What’s God got to do, got to do with it?
I think Christianity is pretty gay. I don’t mean that in the ‘OMG, that’s so gay’ sense, but more ‘OMG, that’s gayer than Matthew Mitcham in rainbow hot pants diving into a pool of glitter!’ There are the colourful robes, homoerotic stories, glitzy artefacts, enormous wealth, and not to mention praying to Madonna. So, why all the condemnation for lovin’ from another brother?!
Let me start out by saying I have no grievance with the church whatsoever, or anyone seeking spiritual enlightenment. I admire people of faith and respect their beliefs, devotion and practices.
The recent spate of gay teen suicides that happened in the US recently sparked a huge media frenzy, with people all over the world asking poignant questions about gay hate and sexual discrimination. It hit a raw nerve for me. I got to thinking about being gay and what that meant in a wider sense, more than just sleeping with guys and partying.
What is my place in the world as a gay man? I’m comfortable with my sexuality and been lucky enough to have an amazing network of supportive family and friends around me, which I can’t say for everyone else.
It’s hard to imagine the struggle of those desperate teenagers who took their own lives, who thought that death was more bearable than living as a homosexual. Bullying, social pressures and misunderstanding made victims out of innocent people, a tragedy that could have been avoided.
While the church has no direct involvement with these tragedies, when the leader of the world’s biggest religious organisation spits out diatribes like ‘homosexuals are morally evil’ and ‘homosexuality is a deviation, an irregularity, a wound’, it’s very hard to turn a blind eye.
Those are actual quotes from the current Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger. I am in no way pinning the blame, or even suggesting that the Pope is responsible for the deaths of those suicide victims. But, the Catholic Church’s oppressive views on homosexuality are archaic and devoid of the love they so often preach about.
The baffling part is that a church, whose fundamental values are based on love and humility, can be so pernicious in their teachings and spread such insidious messages of hate. We do not need the head of the world’s biggest and richest institution telling us that we are guilty of committing moral evil.
The contradiction is outstanding. If a man feels love for another man, he is a dangerous threat to the common good. When the unspeakable catalogue of child molestations that occurred in the Catholic Church, it was dismissed and diligently hidden by the Vatican. The Pope’s solution to this abhorrence was to stop homosexuals from being allowed in the church.
The foundation of this belief comes from the Old Testament book Leviticus which says, “If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.” The book Leviticus also says that you should not eat shellfish, wearing cloth of woollen and linen mix is a sin, and my personal favourite, planting different crops next to each other is punishable by being stoned to death.
Why are some things taken literally and others hastily forgotten? Surely if they insist on such measures to vilify and suppress homosexuals, they should be following the word of the bible to the latter?
Living openly as a gay Christian is a challenge for many, but it is not impossible. There are even specific groups and congregations for LGBT Christians, though some have been sanctioned by the Vatican. Our sexuality is undeniable, as religion for some, is not a choice. So where do you begin to reconcile who you are with a faith that tells you you’re intrinsically disordered?
After speaking to some gay Christian friend, I found they are shared an irrefutable love for God. While some were devout and others not so much, the common message was it didn’t matter who you are, God loves you the way he made you. While the more cynical readers will roll their eyes at this ‘religious nonsense’, these people believe their faith is a gift.
One friend shared his personal experience growing up as a Catholic, and his personal struggle with his faith. It wasn’t an easy transition realising that he was gay. Pressured by people around him, he felt that by fully embracing God and rejecting his instinctual urges, he’d find salvation. It didn’t take long for him to realise that he couldn’t ‘pray away the gay’. Now, he lives his life happily as an openly gay man but respectful to god, whom he carries in his heart.
So there is something to keep in mind So is there an answer to the ongoing debate of Christianity versus homosexuality? I don’t expect the Vatican to swing open its doors, and flood St Peter’s square with a Mardi Gras parade, I’m not expecting a miracle. What I would like to see is acceptance, not tolerance, of homosexuals from the Christian society.
Being tolerated is patronising and insulting, I don’t want to be tolerated. Let’s talk about inclusion and acceptance. The pope has recently changed his stance on the use of condoms, in certain cases, so the idea of change isn’t too foreign. Being gay and a Christian aren’t that different. Both have similar fundamental messages of love, faith and hope. Love for another man, faith in each other and hope for a better future.
– Ollie Pincott
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Think about it, the rules are geared to increasing the size of the flock raised under the faith.
* No contraception (so every time you have sex, the likelihood of children is high – total abstinence is something only a fraction of people can do)
* No sex outside of marriage (if someone’s devout, they’re more likely to raise their family members in the same faith)
* No same sex relations (not going to result in new followers)
I believe the leaders of the Catholic Church are concerned about declining numbers and to weaken rules that drive people towards procreation would be to further thin the flock through attrition.
Think about some of the more strict variations of faith in general, often they’ll be cranking out bubs at a very high rate, restricting education of women. If you can’t beat ’em, out breed ’em.
There was a doco recently (within the past few months, on Compass I believe) where they showed how a congregation in Africa sent priests from their seminary to Tasmania as the number of clergy here is decreasing. Some of the clergy who came over were quite shocked at our relaxed approach to things… and seeing interviews with the head of the congregation that sent them over was illuminating in this regard.
When you take a culture, and you transplant it, the transplanted group often adheres to tradition a lot more strongly than the source group. Think of Greek and Italian groups in Australia (I have some experience with the local Italian groups given my upbringing). Quebec and New Orleans vs. France.. The satellite groups hang on tighter to a given way of life even if the other areas evolve.
With Western participation in things like the Catholic Church declining and developing nations’ membership increasing, the reinvigoration of conservative elements with thinking based in an earlier time is unavoidable given this tendency for initially satellite groups to resist change..
I’m far from a defender of the Catholic Church and it may seem like splitting hairs, but “homosexuality is a deviation, an irregularity, a wound” is attributed (eg. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE4BL2FE20081222 ) to a “leading Vatican official” – yes, he had a middle man say it instead – while Benedict never said “homosexuals are morally evil”; he said homosexual acts and the inclination towards them are (“Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder” http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html )
Regardless, it’s still a load of bullshit that should have no bearing on secular law nor on the secular lives of those who want nothing to do with Joseph Ratzinger’s nonsense global cult for the supernatural. Then again, the Catholic cult should know all about intrinsic moral evils – it has sanctioned and effected a good many of them in its time.