Gay-Hatin' Gospel (pt. 3)

According to research by the Barna Group:

The most common perception is that present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual." Overall, 91 percent of young non-Christians and 80 percent of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else.

How did such a strange thing come to pass?

Theory No. 3: The Innocent Backlash

This theory requires our serious attention because it is so widely held -- or, at least, widely claimed.

Before taking a closer look at this explanation, we need to underscore the particular claims made by the respondents to the Barna survey quoted above. American Christianity has come to be perceived, first and foremost, as "anti-homosexual." This is not simply due to a moral/ethical teaching that precludes any sexual activity outside of monogamous, heterosexual matrimony -- Barna's respondents explicitly stated that the anti-homosexuality that characterizes American Christianity goes "beyond" that, into the realm of "excessive contempt." The meaning of the word "excessive" here is clear: the contempt for homosexuals that characterizes American Christianity exceeds mere ethical/theological objection; it is inappropriately severe; it is disproportionate, inordinate, intemperate.

Proponents of the innocent backlash theory thus have to begin by arguing that this perception is inaccurate -- that nine out of 10 young non-Christians and four out of five young churchgoers have somehow gotten the wrong idea. The contempt American Christianity displays toward homosexuals, these proponents say, is just the right amount.

Christians, this theory holds, do not regard homosexuals as particularly or especially deserving of condemnation, it's just that homosexual activists have become so vocal in promoting their radical homosexual agenda that -- purely in response -- Christians have been forced to become equally vocal in reply. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction -- that's elementary physics. Christians have simply been reacting to the radical homosexual agenda, and this reaction has been equal and opposite (and therefore not at all "excessive").

The explanation for the (mis)perception that American Christianity is inappropriately anti-homosexual is thus something that any grade-school child can understand: They started it.

"They" (the homosexuals) started this disagreement and we American Christians are merely reacting, responding, replying -- that is the essence of this theory. This explanation is almost universally cited among anti-homosexual leaders of the religious right, but it is also widely cited by go-slow "liberals" who urge homosexuals seeking equal rights to marry or to serve openly in the military not to push too hard for these goals. Push too hard, they advise, insist too strenuously that you be treated equally, and you invite just the sort of backlash that Barna records here.

This sounds a great deal like a warning to homosexuals to "remember your place" -- a warning that echoes similar counsels of caution against an earlier struggle for equal rights. The best response to such warnings is that of Martin Luther King Jr. in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the [word] "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

But the more pertinent argument in King's letter is his correction of the confusion of cause and effect at the heart of every innocent backlash theory:

You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at effects, and does not grapple with underlying causes.

"They started it," is a claim of fact. The legitimacy and validity of the innocent backlash theory rests on whether that claim is true or false. And that claim is false. "Radical homosexual activists" pushing their "radical agenda" are no more the cause of the current disagreement than the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was the cause of the conflict in Birmingham.

The innocent backlash theory says that "excessive contempt" for homosexuals is a consequence -- a predictable, reasonable, defensible consequence -- of homosexuals refusing to remember their place. Or, in other words, refusing to accept their place as less than equal. The backlash is thus, inescapably, a defense of inequality. Even if the RHAs lived up to the rudest and most aggressively impolitic caricature drawn by their critics this would still be the case.

Proponents of innocent backlash theory recognize this, and they realize that a defense of inequality is indefensible. Thus they have gone to great lengths to try to reframe the matter not as one of equal rights, but as one of "special rights." It's hard to know what, if anything, this is supposed to mean. This is semantic sleight of hand, just like the larger attempt here to downgrade "reactionary" to merely "reactive." Apparently second-class citizens who demand to be treated equally are asking for something "special." The effort to relabel equal rights as "special rights" strikes me as an unironic affirmation of Anatole France's ironic description of "The majestic equality of the law, which forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges or to beg in the streets."

Finally, the innocent backlash theory is incapable of answering our question because it refuses to do so. That question, again, is how did it come to be the case that an "excessive contempt" for homosexuals is the "most common perception" of American Christianity? The innocent backlash theory rejects this question, insisting that this contempt is not excessive, and that this common perception is simply mistaken. The fact that this perception is shared by "80 percent of young churchgoers" -- people whose understanding of American Christianity comes from direct experience and from what they have been explicitly taught to believe in American churches -- apparently only means that four out of five young churchgoers are too stupid to understand what they have been shown and taught. I find that implausible. The question is legitimate. The refusal to answer it is not.

Rereading the above, I'm not sure I've been as charitable as I'd like to have been in evaluating this theory. I have a hard time being charitable toward those who would argue that any degree of contempt can be less than "excessive," or that blaming the victim is acceptable so long as you do it in God's name. So later on I may need to revisit this theory -- I'll put some VapoRub under my nose to mask the stench and take a closer second look. But for now let's move on.

Next up: The Exegetical Panic Defense.

Comments

[G-Do]

RE special vs equal rights:

...they have gone to great lengths to try to reframe...

This is semantic sleight of hand...

You make it sound very calculated, Fred. I think that a lot of homophobes genuinely see things this way. Let's say that I am a homophobe. I predicate my opposition to homosexuality on a religious tradition; I believe that God has instructed me to oppose homosexuality. A homosexual activist's request for equality then could easily be construed as begging for special favor: the activist is asking me not only to implicitly endorse his or her activity, but to violate my own conscience and deliberately disobey God.

For me, admitting the legal equality of homosexuals isn't the arbitrary granting of equal rights to a morally neutral minority; it is a sin, a stain on my own soul, precisely because homosexuals are not a morally neutral minority. It would be like implicitly endorsing pedophilia, or bestiality, or polygamy (which is why arguments involving this trifecta invariably pop up when discussing gay marriage). For me, it's not about the gays - it's about me. It's about what God thinks of me. It's about my soul. And no other person ought to interfere with that.

[Bugmaster]

I agree with G-Do. Many, if not most, Christians do indeed see homosexuality as a sin. Thus, homosexuals are clearly not equal, from the Christian perspective: they are sinners and criminals, and should be treated as such. The Homosexual Agenda Cabal (tm) does their best to subvert the moral foundations of our society, render homosexuality (and, by extension, all other sins) socially acceptable, and deliver us all into the hands of Satan, their master. It is the duty of every right-thinking Christian to oppose the nefarious gays. For the LORD !

[Bugmaster]

I should clarify, perhaps (as an opoponax-friendly disambiguation) that I myself do not see gays that way; as I see it, people are people, they should be allowed to marry each other by mutual consent, and it's not the government's job to interfere. But, just because I don't share the fundamentalist Christian perspective, doesn't mean that I can't understand it, in a way.

[mcc]

For me, it's not about the gays - it's about me. It's about what God thinks of me. It's about my soul. And no other person ought to interfere with that.

For "homosexual activists", it isn't about you, it's about legal rights. Your relationship with God should not have any bearing on whether the state provides services to some other person. The bill of rights is quite clear on this point; you're allowed to have a religion which instructs you to "oppose" whoever, but the state is not allowed to endorse that religion specially.

How does anything "homosexual activists" are doing "interfere" with a homophobe's ability to form their own opinion toward gays? Are the churches who say God wants you to "oppose" homosexuals going to be shut down? Are homosexual activists trying to pass a law to require everyone to like them? Activists do try to take steps against discrimination, but the LGBT community in this respect wants only the same status afforded to any other category of persons: No matter how much someone dislikes, say, black people, or Christians, no matter what they think God told them about those groups, they may not deny employment opportunities on that basis.

Rather than homosexuals in modern society wanting anything special, the homophobe in modern society seeks to identify their hate as "special"; they want to be allowed to act on their hate, and have the state act along, in ways that people who hate blacks or not allowed to, in ways that people who hate Christians are not allowed to. For some reason the homophobe feels that their personal autonomy, their right to like or dislike homosexuals, is impinged unless everyone else feels the same way. Your right to have a face ends if it limits the areas where it might limit where they desire to swing their fist.

[Bugmaster]

Unfortunately, this debate comes down to a matter of faith. If you believe that homosexuality is a sin, then you see gays as sinners and criminals, and you see equal rights for gays in the same way as you see equal rights for murderers: a ridiculously warped notion of equality. If, on the other hand, you do not believe that homosexuality is a sin, then you see homophobes as oppressive bigots. I don't think this debate can ever be reconciled to the satisfaction of both parties, because faith cannot be communicated.

[Ian]

Once you think that homosexuality is the super-sin, of course gay activism looks unreasonably, indefensibly radical. The question is why anyone would think it's a super-sin, or sinful at all, and backlash in itself can't explain that.

Bugmaster, moving from homosexuality to "by extension, all other sins" is what I think Fred will be talking about under the heading of the Exegetical Panic Defense. (i.e. "If I give one inch on my interpretation of the Bible I don't believe in nothin' no more! We'll all be having orgiastic sex with farm animals on Sunday!")

[Bugmaster]

No, I think that, from the Christian point of view, the logic actually makes sense. If you make it possible to elevate one sin to legal and socially acceptable status -- be it homosexuality, theft, adultery, murder, idol worship, whatever -- then you could use the same methods to similarly elevate all other sins to the same status. Being Agents of Satan (tm), the Pro-Gay Lobby obviously want to do just that. Homosexuality is not some sort of an uber-sin that breeds all others; it's just a convenient sin that can be used as a "wedge" due to the willful blindness of the Liberal Media (tm).

[Jesurgislac]

Bugmaster: Unfortunately, this debate comes down to a matter of faith. If you believe that homosexuality is a sin, then you see gays as sinners and criminals, and you see equal rights for gays in the same way as you see equal rights for murderers:

If you're Fred Phelps, yes.

Most people who see homosexuality as a sin do not see it as a sin for which the sinners deserve to be deprived of civil rights: just as most people who see adultery as a sin don't believe that everyone who has sex outside marriage ought to be deprived of civil rights.

Raising up straw men that you claim not to believe in and arguing in their favor is a very tricky form of rhetoric, if you don't want to sound both bigoted and stupid. Either you don't realise how bad you are at it, or else you do want to sound bigoted and stupid. If the latter, you're succeeding very well. I just want to scrape you off my shoe like the smelly little piece of crap you are: rather like Fred Phelps himself, in fact.

Why do you want to do this to yourself, Bugmaster? Same trollish reasoning you had when you tried arguing in favor of torture?

[Coin]

If you make it possible to elevate one sin to legal and socially acceptable status -- be it homosexuality, theft, adultery, murder, idol worship, whatever

In the United States, adultery and idol worship are both legal already. Idol worship is even socially acceptable.

[Bugmaster]

just as most people who see adultery as a sin don't believe that everyone who has sex outside marriage ought to be deprived of civil rights.

They don't ? So, they believe that, even though adultery is a sin, adulterers should be granted equal rights so that they can commit adultery in peace ? I realize that some people probably believe that, but I'd argue that most do not.

In the United States, adultery and idol worship are both legal already. Idol worship is even socially acceptable.

Indeed, and so his homosexuality in some places. Still, there are many Christians who'd like to eliminate all three of these practices.

[Jeff]

Band Name Alert: Agents of Satan

Most people who see homosexuality as a sin do not see it as a sin for which the sinners deserve to be deprived of civil rights

The people Fred is talking about (in this section, if not the others) do think that these "sinners" should be deprived of civil rights. If Bug is trolling, then so is Fred.

[cjmr]

So, they believe that, even though adultery is a sin, adulterers should be granted equal rights so that they can commit adultery in peace ? I realize that some people probably believe that, but I'd argue that most do not.

If you'd argue that, you'd be an idiot. I've never met anyone--conservative Christian or not--who believes that civil rights should be taken away from people who are adulterers. (Okay, with the possible exception of couples embroiled in child custody suits, who think that their spouse's parental rights should be terminated because said spouse committed adultery.)

[Ecks]

Jesu, we've been through this in a couple of different issues with a couple of different people. There is nothing wrong with playing devils advocate in the context of a social issues debates, so long as you identify that this is, in fact, what you are doing. Heck, if you go find your local university's debates society, you will find people who regularly win prizes for standing up and arguing the merits of positions they do not personally hold. Given that we don't seem to have any anti-gay rights people posting themselves to this board, the fact that someone would attempt to step in and simulate their arguments is a move to increase intellectual richness, and force the rest of us to think our positions more fully, rather than simply echoing our agreement back to each other endlessly. There's enough real fights out there without wasting your energy stopping things that do have some constructive role.

[cjmr]

Ecks,

If Bug wants to play Devil's Advocate, fine. But he needs to do it with an ounce of intelligence.

[Jesurgislac]

G-Do: Let's say that I am a homophobe. I predicate my opposition to homosexuality on a religious tradition; I believe that God has instructed me to oppose homosexuality.

In Psalm 137, God instructs you to seize the infants of those who have done you wrong and "dash them against the rock" - murder them by beating their brains out, in other words.

"At one point in his pacification of Sind, Sir Charles Napier confronted the long-entrenched and religiously-warranted practice of ;suttee,' according to which a widow was thrown onto the funeral pyre of her dead husband. Napier invited the local leaders to a meeting and said, 'You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom. When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we shall follow ours.'"

A homophobe may claim religious inspiration in denying LGBT fellow citizens civil equality. A racist may claim the same in denying black people civil equality. A misogynist, likewise, when denying women civil equality. In a theocracy, they may even get their way. A secular country with a civil government and democratic rule of law will not permit bigotry, religiously inspired or not, to deny anyone their equality under the law.

[Jesurgislac]

Ecks: There is nothing wrong with playing devils advocate in the context of a social issues debates, so long as you identify that this is, in fact, what you are doing.

What CJMR said.

[Bugmaster]

If you'd argue that, you'd be an idiot. I've never met anyone--conservative Christian or not--who believes that civil rights should be taken away from people who are adulterers.

I guess that depends what you mean by "civil rights". Let's pretend that God really does exist, and that adultery really is a sin, and therefore a highly immoral act. Should adulterers be free to commit adultery ? If a person knows that adultery is a sin, and that it is highly immoral, and then goes ahead and commits premeditated adultery anyway -- would treat that person as trustworthy and deserving of respect ?

You can replace "adultery" with "murder" in the above sentence to get an even picture of what I mean. The problem here is that what you see as "civil rights" -- the right to marry a person of the same sex -- Christians (of the sort that Fred is describing) see as a sin and a despicable act. You can argue that they're wrong about this (I certainly believe they are), but, since they believe this due to their faith, you're unlikely to convince them. Framing the debate in terms of civil rights is unhelpful, because they don't see gay marriage as a civil right, just as they don't see murder as a civil right.

[Bugmaster]

Er, I believe that I've clearly identified my position as that of a Devil's Advocate in this post:

I should clarify, perhaps (as an opoponax-friendly disambiguation) that I myself do not see gays that way; as I see it, people are people, they should be allowed to marry each other by mutual consent, and it's not the government's job to interfere. But, just because I don't share the fundamentalist Christian perspective, doesn't mean that I can't understand it, in a way.

[Abelardus]

Wow! Where'd all those post come from?! Anyway I'll offer my two cents.

With G-Do's hypothetical I thought about a "two wrongs" fallacy: I'm in a philosophy class and logic/critical thinking is still on my mind. The hypothetical states that to allow equal rights to homosexuals is tantamount to allowing pedophilia and bestiality, right? Only it's similar to the legalization of marijuana; marijuana, in and of itself, doesn't necessarily lead to cocaine and the like. (I realize these homophobes won't be functioning by logic/critical thinking, at least not many; and I borrowed pot legalization as a parallel circumstance, nothing more.)

Also, what the hypothetical homophobe says about it being "what God thinks of me" reminds me of Fred's alternate reply to the rich young man asking Jesus how he can achieve the kingdom; to paraphrase:

"OH ME H. TAP DANCING ME! it's not always about you!"

That's what I was thinking before this influx of replies; cheers!

[Bugmaster]

Hmm, now that I think about it, since I am clearly a bigot and an oppresive card-carrying Patriarch, then any marginally oppressive position I attempt to illustrate is, in fact, the true position I hold -- all protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Also, I eat puppies.

[Ecks]

Here's my attempt at clearing some of the confusion:

Religious types and atheists (oversimplification, but bear with me) thing things are immoral for a different reason, but we get confused when we talk because we end up thinking that MOST of the same things are immoral (and so thoughtlessly suppose that we agree on the reasons for this), and because a lot of atheists don't bother articulating, even in their own minds WHY they think it's immoral.

Things we all agree are bad: murder, stealing, adultery, incest, bestiality, polygamy.
Things only theists (generally) think are bad: idolatry, blasphemy, homosexuality.

To add to the confusion, a few decades back, most atheists thought homosexuality was bad too. The stigma has only relatively recently lifted.

Why theists think all those things are bad: God says so. 10 commandments, golden rule, it's in the bible, etc.
Why atheists think they're bad: They're generally seen as harming others who either don't consent, or are incapable of consenting to the action. There are some dubious cases here, such as incest - most of us would insist it was wrong, even if talking about an adult brother and sister who are fully consenting and use 3 forms of birth control to eliminate the possibility of genetically abnormal children. There's some gut level 'ick' factor build into us that just makes us think it's bad - evolutionary psych would have some pretty slick theories about this, if you're willing to consider those sorts of things.

So theists are quite used to thinking things are sins, and seeing everyone else agree with this, and have them be officially listed as crimes. They probably don't think too much about why other people would agree with them here, they just assume that we have the law because God (and basic moral decency, which are synonymous in their minds) says not to do it, so they are surprised and disturbed when atheists oppose them on another element that God tells them (so they believe) is bad. Note that idolatry and such is not illegal, but from a theological point of view those are lesser offenses anyway.

[Abelardus]

Addendum: To clarify -- and this is my shortcoming, not doing so immediately -- granting equal rights to homosexuals, in particular the right to marry, will not invariably lead to . . . I shudder to repeat it: it's a stupid argument to believe a simply human act will lead in lock-step to the depravity of pedophilia and bestiality.

That in parallel to pot usage and the two wrongs fallacy.

[Jesurgislac]

Let's pretend that God really does exist, and that adultery really is a sin, and therefore a highly immoral act. Should adulterers be free to commit adultery ?

If you live in a theocracy which bases its laws on what that God wants, then adulterers will be condemned as commanded by God.

If you don't live in a theocracy, or live in one run by a God with different rules, then there is no reason to condemn adulterers for something that is merely against God's law.

You can replace "adultery" with "murder" in the above sentence to get an even picture of what I mean.

So you mean to say that you are pretending to be Fred Phelps, and so I should pretend to respond to you as I would to Fred Phelps if he commented here claiming that adultery was the same thing as murder?

You're unbelievably stupid, and evil, and you disgust me. I wish you were the little piece of stinky crap you resemble, because then I could just clean you off my shoe.

[G-Do]

@mcc: For "homosexual activists", it isn't about you, it's about legal rights. Your relationship with God should not have any bearing on whether the state provides services to some other person. The bill of rights is quite clear on this point; you're allowed to have a religion which instructs you to "oppose" whoever, but the state is not allowed to endorse that religion specially.

First off, I am not a homophobe IRL. That was just an example.

Second off, I'm not defending homophobia. I am saying that it isn't always disingenuous.

Third off, it is a very fine thing to say that one's "relationship with God should [emphasis added] not have any bearing on whether the state provides services to some other person," but that doesn't make it true. Some homophobes actually believe that they are morally obligated to oppose homosexuality, and that this obligation extends to the ridiculous behaviors in which they engage.

I can not tell you the number of times I have heard arguments along the lines of "welp, I don't want to hate gays, but the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, so I guess my hands are tied, ha ha." If you press that statement to its logical conclusion - if you ask the bigot why, if God demands something so awful, he or she doesn't simply stop worshipping God, you either get blank looks or a rhetorical conniption. Because now, as far as they're concerned, you're making an unreasonable personal demand - that they change their religion.

The perspectives of homosexuals don't matter. The Bill of Rights doesn't matter. The fact is, in this way of thinking, God's demands create a conflict between the Christian and the democratic, egalitarian society. But God can not be wrong, so everyone else's demands are unreasonable. You put it best, yourself:

"For some reason the homophobe feels that their personal autonomy, their right to like or dislike homosexuals, is impinged unless everyone else feels the same way."

Pretty much. But my point wasn't that such behavior is defensible. It's that this behavior is not dishonest.

[mcc]

(Sorry about the nick error above! Anyway:)

Fred described the Innocent Backlash theory thus:

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction -- that's elementary physics. Christians have simply been reacting to the radical homosexual agenda, and this reaction has been equal and opposite (and therefore not at all "excessive").

The interesting thing here is that although this is theory #3 by Fred's arc, this actually showed up in his post on theory #1, in the comments. In the comments for Gay-Hatin Gospel (pt. 1), an individual showed up and suggested, quite vaguely, that the anti-homosexual backlash is not against homosexuals themselves, but against the behavior of their extremist members, which apparently somehow implicates the entire group. The example given was a particular street fair in San Francisco (outrage at which had been making the rounds in the fundamentalist press for a few days at the time), where allegedly obscene behavior was occurring in public. The individual of course Christians will be upset, if this is how homosexuals behave. The foremost of several problems with this example: The street fair was not a gay pride event, or in any way specific to homosexuals. It was a BDSM event, which for some reason certain fundamentalist blogs had chosen to conflate with homosexuality. Shortly after having this pointed out, the individual making the complaint said "OK, so we've established that I'm right on the essentials, and now we're negotiating about the parameters, good to know..."

We can probably assume, as a matter of good faith, that some of the persons who promote the Innocent Backlash theory are doing so earnestly and because they honestly perceive the world that way. Someone who behaves like this, on the other hand clearly is not. If pressing on exactly what about homosexuality is prompting this supposedly earnest reaction produces an answer which is external to homosexuality itself, then clearly the reactor is not being earnest. The question then becomes, if the backlash in these cases is not Innocent, what's going on there? Perhaps they're just lying-- perhaps the Innocent Backlash theory is just a cover for some other more sinister or just less noble-sounding purpose. On the other hand, maybe something more interesting is going on. Maybe the example from the other thread is actually instructive of something deeper.

I would like to propose another theory, [which Fred may or may not be getting to on his own in some form, I don't know], is actually hiding behind the Innocent Backlash theory in these cases. I'm going to call this one the Scapegoat theory.

The Scapegoat theory would suggest that there exist people whose Christianity is "anti-homosexual" simply because when they say the word "homosexual", they're not even discussing the same thing the rest of us are when we think about this word. Perhaps "homosexuality" has somehow come to encompass, for these people, the entire sexual revolution. It has become a convenient dog-whistle label which brings to mind not just same-sex romantic pairings, but sexual deviancy of any kind-- such that attacking homosexual activists based on a BDSM fair seems completely reasonable because BDSM is just another kind of homosexuality. From this perspective homosexuality would be not just a super-sin, it is the super-sin-- it is the supercategory which contains all the other lustful sins they're upset about right now. Somehow for these people, due to either confusion or dishonesty, homosexuality has for some reason become a label which is blamed for a whole bunch of stuff that isn't being explicitly discussed, from BDSM to adultery to birth control to public sex to San Francisco itself.

Does this theory sound at all plausible?

[Jesurgislac]

Ecks: Why theists think all those things are bad: God says so. 10 commandments, golden rule, it's in the bible, etc.
Why atheists think they're bad: They're generally seen as harming others who either don't consent, or are incapable of consenting to the action.

You're obviously not very well read, is all I can say to that.

The notion that theists all think the law of the land should reflect God's commandments - that all sins should be illegal - is really just complete crap. Go away. Read. Educate yourself. Try again in a couple of years.

[Cowboy Diva]

I still think this is a fallacy. The laws against apparent homosexual behavior (boy do I hate that word) in the OT are but one of 613 listed in the Torah, and they are mentioned in the same passages that talk about not eating shellfish or cotton/poly blends for pity's sake.
In the Christian texts the only mentions have more to do with mistranslations and bad exegesis.
Why is it that people can come to theological acceptance of things like divorce but not something like gay/lesbian relationships? Maybe it is just about protecting and maintaining those already in power.
"remember your place" indeed.

[Ecks]

Eh, cut him some slack. It's hard to get into the head space of religious heavies when you aren't one. He's bound to sound a bunch of false notes. It's fine to point those out, but you don't have to be insulting about it.

[G-Do]

Also, what the hypothetical homophobe says about it being "what God thinks of me" reminds me of Fred's alternate reply to the rich young man asking Jesus how he can achieve the kingdom; to paraphrase:

"OH ME H. TAP DANCING ME! it's not always about you!"

Good point Abelardus. It is a narcissistic position, to be sure.

[cjmr]

If a person knows that adultery is a sin, and that it is highly immoral, and then goes ahead and commits premeditated adultery anyway -- would treat that person as trustworthy and deserving of respect ?

Would I treat that person as trustworthy? Absolutely not--s/he violated the trust of his/her spouse. Deserving of respect? Probably not. What does that have to do with the hypothetical adulterer's civil rights? I still don't get what you're driving at here.

[Jesurgislac]

G-Do: Pretty much. But my point wasn't that such behavior is defensible. It's that this behavior is not dishonest.

Actually, it is. C. S. Lewis outlines its dishonesty in one of the chapters describing the public school he went to, in Surprised By Joy. In a rare example (for the time) he describes honestly the public school pattern of gay sex between older and younger boys, and says bluntly that it is not the greatest sin there is: that people who talk about homosexuality as if it were a greater sin than other sins, are doing so because it is illegal.

Christians who claim they are homophobes because it says so in the Bible are wrong, in any case: the Bible says nothing as clearcut. (It's much clearer, as it happens, on how Christians should feel about McDonalds, which routinely sells beefburgers with cheese, or with bacon: both of which are abominations.) Homophobic Christians use carefully culled quotes from the Bible to justify their homophobia: they do not begin with neutral feelings about LGBT people and then learn to cultivate hate because of a handful of ambiguous quotes, and when they claim that they do, they are bearing false witness against their neighbors, which is a sin explicitly forbidden in the Commandments.

[Ecks]

It was a BDSM event, which for some reason certain fundamentalist blogs had chosen to conflate with homosexuality

Well, to be totally fair, the descriptions I've seen indicate that while it isn't exclusively a homosexual event, it has a predominant homosexual element, and most of the blatant sex happening was m/m, not m/f. I think, if we are to be completely honest, there IS a stronger acceptance of random anonymous sex in the gay male community. This isn't to say that hetero people don't do this too, but even such gay-friendly shows as Queer as Folk depict a far more free-swinging scene than you typically see in hetero land. Again, for the sake of clarification, I'm NOT suggesting that ALL or even MOST gay men are involved in this, only that it is far more prevalent in the gay male community than the hetero (or even gay female) one.

Further disambiguation, I don't these norms are a bad thing. But if it is what fundie preachers want to beyatch about, then we can't entirely accuse them of having their facts all wrong (even if they have everything else wrong).

[G-Do]

Perhaps "homosexuality" has somehow come to encompass, for these people, the entire sexual revolution. It has become a convenient dog-whistle label which brings to mind not just same-sex romantic pairings, but sexual deviancy of any kind-- such that attacking homosexual activists based on a BDSM fair seems completely reasonable because BDSM is just another kind of homosexuality.

This. And it synchs very well with some of the comments in Part II, which suggested that closet-fetishist's hatred of gays is caused by envy; the people in question get bitter because they see sexual "deviants" who are enjoying a life that the closet-case feels he or she can never have. Thus the gays become a symbol - an Abel, so to speak.

[Ecks]

You're obviously not very well read, is all I can say to that.

Holy shit, did your coffee run out this morning? What's WRONG with you today? If you can't play nice then don't play at all.

The notion that theists all think the law of the land should reflect God's commandments - that all sins should be illegal - is really just complete crap. Go away. Read. Educate yourself. Try again in a couple of years.

What part of "so this is an overgeneralization" do you not understand? Go learn to read, then come back again in a couple of years.

See, now you're making me grumpy too.

[ako]

Should adulterers be free to commit adultery ?

Maybe you know different religious people than I do. Because, while I know a lot of people, religious and not, who think adultery is wrong, I don't know any who think it should be legally impeded or prevented. Which is presumably what not being "free to commit adultery" would mean.

[Cynic Sage]

Christians, this theory holds, do not regard homosexuals as particularly or especially deserving of condemnation, it's just that homosexual activists have become so vocal in promoting their radical homosexual agenda that -- purely in response -- Christians have been forced to become equally vocal in reply. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction -- that's elementary physics.

If that were anything close to true we would see Wayne Besen complain about "Veggie Tales" being used to brainwash kids.

[Jeff]

Religious types and atheists (oversimplification, but bear with me) thing things are immoral for a different reason

I don't think anything is immoral. I think things are unethical, bu there is a difference.

Things we all agree are bad: murder, stealing, adultery, incest, bestiality, polygamy.

Adultery per se is bad when one partner is cheating on the other. "Adultery" in a truely open relationship is neither immoral nor unethical. Simularly for polygamy and polyandry: I know a number of people in "triads" who have open, honest, loving relationships. I don't see anything wrong with that.

a few decades back, most atheists thought homosexuality was bad too

Cite?

=====================================

If you don't live in a theocracy, or live in one run by a God with different rules, then there is no reason to condemn adulterers for something that is merely against God's law.

But the "Gay-Hatin' Gospel" preachers WANT to live in a theocrasy (as long as they decide on the theos). No-one thinks these people are right, we're just trying to see where they're coming from.

If you're not interested in understanding the Fred Phelps of the world (and I see nothing wrong in that position), you're going to miss what's being discussed on this thread. To blow up at everyone who IS trying to understand him is more than a bit counter-productive.

(Or am I being passive-aggressive again?)

[Bugmaster]

I don't think anyone here is claiming that all Christians are Fred-Phelps-esque fundies. Fred is a Christian, and he clearly isn't one. However, I don't think that all Christians who are opposed to homosexuality are disingenuous bigots, either. As I'm attempting to demonstrate, there's a sizable number of Christians who really do believe that homosexuality is a biblical sin. They don't want to ban gay marriage because of their hidden oppressive agenda; they want to ban it because they genuinely believe it to be morally wrong. Thus, arguments that revolve around civil rights will fail to sway these people; morally wrong actions are not rights.

Inicidentally, I personally believe that polyamory of any kind is morally acceptable, as long as all individuals involved are consenting adults (note, I said "morally acceptable", not "a stable arrangement"). Does this make me evil ?

[Ecks]

Ok, let's clear up another thing here today before anyone else starts developing honest to god torque in their underwear. Things which I believe every single one of us agrees on:

1) The bible does not condemn homesexuality in any particularly clear fashion at all. It's much clearer about lots of other things.

2) We do not live in a theocracy, none of us believe that religious people should get to impose all their rules on us.

3) Some religious leaders in the crazy fundie right are clearly educated and bright enough that they should be able to tell that the above two facts are true, and that they are way our of line in promoting this hateful agenda. They may not have realized these things (you would be AMAZED at the power of motivated reasoning for people to genuinely believe all sorts of ludicrous things -- many of North Korea's leaders are genuinely convinced that they're leading the good fight against an evil oppressive rest of the world, even though that's nuts). BUT, they're educated and informed and smart enough that the fact that they HAVEN'T figured this stuff out casts them in a very very poor light.

Nobody here disagrees with any of the above (speak now if you do, and we will ridicule you anon). BUT, what some people here HAVE debated is whether some individual church going people who don't have the necessary education or guile to know better, and who have been essentially brainwashed by people who SHOULD, might genuinely believe some of the things that Fred so convincingly lays out are nonsense.

[Ebonmuse]

It's worth noting that a lot of Christian homophobes claim that any gain in rights for homosexuals necessarily entails a loss of rights for them. Just check out this recent example of hysterical rhetoric, reported by Ed Brayton, in which the religious right claims that a California bill to ban anti-gay discrimination will result in the outlawing of the words "mother" and "father". No, really.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/10/california_bans_mom_and_dad.php

I suspect that this nonsense is due, at some subconscious level, to the gay-haters realizing the same point Fred makes here: it's untenable for them to continue claiming that they support inequality. Public opinion has already shifted against them in that debate. Therefore, they try to distort the issue (as with this "special rights" nonsense) by claiming that what gay-rights activists really want is to censor Christians. It's sleazy and dishonest, but it's all they have left in their bag of tricks.

[cjmr]

Hmmm...we seem to have found our Thursday argument. On Monday.

[Grendel72]

Unfortunately, this debate comes down to a matter of faith. If you believe that homosexuality is a sin, then you see gays as sinners and criminals, and you see equal rights for gays in the same way as you see equal rights for murderers
And the fact that so many sum up their faith in this way is why the Barna study has the results it does. I'm sure Klan members feel the same way about blacks having equal rights.
Young people recognize the Christian faith as being full of hatred because it is.

[Ecks]

Things we all agree are bad: murder, stealing, adultery, incest, bestiality, polygamy.

Adultery per se is bad when one partner is cheating on the other. "Adultery" in a truely open relationship is neither immoral nor unethical. Simularly for polygamy and polyandry: I know a number of people in "triads" who have open, honest, loving relationships. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Good point, although polygamy IS still illegal here, and you can be tried for it. See all the guys who keep getting busted in Utah. I think it's messy. If people are in consensual polyamorous arangements, I think people vary in their reactions from "gross" to "whatever" to "hey, good for you," but we don't tend to bother to enforce any rules against it even where they technically exist.

Where you have one guy marrying many women, it can sometimes work out as an ok thing, but all the annecdotal evidence I've heard is that it tends to end up as an exploitative thing. See again the Mormon thing. My brother heard a radio show a while back that interviewed a many-wife family from some foreign (sorry, don't remember where) culture where it was officially sanctioned. He said the husband's take on it was "yeah, we all love it, and my wives are totally cool with sharing me." but when they interviewed the 2nd wife, she was more saying "well, I guess I got used to it eventually." Sounds like she wasn't all that happy at root with the relationship. Makes you wonder how much about the arrangement was truly consenting (in the true sense of the word) and mutually beneficial.

a few decades back, most atheists thought homosexuality was bad too

Cite?

Don't have one I'm afraid. But I think it's not controversial that even 30 years ago homosexuality was widely viewed in negative terms. Oscar Wilde was convicted of sodomy (ok, that goes back a bit further), politicians revealed as gay would be reviled and have their careers terminated, people would openly use anti-gay epithets as put downs... The over 50 set in my sig other's family are struggling to adjust to one of her cousins who has recently come out as gay. They're doing a pretty good job, apparently, but will privately report that when they grew up, it was one of those things like masturbation that you just didn't talk about, and that was quietly understood to be shameful. In 1945 you did not openly and blatantly advertise that you were gay in the US or UK or anywhere else much. It just wasn't a good idea for your career, or otherwise.

[Ecks]

Hmmm...we seem to have found our Thursday argument. On Monday.

Not again...

[cjmr]

And the fact that so many sum up their faith in this way is why the Barna study has the results it does.

The problem is--so many Christians (and I'd go so far as to say almost all Christians I know personally) don't summarize their faith this way. I don't know a single Christian who equates 'sinners (especially homosexuals)' with criminals, either.

[cjmr]

See all the guys who keep getting busted in Utah.

Usually the guys that get busted in Utah are actually charged with/convicted on tax fraud, welfare fraud, child non-support, or statutory rape. The people who are being quietly polygamous and are obeying all the other laws generally get left alone.

[Jeff]

Good point, although polygamy IS still illegal here, and you can be tried for it.

Illegal =/= immoral (or unethical). If you're saying "this is illegal, and should be", then by and large, I'd agree with you on murder and stealing, not so much on adultry or polygamy (I'd rather see some sort of "spousal abuse" come into play on those two, to make it clear that it's the harm that's wrong, not just the act. Murder and stealing, by their very nature, are harmful acts.)

If you're saying "these are immoral and should therefore be condemned, made illegal, whatever", I'd have to disagree.

Where you have one guy marrying many women, it can sometimes work out as an ok thing, but all the annecdotal evidence I've heard is that it tends to end up as an exploitative thing.

Most triads I know of are f/m/f, although I do know of a few that are m/f/m (Paint Your Wagon is a famous fictional one). It's true that they can be exploitive, but that's true of any power-exchange relationship. Quite a few have lasted a good long time -- I think some are in the decades.

a few decades back, most atheists thought homosexuality was bad too
Cite?

Don't have one I'm afraid. But I think it's not controversial that even 30 years ago homosexuality was widely viewed in negative terms.

By the general public. Agnostics and atheists don't buy into much of the general culture. I'd say that homosexuality was "not evil" by the 60s, by the "counter-culture", including agnostics and atheists, and quite possibly before. That's more than a "few decades".

[Bugmaster]

I should add that, AFAIK, agnostics and atheists themselves have been treated as way more evil in the past than they are now. Though they are still treated as evil at worst, shady at best by most people.

[Spalanzani]

Ecks : "...people would openly use anti-gay epithets as put downs..."

This is, unfortunately, still extremely common, even among people who don't consider themselves anti-gay in the least. About half of everyone I know under 20 or so uses 'gay' as a synonym for bad or stupid ("That's so gay!"). Even people who have many gay friends. Even people who are gay. I find it extremely disturbing. Plus it annoys the crap out of me.

G-Do : "This."

This is off-topic, but where exactly does the fad of using 'this' to mean "That's right" or "I agree" come from? Since two or three weeks ago I've been seeing that everywhere.

[Ecks]

The people who are being quietly polygamous and are obeying all the other laws generally get left alone.

Yeah, that's what I said.
I don't know, I'm genuinely ambivalent about polyandry. If 3 people or 5 people or 10 settle down and have a nice stable cozy relationship, then whatever. Or if they just want to get together and boink each other's brains out, then hey, power to them. It's just, as bug notes above, a rather unstable type of affair. My old roomie used to get playboy, and I was surprised at how sensible and well informed the advice column was. Someone asked them about them and their spouse getting into threesomes once, and their advice was that while they were all in favour of this in general terms, in practice you want to be really really REALLY careful, because it's so easy to leave someone feeling extremely hurt and permanently damage the relationship. And this was playboy, not Uptight Christian Weekly.

I don't know. The really sticky one to my mind is incest. We're all cool with that being illegal (right?), but it's hard to justify in strictly logical terms why.