the adult lives of "the other," those "homosexuals?"
Why, instead of learning from the scientific method, modern sociology, biology, sexology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, archaeology, literary, basic sex education, anatomy, statistical, economic and historical analysis...actual current genetic theory, basic standards of intellectual integrity...egalitarian political theory and moral philosophy of personal freedom, personal authority and personal integrity...the delicate dance between society and the individual... of hard won understandings of personal and institutional responsibilities...of equality under the law...
...attempting to deny Gay people to seek, to find, the loving kiss, the touch of a lover who adores you, and is adored by you. to realize the loving embrace of the soul of their soul? Demanding life long celibacy isn't respecting and loving Gay people. That's naked contempt in a condescending, expertly wrapped in sparkly tinsel, greed for Gay jobs, power, property etc. That is attempting to make Gay adults into sexless children.
That isn't love and respect for Gay people. That is not encouraging GLBT people to reject nihilism, to instead, seek mutually responsible partners in life, in sickness and health, in poverty and wealth.
That is being condescendingly arrogant. That is crying crocodile tears for those poor "homosexual" sinnerss. That is being unreasonably autocratic in a democratic age.
The "love" of conservative monotheists, in general, for those "homosexuals," is likely adding considerable minority stress to Catholic, and lapsed Catholic GLBT people (and Protestant, Jewish and Islamic GLBT peoples as well). When you order millions of Gay people to do as you say, when it's not in their best interests as a fully human being, as a member of their society, of being a man or a woman who wants to love and be loved...you're probably demanding too much.
Gay people are being targeted by "conservative" Christians, in general, to NOT publicly exercise their personal integrity and personal authority. The Church power hierarchy is patriarchal, and the radical equality of same-sex love is apparently felt as a threat to patriarchy.
In a patriarchy, one's "legitimate" wives, and one's lovers, cannot, must not, be one's equal in any way. Everyone must know their place in the natural, divinely ordained (allegedly) hierarchy of the patriarchy, of male power and privilege...and must be silenced, to be made invisible, if they insist on the legitimacy and recognition of their personal integrity.
Conservative Christians arrogantly redefine Gay people as "homosexuals," an obsolete, now downright immoral and pejorative, former clinical diagnosis of pathology. A diagnosis, really, of the bias of the therapist. Conservative Christians, in general, define Gay people as being unnatural, intrinsically disordered, intrinsically narcissistic... therefore naturally inferior and incompletely human-ized. Of not truly being on in Christ. Too many conservative Christians, deny what is obvious:
...that Gay people can have children, and often can and do raise children, as well, or as badly, as other adults. There is nothing group "intrinsically disordered" about Gay genitalia after all. As with other parents, Gay parents just have to play the odds of having a child who will be same-sex oriented in various degrees. Es la vida.
:
Those Gay people who don't "reproduce," nevertheless help others raise their children, and that's what human society does. Even the childless responsible adult tries to be good societal ancestors...to help raise hospitable, responsible adults who will come to their aid when they're elderly or ill.
The personal bonding of people together by sexual intimacy is obviously the primary purpose of sex, with reproduction being what happens when most people have that kind of sexual activity. Human sexual intimacy, other-sex and same-sex, is the bedrock, I think, of creating the need for human society, a society that is, if only in our hopes, fit to raise human children. If you devalue Gay relationships, you devalue, shortchange, unnecessarily divide society into Us and the inferior Them.
Gay people are not allowed to define themselves by conservative monotheists in general, to make their own communities, to use their preferred names for their communities, to exercise their personal authority and personal integrity, to publicly offer their gifts to their society as Gay people. When you label all Gay people as intrinsically disordered, then you are saying that their contributions to their society are automatically disordered, inferior...should be done by "us" and not by "them...and of course, if the contribution by "one of those people" is good stuff, it's usually stolen and not attributed to a minority person or group. Their contributions to their societies become invisible, to keep them invisible...and exploitable.
Gay people with that certain sort of personal integrity (and women, apparently because they also usually sleep with men) are obviously excluded from the higher echelons of Catholic power structure (and that of many other patriarchal minded monotheistic organizations). Their integrity as Gay, fully human men is repressed, wrapped in a cloak of public invisibility... of either submitting to a forced, publicly childlike, picture book saint-like, eunuch who was born that way, or chose to make one's self into a modern day eunuch. If that role is rejected, one is then publicly demonized not just as a sinner, but as an intrinsically disordered, narcissistic, inferior to even other sinners sinner...a "homosexual" instead of an adult.
Devaluing personal integrity is likely not the way to recruit people of integrity for your institution. That is pretty much, I think, just asking for a crisis of authority, of inadvertently encouraging the sexual perversion of authority, and of tacitly encouraging the abuse of authority by scapegoating the usual suspects.
That is not the way to treat people at all. Unless Gay people are taking vows of the priesthood or something, I would think that no institution would have the moral authority or the divine sanction to order some average people to be lifelong celibates instead of being...well...people; of being adults; adults who make adult decisions, adult mistakes, have adult responsibilities, adults who want to know loving intimacy, to mutually, publicly rejoice in having a sexual bond that is more than sexual release or for making babies. Adults who want to love, in a fully human way, the soul of their soul.
Gay people, as a group, are not intrinsically disordered, whatever that arrogant, racist-LIKE group stereotyping might mean. That's now just a condescending, arrogant, deliberately stereotyping, froward mouthed slander. GLBT people are intrinsically human, period. To shamelessly indulge in a bit of a verbal threat, devalue Gay integrity at your soul's peril. - G. P.