John Shores (pictured at right) has an interesting commentary over at The Huffington Post all about religious fundamentalist’s “anti-love approach to homosexuality.” My only issue with Shores’ piece is that he lumps all Christians in the same boat. Believe me, not all Christians are saying to gay people, “Stop acting gay.”If I was chatting with John over coffee I’d suggest that he take a leaf out of blogger Michael Hamer’s book. Michael, you see, distinguishes between Christians and right-wing fundamentalists and extremists who claim to be Christian by ascribing the term “Christianist” to the latter.
Anyway, to read John’s commentary in its entirety, click here. For highlights, see below.
_______________________________________
Nowadays, the Christian refrain isn’t, “Stop being gay.” Now it is, “Stop acting gay.” They’ve given up trying to argue that the homosexual can change his or her sexual orientation: the complete failure of Christian Fix-a-Gay and Homo No' Mo! Programs – not to mention a universe of anecdotal and empirical evidence – have left them little choice. So they’ve changed their approach. Now the argument is: A homosexual struggling against the temptation to act homosexual is no different from anyone else struggling to resist a sinful temptation.
Christians love this new argument. If I’ve heard it once, I've heard it ten thousand times. We all have. . . . It’s just . . . too stupid for words. But lemme try [to refute it] anyway.
Virtually all sins share a crucial, defining, common quality. Because that quality, which is present in every other imaginable sin, is utterly missing from being or acting gay, insisting on putting homosexuality into the same category as every other sin is like gluing wings on a pig, and insisting it belongs in the category of “bird.” It doesn’t. It can’t. It won’t. Ever.
Here is that Big Difference between homosexuality and other sins: There is no sin I can commit that, by virtue of committing it, renders me incapable of loving or being loved. I can commit murder. I can steal. I can rob. I can rape. I can drink myself to death. I can do any terrible thing at all – and no one would ever claim that intrinsic to the condition that gave rise to my doing that terrible thing is that I am, by nature, simply incapable of giving or receiving love.
No one tells the chronic drinker, or glutton, or adulterer, or any other kind of sinner, to stop experiencing love. Yet that's exactly what so many Christians are insisting gay people do.
When you tell a gay person to “resist” being gay, what you are really telling them – what you really mean – is for them to be celibate.
What you are truly and actually saying is that you want them to condemn themselves to a life devoid of love.
Be alone, you’re demanding. Live alone. Don’t hold anyone’s hand. Don’t snuggle on your couch with anyone. Don’t cuddle up with anyone at night before you fall asleep. Don’t have anyone to chat with over coffee in the morning.
Do not bind your life to that of another. Live your whole life without knowing that joy, that sharing, that peace.
Just say “no” to love.
Be alone. Live alone. Die alone.
The “sinful temptation” that Christians are forever urging LGBT people to resist is love.
Being, of course, the one thing Jesus was most clear about wanting his followers to extend to others.
Can we stop with this cruel idiocy already?
Recommended Off-site Link:
What Would Jesus Do If Invited to a Gay Wedding? - John Shores (JohnShores.com, July 15, 2008).
"Don’t hold anyone’s hand. Don’t snuggle on your couch with anyone. Don’t cuddle up with anyone at night before you fall asleep. Don’t have anyone to chat with over coffee in the morning.
ReplyDeleteDo not bind your life to that of another. Live your whole life without knowing that joy, that sharing, that peace.
Just say “no” to love.
Be alone. Live alone. Die alone."
Michael, you know and I know that nobody objects to hand holding.
But if I described what homosexuals really do for "love", I'd be banished from blogger.
TV and radio stations would lose their FCC licenses and newspapers and magazines would lose millions of subscribers overnight.
The big lie of homosexuality is that it is all about kissing, hugging and holding hands.
Ray, I don't know why some people that dislike gay people spend so much time thinking about what they really do for love. If you described what a lot of heterosexuals do for love you might be banished also.
ReplyDeleteTo Ray from MN- Just what exactly do you think homosexuals do for "love" that you think mentioning it will get you banished from blogger? Sorry for my one track mind but are you talking about Sexual acts? oral, anal, manual? Some of which or all of the them done by gay people? Some of which or all of them which are practiced by heterosexuals? If I have presumed your 'fears' correctly and said it aloud I don't think anything will happen and that no one will shudder...and that this comment will stand on it's own two legs on this blog. If I am wildly off-track -do clarify.
ReplyDeleteSimply put, the Catholic Church disapproves of homosexual acts because they involve sexual orgasm with no intent of procreation. Not only is there no intent, their is no possibility, unless artificial technology is involved.
ReplyDeleteThe Church disapprove of it for heterosexuals also, and most of them don't obey the Church either.
But the Catholic Church is not going to change it's mind just because most of its member don't agree with it. That's the difference between it and the 50,000 protestant denominations, most of them formed by people who didn't agree with their former creed.
Jesus said he would be with us until the end of time, but he didn't say that the Church would always grow.
The problem with homosexuals is that they think they can get the Church to change its mind.
By the way, I'm sick and tired of homosexuals changing the definitions of words just to suit them.
"Gay" means exuberance or happy excitement. "Homophobia" means a fear of homosexuality. If we have any "fear" of it, is a fear of the corruption and destruction of our society, not of any personal fear. Personal feelings are generally those of disgust.
Go ahead and hold hands if you want.
Along the same line, No doubt there are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of homosexuals who are Catholics. Nobody knows and that's the whole point.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between them and those narcissistic exhibitionists prone to demonstrate for fictitious "rights" is that they keep their mouths shut and don't keep declaring their sexual proclivities.
It is possible that my soul might be as black as the ace of spades. But if it was, I sure wouldn't be declaring that it was and that I intended to keep it that way.
Why would a religion want to have among its members those that declare opposition to its basic tenets?
If you wanted to join the Minikahda Club and wear baseball spikes when you play golf, why should they let you be a member?
Basically membership is just the first thing that homosexuals want if given free rain over the Catholic Church.
Look at the agenda of the CCCR and the American Catholic Council. I would bet that most homosexuals would subscribe to just about every one of their proposals for changes in the Church.
Bot of those organizations are organizational jokes, composed of people still dreaming of their glory years when they stopped the Vietnam War.
They're not going to change the Catholic Church. They will be dying of old age first.