Fellow Liberals, Please Stop Claiming Jesus Accepts LGBT People

[Keith&Co.]

To claim one knows what this long dead person feels about the subject is the highest form of insanity.

Nonsense. Ever since i was three, all my invisible friends have always agreed with me.
I think insanity would be when people ask what your invisible friend thinks about something and you don't know. That'd be as bad as losing an internal argument.

 

[DrZoidberg]

To claim one knows what this long dead person feels about the subject is the highest form of insanity.

Nonsense. Ever since i was three, all my invisible friends have always agreed with me.
I think insanity would be when people ask what your invisible friend thinks about something and you don't know. That'd be as bad as losing an internal argument.

I lose internal arguments all the time
"don´t eat that cake"
"oh, no. I ate the cake"

 

[funinspace]

But there's an incredibly good reason LGBT folks and their allies should agree with anti-gay Christians that the Bible condemns them: if we bother arguing that the Bible supports us, we're conceding its validity as a moral text. And once we free ourselves from its shackles, fundamentalists can just use it to abuse the next minority group unfortunate enough to stumble across their path.

Eh.
In fifty years, I figure most of Christainity will be claiming that sexual equality was their idea in the first place.

They'll quote: John 13:23 One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus' side,

Hell, with John 19:26-27, they'll claim that they've supported gay marriage the whole time:

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home

Because how do you get a new mother except by marrying into the family? Huh?

Forty quatloos on the Gays Should Thank Christains apologists inside of 50 years. Or within 5 years of electing our first gay president, whichever comes first. Christainity is nothing if not adaptable to changing realities.

Yep, much like the issues of slavery and divorce have flipped. And only the dwindling hard core fundies will be left screaming about the soon to be end of America cuz of our sinful ways...

 

[credoconsolans]

Well Paul certainly condemned homosexuality/temple homosexuality. So did some of the writers of the Hebrew books.

In the gospels, I don't think I ever read Jesus openly condemning gays. In fact his curing the boyfriend of the Roman centurion and only praising the man's faith could be seen as Jesus being LGBT friendly.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Well Paul certainly condemned homosexuality/temple homosexuality. So did some of the writers of the Hebrew books.

In the gospels, I don't think I ever read Jesus openly condemning gays. In fact his curing the boyfriend of the Roman centurion and only praising the man's faith could be seen as Jesus being LGBT friendly.

Christianity had two phases. In the first phase Christianity was pro abstinence only. All sex was bad regardless of where the penis was inserted. From the very begining of Christianity one of the religions main saints was Thecla, the patron saint of virgininty. All the early churches have idols of Thecla on par with Jesus and Mary. Thecla even had her own churches dedicated to her alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thecla

Around the time of Rome´s Christianisation Thecla was dropped. Probably because it was simply impractical and impopular to have a religion with so much focus on complete abstinence. The second phase of Christianity. Thecla never had a come-back. But by then the canon was already set in stone. If you will, Christianity was paganised to gain popularity.

Early Christianity´s focus on purity through abstinence makes it unlikely that gays would be singled out as especially degenerate. Early Christianity condemned anybody who had sex for any reason.

Also... in Roman parlance, being gay meant taking it in the ass. Romans saw homosexuality as degenerate because it meant men lowered themselves to the same low status as women. A guy fucking other guys in the ass was never considered gay at all. It was seen as the manliest thing in the world. For the same reason, Greeks would be outraged if anybody would suspect Alexander the Greek of being gay even though he made no secret of fucking plenty of blokes up the shiter.

So our modern idea of gay being equated with somebody being attracted to somebody of the same gender isn´t at all the type of gay sexuality implicitly referred to in the Bible. It´s fine with male on male attraction.

 

[credoconsolans]

Well Paul certainly condemned homosexuality/temple homosexuality. So did some of the writers of the Hebrew books.

In the gospels, I don't think I ever read Jesus openly condemning gays. In fact his curing the boyfriend of the Roman centurion and only praising the man's faith could be seen as Jesus being LGBT friendly.

Christianity had two phases. In the first phase Christianity was pro abstinence only. All sex was bad regardless of where the penis was inserted. From the very begining of Christianity one of the religions main saints was Thecla, the patron saint of virgininty. All the early churches have idols of Thecla on par with Jesus and Mary. Thecla even had her own churches dedicated to her alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thecla

Around the time of Rome´s Christianisation Thecla was dropped. Probably because it was simply impractical and impopular to have a religion with so much focus on complete abstinence. The second phase of Christianity. Thecla never had a come-back. But by then the canon was already set in stone. If you will, Christianity was paganised to gain popularity.

Early Christianity´s focus on purity through abstinence makes it unlikely that gays would be singled out as especially degenerate. Early Christianity condemned anybody who had sex for any reason.

Also... in Roman parlance, being gay meant taking it in the ass. Romans saw homosexuality as degenerate because it meant men lowered themselves to the same low status as women. A guy fucking other guys in the ass was never considered gay at all. It was seen as the manliest thing in the world. For the same reason, Greeks would be outraged if anybody would suspect Alexander the Greek of being gay even though he made no secret of fucking plenty of blokes up the shiter.

So our modern idea of gay being equated with somebody being attracted to somebody of the same gender isn´t at all the type of gay sexuality implicitly referred to in the Bible. It´s fine with male on male attraction.

Agree. What I think is the basis is that Jesus' teachings were apocalyptic. Everyone stay celibate and don't soil yourself with sex and kids and family responsibilities and all the mess because the Kingdom was at hand.

Then it didn't happen.

Paul and his later followers had to deal with 'no one knows the date' Jesus will return and it wasn't winning over many folks if they couldn't have sex and get married and have families and family responsibilities.

ETA - and actually many scholars believe it was Alexander who took it up the butt, not the other way around.

 

[Underseer]

If Christians can claim that the Bible is anti-slavery, then arguing that the Bible is pro-GLBT should be easy.

 

[Keith&Co.]

If Christians can claim that the Bible is anti-slavery, then arguing that the Bible is pro-GLBT should be easy.

We could probably chart it.

They say now that BIBLICAL slavery was just like being a butler. REAL slavery is what the Books was against....

So what will turn out to be the problem with BIBLICAL homosexuality?
Maybe B-HS will in fact have been rape?
Or bestiality?

OH! I got it. Based on 'the disciple that Jesus loved,' the 'homosexuality' that the Books was preaching against wasn't love, it was just partaking in sensual pleasure without long-term commitment, an obsession with dick. If you're REALLY in love, then God approves of your union. Not promiscuity or sluttinessity.

 

[Underseer]

If Christians can claim that the Bible is anti-slavery, then arguing that the Bible is pro-GLBT should be easy.

We could probably chart it.

They say now that BIBLICAL slavery was just like being a butler. REAL slavery is what the Books was against....

So what will turn out to be the problem with BIBLICAL homosexuality?
Maybe B-HS will in fact have been rape?
Or bestiality?

OH! I got it. Based on 'the disciple that Jesus loved,' the 'homosexuality' that the Books was preaching against wasn't love, it was just partaking in sensual pleasure without long-term commitment, an obsession with dick. If you're REALLY in love, then God approves of your union. Not promiscuity or sluttinessity.

When the Bible says to kill gays, the word "kill" actually means "love." Because I said so.

 

[Potoooooooo]

If Christians can claim that the Bible is anti-slavery, then arguing that the Bible is pro-GLBT should be easy.

We could probably chart it.

They say now that BIBLICAL slavery was just like being a butler. REAL slavery is what the Books was against....

So what will turn out to be the problem with BIBLICAL homosexuality?
Maybe B-HS will in fact have been rape?
Or bestiality?

OH! I got it. Based on 'the disciple that Jesus loved,' the 'homosexuality' that the Books was preaching against wasn't love, it was just partaking in sensual pleasure without long-term commitment, an obsession with dick. If you're REALLY in love, then God approves of your union. Not promiscuity or sluttinessity.

I have heard Christian gays saying the exact thing

 

[Keith&Co.]

I have heard Christian gays saying the exact thing

Well, it's a start.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We could probably chart it.

They say now that BIBLICAL slavery was just like being a butler. REAL slavery is what the Books was against....

So what will turn out to be the problem with BIBLICAL homosexuality?
Maybe B-HS will in fact have been rape?
Or bestiality?

OH! I got it. Based on 'the disciple that Jesus loved,' the 'homosexuality' that the Books was preaching against wasn't love, it was just partaking in sensual pleasure without long-term commitment, an obsession with dick. If you're REALLY in love, then God approves of your union. Not promiscuity or sluttinessity.

I have heard Christian gays saying the exact thing

I love a book that can be used to both support and condemn the same thing.

Granted, supporting gays is not something the Bible does, in any sense. It takes a real twisted interpretation to get to that point. Of course, God has changed their Covenant with mankind four or so times... so what's a fifth in the grand scheme of things? Christians can fill in the blanks and make edits and He can sign off on it at some later point.

 

[ronburgundy]

Not being gay I don't really have personal insight but I've always just assumed that the reason this argument is made has more to do with gay folks wanting to be accepted in the christian community. This article seems to be written from the perspective of a skeptic more than the perspective of someone who is gay.

I agree. The point about how it concedes that the Bible is a moral text doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would resonate with those who feel that the Bible should be a moral text. The gay Christians don't want to move away from Christianity, they want to be embraced by Christianity and cherry pick the tenets of the faith in such a way that it's accepting of them. The fact that the text of the Bible is directly contradictory to this is about as important as it was to anti-slavery and women's rights advocates who wanted Jesus on the side of their arguments - those parts are just ignored and other parts are taken out of context so as to support their cause.

It would be nice if the gays just said "fuck the lot of you" and wandered off, but many of them just don't want to do that.

I don't think the OP is oblivious to this motive. I think he just is accurately pointing out that they are objectively wrong and that intolerant fundies are far more correct than their critics regarding what the Bible says and was intended to mean. He is also correct that such motives are short-sighted, self-centered, and unethical. Because the Bible was designed to promote unreason and authoritarian intolerance, any efforts to give it a modern glow around the edges only empowers that core message and prolongs its undue impact on a society that would be better off and more moral if the Bible were disregarded as irrelevant to ethics or fact.

I also don't think his message will fall on deaf ears. Most of those LGBTs seeking to retain a Christian identity are not true believers. They are of the sort of shallow "I just want the label" Christians who are most likely to listen to reason and give up religion entirely. Also, there are non-believers among those arguing with Christians about Jesus' views on gays. They view it as a political/social strategy to rob the anti-gay bigots of their sole justification. It is a short sighted strategy that does long term harm and it won't really work anyway because, unlike on most matters of fact, Fundies are largely correct in their claims about what the Bible intended to mean, both morally and on factual issues.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I agree. The point about how it concedes that the Bible is a moral text doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would resonate with those who feel that the Bible should be a moral text. The gay Christians don't want to move away from Christianity, they want to be embraced by Christianity and cherry pick the tenets of the faith in such a way that it's accepting of them. The fact that the text of the Bible is directly contradictory to this is about as important as it was to anti-slavery and women's rights advocates who wanted Jesus on the side of their arguments - those parts are just ignored and other parts are taken out of context so as to support their cause.

It would be nice if the gays just said "fuck the lot of you" and wandered off, but many of them just don't want to do that.

I don't think the OP is oblivious to this motive. I think he just is accurately pointing out that they are objectively wrong and that intolerant fundies are far more correct than their critics regarding what the Bible says and was intended to mean. He is also correct that such motives are short-sighted, self-centered, and unethical. Because the Bible was designed to promote unreason and authoritarian intolerance, any efforts to give it a modern glow around the edges only empowers that core message and prolongs its undue impact on a society that would be better off and more moral if the Bible were disregarded as irrelevant to ethics or fact.

I also don't think his message will fall on deaf ears. Most of those LGBTs seeking to retain a Christian identity are not true believers. They are of the sort of shallow "I just want the label" Christians who are most likely to listen to reason and give up religion entirely. Also, there are non-believers among those arguing with Christians about Jesus' views on gays. They view it as a political/social strategy to rob the anti-gay bigots of their sole justification. It is a short sighted strategy that does long term harm and it won't really work anyway because, unlike on most matters of fact, Fundies are largely correct in their claims about what the Bible intended to mean, both morally and on factual issues.

And I dispute that those who choose to ignore Biblical condemnation of homosexuality, either because it refers to them personally or just because they think there's nothing wrong with it, are somehow less true believers than those who choose not to cherrypick it out of their belief system. You can be against slavery and still call yourself a true Christian. You can be in favour of equal rights for women and still call yourself a true Christian. You can think that committing genocide is a poor way to solve your problems and still be a true Christian. You can meet psychics and magicians and not kill them and yet still be a true Christian. You can send your kids to bed without supper instead of stoning them to death when they talk back to you and still be a true Christian. You can think the universe is billions of years old and evolution an established fact and still be a true Christian.

Every Christian, no matter how fundie, ignores whole swaths of the Bible that they find inconvenient or wrong and this doesn't make them less of a true believer as a result. Someone who thinks that one can be a Christian without caring either way about a person's sexuality isn't fundamentallly different than someone who thinks that one can be a Christian without caring either way about whether or not the woman you're talking to is menstruating.

While I agree with you that it would be great if they'd just dump the religion entirely, the LGBT Christians don't have that motivation. It's not what they're going for, so doing that would move them away from their desired goal instead of towards it. They like being Christians and they want their Christian faith to embrace them. They're not looking to abandon it over disagreement about one point.

 

[Potoooooooo]

It would be nice if the gays just said "fuck the lot of you" and wandered off, but many of them just don't want to do that.

My own kind are a continuous source of disappointment to me

 

[Underseer]

It would be nice if the gays just said "fuck the lot of you" and wandered off, but many of them just don't want to do that.

My own kind are a continuous source of disappointment to me

Are they any worse than Republican atheists? Humans are stupid. You should be used to that by now.

 

[funinspace]

I don't think the OP is oblivious to this motive. I think he just is accurately pointing out that they are objectively wrong and that intolerant fundies are far more correct than their critics regarding what the Bible says and was intended to mean. He is also correct that such motives are short-sighted, self-centered, and unethical. Because the Bible was designed to promote unreason and authoritarian intolerance, any efforts to give it a modern glow around the edges only empowers that core message and prolongs its undue impact on a society that would be better off and more moral if the Bible were disregarded as irrelevant to ethics or fact.

I also don't think his message will fall on deaf ears. Most of those LGBTs seeking to retain a Christian identity are not true believers. They are of the sort of shallow "I just want the label" Christians who are most likely to listen to reason and give up religion entirely. Also, there are non-believers among those arguing with Christians about Jesus' views on gays. They view it as a political/social strategy to rob the anti-gay bigots of their sole justification. It is a short sighted strategy that does long term harm and it won't really work anyway because, unlike on most matters of fact, Fundies are largely correct in their claims about what the Bible intended to mean, both morally and on factual issues.

And I dispute that those who choose to ignore Biblical condemnation of homosexuality, either because it refers to them personally or just because they think there's nothing wrong with it, are somehow less true believers than those who choose not to cherrypick it out of their belief system. You can be against slavery and still call yourself a true Christian. You can be in favour of equal rights for women and still call yourself a true Christian. You can think that committing genocide is a poor way to solve your problems and still be a true Christian. You can meet psychics and magicians and not kill them and yet still be a true Christian. You can send your kids to bed without supper instead of stoning them to death when they talk back to you and still be a true Christian. You can think the universe is billions of years old and evolution an established fact and still be a true Christian.

Every Christian, no matter how fundie, ignores whole swaths of the Bible that they find inconvenient or wrong and this doesn't make them less of a true believer as a result. Someone who thinks that one can be a Christian without caring either way about a person's sexuality isn't fundamentallly different than someone who thinks that one can be a Christian without caring either way about whether or not the woman you're talking to is menstruating.

While I agree with you that it would be great if they'd just dump the religion entirely, the LGBT Christians don't have that motivation. It's not what they're going for, so doing that would move them away from their desired goal instead of towards it. They like being Christians and they want their Christian faith to embrace them. They're not looking to abandon it over disagreement about one point.

Yep. The “fundagelicals are more right” is often a funny thing. If the fundagelicals paid attention to their own Bible, they would also have to accept polygamy as the NT accepts it more than it is against it. So much for the “one man, one woman” mantra...

And how many fundagelicals celebrate self-castration along with their Jesus?
Matthew 19:12 (NRSV)
“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

 

[ronburgundy]

I don't think the OP is oblivious to this motive. I think he just is accurately pointing out that they are objectively wrong and that intolerant fundies are far more correct than their critics regarding what the Bible says and was intended to mean. He is also correct that such motives are short-sighted, self-centered, and unethical. Because the Bible was designed to promote unreason and authoritarian intolerance, any efforts to give it a modern glow around the edges only empowers that core message and prolongs its undue impact on a society that would be better off and more moral if the Bible were disregarded as irrelevant to ethics or fact.

I also don't think his message will fall on deaf ears. Most of those LGBTs seeking to retain a Christian identity are not true believers. They are of the sort of shallow "I just want the label" Christians who are most likely to listen to reason and give up religion entirely. Also, there are non-believers among those arguing with Christians about Jesus' views on gays. They view it as a political/social strategy to rob the anti-gay bigots of their sole justification. It is a short sighted strategy that does long term harm and it won't really work anyway because, unlike on most matters of fact, Fundies are largely correct in their claims about what the Bible intended to mean, both morally and on factual issues.

And I dispute that those who choose to ignore Biblical condemnation of homosexuality, either because it refers to them personally or just because they think there's nothing wrong with it, are somehow less true believers than those who choose not to cherrypick it out of their belief system.

Then your belief is contradicted by the empirical evidence. There are numerous studies on the subject. They measure people's actual certainty of belief and value and importance they place on those beliefs and on acting upon them in their daily lives. Those are qualities of true believers, because when you believe it, you actually act on it and do so with confidence. Such measures are typically referred to as "religiosity". The fundies who take all of the Bible seriously consistently score higher in this religiosity. Cherry-pickers tend to be filled with doubt and uncertainty even about the most basic foundations of their religion, such as God's existence, and they report their religion as being less important to their daily life and decisions. IOW, they are less religious and less Christian in nearly every sense it which it actually means something to utter those words.

You can be against slavery and still call yourself a true Christian.

You can be against slavery and still call yourself a true unicorn. That doesn't make you one. Whether people utter the sounds "I am a true Christian" has no relevance. The question is what is the actual state of their beliefs, certainty in those beliefs, and importance they place in using those beliefs to determine their identity and choices in actual life. There is rather clear scientific evidence that these cherry-pickers, and especially politically liberal cherry-pickers are barely even theists at all and rarely can be accurately categorized as "Christian" due to their own admitted lack of importance they place on any ideas or actions that are at all particular to any form of monotheism let alone Christianity. Of course their are always exceptions, but as a reliable general rule people who say "The Bible doesn't condemn gays", rarely think about religion or God and the implications for their lives, and are much less confident in whatever cherry picked beliefs they do have.

While I agree with you that it would be great if they'd just dump the religion entirely, the LGBT Christians don't have that motivation. It's not what they're going for, so doing that would move them away from their desired goal instead of towards it. They like being Christians and they want their Christian faith to embrace them. They're not looking to abandon it over disagreement about one point.

IT is not just one point. It coheres with the general authoritarian ethics and intolerance that is the foundation of the monotheistic creator God concept. The people that want to ignore the specific issue of homosexuality and the Bible, almost always want to ignore most other aspects that show God to be an intolerant bigot with self-serving rules, which means 95% of the Bible. That is why such people report that they hardly ever read or think about the Bible, or even think about God and what God expects of them. IOW, they don't think Christian, they just utter the phrase "I am Christian" when asked.

 

[Atheos]

Wow, numerous studies have been conducted to prove that the Scotsman fallacy is not actually a fallacy. Who'd have thunk it?

 

[Kharakov]

Wow, numerous studies have been conducted to prove that the Scotsman fallacy is not actually a fallacy. Who'd have thunk it?

No valid fallacy is one.